Marvel announced a new Ant-Man film being added to their Phase Three slate, which is shifting the dates around slightly for two other films.
Ant-Man and The Wasp has been inked in for July 6, 2018. The first Ant-Man is still in its international run but has already grossed $410 million worldwide, making it the #9 release of the year. No details are out yet about the new film but it can be assumed that Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly will be reprising their roles, as Marvel ‘s Kevin Feige has said they sign all their lead actors to multi-film deals. This marks the first time a heroine has headlined an MCU feature film.
Evangeline Lilly, Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas in ‘Ant-Man’
To make room for the sequel, Black Panther, starring Chadwick Boseman and possibly Andy Serkis, has been moved up to February 16, 2018 and Captain Marvel pushed back to March 8, 2019. Captain Marvel isn’t yet cast, though rumors have swirled that Charlize Theron and Emily Blunt are being considered for the role. Blunt has referred to the rumors as ‘fan-casting’ and said no offers have been made. Writers Meg LeFauve (Inside Out) and Nicole Perlman (Guardians of the Galaxy) are attached for the script.
Who could be Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel?
Marvel has also staked a claim to three dates in 2020 – May 1, July 10, and November 6 – taking advantage of the holiday crowds in each of those months and ensuring that no filmmaker in their right mind schedules against one of their openings on those weekends. We don’t know what films will land on these dates, but don’t forget, there was that Howard the Duck teaser after Guardians so… maybe.
No ducks were harmed in the making of this teaser
Compared to Phase Two, which featured six movies over two years, Phase Three is an aggressive plan for 14 films; providing two releases in 2016 and three each year through 2020. That’s a lot of cash, both coming in (if the movies succeed) and going out into Marvel’s production budgets. But they have good reason to be confident – Phase Two pulled in almost $1.38 billion dollars in revenue, with Ant-Man still earning. That’s against the $506 million that it cost to produce the movies. That number probably doesn’t include marketing and promotion costs, but that’s a whole other arm of filmmaking where the financial burden is generally shared with the distributing studio, which has alternated between Universal, Paramount, and Disney depending on who owns the particular rights.
For your five-year planning purposes, right now the full Phase Three lineup from Marvel looks like this:
- 2016
05/06 – Captain America: Civil War
11/04 – Doctor Strange - 2017
05/05 – Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
07/28 – Untitled Spider-Man Film
11/03 – Thor: Ragnarok - 2018
02/16 – Black Panther
05/04 – Avengers: Infinity War Part 1
07/06 – Ant-Man and The Wasp - 2019
03/08 – Captain Marvel
05/03 – Avengers: Infinity War Part 2
07/12 – Inhumans - 2020
05/01 – TBA
07/10 – TBA
11/06 – TBA
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