Marvel Studios announces Phase 3 films up to 2019

Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase 3 finally begins. After the launch of Avengers: Age Of Ultron teaser trailer last week (another one, containing new scenes, will be released again later today), Marvel Studios announce their full Phase 3 plan, including release dates for said films. Age Of Ultron is confirmed for next year and will close Phase 2, meanwhile Ant-Man has already been announced at San Diego Comic-Con this year, so these two movies don’t play a large part in the announcements.

Perhaps the most exciting part is the announcement of The Black Panther movie. Chadwick Boseman is playing T’Challa and he will have a cameo in the next Captain America movie, which was initially announced as ‘Serpent Society’ (later on, this was proven to be a red herring and Marvel officially announced that it would be a Civil War movie.) Boseman appeared on stage at the Marvel event where the announcement was made, together with Robert Downey Jr and Chris Evans.

Without further ado, here they are in all of their glory.

2016

Captain America: Civil War (6 May)
Doctor Strange (4 November)

 

2017

Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 (5 May)

Thor: Ragnarok (28 July).

Black Panther (3 November)

2018-2019

Avengers: Infinity War – Part I (4 May 2018)

Captain Marvel (6 July 2018)

Inhumans (2 November 2018)

Avengers: Infinity War – Part II (3 May 2019)

 

Black Panther Concept Art

Marvel also released the following concept art for the Black Panther. (This is so exciting!)

 

Marvel Studios panel at Hall H, SDCC ’14

Marvel Studios bring out their big guns to Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con, holding panels for their 2015 films: Ant-Man and Avengers: Age Of Ultron. As usual, Kevin Feige is there to lead A-listers in the panel with Chris Hardwick conducting.

During the Ant-Man panel, Peyton Reed shows up “to polite applause”. I guess people are still not to keen on him being the director of Ant-Man after Edgar Wright left. He establishes his own Ant-Man geek cred though; apparently “he’s a huge fan and drew himself as Ant-Man on a flyer for his punk band, Johnny Quest.” He’s still not Edgar Wright but I think I’m ready to move on now.

A few announcements are made for Ant-Man. Casting-wise, Paul Rudd and Michael Douglas are called “Ant-Men”, playing Scott Lang and Hank Pym respectively. Corey Stoll is cast as Darren Cross/Yellowjacket. Evangeline Lilly is cast as Hope Van Dyne, Janet’s daughter. Filming of Ant-Man begins on 18 August 2014.

Despite not having filmed yet, there’s a footage show. As usual, the description was live-bloged by Comingsoon.net‘s Silas Lesnick earlier:

The footage begins as a shot moves through a lab.

We see beakers filled with colored liquids.

A glass cage with an anthill inside

We hear Rudd and Douglas talking

Pym tells Lang that he wants him to be Ant-Man because he’s a regular guy

It sounds like he has no love lost for The Avengers

Rudd is terrified

“Geez Lang,” says Pym, “You’d think someone only shrunk your balls.”

It cuts to a rooftop. Ant-Man is there, tiny

It looks like he’s being pursued by full-size people

An Ant lands and Lang climbs on his back, still terrified

Pym talks to Lang through the helmet, guiding him

It looks like the helmet is damaged and Lang is having some trouble

It looks like he’s inside a computer maybe

Pym tells him to run and he jumps off a huge ledge

A flying Ant catches him as he falls and the logo comes up!

Next up is Avengers: Age Of Ultron. Which is a riot. Because the cast is huge (I think there were more people on this panel than in The Hobbit panel) although Joss Whedon and Scarlett Johansson are not there. Whedon is laid up in London due to knee injury, meanwhile Johansson is due to give birth anytime now. So there were ‘only’ Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, Cobie Smulders, Samuel L. Jackson, Paul Bettany, James Spader, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen.

There were reportedly a lot of shenanigans during the panel but I’d rather not focus on that. The video is bound to show up soon and I believe we can all watch it for ourselves. More importantly, there’s a footage from Age Of Ultron that is described by so many people.

