Now that Disney has been overloaded with 21st Century Fox’s large slate of upcoming films, a total reshuffling of the decks was in order. That means some big changes are coming for some high profile films, including Star Wars, James Cameron’s Avatar sequels, The New Mutants, and more.
Let’s start right at the top, where Disney has added three dates for untitled Star Wars projects. The dates are Dec. 16th 2022, Dec. 12th 2024 and Dec. 18th 2026. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will bring the nine-part Skywalker Saga to a close later this year, but as for these new films it’s unclear exactly what they are. That said, we do know that Rian Johnson is working on a brand new trilogy, while Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have their own series of movies in the works.
Meanwhile, James Cameron’s Avatar sequels have been bumped yet again, at a time when the first movie threatens to have its chart-topping box office overtaken by Avengers: Endgame. The sequel Avatar 2 has dropped a full year to Dec. 17th 2021, with sequels coming in two-year intervals. Avatar 3 arrives on Dec. 22nd 2023, followed by Avatar 4 on Dec. 19th 2025 and Avatar 5 on Dec. 17th 2027.
Anybody want to take bets whether we actually see Avatar 5?
Another difficult holdover from the Fox era is The New Mutants, which was set to be the final X-Men movie before an eventual Marvel Studios reboot. While rumors suggested the problematic superhero horror would either be shelved entirely or dumped on Hulu, Disney has decided to just delay it a year. The New Mutants has moved from this August all the way to April 3rd 2020. This could have a significant impact on any X-Men reboots as Marvel’s Kevin Feige will want to get as much distance from Fox’s version as possible.
In related and sorta hilarious news, Disney has totally yanked Channing Tatum’s Gambit film from the schedule. It had previously been dated for March 13th 2020 but without a director or even a working screenplay that was never going to happen.
Disney didn’t stop there as more Fox properties have been given new dates. Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of popular YA series Artemis Fowl has moved to May 29th 2020. James Gray’s anticipated sci-fi film Ad Astra has been given an awards-worthy slot on September 20th 2019. The film stars Brad Pitt, Ruth Negga, and Tommy Lee Jones, centering on an astronaut who makes a dangerous journey into space to find his missing father who disappeared two decades earlier on a mission to Neptune.
See Disney’s complete list of moves here.
