Doomsday’ And ‘Secret Wars’ Were Delayed, Per Report

Marvel announced a news item that was shocking but not surprising on Thursday, that Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars had now been pushed back six months each.

That’s Doomsday going from May 1, 2026 to December 18, 2026, and Secret Wars going from May 7, 2027 to December 17, 2027. They remain a year apart but now Doomsday is a full year and a half away. It also means that Spider-Man: Brand New Day takes place before both films instead of in between, which raises some questions.

Why did this happen? There are two main reasons via an insider report at Deadline:

“Insiders noted that these two films are among the biggest ever made, and the delays simply allow more time to execute on a gargantuan vision. Disney/Marvel elected for December dates, given the success they’ve had in the holiday corridor with titles like Spider-Man: No Way Home. Avengers: Doomsday is in production now.”

“Executing” the vision may mean script issues and shooting, but it overwhelmingly likely means time to work on VFX, something Marvel has been accused of rushing and skimping on in many of its last few projects. Movies like Thor: Love and Thunder and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania have come under fire for this, as has She-Hulk, notoriously rushed to get the VFX done for its lead character.

The second reason is at least somewhat amusing, the fact that Marvel remembered that many of their movies do the best with a December release date, except uh, the last two Avengers movies, Endgame and Infinity War, both came out in April. Their last megahit, Deadpool and Wolverine, was out in July. So I’m not sure how much this tracks.

Fans are wondering what’s going on with Spider-Man: Brand New Day as Marvel really cares about its timelines and it’s a big deal when you’re now releasing before the new Avengers movies rather than being an interlude between them. Whether that requires rewrites or whether the film was disconnected enough from the Avengers movies remains to be seen. Notably, Tom Holland was not shown in the infamous “chair reveal” of the Doomsday cast, and he was the biggest character to be skipped.

Marvel also has real competition now in the form of the just-launched DCU, which may have started with an animated feature but will now introduce Superman in full this summer, and promotion has been ramping up for that. Marvel’s big film is the introduction of the Fantastic Four, who will be a big part of Doomsday.

It all feels a bit freewheeling, but a delay to make these films better, especially on the VFX side, can only help them. But another one? Well, then you’re pushing it.

Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram.

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.