THE FOLLOWING INCLUDES SPOILERS FOR MULTIPLE MARVEL FILMS INCLUDING SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME AND AVENGERS: ENDGAME.
The Phase 4 plans revealed by Marvel Studios at San Diego Comic-Con on July 20th lined-up five movies and five Disney+ series. Kevin Feige had mulled over revealing Phase 5 plans as well, which were hinted to but not exactly mapped-out in detail in the same way Phase 4 was.
We can sort of piece together a basic idea of what we can expect to see in Phase 5 along with a handful of things that could happen even beyond that.
WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR ABOUT PHASE 5
We do have some pieces of the puzzle for Phase 5 as Marvel/Disney had previously announced three release dates for 2022, along with some potential title reveals made by Kevin Feige at the tail-end of the presentation.
Here are the official 2022 release dates set by Disney/Marvel that will part of Phase 5.
- February 18th, 2022
- May 6th, 2022
- July 29th, 2022
BLADE: All we know about this movie is that two-time Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali will be playing Blade, other than they have had an in-house draft since at least 2013 at the studio.
We’re assuming that Blade will be part of Phase 5 because of the huge deal made about the casting.
We’ll likely start hearing about screenwriters and a director by the end of the year.
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 3: James Gunn might have to alter his previously written script slightly as it was originally going to launch Phase 4, but now has been bumped out completely due to his commitments to The Suicide Squad which begins filming this fall.
Gunn also confirmed that Thor: Love and Thunder will take place before Guardians 3, as Avengers: Endgame ended with Thor joining the Guardians which would be an excellent team-up for a feature film.
A deleted scene from Avengers: Endgame seemingly confirms that 2014 era Gamora indeed survived the final battle and will be around for the third installment.
BLACK PANTHER 2: Kevin Feige revealed that they’re only recently breaking the script outline/story with Ryan Coogler and Danai Guariri confirmed her character Okoye would be back (we’re assuming that T’Challa and Shuri would be as well).
There have been rumors of Namor joining the film, then again, I think we’ve all been talking about that possibility since the first film released as potential an option given Wakanda/Atlantis clashes in the comics. With the script not even started, I’d hardly put too much stock into rumblings this early as Feige debunked the afterlife rumors that were circling online.
CAPTAIN MARVEL 2: We don’t have either writers or directors confirmed for the project, but Monica Rambeau aka Spectrum (the third member of The Ultimates) will be introduced as an adult character in WandaVision and played by Teyonah Parris.
The button scenes from Spider-Man: Far From Home might have also been setting up things like the Kree-Skrull War, Secret Invasion, or even Secret Wars. It’ll be a while if we find out why Nick Fury is in outer space with the Skrulls and if that even has a connection to the Captain Marvel sequel.
Then again, we have no clue if the sequel will be another prequel or take place after the events of Avengers: Endgame there is a lot of unseen adventures of Carol Danvers between Captain Marvel’s ending and the start of Avengers: Endgame that could be explored.
DEADPOOL 3: While not mentioned by Feige by name, he did mention “mutants” and Ryan Reynolds recently posted something on Instagram that could be considered a nod towards Deadpool coming to Phase 5, as he used the caption “Phase 5” in that post.
Kevin Feige also mentioned mutants and Fantastic Four, but it’s unknown if they’ll be part of actual Phase 5 plans given they don’t have casts, writers or directors.
He has also said in the past that the X-Men aren’t exactly part of the five-year plan, which would exclude them (possibly Fantastic Four as well) from Phase 5 along with Phase 4 (teases aside).
POSSIBLE DARK HORSE TITLES FOR PHASE 5
We have two new franchises (That might be three if you consider Black Widow a new thing) in Phase 4 which would suggest we might get a second or third new film in Phase 5 alongside Blade.
Other titles rumored/reported to be in various stages of development at the studio include Nova (Nova Corps. was destroyed in Avengers: Infinity War), The Ultimates (Three of the five main members are currently in the MCU) , Dark Avengers (Taskmaster might be a hint towards Dark Avengers), Deathlok reboot, and The Thunderbolts (might be introduced in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier via Zemo).
HOPES FOR PHASE 6 AND BEYOND
Here are some teams and characters we hope to see join the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the next couple of Phases.
AGENTS OF ATLAS/ATLAS EMPIRE: We’re going to be getting a solo Shang-Chi movie titled Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings. An interesting aspect of Shang-Chi and The Mandarin they both claim to be descendants of the Ghengis Khan (Raza in Iron Man mentions Khan in a speech).
In the comics, the Atlas Empire’s leadership is made up of those part of Khan’s bloodline.
An excellent reason for The Mandarin to replace Fu Machu as both his antagonists and possibly his father as well along with revealing that possibly The Ten Rings/Atlas Empire are connected or the same.
Interesting enough, the Agents of Atlas leader Jimmy Woo has already been added the MCU via Randall Park in Ant-Man and The Wasp, he also is a descendant of Khan.
The team in the comics is made of Agent Jimmy Woo, Namora (Namor’s cousin), Gorilla Man, Venus, The Uranian, and 3-D Man.
Shang-Chi also happens to be part of a new Atlas roster.
SQUADRON SUPREME: With Doctor Strange’s sequel Into The Multiverse of Madness on the horizon the multiverse can be explored and one way to do that is tackle other timelines/universe with different versions of The Avengers, one group could certainly be The Squadron Supreme.
They started as villains called Squadron Sinister created by the Grandmaster (played by Jeff Goldblum in the MCU) but eventually became heroic figures in the comics.
The Squad consists of Hyperion (an Eternal), Nighthawk, Whizzer (had a cameo in Jessica Jones), Doctor Spectrum, Thundra, Power Princess, Amphibian, Skymax (Skrull), Golden Archer, Lady Lark, Tom Thumb, Blue Eagle, Arcanna, and Nuke.
KA-ZAR: Considering we’re going to have both the Kree and Celestials in the MCU, we could finally see The Savage Land explored (it helps the X-Men rights are back at Marvel too).
The studio had once been cooking-up a Ka-Zar movie but due to the bombing of John Carter, it scared them off to the idea. Marvel might have second thoughts given the recent success of the Jurassic World movies and audiences’ rekindled interest in seeing dinosaurs on the big screen.
It’ll be interesting to see when they’ll reveal their Phase 5 plans given that Feige hinted they might be ready to drop them.
