Pandemic nightmares. Twitter scandals. And the master plan to end all master plans.
Where’s Phase 4 of the MCU headed? Depends on which universe you're in.
Kevin Feige has never made it a secret that he likes to plan out projects in the MCU far
in advance. Back in August 2013, he revealed that he had already been discussing films in
the franchise that would release as late as 2021. The following year, he announced that
Marvel had plans for motion pictures laid out through 2028. In a 2016 interview with Collider,
Feige confirmed that Marvel Studios had specific movies in mind that it wanted to release on a
handful of 2020 release dates; even then, he seemed to know just how Phase Four would pan out.
Feige has also been open about the fact that, sometimes, these plans do change — such as
the studio's team-up with Sony to produce the Spider-Man movies. But there are still always
ambitions in place for what the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will look like.
Rome wasn't built in a day, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe was not formed overnight.
Speaking to Rotten Tomatoes in June 2021, just as Black Widow was about to premiere in theaters,
Kevin Feige said that the prep work for Phase Four had largely been done over a five- or
six-year period. However, he also pointed out that other characters in this stretch of
the MCU had been gestating for much longer than that. Specifically, he noted that the
character of Shang-Chi had been worked on in some way shape, or form for "10 or 15 years."
That's not just PR hype from Feige, either. Back in 2005, the Los Angeles Times reported
on the creation of Marvel Studios and its intent to produce self-financed movies;
it also revealed that one of the characters eyeballed for a solo movie was Shang-Chi.
"Welcome to the circus."
Of course, this finally came to pass in 2021 with Shang-Chi and
the Legend of the Ten Rings. The lengthy amount of time it took for Shang-Chi to
reach movie theaters isn't the norm for all Marvel Cinematic Universe projects,
but it does reflect how long it took certain Phase Four projects to come about.
In April 2017, Kevin Feige explained that plans were already well underway for the
follow-up to the MCU's third phase. Though he was vague on the specifics at the time,
he did note that there were notions that the term Phase may be abandoned altogether.
A staple of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since its inception,
Feige explained to Collider that what followed Phase Three would be a "new thing."
Part of that meant finding a new term to refer to a collection of Marvel Cinematic Universe titles,
or even abandoning the practice of grouping together various installments in the franchise.
In retrospect, it's easy to see why Feige would harbor such feelings,
given how Avengers: Endgame, the penultimate entry in Phase Three,
was such a gargantuan game-changer for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It would only make sense that
he might want to utilize new terminology for how the various features are organized. However,
this potential move never came to pass, with Kevin Feige officially disclosing
details about Phase Four at the San Diego International Comic-Con in July 2019.
After the many delays brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic,
Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe began with Black Widow in July 2021. However,
in an alternate timeline, Phase Four would have kicked off with a very different feature.
"Welcome to the frickin' Guardians of the Galaxy."
Initially, the first post-Phase Three entry in this saga would have been
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which was penciled in for a May 2020 opening. The
three-year gap between Vol. 3 and its predecessor would have nicely mirrored
the length of time between the first two Guardians of the Galaxy movies.
Having Phase Four kick off with a buzzy sequel like Guardians of the Galaxy
Vol. 3 would also have proved hugely beneficial to the franchise. However,
those plans were scuttled in July 2018 when James Gunn was fired from the movie after
controversy erupted over the filmmaker's past controversial tweets. With Gunn gone,
there were initially reports that Marvel Studios still planned to move forward with Vol. 3 and get
it out in time for a May 2020 debut. However, Gunn would eventually be welcomed back to the project,
though his commitments to The Suicide Squad ensured Vol. 3 would have to wait until May
2023. This opened the door for Black Widow to take over as the debut Phase Four film.
As Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 hit movie theaters, writer/director James Gunn confirmed
his intent to make a third installment in this sci-fi series. While Gunn reaffirmed even back
in 2017 that this would be the final Guardians film he would write and direct, he did note that
his influence might be felt in the Marvel Cinematic Universe beyond that franchise.
Speaking on Facebook Live, Gunn revealed that he would be helping to mold the vision for
the cosmic side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for years to come. Referring to Vol. 3, he said:
"It will help set up the next ten to twenty years of Marvel movies."
Gunn did not specify what kind of Phase Four projects he could be involved in,
though this potential influence got sidetracked once he was temporarily fired from Guardians
of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Gunn's focus on the DCEU kept him busy in the years before he
started shooting the third Guardians chapter. Though Gunn has yet to follow up on whether or
not he was able to exert his influence on the cosmic adventures of Phase Four,
it doesn't seem particularly likely — especially considering his busy schedule outside of the MCU.
Years before Kevin Feige and the Marvel Studios brass officially confirmed what
projects would make up Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe,
the rumor mill attempted to fill in the gaps. But it wasn't until 2018 that a new concept of
Marvel Cinematic Universe storytelling emerged. This was when Variety broke the news that Marvel
Studios was developing a collection of TV shows for the then-upcoming Disney+ streaming platform.
The outlet revealed that these small-screen endeavors would focus on characters such
as Loki and Wanda Maximoff who hadn't yet received their own solo big-screen outings.
