Why Marvel Moved Up Infinity War's Release Date

Marvel Studios recently announced that it will move up the release date of the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War a week, from May 4 to April 27. The change has many fans excited that the hotly-anticipated film will premiere sooner than they expected, but -- considering what a colossal success Infinity War is likely to be regardless of its release date -- it's important to ask why Marvel made that decision.

One of the major reasons is likely spoilers. Infinity War was already set to release on April 27 or earlier in many, many other countries outside of North America. The new announcement seems to indicate that April 27 will now be the global release date. Spoilers are always a major issue when a movie as anticipated as Infinity War releases, and many find trying to avoid learning key points impossible because of the ubiquity of spoilers on social media. By giving the movie an internationally consistent release date, Marvel is helping to reduce the amount of damage that spoilers can do to a fan's first experience of the movie, which will certainly help with initial reception.

Moving up the release of Infinity War doesn't just help reduce spoilers, it also gives the movie some time to breathe following its release. Don't get me wrong: Infinity War is going to do extremely well at the box office on its opening weekend and keep raking in money after its release. However, the film's original release date saw Deadpool 2 opening two weeks later on May 18, with Solo: A Star Wars Story releasing a week later.

Assuming that the sequel performs anything like its predecessor, Deadpool 2 is going to attract a big audience. Although the two will certainly be quite different, moving Infinity War farther away from Deadpool 2 only helps to ensure that Marvel's blockbuster doesn't have to compete as directly with 20th Century Fox's movie, which will help it maximize profits for a longer period after its release.

The move also puts the release of Infinity War farther away from Solo, a fellow Disney film. There isn't much of a reason to think that the next installment in the popular Star Wars franchise won't do well on its own, but it never hurts to have one of the summer's biggest blockbusters farther away, especially if too much overlap might see the two film's cannibalize each other's audiences, or leave viewers reticent to spend too much money in one month. Although Solo will still compete with Deadpool 2, the latter's R-rating reduces the actual damage that it can do against the former. Solo is, after all, aimed at a more general audience.

Infinity War would have been a smash hit regardless of when Marvel released it. However, standardizing the movie's premiere date internationally and moving it out of competition with two other movies likely to be successful only helps to make sure that Disney will win bigger later this year.

Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, Avengers: Infinity War stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson, Anthony Mackie, Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Olsen, Tom Holland, Benedict Cumberbatch, Chadwick Boseman, Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Tom Hiddleston, and Josh Brolin. The film arrives April 27 everywhere.