7 Reasons Why The Rearranging Of Fox's Marvel Release Dates Is A Good Thing

Fox shocked the world just shy of a month ago, when it was officially announced that the studio had brokered a deal with Disney, in which the House of Mouse would acquire the rights to dozens of franchises. Among these, were Fox's Marvel titles.

Of all the ramifications, the reunion of these Marvel characters to their home studio is perhaps the most significant. After spending two decades in the hands of other creative forces, characters such as the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Deadpool were now going to be accessible to Marvel Studios. Competition between the studios is soon to be a thing of the past, though the fate of many fan-favourite franchises is now up in the air.

That said, just a few days ago we got a better idea of exactly how the pieces may fall, with Fox announcing a slew of release date changes for nearly all of its Marvel properties. Deadpool 2 got moved up by two weeks, while films such as New Mutants and Gambit were delayed significantly. The next instalment in the core saga of X-films, Dark Phoenix, is the only film officially on the line-up that did not see any movement, staying in November.

These changes go a long way towards showing us exactly how Disney/Fox may be handling the merging of these properties, and why that's not necessarily a bad thing.

In fact, it could be for the best.

Prior the change, Deadpool 2 was set for release on the first of June, just a week after the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story. Seeing as this new batch of Star Wars films have all been released in December thus far, its already a bit troubling to be releasing the Solo spinoff in May. But when factoring in the release of Deadpool 2 the week after, things looked bleak.

Seemingly, the best case scenario was that the two titans would ultimately cannibalize each other, seriously cutting into one another's profits.

However, with the newly changed release date,Deadpool's sequel has been moved up to May 18th. That means it will hit cinemas a full week before Solo's release on the 25th.

Though it may not sound like much, from a logistical standpoint, this makes a world of difference. When looking at the box office of the original Deadpool, it was a surprise smash, breaking records in its opening weekend, only to fall off steeply in the following weeks.

By contrast, Star Wars films have garnered a reputation in December of not only opening big, but also thriving off of their legs, lasting them well into the new year.

With this simple change, Deadpool 2 is given the room to open to gargantuan opening-weekend numbers without any real competition, and Solo practically gets the field all to itself in the two weeks afterwards. Its a brilliant move by Disney/Fox, that gives both films a better chance at success.