MCU: There Might Not Actually Be A Marvel Phase 4

It looks like we might be looking at a whole new way of classifying Marvel movies after Avengers 4 closes down Phase 3 (or at least after the other secret movies supposedly included as part of that Phase do).

Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige has spoke to Collider to say that they might be moving towards a different way to organise their films in future:

“We’ve been lucky that [contract expirations] haven’t factored in too much. We’ve had people under contract for certain films, then we’ve had new ideas and new directions like Civil War like we wanted to do, and we’ve been lucky enough to make new contracts. Or Spider-Man: Homecoming, the cast has been awesome in their enthusiasm for the direction and the storylines that we’ve been telling. So it really does, right now, all start with where we wanna take the stories. Certainly as we get to Infinity War there is a sense of a climax if not a conclusion to, by the time we’re at untitled Avengers 4, the 22 movies that will have encompassed the first three phases of the MCU. And what happens after that will be very different. I don’t know if it’s Phase 4, it might be a new thing.”

There's a lot to take from that. Primarily, the suggestion that we won't be getting a Phase 4 is a strange one, as it provides Marvel with a marketing opportunity (and a way of bundling the films to sell in home release). But then, having to announce entire Phases at once can lead to problems - like Inhumans being kicked off the slate to TV, for instance. That looks sloppy for a company that prides itself on planning.

It would be interesting to see Marvel adopt a similar approach to the comics, framing each new "phase" around an over-arching narrative event. So, say we get Secret Wars or Secret Invasion next: each film would be called Black Panther: Secret Invasion, Iron Man: Secret Invasion, and then stand-alones would be named with another convention, like Captain America Lives or The Spectacular Spider-Man.

The hint of contract expiries is also bound to be picked up on: does this finality that Feige mentions imply that we're going to be seeing those characters moving on and a whole new raft of actors brought in? He's previously not been shy in talking about recasting, and it would make a lot of sense to adopt a James Bond-like approach... Or maybe recasting and a move away from Phases could hint that we might get multiverse replacements for each character? That would be pretty neat.

He's also confirmed that Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers 4 are not shooting simultaneously - which always sounded like a struggle....

“We’re doing them one right after another… It became too complicated to cross-board them like that, and we found ourselves—again, something would always pay the price. We wanted to be able to focus and shoot one movie and then focus and shoot another movie."

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