Ahhh, the smell of fresh popcorn, relaxing in fancy reclining seats, and seeing new stories being displayed on the big screen. These are all things that make going to the movie theater so enjoyable. But with the on-going COVID-19 crisis, it’s been harder than ever to enjoy the best parts of watching a new movie.

As of April 2020, over 20 films from big entertainment studios were pushed back indefinitely after the closure of movie theaters all across the world. The biggest of these titles being highly awaited blockbuster sequels and original stories by companies like Disney, Marvel, Fox Entertainment and more. 

This year might set a record in the film industry that not many film fans would expect, 2020 might be the first year in the past decade to not debut a new Marvel film. Black Widow’s first leading film was supposed to be released in the beginning of May, but has since been pushed back until next year.  

 “Black Widow was slated for a May 1 release; then it was pushed to a Nov. 6 premiere on Disney+. Now it has been pushed to May 7, 2021, a year later than planned,” www.cbr.com says.

This is very sad news for all Marvel fans alike. Along with the push of Black Widow’s release date, new Marvel shows were supposed to debut on Disney+, starring viewers favorite heros like The Winter Soldier, The Falcon, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Hawkeye, and even Tom Hiddleston’s Loki. The promise of these shows were heavily advertised with the release of Disney’s streaming service in late 2019, and were promised to come in late 2020. It seems as though those titles have been pushed back without a release date, with the exception of the show “WandaVision,” which was just announced by Disney to be coming out in December of this year. 

Along with Marvel, Disney Studios as a whole, has a number of productions in the works set to release within the next few years. Titles like Soul, Raya and the Last Dragon, the live action Little Mermaid, and others do not yet have a solid release date planned. 

Other companies like Voltage Entertainment, known for producing After, a romantic drama,  was supposed to release its sequel. 

“I was most excited for After We Collided to come out this year. I enjoyed watching the first film, so I was excited to see what was going to happen in the second movie,” junior Angel Dellin said.

As of now, After We Collided is set to come out on October 23rd, after being pushed back multiple times. Viewers have the option to see it in theaters or through on demand services. 

On July 10, 2020, the new Ghostbusters movie, Ghostbusters: Afterlife starring big name actors like Paul Rudd and Finn Wolfhard was set to be released. Now, the film is premiering early March 2021.

“I was most excited to see the new Ghostbusters movie this year. I like all the actors that are going to be in it plus the trailer seemed really good,” junior Renae Tappo said. 

All in all, this  was leading up to be a great year for movie lovers of all kinds. Even though viewers have to wait even longer for their favorite new films to come out, that just means there’s more time to anticipate the moment that you can finally walk into a movie theater like normal again.