Marvel Phase 5 and 6: Upcoming Movies, TV Shows

FAns were lost in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Since Avengers: Endgame, the epic finale to the so-called Infinity Saga, Marvel has released 12 movies and TV shows in what studio head Kevin Feige calls “Phase 4” of the MCU, none of which have felt particularly connected to one another.

The she sheer length of the television series on Disney+ means it’s harder for casual fans to keep up with the goings-on of the MCU. And Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury no longer pops up in post-credits scenes of the films to connect the dots from movie to movie and hint at some looming threat. Many are left asking, “Where is all this going?”

For over a decade, Marvel Studios has made a habit of revealing its future films at San Diego Comic-Con’s storied Hall H. And during Saturday’s Marvel Studios panel, Kevin Feige set out to assure fans that, yes, there is a plan. Yes, there are. Moon KnightAnd Doctor StrangeAnd LokiAnd Wakanda ForeverAll of them are related in some way. Yes, they will all return.

Feige spoke of Phase 5 and 6 in the MCU. Feige said that they would culminate with two ensembles. Avengers films: Avengers: The Kang DynastyAnd Secret Wars with Avengers. And don’t worry, Fantastic Four and X-Men fans. They will soon be invading the MCU.

Continue reading:Thor: Love and Thunder Is Proof That the Marvel Cinematic Universe Doesn’t Make Sense Anymore

Here’s everything you need to know about the future of Marvel.

Wakanda ForeverThe 4th phase will be completed

Phase 4 proved to be a bit chaotic. The aftermath Avengers: Endgame, Marvel found itself without some of its marquee heroes—particularly Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Chris Evans (Captain America), and Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), who all retired from the superhero business. The studio lost unexpectedly. Black PantherChadwick, the former star of Star Trek, died in 2020. Boseman, one of Marvel’s bright new stars, would have anchored the franchise.

Even as Marvel tried to create new characters to headline its series, like Florence Pugh’s Yelena, and promote familiar ones, like Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch, to more prominent roles, fate intervened. The pandemic screwed up Marvel’s planned release schedule. (Doctor Strange, in the Multiverse of MadnessFor example, the premiere was expected for. Wandavision, not after it. This switch allowed the writers change key plot points.

Marvel inadvertently recognized the chaos that has characterized the past several years during the Comic-Con panel’s opening seconds. Miss Minutes is the insidious cartoon clock of LokiMany fans waited for information on their favorite heroes from a greeter, “You survived a looping, endless apocalypse and made it here to a Comic-Con panel at the end of time,” she said.

Feige also echoed this sentiment. “This phase has been about resetting the MCU and meeting all these new characters,” he said of Phase 4. Phase 4 will conclude soon with the final film and show, he said. She-Hulk series starring Tatiana Maslany as Bruce Banner’s cousin and the long-awaited Black Panther sequel, Wakanda Forever.

Marvel closed its panel with Saturday’s appearance of the Wakanda Forever trailer. Ryan Coogler, the writer and director of the trailer, recalled Boseman jumping up on his shoulders in excitement as Coogler presented the teaser. Black Panther trailer at Comic-Con in 2017. “I promise I can feel his hand on me now. Chad is no longer with us physically, but his spirit, his passion, his genius, his pride and his culture, and the impact he made on this industry will be felt forever,” the filmmaker said. “We put our love for Chadwick into this film.”

The Wakanda Forever footage centered on characters like Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), Okoye (Danai Gurira), and Shuri (Letitia Wright) mourning T’Challa (Boseman). This trailer showed Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) as a brilliant woman who creates an Iron Man-like suit for herself and assumes the Iron Man role. In her Disney+ show, she will be the star. IronheartIn the next phase, the MCU.

Wakanda Forever,All of these characters will team up against a group amphibious humanoids who live in Atlantis, led by Namor (Tenoch Uerta). Wakanda and Atlantis have clashed before in comics. It’s unclear what might bring them to blows in the new film.

