According to The Hollywood Reporter, Deadpool 2 will now be distributed two weeks earlier than initially planned, moving from its original June 1 release date to May 18. In the wake of this scheduling change up, two other upcoming Fox titles, Gambit and The New Mutants, will now be released later than originally planned.
Insiders reveal that the highly anticipated sequel to the massive Deadpool was pushed ahead two weeks in order to avoid an overlap with the latest X-Men films in certain international markets, which would have seen Deadpool 2 and Mutants competing against one another. Mutants will now be released on February 22, 2019, as opposed to its original April 13th of this year.
Furthermore, this newly-announced May 18th release date will now see the latest instalment in the Ryan Reynolds-lead superhero franchise open a week before Solo: A Star Wars Story, giving the Disney film some stiff competition as Deadpool heads into its second weekend in business in North America. Fox doesn't seem to be fazed by its competition, as the latest Star Wars origin story has faced with some complications during production, and has yet to be marketed by the studio.
As a result of this shake-up, Gambit will now debut in theatres on June 7, 2019, instead of its original Valentine's Day release; however, the Channing Tatum-led film just lost its director Gore Verbinski, so only time will tell if this will have any affect on the production of the film and cause any further setbacks.