Disney has stood their ground firmly when fighting for Black Widow's (2021) release, as the long-delayed superhero solo film has struggled to hold down a release date. After yet another delay, and caving to a digital release, Marvel has settled on what could be the actual release date.
Black Widow has been pushed from early May 2021 to July 9, 2021. With this shift in the calendar, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) will undergo a minor delay and now theatrically release in September 2021.
For those who are a bit reluctant yet to venture into theaters, Disney+ is retailing the digital version of Black Widow through their Premiere Access feature for an additional charge. "I mean, confidence is meaningless in today's world because nobody knows anything. Hope springs eternal," Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige said to ComicBook.com about Black Widow's release date during an interview in January. "A year delay, you hope would be enough, there's a vaccine out there now. We'll see. I certainly hope so. I want to be back in the theater with people."
Disney and Marvel have been reworking their marketing campaign as they originally anticipated the superheroine's stand-alone, which takes place after Captain America: Civil War (2016) and before Avengers: Endgame (2019), to make its debut in May 2020. Because Black Widow's neighbor, Shang-Chi, gives a few months to breathe between the two movie releases, the studio is asked to once again promote themselves to fit the situation. "We've had that before. Endgame and Far From Home were [two months apart]," Feige explained to ComicBook.com. "We have the pleasure and the privilege of working with the greatest marketing department in the history of Hollywood, so restarting that campaign, any of those campaigns, I have great confidence in. What I don't have confidence in is the timing because we're dealing with this whole pandemic."
Marvel Studios is set to dominate the popular culture market after a year without any content, and they are quick to make up for the withdrawn presence that typically has a stronghold over media. Between Marvel's sprawling roster of movies and television programs, the entertainment titan reassures the world that it is neither gone nor forgotten. Black Widow releases both in theaters and on Disney+ on July 9, 2021.