Doomsday,’ ‘Secret Wars’ release dates pushed back

The wait for the next Avengers movies will be longer than expected.

Disney released an update to its upcoming movie schedule on Thursday that showed Avengers: Doomsday, which had been set to hit theaters on May 1, 2026, will instead come out seven months later, on Dec. 18, 2026. Avengers: Secret Wars, for which a debut had been planned on May 7, 2027, will be available on Dec. 17, 2027.

The new dates come two months after Disney-owned Marvel Studios unveiled its star-studded Avengers cast, as it began production on the first film.

Among the many (many) stars named were Robert Downey Jr. (Victor Von Doom/Doctor Doom), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Paul Rudd (Ant-Man), Vanessa Kirby (Sue Storm/Invisible Woman), Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson/the new Captain America), Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier), and Letitia Wright (Shuri/the new Black Panther).

But they weren’t done, because additional cast members were announced later: Simu Liu (Shang-Chi), Florence Pugh (Yelena Belova), Kelsey Grammer (Beast/Hank McCoy), Pedro Pascal (Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic), David Harbour (Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian), Winston Duke (M’Baku), and Tom Hiddleston (Loki) among them. Channing Tatum was set to take on the role of Gambit that he played in 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine.

Later, there was news that the actors from the X-Men franchise of the 2000s, which appeared to have (mostly) ended when Disney acquired 21st Century Fox properties in 2019, would be part of it too. That meant the addition of Patrick Stewart (Charles Xavier/Professor X), Ian McKellen (Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto), Alan Cumming (Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler), Rebecca Romijn (Mystique), and James Marsden (Scott Summers/Cyclops).

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While next summer will be free of the MCU tentpole, there will be another highly anticipated sequel taking its place. The Devil Wears Prada 2, a sequel to the 2006 film that starred Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci, is now set to release May 1.

Entertainment Weekly exclusively reported in July that the four, along with director David Frankel and producer Wendy Finerman were in talks for the sequel.