The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) continues to expand, with several movies planned for each year for the next several years. And with the pending Disney-Fox purchase, that could get even larger with the inclusion of the X-Men and/or Fantastic Four franchises. It’s good to be the king, so they say.
Here are the upcoming MCU movies we have concrete information about.
Black Panther
Black Panther seems even more of a must-watch property than the average MCU film. It’s going to be next to impossible to ignore the racial element of the film, but the fact of the matter is that it’s going to do something that hasn’t been done before and has a great deal of talented people in front of and behind the camera. It looks fantastic, too, and is sure to feature a solid villain and some great action scenes. Director Ryan Coogler hasn’t steered us wrong yet.
Avengers: Infinity War
The third Avengers movie promises to finally have the titular superhero team square off against Thanos, the big bad who has been teased and intermittently seen for what feels like a decade at this point. Infinity War was at one point a “Part 1” film before the filmmakers decided that it was enough of its own project to give it a unique title. It sounds like it’ll have some earth-shattering consequences for the rest of the cinematic universe.
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Scott Lang’s life was irreversibly changed after donning the Ant-Man suit a couple of years ago. He’s an Avenger now! And in Ant-Man and the Wasp, he’ll be going on a new mission—but he won’t be going alone. As was teased in the first film, Hope van Dyne will get to use the Wasp suit, and she’ll use that to aid Lang.
It’ll be interesting to see if the filmmakers try to make Ant-Man and the Wasp feel bigger and more important than the first Ant-Man. One of the things to appreciate about the first is how it feels pretty well self-contained and doesn’t feel like its primary purpose is to sell us on future movies. Will they abandon that now that he’s part of “the team”? We’ll see.
Captain Marvel
While a Black Widow movie is reportedly in the works, maybe, possibly, someday, the first female-led MCU film will be Captain Marvel. Brie Larson signed on to play the hero shortly after winning an Oscar, and the directorial duties will be handled by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. Beyond that? We don’t know a whole lot about what the plan is.
Avengers 4
We don’t have an official title for the fourth Avengers movie. It was originally going to be called Infinity War—Part 2 but the decision was made to give it a unique title, which is set to be revealed after Infinity War is released. What that means, likely, is that the title will play off some of the events that happen in Infinity War. Avengers 4 is set to conclude “Phase 3” of the MCU.
