If Phase 4 had you slightly concerned, rest assured that there’s a plan for the Marvel Cinematic Universe going forward, and it came into fuller focus at the D23 expo over the weekend.
On the heels of Comic-Con, where Marvel unveiled designs for a film and television slate stretching until 2025, a bevy of buzzy trailers and announcements were revealed Saturday during the studio’s presentation at the semi-annual Disney event.
While Marvel held back on major casting news (Penn Badgley, blink twice if you’re Mister Fantastic), attendees were treated to exclusive footage from upcoming films like “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” as well as Disney+ series like “Loki” and “Ironheart.”
But Marvel also dropped a handful of sneak peeks online, including trailers for “Secret Invasion,” which marks Samuel L. Jackson’s return to the MCU, and the first look at the upcoming Halloween special “Werewolf by Night,” starring Gael García Bernal.
(Hopefully, none of these upcoming projects will involve the sort of exploitive post-production process that a growing number of visual effects artists have said the studio indulges in.)
Check out the most exciting trailers and announcements below.
“Secret Invasion”
After an extended sojourn off-planet, Jackson’s Nick Fury is firmly back in action for the upcoming Disney+ series “Secret Invasion.” Pulled into the fight by Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), Fury will face off against a sect of Skrulls, shape-shifting creatures who’ve been working undercover for years to infiltrate Earth.
Returning characters include Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) and James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), but the cast of the six-part limited series is also stacked with new faces like Kingsley Ben-Adir, Olivia Colman and Emilia Clarke. “Secret Invasion” is set to premiere in 2023.
“Armor Wars”
“Armor Wars,” Cheadle’s long-promised solo adventure sans Iron Man, will pick up where “Secret Invasion” left off. No details about the plot have been released, but according to Empire, the series will follow Rhodes (aka the superhero War Machine) as he tracks down “people who have stolen versions of his late friend Tony Stark’s tech.”
“Werewolf By Night”
Marvel is officially staking its claim in the horror genre with “Werewolf by Night,” a one-off black-and-white Halloween special coming to Disney+ on Oct. 7.
Helmed by famed composer Michael Giacchino in his directorial debut, “Werewolf by Night” will feature a bevy of paranormal baddies who go bump in the night (zombies and demons and cults, oh my!). García Bernal stars as the titular lycanthrope, who shapeshifts at night due to his family curse. The cast also includes Laura Donnelly, Harriet Sansom Harris, Jaycob Maya and Eugenie Bondurant.
“She-Hulk”
“She-Hulk” is already in full swing on Disney+, but the mid-season trailer promises even more fun for lawyer Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany). Most notably, Charlie Cox’s Daredevil, who returned to the MCU for a cameo in “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” will stop by to counsel (and potentially flirt with) our titular hero as she continues to grapple with her dual identities.
“Thunderbolts”
DC has its Suicide Squad; Marvel has the Thunderbolts. The team-up film will pull together antiheroes from across the MCU for a new mission contracted by Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.
The lineup features morally ambiguous characters of all types, including Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes, David Harbour’s Red Guardian, Wyatt Russell’s US Agent, Hannah John-Kamen’s Ghost and Olga Kurylenko’s Taskmaster. The film is set for release in 2024 as the final entry in the studio’s Phase 5.
“Fantastic Four”
Fans were hoping for a slightly more fantastic casting announcement, but the studio chose not to reveal who’ll be suiting up to play Marvel’s first family. Instead, boss Kevin Feige confirmed that Matt Shakman, who worked on “WandaVision,” will direct the upcoming movie after Jon Watts dropped out of the project earlier this year. The latest take on the superhero group is slated to arrive in theaters in 2024.
