Every Movie Release Date Delayed Amid Hollywood's Ongoing Strikes
The success of "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" this summer was a sign that the box office has more or less fully recovered from the decimation of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, Hollywood's studios have decided to celebrate this victory by strapping themselves to a rocket like Wile E. Coyote and firing themselves directly into another crisis. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers' back-to-back failure to negotiate new deals with the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA means that Hollywood has been almost completely shut down by a dual actors and writers strike, something it hasn't faced for more than 60 years.
Since the actors strike means movie stars can't promote their work or even walk the red carpet at premieres, studios are already feeling the pain at the box office. Rather than return to the negotiating table with SAG-AFTRA, however, the favored solution has been to delay upcoming movies from their planned fall and winter 2023 release dates, with others that were slated for 2024 also delayed due to the mass work stoppage. Already, this year's remaining line-up of movies is starting to look a little thin.
For the studios, it's a self-inflicted wound. For moviegoers, it's a pain in the ass. From "Dune: Part Two" to "Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse" here's every movie that's been delayed amid the strikes — though, as we'll explain, not all of these have been delayed because of the strikes.
Avatar 3, Avatar 4, and Avatar 5
Let's kick things off with a movie that has been delayed not because of the strikes, but because delays are a sacred tradition for the franchise. Yes, it's "Avatar 3," director James Cameron's follow-up to "Avatar: The Way of Water," which was originally scheduled for release in December 2014 and eventually arrived in December 2022.
Now, "Avatar 3" can boast of an eight-year delay as well, with its release date being pushed back from December 20, 2024, to December 19, 2025. The other planned sequels have been pushed back even further. "Avatar 4," which was set for a 2026 release, is now scheduled to release on December 21, 2029, and "Avatar 5" has been moved from 2028 to December 19, 2031. It remains to be seen whether all the "Avatar" sequels will manage to release before we catch up to the time setting of the first movie (the year 2154).
Disney didn't give a specific reason for the delays but we can pretty confidently assume that, as with all the previous ones, it's simply a case of Cameron needing more time to perfect his vision of Pandora. And after "Avatar: The Way of Water" made $2.32 billion at the box office, he has the clout to push the sequels back until he's completely satisfied.
Challengers
"Dune: Part Two" is among the movies on this list, and Warner Bros. isn't the only studio that's wary of releasing a Zendaya movie without Zendaya onboard to promote it. "Challengers" is a steamy professional tennis love triangle story from "Call Me By Your Name" director Luca Guadagnino, which also stars "The Crown" actor Josh O'Connor and Broadway star Mike Faist as the other two corners of the triangle. Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer is distributing the movie, which made waves with a tantalizing first trailer earlier this summer, and was set to have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. That premiere has since been canceled, however, and "Challenger" has been bumped from its planned release date of September 15, 2023, all the way to April 26, 2024.
Dirty Dancing
Another one for the "was never going to make its release date anyway" list is the "Dirty Dancing" sequel from director Jonathan Levine, which is still in the development stage. The movie already had a script in place back in May 2022, co-written by Levine and Elizabeth Chomko, and was slated for release on February 9, 2024, but it still hadn't begun filming when the writers strike began in May 2023. In fact, beyond the return of Jennifer Grey as Baby, it doesn't even have any cast members attached. According to Lionsgate, the "Dirty Dancing" follow-up is now slated for summer 2025.
Drive-Away Dolls
Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke's "Drive-Away Dolls" was first announced back in 2007 (and first pitched even earlier than that), and its long journey to the big screen just got a little bit longer. The lesbian road trip crime caper stars Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan as two best friends who accidentally become entangled with a group of bungling criminals while taking a spontaneous trip to Tallahassee.
"Drive-Away Dolls" has dropped its first trailer and was creeping up on its planned release date of September 22, 2023, but has now been bumped back to February 23, 2024, by Focus Features. In the UK, where Universal Pictures is handling distribution, it's set for release on March 15, 2024.
