Disney's 2017 acquisition of 20th Century Fox's stable of Marvel Comics characters laid the groundwork for a dramatic shift in the MCU, and the recent addition of the Multiverse opened the door for The X-Men and Fantastic Four to make their long-awaited debuts.
Since the exploration of these alternate realities and timelines only really began to take shape after the acquisition, it's fair to wonder whether the impending introduction of a whole host of new characters sped-up the studio's plans to implement the Multiverse, but that doesn't appear to be the case.
While chatting to Collider, Kevin Feige revealed that while the "toys that were added to the toybox increased with that Fox acquisition," it didn't actually influence the time-frame.
"I think the Ancient One mentions it in Doctor Strange 1, when she's taking Stephen Strange through that mind-warping journey," he began. "And it was always one of the most powerful storytelling tools in the comics - one you have to wield carefully, because it can get overwhelming, but one that now with the 80 year history of the comics, now we have a 20 plus history of the movies, and there are enough characters that we can start playing with it that way."
In a separate interview with Screen Rant, Feige promised that more announcements are coming.
"There'll be news. There'll be various events. Obviously with the pandemic, the way we've announced things has changed and altered, and in some ways that's been good, because it's kept the focus on what's next," he said. "It's kept the focus on the projects as they come out, and certainly the anticipation for No Way Home, I would say, is as big as anything we've ever felt before, which is good timing as the movie's about to come out."
We know Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts has signed on to helm a Fantastic Four reboot (though updates have been pretty much non-existent since the announcement), but we still have no idea what Feige and co. have in store for The X-Men. Hopefully, the likes of No Way Home, Doctor Strange 2 and Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania shed some more light on Marvel Studios' plans for these iconic characters.