'Avengers: Infinity War' Moves Up Release Date In UK Ahead Of US

Just in case you thought the release date for Avengers: Infinity War wasn't hard enough to keep track of, Yahoo! Movies UK has confirmed that the film will be opening on April 26th in the UK. Meanwhile, IMDb is listing even earlier release dates for Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Philippines, and Sweden, with the film reportedly opening on April 25th in these regions.

As recently as yesterday, the film was slated to debut on April 27th, with the verified Marvel UK Twitter account claiming the film would be in cinemas on that date.

Marvel Studios isn't known to make last-minute changes to release dates, often announcing films as far in advance as three years and hitting theaters when expected. To release a film earlier than expected is a bold move by any studio, let alone a studio like Marvel, in addition to the change being announced two months before its promoted release.

The prevailing theory is that, with Deadpool 2 hitting theaters two weeks after its initial release date, Avengers would likely take a huge dive in profits that weekend, no matter how excited fans were for Infinity War. Bumping the film up by a week will allow for three weeks of virtually no competition, resulting in maximum profits.

The release date change was revealed through an exchange on Twitter between Robert Downey Jr. and the official Marvel Studios account, beginning with the actor saying he was excited to see it and escalating to the Studios account revealing it would debut to the whole world on the same day. Clearly, this is no longer the case, as many other foreign markets will get to see it before it opens domestically.

The news came as a surprise as the recent trend for Marvel Studios films was to open in foreign markets days ahead of the domestic release, reportedly to combat piracy.

Following the announcement, the film's directors, Anthony and Joe Russo, took to Facebook to say, "Avengers: Infinity War opens everywhere April 27th. We are so excited to bring this to you one week earlier so fans around the world can see it at the same time."

Sadly, this is no longer true, as many major markets will still see it ahead of the US release.

Fans will see Earth's Mightiest Heroes spring into action when Avengers: Infinity War hits theaters on April 27th.

Black Panther is now in theaters. Other upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include Ant-Man and the Wasp on July 6th, Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, the fourth Avengers movie on May 3, 2019, the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming on July 5, 2019, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2020.

Does this release date shift seem strange to you or was it expected? Let us know in the comments below!

[H/T Yahoo! Movies UK]

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