Black Widow is postponed due to COVID-19. The next entry in the MCU was set to debut in theaters on May 1 – a little over a month and a half following the States’ first earnest response to the rapid infection rate of the coronavirus. It’s the next in a long and ever increasing list of big budget releases to be shelved in the interest of social distancing.
Although it may seem a bit early to make the call, Black Widow being postponed comes just a day following a press conference in which Trump, who’s irresponsibly downplayed the situation’s severity, said that social gatherings should be no larger than 10 people and that the United States can expect to be dealing with COVID-19 until July or August of 2020.
Just last week, Disney released the final trailer for Black Widow, seemingly intending on following up with the May 1 release. But, in the short amount of time since then, several states have closed schools, theaters, restaurants and bars and talk of curfews and quarantines run rampant. The studio has also postponed production on its slate of Marvel shows, including WandaVision, Loki and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.
In spite of Black Widow being postponed, Disney and other film companies are hoping to keep folks occupied and entertained. Disney+ subscribers can watch Frozen 2 three months early while they self quarantine, and Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker is seeing an early digital release. In the interest of cutting revenue loss, Blumhouse is following suit with early releases for The Invisible Man and a selection of other titles.
A new release date is yet to be determined.
