Skip to main content

The Batman and Sopranos prequel movie get new release dates

We’ll have to wait a little longer to see a new Batman and a young Tony Soprano head to the big screen now that Warner Bros. Pictures announced new release dates for The Batman and The Many Saints of Newark.

Robert Pattinson’s debut as DC Comics’ Dark Knight was initially scheduled for June 2021, but director Matt Reeves’ The Batman will now land in theaters October 1, 2021. According to Deadline, the movie — which is set during the early years of Batman’s crime-fighting career — had completed one-quarter of its planned filming in London before going on hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Recommended Videos

The new, October premiere for The Batman would bring it to theaters on the same weekend that Joker debuted in 2019, so there’s also some positive history there for the studio and its DC Comics-based properties.

Along with pushing back The Batman, WB also announced a new premiere for The Many Saints of Newark, the film that would explore mob boss Tony Soprano’s rise to power in the years before the events of The Sopranos.

Instead of hitting theaters this September, The Many Saints of Newark will now premiere on March 12, 2021. The film’s new release date is only shared by an animated Disney feature.

Unfolding throughout the 1960s and 1970s in Newark, New Jersey, The Many Saints of Newark has assembled an impressive cast that includes Jon Bernthal, Vera Farmiga, Corey Stoll, Michael Gandolfini, and Ray Liotta.

WB also gave several other films new release dates as a result of all the pandemic-inspired calendar shuffling.

The long-delayed, frequently troubled superhero movie The Flash, based on the DC Comics character played by Ezra Miller in Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League, will premiere June 3, 2022. The new premiere date is a month earlier than its previously announced opening weekend (July 1).

The sequel to superhero movie Shazam! also received a new release date, with Shazam 2 now premiering November 4, 2022, instead of April.

Filmmaker Baz Luhrmann’s still-untitled Elvis Presley biopic will now hit theaters November 5, 2021, and go up against Marvel’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness that weekend.

Finally, Will Smith’s King Richard, in which he plays Venus and Serena Williams’ father, will now premiere November 19, 2021.

Rick Marshall
A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…
Superhero movies aren’t events anymore
Marvel's heroes charge into battle in Avengers: Endgame.

Somewhere, Lex Luthor is smiling. Superheroes, the bane of his villainous existence, are having a rough year at the multiplex. The Flash stumbled hard. Shazam! Fury of the Gods fizzled. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania opened big, then fell fast. Will Blue Beetle reverse the trend? The $30 million it's expected to make this weekend isn't so bad for a film originally intended to go straight to streaming, but still pretty dire for something that cost four times that.

Not every splash panel spectacle has underperformed. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 made about what its predecessors did, while Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is as successful commercially as it is creatively. But even those hits have been dramatically outgrossed by the likes of The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Barbie — just as last year's crop of comic book fare fell very shy of the numbers posted by Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water.

Read more
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 1 release date, time, channel, and plot
Rebecca Romijn, Anson Mount, and Ethan Peck walk in the hallway of the USS Enterprise in a scene from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Paramount+ is the USS Enterprise for Trekkies, as the streaming service continues to produce entertaining and well-received Star Trek programs. There are multiple Star Trek TV shows to choose from that span a variety of genres. Star Trek: Lower Decks is an animated comedy for adults, Star Trek: Prodigy is geared toward families, and Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard are dramas. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds falls into the drama category, but it's a throwback to the original Star Trek and a treat for all fans.

Created by Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, and Jenny Lume, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds follows the adventures of Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) and the crew of the starship USS Enterprise as they traverse to new worlds within the galaxy. The series takes place ten years before Star Trek: The Original Series. After a critically-acclaimed first season in 2022, Strange New Worlds returns for its second season this summer. Below is information about the release date, time, channel, and plot for the first episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2.
When does episode 1 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 release?

Read more
What’s new in movie theaters: The Batman and After Yang
Split image of a family posing in the After Yang poster & Batman in The Batman.

After reigning at the box office for nearly three months thanks to Spider-Man: No Way Home and Uncharted, Tom Holland will encounter a foe that even he can't beat on March 4: Batman. Warner Bros. has unleashed the latest iteration of one of its most valuable characters with Matt Reeves' The Batman. In a rare move, no rival studio is set to launch a wide-release movie that weekend or the next, with all of Hollywood anticipating (and hoping) the Dark Knight can pump as much cash into the industry as his Marvel counterpart did in December.

Besides Batman, there are other movies being released in theaters that target different audiences. This weekend, Colin Farrell sheds his Penguin prosthetics and stars as a grieving father in the near future in After Yang. It's all part of an ongoing process that Hollywood hopes will get the box office back to where it was before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Batman
THE BATMAN – Main Trailer

Read more