It’s easy to think that Marvel’s everyone-in-the-pool Avengers films are culminations of a particular chapter but, aside from 2012's The Avengers, none of these tentpoles have closed out a phase of the cinematic universe. That’s why, despite Avengers: Endgame promising a, well, endgame (and a potential death or two), it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that this Friday’s cinematic event won’t mark the end of the MCU’s third phase. Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige confirmed as much during a fan event in Shanghai, confirming that Spider-Man: Far From Home will instead wrap up the long-running third phase when it opens this July.
Feige didn’t add much beyond the revelation, aside from that it was indeed his first time confirming it to be true. It does, however, speak to what could be a major overhaul for how things unfold going forward. As Feige recently remarked, the MCU will take on a different texture with the premiere of the Disney+ streaming platform, where its original Marvel series will intersect with the films in “a very big way.” There’s also plenty of new heroes on the way, from The Eternals and Shang-Chi to Kate Bishop and the potential rise of the Young Avengers. That said, Phase Four won’t look completely different from its predecessors, as a Black Widow spin-off is on the way, as is sequels to Guardians Of The Galaxy, Doctor Strange, and Black Panther. We’ll find out when the first Phase Four movie drops on May 1, 2020.
Being the final film in the phase, Far From Home could potentially deliver a big revelation. Or, like Ant-Man, which closed out Marvel’s second phase, it could just be a fun jaunt to help close things out. Still, the third phase was a seminal one for the franchise, delivering some of the MCU’s best, most ambitious titles, from Civil War to Black Panther to Thor: Ragnarok. Peter Parker’s post-credits scene has some heavy lifting ahead of it.