While the SDCC announcement that Mahershala Ali will be starring in a new Marvel Studios movie, ‘Blade’, was huge, don’t get overly excited. ‘Blade’ is along way off. In fact, Kevin Feige clarified that the majority of what was revealed was Marvel’s Phase Four and that ‘Blade’ will actually be part of Phase Five.
For the time being, this is the upcoming Phase Four release schedule. Please note, about half are TV shows coming to the Disney+ streaming service. ‘What If?’ is an animated series, so something tells me it doesn’t really tie that firmly to the movies’ continuity. But it seems as though the live-action shows will actually have an impact on the films.
- May 1, 2020 – ‘Black Widow’
- Spring 2020 – ‘WandaVision’
- Fall 2020 – ‘The Falcon & The Winter Soldier’
- November 6, 2020 – ‘Eternals’
- February 21, 2021 – ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’
- Spring 2021 – ‘Loki’
- May 7, 2021 – ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’
- Summer 2021 – ‘What If?’
- Fall 2021 – ‘Hawkeye’
- November 5, 2021 – ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’
Feige stated:
“It is the complete Phase Four the way I announced the complete Phase Three five years ago—things can move, things can change as they did if you go back and look at what we talked about five years ago for Phase Three, but we’ve been working on this for quite a while and it’s pretty set. But there are always changes possible.”
One thing is clear– the film slate is thinning out. In the early days, Marvel only released one or two movies a year (and skipped 2009 altogether), but lately, especially after the addition of Sony’s ‘Spider-Man’, that’s been increased to three. But now it seems that the Disney+ shows will be there to hopefully tide fans over between films.
But Phase Four will be the shortest of them all. Phase One spanned five years, 2008-12. Phase Two lasted three years, from 2013-15, and Phase Three lasted four, from 2016-19. Phase Four will only last two years.
Feige teased that he hadn’t mentioned ‘Captain Marvel 2’ or ‘Black Panther 2’. Those, along with ‘Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3’ will apparently show up in Phase Five, alongside ‘Blade’. There also isn’t another ‘Avengers’. What’s the status of the team? Are any of them still together? Or will the MCU go without a proper Avengers for a while?
Source: Collider
