Black Widow
Cover Black Widow (Photo: The Walt Disney Company)

Disney announces that the film will be delayed till July and that it will be released on Disney+ simultaneously

Walt Disney Co has announced that they will be delaying the release of Marvel Studios film, Black Widow, till July 9 this year. The announcement of this two-month delay was followed by the news that when the movie is released, it will be offered simultaneously in theatres as well as for a fee on streaming service Disney+’s premier access model.

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Black Widow, which stars Scarlett Johansson, will see Johansson’s character, Natasha Romanoff, being forced to confront dangerous conspiracies tied to her past. The film will look at Romanoff’s history before she became an Avenger and when she was a spy. Alongside Johansson, the film will also star Florence Pugh, David Harbour and Yolanda Lynes.

This is the second time the film has been delayed as a result of Covid-19. In September last year, Disney had announced that the movie would be released on May 7 2021. This was over a year from when it was originally supposed to be released.

The news comes as a major blow to cinemas that had been hoping that Black Widow would attract crowds in early May and bring revenue up after an extended period of low traffic following their closures as a result of the pandemic.

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Above Marvel Studios' Black Widow Final Trailer

Alongside the news of the Black Widow delay, Disney also announced that its next Pixar film, Luca, will be released as a Disney+ original film. This means that it will skip a theatre release and be available to Disney+ subscribers at no extra cost.

Cruella, Disney’s highly-anticipated live-action reboot of 101 Dalmatians, will also follow Black Widow’s footsteps and become available as a premier access release on Disney Plus on May 28, when it debuts in cinemas.

As a result of Black Widow’s delay, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Marvel’s next addition to the series, will also be delayed. It is currently expected to be released on September 3 this year.

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