Sony Pictures’ announcement of a 6 May 2011 release for Spider-Man 4 has dropped into the Marvel Entertainment universe like an A-Bomb with shock-waves forcing the big screen release of Thor and Captain America out by a year!

Well, that’s one (particularly hysterical) way of characterising this snippet of news.

To be honest, it doesn't really come as a surprise if for no other reason than Thor was originally scheduled for a July 2010 release and director Kenneth Branagh doesn't yet appear to have cast anyone. And while the enthusiastic babble on the web about Branagh's excellent understanding of all things Thor is reassuring (Branagh gets it!), it does leave the impression that things haven't really progressed as far as, say, a definitive screenplay. Although I could be completely wrong on this point.

Whatever the reason, I'm all for Marvel taking as much time as they need to get it right.

• Iron Man 2: 7 May 2010 (unchanged)
• Spider-Man 4: 6 May 2011
• Thor : 17 June 2011
• The First Avenger: Captain America: 22 July 2011
• The Avengers, 4 May 2012

The explanation for the revised schedule offered by Peter Cuneo, Vice Chairman of Marvel Entertainment, makes the point that Spider-Man is also, of course, a Marvel property, although under license to Sony Pictures: “We realised it was more beneficial to us to have Spider- Man in that spot. We looked at the rest of the slate and the schedule and it made sense to move Thor and The Avengers out a year.”

David Maisel, Chairman of Marvel Entertainment, offers a more illuminating explanation for why Spider-Man 4 needs to precede Thor: "This new schedule strongly sequences Marvel's movie debut dates, big screen character introductions and momentum. It maximises the visibility of our single character-focused films, leading to the highly anticipated release of the multi-character The Avengers film in 2012.” As they explain elsewhere, what the new schedule represents then is a continuous story arc that interweaves the stories of individual superhero characters and culminates in a multi-character motion picture: The Avengers.

In which case - and if it really is "beneficial" to have Spider-Man 4 slotted into the story arc with a May 2011 release - can we expect to see Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man in The Avengers movie?

What is not in any doubt as a consequence of the new schedule (as Marvel is very pleased to point out) is that a Marvel character-based film will launch the summer box office season for three years in a row, from 2010 through 2012.

If they get it right, the delay will be well worth it.