We all know that Phase Four was not the finest era of the MCU, from the botched execution of divisive projects like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love and Thunder to its shockingly lackluster box office reception. And yet, there’s still a lot of optimism in the fandom that the incoming Phase Five can right the ship, with Marvel Studios hopefully learning the right lessons from the missteps of the past couple of years.
Well, Phase Five has yet to officially start, but it’s already looking like the next wave of the MCU is going to fail to learn from the one thing that Phase Four actually got right. Let’s remind ourselves of Marvel’s movie release schedule for 2023. First, Feb. 17 delivers Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, before Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 follows on May 5. The summer blockbuster slot is then filled by July 28’s The Marvels. And that’s our lot.
This lineup is in sharp contrast to the studio’s releases in both 2021 and 2022, which saved up perhaps their most-anticipated new film of the year until its final months. Namely, Sony co-production Spider-Man: No Way Home (Dec. ’21) and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Nov. ’22). In both cases, these movies unsurprisingly turned out to be Marvel’s biggest successes of their respective calendar years and made sure that the MCU bowed out on a high each time.
OK, so there’s no movie coming out in the second half of 2023, but what about all the TV series we’ve got to come? Unfortunately, it might be the same story there, too, as both Echo and Agatha: Coven of Chaos are rumored to have been hit by delays, which would push them from their “late 2023” slots into early 2024. This isn’t confirmed as yet, with Echo specifically perhaps holding onto its release window, but there’s a real chance that we may have a serious Marvel drought post-summer.
Honestly, this is something that could even continue in 2024 to boot, considering September’s Blade is the last film to come out next year. Phase Five may well still improve on some of Phase Four’s failings, but it’s sadly already dropping the ball in one major way that could really affect the fans’ enjoyment of the Multiverse Saga as a whole.
