As if Warner Bros. Discovery’s recent wave of high-profile movie and TV show cancelations, as well as a purge of content from HBO Max, was not enough to contend with, the DCEU slate has seen another round of delays. This time it is Shazam: Fury of the Gods and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom that have both found themselves being shunted further down the line causing more frustration amongst fans.

Warner Bros. Discovery is certainly not making many friends at the moment; with their incomprehensible decision to scrap the almost completed Batgirl movie having set off a chain of events that has seen the company’s share price dip, fans protest online against the number of projects that are no longer being released and several directors and writers sharing their candid feelings about seeing some of their projects being unceremoniously dropped. Now DCEU fans are once again finding themselves on the receiving end of a Warner Bros. Discovery change, which sees Jason Momoa’s next outing as Aquaman being pushed back by eight months to December 2023.

First up, however, is Shazam: Fury of the Gods, which was only a few months ago moved forward from a mid-2023 release to take the place of Aquaman 2 in a Christmas 2022 release spot, and now the film is repeating that feat once again by being pushed back to March 17, 2023 – the slot that the Aquaman sequel had been pushed back to. All of this means that despite Shazam: Fury of the Gods being ready to go and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom not that far behind, fans will have an extended wait for both movies.

Related: Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Story Details Revealed

There Has Been No Specific Reason Given For Aquaman 2’s Lengthy Delay

Aquaman sitting on throne
Warner Bros. Pictures

As with many recent decisions, there is plenty of speculation about why these newest delays could have struck the upcoming movies, but Warner Bros. Discovery has not been very forthcoming with information. According to an earlier report by The Hollywood Reporter, the main reason for the changes, which also impacted several other non-DCEU releases, seems to be still about cost-cutting by CEO David Zaslav, and there is a strong belief that the studio is trying to spread out their costly marketing campaigns as much as possible for their upcoming slate. Of course, the moving of Shazam 2 means that the film will also benefit from not going head to head with James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water this Christmas.

Other movies that have found their release dates being changed include the new adaptation of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, which has lost its April 21, 2023 slot to Evil Dead Rise, which is now not being released on HBO Max but is getting a theatrical release. Salem’s Lot is now sitting in limbo with no release date being announced, while The Nun 2 has been set to arrive on September 8, 2023. Whether this is the last of Warner Bros. Discovery’s changes is something that we will only find out in time.