In today’s top secret press event, Marvel Studios attempted to break the internet in half by announcing the full slate of Marvel movies, taking us right up to the end of Phase 3.

Studio president Kevin Feige was first to take the stage at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles. He began by jokingly thanking Hydra for the recent leaked teaser trailer for the upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron. He was then Joined onstage by Joss Whedon, and they thanked the audience – along with a video message from director James Gunn – for the Studio’s success so far. Fiege then expressed his desire “to talk Phase 3”.

First up, ‘Captain America: Civil War’ will be released on May 16, 2016, and will kick off Phase 3. Yup, Ant-Man will end Phase 2. Initially they misled the crowd by announcing the title as ‘The Serpent Society’ before revealing the actual title. Fiege also later revealed that Black Panther will appear in ‘Civil War’.

Next up came the official announcement for ‘Doctor Strange’, to be released on November 4, 2016. No casting news was officially announced, although recent reports suggest Benedict Cumberbatch is in final negotiations for the role. Scott Derrickson will direct. Fiege mentioned the the film “Will open up a whole new world for the MCU…as well as the supernatural side and other dimensions”.

The still untitled sequel to ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ has been moved up to May 5, 2017.

‘Thor: Ragnarok’ was announced for July 28, 2017. Fiege explained that ‘Ragnarok’ means ‘The end of all things’, but didn’t give much else away.

This was the point where things got BIG. Fiege officially announced that ‘Black Panther’ will be released on November 23, 2017, with Chadwick Boseman in the starring role.

Next up: ‘Captain Marvel’ is slated for July 6th, 2018. No casting news as yet, but the lead character will be Carol Danvers! Fiege pointed out that the film has been in the works for al long as Doctor Strange has, adding “This is the time to bring out Captain Marvel”. Director and writer announcements will come before any casting news.

They then CONTINUED with even MORE announcements, namely ‘team’ superhero movies with ‘Inhumans’ set for release on November 2, 2018.

At this point Robert Downey Jr and Chris Evans came onstage to huge applause to announce ‘Avengers: Infinity War’, which will be released in two parts, with parts 1 and 2 arriving on may 4 ,2018 and May 3, 2019, respectively.

Phew! Is that enough for us? Fiege also mentioned that Drew Pearce’s ‘Runaways’ script is still in the vault, and that he would love to use those characters someday, but nothing is set in stone just now. For the time being, I guess us fans are sated, excited, and slightly mindblown by these announcements. Let the casting rumours commence!

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The writer of this piece was: Alan Shields aka (Al)
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