With complications caused by the pandemic behind them, Marvel Studios held not one but two splashy panels at the 2022 San Diego Comic-Con. The first was dedicated to the studio's animated offerings, with the likes of What If...?, Marvel Zombies, and Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (then titled Spider-Man: Freshman Year) all showcased.
Since then, updates have been few and far between. Almost all the shows have been delayed, with What If...? season 2 and X-Men '97 both arriving quite a bit later than expected. The latter isn't expected to premiere until later this year despite merchandise based on the X-Men: The Animated Series revival being available in stores for several months.
This has led to speculation Marvel Studios might be moving away from producing animated content; in fact, it seems the opposite is true.
According to scooper Daniel Richtman (via Toonado.com), Kevin Feige is mulling over producing an animated movie for the MCU. There's no word on which characters it would revolve around, though it's an exciting prospect and something fans have been angling for ever since Disney acquired Marvel Entertainment.
Unfortunately, we doubt Pixar or Disney Animation will be involved. Marvel Studios will also have to pull out all the stops to compete with what we've seen from Sony's critically acclaimed Spider-Verse franchise.
Richtman also reveals that at least three more animated TV shows are in the works at Marvel Studios, while What If...? season 4 is now looking like a strong possibility. Similar to how a season 1 episode was pushed to season 2 and the same has happened again with the upcoming third season, it sounds like that would be the case for a fourth batch of episodes as well, with ideas carried over from season 3.
Earlier this month, What If...? director Bryan Andrews shared what he knows about when we might see season 3 of the hit series arrive on Disney+.
"They move stuff around. Every time I thought it was like, 'Oh, it's going to be this!' It's like, 'It's going to move a little bit!'" he explained. "So, even I would hate to say something and have people's hopes come up and then have them be dashed because of the beast of production and when things move around."
"I thought that it could come out at the end of the year in 2024 possibly, but that would be tight."
"There's some other group of people that are masterminding when things [release] and they're moving things on the board, and I don't know where we exist on that at this moment, as well as [Marvel Zombies]," Andrews continued. "Zombies, I'm still working on at the same time, and that's going to be crazy and that's coming out, but that keeps moving around too, right? So I wish I could help you but I can't!"
These are just rumours for now, but we're sure the animation fans among you will be pleased to learn Marvel Studios still has plenty of big plans - including the recently announced Eyes of Wakanda - for this realm of storytelling.