Currently, it’s heavily rumored (if not confirmed) that Marvel is planning for Guardians of the Galaxy to be one of their 2014 mystery projects with Avengers 2 to be released in the Summer of 2015. Interestingly enough, it’s been revealed that the (rumored?) GoG release date has been moved to August, so where does that place the rest of the possible Marvel outings?
Also on the list (according to the exact same source that might just have the internet on the biggest wild goose chase since the rick-roll) is a script for a Black Panther film that is reportedly “incredible,” and a solo Black Widow script written by the same scribe that penned the already-praised Guardians of the Galaxy.
Add this to rumors of a new Hulk film coming in 2015, the Doctor Strange script that was commissioned last year, and Edgar Wright shooting test footage for his long-awaited Ant-Man film, and you have four too many films to fit into the Phase 2 storyline.
We’re too excited to wait for Marvel’s comic-con panel next week (hear about it here first!), so below is a short list of the films rumored to be in contention at Disney at the moment.
Rumored In Development
Guardians of the Galaxy
Black Panther
Ant-Man
Black Widow
The Incredible Hulk 2
Doctor Strange
See why we’re confused?
Edgar Wright still has the final installment of his Blood and Ice Cream trilogy to finish, so we can expect Ant-Man anywhere from the next two years to the next four years depending on how hot Marvel is for the test footage he shot last week.
If Joss Whedon had his way (assuming he’ll be in the director’s chair for the Avengers sequel), he would have had Ant-Man in the works before Avengers 1 just to be able to introduce Janet “The Wasp” Van Dyne into the Earth’s Mightiest Sausage-fest. Ant-Man is really the film that’s furthest in development with a completed script and a proof of concept already in the works.
However, it may just be better to stave off on Ant-Man all-together until after Avengers 2. We know that Edgar Wright is certainly in no hurry to produce it since his latest feature has barely even gotten off the ground.
As for Guardians of the Galaxy, even though it hasn’t yet been officially confirmed by Disney, it makes sense to lead into Avengers 2 and Thanos with the introduction of the Galaxy’s Mightiest Heroes. Our only question is, when will it make an appearance?
Directly before Avengers 2 might seem like the most obvious choice, but if we look closely at Phase 1, we’ll see that even though Thor is the clear lead-up to The Avengers, it still had a Captain America buffer to introduce what Joss Whedon eventually started calling The Mcguffinact (The Tesseract).
Couple this with the report from Latino-Review stating that it’ll be a 2014 release, and we have potential confirmation that we’ll see the Guardians only a few months after being re-introduced to Cap and the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Actually, it might make one hell of an after-credits scene.
So where does that put Black Panther? According to Latino-Review’s source (and we’ve come to trust LR), it’s already slated for a 2014 release, but doesn’t that put three films in 2014? Actually, that makes a good amount of sense considering that they gave Cap an April 2014 release instead of the May slot that they seem so fond of.
If that’s the case, then the actual Phase 2 roster may end up looking something like this-
Phase Two
Iron Man 3 (May 2013)
Thor 2 (November 2013)
Captain America 2 (April 2014)
Guardians (May 2014)
Black Panther (Aug 2014)
Avengers 2 (May 2015)
Is it rigorous? Yes. Ambitious? Yes. Marketable? F*** yes. This is, of course, if we follow the same model that Phase 1 has set up for us. Feel free to switch Black Panther and Guardians of the Galaxy if that’s your thing, but for whatever reason we’re foreseeing a whole “we’re from the future” end-credits scene between Fury, Cap and Rocket Raccoon now and we can’t get it out of our head.
Notice that we’ve gone ahead and given Black Panther the August slot that many (including we here at Hypable) have speculated belongs to Guardians of the Galaxy. Why? We don’t know, the odds might pay out well or something. At this point it’s anyone’s guess.
It might be safe to expect Ant-Man later on in Phase 3 (we’re getting to it), but don’t be surprised if he ends up stealing Black Panther‘s 2014 limelight.
“But Hypable,” we hear you ask, “what’s happening after Avengers 2? What will Phase 3 bring us, oh-masters-of-fandom-knowledge?”
With a total of zero confirmed films slated for Marvel’s Phase 3 (except for the inevitable Avengers 3), it gets a little more tricky, but we have a very strong tool on our side here. Six film contracts. Allow us to explain-
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