Upcoming Marvel Movies and TV: MCU Release Date Schedule for Phase 5 and 6

Turns out, all the MCU needed to turn things around was to acknowledge its struggles. Deadpool & Wolverine has revitalized excitement in the franchise, reaching box office heights not seen in half a decade.

Kevin Feige hopes to ride that wave of enthusiasm through the rest of Phases 5 and 6, which have undergone some heavy changes, with a whole host of films slated for the next few years, including Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts, Fantastic Four: First Steps, a pair of big Avengers movies, and much more. Then there’s all the TV series in the works, like Wonder Man, Ironheart, and Daredevil: Born Again. Meanwhile, Sony will continue to produce non-MCU projects, because someone needs to fight Knull.

If you’ve been a little confused by Marvel’s shifting dates and streaming priorities, never fear! We’ve got a comprehensive release calendar for you here detailing all the upcoming MCU projects, so you’ll always be able to find the latest updates when you need them. This latest update encompasses all the announcements that came out of NYCC 2024 as well as the “Look Ahead” teaser Marvel recently released.

Let’s take a look at everything that Marvel and the Marvel Studios-Sony partnership have in store over the next few years…

Kraven the Hunter

Release Date: December 13, 2024

While technically not part of the MCU, things are always murky enough with these Sony Spider-Man projects that we figure it’s better safe than sorry when it comes to including them. In this case, another Spidey villain is getting his own movie. This time, it’s Kraven the Hunter, a character who had once been tapped to appear in Sony’s previous attempt to bring a Sinister Six movie to life (his spear appeared in that tease at the close of The Amazing Spider-Man 2), and who Jon Watts once considered as the villain for his third Spidey flick before No Way Home came together.

JC Chandor is directing from a screenplay by Matt Holloway, Art Marcum, and Richard Wenk. Aaron Taylor-Johnson will star as Sergei Kravenoff. It’s gotta be better than Morbius, right? Anyone who says “it’s Kraven time” will be blocked and reported.

What If…? Season Three

Release Date: December 22, 2024

The MCU closes out 2024 by releasing the third and final season of its animated series What If…?.

Of course, the series will feature Jeffrey Wright as the Watcher Uatu, who witnesses alternate realities within the Marvel Universe. While there are rumors of an overarching plot for this season, as was done with the previous two, the real appeal comes from seeing the return of some familiar faces, albeit in animated form. Simu Liu is back as Shang-Chi, this time as a cowboy apparently, and even Oscar Isaac lends his voice and English accent for Moon Knight.

For this last season, Matthew Chauncey replaces A.C. Bradley as head writer, with Bryan Andrews directing.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man

Release Date: January 25, 2025

Originally titled “Spider-Man: Freshman Year,” Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is yet another MCU animated series that will follow Peter Parker “on his way to becoming Spider-Man in the MCU, with a journey unlike we’ve ever seen and a style that celebrates the character’s early comic book roots.”

But there’s a twist! Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man now appears to be just a straightforward Spider-Man cartoon, with some MCU trappings. Hudson Thames voices young Peter, but MCU stars Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio also join as Daredevil and Kingpin, alongside new additions such as Colman Domingo as Norman Osborn and Hugh Dancy as Otto Octavius. Produced and written by Jeff Trammel, the series will use a flashy animation style similar to the Spider-Verse films

Captain America: Brave New World

Release Date: February 14, 2025

For most of its production, Captain America: Brave New World seemed like a cursed project. It spun out of the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which had a mixed reception, and was plagued with everything from a controversial subtitle and character to multiple reshoots. The latest round of revisions added a whole new character in Giancarlo Esposito’s Sidewinder, leader of the terrorist group the Serpent Society.

But then the first trailer dropped, which promised not only ’90s political thriller action but also Harrison Ford’s Thunderbolt Ross turning into the Red Hulk. Then, footage from SDCC confirmed that the movie will finally deal with the Celestial Tiamut, last seen protruding through the Earth’s crust in Eternals. And then, the same footage revealed that Tiamut would be the source of adamantium, further teasing the arrival of the MCU Wolverine.

All of that information has turned Captain America: Brave New World into one of the most anticipated films of 2025. Written by FWS alums Malcolm Spellman and Dalan Musson and directed by Julius Onah, Brave New World stars Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson in a new and badass Captain America costume, alongside Tim Blake Nelson as the Leader, and Shira Haas as Israeli superhero (and mutant!) Sabra.

Daredevil: Born Again

Release Date: March 4, 2025

Matt Murdock returns to the Marvel fold once again in 2025, this time for a nine-episode season on Disney+. We’ve already seen Charlie Cox play lawyer Matt and his alter ego Daredevil in Spider-Man: No Way Home, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and Echo, the last of which also featured Vincent D’Onofrio as Kingpin.

