Let’s just say that 2023 was not a good year for Marvel. Bob Iger has said they “lost a little focus”, and has reorganized future plans to include fewer movies per year, there’s only one in 2024, and fewer shows on Disney+. It’s all too little too late to correct a year that saw The Marvels become their lowest-grossing movie ever, Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania disappoint critically and financially, and Secret Invasion get some of the worst reviews of any Marvel project. There are a number of changes still to come as Marvel attempts to recover, and THR has details on what those will entail. The first is one that many have been predicting for months.
The writing has been on the wall since before Jonathan Majors was found guilty in his domestic abuse trial. Avengers: The Kang Dynasty will undergo a title change, and probably see the villain’s role in the film reduced since that’s what Marvel was trying to do, anyway. Fans didn’t really take to him in Ant-Man 3, either. The film is still scheduled to open in summer 2026, although it still needs a director since Destin Daniel Dretton dropped out.
With Marvel having finally found its Fantastic Four with Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Joseph Quinn, the script is getting a rewrite. Eric Pearson, who is basically Marvel’s clean-up hitter, has come in give the screenplay a pass. He’s already done work on Black Widow, Thor: Ragnarok, and Thunderbolts. Speaking of which…
Thunderbolts is getting a bit of help from The Bear co-showrunner Joanna Calo, who will take a shot at the script. The film centers on a team of antiheroes and villains, including Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Black Widow (Florence Pugh), Red Guardian (David Harbour), USAgent (Wyatt Russell) and more as they try to work as a team for the government.
“The focus is internal this year,” an insider said about the initiative going on at Marvel Studios.
Part of that means fewer projects overall. Only Deadpool & Wolverine is on the calendar for 2024. Thunderbolts arrives in May 2025, while Fantastic Four is in July of the same year, but they shouldn’t have a ton of company as Blade is expected to move into 2026.
