Now that basically everyone and their parents have seen Avengers: Infinity War, all eyes
are on the future of the MCU.
The ending of Infinity War can be defined as nothing less than an uppercut to your feelings,
and it leaves all sorts of questions up in the air.
With that, we wanted to scour the internet to find as many confirmed films as possible
beyond next year's Avengers 4 to perhaps find some clues as to what's going to happen next
year and what they may mean for the Avengers future of the MCU.
Beyond that, the fact that Disney is in the process of purchasing Fox means that soon
the X-Men will be able to fight either against or alongside the Earth's Mightiest Heroes
in the Avengers, along with Homer Simpson I guess, so let's break things down to get
even more hyped up than we already are while keeping in mind that some of this is simply
speculation that could become spoilers.
Antman and the Wasp
Ant-Man and the Wasp is one of those films that we know for a fact is coming out, as
we've seen both teaser and full trailer for this July 6th 2018 release.
The film reportedly takes place directly after the events of 2016's Captain America: Civil
War and finds Scott Lang under house arrest thanks
to his role in the airport battle in Germany.
The film seems to be somewhat about Lang's attempts to balance his roles of superhero
and father.
Also returning are Michael Douglas’ Hank Pym, Evangeline Lillie’s Hope Van Dyne—now
the Wasp—and first film scene-stealer Michael Pena.
In addition, there will be some new faces: Lawrence Fisburne is portraying Bill Foster,
the original Goliath or Giant Man, and Michelle Pfieffer is set to play the lost Janet Van
Dyne.
It’s rumoured that the disappearance that occurred after Thanos snapped his finger will
take place at some point during this movie, which could be an interesting way to end the
film, or perhaps Pym, Lang, and the Van Dynes are trying to find a way to stay safe from
Thanos by entering a realm his finger snapping can't reach.
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Venom
You might think that if Venom was part of the MCU that they'd be promoting the hell
out of it, because that could only help the film in terms of hype and money, but because
technically Sony still holds primary rights to all Spider-Man characters, they may be
hedging a bit.
Considering that this film will take place far away from Queens, in San Francisco, the
filmmakers could end up just showing Spider-Man on a news report in the background and that's
perhaps where the suit will get its aesthetic, as it'll see Spider-Man on screen and add
the spider to it's chest a la how Vision added his cape in Age of Ultron after looking at
Thor.
It's looking like Carnage might be the big bad of this film, played by Woody Harrelson,
and that Venom will be an anti-hero.
While that's disappointing considering there are some of us that have waited for decades
for a proper Maximum Carnage film, it could be worse.
Like, that dancing scene from Spider-Man 3 worse.
Captain Marvel
Captain Marvel is going to be the first MCU film with a female lead, which only took them,
what, ten years and twenty movies—not bad!
Anyways, she’s confirmed to be the strongest character that they've rolled out thus far
in the shared universe.
If you're unfamiliar, Captain Marvel is a pretty big badass.
She can fly, she’s so strong that she's nearly invulnerable, and she also has the
ability to shoot photonic energy from her hands.
She was an airforce pilot that had worked alongside with alien Kree Soldier Mar-Vell
and ended up getting her DNA infused with his, making her basically half human, half
Kree, which granted her her powers.
Beyond that, she’s also capable of "going binary", where she basically transforms fully
into her energy-manipulating state, her skin turns red and her hair becomes cosmic flame.
This makes her a pretty darn heavy hitter.
With the film being set in the 90's and the after credit scene from Infinity War showing
Nick Fury using a pager to contact her, the question is where has she been.
We'll find out next March!
Fantastic Four
The Fantastic Four are considered Marvel's First Family, as they came along at the beginning
of the Silver Age and set the tone of interpersonal drama and more emotional heroes in the Marvel
Universe.
They've been portrayed on film three separate times with a decent budget, and also three
separate times in terms of different teams.
But to be fair, two out of those three times one of the primary motivators to produce the
movie was just so the studio in question could retain their rights.
The best part of Fantastic Four, without a doubt, is their villains, as they have some
of the best Marvel villains under their IP umbrella.
From Dr. Doom, to Galactus and his heralds, to Annihilus, to Kang the Conqueror, there
are just so many to choose from, which could help the MCU with its notorious “villain
problem”.
They also do feel like a quintessential 60's comic book, and what would be amazing, just
saying here, would be if at the end of 2019's Avengers 4, some sort of wormhole opened and
a family of astronauts that were still wearing their 1960's, Planet of the Apes style space
suits, who got lost into a pocket dimension that placed them in suspended animation and
bombarded them with cosmic rays, reappeared.
Just an idea, Fox and Marvel, but if you’re into it, hit us up.
X-Men
A similar set of logic could be used to introduce the X-Men to the MCU, but maybe in a bit of
a different way.
Because the MCU has substituted Inhumans and the term “enhanced” in place of mutants,
they could perhaps use some of the events of Infinity War as a way of activating a dormant
mutant x gene in people.
Beyond that, and speaking of the word "Beyond", the big bad after Thanos could be the Beyonder,
who could combine the universe that the current MCU resides within, with the universe where
Fox's X-Men reside, to create the Battle World from the Secret Wars story arc from the 80's.
Granted, you'd think that the MCU would want to start fresh with the X-Men because of the
crazy timeline that Fox has created.
It would be great to have the original X-Men also be a part of a trip gone wrong that suspended
them in time or space since the 60's, with complete original 60's costumes and the 60's
line up.
The question then becomes who you cast as Cyclops, Jean Grey, Angel, Beast and Iceman.
While Wolverine joined much later, I'm sure no one would mind making an exception to add
him to that list.
