It’s been a pretty confusing couple of weeks. If needed, we could go ahead and expand that into the past year or so, but Marvel has so many rumored and confirmed films coming out of the woodwork that we figured it was about time we put them down on paper in order to figure out exactly what they’re trying to pull on us here.
First, a recap. Recall the five-film buildup that led to The Avengers. It was pretty sweet right? In just the first year of Marvel’s existence, we had Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, the former of which elevated the comic-book movie genre and the latter of which revealed exactly how powerful a crossover character (or six) can be.
It was at about this time that some big-wigged suits (namely Disney) sat at a table and decided that they needed to do this right. These movies couldn’t be produced at random and they needed to be planned from the start. They wanted to pepper these films with Easter eggs, clues, and little cameos by your favorite Marvel characters. Particularly the ones that are easily turned into toys.
It was then that Iron Man 2 was greenlit, along with Thor and Captain America, each solo outing providing an introduction to the characters that would eventually be found in The Avengers. If we’re working on the five-film phase system that Feige has already said that Marvel studios will be following, then that means the Phase One roster is as follows:
Phase One
Iron Man (May 2008)
The Incredible Hulk (June 2008)
Iron Man 2 (May 2010)
Thor (May 2011)
Captain America (July 2011)
The Avengers (May 2012)
It’s a no brainer right?
Here’s where it starts to get tricky. We only have four films officially confirmed by Marvel on the Phase 2 roster so far and a little less than half a dozen rumored projects. As it officially stands, here is the Phase Two roster.
Phase Two
Iron Man 3 (May 2013)
Thor 2 (November 2013)
Captain America 2 (April 2014)
Guardians (August 2014)
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Avengers 2 (??? ????)
No, we’re not insinuating that The Riddler is going to make a surprise DC/Marvel crossover, we just don’t have a confirmation yet about what will go there. What film could possibly fit in that slot? Before we get into that, let’s go ahead and think about a huge hint about Phase 2 that Joss Whedon and Captain America were so very kind to drop for us in The Avengers.
“Phase Two is S.H.I.E.L.D. uses the cube to make weapons” – Captain America (The Avengers )
Wow. That was pretty straightforward. Given that Marvel studios has taken to calling their six-film sequences “phases,” and The Avengers took a pretty big detour through S.H.I.E.L.D’s shady motives, it certainly seems like a plot point that won’t be wasted in the end.
We know enough about Phase 2 to know that Iron Man 3 will take Stark away from his technology and put him back into the cave, we know that Cap will re-team with S.H.I.E.L.D. for Captain America 2, and we’re assuming that Beta Ray Bill (the only other creature worthy enough to wield Thor’s hammer) will make a Thor 2 appearance, but everything else is still technically up in the air.
Unless, of course, you take a closer look at the rumors and quasi-confirmations we’ve collected from around the net…
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.
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-
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-
It’s become common knowledge now that every actor that signs up for a Marvel movie gets handed a contract that says “You WILL star in six of our films. We don’t just mean ‘make a cameo appearance’ either. You’re gonna star in six of these things.”
Then they have to sign it in blood and do the ancient dance of the mouse.
Disney contracting protocol aside, this makes predicting the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe a little easier since we can be guaranteed that Disney will try and keep Robert Downey Jr. in the game as long as possible, especially if they want the Iron Man/Captain America clash that was hinted at in The Avengers, and especially if they plan on going the full Civil War route for Avengers 3.
Does this mean that we won’t get another Iron Man film between Avengers 2 & 3? Yes.
According to Chris Evans, three stand-alone films and three Avengers films is very much the way that Disney is handling this, so unless they do market research and find out that audiences require a fourth Iron Man movie to maintain interest, they’ll keep that final film dangling in the balance until Avengers 3 just to ensure that he’d return.
Let’s go ahead and throw it up on the board just for continuity’s sake.
Not Iron Man 4 (May 2016)
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Avengers 3 (??? ????)
Yeah, that’s a pretty strong looking list up there.
Since we know that Ant-Man is in production, we may be able to plot him firmly into this area, preferably as early as possible as to not keep Edgar Wright hanging in the wings for too long.
We can probably expect to see either Captain America 3 or Thor 3 since they’re both big enough names to generate an audience (unless of course Marvel wants to save them for a post-Avengers 3 game plan), but we more than likely won’t see both in the same phase again.
This might also be a great time to throw in a second Hulk feature since fans proved with The Avengers that they would pay to watch Mark Ruffalo play Hulk over and over and over again.
Okay, we just want to see him take out a Leviathan the size of a city block with one punch again. Jesus.
Of course, since Ruffalo came late to the party, it may be accurate to assume that we’ll be seeing the Hulk even after Avengers 3 comes out (maybe in a Planet Hulk movie?)
Since the script for Doctor Strange is already underway and a Black Widow script is already completed, it might just be up to the discretion of Disney after the performance of the next six films to determine which one to greenlight first. It’s not a matter of which one will be greenlit, Avengers was big enough to convince any producer to invest in a related property, at this point it’s just a matter of when it will fit in.
Then again, Loki probably wouldn’t have brought up the hospital fire in Avengers if it wasn’t ever going to be brought up again.
Assuming that only one between Captain America 3 and Thor 3 gets greenlit, our vote is on Cap in preparation for a possible Civil War storyline, something that Feige has admitted he’s considering for the future of The Avengers.
With that, here’s an incredibly shaky and tentative prediction of how Phase 3 might play out.
Incredible Hulk 2 (May 2016)
Ant-Man (July 2016)
Black Widow (November 2016)
Doctor Strange (April 2017)
Captain America 3 (July 2017)
Avengers 3 (May 2018)