Dune: Part Two
Denis Villeneuve's "Dune" was a risky bet when it hit theaters in September 2021. David Lynch's adaptation of the sci-fi novel by Frank Herbert had been a commercial failure in 1984, as the somber tale of prophecies and visions and space politics and giant worms was a tough thing to sell to mainstream audiences. To make matters worse, the box office was still sluggishly recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic when Villeneuve's film arrived. With a production budget of $165 million, its $402 million worldwide box office total was considered a success when grading on the Covid curve, but didn't by any means guarantee that "Dune: Part Two" would break even.
Perhaps that's why Warner Bros. Pictures is wary of releasing "Dune: Part Two" without Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, or even Villeneuve himself on the red carpet (the director co-wrote the screenplay, and WGA members are similarly on strike from promotional work). The concluding chapter of this sci-fi epic was scheduled to release on November 3, 2023, but has now been delayed to March 15, 2024.
Untitled Ghostbusters: Afterlife sequel
Another movie delay that's been blamed on the strike but was probably going to happen anyway is the upcoming untitled sequel to "Ghostbusters: Afterlife." Between the lack of a title, the fact that Sony didn't promote the movie at all at CinemaCon in April, and principal photography wrapping in June 2023 (leaving only a tight six months for post-production), it seems unlikely that the supernatural family adventure would have made its planned release date of December 20, 2023. The next "Ghostbusters" sequel is now set for release on March 29, 2024, filling the slot that's been vacated by "Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse."
The Karate Kid
A new "Karate Kid" movie was first confirmed to be in development in September 2022, and in May 2023 it was reported that Jackie Chan was in talks to return to the franchise after starring alongside Jaden Smith in the 2010 reboot. Jonathan Entwhistle is attached to direct and the new "Karate Kid" movie had been slated for release on June 7, 2024, but has now been pushed back to December 13, 2024. If this is the result of the strikes (rather than the common garden variety of development hell), then it's probably more closely tied to the WGA strikes than SAG-AFTRA, since it's quite hard to develop a movie without any writers.
Kraven the Hunter
Though Marvel Studios has been able to gather up most of the stray rights for its stable of characters, there's one major exception: Sony still owns the movie rights to Spider-Man and around 900 Spider-Man-adjacent characters. If you think it's a bit far-fetched to try and build a cinematic universe out of just Spider-Man and a bunch of characters who know Spider-Man but aren't anywhere near as famous as Spider-Man, Sony is determined to prove you wrong. Not only has the studio linked its current live-action Spider-Man, played by Tom Holland, to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it's also built an animated cinematic multiverse with the "Spider-Verse" movies, and also launched a really weird rogues gallery universe that kicked off with "Venom" in 2018.
The next entry in Sony's Spider-Man Universe (aka the SSSU) is "Kraven the Hunter," starring MCU alum Aaron Taylor-Johnson in the titular role. The first trailer indicated that, like Eddie Brock, Kraven has had his villainy toned down in order to make him more palatable as a standalone hero. We'll have to wait to see whether this works out as well as "Venom" did, however, as "Kraven the Hunter" has been delayed from its planned release date of October 6, 2023, all the way to August 30, 2024.
Poor Things
Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos didn't initially make a name for himself as a box office powerhouse, but as a director of weird, melancholy, and darkly funny meditations on human frailty. He was beloved by fans of niche indie cinema, but not thought of as a director whose movies needed to be strategically positioned on the release slate for maximum moneymaking potential.
That changed with his 2018 film "The Favourite," which starred the truly electric triptych of Emma Stone, Olivia Colman, and Rachel Weisz. It was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, won one, and grossed $95.9 million at the box office — not a huge hit, but Lanthimos' biggest hit yet by a vast margin, and certainly a commercial success given its $15 million production budget. Lanthimos and Stone have since reunited for two more movies: "And," which has completed filming but doesn't yet have a release date; and "Poor Things," which is part of the line-up at September's Venice Film Festival and was set for release on September 8, 2023.
