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‘Black Widow’ Could Be Delayed Again and Marvel Fans Can’t Handle It

Marvel

There hasn’t been a new Marvel movie since July 2019 when Spider-Man: Far From Home debuted in cinemas and for me, that year and a half long break has proven to be the time I needed to be interested in more Marvel projects. I say that as a long-time Marvel fan who started reading The Fantastic Four, Thor and The X-Men when I was in middle school way back in the 90s. I figured that if I thought there were too many of these movies too close together then surely most people must agree, even if at the end of the day we do mostly like the movies.

It turns out, however, that despite the enthralling debut of WandaVision last week, a lot of Marvel fans are champing at the bit to see the movies come back. So news that Black Widow may face further delays in addition to the year it’s already been pushed back has not been entirely well-received.

According to comicbook.com, Marvel boss Kevin Feige was not particularly bullish about Black Widow’s May debut when asked recently.

Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige was asked about the studio’s confidence in Black Widow dropping in May of 2021 and he seems to have his reservations on th subject. “I mean, confidence is meaningless in today’s world because nobody knows anything. Hope springs eternal,” Feige told ComicBook.com on the Phase Zero podcast. “A year delay, you hope would be enough, there’s a vaccine out there now. We’ll see. I certainly hope so. I want to be back in the theater with people.”

We learned Thursday that the previous Presidential administration’s COVID response plan and vaccine strategy was woefully lacking, leaving Washington scrambling to get people vaccinated so we can have some semblance of normalcy and hopefully get this virus under control by Autumn.

Autumn is well after May, and Marvel really doesn’t want to drop a blockbuster into a theater season where people aren’t turning up and lose half a billion dollars, and I can’t entirely blame them for that.

After the Spanish Flu pandemic ended and people were free to go out again without risking infection, we got the Roaring Twenties where people rushed to public cultural centers and dance halls to celebrate. Disney is clearly hoping that this repeats and the COVID pandemic is followed by a return to people spending big money at the theater for movies again.

I am not as optimistic as they are about that.

See, I just bought a new TV. It’s 42 inches and it was only a little over $200, about what it would cost to see three Marvel movies for a family of four. That’s not even considered a big-screen TV, a designation that starts at 50 inches. It’s not exactly the cinematic experience, but it’s not the same as having a 19” CRT in the living room like most of us used to.

Warner has moved all their movies for the year to HBO Max and if that move pays off you can be sure you’ll see it repeated. Netflix is also making a big play into movies and specifically looking for franchise opportunities to compete with HBO and Disney.

I don’t think people will be flocking to movie theaters after the pandemic ends. I think restaurants, live music, bars, parks and live theater will see a boom after it’s safe to return to them, but too many people are putting too much money into getting you to spend your entertainment dollars at home for movie theaters to make a big comeback.

Still, it’s clear that Disney is holding out for the big theatrical money with these movies they know are going to be hits; if anything gets people to cinemas, it’ll be Marvel movies, and they don’t want to risk the reduced revenues of a premium Disney+ release like Mulan.

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