Marvel 2037: What could the next 15 years in Marvel look like?

A decade and a half of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has changed cinema as we know it. What will the next 15 years of Marvel look like for the MCU?

The Marvel Cinematic Universe single-handedly changed cinema. While superhero movies were always big draws, the Marvel Studios franchise resulted in an evolution that would allow them to reel people in for movie after movie (and now show after show) regardless of how well known the hero was.

They accomplished this through strategic storytelling and foundation building, taking their time to build their shared universe from the ground up. While the success of Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger all highlighted the promise of these standalone flicks, it was equally important to use those successes to thread their overarching story together. Thus, by the time The Avengers came around, it was clear that the MCU was destined to rule the box office for a long time to come.

In the almost 15 years that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has existed, we’ve seen heroes rise and fall, villains triumph before defeat and a rich catalog of beloved Marvel Comics characters come to the forefront of their own stories. But with the critically-acclaimed Infinity Saga now finished, the MCU is in a state of flux and we don’t know everything about what the future holds for it.

What we do know, however, is that it’s going to be a major success.

More female-led Marvel projects

One of the biggest criticisms of the MCU during the height of its success was its lack of female-led projects. While women superheroes did appear in rather large roles in the films, none were given the chance to headline their own story.

In recent years, Marvel Studios have remedied this with the releases of films Captain Marvel and Black Widow (and let’s not forget about the short-lived but brilliant Agent Carter TV series). With a sequel to the former on the horizon in The Marvels and Disney Plus shows Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk nearly upon us, the future already has much more female stories than before, and look for that to continue in the years ahead.

You just know fans are crying out for that Scarlet Witch movie!

Young Avengers

Marvel thrives at long-term planning. That’s how they built the MCU from the ground up, ensuring that every character was fully formed before they brought them together for various Avengers movies. It seems that the Marvel Studios machine has now returned to playing the long game in the aftermath of Avengers: Endgame, except that this they are doing it with younger heroes.

With that in mind, expect to have seen a Young Avengers movie and/or series happen within the next 15 years. In fact, you can probably expect more than that, as we’ve already met quite a few of them, with Cassie Lang debuting in the Ant-Man movies, Tommy and Billy Maximoff debuting in WandaVision, Elijah Bradley debuting in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Kate Bishop debuting in Hawkeye and America Chavez now arriving in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Expect the Young Avengers to spend the next 15 years dominating the MCU through a series of solo, recurring and guest appearances before finally bringing the team we all want to the screen.

The Netflix Marvel characters will play a major role

This one feels inevitable at this point. The Marvel Netflix shows have finally found their way home to Disney Plus just as Marvel Studios has begun acknowledging the actors who played some of the roles from those projects. With Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock debuting in Spider-Man: No Way Home and Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson “Kingpin” Fisk debuting in Hawkeye, it’s clear that the MCU is where the future of the Marvel Netflix characters lie.

While the futures are clearer for some more so than others, with Daredevil and Kingpin rumored to resurface in a project like Echo and Krysten Ritter rumored to return as Jessica Jones in the near future, it still goes without saying that we’ll see most (if not all) of the Netflix characters at some point or another over the coming years.

Darker days are ahead for the MCU

Moon Knight has already proven itself to be the most violent MCU project thus far, pushing boundaries that normal MCU projects do not, and that’s not even the only title that will do that this year, with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness promising to adopt a more horror-driven tone.

Marvel Studios is already answering the eternal question of whether or not Marvel can go dark with an MCU project and that’s a good thing because the arrival of Blade in theaters in the years ahead, as well as the rumors of a Daredevil revival or reboot, suggest its going to need to push boundaries in the future. And with those characters possibly debuting in the near-future, look for the MCU to loosen the shackles of its typical PG-13 rating and begun pushing a few more boundaries.

More diversity, inclusion and representation

In recent years, Marvel have made major strides in terms of representation. We’ve mentioned the focus on women superheroes, which is great, but that’s not the only victory here.

The history-making Black Panther was the first to feature a Black director and a predominantly Black cast. Excellent a movie as it was, it also highlighted how long overdue that kind of diversity in the MCU was and it raised questions as to why it didn’t happen sooner. We have now seen another huge step taken through the release of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which also made history for being the first MCU movie to feature an Asian director and a predominantly Asian cast.

Moreover, 2021’s Eternals featured the MCU’s first openly gay superhero and the shared universe’s first same-sex kiss. Another milestone that, though long overdue, made for a welcome change, and it has no doubt paved the way for more LGBTQ+ representation in the MCU going forward.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe could have done more sooner, but change is finally happening. And in the years ahead, the MCU will be a more diverse and inclusive place, and we can’t wait to see that.