The trailer ends with the Black Panther claws appearing, but we don’t know who is wearing the suit. Feige has been explicit that Marvel will not recast the T’Challa role. But fans have theorized the Shuri, Nakia, or perhaps even a parallel universe Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan, who played the role in the original film and is a longtime collaborator of Coogler’s) might at least wear T’Challa’s old gear. Killmonger insisted that the gold piping be added to his suit. Black Panther(This hint suggests that Killmonger could be brought back by the multiverse.

Coogler, along with the rest of the cast, hugged one-another on stage as the trailer closed.

Kang is the next big bad in Phases 5 & Phase 6

Thanos (Josh Brolin), was the glue that binds early Marvel films together. Starting with AvengersThe major threat to all of the universe was represented by GENOCIALS, the purple and genocidal Alien. His appearances were made in the post-credits scene and in brief cameos. Guardians of the Galaxy Thor: Ragnarok. Even when he didn’t appear in a film, the Infinity Stones he coveted did. The audience knew for years that, inevitably, the Avengers would have to fight him—and, in one of the best twists in blockbuster cinema—travel back in time to fight him again. He gave our heroes an opportunity to unite and each film built slowly towards that point.

Kevin Feige suggested that Kang The Conquerer might serve the same purpose during Comic-Con’s panel. Jonathan Majors, an actor who is a villainous genius and wants to take over the multiverse was introduced by Feige. Kang will be the antagonist in Quantumania: Ant-Man and The Wasp, But that’s just the start of his search for power.

“There’s a very special reason this is kicking off Phase 5,” Feige said of Quantumania. “And you just met him right there, Mr. Jonathan Majors.” Feige then revealed that the penultimate film in Phase 6 will be titledAvengers: The Kang Dynasty. (More about Phase 6 in the future.

Majors, it seems, is Marvel’s future. Given Majors’ stunning debut playing a Kang variant in the television show Loki, that’s great news. It was clear in just one episode that Kang was posing a greater existential threat to the MCU that Thanos.

Continue reading:There is a long-standing problem with the MCU’s Villains. Loki’s Introduction of Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror Might Just Solve It

The title Avengers: The Kang Dynasty holds another essential clue to Marvel’s future. Another Avengers team will exist. It remains to be determined who will form that team. However, Phase 5 will set the tone.

We will have street-level villains in the Thunderbolts

Kang the Conqueror is a determined warrior who wants to conquer the multiverse. There must also be other evil threats. Most likely that team will be lead by Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. Her goal is to recruit anti-heroes, villains for the final credits of movies and shows. The Winter and Falcon SoldierAnd Black Widow.

This team is now known as the Thunderbolts. The Thunderbolts appeared in comics initially as a group of heroes who met after the Avengers had been declared dead. But they eventually revealed that they were supervillains.

The death of Iron Man and Black Widow and the retirement of Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), makes it logical that the Thunderbolts should arrive to exploit the absence of A-list Avengers. (Sorry, Hulk.)

Thunderbolts embers could include Baron Zemo (Daniel Brühl), Yelena (Pugh), and John Walker (Wyatt Russell), among others. Given that Sam Wilson has already butted heads with both Baron Zemo and John Walker in his show, it’s safe to guess he’ll fight the Thunderbolts in one or multiple films.

Phase 6 finally sees the arrival of Secret Wars and The Fantastic Four

Marvel Studios is well aware that Thunderbolts are fantastic but they know fans want more from the MCU. They expect an Avengers movie. That’s why Feige went ahead and teased three movies set to release in the far-off Phase 6 of the MCU: The long-awaited reboot of the Fantastic FourFranchise, The Avengers vs. Kang Film Secret Wars.

Be careful not to get excited about the photo above. Marvel has yet to confirm that John Krasinski will be returning as Reed Richards. Fantastic Four films. Marvel Studios cast Krasinski, in fact, in the role as a parallel-universe Reed Richards. Doctor Strange, in the Multiverse of MadnessJust to brutally murder him and send a (playful, but a little dark) message about fan-casting fantasies to viewers.

