Recently, we discovered that
Avengers: Infinity War takes place two years after
Captain America: Civil War. The directors, Joe and Anthony Russo, corroborated Scarlett Johansson's claim that
Avengers: Infinity War takes place just as long after the film as its release implies. Based on timeline implications with
Spider-Man: Homecoming, which we know took place in the beginning part of his Sophomore year of high school (given that the academic decathlon in D.C. is explicitly stated to occur in October), we can anticipate that
Captain America: Civil War took place in the final month of Peter's Freshman year of high school (given that two month break taken immediately in
Spider-Man: Homecoming).
This would also corroborate the idea that
Avengers: Infinity War takes place two years after
Captain America: Civil War--and towards the latter part of Peter's Junior year.
Avengers 4 will likely take place just after
Avengers: Infinity War, given the nature of its story having originally been a two-parter. Roughly, this means
Spider-Man: Homecoming and
Spider-Man: Homecoming's sequel take place with a similar real-time break in between the films then--a little less than two years in-universe and exactly two years in release schedules. That leads me to believe that there will be something different afoot with
Spider-Man 3's release.
Kevin Feige has previously stated that the
Spider-Man films are going to follow the lead set by
Harry Potter. Each film will document a year in Peter Parker's high school career.
Spider-Man: Homecoming took on Peter's Sophomore year.
Spider-Man: Homecoming's first sequel will take on Peter's Junior year, albeit the end. And
Spider-Man 3 will take on Peter's Senior year, likely his graduation. However, we know that graduation is going to be an event that takes place at the end of his Senior year in the same way that the story for Peter's second film will pick up at the tail-end of his Junior year. That means that the stories will have only a year or so of in-universe break time. What will that mean, then, for its release schedule?
Well, I think that it is unlikely that the release schedule will be altered to ensure that Spider-Man's next film arrives in 2020 rather than 2021. There has been no indication that
Spider-Man 3 will start production right after
Spider-Man 2. This likely means that there will be two separate productions with two separate production schedules. At the least, there will be a year long break between the shooting schedules of the two movies, probably a little bit more.
However, I do think that
Spider-Man 3 will arrive before the July slot of 2021, the traditional time and date release of
Spider-Man's films up to that point. We've seen that
Sony can be quick with the production of a sequel if they want to be.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 arrived one year and ten months after the original. Now, I think that
Sony will do it again, this time with an even quicker turn around.
In 2021,
Marvel has unveiled the release dates of three movies. The release date for
Spider-Man 2 doesn't appear on the
Disney docket because it is distributed by
Sony. As a result, we can expect that
Spider-Man 3 will not occupy any of these dates.
These dates are as follows: May 7, 2021, July 31, 2021, and November 5, 2021. This seems to eliminate all the big time frames for a
Spider-Man film's arrival right? Well, no.
Black Panther recently scored a tremendous amount of success in the President's Day slot. In the future, I fully anticipate that this slot will be used by studios to capitalize on a traditionally dead month of the year. It is no longer a dumping ground either,
Black Panther and
Deadpool were both critical and commercial successes over this part of the year. And
Marvel has left this spot unoccupied, unlike in the next year, which stops in July. Now, I think that
Marvel's docket stops in July but it will unveil another release at a later date, most likely with the acquisition of the
X-Men and
Fantastic Four properties. But I think that
Marvel Studios will start producing four movies a year in 2021, with the release of
Spider-Man 3 front-loading all of it.
February 14, 2021 is a date that is wide open and ready for the taking.
Sony would be foolish to end its partnership with
Marvel and it is clear
Disney has big plans with
Spider-Man for the foreseeable future, headlining park expansions and new toys. It seems to me that the deal will be finishing its end stages by the time
Avengers 4 comes out and I expect that
Sony will want a treatment for the end of the
Spider-Man trilogy as soon as possible to make as little time pass between the two films.
While more real world time will pass between the two films than in-universe time, we are looking at a half year difference between the in-universe and real world time breaks versus a full year's difference. Plus,
Marvel has demonstrated a willingness to place things in the past despite a pretty large difference in real world time (
Black Panther, even originally, was intended to come out a year and a half after
Captain America: Civil War despite taking place only a few days after the climax of that film). For
Sony, taking a slot during Valentine's Day, given Peter Parker's romantic life and those elements being particularly captivating to a target demographic around this time, which also houses a four-day weekend and has demonstrated the potential for massive success, especially in a month with little to no other competition, seems pretty much like a no-brainer.