Here’s Silas Lesnick’s version:

It’s the Avengers, hanging out together.

They’re out of costumes and all trying to lift Thor’s hammer

Tony can’t do it

He tries again with an Iron Man hand

He still can’t

Even with War Machine’s help, he can’t

Neither can Banner

Cap moves it a little!

Silas Lesnick: A big noise distracts them

It’s an old suit, moving like a zombie, entering the room… It’s Ultron!

“There’s only one path to peace,” he says, “Your extinction!”

A montage of scenes. Black Widow in her new suit with blue lining

Banner in a straightjacket?

Tanks fighting in the snow

“It’s the end,” says Stark. “The end of the path I started us on.”

“Nothing lasts forever,” says Widow

Hulkbuster armor!

Going toe-to-toe with the Hulk!

“Look,” says Ultron, seemingly in his finished form, “No string on me”

Tony in what looks like a wasteland. All the Avengers are lying, bruised and beaten before him

And Empire Magazine has this description on Twitter:

Five highlights of the Avengers footage…

5. The gang all trying to lift Mjolnir at a party. Thor laughs until Cap manages to wobble it.

4. Ultron, having just built himself, crashes that party and declares war on mankind. Spader’s voice is menacing – perfect.

3. Hulk vs Iron Man in his Hulkbuster armour. Hulk throws a car at Stark. What could have happened to make the Science Bros so angry?

2. The final shot: Stark staring at Cap’s shield, which has been broken in half. Pull back to reveal: the Avengers, destroyed? Maybe…

1. And the final reveal of Ultron, declaring there “are no strings on me”. He’s going to be a formidable opponent, a robot with personality.

Full story here.)

After the footage, Thanos himself came on stage… Josh Brolin came with the Infinity Gauntlet (and ate a purple flower).

The panel was closed by a video greeting from James Gunn and Chris Pratt in London. Gunn announces that Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 is happening. The release date is 28 July 2017.

Excitement all around thanks to these announcements. It makes being sleep-deprived worth it.

I have some more photos for you…

  

Best of the Avengers: Age of Ultron panel. pic.twitter.com/4313Ociepb

— Ryan Turek (@_RyanTurek) July 27, 2014

San Diego Comic-Con: Iron Man 3 Panel (Hall H)

In case anyone couldn’t be at San Diego Comic-Con this year (like me and a million of other people), there were some interesting new developments about PHASE TWO of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In this year’s Marvel Studios panel in the famed Hall H, just an hour after Warner Bros./Legendary Pictures buzzing panel, Kevin Feige & Co. announced what will be the next step they’ll take for their post-The Avengers take.

Some of these updates are:

• Iron Man 3 is currently filming (halfway through).
• Captain America‘s sequel gets the title Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
• Thor’s sequel gets the title Thor: The Dark World.
• Edgar Wright is working on Ant-Man and he’s taking “the Terrence Malick approach to superheroes” to explain why the progress is so slow.
• There’s going to be a new superhero team movie, The Guardians Of The Galaxy.
• The Guardians Of The Galaxy line-up: Star-Lord, Draxx the Destroyer, Groot and Rocket Raccoon and Gamorra)

Now, I am not there personally but I have a Twitter filled with various accounts of movie websites and I followed live-blog from this great site called Coming Soon and Super Hero Hype. Thanks to them, I got to know what happened in the footages that were shown in the panel. A certain Mr. Silas Lesnick live blogged for these two sites from the panel and he gave us a full report of what happened during the Marvel Studios panel. Check it out.

For those of you who are too lazy to look at the live blog report to find out (shame on you, though! They’re worth scrolling for!) I’m copy-pasting the footage breakdown. (This also serves as my personal archive… just so I can compare what happens in the footages to what happens in the actual clips or trailers that will come out in the future.) Please be aware that this is not my live blog text. It belongs to Mr. Silas Lesnick and the websites above.

