By Two days ago I was lucky enough to attend Marvel’s mystery event at the El Capitan Theater in Los Angeles. Now that I’m living in this city, I can see why it’s the sort of place movie fans love. Being a huge fan of the Marvel film franchise, the moment I heard about this event, I immediately jumped on the chance to go.
At first, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I thought they might announce who’s playing Doctor Strange and do a Q&A about that movie, maybe show some Age of Ultron and Ant-Man footage and that’d be it… But since DC and Warner Bros announced their line up of films for the next couple years, I hoped Marvel might show us a list of titles as well.
The moment Marvel Studios president, Kevin Feige, came out on stage, the excitement in the theater was palpable. He started out the event by showing us what we’d already seen thanks to a leak; the Age of Ultron trailer. Seeing it on the big screen was definitely a treat.
Following that, Feige began talking about the success of Guardians of the Galaxy, and the films they have scheduled for next year; Avengers Age of Ultron and Ant-Man. But then he said he didn’t have us all come there to see things we already knew about, and that was when things began to get really crazy.
What followed was Kevin Feige announcing Marvel’s schedule all the way up until 2019. It still amazes me that they can plan that far ahead, and part of me wonders when they’re going to have a flop, but so far they’ve consistently impressed me and everyone I know.
In 2016, Phase Three of Marvel’s movie franchise starts with a new Captain America film supposedly titled Serpent Society and Doctor Strange, though there was no announcement for who would be playing the Sorcerer Supreme. There’s been a ton of speculation as to who’ll play him, but we will still have to wait a bit longer for an answer.
2017 will bring three new films; Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Thor: Ragnarok, and another new character, Black Panther, played by Chadwick Boseman from Get On Up. Fans have waited a long time for a Black Panther film, and I’m glad to see such a good actor chosen for the role. Ragnarok also promises to be an exciting movie, as Feige said it’s going to pick up right at the end of Age of Ultron and change everything for Thor.
2018 also promises three films, and all of them are huge, exciting projects. The year kicks off with Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (with a title like that how could it possibly only be one film?), followed by Marvel’s first female led movie, Captain Marvel. With the success of Kelly Sue DeConnick’s run in the comics, it only makes sense to have this happen. The last film of 2018 is an odd one, but it’s also one I’m very excited about; Inhumans. It’s a comic about people who live on the moon and have bizarre superpowers.
Wrapping it all up in 2019 is the second installment of Avengers: Infinity War. Marvel even treated us to a teaser of the big bad, Thanos, with the Infinity Gauntlet, which sports all the stones from movies we’ve already seen; the Tesseract from the first Avengers film, the Aether from Thor: The Dark World, and the Orb from Guardians of the Galaxy.
Just when we thought the event was coming to a close, Feige began wondering if Captain America: Serpent Society was really a good title. Then, Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr, and Chadwick Boseman came out onto the stage and revealed the actual title of the third Captain America movie; Civil War. Even with all the other great announcements, this was easily the one that thrilled fans the most, especially since it resulted in a paper-rock-scissors game over who’d get Black Panther on whose side.
For any comic fan, this is huge. Civil War was a real game changer, and I’m extremely curious to see how it’s going to play out in the cinematic universe. With no real secret identities, I suspect it’ll deal more with how easily Hydra infiltrated SHIELD, and exactly how much Bucky Barnes should be held responsible for his actions as the Winter Soldier in the second Captain America film.
So, for the foreseeable future, Marvel has a great line up planned and I can’t wait to see how each one of these movies plays out.
Here’s the schedule with release dates and titles for all of Marvel’s upcoming films.
2015
May 1: Avengers: Age of Ultron
July 17: Ant-Man
2016
May 6: Captain America: Civil War
November 4: Doctor Strange
2017
May 5: Guardians of the Galaxy 2
July 28: Thor: Ragnarok
November 3: Black Panther
2018
May 4: Avengers: Infinity War pt 1
July 6: Captain Marvel
November 2: Inhumans
2019
May 3: Avengers: Infinity War pt 2