Marvel Studios is reportedly moving forward with five sequels for the MCU’s third saga. The Multiverse Saga officially closes when Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars arrive on Dec. 18, 2026, and Dec. 17, 2027, respectively. The next era will focus heavily on the X-Men, and the studio already unveiled the characters set to anchor that slate during Disney's D23 Expo on August 14.
In a recent Cosmic Circus Q&A, insider Alex Perez named the five sequels Marvel is prioritizing. He mentioned the long-awaited Shang-Chi follow-up among them, which is no surprise given how long the film lingered. Director Destin Daniel Cretton recently offered reassurance, saying it is "in active development right now." Simu Liu also clamored for the follow-up in interviews and reprised the role in the Disney+ animated series Marvel Zombies. He returns in Avengers: Doomsday too, suiting up alongside the Avengers, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Thunderbolts as they take on Latverian dictator Victor von Doom.
Speaking of Doomsday, Perez also said a seventh Avengers film is part of Marvel’s plans. The Avengers brand remains the MCU’s biggest, so it’s only natural that Doomsday and Secret Wars would get a follow-up. The direction of the Mutant Saga will likely shape where Marvel takes that movie, and there’s a chance its post-Doctor Doom big bad is an X-Men antagonist.
A fifth Spider-Man film is also reportedly in the plans. Spider-Man: Brand New Day just received unprecedented support and success, so another installment feels like a no-brainer. Sony’s Spider-Man license also creates pressure to keep the pipeline moving, as the terms require production to begin within 3 years and 9 months of the previous release and release within 5 years and 9 months, with extensions possible. Kevin Feige likewise told Variety that "there are always plans" for a fifth movie.
The third saga already has one confirmed sequel in Black Panther 3. Marvel officially announced the film on July 25 at San Diego Comic-Con, where director Ryan Coogler brought David Jonsson onstage to loud applause. The sequel is set as a coming-of-age story, with Jonsson playing T’Challa II, the son of T’Challa. The character was first introduced at the end of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and will inherit the Black Panther mantle from Shuri in the Phase 7 follow-up.
The only remotely surprising name in Perez’s report was a Thunderbolts sequel. The first film, led by Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova and her fellow antiheroes, didn’t perform as well as Marvel would have hoped at the box office. But it was well received, as audiences who saw it loved it, and now that the team is more established, a second shot makes sense.
The disappointing omission was Doctor Strange 3, which many expected to move forward. Perez said the Sorcerer Supreme’s next movie is on the back burner. The reveal of Marvel's next sequels actually came from a question about that very project: asked whether it was happening, Perez replied, "It’s on the back burner. Marvel’s movie focus right now is on Black Panther 3, Shang-Chi 2, Spider-Man 5, the X-Men, Thunderbolts* sequel, Blade, Midnight Sons, and the next Avengers title." Outside of Black Panther 3, Marvel Studios has not officially confirmed any of these films, so this list should be taken with a grain of salt.
Marvel Studios Including Many Sequels in Its Third Saga Is a Great Idea
The MCU is rebooting after Secret Wars closes the Multiverse Saga. Feige has been quick to stress that this isn’t a hard reboot and Marvel isn’t throwing away the stories it's been telling since 2008. Sequels are a great way to connect the new era to the old one. The third saga will lean on fresh material, especially X-Men stories, with Thunderbolts director Jake Schreier’s X-Men reboot positioned as one of the films that kicks it off.
A Ghost Rider movie was also announced at SDCC with Ryan Gosling headlining, and a Midnight Sons film is likely to happen in the saga as well. Blending those new corners with the old ones gives fans the best of both worlds. Although many MCU fans have clamored for a reset after how poorly received Phases Four, Five, and parts of Six have been, they still want a continuation of the old stories, the good ones, to be precise. Shang-Chi was one of Marvel’s best Phase Four films, so continuing his story after the reset makes sense.
The Multiverse Saga’s Avengers films also provide the perfect setup to make some of these characters more popular and marketable. Thunderbolts might not have performed, but placing the group in a film most general audiences will watch gives them a huge marketing boost and makes a sequel feel like an obvious choice. Brand New Day introduced some of the biggest elements the third saga will center on: Jean Grey, inhibitor collars, and the Department of Damage Control’s anti-mutant agenda under Bill Metzger. Since that film already created the foundation, a sequel could easily expand this new world.
Geraldo Amartey is a writer at The Direct. He joined the team in 2025, bringing with him four years of experience covering entertainment news, pop culture, and fan-favorite franchises for sites like YEN, Briefly and Tuko.
