Spider-Man’s joining in for Marvel Phase 3… and ruining all my theories!

As you’ve maybe heard, or as you may have just watched in the video I just embedded from SourceFed Nerd, Spider-Man has finally become a joint character with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After a long time of discussions, rumors, and hacking, Marvel Studios and Sony have come to a deal where their movie universes can join up.

This involves re-booting Spider-Man… again. Which is the sort of thing plenty of people are talking about, so I can leave that alone. Or better yet, I can link to We Minored in Film, with a great discussion of what this all means in regards to Spider-Man.

However, for me the bigger issue is the movie-release fallout. A while back I wrote up some initial thoughts about the Marvel Phase 3 movies, all of which I am excited for. However, a pattern emerged looking at them, a thought about how their stories might go together. And now, right smack dab in the middle of that we have a new Spider-Man, which is pushing back all of the movies. Except for the Infinity War. So all of a sudden how these movies interact with the overarching story is different! So let me swing (pun!) back through the schedule of Marvel movies, thanks to Spider-Man!

Captain America: Civil War – May 6, 2016

Hey, this one hasn’t changed! Well, not for the date. Instead, it’s changed because we’re all expecting this is the movie where they will introduce the new Spider-Man. And there’s thoughts about the character – are we sure Andrew Garfield is out? Is it even going to be Peter Parker?

There are plenty of other characters who have been Spider-Man – as the recent Spider-Verse comic crossover event showed us. Miles Morales is a thought, as he’s the most recent new incarnation. There’s also one from my younger days, Ben Reilly.

And now that this deal has happened, I doubt it will be Spider-Woman or anyone else. It’ll be Spidey, in some form.

We were also expecting this would be the film to introduce Black Panther, and maybe Captain Marvel. There’s going to be Captain America and Iron Man. Oh, and it’s Civil War, so theoretically everyone else from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Honestly, this movie is starting to seem like it’s going to be a much bigger movie than Avengers: Age of Ultron! Will it be too much?

Doctor Strange – November 4, 2016

Well, okay, not expecting much change on this one. However, Benedict Cumberbatch is confirmed for this one now. There’s also rumors now that Chiwetel Ejiofor is in talks for the movie now – yet another actor who would have been an amazing casting for Doctor Strange.

Guardians of the Galaxy 2 – May 5, 2017

Here’s the last movie to have an unchanged release date. From now until then, two years from now, we’ll have had the last two Marvel Phase 2 movies – Avengers and Ant-Man – and then the first two Phase 3 movies. So two new solo character movies, and two larger ensemble-cast returning-characters-with-some-new-characters movies. So really, this is the next sequel we’re really getting in this series.

And of all the different movies, I think this is the one we’re most excited for as fans. Because, ya know, we’re all hooked on a feeling.

Spider-Man – July 28, 2017

And here’s the new Spider-Man movie. So we’ll have had Ultron and the fall that we seem headed for here in May, and then the rise of new and more heroes in Ant-Man, and then a full-blown Civil War with more and new character, and then the introduction of alternate universes in Doctor Strange, and then back to space again finally in Guardians to remind us that it’s still a thing.

Hey, wait a minute, alternate universes?… Miles Morales is starting to sound more likely, as he is an alternate universe Spider-Man. So maybe this pacing will work alright to this point…

After all, Sony may be less interested in the overall tapestry. But if they got to work with an alternate universe that overlaps at times with the other Marvel movies, it’d be the best of both worlds. It also opens the door for Marvel to try to make a similar deal with Fox for X-Men or Fantastic Four…

There’s also the potential in the Marvel-Sony deal for MCU characters to show up in Spider-Man. But with the movies all leading up to it… I have no idea who I think that might be. The recent comic crossovers with Miles Morales have all been X-Men!

Thor: Ragnarok – November 3, 2017

This one sounds like a space epic, so maybe spacing it out from Guardians will work out okay. It shouldn’t be impacted too heavily by Spider-Man either, nor necessarily by Civil War, except maybe that Thor heads back home after that.

It is a long time for us to all go without Loki, though…

Avengers: Infinity War, Part 1 – May 4, 2018

And then all of a sudden we’re to the next Avengers movie. Some of the rumor is that there will be fewer of the original movie Avengers in this film. With the stories coming up, we may lose Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor. After all, Civil War and Ragnarok all sound pretty daunting!

It’ll be a space epic coming right after a space epic. It’ll still be a year after Guardians 2 gives us more about the Infinity Stones, potentially. It might work. But here’s where things start to change…

Black Panther – July 6, 2018

Now Black Panther is coming out over half a year later, and is coming out after Infinity War starts, rather than before. So now the place of the Panther, and Wakanda, will potentially be different for how that all works.

It also means if Black Panther is introduced in Civil War, it will have been two years since he was introduced, with potentially no appearances in-between. It just means some lost momentum. I guess not too much – the average time between movie and sequel is two years, so this may not be too great a leap or too hard for audiences to keep up.

Captain Marvel – November 2, 2018

The next impact is that the female-led superhero movie that so many people are so excited about is going to come much later than expected. It also means that DC will have the jump on Marvel on this front by a year and a half, if Wonder Woman sticks to its summer 2017 release.

It’s also a movie that should be heavily involved with the Infinity War. Captain Marvel has a lot of ties to Marvel’s cosmic stories, with her origin coming from Kree tinkering. It was originally running between the two Infinity War halves and it still is, so hopefully that doesn’t change the plans for the movie too much!

Avengers: Infinity War, Part 2 – May 3, 2019

Finally, we get to the biggest change for me. This was supposed to be the capstone film, the last of all the movies they had lined up and planned and staked a claim for. It always seemed like this was a whole lot of movies to plan at one time, and that has kind of been proved by the fact that one little thing has changed so many release dates. So maybe all of this will change again…

Already, having the Infinity War in two halves was fascinating, and then having two movies run between the halves was more fascinating. It definitely made it seem like those in-between movies were going to be impacted by the events in the Infinity War, as they should be. And that they would also enhance our understanding, or further the conflict and war. That they would be full of heroes getting Infinity Stones away from Thanos, or something like that.

Well, we get half of that still, in Captain Marvel. But now, this isn’t the end.

Inhumans – July 12, 2019

Here’s what I’m most disappointed in. The delay of Inhumans is sad, but there’s plenty of other bumped back films now too. But moving this movie to after the Infinity War is over means that it should now have a completely different story than it would have as one of the in-between movies. Rather than enhancing our understanding of the cosmic and furthering conflict, it’s going to be all about the fallout from the Infinity War.

Which okay, that might be like what happened in Infinity. The whole Inhumanity event, which has people thinking that Marvel is trying to replace the mutants. New super-powered characters popping up all over the place! Is there an X-Men conspiracy, because Marvel doesn’t have the movie rights? I’m on the fence, but moving this movie to where it is now seems like a movie in that direction. It means that Marvel Phase 4 is going to be full of Inhumans, I figure.

Oh, wait, that includes Kamala Khan. Ok, this might turn out alright!

Whoa, that was a lot of me ranting. What do you think? Excited for Spidey in Civil War? Wondering what the heck is going on in the Infinity War? Theorizing that Agents of SHIELD is already introducing us to Inhumans when they won’t even show up in a movie until 2019? Let us know in the comments below!