Marvel is preparing to continue its onslaught of film releases as it has just announced six new release dates for future films taking the Marvel Cinematic Universe through to May 2019. Of course, we already know they have plans for through 2028, but one step at a time.
As people continue to wonder if Marvel will eventually shift the May 6, 2016 release date of Captain America 3 now that Warner Bros. has set Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice for the same date, it’s quite clear Marvel isn’t interested in deviating from the “plan”. The same could be said for why they decided Edgar Wright wasn’t right for Ant-Man and sent him packing. As for that May 2016 release date, Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige says, they aren’t moving
“We are doing what we’ve always done,” Feige told Empire, “which is sticking to our plan and sticking to our vision for the movies going forward and we have a very large vision that we’re working on for Cap 3 and for all the threes movies and just because another movie plops down onto one of ours doesn’t mean we are going to alter that. Maybe we should, but we’re not going to.”
Taking that into consideration, studios may as well look at the following release plans and just cross these dates off their list, and quite likely the weekends after.
- August 1, 2014: Guardians of the Galaxy
- May 1, 2015: Avengers: Age of Ultron
- July 17, 2015: Ant-Man
- May 6, 2016: Captain America 3
- July 8, 2016: TBD [presumably Doctor Strange]
- May 5, 2017: TBD
- July 28, 2017: Guardians of the Galaxy 2
- November 3, 2017: TBD
- May 4, 2018: TBD
- July 6, 2018: TBD
- November 2, 2018: TBD
- May 3, 2019: TBD
The most notable thing here is 2017, a year in which Marvel will deviate from their two films a year and go for three, one of which I can only assume will be Avengers 3, which has to be the major culmination of Phase 3… don’tcha think? Something in which the Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers come together to defeat a big bad villain? After all, 2018 looks like it will be the first year they actually give up that start of summer, May slot. Something big has to precede the break… right?
UPDATE: Marvel has added a sixth date to the list, that being May 4, 2018, a date previously occupied by The Amazing Spider-Man 4, but we all saw how that situation has turned out earlier today as The Amazing Spider-Man 3 has moved to an unknown date in 2018, and it looks like it won’t be May 4.
