The spread of the Coronavirus has seen some of Hollywood’s biggest studios rush to protect their investments, with the latest James Bond movie No Time to Die pushed back until November, and Disney also indefinitely delaying the release of Mulan at the all-important Chinese box office. While people continue to panic about the risk of the virus, the movie business is keen to protect their multi-million dollar investments and make sure that they don’t lose any of their earning potential.
With no end in sight for the crisis, numerous high profile events have been canceled as well, including the European launch party for Disney Plus and the South by Southwest film festival, which has been canceled for the first time ever. This has created something of a domino effect, with theaters now bracing themselves for the potential of more high profile blockbusters getting pulled from the release schedule.
One of the first major summer movies is Marvel Studios’ Black Widow, which is currently slated to debut at the beginning of May. While the studio are publicly claiming that they still plan to meet that date, the recent Mulan delay has some people thinking that the first installment of the MCU’s Phase Four could end up meeting a similar fate, especially given how popular American comic book movies have become in the increasingly-important Asian markets.
As Deadline writes:
“Many in the distribution sphere heard rumors that Disney would move Black Widow to Marvel’s Eternals Nov. 6 release date (and thus that Angelina Jolie movie would head to 2021).”
Having just released a new trailer, it seems as though the marketing campaign for Scarlett Johansson’s standalone adventure is starting to kick into high gear, but the international rollout could be slowed or even halted completely if the spread of the Coronavirus continues to impact countries like Japan and China.
We’ll have to wait and see what happens, but Black Widow looks set to be one of the biggest box office hits of 2020, and Disney and Marvel are likely waiting to see how the situation plays out over the next few weeks before coming to a decision, with the superhero action flick still almost two months away from release.