In the wake of the two biggest movie chains, AMC and Regal, shutting down for possibly close to two months, Disney reports today that their prized summer starter, Marvel’s Black Widow, is delayed until further notice. The Scarlett Johansson movie was scheduled to go day and date around the world on May 1.
This doesn’t come as surprise, and was unfortunately forecasted by many in the distribution sphere following MGM jumping the release of No Time to Die from Easter weekend April 10 to Thanksgiving this year.
Other Disney movies delayed to TBD dates include 20th Century Studios’ Amy Adams drama The Woman in the Window, based on the A.J. Finn novel, which was originally set for a May 15 release and Searchlight’s The Personal History of David Copperfield which was dated for May 8. With major movies like Black Widow, F9, A Quiet Place Part II off the calendar, many will wonder when they’ll make their way back. This will certainly give China some breathing room to get up and going with the supply of old titles they have already cleared, i.e. Dolittle, Jojo Rabbit, Ford v. Ferrari, Bad Boys for Life and big local titles like Detective Chinatown 3, before new U.S. releases are pushed out. It’s being buzzed that China could re-open theaters as early as mid-April or May. Like other rival event movies that were set to blast off in the spring and early summer, Disney began taking out ads for Black Widow, including a $5.6M 30-second Super Bowl spot, which according to RelishMix yielded close to 19M views online in the 24 hours following the big game.
Black Widow, directed by Cate Shortland, is the first Marvel movie in their next phase after tying up the Avengers series with Avengers: Endgame last year, a monumental box office achievement that broke several records including the best global opening of all-time ($1.2 billion) and the highest grossing movie of all-time, besting Avatar, with $2.79 billion.
With theaters shutting down en masse across the nation due to safety concerns, Universal announced yesterday that their current theatrical releases The Invisible Man, The Hunt and Focus Features’ Emma would be available to rent in-home as of this Friday, and that their April 10 theatrical release, Dreamworks Animation’s Trolls World Tour, would be available in homes then, and whatever cinemas wish to book it that are open at that time.