Let’s move on to the Avengers movie: The Kang DynastyAnd Secret Wars. We don’t know yet who will make up this new Avengers team, but Marvel has plenty of pieces in place, including Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), and perhaps Spider-Man if Tom Holland decides to return as Peter Parker.

According to the film’s title, what can we expect? Kang DynastyKang, attempting to conquer the multiverse, can be seen. How Kang’s quest will set up Secret WarsIt remains to be determined. Two stories were written by Marvel Comics. Secret Wars storylines. Version of the 1980s Secret WarsAll the super heroes are then teleported onto a planet for battle. An updated 2015 story has more to it: It begins with an invasion, which is when two timelines crash into one another with catastrophic consequences. (We’ve already seen an incursion in Doctor Strange, in the Multiverse of Madness.) The characters who survive live in a post-apocalyptic universe called Battleworld that’s policed by a bunch of different versions of Thor called the Thor Corps. And, yes, there’s plenty of face-offs between favorite superheroes.

The X-Men are coming…soon…probably

Was there anything you could do about the X-Men, though? Feige said that there was not one mutant at Comic-Con. Patrick Stewart, a variant Charles Xavier, has appeared already in Multiverse of Madness. And Wandavision The seeds of a storyline were planted. Wanda canonically has been an X-Men as well an Avenger in comics. Now that Disney owns Fox and thus the rights to the mutants, they rewrote Wanda’s history to give her powers at birth, implying that she is a mutant.)

The era of the multiverse would seem the perfect time to introduce the X-Men as a group of young heroes that have been training at Professor X’s school in a parallel universe. They are somehow pulled in to the main MCU story. The Phase 5 story seems complete. So we likely won’t see any mutants again until Phase 6.

Phases 4-6 are now called the “Multiverse Saga”

If Phases 1-3 were the “Infinity Saga,” in which the heroes and villains gathered up various Infinity Stones before engaging in an Infinity War, Feige has dubbed phases 4-6 the “Multiverse Saga.” The name makes sense: Increasingly the films and TV shows wrangle with the question of how the various parallel universes in Marvel intersect.

Comics: Secret WarsThe storyline also ended several universes within the multiverse. This included fan-favorite lines, effectively hitting the reset button for all Marvel comics. Might Marvel also be in for a reboot? Perhaps. Or maybe they’re just looking for a way to integrate the X-Men (a key part of the Secret WarsThe storyline is incorporated into the saga.

Here are all the details and dates for future MCU movies.

Quantumania: Ant-Man & the Wasp (Feb. 17, 2023)

Marvel has revealed a glimpse of its third movie Ant-Man Comic-Con film fans. At the beginning of the movie, Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang (Ant-Man) has written a book about how he helped save the world. His family includes daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton), his girlfriend Hope (Evangeline Lililly as The Wasp), her father Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeiffer (Michelle Pfeiffer). They are sick of him talking about his heroics. They all end up being sucked into Quantum Realm where they meet Kang the Conquerer, and an unknown character played only by Bill Murray.

Secret Invasion (Spring 2023)

Secret InvasionA Comic-Con exclusive teaser was also released. The show is a spy thriller television series centered on Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury. The show is loved by fans of Captain MarvelThe Skrull alien species that can appear as human beings will be brought back to mind. In this show, the Skrulls are impersonating characters we know and love, and it’s impossible to determine someone’s true identity. Fury has avoided earth since the events in FinaleFinally, he returns to fight the Skrull invasion. Cobie Mulders, Olivia Coleman and Kingsley Ben Adir star as well.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (May 5, 2023)

Comic-Con Director James Gunn used Comic-Con’s stage to unveil a teaser trailer for the movie and announce that it will be released in full. Vol. 3Indeed, this will be the last entry into the Guardians saga. In the footage, Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord finally reunites with a variant of Zoe Saldana’s Gamora. But this version of Gamora still doesn’t know who Star-Lord is, leaving our hero heartbroken.