This news was important for a variety of reasons, but especially because it revealed
that Marvel Studios was, for the first time, planning on moving into the world of television.
Up to this point, small-screen programming that utilized characters from MCU movies
had been made by the studio's sister division, Marvel Television. But with this new wrinkle in
Phase Four, Marvel Studios would be expanding its narrative horizons. In the process, this
early rumor guaranteed that Phase Four was going to be unlike any other Phase in the MCU to date.
Phase Four's exploration of the world of television goes far beyond the miniseries,
however, as the MCU is also delivering certain stories as holiday TV specials.
Once the domain of Rankin-Bass programming like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,
Marvel Studios is hoping to tell grander tales that can also double
as festive entertainment tied to the biggest holidays of the year.
The first of these projects was announced in December 2020: the Guardians of the Galaxy
Holiday Special. A longtime passion project for James Gunn, the production was confirmed by Gunn
to act as a kind of prologue to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. With this reveal, it
became clear that these holiday specials weren't disposable goofs but essential parts of the Phase
Four narrative. This isn't the only holiday special on the docket for Phase Four either,
as an untitled Halloween special directed by Michael Giacchino is also on the way,
rumored to be based on the character Werewolf by Night. With these two projects, Phase Four has
continued to reshape the way in which the MCU can tell stories — on both the big and small screen.
When Kevin Feige first publicly spoke about the prospect of Marvel Studios making original
programming for the Disney+ platform, he was very insistent that these shows would
not be removed from the continuity of this franchise's movies. Back in February 2019,
Feige told Comicbook.com that these Disney+ programs would be, quote, "entirely interwoven"
with the theatrical slate of Phase Four MCU releases. This was in sharp contrast to how
previous TV shows based on Marvel characters had tended to function. By and large, they had
been mostly separate from the feature-length narratives in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
And Phase Four of the franchise has managed to live up to Feige's words.
WandaVision set the stage for Wanda Maximoff's villainous behavior in Doctor
Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, while Ms. Marvel sets up its titular
superhero so that she can serve as one of the leads of the 2023 project The Marvels.
"Oh, no…"
Black Widow's Yelena Belova showed up in a guest star capacity on Hawkeye,
and it's fair to assume that The Falcon and the Winter Soldier planted seeds that will one day be
sowed in Thunderbolts. Perhaps most importantly, Jonathan Majors debuted as a version of Kang the
Conqueror on Loki before stepping into a much larger role in movies such as Ant-Man and the
Wasp: Quantumania and Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. It's clear that Feige's mission to
narrow the gap between big and small-screen storytelling has very much come to pass.
Looking back on the Phase Four movies announced at the San Diego International
Comic-Con panel in 2019, you can immediately spot a few recognizable
titles. Projects such as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Thor:
Love and Thunder were among the most exciting to be announced at the event — but one Phase Four
film notable for its absence was Spider-Man: No Way Home. This was despite Spider-Man:
Far From Home opening a few weeks before the panel and going on to crack $1.1 billion worldwide.
It would later turn out that its absence was no mistake, as Sony and Marvel were
in the middle of negotiations at the time over the future of Spider-Man.
This would eventually result in the two companies parting ways in August 2019,
with Sony planning to continue the exploits of Tom Holland's Spider-Man in their own movies.
Eventually, an agreement was signed that reunited the two companies to
produce another solo Spider-Man movie, resulting in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
In the first three Phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it was difficult to figure out how the
franchise connected to the broader franchise of Netflix characters such as Daredevil, Jessica
Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist. While these shows would often reference MCU events or characters,
the movies never returned the gesture. Once the Marvel/Netflix shows were axed in late 2018
and early 2019, it seemed like this chapter of Marvel storytelling had come to a close.
But then came the absorption of Marvel Television into Marvel Studios. The two
entities had previously been wholly separate, complicating any potential crossovers between
their projects. However, now that they were under the same umbrella, small-screen Marvel projects
could be more easily ingrained into the wider MCU. An especially exciting example of this took place
in Spider-Man: No Way Home, in which Charlie Cox's Matt Murdock makes a cameo appearance.
It was the first time a Netflix character had appeared in an MCU movie, but it wouldn't be
the last. Vincent D'Onofrio appeared as Kingpin in Hawkeye, Cox returned for She-Hulk, and, in 2022,
Marvel announced Daredevil: Born Again, a Disney+ series slated for release in 2024.
To bring to life some of its Disney+ programming,
the various branches of the Walt Disney Company have turned to turning screenplays
for unproduced movies into longer limited series. The most high-profile example of
this so far has been Obi-Wan Kenobi, which utilized enough key plot points and characters
from a planned movie to give that feature's screenwriter a full credit on the project.
"Hello there."
A lesser known example of this trend can also be found in one of the Phase Four TV shows, Hawkeye.
Apparently, Hawkeye was still a movie back when Jeremy Renner first signed on — but it
would later morph into one of the first Disney+ shows created by Marvel Studios. The studio's
ability to transform a prospective movie into a TV show with such ease demonstrates that,
with its small-screen projects, Marvel has mostly been looking to make elongated movies
rather than traditional episodic TV shows. It also reflects the ambitions of Disney as
a streaming empire, one that won't let any feature film script go to waste.
