Most people were under the impression that the Marvel Cinematic Universe operated by the rule of three, with next summer’s Thor: Love and Thunder the exception that proved the rule by giving Chris Hemsworth’s Odinson his landmark fourth solo outing.
Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man and Chris Evans’ Captain America headlined three movies apiece, James Gunn is calling it a day after Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Tom Holland has likened Spider-Man: No Way Home to the end of an era, while Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame are technically two halves of the same story, so even Earth’s Mightiest Heroes adhered to the trilogy model if you want to split hairs.
However, longtime Marvel Studios producer Nate Moore claims that it happened completely by accident, where he explained the approach to sequels in a set visit interview from the set of Eternals, via ScreenRant.
“Even in Phase 1, I would argue did not think ‘Oh, we’re definitely going to do three films and then be done,’ So again, as Kevin would say, ‘let’s put all the great ideas in this film and then see if people like it.’ So we don’t necessarily have a trilogy planned out, it’s not something that is a must have. Obviously, we hope people love the movie and obviously we have ideas just as fans where we could go, but there isn’t a hard and fast rule of like we got to have three of these things and this is the first.”
Three standalone adventures seems to be the norm for the MCU, and while it may not have been a deliberate move, it’s also hard to imagine someone of Kevin Feige’s expertise not realizing that so many of his marquee characters were starring in trilogies before calling it a day. So far, the only major name we can safely say won’t be getting to the magic number is Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, but only because she’s dead in the main timeline.
