The future of the MCU is starting to take shape. Directors Anthony and Joe Russo have teased how Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars will differ from their last two projects in the franchise, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
During an interview with Brazilian outlet Omelete, the directing brothers revealed that they see Avengers 5 and 6 as a “new beginning” that will lay the foundation for whatever comes next in Phase 7 of the MCU.
“The greatest thing that ever happened is we got to get immersed in a 20 movie arc and see an ending to that arc,” Joe Russo said. “What’s compelling about these two new Avengers movies is they’re a beginning. It’s a new beginning. We told an ending story [with Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame] and now we’re going to tell a beginning story. Who knows where we’ll go from there?”
The pair also opened up about how they ended up back in the Marvel world tackling another Avengers story. “We didn’t know what our road forward was in the MCU after we finished Endgame,” Anthony Russo explained.
“What happened was, a creative idea just came to us and that ended up feeling like the right idea. It motivated us to do it again. We feel like we have something fresh, we feel like we have a story that’s important and needs to be told. We have an amazing group of collaborators again, some old and some new. We’re very excited.”
He also noted that Doomsday is a “difficult” movie because of the “expectations on it” to help bring theatergoing back to its pre-pandemic glory. That said, the Russos also revealed it was Marvel producer Kevin Feige’s idea to bring Robert Downey Jr. back for Doomsday.
“That conversation was had a while ago, and Robert tried to talk us into doing it and we said no,” Joe said. “We just didn’t have a story, we didn’t have a way in, so we were resistant for a while. And then one day, [Endgame writer] Steve McFeely called us and said, ‘I have an idea.’ ”
“The only thing I’ll say about the movie is this: we love villains who think they’re the heroes of their own stories,” Joe Russo closed out the interview. “That’s when they become three-dimensional and they become more interesting. When you have an actor like Robert Downey, you have to create a three-dimensional, well shaped character for the audience. That’s where a lot of our focus is going.”
Avengers: Doomsday is currently set to arrive in theaters May 1, 2026 and Secret Wars arrives about a year later in May 2027, so unfortunately, we’ve got a lot of waiting to do before we can see what the Russo brothers are cooking up.
Late last year, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige teased the introduction of X-Men characters in the “next few” MCU movies.
Feige told an audience at the Disney APAC Content Showcase in Singapore that fans would see “some X-Men players that you might recognize” in the next few MCU movies, but he stopped short of saying which characters or what movies.
On bringing the X-Men into the MCU, Feige added: “I think you will see that continues in our next few movies with some X-Men players that you might recognize.
“Right after that, the whole story of Secret Wars really leads us into a new age of mutants and of the X-Men. Again, [it’s] one of those dreams come true. We finally have the X-Men back.”
Feige has also said the X-Men will be an important part of the MCU’s future following Secret Wars. “When we were preparing for Avengers: Endgame years ago, it was a question of getting to the grand finale of our narrative, and then we had to start all over again after that,” Feige said. “This time, on the road to Secret Wars, we already know very well what the story is going to be until then and afterwards. The X-Men are an important part of that future.”
It sounds like Phase 7 of the MCU will be dominated by the X-Men, then, but in the short term, Storm appeared in What If…? Season 3, marking the character’s first appearance in the wider MCU.
In October, Marvel Studios added three untitled movie projects to its 2028 release schedule: February 18, 2028; May 5, 2028; and November 10, 2028. It seems increasingly likely one of these movies is X-Men.
Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.