It's difficult to imagine that only one aspect of Phase Four's narrative was affected by the
COVID-19 pandemic. After all, there are so many movies and TV shows to juggle in this saga,
and so many characters and intertwining storylines in all of those individual productions, that
surely a lot must have been changed, right? Well, apparently not. Speaking to On the Red Carpet,
Feige claimed that only one significant change had occurred in response to the pandemic.
Per Feige, the shadowy benefactor Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine was supposed to
make her MCU debut in Black Widow, in which she appears in the post-credits scene. Instead, she
turned up in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, due to the shifting timeline that occurred as a
result of COVID-19. While it's doubtful this was the only change to Phase Four's story informed
by the pandemic, it is the only alteration that Feige has so far been willing to speak about.
Throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, movie studios used streaming services to debut movies
that never before would have been considered for small-screen premieres. Would new Pixar
titles ever have been thought of as fodder for straight-to-streaming debuts? Similarly, would a
mammoth blockbuster like Dune ever have been given a simultaneous HBO Max launch in any other era?
The global health crisis inspired unprecedented actions from almost every industry on the planet,
so it should be no surprise that the entertainment industry followed suit.
"Well, in 120 years of movies being in our cinemas,
we've never had to shut down like this before."
Talking to Rotten Tomatoes, Kevin Feige explained that, even knowing how the pandemic had affected
movie theaters, the feature-length efforts from Marvel Studios were never considered
for streaming. In this same interview, Feige recalled how his favorite experiences with
these movies involved watching them on the big screen, surrounded by enthusiastic audiences.
Considering that, Feige noted that he had remained dedicated to keeping the movies in Phase Four as
theatrical events. Only one film, Black Widow, had a dual release, both in theaters and on Disney+.
While the MCU has a reputation for maintaining a long-standing and reliable plan for its
productions, the franchise has often been forced to delay projects under certain circumstances.
The Avengers was originally set to debut in July 2011, for instance,
before being delayed to May 2012. Similarly, Doctor Strange was postponed by four months from
its initial July 2016 bow to ensure that Benedict Cumberbatch could play the titular superhero.
However, Phase Four of the MCU took the cake in terms of release date shuffles,
largely thanks to the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some films in Phase Four moved around more often than others due to the pandemic. Thor:
Love and Thunder was especially vulnerable to release date tweaks.
Initially set for a November 2021 premiere when it was first announced in July 2019,
Love and Thunder would eventually be delayed multiple times, including briefly scoring a
Valentine's Day weekend opening, before settling on a July 2022 launch date. Other projects such
as Black Widow and Eternals also received a year or more's worth of delays due to the pandemic.
For obvious reasons, 2021 was something of an odd year for the theatrical box office.
Features came roaring back to movie theaters, and many managed to do solid box office numbers.
However, with COVID-19 vaccines still making their way across the general populace,
people felt varying degrees of comfort with going to the movies. This, and plenty of other factors,
doubtlessly impacted the worldwide box office returns of the first three installments
in Phase Four. This trio of projects scored the lowest worldwide box office
hauls for any Marvel Cinematic Universe project outside of The Incredible Hulk,
with Black Widow being only the second project in this series to make under $400 million globally.
However, there is some context needed to better understand these grosses. For starters,
Black Widow was given a simultaneous premium-video-on-demand debut on Disney+,
which doubtlessly cut into its grosses. Even more importantly, none of these movies were
released in China. Every Marvel Studios project released in this territory from 2017 to 2019
exceeded $100 million, with all three of the company's 2019 productions grossing over $150
million in China alone. A standard theatrical box office haul in China would have boosted all
three movies past the $500 million worldwide mark. Still, all three found some form of box
office success — and particularly Shang-Chi, which was briefly the biggest domestic movie of
2021… before Spider-Man: No Way Home returned the franchise to its former box office glory.
"I love you guys." "Thank you."
For Phase 4 of the MCU, Marvel Studios has tried to forge even deeper bonds than usual with some
of its most important talent. This is in sharp contrast to the previous eras in the company's
history. Save for a three-year contract in 2012 keeping Joss Whedon around to work on assorted
projects, Marvel Studios hasn't kept filmmakers under long-term contractual obligations. This
has made it extra easier for directors like Scott Derrickson and Jon Watts to leave prospective gigs
without having to navigate how it might impact their contractual obligations to the studio.
But that has changed with Phase Four, with Ryan Coogler being the most notable example
of a director who opted to sign on for the long haul. As part of his overall contract with Disney,
Coogler was on the hook to oversee a new Disney+ Marvel show set in Wakanda. At the end of 2021,
it was announced that Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton would be helming a sequel to that
movie, and it soon became clear that he had also signed a long-term contract with Marvel Studios.
Sure enough, in 2022, it was reported that he would be directing Avengers:
The Kang Dynasty and overseeing a Wonder Man series for Disney+. For Phase Four and beyond,
it seems that Marvel Studios wants to keep a tight hold of its most talented artists.