Marvel has accomplished something in the movie industry that had never been done before, stitching together 23 films over more than a decade that culminated in the studio’s latest Avengers installments: Infinity War and Endgame. The latter broke several box office records, crossing $1 billion in sales during the first weekend, and overtaking Avatar as the highest-grossing movie ever. While the Infinity Saga concluded earlier this year with Spider-Man: Far From Home, Marvel still has plenty of stories left to tell.
The studio already unveiled plans for the Phase 4 of the MCU, which will contain more TV series than before thanks to Disney’s streaming service, and confirmed some of the other MCU films that are in the works, including Black Panther 2, which will be one of the first Phase 5 movies in 2022. Marvel hasn’t unveiled any Avengers 5 plans, but it can’t afford to ignore its most prized property. Marvel went on record to say that an Avengers adventure of the same scope as Endgame might take another decade to brew, while an insider teased that the next installment in the series will be a reboot for the team.
Marvel’s producer Trinh Tran tackled Endgame sequels in an interview with CinemaBlend, teasing that we might have to wait a long time for the MCU to build towards another epic Avengers adventure:
Our focus right now is to make sure that the titles that we’ve released in Phase 4… obviously, those stories are going to be new, exciting, different, and can connect with the audience like the other movies have been. Over 10 years ago, it’s always been our dream to get to Infinity War and Endgame level. We didn’t know obviously where that was going to go at the start of the studio, but it’s incredible to know that we were able to accomplish that. Now it’d be amazing if we could get to that level 10 years later, so I think it’s a dream to continue doing that and build upon the MCU and the connective tissue that we have. And now with obviously our Disney+ side and the shows and how our characters are venturing into that world and how that’s gonna lead to the future and more franchises and more stories and more properties and their connective tissue to the rest of the MCU, it would be amazing to do something like this 10 years later.
We speculated a while ago that Marvel would have to make more Avengers films, but noted that it has to build up the team before doing so. Of the original six, Iron Man and Black Widow are dead, and Captain America is retired. Hawkeye and Thor are also expected to pass on their respective batons to their successors.
All the other heroes could also benefit from more standalone adventures of their own, which could further increase their status with fans. Doctor Strange is cool and everything, but he’s no Tony Stark. Moreover, Marvel is about to introduce a large number of new heroes in Phase 4, with the X-Men, Deadpool, and the Fantastic Four expected to arrive in Phase 5.
Not to mention that we need to meet the next Thanos-level villain that would warrant an epic team-up. Rushing to create an Endgame-like success in the following two to five years might not be the greatest idea.
In response to Tran’s statement, a Hollywood insider who provided plenty of Marvel scoops in the past tweeted that Avengers 5 will likely be a return to the basics, similar to what we got in the first two Avengers films.
Hell the next IW/Endgame type MCU event will need to have a LOT more heroes and teams than IW/Endgame so… 10 years sounds about right to introduce them all!
— Daniel Richtman #BlackLivesMatter (@DanielRPK) October 26, 2019
Phase 4 starts with Black Widow on May 1st, 2020, and ends with Thor: Love and Thunder on November 4th, 2021.