"Poor Things" has since been delayed by a few months to December 8, 2023 — perhaps a signal that Searchlight Pictures is optimistic that the strikes will be over by then, but definitely a signal that the studio is hoping for another Lanthimos awards sweep. Technically a movie can win an Oscar regardless of which month it's released in, but realistically the true contenders are trotted out in November and December to take advantage of recency bias. There are exceptions (like "Everything Everywhere All At Once," which was simply too good to ignore even with a March release date), but unless "Poor Things" is truly mind-blowing, a release outside of awards season could kill its Oscar-winning potential. It looks like Searchlight is determined to compete at the 96th Academy Awards, with or without Emma Stone on the red carpet.
Problemista
A24's "Problemista" is the feature directorial debut from "Saturday Night Live" writer and "Los Espookys" co-creator Julio Torres, and like a lot of feature directorial debuts, it needed an established star to hook in the attention of critics and moviegoers. It found that star in Tilda Swinton, who plays the horrible boss to Torres' aspiring toy designer and his only hope of obtaining an immigration visa that will allow him to remain in New York City.
In an instance of art imitating life, "Problemista" has found itself in the same quandary: needing Swinton as a sponsor to have a shot at box office success. She already did some promotion for the movie when it premiered at SXSW, but that was back in March, and it needs an extra push around its release.
A24 is in an odd position compared to other studios during the strikes; it's not associated with AMPTP, and has therefore been given waivers from SAG-AFTRA to continue production on movies it has in the works. It's unclear whether this special deal extends to the promotion of completed movies, but A24's decision to delay "Problemista" from its planned release date of August 4, 2023 — which was announced a few days after news of the waivers broke — indicates that promotion is off the table. As of this writing, "Problemista" doesn't have a new release date set.
Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse
"Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" was one of the biggest box office hits of 2023 so far, eclipsing the already impressive box office performance of 2018's "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse." Due to the cliffhanger ending of the middle chapter of the trilogy, Sony wanted to avoid another five-year turnaround for the sequel, "Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse." In fact, it was scheduled to release less than a year after "Across the Spider-Verse," on March 29, 2024. However, "Beyond the Spider-Verse" is now undated. Sony has stated (via EW) that several alternative release dates are being considered, depending on how long the strikes last.
Though the studio is happy to pin this delay on the strikes, an article published by Vulture in June indicates that the movie wouldn't have made its release date anyway. Animators and artists who worked on "Across the Spider-Verse" say that it was plagued by constant revisions from co-writer/producer Phil Lord and was barely finished in time, so the idea of another movie being finished in less than a year was preposterous. One artist commented:
"They've announced that 'Beyond the Spider-Verse' will be released in March of next year. I've seen people say, 'Oh, they probably worked on it at the same time.' There's no way that movie's coming out then. There's been progress on the pre-production side of things. But as far as the production side goes, the only progress that's been made on the third one is any exploration or tests that were done before the movie was split into two parts. Everyone's been fully focused on 'Across the Spider-Verse' and barely crossing the finish line. And now it's like, 'Oh, yeah, now we have to do the other one.'"
So, don't be surprised if "Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse" ends up being delayed by years, not months.
White Bird
Stephen Chbosky's 2017 drama "Wonder" was a surprise box office hit — big enough to get a spin-off movie called "White Bird: A Wonder Story" (though the second part of the title has since been dropped). The film uses the framing device of Julian Albans (Bryce Gheisar), the bully from the original movie, being taught a lesson about why you shouldn't be mean to people by his Grandmére (Helen Mirren). Grandmére doesn't mess around, telling Julian a story about her childhood in Nazi Germany. The first trailer for "White Bird" dropped back in 2022 and was mostly remarked upon for the dark, unintentional comedy of a bully telling the young Grandmére (Arielle Glaser) that her drawings are "pretty good ... [dramatic beat] for a Jew."
This is another movie where it's hard to tell if the latest delay is really because of the SAG-AFTRA strike, because "White Bird" has already been delayed twice before. It was originally set for release on September 16, 2022, before being moved to October 14, 2022, and then being removed from the schedule entirely. It got a new release date for 2023 (a limited release on August 18, followed by a wide release on August 25), but has now been moved to a currently-undated release in Q4 — which, like "Poor Things," may speak to an optimism for recognition during awards season. Whatever the reason, the Wonder Cinematic Universe will have to wait.