20th Century Fox is mixing things up with its release schedule. It has slotted two dates for unspecified Marvel movies, November 2, 2018 and February 14, 2019 and pushed back the release of ‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’.
We just reported that Ridley Scott’s ‘Alien: Covenant’ had been pushed up to May 19, 2017 from its previous date of August 4, 2017. This arguably puts the film thicker into the crowded summer movie season, but perhaps Fox is just that confident with what they’ve seen from Scott. This puts ‘Alien: Covenant’ up against the comedy remake of ‘Baywatch’ starring Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron, as well as ‘Annabelle 2‘.
While, ‘Alien: Covenant’ is getting fast-tracked to theaters, another anticipated sequel, ‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’ is being delayed. Instead of its original date of June 16, 2017, this film will now open on October 6, 2017. Unlike ‘Alien: Covenant’, this move takes this flick, directed by Matthew Vaughn, out of the heated summer season altogether into the typically dead autumn.
This switch does, however, put it up against another anticipated sequel, ‘Bladerunner 2049‘, as well as ‘My Little Pony: The Movie’ (but… probably not a lot of overlap in demographics there).
‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’ stars Colin Firth and Taron Egerton and some pretty high profile newcomers, Channing Tatum, Halle Berry, Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore and Elton John.
‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’ came out in 2014 and was only a modest hit in the US, where it earned $128.3M (still not bad on a budget of $81-$94M) but globally, it took in a whopping $412.4M, resulting in this sequel.
Looking further into the future, Fox has also locked in November 2, 2018 and February 14, 2019 for two unnamed Marvel movies. Currently, ‘Deadpool 2’ has a date of March 2, 2018 in place, and it will most likely stay put, since the first ‘Deadpool’ also opened in February and blew away all expectations, so don’t expect Fox to shake up the formula.
Most likely, the November 2018 entry is ‘The New Mutants’, which is honestly the only other Marvel movie from Fox that we know is in pre-production. With its focus on a group of teen heroes, it seems like it would be a better fit for the holidays than ‘Deadpool’.
What about that mysterious February 2019 date? It could be a “wishful thinking” placement for the constantly delayed ‘Gambit’, but at this point, the likelihood of that movie ever getting made looks pretty bleak.
Another possibility could be ‘X-Force’ or a ‘Cable’/‘Domino’ feature, since those two characters will debut in ‘Deadpool 2’. Fox will most likely give ‘Deadpool’ a two year break between installments, which is the norm, but they could already be planning a spin-off for Cable and Domino. (Both characters are members of X-Force and Fox previously had an ‘X-Force’ movie in the works, but scrapped it. But maybe they’ll try again.)
Or Fox could be looking at rebooting its core ‘X-Men’ series. After ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ underperformed at the box office, all signs point to Fox saying goodbye to its current film continuity and starting over from scratch. Will a three-year gap be enough time for the public to “forget” (or at least move on from) the current films and accept a new take?
One even longer shot is the possibility that this movie won’t be an ‘X-Men’ movie at all, seeing as how Fox does also have the rights to the Fantastic Four and related properties, including the Silver Surfer, it IS possible that Fox will attempt to use one of these concepts to prevent the rights package from reverting to Marvel Studios.
What do you think? What Fox Marvel movies do you think will occupy those spots? And are you upset about the delay for ‘Kingsman’?
