Marvel Studios Has a Five-Year Plan in Place For Phase Four and It Doesn't Include The X-Men

With Marvel Studios getting the rights back to the X-Men and Fantastic Four, fans have been wondering when we might see some of these characters introduced into the MCU. Well, as they’ve been saying for a a while now, it’s going to be a long time. How long? At least five years.

Marvel Studios already has a five-year plan in place for their fourth phase of the MCU and the characters from the X-Men and Fantastic Four are not going to be a part of it. When asked by io9 about the possibility of bringing these characters into the MCU anytime soon, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige said:

“It’ll be a while. It’s all just beginning and the five-year plan that we’ve been working on, we were working on before any of that was set. So really it’s much more, for us, less about specifics of when and where [the X-Men will appear] right now and more just the comfort factor and how nice it is that they’re home. That they’re all back. But it will be a very long time.”

So, don’t expect any of these mutant character to pop up in any Marvel films anytime soon. Marvel Studios has a plan in place, they know what they want to bring the fans in phase four, and I imagine they are going to stick to that plan. But who knows… maybe they might surprise us. Also, Feige doesn’t say anything about The Fantastic Four. So maybe there’s a chance that they could show up sooner.

When talking about the upcoming slate of films, Feige said:

“The slate that we’re building over the next five years [is] not apples to apples. It is two very distinct things and I hope they’ll feel very distinct. But there is a similar mentality going into it, which is ‘How can we continue to tell stories with some of the characters that audiences already know and love in a unique way, in a different way, in surprising way, of which we have a lot of plans and ideas and work already going into it?’ [Then] ‘How can we introduce new characters that even hardcore fans, comic fans, have barely known or barely heard of.’ That’s really exciting too.”

As of right now we know that Marvel is developing films for Spider-Man: Far From Home, The Eternals, Black Widow, Doctor Strange 2, Shang-Chi, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and Black Panther 2. But, I’m sure there are going to be some surprises when Marvel Studios officially reveals their phase four line-up at Comic-Con this year.

I can’t wait to see what Marvel has in store for us over the next five years!