Disney's Upcoming Slate

Over the last week, media outlets have been speculating as to the titles of future films to come from Disney after the studio released a list of upcoming dates they've reserved for live action films over the next few years. Theme park adaptations, updates of Classic Disney stories and sequels to past live action fare look to fill the spots. Coupled with past announcements Disney's animation branch, Lucasfilm, Marvel, and Pixar, it looks like you can plan on being in theaters to catch the latest Mouse House offering for quite a few of the many weeks to come.

Here is a comprehensive list (so far) of Disney properties coming to theaters for the next 4 years, staring next week with Marvel's Captain America: Civil War:

May 6, 2016: Captain America: Civil War
May 27, 2016: Alice Through the Looking Glass
June 17, 2016: Finding Dory
July 1, 2016: The BFG
August 12, 2016: Pete’s Dragon
November 4, 2016: Dr Strange
November 23, 2016: Moana
December 16, 2016: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
March 17, 2017: Beauty and the Beast
May 5, 2017: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol II
May 26, 2017: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
June 16, 2017: Cars 3
July 7, 2017: Spider-Man: Homecoming
July 28, 2017: Untitled Disney Live Action Fairy Tale
November 3, 2017: Thor: Ragnarok
November 22. 2017: Coco
December 15, 2017: Star Wars Episode VIII
February 16, 2018: Black Panther
March 9, 2018: Gigantic
April 4, 2018: Untitled Disney Live Action Fairy Tale
May 4, 2018: Avengers: Infinity War I
May 25, 2018: Young Han Solo Movie
June 15, 2018: Toy Story 4
July 6, 2018: Ant-Man and the Wasp
August 3, 2018: Untitled Disney Live Action
November 2, 2018: Untitled Disney Live Action Fairy Tale
December 25, 2018: Untitled Disney Live Action
March 8, 2019: Captain Marvel
March 29, 2019: Untitled Disney Live Action Fairy Tale
May 3, 2019: Avengers: Infinity War II
June 21, 2019: Incredibles 2
July 19, 2019: Indiana Jones 5
November 8, 2019: Untitled Disney Live Action Fairy Tale
December 20, 2019: Untitled Disney Live Action Fairy Tale
2019: Star Wars Episode IX
May 1, 2020: Untitled Marvel Movie
June 19, 2020: Untitled Pixar Movie
July 10, 2020: Untitled Marvel Movie
November 6, 2020: Untitled Marvel Movie
November 25, 2020: Untitled Disney Animated Film

Unscheduled: Boba Fett Movie
Unscheduled: Frozen 2
Unscheduled: Inhumans

Spider-Man & Deadpool: Much Ado About Nothing

Crossovers are exciting, what with all the possibilities of fan-favorite characters sharing the screen, so it’s easy to get caught up in media buzz about potential marriages between major franchises. Heck, Men In Black is set to cross over with the 21 Jump Street series, so it might seem that anything is possible. It seems, however, that ideas of future team-ups most often come from the multiple Marvel properties scattered across the different studios of Fox, Sony, and Disney’s Marvel Studios. Despite a slew of blockbusters from all three production houses, Marvel Studios continues to hold the most legitimacy with fans, both due to Disney’s ownership of the source-material comics as well as consistency in quality across their connective film universe. As Spider-Man is set to swing back into Marvel’s grasp in the upcoming Captain America: Civil War, the general attitude seems to be one of celebration as Marvel’s favorite son is set to return home under the company’s umbrella. While this move maintains Sony’s distribution control over future Spider-Man films, the move has prompted continued and widespread speculation that Spider-Man and other Marvel characters could have potential to now crossover with X-Men characters held by Fox.

Potential for one such crossover, between the foul-mouthed X-Men character of Deadpool and the freshly rebooted MCU Spider-Man, came this last week following comments by X-Men producer and writer Simon Kinberg. Deapool director Tim Miller is reportedly “trying to build bridges” with producers over at Marvel Studios, and Kinberg (who has a solid relationship with Disney through his work on different Star Wars properties) has cited his “great love and respect” for Marvel head Kevin Feige as a starting point for conversations about Deadpool sharing the screen with Spider-Man.

Speculation based on these and similar comments is all well and good, especially considering the chummy relationship Spider-Man and Deadpool enjoy in both their comics and animated television shows. However, a blending of their cinematic properties seems highly unlikely due to one simple dynamic: ratings. Deadpool is an R-rated movie. Deadpool is an R-rated movie for many, many, many reasons, and those reasons are often pointed to as aspects that allowed the film to stand apart and above the suffocating conglomerate of other superhero and comic book movies currently dominating the box-office. While it’s thoroughly inaccurate to assume that the movie is good simply because it is rated R, Deadpool is still the highest grossing R-rated movie of all time., which shows that it has a pretty solid audience with rather adult tastes.

The upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming, on the other hand, is set to star the youngest on-screen Spider-Man yet. Described as a “coming of age story” by Marvel Studio execs, the simple setting of the film will be drastically different from the nudity and profanity-laced venues of Deadpool. In fact, Peter Parker will not even be old enough to have seen Deadpool in theaters without an accompanying adult. According to director Jon Watts, “we’re really going to see Peter in high school and get deeper into that side of it. He’s just 15 now.”  Tack onto all of this that Disney chief Bob Iger has declared that Disney doesn’t “have any plans to make an R-rated Marvel movie” and the possibility of a collaborative effort on a future Deadpool/Spider-Man film seems slim. This is not to say that any such effort is impossible. There’s plenty of room for growth or change if both series continue to produce films for the foreseeable future, but any crossover would have to feature very different versions of the current characters and probably wouldn’t be in the production pipeline for several years to come.

On a side-note, similar arguments could be made as to why the Netflix corner of the MCU will also remain separate from the Disney-owned heroes who battle across the silver screen, even if Charlie Cox really wants it to happen.