After the Infinity Saga came to an end in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, the MCU was set to get weirder and highlight some fresh, young faces. While this may, to some extent, come in the form of pleasant surprises like “Ms. Marvel” or “Moon Knight” happened, things have been pretty shaky for the franchise as of phase four, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change anytime soon.
The woman who would be Photon
Recently, Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings star Simu Liu did an AMA on Meta’s hot new platform, Threads. Of course, Liu was asked about the status of his second solo film (currently known only as Shang-Chi 2) and he clearly stated that the release status is currently uncertain. It was originally intended to follow an Avengers movie, but because that “keeps getting delayed due to circumstances beyond my control,” the state of his own film remains in flux. And since both Avengers: Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars were pushed back to May 2026 and May 2027, respectively, last month, that means there’ll be a five- or six-year gap between Shang’s title films.
Shang-Chi isn’t the first MCU character to find himself in this predicament – Doctor Strange only got a sequel to his 2016 film last year, but this character has had sporadic appearances in other media and was a key figure in Avengers : Infinity War. By the time Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness broke, Marvel had already been working to position Benedict Cumberbatch’s wizards as a key player for the future. It’s currently unclear if Shang will be able to get the same treatment considering what we know will be out relatively soon, but this latest delay shows just how messy things have been for the MCU over the last few years. Even if this mess is due to real circumstances beyond its control, like the COVID-19 pandemic, its handling of these events isn’t exactly great – the spate of releases in 2021 and 2022 gives the impression that the 2021 studio would go out of business next week. It wasn’t easy to get a sense of the future when so many are fighting for oxygen and cannibalizing each other, let alone the other Disney media also releasing in the same airspace.
Disney seems to have learned its lesson from the past two years, intentionally giving Phase Five materials like Ironheart and Echo more leeway. But too many releases are the least of the studio’s problems this year: stories of VFX crises and abuse allegations against its star stars hover over the big future. The recent, ongoing WGA strike is messing things up even further, with some projects like Blade and Thunderbolts being postponed indefinitely, while others like Deadpool 3 and Captain America: Brave New World are still in production at the time of writing. But with the threat of an actors’ strike looming on the horizon, those productions could soon grind to a halt in the next few days.
Ultimately, unless another event throws them back a year or two, things will ultimately be fine for Marvel and Disney. But the series of events that have brought phases four and five to their knees over the past few years shows how easily the studio can stumble and why there’s probably no harm in taking things one step at a time rather than trying to sprint the finish line.
Want more io9 news? Find out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe in film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.