Phase Four has been something a lot of us have been excited to see what Marvel Studios has up their sleeves. It’s said to be the start of a second saga as Phase Three might wrapping-up the first massive saga.
Guardians of The Galaxy 3 will be one of the Phase Four films, and the fourth phase could launch sometime in 2020. Marvel has scheduled two new untitled films for 2020, but they haven’t made it official what those movies are, the assumption that Guardians 3 is one of them even though Kevin really never confirmed it’s date.
“We’re only working on what’s been announced through the end of 2019,” said Feige. “And it is still a big chess board for 2020 and beyond, but certainly I would say Guardians 3 is [one film that’s] up there. I don’t know what exactly the order will be.”
It’s been said the future of the cinematic universe will look very different and we have an idea what that could mean.
There have been rumblings for a couple of years that Marvel Studios will indeed shake-up the Avengers roster and that the original members might step-down to let the rookies take the spotlight.
It’s been said that Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange could be taking over for Tony Stark as the patriarch of the franchise. Stark might be taking more of a vicarious Nick Fury role in future films.
Captain Marvel seemingly taking the matriarch role from Black Widow.
Potentially seeing Ragnarok‘s Valkyrie taking Thor’s spot, Thor stepping aside to rule over Asgard or dying in the Infinity War conflict.
We’ve assumed for a while now that either Falcon or Bucky will be taking the Cap mantle, there’s speculation the death of Captain America is coming.
Remains to be seen, if Red Hulk, She-Hulk or Red She-Hulk could replace Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, talk has been circling for years that Planet Hulk (apart of the Thor: Ragnarok) could lead into World War Hulk (Infinity War Part 2?). That story could be the catalyst of why Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner, Thor and others part ways making room for the new heroes.
Black Panther, Scarlet Witch, Spider-Man and Vision more than likely apart of the second wave as well. It’ll be interesting to see how Guardians of The Galaxy and Inhumans factor into Phase Four and if they’ll take spots in the Avengers.
I’m also curious if Marvel will be able to make a deal with Fox to include Wolverine, Deadpool and other X-Men characters by the time 2020 rolls around. X-Men producer Simon Kinberg recently alluded he’d like to see Fox and Marvel put together a similar deal together that Sony and Marvel did for future Spider-Man films.
“I think we all would, and I think there’s so much crossover in the comic it would be neat to one day see those characters share a movie. It would be fun to all team up [Fox and Marvel] one day, somehow, together, if that would work.”
“Both of us are actually quite close with Kevin,“ Simon Kinberg says, “and have a profound amount of respect for what he does. And it would be fun to all team up one day, somehow, together, if that could work.”
Deadpool director Tim Miller also added in the same interview.
“But I would love to, someday, in part, heal the rift between the world of X-Men and the world of Avengers.“
I know a lot of people are assuming that The Defenders will make their cinematic jump from Netflix, but nothing really points to that actually happening anytime soon, even though the massive character count expected for the Infinity War movies. Moving them from Netflix seems an odd choice if they’re massively successful in the long-formant of storytelling, only to give them minutes of screen time seems bizarre to me.
Marvel TV doesn’t need to connect to the films this directly and I’d hate to see Agents of SHIELD thrown into these movies as well. The movies don’t need these television characters, because they have plenty of unused cinematic ones that haven’t been given an adaptation.
Rumblings have pointed to the studio starting to kill-off/retire major characters starting with Captain America: Civil War and possibly ending with Avengers: Infinity War Part 2 leading into Phase Four.
A very different Avengers roster is seemingly what this could lead to.
It’s exciting stuff, we’ll have to wait and see if any of this comes together and that they’ll eventually have to look beyond original Avengers for the cinematic universe to grow and evolve.
We’ve already speculated a couple of options of where Marvel Studios could go in the future.
