By now, word’s out that seismic events have struck the fictional narrative that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as a result of what happened during the final act of Avengers: Infinity War. The question is, though, where do we go from here?
The unique feature of the MCU – the thing that sets it apart from every other movie franchise – is the way in which each installment ties in to the rest of the series. It’s a complex undertaking, when we consider that the franchise has been carefully constructed over the course of a decade, comprising 19 films so far. Each of those tales is required to form just one component part of the larger tapestry and, as such, Avengers: Infinity War surely causes the most problems to solve in terms of story progression.
The interesting point to note about the upcoming MCU movies that’ve been confirmed is that there are five of them, at the current time: Ant-Man And The Wasp, Captain Marvel, Avengers 4, Spider-Man: Homecoming 2, and Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3. They’re very deliberately divided by the fourth Avengers movie, too, as in terms of the MCU narrative timeline, Ant-Man And The Wasp and Captain Marvel are both set before Thanos’ snap – which means they’ll not be providing any closure to the nail-biting cliffhangers that created.
Instead, after Avengers: Infinity War’s traumatic ending, we’ll have two movies essentially filling in some important, existing gaps, before we head into next May’s sequel to pick up those maddeningly loose story threads. Then, it’s all to play for, as we head into Phase Four with Spider-Man: Homecoming 2 and Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3.
And so, on that note, join us as we take a look into the future and see where the MCU is headed, and what the next five releases might offer.