Ant-Man test footage breakdown:

The costume looks a lot like the IRREDEEMABLE ANT-MAN costume.

The face is completely covered, so we don’t know who the actor is.

It’s a black suit with red highlights.

The scene is a hallway with two guardians (maybe shield agents?) guarding a door at the end.

on the opposite end of the hallway is a vent and, at it, stands Ant-Man at only a few inches high.

He leaps down and we see him running down the massive hallway.

Suddenly there’s a flash and he’s full sized, charging the guards.

He leaps and flashes again. He punches one at his tiny size and one of the guy’s teeth goes flying out of his mouth as he crashed into a panel.

Ant-Man slides down the tie of the other man and returns to full size, flipping him over.

He gets in the door, apparently an elevator, at full size and, with another flash, is gone.

The title comes up, just plain ANT-MAN.

Iron Man 3 footage breakdown:

We begin in Stark’s lab. He’s talking to “dummy” and his suits of armor, telling them he’s about to introduce them to their badass baby brother.

He asks Dummy to play some seasonal music and he turns on a techno version of Jingle Bells.

Stark stands, posing and flexing. Suddenly a piece of armor shoots across the room.

One by one, his armor form, flying at him as he wills it to.

One hits his crotch, through, and he doubles over.

Another slams into his back and he falls, but jet-propels himself back up.

The last piece is the faceplate and, as it comes at him, he flips, propeling himself off the crowd with one hand upside down while the mask comes on.

We see another scene with Favreau as Happy talking to Stark through a video chat.

“You can’t talk to me like that,” he tells Stark good humoredly, “I don’t work for you anymore.”

“That’s because you quit!” says Stark.

He says he can’t deal with Stark being off with the Superfriends these days.

We see a bunch of footage — Guy Pearce’s character — The Iron Patriot armor.

“Some people call me a terrorist,” says a voice (I don’t think it’s Kingsley).

“I consider myself a teacher. Lesson number one: There is no such thing as heroes.”

We see a bunch of helicopters firing on Stark’s house, blowing it off the edge of the cliff.

Inside, every suit of armor is destroyed.

Iron Man falls into the ocean as wreckage comes down on top of him.

Cut to…

Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin.

It’s the costume from the comic almost exactly.

The footage ends and they’re even calling him the Mandarin now.

Mandarin is wearing at least four rings.

And he cocks a gun in the shot.

(Really, many thanks to Silas Lesnick – whoever he is – for typing all of that up.)

During the panel, I noticed on Twitter that “Ant-Man“, “The Winter Soldier“, “The Dark World“, “Ben Kingsley” and “Phase Two” were trending worldwide. I don’t know if my Twitter was faulty during the WB/Legendary panel, but I didn’t notice any of the things from their panel was trending worldwide, except for the Godzilla remake, directed by Gareth Edwards. (I could be wrong and I hope I’m wrong because everything about The Hobbit and Pacific Rim were absolutely awesome and fantastic.) But this, I think might be an indication of just how big still the hype of The Avengers is.

Marvel’s Phase Two is something that’s been bandied about in the past few month since The Avengers played in cinemas and we all know that movie is so far the biggest movie of the year. So many rumors were circling… and now we’ve got confirmation on a few things. Naturally, all the fans are excited about this. Meanwhile, Zac Snyder’s Man Of Steel may have come up with some amazing footage as well, but I’m guessing there’s now a bigger anticipation for movies about Marvel superheroes than about DC superheroes. (But this is a discussion for another time.)

What I want to say is that this Marvel Studios panel has convinced me that they’re taking solid steps in the right direction for The Avengers sequel. (Some people would argue against The Guardians Of The Galaxy but I have a different opinion. And I’ll also discuss this another time because I’ve no time right now.) No matter what will happen with The Avengers 2 – which Joss Whedon is still isn’t sure about directing at this point – I think we’ll get some great films on the meantime.

“Can hardly wait” seems to be an understatement after Marvel’s Hall H panel.