Kevin Feige Teases The Future Of The Avengers In The MCU
Few individuals working in the business right now are more talented than Kevin Feige when it comes to speaking a lot of words without ever really saying anything. This has been the case for a while now, but all the interviews made possible by the imminent release of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings are making this fact even truer. But we'll take whatever we can get at this point, especially when it comes to the future plans for the Avengers.
Feige mostly dances around these questions about the make-up and status of the current iteration of the Avengers, which so far has been a revolving door throughout the MCU and, post-Avengers: Endgame, is now missing many of its founding members. But he still gives us some food for thought, such as how this very issue is baked-in (on some level, at least) throughout many of the movies that have been and are soon to be released. In an interview with Cinema Blend, Feige had this to say:
"That is a great question. And I think you will see that question addressed, and people struggling with that very question, within the MCU right now. I think post-Endgame and with Tony [Stark] being off the board and Steve Rogers being off the board — Sam Wilson is a new Cap, of course. But what does it mean to be an Avenger? And is there a core team? And who's leading it, and who's financing it? That is very much an undercurrent that will, while not at the forefront of many of the current movies, is certainly a question that is lingering in the background."
This mostly rings true, as recent MCU entries like Spider-Man: Far From Home, WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Black Widow, and presumably future movies such as Thor: Love and Thunder and Hawkeye have to wrestle with the new status quo following the events of Endgame. The ideas of loss and connectivity loom large over those previous movies and shows, though each one varies with how deeply they deal with the vacuum left in the wake of Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff's deaths, as well as Steve Rogers' retirement. But there's always room for fresh faces of the team, proven by newcomers like Captain Marvel, Ant-Man and the Wasp, the Guardians, and presumably heroes like Shang-Chi.
When To Expect Avengers 5
Elsewhere, Feige talked to Collider and broached the topic of when he plans to deliver an Avengers 5.
"I think we want there to be a reasonable amount of time from the Endgame to start a new saga, which is already underway and already started. And then you need time, as you did in Phase 1, to build that saga before you start bringing everyone together."
So far in the MCU, each Avengers event movie has been followed up by a relatively more small-scale solo adventure to help audiences reset and decompress. All indications are that Phase Four, which began with Black Widow and continues with Shang-Chi, will be the most intensive one yet. After the pandemic threw the original schedule off-kilter, we're in for no less than 10 MCU movies over the next two years. That built-in buffer should provide plenty of time to build up anticipation for another super-sized extravaganza, with movies like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love and Thunder whetting appetites for smaller team-ups and crossovers.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings seems to promise a standalone adventure, but that likely won't lower any excitement for when it releases in theaters on September 3, 2021.