Kevin Feige dropped some bombs at the Marvel panel at San Diego Comic Con, confirming that Marvel’s Phase Four will consist of Fantastic Four, Black Panther 2, Captain Marvel 2, Blade and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, among many other previously announced projects.
Black Widow will see the return of Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff, and will also include David Harbour and Rachel Weisz amongst the cast. The Eternals will be lead by Angelina Jolie, and will also feature Salma Hayek, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Lauren Ridlof, Brian Tyree Henry, Lia McHugh, and Ma Dong-seok. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will star Chinese-Canadian actor Simu Liu.
The biggest surprise announcement was that Thor 4, titled Thor: Love and Thunder will see the return of Natalie Portman to the MCU (her appearance in Endgame was unused footage from Thor: Dark World), after it seemed she was done with the franchise. Love and Thunder will see Portman’s Jane Foster take up the mantle of a female Thor (as seen in the comics).
The other big news was that Oscar winner Mahershala Ali will be taking on the role of Blade, replacing Wesley Snipes, who portrayed the Daywalker in the previous three New line Cinema films. Ali is no stranger to the MCU (or MCU adjacent) having portrayed Cottonmouth in the first season of Netflix’s Luke Cage.
Doctor Strange 2 will be titled Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness and it will be more of a horror vibe to it, more so than anything else we;ve seen so far in the MCU. We also learned that Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch will be a key supporting character.
No real info was provided regarding Fantastic Four, Black Panther 2, Blade, Captain Marvel 2, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, though the announcement of Thor: Love and Thunder makes us wonder how Thor will fit into Guardians 3, as Endgame implied a Asgardians of the Galaxy in the MCU. Not surprising was that Spider-Man was nowhere to be seen, as Marvel may lose the rights to Spidy back to SONY if Far from Home doesn’t reach $1 billion at box office, though it seems likely that it will.
Here’s the slate of Phase Four films and Disney + series thus far:
Black Widow (May 1, 2020)
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (Disney+, Fall 2020)
Eternals (November 6, 2020)
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Feb. 12, 2021)
WandaVision (Disney+, Spring 2021)
Loki (Disney+, Spring 2021)
Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness (May 7, 2021)
What If…? (Disney+, Summer 2021)
Hawkeye (Disney+, Fall 2021)
Thor: Love and Thunder (Nov. 5, 2021)
Source: THR, SyFy, CinemaBlend
