Every Superhero Movie Releasing In 2022

2022 is packed with superhero movies from both Marvel and DC, so if superhero movie fatigue is indeed a real issue, 2022 may be the year that everyone finds out. Despite several delays and release date shifts, a total of six more superhero films are scheduled to release in 2022. Some of them are even hitting theaters within weeks of each other.

The debate over superhero fatigue has been going on for years, with various filmmakers, actors, and critics openly expressing their hope that audiences soon grow tired of comic book movies. This is far from a new concern since it's been going on at least since 2012's The Avengers. However, the superhero genre shows no signs of slowing down, even if 2020 shaped up to be a mild year in comparison to the years before it; 2021 picked back up with superhero fare, specifically with the expansion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to include Disney+ shows like WandaVision and Loki. Avengers: Endgame, which broke Avatar's box office record as the highest-grossing film of all time, proved Marvel's dominance at the box office, and due to the success of Aquaman and Joker, it's fair to say that DC is learning how to keep up with Marvel. With both Marvel and DC releasing huge hits on a regular basis, superhero movies will continue to dominate the big screen for years to come.

2022 is a huge year for the genre (and the movie business in general), especially since 2020 was absent of any Marvel releases on account of the pandemic, and a few of the year's releases were pushed into 2021 instead. As a result, Marvel and DC have both released several movies each in 2022, with six more to come. Here are all the remaining superhero movies audiences will be treated to in 2022.

Thor: Love and Thunder - July 8, 2022

Taika Waititi returns to write and direct this fourth Thor installment, making the Asgardian hero the first to get four solo movies in the MCU. Chris Hemsworth is, of course, back as Thor, with Tessa Thompson returning as Valkyrie, and Natalie Portman properly reprising the role of Jane Foster for the first time since Thor: The Dark World. In Thor: Love and Thunder, Jane is set to become Thor's female counterpart. Two new characters joining the fold are Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale) and Zeus (Russell Crowe), the former of whom is the film's main villain. Similar to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love and Thunder was faced with yet another delay after Marvel bumped its release by a few months. It was initially set for a May 2022 release but will now hit theaters in July 2022.

DC League Of Super-Pets - July 29, 2022

DC's League of Super-Pets Trailer Has Superman and Batman

DC has an animated film of its own hitting theaters in 2022: DC League of Super-Pets. Directed by Wreck-It Ralph co-writers Jared Stern and Sam Levine, the film is expected to focus on super-powered animal sidekicks from DC Comics, such as Krypto the Super Dog, Streaky the Supercat, Comet the Super Horse, Beppo the Super Monkey, and more. Details on the movie are still sparse, but it was confirmed that Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, and Marc Maron would be in the voice cast as Krypto the Superdog, Ace the Bat-Hound, and Lex Luthor respectively. The film is based on the Legion of Super-Pets, a comic book team that debuted in the 1960s.

Black Adam - October 21, 2022

After so many delays and being taken off the movie schedule for a while, the Shazam! spinoff movie Black Adam will finally release in October of 2022, provided it isn't unexpectedly pushed back once again. Starring The Rock as Black Adam, the DC film is directed by Jaume Collet-Serra from a screenplay by Adam Sztykiel, Rory Haines, Sohrab Noshirvani. Black Adam has been in development since 2014, so it seems 2022 is finally, at long last, the film's time to shine.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - November 11, 2022

A collage of the character posters for M'Baku, Nakia and Shuri from Black Panther

Black Panther broke record after record when it was released in February 2018, and it didn't take too long for it to become the fifth MCU movie to cross the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office. Black Panther remains the most successful MCU film outside of The Avengers series. Four years after the first movie, Marvel will release the highly-anticipated Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Due to the death of the first movie's star, Chadwick Boseman, the sequel is expected to focus instead on the other Black Panther characters that live in Wakanda, rather than solely on the Black Panther. The film was initially set to release in July 2022 but got pushed back until November, taking Captain Marvel 2's slot. As of this writing, production paused after star Letitia Wright suffered an on-set injury.

Shazam! Fury Of The Gods - December 16, 2022

The seventh DCEU film to hit the big screen, Shazam! premiered in 2019 to generally positive critical reviews and box office success. A lighthearted story about a boy who can transform into an adult superhero at the utterance of a single word, Shazam! has two related films premiering in 2022: the aforementioned Black Adam, and the direct sequel Shazam! Fury of the Gods. Shazam! 2 promises even more superhero spectacle, upping the stakes of Billy Batson's story, adding in even more powerful villains and plenty of exotic monsters and locations from Western mythology. Unlike most of the other films on DC's slate for 2022 and beyond, the release date for the Shazam! sequel has actually been moved up rather than pushed back, since it will be ready for release sooner than The Flash and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, which both need more visual effects work done before they can hit theaters.

Batgirl - December 2022 (Possibly)

Leslie Grace standing and looking sideways wearing the Batgirl cotsume

Unlike its DCEU counterparts, Batgirl won't be released in theaters, but will instead premiere exclusively on HBO Max, most likely towards the end of 2022. No official release date has been given yet, but comments and hints from producers have made it sound like Batgirl could see a December 2022 release, making it one of the last DC movies after The Batman this year, edging out delayed projects like Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and The Flash. Batgirl will tell the story of James Gordon's daughter, Barbara Gordon (played by Leslie Grace), as she takes up a superhero persona modeled after her hero, Batman (Michael Keaton's returning Dark Knight). Quite how The Flash's reintroduction of Keaton sits alongside Batgirl in the new DCEU timeline is unclear, so it may still be that Batgirl is delayed until after the rumored Flashpoint event. Still, if it happens, even though it will go directly to streaming rather than to theaters, Batgirl is also shaping up to be a must-see superhero movie of 2022.

What Superhero Fans Can Look Forward To In 2023

2022 may be one of the most superhero-packed years to date, but 2023 will also feature plenty new TV and film content. Marvel, DC, and Sony haven't fully bounced back from their respective COVID-19 delays yet, meaning lots of the movies slated for 2020-2022 have been pushed back into 2023. These include Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse from Sony, The Marvels, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania from Marvel, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, The Flash, and Blue Beetle from DC. This is, of course, in addition to plenty of new superhero TV shows being rolled out, primarily by Marvel on Disney+. There's also Sony's latest Spider-Man villain movie, Kraven the Hunter, to look forward to in 2023, though Morbius's flop may temper expectations somewhat. All told, 2023, like 2022, will probably test the limits of superhero fatigue by being a jam-packed year for Marvel and DC movie releases.