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Yes, it’s true: Disney has pushed once again rearranged the Marvel Studios release calendar, pushing both Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars out by seven months each, moving the movies to December 2026 and December 2027, respectively. But do not panic: this is a good thing. Really.

As things stood before these switches, these two movies — which look set to be some of the biggest MCU productions to date, just based on the Doomsday casting announcements alone — were operating on a genuinely insane timeframe to reach the original release dates of May 1, 2026 and May 7, 2027, respectively. Production on Doomsday began on March 26, 2025, just 14 months ahead of the original release date of the movie — and production on Secret Wars was intended to start immediately afterwards.

Using the shooting schedules of Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame as comparisons, it’s likely that Doomsday would be shooting until fall 2025, if not later. Infinity War took six months to shoot, from January through July 2017; Endgame took roughly the same amount of time, from August 2017 through January 2018. If this comparison is roughly correct, Doomsday would wrap initial production around October 2025, leaving just seven months for post-production and any required reshoots if the movie were to meet its original May 2026 release date; again, by comparison, Avengers: Infinity War had 10 months, and Avengers: Endgame more than a year. Endgame also required reshoots a year after initial photography; that time simply wouldn’t be available on the previous release schedule.

Moving the Avengers movies out to new dates is a sign that Disney and Marvel aren’t going to rush these movies to hit previously anticipated points in the calendar, which should be taken as a good sign for the final films by MCU fans. (It’s also a sign that Disney and Marvel are serious about slowing down and focusing on quality of MCU stories again.) That it has the added benefit of giving Disney’s other big nerd-centric summer 2026 release — The Mandalorian & Grogu, scheduled for a May 22 2026 in-theater date — more time to breathe in theaters is just gravy for the House of Mouse.

The new release dates for Marvel’s Avengers movies are:

• Avengers: Doomsday — December 18, 2026
• Avengers: Secret Wars — December 17, 2027

If it helps, think of them as holiday gifts to you and your loved ones. Destructive, multiverse-wrecking holiday gifts. 

Keep up to date on Popverse's Marvel coverage, with these highlights:

• The MCU needs Anya Taylor-Joy's Magik in it (and not just for the X-Men connection)
• How Disney+'s What If...? is the moonshot for the next 50 years of Marvel Studios & the MCU
• Marvel Studios has accidentally created a new Phase that predates Phases 1 - 6: the MCU Phase Zero
• Overgrown children of the atom: Marvel's X-Men can't evolve past their '90s commercial peak
• The biggest outstanding questions of the Marvel Studios' movies & TV shows
• Donald Trump is the landlord for Marvel's House of Ideas
• Marvel Studios swapping out Doctor Doom for Kang offers the chance to jettison the Multiverse Saga
• What Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige is saying (and not saying) about the MCU X-Men franchise says a lot about the future of the Mutant Saga
• If Marvel is going to bring Loki back for Secret Wars, it's time to give him an upgrade
• In 2021, Sony's boss said people won't miss Spider-Man in its Spider-adjacent movie. Turns out, they do.