Current Release Date Targets For Delayed Marvel Disney+ Shows Found
Thank you United States Copyright Office!
Disney CEO Bob Iger and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige both discussed how this year they were spreading out MCU project releases to let the projects stew and give them space, even fend off alleged “superhero fatigue”. Then the pencils went down and the writers and eventually actors took to the picket lines to get fairer contracts with the studios, studios that include Disney. Last month, they shifted several live-action series dates, or more precisely, release windows. Now, thanks to some digging around the United States Copyright Office’s online databases, we now have specific release dates and thus a more accurate idea of where these series currently stand.
Echo, the Hawkeye spinoff, was originally set to drop all of its episodes on November 29 of this year before it was pushed a couple months to January. According to the Copyright Office, the specific January date it’s situated on is January 10. As a reminder, the series stars Alaqua Cox, serving as Maya Lopez’s origin story as Echo, where her ruthless behavior in NYC catches up to her back home. Maya must “face her past, reconnect with her Native American roots and embrace the meaning of family and community if she ever hopes to move forward.” The description on the Office website describes it as she “struggles to reconnect with her Native American roots while balancing aspirations tied to a life of crime as successor to the brutal legacy of Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) aka Kingpin”. The cast also includes the returning Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock/Daredevil, Chaske Spencer as Henry, Tantoo Cardinal as Chula, Graham Greene as Skully, Cody Lightning as Cousin Biscuits, Devery Jacobs as Bonnie and Zahn McClarnon as William Lopez.
Next up, Scarlet Witch Updates on Twitter dug and found the information for Agatha: Darkhold Diaries. As previously reported, the series was originally announced as Agatha: House of Harkness in November 2021, and given a winter 2023/early 2024 release window by its first rename at SDCC 2022 and now pushed to early fall. The date given at the copyright office is pretty much the latest one can really get for a summer release: September 19. That actually gives it a much bigger pre-Hallowstream window than Hocus Pocus 2 received in 2021, which was released on September 30, giving it global availability for all of October 1. Darkhold Diaries also has the most substantial first episode description in the database, stating:
“In the first episode, we see Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) finally break out of a spell she has been trapped in. She can’t wait to go back to her old murderous ways, only to find that she is powerless. The only way forward for her is to embark on a perilous quest to get her powers back with the help of an unlikely friend or two.”
In last month’s moves, two anticipated series were dislodged from their scheduled windows but not given new spots: Ironheart and Daredevil: Born Again. At least, not given new publicly-disclosed spots. The former was in fact initially scheduled to be released around now, but with the spreading it was pushed into 2024. Now, as it sits off the schedule publicly, the Copyright Office is giving a window of September 2025. Maybe that leaves enough of an open range to put Armor Wars, which still hasn’t been publicly discussed since becoming a movie, in its vicinity. That marks about 2 years from its initial spot and nearly 3 since Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, where Dominique Thorne’s Riri Williams was introduced. The filing not only included a more general premise but revealed characters that some of the already-known cast would be playing. That includes Alden Ehrenreich playing Joe McGillicuddy, Lyric Ross playing Natalie Washington, Matthew Elam playing Xavier Washington, Manny Montana playing Cousin John, and Shea Couleé playing Slug, while confirming Anji White playing Ronnie Williams, and Sacha Baron Cohen indeed having a role. The synopsis reads:
“Teenage super genius Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) returns from MIT to her hometown of Chicago in her iron suit and begins to unravel threads that bring danger and adventure right to her doorstep.”
Meanwhile, with Daredevil: Born Again, it seems to be moving from early 2024 to January 2025, so about 10 to 12 months. This may be an indicator that maybe when filming was paused there just was not enough of the 18 episodes ordered far enough into production to prevent this sort of delay. The first episode promises to reintroduce the world of Daredevil as it so now stands, with its broader cast still unrevealed. The show’s synopsis reads:
Longtime rivals Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) and Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) try to leave behind their darker alter-egos to serve the people of New York only to have their pasts catch up to them.
Oh hey, here’s a show that was scheduled so far ahead, presumably because animation takes time but it took longer for them to learn the same about VFX, Spider-Man: Freshman Year. It’s currently situated for a November 2, 2024 release. Its synopsis reads “Peter Parker’s life, while getting ready for his High School orientation, is forever changed by events that send him on a journey like none before”.
As it stands, Echo will likely drop during season 2 of What If…? and will be followed by X-Men ‘97, whose own release date wasn’t looked for or found within the office. That’s set to be followed by Deadpool 3 and Captain America: Brave New World, currently scheduled for May and July releases, followed by Agatha: Darkhold Diaries and Spider-Man: Freshman Year, as the year finishes with Thunderbolts releasing in December. Blade would be the first film released during Daredevil: Born Again’s run if it sticks.
