The movie community wept when news broke earlier this week that Jared Leto’s Morbius was delayed to April. Marvel’s vampiric antihero is meant to be the next addition to Spider-Man’s cinematic world, which has expanded in some interesting ways recently, but it just hasn’t come to fruition for the frontman of 30 Seconds to Mars. Altogether, this is its seventh delay: first meant for the summer of 2020, the pandemic has caused Sony to push it back numerous times in the hopes it’s presumably a Venom-sized success. (In addition to the Omicron variant, the blockbuster success of Spider-Man: No Way Home can also be attributed to this recent delay.)
Ultimately, these delays are trivial, but they admittedly hit hard for the superhero genre. The MCU prides itself on its forward momentum, and 2020 was notable in that no MCU movie released at all, causing several to reevaluate their relationship to Disney’s megafranchise. Even Warner Bros.’ universe of heroes remain unclear on how films tie together as they wait for The Flash to reset everything.
Inspired by Morbius’ newest pushback, we decided to look back at some of the most infamous delays that superhero movies have faced in recent years. Not all are tied to the pandemic, and not all are out yet, but they’re notable all the same for how much their dates have shifted around.
