Marvel Studios’ 4 Biggest Projects of 2026 Will Crush the MCU’s 2025 Slate

Marvel Studios had a rough time at the box office in 2025. Captain America: Brave New World grossed $415 million worldwide against a $180 million budget. Thunderbolts fared even worse, pulling in just $382 million. The Fantastic Four: First Steps was the bright spot of the year, topping out at around $521 million, but even that fell short of the billion-dollar benchmarks Marvel once hit regularly. On Disney+, Ironheart was quietly buried with an awkward release strategy, widely regarded as one of the franchise's more forgettable efforts. The most memorable aspect of that show that fans cling to is the introduction of Mephisto and the impact he might have on the MCU. In short, 2025 wasn’t the best year for Marvel Studios.

But the MCU is not dead, as many have touted. This year's lineup offers a silver lining, and it's close to impossible for these projects not to do well. We're getting weekly Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 episode releases on Disney+ until May 5, Spider-Man: Brand New Day in theaters on July 31, VisionQuest on Disney+ later this year, and the culmination of it all, Avengers: Doomsday on December 18. What makes this slate strong is that it's built almost entirely on beloved characters. Also, it's filled with projects that continue stories we love.  

Marvel Studios’ Next 2026 Projects Are Going To Be Game-Changers

Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 

Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 gave Marvel one of its better-received projects in recent years. The show returned Charlie Cox's Matt Murdock and Vincent D'Onofrio's Wilson Fisk to center stage, and despite a rocky production history, it landed well with critics and audiences. Season 2 picks up exactly where Season 1 did, and by most indications, goes further. This season is promising because the team behind the show has shown a strong desire to restore the high quality established during the Netflix run. Cox and D'Onofrio are executive producers, so it's likely this won’t have the "Frankenstein" vibe of Season 1. 

Premiering March 24 on Disney+, the eight-episode second season will have a different release schedule from Season 1. The show sees Mayor Fisk tightening his grip on New York City while Murdock rallies allies to take him down. The season brings back Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson (likely through flashbacks), and Wilson Bethel as Bullseye, but the biggest addition is Krysten Ritter, returning as Jessica Jones for the first time since 2019. Her return will solve a seven-year mystery that has lingered in the MCU. Matthew Lillard also joins as a new character, Mr. Charles, described as an adversary of Wilson Fisk.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day 

Tom Holland's Spider-Man is, without question, the face of the MCU right now. His three-film run with the character culminated in Spider-Man: No Way Home, which earned $1.9 billion worldwide in 2021 and became one of the highest-grossing films in MCU history. So when Spider-Man: Brand New Day arrives on July 31, it's going to be one of the most anticipated MCU returns.  

Brand New Day is set four years after the events of No Way Home. It's set to bring back an intriguing Andrew Garfield strategy in a world where nobody knows Peter Parker exists. He continues protecting New York City anonymously until a string of unusual crimes pulls him into something much bigger. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton and written by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, the pair behind Holland's previous two Spider-Man films, Brand New Day takes the character back to street level, something Marvel fans have been begging for. Nonetheless, the number of characters included is wild.

Jon Bernthal makes his theatrical MCU debut as the Punisher, who is expected to serve as Spider-Man's unlikely ally. Mark Ruffalo returns as Bruce Banner. Then there's Sadie Sink, who is rumored to be playing Jean Grey. Who'd have thought one of the most iconic X-Men characters could pop up in a Spider-Man film? The villain side. also includes Marvin Jones III, who plays crime boss Tombstone, Boomerang, Scorpion, among others. There are at least 10 villains in this movie, and more may be added. Brand New Day alone looks like a major upgrade over last year’s slate. It's expected to do wonders at the box office; falling short of $1 billion is a near impossibility.

VisionQuest 

The MCU's 2025 Disney+ output was arguably an eye-sore, with shows like Ironheart and Eyes of Wakanda not leaving as big a mark as others from years past. This year, however, the Disney+ lineup looks promising. Wonder Man was surprisingly amazing, and if that standard is anything to go by, VisionQuest will be great, too. 

The AI-centric show concludes the trilogy that began with WandaVision in 2021 and continued with Agatha All Along. Paul Bettany returns as White Vision, who battles with the flood of memories he received from Red Vision. 

Much of Vision's journey takes place within a simulated mental environment, allowing various MCU artificial intelligences to appear as human manifestations. James Spader returns as Ultron, in human form, as an internal devil on Vision's shoulder. James D'Arcy plays JARVIS. Orla Brady plays FRIDAY, Emily Hampshire plays EDITH, and T'Nia Miller joins as Jocasta, a character straight out of the comics.

Avengers: Doomsday 

Avengers: Doomsday is the biggest Avengers crossover in the MCU yet. The film is what the entire Multiverse Saga has been building toward (well, technically, it was building toward The Kang Dynasty). The film reunites Joe and Anthony Russo as directors, the pair who made Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, two of Marvel's most successful projects ever. 

Doomsday brings back the original Avengers alongside the Fantastic Four, the Thunderbolts, and, strikingly, the original Fox-era X-Men cast: Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, James Marsden, Channing Tatum, Alan Cumming, Rebecca Romijn, and Kelsey Grammer are all set to appear. Chris Evans returns as Steve Rogers, one of the most unsurprising comebacks. The cast also includes Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Tom Hiddleston, Paul Rudd, Letitia Wright, Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach. In conclusion, there’s a lot. It's such a long list of characters for a single movie, even for Marvel standards. It tells you how much effort is being put into the project. 

Lest we forget who is the center of it all, Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom. This casting was shocking when it was announced at 2024's San Diego Comic-Con. Some fans were excited, others weren’t too enthused. Regardless of varying opinions, Doctor Doom is expected to raise the bar for villainy in the MCU a notch higher than Thanos did. It's a difficult task, but if anyone can outdo the high standards of Marvel, it’s the studio itself. With the hype surrounding this film and the cast list, it's basically a guaranteed $1 billion minimum at the box office. The question is whether it can eclipse $2 billion, which isn’t too far-fetched for a production of its scale.