Marvel, Making Movies Until 2020
Comic book movies are here to stay, at least Marvel believes that they will be until 2020. In a recent announcement, the powerhouse studio broke two big pieces of news; first they announced a sequel to this summer’s lackluster Ant-Man. Minor spoiler here, the sequel will be called Ant-Man and the Wasp and will pick up where Ant-Man’s stinger scene left off. This announcement is a bit of a surprise since fan-favorite director Edgar Wright left Ant-Man early in production, and his departure is largely blamed for the movie’s failure. It seems that Marvel is not ready to give up control of their properties and that could stand in the way of innovative film makers making the amazing movies that fans want to see. Not only did they fit another movie into their already busy Phase 3 plans, but they also revealed that they are adding three new untitled films to their roster all set to release in 2020. Last we heard, Marvel didn’t have much planned past the release of Inhumans in July of 2019, so the announcement of three new movies is a bit of a surprise.
Coming soon to a theater near you…
While it’s entirely possible that fans could see some more of their favorite properties transition to the big screen, we can’t dismiss the likelihood that at least one of those 2020 movies is a planned sequel. Marvel has a bit of an ego about their success and I would not put it past them to prepare for future box office success booking sequel dates long before the original films release. But suppose all three movies are original franchises, what can we expect to see?
Runaways and Nova. Both would rock the big screen. GET ON THIS MARVEL!
Well, it is far too early to say for sure, but there are a few directions Marvel could take. Firstly, there is a ton of potential in reboots, and comic book movies are old pros at the art of reinvention. Marvel is not likely to take another shot at adapting the Hulk to the screen anytime soon, there are all those great franchises that have been off the big screen long enough that a remake might be interesting. Think of the potential for a new series of Blade movies, or Ghost Rider sans Nic Cage. For all the great characters that Marvel could revisit, there are twice as many that still have not had their film debut. What about a a film version of the Runaways? Nova Corps was featured in Guardians of the Galaxy but there’s still lots of room for Richard Rider’s story, and maybe even a galactic crossover? Marvel still has tons of potential characters to choose from and what we’ll see on screen in 2020 is anyone’s guess, but what we do know is that Marvel isn’t done with superhero movies. If they keep trusting visionary directors like James Gunn, the next five years could be very exciting.
