With Captain America: The Winter Soldier now out in cinemas around the world (and it’s awesome), Marvel Studios president and god-who-walks-amongst us Kevin Feige has revealed that the plans for the Marvel Cinematic Universe stretch well beyond the end of Phase 3. Indeed, they push deep into the next decade.
In a recent interview with Business Week, it’s noted that there’s a chart in Feige’s office that maps out the direction of the next few sets of films:
There’s a map of films reaching far into the next decade on the wall of Feige’s office. “It’s like looking through the Hubble telescope. You go, ‘What’s happening back there? I can sort of see it,’ ” he laughs. “They printed out a new one recently that went to 2028.”
Over the course of the last 8 films, Marvel Studios has earned well over $5.7 billion dollars at the global box-office. Beginning with 2008’s Iron Man, a risky venture for a fledgling studio, Marvel can now boast that it’s had back-to-back films join the $1 billion plus club with The Avengers (2012) and Iron Man 3 (2013). This week’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier is already set to make April records, with strong openings internationally already.
The films have been both interconnected and standalone to date, setting the model for what is to come over the coming phases. If the gamble that is Guardians of the Galaxy is a hit in August this year, the possibilities are endless. To date, we know of Avengers: Age of Ultron on 1 May 2015, Ant-Man for 17 July 2015 and seemingly, Captain America 3 on 6 May 2016, going head-to-head with Warner’s Man of Steel sequel.
Yet 14 years is a long time, and actors will age and drop out of the running in the meantime. Will it be possible to continue without the characters we’ve grown to love over the last six years, or will recasting and rebooting be inevitable? Or will the phases move on to a different set of characters, building around a new star and a different part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe? The upcoming Netflix deal focusing on the formation of The Defenders could be a soft-launch into this new territory.
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[…] a TV series into their Marvel Cinematic Universe. Indeed, recent announcements indicate that their plans extend to 2028, presumably including at least a third team-up of their Avengers. A release date stand-off will […]
[…] to believe that it was only 6 years ago that Marvel began their journey, one that would lead to a series of films mapped all the way out to 2028. The character of Iron Man was largely unknown to the general public at the time of release, but […]