Marvel Studios rendered our previous 2022 hypothetical release calendar meaningless when they shuffled their entire release slate a couple of weeks ago, so we took another shot at it. Of note to this new effort is that we have considered that it looks like Disney does not want to stream live-action Star Wars series and live-action Marvel Studios series concurrently. And so while this isn’t a hypothetical Star Wars calendar, we will mention some of those series along the way.
It looks like Marvel Studios will have to wait a bit to start streaming in 2022 as a Lucasfilm series is going to start in late-2021 and carry over into early-2022. The Book of Boba Fett could end up completing its run on February 16th, allowing Marvel Studios to kick off its 2022 Disney Plus release calendar with a couple of episodes of Marvel Legends. We could catch up not only on Bruce Banner but also on The Abomination. It’ll be interesting to see what other characters, if any, they cover and to see how much of the events of The Incredible Hulk are part of the story that leads us to She-Hulk.
She-Hulk is set to be Marvel Studios’ longest streaming series to date, with 10 episodes scheduled. Placing it here allows Marvel to stream one episode per week, should they choose to, and helps it avoid overlapping any other live-action projects.
We should have several episodes of Marvel Legends leading up to the release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. In addition to catching up on Stephen, we’ll almost certainly see a Wanda-centric one. Given the role Wong is set to play in the film, he may get one of his own, too. And then there’s Mordo…and yeah, we’ll see how these turn out, but it seems like they’ll stream the Wednesday of release week.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was the first domino in the wave of release date shifts for Marvel Studios. It’s a wildly ambitious film from a director who is noted for both his pursuit of perfection and his understanding that perfection is never achieved in the first draft, so waiting a little longer to have someone like Sam Raimi put together the best version of his vision isn’t he worse thing for fans. Hopefully, come May 6th, 2022, we all walk out in awe and forget that the film was delayed for an entire year.
Following the Strange sequel, we might not see another Marvel Studios series until mid-June. Recent rumors suggest that the Lucasfilm Obi-Wan series is slated for May (I mean May 4th IS a Wednesday); what’s curious is that if we allow for it to run for 6 weeks, we run into June and that’s when Mohan Kapur, one of the stars of Ms. Marvel, recently said he expects that streaming series to begin! Even though Ms. Marvel is introducing Kamala Khan and a WHOLE bunch of new characters, it will also feature an appearance from Carol Danvers, so we might get an episode of Marvel Legends on June 8th; either way, Ms. Marvel could kick off its run on June 15th and conclude on July 13th, coinciding nicely with Kapur’s comments.
*Note we are predicting a two-episode premiere for Ms. Marvel to avoid overlap with Moon Knight.
While we might not get an episode of Marvel Legends for Ms. Marvel, we’re sure to get a few for Thor: Love and Thunder. In addition to keeping up with Odinson’s adventures, fans could also use a refresher on Jane Foster, Korg, and Miek, Valkyrie, and the Guardians of the Galaxy before they hit the screen together.
Thor: Love and Thunder, like Doctor Strange 2, was bumped down the road a few months giving director Taika Waititi time to really fine-tune this film which, coincidentally, was supposed to come out just about one year ago on November 5th!
In this hypothetical situation, Moon Knight does some big moving. I originally thought Moon Knight might run in May, but it’s getting bumped 2 months (seems like a pattern, right?). It’s reportedly a 6-episode series which means if it follows up Thor 4 and doesn’t have any ties to any existing characters that we know of, so it can go just about anywhere. For what it’s worth, this could easily switch places with Ms. Marvel, moving Ms. Marvel a little bit closer to The Marvels which was bumped into 2023.
*Note we are predicting a two-episode premiere of Moon Knight to avoid overlap with Season 2 of What If…?.
We got a few episodes of Marvel Legends ahead of Season 1 of What If…?, so there’s no reason to think we won’t see some ahead of Season 2.
What If…? is, according to Disney, set to be an annual event and it would seem totally possible that they could even keep it in the same general slot every year, too. Season 1 kicked off on August 11th, and this hypothetical would see Season 2 debut on August 24th. This timing would work out well for Marvel Studios because this same time could also see Lucasfilm’s 12-episode Andor hit Disney Plus as well. As stated in the opening, keeping Star Wars live-action away from Marvel Studios’ live-action was a priority here and the whole calendar works out very nicely if we have What If…? and Andor going around the same time.
What If…? could wrap up just in time for Marvel Studios to stream one of its two 2022 holiday specials: Werewolf By Night. Now to be clear, we aren’t 100% sure exactly what is going on with this project, but if it is just a one-shot holiday special, its February start of production would give the team plenty of time to have it ready for October 26th, just ahead of Halloween.
Marvel Legends episodes for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever should hit D+ on November 9th, a couple of days ahead of the film’s release. We’ll certainly need to catch up on T’Challa’s journey along with Shuri, Ramonda, M’Baku, Okoye and the Doras and even Killmonger, you know just in case he shows up.
Of all the films getting shuffled around, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever might have needed it the most. Production was delayed when Letitia Wright sustained an injury and it was in mid-production when the new IATSE/AMPTP agreement went into place, meaning some adjustments were made on the fly. You can absolutely guarantee that Ryan Coogler will use these extra 4 months to put together an absolutely amazing sequel in memory of Chadwick Boseman.
It looks like Marvel Studios’ offerings for 2022 will end with the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special on November 23rd. James Gunn has said he’ll be introducing an important new character in it and while a lot of folks believe that’s going to be Santa, I’ve heard rumblings (nothing concrete, so I’m not too excited myself just yet) that the new character might be one of the shinier ones in Marvel’s toybox.
After the GotG special, Disney Plus could stream something from Lucasfilm (a second season of The Bad Batch is reportedly coming for 2022) and it’s also important to note that the now Disney owned Avatar 2 is still slated for release on December 16th, 2022, meaning the parent company will still have a lot going on even if there’s no other Marvel Studios’ series ready to stream. Of course, we’ll have a much clearer picture of things in just two weeks following the first annual Disney Plus Day, so bookmark this and come back and throw tomatoes at us then!
