In the wake of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve seen delays across the board. For a moment there, it felt like we were out of the woods when it came to movie releases. Now, that might not be so apparent. Paramount is moving Top Gun: Maverick from it’s Thanksgiving 2021 slot to Memorial Day 2022. In a corresponding Tom Cruise/Top Gun related move, Mission: Impossible 7 goes to September 30th, 2022. Jackass Forever was also pushed back from October 22nd, 2021 to February 4th, 2022. That means that Paramount has no 2021 releases left on their calendar. The first release for 2022 for the studio is the fifth installment in the Scream franchise on January 14th, 2022.
In response to these shifts, Sony pushed Ghostbusters: Afterlife back a week to November 19th, 2021. That’s not too huge of a delay, but it’s a sign that studios are still very uneasy about the prospects of theater releases right now. October 2021 was already a packed month for releases. As for other movies, No Time To Die is stuck in it’s release date of October 8th, 2021. MGM can’t afford to delay the film any longer due to massive costs from marketing, so that one will be releasing for sure.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage was already delayed once to October 15th, 2021, and there are rumors that it could also see a move into 2022. A lot of the box office release schedule could be resting on the release of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. The huge Marvel Studios film can either kick off a new wave of box office success; or give the studios more pause in releasing in 2021.
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