Marvel Resets Its Phase Strategy

Marvel Studios announced at a closed-door Disney investor event this month that its theatrical slate through 2028 has been substantially restructured. The specifics were not publicly released, but the broad outlines have been reported by multiple trade publications based on investor communications and industry sources.

The restructuring is, by my count, the third significant revision Marvel has made to its post-Endgame strategic roadmap in the last twenty-four months. The rate of revision itself is becoming a specific industrial problem for the studio. I want to describe what is known, what has changed, and what the changes imply.

The post-Endgame trajectory

Marvel Studios, after Avengers: Endgame (2019), faced a specific strategic question: how to sustain a decade-plus of franchise growth after the narrative climax of the original Infinity Saga. The initial answer was a multi-phase structure (Phases Four, Five, and Six) organised around a new primary antagonist (Kang the Conqueror) culminating in a pair of Avengers films scheduled for 2025 and 2026.

This plan encountered three specific disruptions across 2022 and 2023.

First, several Phase Four productions underperformed commercially. Eternals (2021), Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), and The Marvels (2023) all came in below the studio’s commercial expectations. Disney+ television series associated with the phase had mixed critical reception and, in some cases, minimal audience penetration.

Second, Jonathan Majors, the actor who had been cast as Kang the Conqueror and who had been positioned as the MCU’s primary post-Endgame antagonist, was charged with assault and harassment in 2023 and subsequently convicted of two misdemeanours. Marvel terminated its relationship with Majors following the conviction. The Kang storyline, which had been central to the post-Endgame plan, had to be restructured.

Third, broader Disney financial pressures (discussed elsewhere in this section) forced a tightening of the MCU’s production budget and a reduction in the overall volume of MCU output.

The first restructuring

The first major restructuring, announced in late 2023, responded to the Ant-Man underperformance and the early signs of phase fatigue. The restructuring included: reducing Phase Five’s theatrical film count from six to four; restructuring the Disney+ television roadmap to reduce the total number of ongoing series; and signalling, publicly, that the studio would “slow down” its output.

The second restructuring

The second restructuring followed the Majors conviction in late 2023 and was announced in early 2024. It included: renaming the planned Phase Six Avengers films (previously Avengers: The Kang Dynasty became Avengers: Doomsday); recasting the primary antagonist away from Kang entirely and toward a Dr. Doom-centred arc featuring Robert Downey Jr. returning to the MCU in a new villain role; and compressing the planned multi-film Kang mythology into a smaller number of productions.

The third restructuring

The third restructuring, this month, appears to be a response to the commercial performance of Phase Five’s 2024 releases and to ongoing concerns about audience interest in the multiversal premise. Reported changes include:

• Blade (starring Mahershala Ali, in development since 2019) has been removed from the active slate and is now classified as “in development without release schedule.”
• Armor Wars (a planned Don Cheadle-led Disney+ series) has been converted to a theatrical film, then subsequently removed from the slate entirely, according to recent reporting.
• Thunderbolts (released in May 2025) was restructured late in production, with reshoots adjusting the film’s relationship to the Avengers storyline.
• Fantastic Four: First Steps (July 2025) has had its marketing substantially reshaped to position it as a more standalone entry than originally planned.
• The Avengers: Doomsday release date has been shifted from May 2026 to December 2026.
• Avengers: Secret Wars has been shifted from May 2027 to May 2028.

What the rate of change signals

Three specific strategic dynamics are operating inside Marvel Studios.

First, Kevin Feige’s authority has been constrained in a way it was not during the Phase Three peak. Feige, as studio head, previously had effective final authority on MCU strategic decisions. Disney’s post-2022 financial pressures have brought more direct oversight from Bob Iger and the Disney corporate office. The rate of revision reflects, in part, multiple decision-makers at different corporate levels reaching different conclusions at different times.

Second, Marvel is in a specific kind of crisis: the franchise’s commercial assumptions from the 2012-2019 period have broken down faster than the studio’s creative pipeline can adapt. Films have been greenlit, cast, and produced under the old commercial assumptions that no longer hold. The restructurings are, in part, attempts to correct for this lag.

Third, the audience relationship to the MCU has fundamentally changed. The core MCU audience, which used to reliably show up for any release in the shared universe, now treats individual productions more selectively. Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) demonstrated the residual audience strength for specific characters with specific appeal. The broader MCU has not recovered the audience universality it had from 2015 to 2019.

What the slate actually looks like now

Based on the most recent reporting, the forward slate is approximately:

• Thunderbolts, May 2025
• The Fantastic Four: First Steps, July 2025
• Spider-Man: Brand New Day, July 2026
• Avengers: Doomsday, December 2026
• Avengers: Secret Wars, May 2028

Plus various Disney+ television series including Daredevil: Born Again (ongoing), Ironheart, Wonder Man, and others.

This is, relative to the post-Endgame projections from 2019, a significantly contracted slate. Marvel is producing fewer films per year. The television output is reduced. The franchise’s commercial centre of gravity is being reorganised around the upcoming Avengers films with a hope that those films can restart the franchise-level commercial pattern that Phases Five and Six have not been producing.

What to watch

Thunderbolts, Fantastic Four, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day are the commercial tests that will determine whether the restructured strategy works. If these films return the MCU to its 2015-2019 commercial level (roughly $1 billion-plus global grosses for major releases), the strategy will be validated. If they underperform, the next restructuring will arrive within another twelve to eighteen months.

Marvel Studios remains Disney’s most commercially consequential studio asset. Its struggle to stabilise its post-Endgame trajectory has been the clearest signal of what the broader cinematic-universe format is going through. The next eighteen months will be, by available indication, the period that determines whether the franchise settles into a reduced but stable commercial position or whether it continues to contract.

I would not bet decisively either way. The rate of revision suggests the studio is itself unsure.