by: Donna Whitehead
Marvel held a press event this morning in Los Angeles’ El Capitan Theater, where they announced some big news about their upcoming movie slate. Actually, they announced a lot of big news: four new movies, one big casting announcement, and a slew of plot-revealing titles for their previously announced properties.
The biggest news? Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and the Inhumans are all officially getting their own movies. This isn’t totally out of left field, as there have been rumblings about Black Panther and Captain Marvel for a couple years now. And rumors about an Inhumans movie started to spring up a few months ago, when Guardians of the Galaxy star Vin Diesel posted a Facebook message that hinted he might be appearing in such a film. (Diesel’s involvement has not been officially confirmed.) Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. fans (I know there have to be a few of you out there) will also be interested to know that the existence of The Inhumans makes the direction of the show’s current mystery more or less certain.
Marvel also confirmed that Captain Marvel (a name that’s been applied to several characters in the comics) will feature the Carol Danvers version, making it the first female standalone film in the universe. There’s no word yet on who will play Danvers; that information will likely wait until after the writer and director are announced, said Marvel president Kevin Feige. We do, however, know that Chadwick Boseman (Get on Up) will play Black Panther, and that he’ll appear in Captain America 3.
Speaking of Captain America, the third installment just got an official title: Captain America: Civil War. Again, it’s not a big shock, since it’s been known for a week or so that Marvel was going to work its notorious Civil War storyline into the movies. Exactly how they’re going to do that remains unseen; the comic book Civil War hinged on a government program that required masked superheroes to reveal their identities, but the MCU doesn’t really have masked heroes yet. Nevertheless, since Robert Downey Jr. has been confirmed for Civil War, we’re almost certainly going to see some kind of major rift between Iron Man and Cap, as in the comics.
Other movies in the Marvel line-up that have been given titles are Thor 3 (now Thor: Ragnarok) and Avengers 3 (now Avengers: Infinity War — Part I). In case you’re wondering about that “Part I,” here’s another announcement from the press conference: There will definitely be a fourth Avengers movie, and it’s going to be called Avengers: Infinity War — Part II. The title Infinity War indicates that, as expected, the third and fourth Avengers movies will deal with the Infinity Stones that were introduced in this year’s Guardians of the Galaxy, and feature Thanos as the major villain. (It also makes the rumored Avengers/Guardians team-up very likely.) As for Ragnarok, the comic book storyline takes place during the Civil War event (naturally), and focuses on a cyborg clone of Thor.
Basically, we should all expect big things, and new things, from Marvel in the next few years. The company that invented the shared cinematic universe seems to be intent on reinventing it as well. Marvel took a big step in The Winter Soldier by dismantling S.H.I.E.L.D. — and I imagine it’s only the first of many major changes that the MCU will see. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait.
The new official Marvel slate is as follows:
05/05/2015: THE AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON
07/17/2015: ANT-MAN
05/06/2016: CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR
11/04/2016: DOCTOR STRANGE
05/05/2017: GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 2
07/28/2017: THOR: RAGNAROK
11/03/2017: BLACK PANTHER
05/04/2018: THE AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR PART I
07/06/2018: CAPTAIN MARVEL
11/02/2018: THE INHUMANS
05/03/2019: THE AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR PART II
