'Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse' Delayed Indefinitely; 'Ghostbusters Afterlife' Takes Its Spot
'Kraven the Hunter' has also moved to 2024 among a flurry of scheduling moves by Sony
As of Friday, July 28, the actors’ union SAG-AFTRA has officially been on strike for two weeks. The Writers Guild of America has been on strike for 88 days. The AMPTP, or the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which includes all major studios like Paramount, Netflix, Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros., refuses to return to the negotiating table and provide the fair deals that make the writers’ and actors’ jobs sustainable. One AMPTP member, Sony Pictures, has instead chosen to hit the shuffle button on its release schedule.
First: the part 2 to Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Beyond the Spider-Verse, will most certainly not be making the near mere ten-month gap they had originally scheduled. The film has instead been delayed indefinitely. With voice actors picketing, there’s still work to be done that won’t be ready. If there’s any bright side, all the begs for delays in order to alleviate crunch have been fulfilled. Four people who had worked on the film had recounted working under unsustainable conditions under the direction of Phil Lord. Hopefully this delay makes things better. The date may be unknown now, but it will only be a few weeks before it’s placed back on the schedule, according to a Sony executive.
The Ghostbusters: Afterlife sequel, the fourth film in the original Ghostbusters continuity hasn’t had its title revealed at a point less than 5 months from its original December 20 release date. Now, it has another 3+ months to think it over. The film, starring Paul Rudd, Finn Wolfhard, and McKenna Grace alongside much of the surviving original cast, takes over Beyond the Spider-Verse’s March 29, 2024 release date. Filming only wrapped about a month ago.
In the most immediate future, Gran Turismo, starring David Harbour, Orlando Bloom and Archie Madekwe is having its release strategy shifted. Instead of opening wide on August 11, it will instead start a two week limited release before it opens wide on August 25. The Sony distribution team is riding on strong early audience testing and word-of-mouth to help the film.
Another of their Spider-Man Universe movies, Kraven the Hunter is shifting from October 6, 2023 to August 30, 2024. That’s an even bigger delay than the jump it took from January to October last September. An insider, using Kraven actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson as an example, says such move is so the actors can be available for major press tours, except if they wanted them for press tours that badly the studios could head to the negotiating table right now and end the damn strike by meeting the actors’ and writers’ needs, but they refuse.
Anyway Blumhouse project They Listen, like Beyond the Spider-Verse is also now undated, having been evicted from the August 30, 2024 date Kraven has now assumed. There’s also that Karate Kid movie, a reported reboot, moving from June 7, 2024 to December 13, 2024. The only film moving up is the Spider-Man Universe film Madame Web, starring Dakota Johnson but it’s only by two days, from February 16 to 14. Bad Boys 4 and Venom 3 were given their first dates on the schedule, sitting four weeks apart on June 14 and July 12, 2024, respectively.
In June, Disney did mass rescheduling when it was just the writers on strike. The writing was on the wall for the actors, but it hasn’t quite been confirmed if foresight of the double strike was a factor.
Source: Variety