Black Widow
The longest overdue film on this list is the upcoming Black Widow film starring Scarlett
Johansson.
Debuting way back in Iron Man 2, Black Widow has an extremely interesting back story only
touched upon in Age of Ultron.
While we don't really know how Natasha ended up in the Black Widow program, what we do
know is that she was a highly effective killer as a young girl, basically the head of her
class…in murders.
That process ended with the girls going through hysterectomies because the Soviets knew that
if the girls ended up having children that those kids would get in between them and their
country.
That’s really, really dark and something that'd be different for a Marvel film but
that tonal (and perhaps rating) difference could be a welcome change to what people are
used to from Marvel films and open up the MCU to different genres of film, like Fox
is doing with horror and The New Mutants.
Our best guess though, is that the film will focus on her going against Hawkeye, who she
explained to Loki in the first Avengers film was sent to kill her when she was young, but
ended up changing his mind and bringing her in to SHIELD to offer her freedom and a second
chance fighting for the "right guys".
That sounds like a pretty great spy thriller right there.
Dr. Strange 2
It's sort of funny to be talking about these films as a lot of the newer Avengers ended
up quite literally biting the dust at the end of Infinity War, but considering what
we know about the contracts for a lot of the newer actors, we know that most if not all
of them will be brought back somehow.
One of those main characters is Dr. Stephen Strange himself, a character who peered into
the furture (or more accurately, 14 million futures) to find the one way that the heroes
could actually beat Thanos, and even though that meant that he would "die", it was what
was best for humanity, so he went through with it.
That's actually not out of character for Dr. Strange, who died thousands of times at the
hands of Dormammu in his film, after catching the extra-dimensional being in a time loop
to save reality.
Rumors are that the writers for Doctor Strange 2 want to focus on Nightmare, another extra-dimensional
being that draws his powers from, surprisingly, nightmares.
He's actually a pretty big villain in the comics for Strange, but after the first film
you'd have to think that Baron Mordo would also come into play at some point in the second
film as well.
Dr. Strange was a truly amazing visual spectacle, making both Inception and Interstellar look
like Fried Green Tomatoes, so let's hope that they up the ante with the sequel to Strange,
as the first was one of the few that actually made seeing the film in 3D worthwhile.
Black Panther 2
It's not totally surprising to think that of the characters introduced in Captain America
Civil War, the one that would end up breaking all sorts of box office records would be Black
Panther, rather than our seventeenth Spider-Man or whatever.
While a $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion dollar total haul is impressive what's even more
impressive is the fact that almost half of that came from the domestic box office, as
Black Panther is the third highest grossing domestic film of all-time.
So far, not much is known about Black Panther 2 outside of the fact that it will definitely
happen despite T’Challas apparent death in Infinity War.
People think that it'll be released in either 2021 or 2022, but that rough guess is the
closest thing we have to details.
Our guess is that what happens in Avengers 4 will really shape a lot of these sequels,
especially if some of the rumored real deaths end up happening.
So, our money is that Black Panther 2 will focus on T'Challa struggling to balance his
role as king as well as his role as the leader of the new Avengers after some of the OG Avengers
like Captain America and Tony Stark either die or retire.
Sounds like a good time, especially since Donald Glover has been rumored as a potential
villain.
Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3
One of the least well received MCU films in recent memory was Guardians of the Galaxy
Vol. 2, but by least well received, we mean that it got about 82% on Rotten Tomatoes.
That's how popular the MCU properties have been historically, and especially as of late.
Regardless of whether or not that disappointed you as an MCU fan, you have to love the fact
that James Gunn and company have really taken Marvel from the earth and realism-based universe
that it was back around 2008-2011 to one that literally had a talking Raccoon and a sentient
baby tree fighting a planet with a brain at its center.
Wait a minute, did I just say “realism-based?”
One of those early movies has a blond god who swings himself around on a big hammer.
Anyways, things should only get more out there and awesome with Volume three, as James Gunn
has discussed the 2020 release a bit and from what we've gleaned it's sounding like they'll
not only pay off the stinger scene that hinted towards Adam Warlock, but also perhaps the
High Evolutionary and "Counter-Earth" as the place where Rocket was torn apart and put
back together over and over again.
Considering the fact that Warlock is known as the master of the Soul Gem in the comics
and Infinity War showed that at least part of Gamora's soul is alive inside that Stone,
perhaps they'll be using Warlock to get Gamora back out.
Spider-Man Homecoming 2
The first official film to be released after Avengers 4, is also currently in production
with a working title, as the studio doesn't want to give away too much.
Homecoming 2, as it's been called, is the follow up to 2017's smash hit Spider-Man:
Homecoming.
While Homecoming wasn't as large as the Tobey McGuire Spidey films, it eclipsed the returns
of the Andrew Garfield Amazing Spider-Man films and was received well by critics and
fans alike, setting the stage for an even bigger sequel.
Maybe the title hasn't been released because it could also be spoilery, as if you've seen
Infinity War you'll know that the most gut-wrenching part came from the disappearance of Peter
Parker after Thanos snapped his fingers and Spidey explained "Mr. Stark, I don't feel
so good..." among other things that we can't get into because we're OUT OF TISSUES OK.
With 2018's Venom film also being released by Sony, perhaps they'll be building towards
some sort of Maximum Carnage or Symbiote War storyline, or with the brief allusion to Scorpion
in Homecoming, maybe they're building towards a Sinister Six storyline.
Either way, Spider-Man is back on solid...
Wall and the sky seems to be the limit for the wall-crawler, especially since it's rumored
that Jake Gyllenhaal will be playing none other than Mysterio!
Spidey fighting in a trippy Dr. Strange-esque action sequence?
Yeah, we’re here for that.
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