Even though the Marvel cinematic universe is fast approaching its 10th anniversary, it doesn’t mean it’s slowing down at all, it’s quite the opposite, especially with the recent success of ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ hammering that point home.
2018 will be a big year for Marvel with the release of ‘Black Panther’, the first Marvel movie with a black actor in the lead, and obviously the much anticipated ‘Avengers: Infinity War’. The release of the third instalment of the Avengers franchise in May will also mark the 10th anniversary of the release of ‘Iron Man’, which kicked off Marvel Studios’ grand cinematic universe experiment. And now, basically a decade later, MCU’s success is unmatched by any other franchise in Hollywood.
In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, ( https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/11/marvel-cover-story?mbid=social_twitter ) Marvel Studios’ president Kevin Feige teased the fans by saying that the as-yet-untitled fourth Avengers movie, scheduled for 2019, will “bring things you’ve never seen in superhero films: a finale.”
Even with the almost overwhelming star-studded Avengers franchise coming to an end, with the contracts of key actors like Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, and Scarlett Johansson about run out after the last Avengers movie, there’s not much to worry about. Marvel owns the rights to 7,000 characters, and they will for sure bring a lot of them to the big screen very soon.
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The cover story with Vanity Fair featuring the conversation with Feige took an in-depth look at the history of the MCU, talking about everything from the wildly successful Thor: Ragnarok this year to the very first Iron Man film back in 2008.
Till now, Marvel has already released or plotted 22 MCU movies, from ‘Iron Man’ through to the end of the studio’s ‘Phase Three’ arc, which wraps with a fourth and supposedly final Avengers film in 2019, closing out the Infinity War story.
According to Feige, they’ve “got another 20 movies on the docket that are completely different from anything that’s come before — intentionally.” He added, “There will be two distinct periods. Everything before Avengers 4 and everything after.”
But, all we know is that everything will be different, and that’s building up more excitement for the fans, but that’s pretty much it for now. Marvel is not ready to reveal its post-Avengers plan as yet. As of now, we only know of two confirmed upcoming sequels in Feige’s alluded-to “second period” of 20 new films post-Avengers films: a ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ sequel in 2019, and a third ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ film to be released in 2020.
Marvel Studios has done a marvellous (pun intended) job of elevating a bunch of heroes and villains to household names and it will be interesting to see all the new characters that are about to come our way, especially when there are 7,000 characters to choose from, making the possibilities basically infinite.