With Deadpool & Wolverine less than a week from arriving in theaters for Thursday evening previews, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige is doing the rounds to hype up the MCU's future.
He'll be in San Diego next Saturday for what's sure to be a must-see Hall H panel, of course, and we're expecting big Avengers 5 and Avengers: Secret Wars news. However, when Inverse caught up with Feige, they asked about recent reports suggesting the Russo Brothers are in line to helm those movies.
"No, I can’t comment on it except to say it was somebody else a couple of weeks ago and I look forward to seeing who it is going to be next week," he teased. "We’ll see."
In a separate conversation with io9, Feige was pushed for news on Spider-Man 4. Rumours about a possible director swirled for months, but things have been quiet on that front lately. Also of note is the fact Marvel Studios has only promoted one of the wall-crawler's movies they've co-produced with Sony Pictures in Hall H: Spider-Man: Homecoming way back in 2016.
"Amy [Pascal] and I are working on it," Feige confirmed. "We have writers who are going to be delivering us a draft relatively soon."
That's a step in the right direction but suggests we're still a long way from seeing Tom Holland's Peter Parker back on the big screen. Still, while a 2025 release may be off the table, 2026 is surely a very real possibility.
Finally, talk turned to Marvel Studios' planned X-Men reboot. Feige chose his words carefully but did share some insights into both the planned team roster and how X-Men '97 will inspire the movie's tone.
"Well, it’s that phrase we use often at Marvel, which is 'It’s an embarrassment of riches,'" he said. "And there are a lot of great X-Men characters in the Deadpool & Wolverine film. There are a lot of great X-Men characters in all of the Fox versions of the X-Men films. And there are a lot of great X-Men characters that have never gone on the big screen."
"So I think as we always try to do, as we did when we made the arrangement with Sony for Spider-Man, you’ll probably see a mix of characters you’ve seen before and characters you’ve never seen before."
Feige added, "I think the success of X-Men ’97 was really exciting for us to see people revisit and reconnect with that world. And dare I say, the soap opera elements of that world, which is one of the things that’s so exciting to us about jumping into it finally in the MCU."
There are lots of exciting hints about the future here and, with any luck, Marvel Studios' Multiverse Saga plans (and what comes next) will be made clearer a little over a week from now in front of thousands of fans in San Diego!
Stay tuned for updates.