The Marvel panel at San Diego Comic-Con’s Hall H panel left all of us awestruck. Phase 4 is going to have a ton of new and returning faces. From a horror sequel to Doctor Strange, to Tony Leung playing the Mandarin in Shang-Chi, to mother-effing Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster becoming Thor, it was just stacked. But after Feige announced the five movies and five Disney+ shows that’ll make up the post-Infinity Saga, he let a few nuggets drop. The biggest of these is, yes, Mahershala Ali as Blade. But he said some other things about a possible Phase 5.
There’s just one more thing… #SDCC pic.twitter.com/0Q3F4AZJLg
— Dustin Sandoval @ #SDCC (@DustinMSandoval) July 21, 2019
He mentions a few titles “he didn’t have time” to discuss in full. Probably because they’re a few years away yet. Feige mentioned Black Panther 2, Captain Marvel 2, and Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3; all of these were either already announced or almost assured given their box office takes. Black Panther $1.3 billion worldwide and Captain Marvel made $1.1 billion; uh, yeah, they’re getting sequels. But, he tossed off “we didn’t have time to talk about Fantastic Four” and “we didn’t have time to talk about ‘the mutants'”. This could be just a cute tease for people who’ve followed the Disney/Fox deal. But, three sequels plus three new-to-the-MCU movies (including Blade) and that’s a pretty nice Phase 5.
It is, of course, only a matter of time before the X-Men and Fantastic Four join the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Feige has said in the past that the X-Men’s inclusion would be a few years away; Phase 4, as we’ve seen, lasts through 2021, meaning the earliest we’d get to see Marvel’s First Family and the Xavier School would be 2022. In truth, I’m guessing it’ll at least be 2023, toward the end of Phase 5.
But, that doesn’t mean we won’t start getting hints earlier. We’ve long said the Fantastic Four‘s roster of villains is one of the most robust in Marvel Comics; we’d love to see hints at Galactus or Annihilus or, hopefully, a proper version of Doctor Doom way early. And you can’t just suddenly launch the X-Men, but you could bring in their storylines via their weird cosmic stories, a-la the Shi’ar Empire.
It’s a really exciting time to be a fan of Marvel, and rest assured we will get FF and X-Men in the MCU proper in the near future. Will it be Phase 5? It’s distinctly possible.
Images: Marvel
Kyle Anderson is the Editor at Large for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!