Stop the presses and run to your favorite entertainment site: Disney has released their current slate of films, including the future of the Marvel, Avatar, and Star Wars franchises. We’re going to be talking for the next eight years about these films. Literally, the last film on the slate comes out in 2027, which seems like a fake year, honestly.
The big news, of course, is the Avatar and Star Wars release dates. Avatar 2 will premiere on December 17, 2021, and the next films after that will be staggered every other year through 2027. In 2022, the first film in a yet to be known Star Wars trilogy will premiere, and those films will also be staggered every other December through 2026.
This means that December will now be Disney’s month, unquestionably. Avatar is still the highest-grossing film in the world at the time of this writing (though Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame is projected to top it), and Star Wars is one of the most lucrative franchises out there. Disney will want to pick a month where they can easily dominate the conversation and holiday box office. Besides, both franchises have seen massive success in their December slots. If it’s not broken, why fix it?
For Star Wars, we don’t know whether it’s the Rian Johnson trilogy or the David Benioff and D.B. Weiss trilogy. I’m hoping Johnson’s films will take the lead, given how much I do not want Benioff and Weiss anywhere near Star Wars. We probably won’t know much about whose trilogy it is until Disney’s D23 Expo in August, or if Disney doesn’t want to distract from The Rise of Skywalker, until Star Wars Celebration 2020.
If you’re wondering what will follow the massive success of Avengers: Endgame, Marvel has eight untitled projects on the horizon, starting in May of next year. Most likely, that includes the yet to be announced Black Widow film, The Eternals, and sequels to Captain Marvel and Black Panther. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is also a pretty solid guarantee. That leaves three unknown spots for whatever film catches Marvel’s fancy. I’m hoping for a Captain America film with Sam as the lead, or a possible Young Avengers film.
My other guess would be that a team-up movie won’t happen until 2023, five years from now. Only two Disney films have been announced for that year—an untitled live action film and Avatar 3—and it would allow the Avengers mantle to breathe for a while before bringing the team back together. Let the characters grow beyond Thanos and establish our new lineup before we get them in a team-up film.
Disney also announced plenty of upcoming live action and animated films, both from their new Fox properties and Disney. Both Artemis Fowl and The New Mutants have been pushed to 2020, which is the first concrete information we’ve received on the latter in a long time. We’re also getting an untitled Indiana Jones film in the summer of 2021, which, despite the failings of the fourth one, truly excites me. It’ll be fun to see Harrison Ford sally forth as Indy one more time.
There’s plenty to talk about with these films, but it’s a clear reminder that Disney will dominate the pop culture conversation whether we like it or not. The studio is smart to start hyping up their future, especially following the Fox merger, and to tease the future of the major franchises it has acquired.
Are you excited for more Star Wars films? What Marvel films do you think will be announced soon?
(image: Disney)
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