Marvel announced Phase 4 at SDCC

[sholio]

Here's the list!

My unpopular(?) Marvel opinion is that I'm kinda hitting superhero burnout. I'm not that enthused about anything upcoming, and I think it's mainly because I just kind of want it to stop for awhile. They built up for ten years to their ~big finale~ and then put out the next movie in the franchise two months later! Let it breathe, guys.

That being said, the handful of things I'm looking forward to ...


Shang-Chi (Feb. 2021) - I think this might be the thing I'm looking forward to most! From what vanishingly little I know about it so far, it looks super fun, and also refreshingly disconnected from most of the rest of the franchise and unlikely to be huge and bombastic, which I gotta tell you is mostly what I want at this point. Except then there's also ...

Doctor Strange 2 (May 2021) - I didn't actually realize I was looking forward to this but apparently I am?! It may be terrible, but it will probably be entertaining and pretty. MULTIVERSE!

Thor 4: Love and Thunder (Nov 2021) - Lady Thor! Moar Valkyrie! Taika Waititi is back to direct! I am THERE.

Unfortunately that's about it, as far as personal excitement is concerned. I may check out the Falcon & Winter Soldier and Scarlet Witch shows, I'm sort of tentatively curious about the Loki one but still too annoyed that it's pre-character-development 2012 Loki to really have feelings about it, and apparently there's also something called "What If?" that will involve a number of established characters and I really hope is what it sounds like, an Elseworlds kind of thing.

No dates yet for Black Panther 2 (which I'm looking forward to, and I think it's weird they're pushing it back for a bunch of new stuff given how well the first movie did) or GotG 3 (which I wish I was more excited about, but the Gamora thing killed most of my interest). And I still miss my Netflix shows.

What are you looking forward to? My normal spoilerphobe policy is on hold for this; feel free to talk about anything that's been revealed about the upcoming, unreleased shows/movies so far, since there isn't much yet.

Comments

[cornerofmadness]

Honestly I'm reaching superhero burn out too and never thought I'd say that. I'm mostly looking forward to Doctor Strange, mostly because I identify with him a little too much.

[amalthia]

I'm looking forward to the next Thor movie and the Eternals. Black Widow that includes Rachel Weiss has my interest. :)

[sholio]

Yeah, I didn't think I had a superhero limit but I'm kinda getting there. Or I guess the problem is, I can't keep getting invested in new superheroes and new casts. I wish they'd work more with the ones they have instead of constantly throwing new ones in!

But yeah, I'm looking forward to the new Strange movie a lot more than I thought I was going to.

[sholio]

The Black Widow movie also has David Harbour from Stranger Things! I think I'd be more enthused about it except I'm not really feeling the Cold War spy thing right now. Hopefully I'll be more interested when it comes out.

And yeah, I think for me right now Eternals is suffering from the "don't know if I want to learn a whole new cast of characters" problem, but I'm cautiously optimistic; I do like ensemble casts. :D

[cornerofmadness]

Yeah that might be it, at least some of these are the same heroes but you keep throwing out so many of them the plots will probably suffer and there are so many dollars in my purse.

[amalthia]

I'm excited for Eternals because I know nothing about it and it sounds like people with super powers with sci-fi elements.

[saraht]

What If

[sholio]

So the Marvel version of Elseworlds, basically.

[saraht]

IIRC Elseworlds is the DC version of What If, but basically, yes.

(We talked about it before, but...)

[sheron]

I find it absolutely impossible to care about post-Av4 stuff in the same way as I cared about it so far. I mean, with the original Avengers team gone it's kind of poof! as far as my interest. I do hope Thor 4 is fun! But I don't feel truly fannish about it. It's one of those things I"ll see eventually.

Of all things, I'm perhaps most excited to see what they do with Sam-Bucky and with the Black Widow (which was confirmed post-CW, I hope it doesn't trample on my CW feels!), but this too is interest of that casual-fannish variety.

I was into this universe before I was into it and I'm okay just watching these shows as they come.

Except FFH. Donowant!

[muccamukk]

No dates on Captain Marvel 2, either. Jane Foster as Thor sounds really fun though. I'm impressed that they got Portman back.

Re: (We talked about it before, but...)

[sholio]

Yeah, I think what they really should have done was given Endgame space to feel like an ending, before launching into a bunch of new stuff. I think between that and the cancellations of the Netflix shows, I just can't really muster up a lot of enthusiasm for a bunch of new movies right now. Like, sure, if you want to have your big apocalyptic finish, go for it, but don't put up another movie 0.2 seconds later and expect everyone to be just as enthusiastic about it.

[sholio]

Not gonna lie, I thought Portman was done with the MCU! I guess if Marvel is like "here's a wheelbarrow full of money and also we want you to play Thor", nobody in their right mind is going to say no.

[muccamukk]

I think she wanted to play the lead and have a better director.

Re: (We talked about it before, but...)

[sheron]

You know, I wonder how much of it is just me also feeling a bit of betrayal like 'they just took away my toys and they want me to believe I should care about these new toys' XD Like I can't believe those won't get taken away as well, like the netflix shows that asked us to care and then cruelly cut off. (At least Endgame GOT an ending!)

(I mean, besides the actual feelings of grief etc, which are a separate can of worms)

[sheron]

She's gonna be Thor? OOoooh I would go for that! I had assumed 'Love' was for amora or something. :)

(I don't actually want spoilers. Just...nice!)

[frith_in_thorns]

I've always felt a bit sad I haven't been more into the MCU. But I started with Winter Soldier, which was rather peak My Interests, and then everything else... was not as fun for me personally. (Except Black Panther.) Maybe Falcon & Winter Soldier will be fun?

ETA: I have actually only seen about half the MCU movies in a rather scattershot way, so I don't have the most overwhelming basis on which to comment on them generally I guess...

Looking forward very much to more of The Expanse, though! (And surprisingly not terribly fussed about ST:Picard, but then I never actually watched TNG so maybe I should.)

[sholio]

FWIW, I think it's mostly speculation at this point, not 100% confirmed! But it looks likely. :D

[sholio]

Well, you're into what you're into; nothing wrong with that! And at this point it's kind of the multi-tentacled monster that's taken over fandom, so... ESCAPE WHILE THERE'S STILL HOPE FOR YOU!!

I need to watch Expanse. At this point there is this ever growing pile of hard-ish and space-opera-ish SF that Orion has seen and liked and keeps gently shoving in my direction (Expanse, the Cluster books, the Three-Body-Problem books) that I just keep ... not. XD I will get to it eventually, I swear.

[frith_in_thorns]

I have made so many attempts to get into the MCU! And I do really like Steve a whole lot. I think I'm just less into superheroes than I expect to be.

I haaated 3BP for what it's worth, too much random background misogyny. Expanse is great though -- I found the first season a bit boring (I was not attached to the protags) but second etc were worth the effort.

[frith_in_thorns]

I thought it was confirmed? My entire twitter feed certainly seems to think so.

[sholio]

Maybe I'm wrong? What I'd gotten from the SDCC news that it's confirmed that Portman's in the movie and that the movie will somehow involve a female Thor, and she showed up on stage carrying the hammer. So it's heavily implied, but not actually stated. I could be wrong though; I'm mainly just going off Tumblr reports from the various panels!

[frith_in_thorns]

I'm seeing articles including from EW going past on Twitter talking about it as if it's confirmed -- could be that everyone's jumping the gun, of course!

[sholio]

It's equally possible that I just missed the actual confirmation. XD

[frith_in_thorns]

It's definitely an issue with tumblr (and very much also twitter for that matter) -- sometimes you just get people's reaction buzz and miss the actual source! XD