By: Shane Hernandez, Staff Writer
The 50th San Diego Comic Con was beginning to have a light load. Many film studios weren’t going to have panels this year. However, Marvel Studios’ President Kevin Feige took Hall H by storm, announcing their two year plan (Phase 4) of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Today we’ll be talking about the upcoming films and television shows that will be released in theaters or streaming on Disney Plus.
1. Black Widow (May 1st, 2020)
While it may be a surprise to casual fans, after the events of “Avengers: Endgame”, major fans have known that Black Widow has been filming for over a month. The story will be a prequel, taking place after “Captain America: Civil War”, and before “Avengers: Infinity War”.
It will cover the time that Natasha was in hiding from the government after helping Captain America. While it doesn’t take place in a time where she’s a well known Avenger, it will dive into her history Budapest. Although the main villain has yet to be announced, it was revealed that Taskmaster will be Natasha’s main antagonist throughout the movie. “Black Widow” will be directed by Cate Shortland and will be Marvel’s first film with a sole female director.
2. Eternals (November 6th, 2020)
The Eternals is a pretty deep cut from the comics. Three races were created by The Celestials (Space Gods). Those races are The Eternals, Humans and Deviants. In the comics, the deviants are described as The Eternals are the embodiment of perfect human beings and can live forever. They were created solely by the king of comics, Jack Kirby. The main plot is kept under wraps, but it was revealed by Feige that it will draw inspiration from Neil Gaiman’s run on the characters.
3. Falcon and Winter Soldier (Fall 2020)
The new Captain America and The Winter Soldier are going to be getting their own series. Together they will be teaming up to stop Zemo from “Captain America: Civil War.” The series will be featured on the new Disney Plus streaming service. It will dive into the two characters dealing with Steve Roger’s retirement and will go deeper into their individual characters. Falcon will prove himself as the next Captain America and Bucky will have to reintegrate into society.
4. Shang Chi and The Legend Of The Ten Rings (February 12th, 2021)
The Master of Kung Fu has been rumored for a couple of months now. He’ll be the first Asian superhero with a solo film. The most exciting thing for longtime Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) fans is the 10 rings. This will introduce the true Mandarin as Shang Chi’s foe. He’s notoriously an Iron Man character in the comics, since the 1960’s. Marvel fans were very disappointed with his treatment in Iron Man 3. There it was revealed that Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin was a decoy for the actual threat and was revealed to be a washed up actor named Trevor Slattery. Marvel handled this criticism well. Within a year, a Marvel One-Shot (short film) was released in the “Thor: The Dark World” Blu-ray, titled “All Hail The King”. In it, Trevor Slattery is interviewed in prison. By the end of the short, it’s revealed that the real Mandarin is out in the world and he’s not happy that Trevor Slattery (played by Ben Kingsley) used his name.
Shang Chi himself isn’t a very popular Marvel character. Nor is he really associated with the Mandarin. However, with a lesser known fan-base, Marvel will be culturally reinventing him to neglect racist stereotypes. By introducing us to new and old exciting characters, fans will finally be delivered the actual threat, teased since the first Iron Man.
5. WandaVision (Spring 2021)
Though The Vision suffered a devastating fate at the end of “Avengers: Infinity War”, it was revealed that this takes place after the events of “Avengers: Endgame”. Paul Bettany doesn’t know anything about how he’ll return. Everything is kept under wraps, except the show is described to have a 1950s aesthetic. There’s no specific source material for this show. It will be looking into Wanda’s story, where we have been told that we will truly understand why Wanda is called The Scarlet Witch. By the end of this series, it will tie directly into Marvel’s next film “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse Of Madness”.
6. Loki (Spring 2021)
Loki may have died during “Avengers: Infinity War”. However, due to the massive fandom surrounding the God of Mischief, certain events in “Avengers: Endgame” have brought him back… or at least a version of him. In “Avengers Endgame”, during an attempt to get the tesseract in the past, Loki managed to escape with it. The Loki we’ll be following in the series won’t be the one that died, but from a diverging timeline in the multiverse where he never died. The series is described as Loki traveling to different moments in history and messing with humanity. Though this may seem like a pointless show, it’s the fan-base’s love for Loki that has kept him alive in some form. Tom Hiddleston has shown that his excitement for the character hasn’t left yet.
7. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (May 7th, 2021)
Doctor Strange has been one of the standouts of the MCU in Avengers “Infinity War & Endgame”. He’s proven to have stunning visuals in his own film. Now, Marvel is taking it one step closer with the multiverse. Director Scott Derikson has gone on to reveal that this will be the first scary film produced by Marvel. While it will have legitimate elements of horror, Feige went on to say that it will still be PG-13. Although it’s still early for the project, Marvel has promised a worthy sequel with Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange and Elizabeth Olsen continuing her story from “WandaVision”.
8. What If…? (Summer 2021)
If you’ve read the comic series, then you’ll love this one. The MCU takes a game changing, yet effective risk to it’s mainstream series, “What If”. In the comics, the “what if’s” are essentially spin-off stories to the main continuity, discussing this like What If… Wolverine killed the X-Men or What If… Spider-Man became The Punisher. This show will take existing stories from the MCU and will make them with a twist. Marvel previewed a small narration by Jeffrey Wright and announced that he’ll be playing The Watcher, who, for those who are unfamiliar with him, is a cosmic being who watches over the events of time in space in the universe or in this case the multiverse. Many actors have announced that they’ll be returning for this series, with Marvel releasing a new view of the multiverse as The Watcher watches them. Except, who watches the watchers? In this case, it looks like we do.
9. Hawkeye (Fall 2021)
The original Avenger is finally getting the respect that he deserves. Jeremey Renner announced that he’ll be returning as the archer Clint Barton in the all new Disney Plus series. It will draw inspiration from Hawkeye’s newest run the comics “My Life Is A Wheapon” by Mad Fraction. Where he mentor’s a young girl named Kate Bishop, to helm the title Hawkeye and hopefully be the better version. Feige even said that he will explore Clint’s history as Ronin, during the time that he lost his family for 5 years in “Avengers: Endgame”.
10. Thor: Love and Thunder (November 5th, 2021)
Just a few days before Comic Con, it had leaked on the internet that Taika Watiti (Director of “Thor: Ragnarok”) would be making a return with Thor 4 except, the biggest surprise of the fourth installment of the story came out during the panel when it was announced that Natalie Portman would make her big return to the MCU. Not just as the character Jane Foster, but as Lady Thor. Taika went on to say that he read Jason Aaron’s run on “The Mighty Thor” while working on Ragnarok and that it only made sense to go with Portman as The Goddess Of Thunder. This doesn’t mean that Chris Hemsworth won’t be playing Thor anymore, but will be going on a journey of self discovery. Tessa Thompson is also set to return as Valkeryie and represent the first LGBTQ character of the MCU, bringing more representation to the wider world. Taika has taken Thor to new heights in Ragnarok and it looks like he’ll be taking them even further in Love and Thunder.
11. Blade (No release date
To end the show, it was revealed that Mahershala Ali will be playing The Vampire Slayer Blade. During an interview with Feige, he revealed that Ali came off the back of winning his second Oscar for “Green Book” and wanted to meet with him. There he said he wanted to play Blade and the Marvel team was all for it. Unfortunately for fans of Wesley Snipes’ films, he will no longer play the character. Fans of the Marvel Netflix shows appear worried as this reveal may even suggest that the shows are now non canon as Ali played Cottonmouth, the villain of “Luke Cage.” Regardless of these smaller concerns, Marvel is definitely proving that they’re not scarce on rebooting this franchise and have confidence in Ali’s request to play the Vampire Slayer as he kicks off the eventual phase 5 of the cinematic universe.
12. In Development films.
Although Blade is the only phase 5 film to get an official casting, Marvel confidently confirmed that they will be making sequels such as “Black Panther 2”, “Captain Marvel 2”, “Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3”. Most importantly, “Fantastic Four” and “X-Men” are confirmed to be in development!
With the controversial buyout of 20th Century Fox by Disney, the biggest pro for Marvel fans, is the return of Marvel’s First Family and The Merry Mutants. To those who are unclear as to why they were not connected, it’s because Marvel Studios never had the film rights to those characters. In the 1990’s, Marvel went bankrupt and as a result had to sell off properties. To do so, film rights for characters such as “Spider-Man”, “Fantastic Four” and “X-Men” were all sold off to other film companies like Sony Pictures and Fox. Most recently, a deal between Marvel and Sony allowed for Tom Holland to play Spider-Man in the MCU. Now, Marvel can make a similar treatment with the X-Men and Fantastic Four.
What’s your favorite upcoming Marvel film or TV show? Phase Four looks like Marvel is taking a chance with new and exciting properties again, and will continue to do so beyond phase’s four and five.
