The COVID-19 global panic has devastated the entertainment industry in 2020. This is the clearest sign – geek movie delay! After all, geek movies have been the biggest money-earners in recent times and the continued postponement is the best indication of how bad the global pandemic is.
So far, Christopher Nolan’s Tenet and Disney’s The New Mutants have been released to tepid response. Tenet was delayed three times because of COVID-19 but was finally released in August.
Thus far, Tenet has a box office gross of slightly over $300 million. Considering that the production and marking cost are estimated at $350 million, Tenet is definitely suffering due to COVID-19.
The New Mutants was also released in August this year but had been postponed numerous times since its original release date of April 2018. Its initial delay had been caused by Disney’s acquisition of Fox and then of course, by COVID-19.
Naturally, The New Mutants has had a poor box office response – $41.9 million worldwide. With a production and marketing budget of around $100 million, The New Mutants is a significant flop.
Wonder Woman 1984
Similar to The New Mutants, Wonder Woman 1984 had faced several changes in its release schedule even before COVID-19 hit. From December 2019, the movie was moved up to November and then delayed to June 2020.
The movie was then pushed back to August 2020 due to COVID-19 before being bumped to October and now December, due to the continuing uncertainties over the global pandemic. Will it even make its Christmas date? We shall see …
Marvel Cinematic Universe
With the success of Avengers : Endgame, there was much fan anticipation over 2020 with the release of Black Widow (May) and The Eternals (November) movies. However, COVID-19 has effectively removed 2020 from the MCU calendar.
Black Widow is now scheduled for May 2021 with the other movies in Phase 4 all re-scheduled. That seems like a reasonable release date but with everything going on in the USA and Europe regarding the pandemic, anything is possible.
Warner Brothers
Two highly anticipated geek movies from Warner Brothers have also been hit by further delays. Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune and Matt Reeves’ Batman reboot.
Dune was originally slated for November 2020 and then moved to December and has now been postponed to October, 2021! Clearly, after the lessons of Tenet, Warner Brothers are taking no chances whatsoever!
Well, that October slot was once occupied by the new Batman movie, which now has flown over to March 2022! Dominos! Though significantly, Warner Brothers also announced that Matrix 4 (yes really!) has been given an earlier date in November 2021.
This geek movie delay has been disconcerting for fans. Of course, all this confusion simply reflects the reality of COVID-19 in USA and Europe. Hopefully, we can get out of this fog sooner rather than later and we can talk about the movies themselves rather than these endless delays!
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