Marvel Won't Announce Future Slate Until After 'Spider-Man: Far From Home'

Marvel Studios set a new precedent when it announced literally years of movies in advance. But the studio weathered scoffs and skepticism to become one of the most lucrative companies today, and the originator of the modern cinematic universe.

But as that 10-year plan comes to an end with the upcoming Avengers: Endgame, the Marvel future slate remains curiously blank. The next wave, commonly called Phase 4, has not yet been announced by Marvel chief Kevin Feige, and it seems like it will stay that way for a few more months.

In an interview with ComicBook during the Captain Marvel press junket, Feige confirmed that the Phase 4 Marvel movie slate will be revealed after both Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home hit theaters:

"As we've been doing for years, we aren't going to announce anything post Avengers: Endgame or Spider-Man [Far From Home] until post-Endgame and Spider-Man. As you know as a fan, there's a tremendous amount of potential and a tremendous amount of additional characters and storylines and groups of characters that we're going to keep playing with. And again, that's a testament to Marvel and to the amount of storylines and characters and amazing, amazing runs that have been in the Marvel comics."

That means we won't get any news about the planned Marvel future movies until after July 5, 2019, when Spider-Man: Far From Home swings into theaters. That puts the supposed announcement right in time for this year's San Diego Comic-Con or D23 — so we can expect big news coming from either of those conventions.

However, it is unusual for Marvel to keep us in the dark for so long, especially as their rate of two or three movies per year could grow with the imminent addition of the X-Men and Fantastic Four into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But when it comes to those two properties, Feige adopted his classic tight-lipped stance, telling ComicBook, "We've always said there are no mandates to make any more than two films a year, but, as we've seen the last couple years, when it naturally happens, and when there are ideas and when there are teams ready to go, we're not going to hold something back."

So what films can we expect to be among the announced future Marvel movie slate? The embattled Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is a likely candidate, as is the highly anticipated Black Widow solo movie, The Eternals, Shang-Chi, and sequels to Doctor Strange and Black Panther. But beyond those films — which at the current MCU rate, will come out in the next five years or so — the slate remains a mystery. And it's possible that Feige won't reveal any films beyond the ones we already know of. "I don't think we'll be announcing five or six years, but we know sort of where we want to head in the next five or six years."

As the MCU prepares to head into the cosmic realm, it seems that Phase 4 will continue to be as mysterious as the vast reaches of space. But keep an eye on this space as we learn more.