The dust has only just settled on the Marvel Studios panel at San Diego Comic Con, and despite the huge number of announcements it still feels as though the 90 minute showcase wasn’t long enough. The studio’s slate for Phase 4 is looking much clearer than it was earlier on today though, and the information divulged by Kevin Feige sent the fans wild.
On both the big screen and Disney Plus, The Eternals, Shang-Chi, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love and Thunder, Loki, WandaVision, Marvel’s What If…?, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Hawkeye and Black Widow were all given their moment in the sun, capped off by the revelation that two-time Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali will be spearheading a Blade reboot.
Even the projects that weren’t part of the presentation will generate huge discussion though, with Feige officially confirming for the first time that movies based on the Fantastic Four and the X-Men are in active development. Everybody knew this was going to happen the minute Disney acquired the rights to the characters as part of the 20th Century Fox takeover, but when telling the crowd about the movies they didn’t have time to feature, Feige casually dropped the bombshell, saying:
“We didn’t even mention that we’re making Black Panther 2. We didn’t even talk about that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is coming. We didn’t have time to talk about Captain Marvel 2. I didn’t even have time to talk about the Fantastic Four. And there’s no time left to talk about mutants and how mutants come into the MCU.”
Kevin Feige on bringing back #Marvel’s first family the Fantastic Four #SDCC https://t.co/KN7sAI9ED1 pic.twitter.com/IaQ6zsipdK
— Variety (@Variety) July 21, 2019
While it was a foregone conclusion that both the Fantastic Four and the X-Men would be making their way into the MCU at some point in the near future, this is the first time it’s been acknowledged so overtly.
The Fantastic Four haven’t had the best of luck on the big screen, but if anyone can get the characters right, it’s Marvel Studios. As for the X-Men, Dark Phoenix brought Fox’s time at the helm of the franchise to a disappointing end, with the future of the long-delayed New Mutants still in doubt. There’s already been twelve X-Men movies since the year 2000, and the speculation about Deadpool 3 isn’t going away either, so it might be best if the MCU waited a while before reintroducing the property to audiences.
In any case, now that Kevin Feige and co. have confirmed their plans, we imagine we’ll be hearing more on each franchise soon, so stay tuned.
