With Marvel Studios' Hall H panel at the San Diego Comic-Con less than two weeks away, we're expecting a lot of lucky guesses masquerading as rumours to do the rounds about what's next for the MCU.
With that in mind, we'd recommend taking the following with a pinch of salt!
The trades recently confirmed that Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy has been offered the chance to helm Avengers 5, though it's since been claimed that he may pass on the movie formerly known as Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.
According to The Streamr, Marvel Studios has found a director for Avengers 5. Whether that's Levy remains to be seen; however, the site believes he's been offered a handful of projects, with Avengers: Secret Wars, Armor Wars, and the X-Men reboot among the possibilities.
This feels like a "safe" guess on the site's part, particularly as Levy would be a good fit for any of them. The filmmaker jumping straight into Avengers 5 still seems unlikely so soon after wrapping work on Deadpool & Wolverine, though we can believe he's at the top of Marvel Studios' list for Secret Wars and X-Men.
Marvel Studios is holding an hour-long panel during Comic-Con, with the expectation being that we'll finally get a confirmed slate for the remainder of the Multiverse Saga.
We have heard that the next Avengers movies could be delayed, no great surprise when the fifth instalment's release is currently less than two years away (believe it or not, when they were first announced, the plan was for them both to be released in 2025).
"This is the first time I’m coming into a franchise that existed before I created it," Levy recently told Financial Times of his MCU experience. "But whatever anxieties I had about working for the [Marvel] machine were unfounded. I’ve had as much creative freedom and empowerment on this movie as any movie I’ve ever made."
He also revealed that once the gruelling press tour for Deadpool & Wolverine is over, he'll return to Stranger Things for its fifth and final season. "It’s going to be brutally exhausting," he acknowledged. "I desperately need a break."
Then, there's his Star Wars movie. That now has a writer in Jonathan Tropper (something Levy has confirmed while talking to press) but is a long way from shooting. "It’s going to take some time because it needs to deserve the Star Wars moniker," he says. "That’s a specific needle to thread."
Only time will tell whether Levy has a future in the MCU but something is going on with Avengers 5, particularly as it was reported over the weekend that writer Michael Waldron has departed the project...