Tag: Love and Thunder

Back in January, we looked at one hypothetical 2022 release calendar for Marvel Studios. We’ve been through another round of production delays and release date shifts and with 2022 just a few months away, have a little bit better idea of when we might expect to see Marvel content next year. With that in mind, here’s version 2.0 of a totally made up and hypothetical way Marvel Studios 2022 release schedule might look.

Originally set to stream on Disney + in 2021, rumored production delays pushed Ms. Marvel’s MCU debut to 2022. With the number of streaming series Marvel Studios has to get through in 2022, it would seem like they’d want to kick off the new year with a bang, debuting Ms. Marvel as soon as possible, dropping the first of the expected 6 episodes on January 5th.

Now that Wednesdays are the new Fridays, we know that Marvel Studios has no aversion to dropping a new film while a series is streaming. With that in mind, it’s possible that the they get She-Hulk’s 10 episode run started as early as February 23rd, one week after an episode of Marvel Legends catches fans up on the stories of Bruce Banner and Emil Blonsky, two characters who will have big roles to play in the series.

While She-Hulk is in the middle of its run, fans will FINALLY get the sequel to 2016’s Doctor Strange on March 25th, 2022 when Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness hits theaters. Marvel Studios will almost certainly have a few episodes of Marvel Legends ready to view to prep fans to remind fans not only of what Stephen Strange, Wong and Mordo have been up to, but also to remind them of the journey of the film’s primary antagonist, the Scarlet Witch.

Right after She-Hulk finishes its extended run (remember, it’s 10 episodes and will stretch from late-February through late-April), fans will be able to head to theaters for the next chapter in the saga of the God of Thunder when Thor: Love and Thunder comes crashing in on May 6, 2022. Marvel Legends episodes covering the journeys of Thor and the Guardians of the Galaxy are almost a sure thing and we’ll certainly need to catch up on Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster, who will have been absent from the MCU for almost a decade when this film releases.

From the God of Thunder to the avatar of the Egyptian God of the Moon…Marvel Studios Moon Knight, featuring Oscar Isaac in the lead role(s) could hit Disney Plus as early as May 11th. In our first draft, we had Moon Knight streaming about one month earlier, but with Ms. Marvel moving to 2022, it got pushed. Realistically, should Marvel Studios wish to do so, they could move Ms. Marvel to this slot, much closer to the character’s next appearance in November’s The Marvels.

We’re not sure if Marvel Studios will go this route, but interestingly enough the mythology of Moon Knight has some ties to the mythology of Black Panther. Should Kevin Feige and crew wish to make that explicit on screen, there could be some small connection between the two that would make Black Panther: Wakanda Forever fit nicely in order after the completion of Moon Knight’s expected 6-episode run. Wakanda Forever is one to keep an eye on as well, as production delays due to an injury to Letitia Wright have pushed the expected completion of principal photography into early 2022.

Marvel Studios intends for the animated series What If…? to occur annually and we know they’ve already done a lot of work on Season 2, so it’s likely it’ll be ready for a Summer 2022 debut. Season 1 was 9 episodes, so we’ll go with that for now and slot July 20th as the drop date for the first episode of Season 2, which will see the return of Haley Atwell’s Captain Carter and adapt a scenario from this year’s Black Widow film.

Marvel Studios seems to be aiming to have Secret Invasion ready to stream just ahead of The Marvels. Production on the series in kicking off in earnest in October in the UK, allowing for some actors to complete work on The Marvels before shifting over to Secret Invasion. If everything goes smoothly, the series should be ready for Disney Plus by September 28th, 2022, leaving a week to recover before the Captain Marvel sequel hits theaters on November 9, 2022. Truthfully, we have no confirmation that the two projects are tied together, but we’re pretending they are for the purposes of this experiment. Presumably, both of these projects would be preceded by some Marvel Legends episodes recapping the adventures of Nick Fury, Talos, Carol Danvers, Kamala Khan and Monica Rambeau before telling the next chapters of their stories.

While Secret Invasion is doing it’s thing, Marvel Studios might have to find room to drop the first of its Holiday Specials. Rumor has it that the Halloween special might just feature Werewolf By Night, a character originally believed to be starring in his own streaming series. Production on the special is set to take place early next year, so it shouldn’t be a problem to have it ready to go for, let’s say, October 26th.

Even though the entire piece is hypothetical, this one has the greatest uncertainty. I’ve recently heard a rumor that production on Echo might get pushed JUST a bit, to April 2022, making it almost impossible for it to stream in 2022. Should it hold to its originally reported January 2022 date, however, we could easily see it debut on Disney Plus by November 16th.

Should the calendar hold, Marvel Studios could wrap up 2022 with its second holiday special, the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. This one will film during production on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, so it’ll be ready to drop whenever they choose, maybe even on December 28th, 2022!