But now the duo gets the spotlight, with a storyline that sees Fisk running for Mayor of New York City. Matt will be joined by Deborah Ann Woll, Elden Henson, and Jon Bernthal as Karen Page, Foggy Nelson, and the Punisher, respectively, and Mohan Kapur will appear as Kamala Khan’s father Yusef, Matt’s client. Wilson Bethel returns as Dex Pointdexer, now in full Bullseye garb, and the series adds Nikki M. James as fellow lawyer Kristen McDuffie and Kamar de los Reyes as vigilante White Tiger.

After a long production process that saw the original showrunners canned and the finished material scrapped, current showrunners Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (lately of Loki) are ready to bring Daredevil home to the MCU.

Thunderbolts*

Release Date: May 2, 2025

No, that’s not a typo. The official title (at least at this point) of the Thunderbolts film is Thunderbolts*. What that asterisk means is still unclear, but smart money is on the team becoming the Avengers, at least the morally-ambiguous team known in the comics as the Dark Avengers.

In the comics, the Thunderbolts are villains who masquerade as heroes and take advantage of the public’s trust. However, the film version written by Jake Schreier and directed by Beef‘s Lee Sung Jin is about a black ops team that CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) has been assembling across projects such as The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

Led by Bucky, this version of the Thunderbolts consists of Ghost from Ant-Man & the Wasp, USAgent from The Falcon and the Winter Solder, and Red Guardian, White Widow, and Taskmaster from Black Widow. The team gets together to deal with a man called Bob, who is probably the Sentry.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Release Date: July 25, 2025

Phase Six begins with The Fantastic Four: First Steps! Marvel’s first family seems to be arriving at just the right time, bringing with them the optimism and big imagination that launched the Marvel Age of comics in 1961.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps stars Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm, aka the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Thing. Directed by WandaVision‘s Matt Shakman and written by Josh Friedman, First Steps takes place in an alternate reality retrofuturistic 1960s, where the team are worldwide celebrities.

A sizzle reel for the movie released at SDCC gave viewers a taste of the movie’s zippy aesthetic, complete with Pascal adopting a Mid-Atlantic accent for Reed and snippets of a stirring score from Michael Giacchino, cementing the Incredibles feel. Even better, fans got a quick look at the movie’s primary antagonist Galactus, played by the gravelly-voiced Ralph Ineson, complete with purple helmet.

Marvel still hasn’t revealed much about the movie’s supporting cast, which will include Julia Garner as the Silver Surfer, as well as John Malkovich and Paul Walter Hauser in undisclosed roles. We wrote more about our hopes for the MCU Fantastic Four movie here.

Eyes of Wakanda

Release date: August 6, 2025

Created by veteran Marvel storyboard artist Todd Harris, the animated series Eyes of Wakanda follows warriors sent to return Vibranium relics to their home country. Black Panther director Ryan Coogler will be involved in some capacity, but it might just be as a producer.

At this point, Marvel’s only released two quick clips from the series, but we wrote more about some of the show’s implications here.

Ironheart

Release Date: September 3, 2025

The first series to explore the legacy of Iron Man and Tony Stark in the MCU, Ironheart stars Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams, a teenager at M.I.T. who creates her own suit of armor to right the wrongs of the world. She’s already made her debut in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and will definitely be a character to keep an eye on as the MCU evolves.

Anthony Ramos (In The Heights) will play Parker Robbins, aka The Hood, as the primary villain of this series. We think The Hood could have a big future in the MCU and explain why here if you know little to nothing about him other than he’s a great card in Marvel Snap. Now that the name Mephisto has been spoken in Agatha All Along, maybe Marvel’s devil will finally appear on screen to give Parker his powers.

Marvel Zombies

Release Date: October 2025

Season Three might be the end of What If…?, but Marvel isn’t ready to give up on the alternate worlds. The House of Ideas has a Halloween treat for 2025 with Marvel Zombies, a special that looks in on a world ravaged by zombified superheroes, including monstrous versions of Wakanda’s Dora Milaje!

Wonder Man

Release Date: December 2025

Hawkeye turned out to be wonderful holiday present from showrunner Andrew Guest, who returns in December 2025 with Wonder Man. Co-created with Destin Daniel Cretton of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Wonder Man stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as struggling actor Simon Williams, who gets a part as superhero Wonder Man.

