That's a big deal in terms of affecting Oppenheimer's IMAX release.
Because look at this (slide 9): https://imaxcorporation.gcs-web.com/sta ... b13bf9b2c4
Notice the conspicuous absence of Ant-Man 3 on that line-up, which suggests that IMAX was ready to forgo/downsize an IMAX release for Ant-Man 3 in favor of giving Oppenheimer a longer IMAX run.
And that lines up with precedent. That would give Oppenheimer roughly a month of IMAX exclusivity before Blue Beetle in August, similar to the one that, say, Dunkirk got in 2017.
Now I don't imagine giving up MCU money is easy, but Ant-Man movies have always been on the lower grossing side of the franchise, so if IMAX had to downsize on any MCU film, it makes sense that that would be the one.
Not to mention, as far as I'm aware, Ant-Man 3 has not been filmed with digital IMAX cameras, so IMAX loses no real 'investment' on the technical front, either.
But the Ant-Man 3 and The Marvels release date swap completely changes the dynamics of all that.
Captain Marvel grossed $1.1 billion, which is nearly double what Ant-Man 2 made. No sane company would downsize on the what is sure to be easy profit of a sequel to a billion dollar movie.
And unlike Ant-Man 3, The Marvels has been filmed entirely with digital IMAX cameras, which I imagine guarantees a lengthy IMAX window and heavy promotion.
Now that's a one-two wallop of a punch if I've ever seen one.
There's no way Oppenheimer only gets one week of IMAX exclusivity when IMAX was all but prepared to drop Ant-Man 3 to give Oppenheimer an entire month. But at the same time, now that The Marvels has taken Ant-Man 3's place, there's also no way that The Marvels is not getting a big IMAX release and heavy IMAX promotion either.
Something's got to give, and it won't be pretty.