Well it’s certainly been a befuddling couple of days for fans of the MCU, and in particular for those looking forward to The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and WandaVision. While its finally been revealed that FaTWS will NOT make an August release date, as expected considering the state of… well, everything; there has been continued confusion basically all day about whether or not WandaVision will be pushed back as well. I will do my best to sort it out for you below. But if you want the quick answer, it is plainly, I dont know. No one really does at this point in time. In all likelihood, not even Disney Plus or Marvel do.
That being said, if you want to read the long answer where I sort through the several conflicting reports to try to clarify things on this front, and then give my at least somewhat educated OPINION of what might happen, then continue on.
First and foremost, no, I’m sorry to say, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is not going to make the previously announced August 2020 release window. This was completely expected due to the pandemic shutting down filming and continued troubles with that, paired with the series having several weeks left to film at least (expect it to be longer with the current guidelines). However, if they are able to complete filming even as late as by end of September, maybe even October, that should still allow for a late 2020 release for that series. Chances are the studio is working out how and where to do that already.
Thursday, The Laughing Place reported, not surprisingly, that The Falcon and The Winter Soldier was not on a list of titles sent to the media for the Disney Plus streaming service for August. This was despite Disney Chairman Bob Iger himself announcing a few months ago during an earnings call that FaTWS would stream in August, WandaVision in December, and Loki in 2021.
Early Friday afternoon, a post by Deadline reporting on the delay news about The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, stated at first that WandaVision was “on track for a previously set October premiere date.” This was seemingly confused by the writer with the second season of The Mandalorian. They have since corrected the article to say “WandaVision remains on track for a 2020 premiere date” instead. So still probably streaming in December 2020, right? Well, hold off those party plans for a moment Wanda stans…and read on.
A bit later, an Entertainment Weekly article came up talking about The Falcon and The Winter Soldier‘s delay, stated: “A source close to the situation confirms to EW that the premiere has indeed been delayed due to the global pandemic. If all goes well, a new premiere will be announced soon.” Note the “if all goes well” part there. Yeah, that’s a pretty big IF right now unfortunately. And I’m not exactly sure how they’re defining the word “soon” because we are certainly months away from seeing if “all goes well” with the series finishing up their filming. In other words, don’t expected a new release date announced too “soon,” and even then, everything is very very “wait and see” for all these series until they finish all the filming. Their only mention of WandaVision, by the way, was about the Bob Iger comment I mentioned earlier here. It was to air in December 2020, straight from the horse’s… um… mouse’s…uh…big time guy at Disney’s mouth. (Hold up. Keep reading Wanda stans…)
Then late afternoon The Hollywood Reporter posted an article about Hawkeye being the first Disney Plus Marvel series to have multiple directors (Rhys Thomas, Amber Finlayson, and Katie Ellwood), which threw a monkeywrench into all our WandaVision hopes and dreams.
Hawkeye is part of the first wave of Marvel shows that was due to hit Disney+ starting in fall 2020. The first show was to have been The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but the series has been delayed to the coronavirus pandemic affecting production. Other shows include WandaVision (spring 2021, if things go as planned), Loki (also spring 2021),then Hawkeye. All will see the silver screen thespians toplining the series.
So now if that’s correct and up to date, we seem to be back to the original plan when the shows were announced last year, WandaVision and Loki in 2021. Or are we? Or is it simply the reporter guessing and/or going by old information about the release dates? The fact that he says Loki in Spring 2021 makes me think the latter. The reason being, Loki has kind of a lot left to film, especially compared with the other two. And again, we’re in the middle of a pandemic which complicates everything, including making filming take longer from what I understand. What I’m saying is, I’m rather skeptical that Loki is going to make a Spring 2021 release. I could be wrong, but I suspect late Summer or Fall is much more likely for the God of Mischief to appear again.
As for WandaVision, and again this is my OPINION, and I could be totally wrong, and I could see something that makes me change my mind next week or month or whatever… However my opinion is that WandaVision will likely be pushed back to early Spring, (or maybe late Winter okay? Don’t hurt me.)
The reason I think this is for one thing, while I’m sure Disney Plus is desperate for new content for their subscribers, they also are going to want to be smart and space out their releases a bit. This way subscribers have a continued feed of new stuff, not just one giant but delicious Marvely chunk and then nothing for months and months because they can’t be completely sure when they can get anything else filmed right now.
Secondly, as we all know, Marvel likes to link their films, and these Disney series are also going to be linked both to the films and to each other. The order of things was in place for a while now: Black Widow, then Falcon and the Winter Soldier, then The Eternals, then WandaVision, etc… Assuming they want to keep that order in tact, due to connectivity, then WandaVision should air some time after The Eternals, and Falcon and The Winter Soldier after Black Widow... Do I know for sure that there are connections between all of these films and series? No. As I stated at the beginning, this part is my at least somewhat educated opinion.
And lastly with the shifting back of release dates for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness to March 2022, and the fact that WandaVision will definitely influence what happens in that film, they may not want to air WandaVision that far ahead of that film. Better to keep the events of WandaVision fresh in the audience’s mind for that.
I hope I’ve helped clear up some of the confusion of the day for you, I did my best to, even if it’s not something some of you want to hear. Let’s just all of us wear masks for a while longer and then hopefully we can still get our beloved Marvel stuff this year, okay?
Correction: One day later the Hollywood Reporter writer put out a correction on his Twitter @boris_kit: “I’ve made a correction to the article saying WandaVision is due to come out in 2020. Thanks to the Brandons for keeping me on my toes.”