Disney Plus shows will outnumber the MCU movies

A bold prediction? Perhaps. But Marvel has quickly proven to be a formidable player in the streaming game, producing five shows in just one year. That’s probably more than we should get used to, particularly because at least two of 2021’s offerings were supposed to debut in 2020 but it doesn’t change the fact that this is just the beginning of the MCU’s streaming era.

This year, we have three movies and three canon series to look forward to. That brings the MCU show collection to eight. Now even though Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk won’t allow Disney Plus to match the then-30+ MCU films line-up just yet, they aren’t the only ones on the horizon.

We also have I Am Groot, The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, Secret Invasion, Ironheart, Armor Wars, Loki season 2, What If…? season 2, the untitled Wakanda series, Echo and Agatha: House of Harkness in development. Throw in rumors of that Daredevil reboot and the Disney Plus release catalog could very well find itself outnumbering the annual movie releases, meaning that we could eventually find ourselves with more MCU on the small screen than the big one.

A new saga

The Infinity Saga was an intricate overarching narrative developed across 11 years that played out across 23 films. From the debut of Iron Man to Thanos’ game-changing snap in Avengers: Infinity War (that set the stage for Avengers: Endgame), Marvel Studios told one well-planned, detailed story that hooked fans and reeled them in.

While the MCU has continued to thrive in its fourth phase even without the Infinity Saga, it’s hard to pin down where the next chapter in this story is going. That’s intentional, of course, as much of the story revolves around introducing new heroes, spotlighting ones that never got their due before and further expanding on new concepts like time travel while introducing new ones like the multiverse.

It’s only the beginning of an exciting new era for the MCU, and that comes with a lot of uncertainty, but a long-term storytelling goal will present itself. It might already have done that through Kang the Conqueror’s debut in Loki, or that might just be setting the stage for a bigger threat to surface. Regardless, a new saga has begun and it will reveal itself to us, most likely with a major villain at the forefront of it. And it’s one that will keep us all talking about Marvel for at least the next decade to come.

A brotherly reunion?

There is no doubt that Marvel exhausted the back-and-forth sibling rivalry between Thor and Loki to within an inch of its life, but that doesn’t mean we’ll never see the brothers of Asgard cross paths again.

Thor was broken by the death of his little brother in Avengers: Infinity War and he’s completely unaware of the fact that there is a variant of the character alive and well out there in the timeline. While the events of Loki likely prohibit the God of Mischief from surfacing in Thor: Love and Thunder, that’s understandable given that the God of Thunder has his own stories to deal with on the silver screen.

Thor and Loki are on different paths right now but you have to bet that, if either one of the heavyweight characters bow out within the next 15 years, Marvel will bring them together one more time. Not only would it be a nice way to send ether one off into the sunset but it would also show Thor that his baby brother was still alive and allow Loki to show him how much he grew.

More Sony crossovers

This feels like an odd one because the MCU rarely delivers anything below “good” and Sony’s Marvel movies are widely considered to be below average. The Venom movies are enjoyable for fans but Morbius may have just etched itself a place on the list of the worst comic book movies ever made.

That said, we should probably expect more crossovers between the two studios in the future. Not only does Sony still own the movie rights to Spider-Man, meaning that they will be involved in at least one MCU project going forward, the appearance of Michael Keaton’s Vulture in Morbius, the potential for an MCU crossover with Venom in the future, and the fact that Sony’s Universe of Marvel Characters is built around Spider-Man characters all suggests we are likely going to see these worlds collide a little more in the years ahead – for better or worse.

The X-Men will dominate

This is also inevitable at this point, right? One of the biggest questions about the Marvel Cinematic Universe for as long as it existed has been: When are the X-Men coming? Unless the answer was “never”, that wasn’t really a question Marvel Studios could ever answer simply because they didn’t own the movie rights to the characters. Well, now they do.

After the Disney-Fox merger, Marvel regained the film rights to the X-Men, instantly resulting in the question of when they would show up. They have remained characteristically quiet on that one, making us guess, as they decided to reboot the Fantastic Four franchise first. But with Patrick Stewart potentially set to bring his Professor X to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it seems that it’s now time for the X-Men era to begin.

When it does, you can bet we’ll be talking about it for years to come. And don’t be surprised if they are leading the next generation of MCU heroes.

What predictions do you have for the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the next 15 years? Let us know in the comments below!