This is a big week for Marvel. The studio is finally unveiling The Fantastic Four: First Steps in a matter of days – perhaps its most important film since Endgame, finally bringing characters who couldn’t be more a cornerstone of Marvel’s comics history into the MCU at last. Since Marvel’s First Family has never quite been captured right on the big screen, First Steps is a chance to turn things around. And clearly the studio sees this as the start of a new era in Marvel – not just the beginning of ‘Phase Six’, but an ideal opportunity to pull back the curtain on the future of the cinematic behemoth.
Over the weekend, Marvel boss Kevin Feige invited several US outlets to its headquarters for a big sit-down conversation – talking about the next steps for Marvel Studios. There, he teased that the studio has “a seven-year plan”, as Deadline reports, that “goes to 2032.” Those plans aren’t all set in stone (“It’s on magnets, it can move around,” Feige said) but they contain the essence of Marvel’s future plan. While the more immediate future will bring Spider-Man: Brand New Day in summer 2026, and the double-whammy of Avengers: Doomsday (currently in production, due in December 2026) and Avengers: Secret Wars (down for 2027), there are big things to come.
One of which is – still – the Mahershala Ali-starring Blade. It’s been years in development now, with several false starts, which Feige was open about. “You can start and have a good script and make it a great script through production, but we didn’t feel confident we could do that on Blade,” he explained. “We didn’t want to do that to Mahershala and didn’t want to do that to us.” While some shelved versions of the film were set in the 1930s (recently, it was reported that period Blade costumes were sold to Sinners’ production), Feige stated that “we landed on modern day and that’s what we’re focusing on.” There’s still no confirmation of when Blade is expected to land, but Marvel seems intent on doing it right. “We didn’t want to put a leather outfit on [Ali] and have him start killing vampires,” said Feige. (Though, that sounds like the right general idea.)
Also on the horizon is a new generation of X-Men, expected to land in the wake of Secret Wars – of which Feige spoke about how it will somewhat reset things after the reality-shattering sprawl of the Multiverse Saga. “Reset, singular timeline — we’re thinking along those lines,” he said, as reported by Variety. He added that: “‘X-Men’ is where that will happen next.” While discussions of Marvel’s X-Men plans remain largely under wraps, Feige did indicate that the film – reported to be directed by Thunderbolts*’s Jake Schreier – will focus on a young, fresh cast. “[X-Men comics] have been a place to tell stories about young people who feel different and who feel Other and who feel like they don’t belong,” he said. “That’s the universal story of mutants, and that is where we’re going.”
It remains to be seen exactly how The Fantastic Four: First Steps will land with critics and audiences, and if Marvel can work back towards the giddy heights of Endgame. Whatever happens from here, the saga is far from over.
