Spider-Man 4 will reportedly suffer a MAJOR delay

Let's go back almost a month in time to Oct. 25, 2024. Back then, it was (finally) revealed that the untitled Spider-Man 4 will be released on Jul. 26, 2024, and that Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director Destin Daniel Cretton will helm the film. Fans were excited about the news, to say the least, given that almost three years had gone by since the premiere of Spider-Man: No Way Home and Marvel was tight-lipped about the future of Peter Parker. However, we might have celebrated a little too early, given that a major delay might be in store for the wall-crawler's next adventure.

Spider-Man 4 to be delayed to December 2026, says report

According to established insider Viewer Anon, Spider-Man 4 will be pushed back to December 2026. This follows another report by Daniel Ritchmant which indicates the movie would not begin shooting during the summer of 2025 as Tom Hollan previously stated, but rather in August of the same year. This delay would be necessary to accommodate Tom Holland and Zendaya's schedules and allow them to complete other projects first. Besides, it's important to remember that Holland must also film his scenes for Avengers: Doomsday first, which could've also complicated things even further.

During an interview in the Richroll Podcast back in October, Tom Holland expressed his worry about the movie's tight schedule by saying: "The time in which we need to get (the movie) done is a tall order (...) the pedal is to the metal. We’re trying to get it going as soon as possible. Things are looking great, but there’s still a lot of moving pieces that need to come together for us to hit the ground running". Even then, the timing of the (reported) delay is strange, especially given that it was just a few days ago that Sony Pictures Japan issued a now-deleted press release that reiterated the movie would be released on Jul. 26, 2026 (while also casually revealing Venom could be a part of it).

It appears there were always worries that the movie couldn't make it in time, but now it's all but confirmed. Unfortunately, the new release date could have great repercussions on the script as was the case in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Originally, the trilogy-capper was meant to take place after the events of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse Madness, with America Chavez — who had her big screen debut in Strange's latest movie — being in charge of finding and introducing Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield's Peter Parkers. However, since Doctor Strange was delayed, America couldn't make it to Spidey's movie, and her role was delegated to Ned Leeds instead. So how did the movie explain someone with no magic training could open portals to find other versions of the web-slinger? By saying it's something that runs in the family, which — let's be honest — makes no sense whatsoever.

On the same page, the script for Spider-Man 4 could be greatly impacted if it doesn't take place immediately after the events of Avengers: Doomsday like it was originally supposed to. Only time will tell how things will play out, but one thing's for certain: a 5-year wait between Spider-Man 3 and Spider-Man 4 is just way too much. It's more time than what it took for The Amazing Spider-Man saga to be born and die altogether. So fingers crossed Spider-Man 5 manages to be released way sooner than that.