After an optimistic summer at the theater, movies are once again being shuffled one after another due to on-going concerns about the effects of COVID-19 on peoples ability or willingness to enter movie theaters. Tom Cruise’s films Top Gun: Maverick and Mission: Impossible 7 are the latest to be pushed back over these concerns (via Deadline).
Top Gun: Maverick moves from its Thanksgiving weekend release out to May 27, 2022, the slot previously occupied by Mission: Impossible 7. That movie, meanwhile, is moving to September 30, 2022. According to Deadline, these moves are specifically due to concerns about COVID-19 affecting box office numbers. Paramount previously delayed the films together back in April.
Even without Top Gun and Mission: Impossible, the fall still has a few big films on the way. Sony delayed Ghostbusters: Afterlife today, pushing it into Top Gun: Maverick’s former spot on November 19, 2021. Marvel Studios’ Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings hits theaters on September 3, and Spider-Man: No Way Home is still scheduled for December. The latest 007 film, No Time To Die, will hit theaters on October 8 unless it gets yet another delay between now and then.
Where’s Warner Bros. in all of this? With their films hitting HBO Max day-and-date, their movies are likely to keep their release dates. Dune releases on October 22, and The Matrix: Resurrections his on December 22.
