A Rundown of Today’s Marvel Cinematic Universe Announcements

"I think we'll be announcing a filmmaker in the next month or two, and probably some cast members later in the summer, at the end of the summer," Kevin Feige said. The "next month or two" timetable would put the announcement would sync up well with the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con, in July. Feige added that the film will be an origin story in nature- describing the plot as "about Carol Danvers and that journey to being Captain Marvel." Source: ScreenRant

Carol Danvers has become a fantastic character, and whoever they cast to play could be a great Captain Marvel even if the basic plot might be a bit like a gender-flipped Green Lantern. However, at this point doesn't a Kamala Khan Ms. Marvel movie sound infinitely more interesting? Or are they saving that for its own TV show?

Inhumans Delayed Again

Kevin Feige: Since we made our initial phase three announcement, we added Spider-Man, which was a big joyous coup for us. We added Ant-Man and the Wasp, which was a big fun continuation of that story for us. Walt Disney Company has announced an Indiana Jones film for right around that same time. So I think it will shuffle off the current date that it's on right now. How far down it shuffles, I'm not sure yet.

But it's not a matter of "they're already doing that on TV, we're not doing it?"

No, It's a question of when. Source: Collider

Currently, Inhumans is dated for summer 2019, but that's obviously up in the air now. There has been a fair amount of hand-wringing about this project ever since Agents of SHIELD introduced its own Inhumans story line, with many guessing Marvel might simply cancel Inhumans altogether, joining Runaways as one of the few officially announced and ultimately abandoned Marvel Studios movies. However, it's not canceled, just delayed. For now.

The Wasp was almost in Captain America: Civil War

Civil War co-screenwriter Christopher Markus: "There was a period where we talked about bringing Wasp in. There was actually a draft Wasp was in because she was so almost on the edge of being in Ant-Man, but then you're taking something awesome out of the Ant-Man team's quiver if it's like, 'Well, we're doing her!' Plus she had a similar skill set, so it's like 'Well, maybe we just isolate it to Scott.'" Source: Collider

All perfectly logical. Age of Ultron already took away one of Ant-Man's defining moments, i.e., creating Ultron, and gave it Tony Stark. Ant-Man worked around that, and the sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp, is being sold on the appeal of being the Wasp's time to shine. It's about damn time, right? It'd be cool to see her in Civil War, but why let that be but one feature of an incredibly busy, quasi- Avengers sequel when it could be showcased in the next proper Ant-Man movie.

Tessa Thompson is in & Natalie Portman is out of Thor: Ragnarok

Creed star Tessa Thompson has landed a key role in Thor: Ragnarok. The third installment of Marvel's Norse myth-inspired franchise is heading towards a June start with Taika Waititi in the director's chair. Details for Thompson's part have not been revealed, but she could be the female lead as Natalie Portman, who was the female lead as Dr. Jane Foster in the previous two Thor installments, is not returning. Source: THR

Creed star Tessa Thompson has closed a multi-picture deal with Marvel and joined the cast of "Thor: Ragnarok" Source: TheWrap

Marvel has now pilfered Creed's director for Black Panther, it's leading lady for Thor 3 and rumors persist about a Sylvester Stallone cameo in Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Can you blame them? Creed's amazing! Of course they want to absorb all of that talent into the MCU.

The bigger news here might be that Natalie Portman is apparently done with the Thor movies, at least for now. It's not surprising considering the consistent rumors of her wanting out, especially after Patty Jenkins was fired during pre-production of The Dark World. Still, she's been the co-lead of both Thor films, and they've worked awfully hard to build up the Thor/Jane romance. It will be interesting to see how exactly Ragnarok addresses her absence. Thor leaving Earth without officially checking in with her at the end of Age of Ultron might come into play as a cause for (or sign of) relationship troubles.

As for Thompson, once you get past Jane, Sif and Thor's mom regular female characters can be hard to come by in the Thor comics. During Jason Aronson's recent run as Thor writer, I've encountered Roz Solomon (an environmentalist SHIELD agent who makes one of those YouTube videos daring Thor to be her date to a formal event, and then is stunned when he actually shows up), the Enchantress (a sometimes villain, sometimes ally who is quite often seen partnering with Loki, probably Cate Blanchett'e character in Ragnarok) and obviously the new female Thor (whose identity I won't spoil). I don't think Thompson has been cast to play any of them.

It's more likely Thompson's playing Brunhilde (aka Valkyrie, the leader of a group of female warriors), an entirely new character created for the movie or perhaps someone from the larger Marvel universe who is now being integrated into Thor. Whoever she turns out to be playing, if her character is Thor's new love interest it'll be surprising simply because with Jaimie Alexander's Sif around you don't need a new love interest. Thor and Sif, after all, do eventually marry in the comics. However, Alexander has previously mentioned that due her Blindspot commitments she's unsure how big of a part she'll actually have in Thor 3.

Chris Hemsworth & Chris Evans will be in Avengers: Infinity War

"The movies are intended to be a culmination of everything that's happened before in the MCU so you don't want to get into spoilers but I'm a big fan of what James Gunn has done," Anthony Russo told Comicbook.com. "[Joe Russo and I] are both big fans of what James Gunn has done. Star-Lord is a fantastic character and Chris Pratt is an awesome performer so you'd be very excited," he said, teasing Pratt and Star-Lord's presence in Infinity War.

Joe Russo, on the other hand, is excited to bring the Norse God into the mix and, especially because he knows something about Thor: Ragnarok that we don't.

"I'm excited to work with Thor," Joe Russo says. "They're doing some really interesting stuff with Ragnarok and where he's gonna be at the beginning of Infinity War is gonna be a very interesting place and I think very profound. I think he's gonna have a real emotional motivation after that." Source: ComicBook

For whatever reason, Marvel had been playing it cool as to whether or not any of the Guardians characters would end up in Infinity War even though it makes complete sense that they would need to be a part of any final fight against Thanos. On the other end, until this point there had been very little out there about how Thor might factor into Infinity War simply because with a title like Ragnarok (aka, the Asgardian apocalypse) we have ample reason to suspect that Thor might not survive past his next movie.

Ryan Coogler is officially directing and co-writing Black Panther , and they should start filming next year

Kevin Feige: "[ Black Panther will start] very soon. We have a number of writers on it including Ryan Coogler, who is also directing, he's working on the draft right now. Between now and the end of the summer there will be more casting announcements. We start filming at the very beginning of next year." Source: Collider

There's been some confusion as to whether or not Coogler was officially directing Black Panther, or if that was only ever a rumor. Well, here you go. He's not only directing Black Panther but he's also co-writing the script.

Daredevil Season 3 Is Still Up in the Air Because The Defenders Might Be the Higher Priority

Charlie Cox: "We don't know if there's going to be a season three [of Daredevil]. I certainly don't know [...] "What we do know is at the end of this year we're going to be making The Defenders and, of course, Daredevil is very much a part of that foursome. I have no idea what the storyline is going to be for that show. I'm very excited to see how those world's combine... and interested to see tonally how those shows become one."

"In terms of wrapping up any storylines, maybe they'll do some of that in The Defenders. Or maybe they won't." Source: TheIndependent

There had been whispers ever since Daredevil's second season premiered that the nature of Netflix's contract with Marvel demanded The Defenders be completed and delivered by a certain date. As such, a Punisher spin-off series or a third season of Daredevil might have to wait until Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Daredevil and Iron Fish all get together to ... save Hell's Kitchen? I don't know. Can't we just have Daredevil's third season instead? They haven't even started filming Iron Fist yet. Isn't it a little too early to talk about The Defenders?