After a couple of years of not knowing the MCU plan after Endgame, Kevin Feige took to the stage at Comic-Con to unveil the full Phase 4 line-up. There were some pretty big surprises with the most unexpected reveal being tied with Natalie Portman returning to the Thor franchise as the Goddess of Thunder and a reboot of Blade starring Mahershala Ali. Eleven new titles were confirmed (spanning movies and shows for Disney+), and you'd think that would be enough, but Feige recently commented that they considered announcing Phase 5 as well.
“We debated what we should announce today. Should we announce 4 and 5? We’ve planned them out, we’ve got five years down the road, and I was like, I think eleven projects in two years is plenty, having not mentioned anything for two or three years.”
In the runup to Endgame's release, Feige revealed that Marvel has a five-year plan in place for what the next five years of the MCU will bring its fans. Naturally, there were several movies not mentioned that we already knew were in development. Black Panther 2, and Captain Marvel 2 were widely expected to be part of Phase 4, the original plan was to have Guardians Vol.3 ready for 2020, but that became impossible after James Gunn booked The Suicide Squad in his hiatus as writer/director. Sometime in 2022 seems like a reasonable bet for when we as the Guardians of the Galaxy again, possibly joined by Thor.
In a separate interview, Feige was quizzed about what the future holds for The Avengers teasing that the new team will be "very different" from what has gone before.
"Yes, and it will be a very different team than we've seen before. That's what Endgame was all about. It will be a very different incarnation of the team with some people you've already met and some people we haven't met yet."
We'll have to wait and see which familiar faces and what new heroes will be on The New Avengers team, but there is a lot of new corners of the MCU being explored. Phase 4 kicks off on May 1, 2020, with Black Widow. For a full rundown of all the MCU titles coming our way over the next two years, check out this handy guide.