Bradley Cooper voiced the main story about Rocket’s birth. Rocket, a cute baby raccoon was subject to experiments and transformed into the blaster-toting, talking creature that he is today. A key theme of the movie is life form development: Adam Warlock, played by Will Poulter, the main antagonists of the film. He was created as a Perfect Sovereign by Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki), to aid her in defeating the Guardians of the Galaxy. Guardians Film, and the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), which is a character with a unique purpose: to improve lifeforms by experimentation.

Echo (Summer 2023)

Echo (Alaqua Cox). HawkeyeHer own spinoff. It’s a major milestone since Echo is the first deaf superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Given Echo’s involvement with the gangster Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio), it’s likely that Echo will crossover with Kingpin’s other franchise, Daredevil. Marvel has not yet confirmed whether Hailee Steinfeld, who played Hawkeye’s protégé Kate Bishop, will also appear in the series. Kate will be an important player on any new Avengers team.

Marvels (July 28, 2023)

Feige didn’t share much about the Captain Marvel sequel at Comic-Con. But we know that Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani) and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) will appear alongside Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel in the film. Candyman’Nia DaCosta directs.

Loki: Season 2 (Summer 2023)

Aside from Miss Minutes, Marvel didn’t tease anything from LokiSeason 2 Season 2. LokiMovies like Quantumania.

Blade (Nov. 3, 2023)

Mahershala Ali, who played the role of Blade the vampire hunter at the MCU Comic-Con 2019, announced his plans. Although Ali is not currently in any Marvel films, fans were able to hear his voice during an ending-credits scene. The Eternals. This film seemed to suggest a deeper, darker side to the MCU. It would feature characters such as Black Knight (Kit Harington).

Ironheart (Fall 2023)

After making her debut in Wakanda ForeverRiri Williams, her character will be featured in her Disney+ television series. Ironheart is the obvious inheritor of Iron Man’s role, if Marvel Studios has plans to rebuild Avengers.

Coven Of Chaos: Agatha (Winter 2023-2024)

WandavisionBreakout star Agatha (Kathryn Hahn), will get her own TV series. Marvel is keeping the details a secret, though the title suggests that audiences will see more of the Witchcraft the Scarlet Witch used in her series. Doctor Strange.

Daredevil is Born Again (Spring 2024)

Fans of Charlie Cox’s Daredevil, rejoice! Disney+ is bringing the fan favorite character from Charlie Cox’s Daredevil to life with a brand new series. Feige confirmed that the 18-episode first season of Marvel’s new series will consist of eight episodes. This is an uncommon commitment by Marvel which tends to only produce six to eight episodes per year. Feige confirmed Kingpin’s appearance in the Netflix series. Daredevil Series and then again on the Disney+ Show HawkeyeHe will be the principal antagonist You are Born Again.

The New World Order of Captain America (May 3, 2024)

Following the events of Falcon and Winter Soldier, Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson has finally graduated to the title of Captain America. That show’s creator, Malcolm Spellman, is set to pen Sam’s cinematic debut as the storied superhero. Who he’ll be fighting is unclear, though the Thunderbolts are good candidates.

Thunderbolts (July 26, 2024)

Phase 5 will end with the Thunderbolts, a villainous team that’s been slowly coming together in the end-credits scenes of various Marvel movies and TV shows.

The Fantastic Four (Nov. 8, 2024)

There is no word on the casting or director of this long-awaited film. Fantastic Four movie. It is important to note that the Fantastic Four, along with Doctor Doom their antagonists, are an integral part of the movie. Secret Wars comics, there’s a good chance this movie becomes the marquee franchise of Phase 6 of the MCU.

Avengers: The Kang Dynasty (May 2, 2025)

We don’t know who, except Kang. Possible members of a future Avengers team include Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, and Captain Marvel, but also newcomers like Yelena taking on her old sister’s role as the Black Widow of the group, and Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) taking over for her mentor, Hawkeye.

Secret Wars with Avengers (Nov. 7, 2025)

Secret Wars has historically served as a reset button in the comic books, giving writers the opportunity to eliminate characters, storylines, and universes that weren’t working. Marvel’s plans to change the order of the cards at Phase 6 is yet to be confirmed.

Send an email to Eliana Dockterman at eliana.dockterman@time.com.