The Tom Cruise tentpoles “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Mission: Impossible 7” have been postponed by Paramount due to an increase in the delta variation of COVID-19.

Top Gun: Maverick has been pushed back from its original November 19 release date to May 27, 2022. Meanwhile, Cruise’s Mission: Impossible 7 has been pushed back from May 27, 2022, to September 30, 2022. The company has also pushed back the release date of Jackass Forever, which has been pushed back from October 22, 2021, to February 4, 2022.

During the pandemic, the sequel to “Top Gun” had already been postponed several times. A positive Covid case forced the production of “Mission: Impossible 7” to be halted for several days in June.

Because Top Gun: Maverick is being postponed until next summer, it’s only natural that Mission: Impossible 7 will be postponed as well. Both sequels are huge undertakings for Tom Cruise, and the company wouldn’t want them to compete with one another. Spacing them out offers both films a chance to succeed at the box office, which may have been a driving factor in Paramount’s decision. Top Gun: Maverick’s box office chances for the fall of 2021 remain unknown, so it may have been in a tight spot if it had kept to its original release date. By next summer, Paramount is evidently expecting that things will have much improved, allowing Top Gun: Maverick to generate even more money throughout its run. After a limited theatrical run, the picture will be released on streaming service Paramount+, but it will first be seen on the big screen.

The new release date shift comes as the country’s COVID-19 cases remain stubbornly persistent, with the first domino falling in late 2021. As a result, consumer trust in going to the cinema has dropped significantly. According to NRG data, 67 percent of moviegoers are “very or somewhat comfortable” attending their local cinema, down 11 percentage points from July. In the case of family audiences, 58 percent of parents say they feel “very or somewhat comfortable” taking their children to the movies, down five points from last week and the lowest level since late April. Internationally, the box office has struggled to attract audiences, making it impossible for big-budget films to make a profit at the box office.

In making decisions like these, Paramount, like other studios, talks with epidemiologists on a regular basis, and the studio is optimistic that the box office will rebound in 2022, when these pictures are due to debut.

There will be no Paramount releases for the rest of 2021. On January 14, the studio will release the new “Scream”

This move should also help Mission: Impossible 7. While it appears that certain cast members, like as Hayley Atwell, have finished filming, Mission: Impossible 7 is still in the works. The postponement of the release date allows director Christopher McQuarrie additional time to complete the film, which appears to be a genuinely big undertaking. It’s unclear whether this will have an impact on Mission: Impossible 8, which is set to be released in July 2023. Originally, Mission: Impossible 7 and 8 were supposed to be shot back-to-back, but that altered due to the pandemic. If things continue to go as planned, Cruise will have a very busy couple of years marketing and filming his new films.

Sony shifted “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” from its initial slot on Nov. 11 to that date, only minutes after Paramount pulled “Top Gun: Maverick” from its Nov. 19 date. The loss of “Top Gun: Maverick” is a major blow to cinema owners, who were counting on Cruise’s return to the cockpit to entice viewers during the holidays, even with the latest “Ghostbusters” feature taking its place on movie theater marquees.

Christopher McQuarrie, the director of Mission: Impossible – Fallout, will return to oversee the franchise’s seventh and eighth episodes. Maverick is directed by Joseph Kosinski, and it premiered its first 13 minutes last week at CinemaCon, a gathering for theater owners where the question of whether the box office will return to pre-COVID levels was a hot subject.

If competing studios maintain their biggest films on the schedule, there are still a few intriguing titles on the docket through the end of the year. Universal’s musical version of “Dear Evan Hansen” will be released on September 24, MGM’s James Bond sequel “No Time to Die” will be released on October 8, and Sony’s “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” will be released on October 15. Later in 2021, Disney and Marvel’s “Eternals” is set for November 5, Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” adaption is set for December 10, and Warner Bros.’ “The Matrix 4” is set for December 22.