For most of Phase 3 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, fans have known exactly what was on the horizon. Sure, Inhumans was dropped and release dates shifted, but for the most part we knew that everything was leading to Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers 4. Phase 4m however, is more mysterious, at least for now. But even though we don't know what's coming, we do know when it will be here, as there are nine spots on the calendar reserved for untitled Marvel movies. Now one of those untitled movies is getting a new release date.
Marvel had previously scheduled an untitled MCU movie for July 30, 2021 but according to The Hollywood Reporter's Borys Kit, the studio has now moved it up five months to the new release date of February 12, 2021. This now makes this film the first MCU title scheduled to be released in 2021 with the other two mystery movies that year coming out on May 7 and November 5. We know so little about what we're getting in Phase 4 that it's hard to glean much from this move, but there are still some interesting questions and possibilities raised by this move.
Phase 4 kicks off next year with Spider-Man: Far From Home on July 5, 2019. Then there will be three other MCU titles before this newly rescheduled one, with one of them presumably being Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Whatever this title is, it is not filming yet and isn't switching with something else, it's just being moved up. So if I had to guess, moving a movie from a prime spot in the middle of the summer season to February could only be for one of two reasons.First, the MCU's most successful film of all time domestically, Black Panther, was released in February of this year, and I can definitely imagine that Marvel would want to try and recreate those conditions for Black Panther 2. It would be appropriate and probably make smart business sense to position Black Panther 2 again in Black History Month and deliver another insane box office performance. If I were to take a wild guess, I would say that we will be returning to Wakanda on February 12, 2021.
Second, looking at the way the MCU's 2021 calendar is currently presented, we have movies in February, May and November. That leaves a pretty big gap in the calendar during the summer months. So I don't think it is impossible that with Black Panther 2 or whatever mystery movie it is moving up to February, another title will be slotted in somewhere over the summer, leading to our first year of four MCU movies. This is, of course, just a guess but I don't think it's out of the question, especially if the Disney/Fox deal goes through and Marvel has a lot of new toys to play with. That many new characters would necessitate more movies depending on when and how Marvel wants to integrate them.
We probably won't find out what this mystery movie is for a while. Heck, we don't even know the title for Avengers 4 yet, but two and a half years gives us plenty of time to speculate. Check out all of the dates for all of the upcoming mysterious MCU movies in our guide.