Who gives Simon the part? What does it have to do with his villainous brother Eric Williams (Demetrius Grosse) aka Grim Reaper? And what does Trevor Slattery, the once and never-again Mandarin from Iron Man 3, have to do with it all? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Avengers: Doomsday

Release Date: May 1, 2026

Easily the biggest news coming out of SDCC was about the second-to-last film of the Multiverse Saga. Originally, Marvel planned for Kang the Conqueror to be the big bad of Phases 4 through 6, with Avengers: The Kang Dynasty leading into the capper Avengers: Secret Wars. But when Kang actor Jonathan Majors’s misdeeds came to light, Marvel went into a panic trying to come up with a new plan.

After shuffling through various directors and writers, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige has decided to go back to what worked in the past, in more ways than one. Avengers: Doomsday will be directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, who left the franchise after helming Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. With them comes Robert Downey Jr., but not as Tony Stark. No, he’ll be playing Victor Von Doom, the long-awaited MCU version of Doctor Doom.

“What?” you ask? “How” you ask? “Don’t know!” we answer. While there is some comic book precedent for an Iron Man/Doctor Doom connection, some reality swapping will probably be involved. Early reports suggest that, in addition to the Avengers, Doomsday will also feature the Fantastic Four and the Thunderbolts.

Spider-Man 4

Release Date: July 2026

After much discussion and speculation, Tom Holland recently revealed that a fourth Spider-Man MCU movie will shoot in summer 2025 and will be directed by Destin Daniel Cretton. Outside of that, we don’t know anything else about the movie. In fact, given the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, we don’t even know if Zendaya and Jacob Batalon will be back as MJ and Ned, making this one of the more compelling Spidey films in years.

Vision

Release Date: 2026

Turns out, Agatha All Along isn’t the only show spinning out of WandaVision. Marvel recently announced a Vision series, coming from Star Trek: Picard season three showrunner Terry Matalas. We don’t know anything else about the show so far, but given the excellent work that Matalas did on Picard, we can’t wait to learn more!

Avengers: Secret Wars

Release Date: May 7, 2027

It had long been rumored, and now we know for sure: Avengers: Secret Wars is coming in 2027! However, since there have been a few versions of the Secret Wars saga in Marvel Comics, it’s unclear which story the MCU iteration might follow. But this is the end of the Multiverse Saga, so the movie will probably adapt the 2015 series by Jonathan Hickman.

In that storyline, Doctor Doom recreates reality in his own image, with Reed Richards leading a revolt to set things right.

We’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for cast and story info on this one as its development unfolds!

Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse

Release Date: Unknown

The final (?) part of Sony’s animated Spider-Man trilogy no longer has a release date, but we’re sure it’ll arrive eventually. Look, if they want to make 15 of these, we’ll watch ’em all.

Armor Wars

Release Date: Unknown

And now we hit the “will this ever actually happen” section of this list.

Just days after a different major project was removed from Marvel’s schedule (more on that shortly), writer Yassir Lester took to social media to assure fans that Armor Wars is still happening. But that’s all the news we’ve had on it in a long time.

Billed as a sequel to Secret Invasion, Armor Wars will star Don Cheadle as James Rhodes, who was replaced by a Skrull imposter sometime around Captain America: Civil War. Originally imagined as a Disney+ series and then retooled into a movie, Armor Wars still remains in development, despite initial plans to start filming in 2023. We’ll see.

Live Action Wakanda Series

Release Date: Unknown

Somehow, we know even less about a live action Wakanda series than we do Eyes of Wakanda. The series comes from Coogler’s production company Proximity Media, so the director will be involved somehow. But outside of that, we can only hope that we’ll see more of the franchise’s great characters, such as Winston Duke’s M’Baku or Danai Gurira’s Okoye.

El Muerto

Release Date: Unknown

Rapper Bad Bunny was originally set to play obscure Spider-Man character El Muerto in one of Sony’s ongoing attempts to build a live action Spidey-centric universe of their own. To date, El Muerto has only appeared in two comics, so we’re not sure where they’re going with this one honestly. But hey, they originally landed Jonás Cuarón as director, so something could go right here eventually! However, at the moment the film has been pulled from the release schedule due to Bad Bunny dropping out of the project. Sony hasn’t canceled it completely yet, as it remains in early development.

Blade

Release Date: Unknown

After years of trying to skate uphill and make a movie about a C-list superhero that fit in the MCU and also paid respect to the original films and also somehow met star Mahershala Ali’s lofty ambitions, Marvel has put a spike into the Blade film. Well, they removed it from the calendar anyway.

That’s not quite the same thing as cancelation, but given everything we’ve heard about a production that has no vision or direction, it’s hard to believe the Daywalker’s next movie will see the light of day.

Reports say that Marvel is also working on Shang-Chi 2, a Nova project, a second season of X-Men ’97, and apparently a Knull project is coming to the Sony Spidey-Verse! Maybe! We’ll keep updating this with new information as it becomes available!

What upcoming MCU projects are YOU most looking forward to? Let us know in the comments!