After more than eighteen months of dealing with the pandemic, it's no wonder people are uncertain about heading back to theaters. While things were starting to look up a little earlier this year, the emergence of the Delta variant of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on the confidence of moviegoers, hence why we've seen a lot of recent movies underperform at the box office this summer.
Some studios have already started reacting, with Clifford the Big Red Dog pulled from September by Paramount Pictures. No one really batted an eyelid at that, of course, but when Venom: Let There Carnage was pushed from September 24 to October 15, it was hard not to start getting worried again.
Sony has already started the process of selling off Hotel Transylvania 4: Transformania to Amazon Prime (for a whopping $100 million), but it sounds like the Marvel movie could be facing another delay. "Regarding Venom, there’s buzz that it could move yet again," The Hollywood Reporter reveals. "Either way, Sony has secured some breathing room."
One movie that may be unable to face another push down the calendar, however, is No Time to Die. That's because MGM has already lost millions in marketing costs each time they've delayed it (remember, it was supposed to come out last March), so the latest James Bond adventure could be heading to theaters whatever happens.
"If I knew six weeks ago what I know now, I would have moved everything as far out as early next year," one studio executive says. Another said that they'd have said "no" to the odds of another major series of release dates six weeks ago, but "Now, it’s a maybe."
Eternals could easily head down the theatrical/Disney+ Premier Access route, but for a lot of other upcoming blockbusters - Spider-Man: No Way Home, for example - we could be looking at big delays.
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