MARVEL Wants One Sequel and One New Series Every Year

By Adam Holmes on Tuesday, October 22nd, 2013

Kevin Feige continues to make his rounds on the “Marvel Studios Tease Tour,” where he gives us just enough information to contemplate and discuss for months, but nothing too specific. Except that today, he did give us a brief glimpse into the future of the Phase 3 movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

While talking with SlashFilm, Feige said that with their formula of releasing two movies each year, they’re going to try to follow the pattern of releasing one movie based on an existing character and another based off new ones.

I think it’s important, in an ideal world, that we have an additional story on a pre-existing character and then introduce a new character. So next year is The Winter Solider, Guardians…Year after that, Age of Ultron, Ant-Man. That’s a nice rhythm. It might not always be like that. I mean [this year was] Iron Man 3 and The Dark World, so it won’t always be like that necessarily, but that’s certainly something to aim for. So we have additional stories of the existing characters in development and the new ones, all of which you’ve heard before.

Feige also confirmed that there will be a Thor 3, although it’s only in the idea phase right now, and reiterated that any official announcements regarding Phase 3 films would be made right before Comic-Con 2014 at the earliest.

I’m not too surprised by Marvel’s decision to alternate between existing characters and new ones. Although this year’s movies had us watching the exploits of Iron Man and Thor, next year begins the trend by reuniting with Captain America and being introduced to the Guardians of the Galaxy. 2015 will have Avengers: Age of Ultron and Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man.

Sure, we’ll probably not get any Captain America or Thor movies past a third entry, but one of the main reasons for the Marvel Cinematic Universe it to introduce non-comic reader audiences to characters who haven’t been represented on the screen yet.

My only suggestion is for Marvel think outside the box with the characters they pick for their next movies. While I do like the cosmic-scale and SHIELD-related stories, there other aspects of Marvel that have yet to be explored. Doctor Strange has been suggested as a possible movie: he would be a good way to explore the mysticism of the MCU. Plus, not every threat is going to be from aliens or maniacal government and business officials. Street crime is still a problem, and introducing Moon Knight or Luke Cage would allow us to get a look at the gritty side of Marvel.