Warner Bros. Delays The Batman And Dune... The Matrix 4 Coming 2021!

Several of Warner Bros' upcoming major releases have been pushed back by a year each as part of a vast reshuffling effort by the studio of its 2020-22 line up. Notably, their blockbusters Dune and The Batman have been pushed forward from 2020 to 2021, and 2021 to 2022, respectively.

Dune was originally slated to release December 18th of this year, but has been pushed back to October 1st, 2021. The Batman has changed its October 1, 2021 release date to March 4, 2022. Meanwhile, The Matrix 4 has been pushed up five months from April 1, 2022, to Dec. 22, 2021; and several DC films including The Flash and Shazam! Fury of the Gods have also been pushed back by several months. Wonder Woman 1984 is still set for a Christmas Day release at the end of this year.

The Batman's delay was likely due to the production shutdown caused by a member of the crew (speculated to be star Robert Pattinson) getting a positive COVID-19 test result. Dune has long wrapped production, with a slate of promotional material including trailers and stills released in the past two months.

COVID-19 has severely affected the viability of wide theatrical releases for major motion pictures, with many studios opting to either delay their films by several months or releasing them direct-to-VOD. Two of the largest theatrical marketplaces in the continental United States, Los Angeles and New York, still do not have open theatres due to high COVID infection and transmission rates.

Most recently, the upcoming James Bond film No Time to Die had its release date pushed into April 2021, leading to U.S./U.K. theatre chain owner Cineworld announcing a suspension of operations, saying "Without these new releases, Cineworld cannot provide customers in both the U.S. and the U.K. — the company’s primary markets — with the breadth of strong commercial films necessary for them to consider coming back to theaters against the backdrop of COVID-19."