Behold: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase 3

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A week ago, I wrote a little about the never-ending battle between the comic book giants: Marvel and DC.

It seems that earlier this week, Marvel decided to up the ante with a massive event detailing The Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase 3.

For those of you like me, that are massive fans of everything these guys do, this was a pretty spectacular event. They announced every movie in the upcoming phase, lasting up to 2019, and what will follow the events after their next movie Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Some characters we have grown to love won’t have standalone movies, others will, some new characters will arrive, and some of them will cross into each others screens, like Captain America: Civil War, that will have Tony Stark and Steve Rogers on opposite sides of an enormous battle.

As for the new kids on the Marvel block, say hello to Ant Man, Black Panther (with Chadwick Boseman), Doctor Strange, Captain Marvel, and Inhumans.

http://marvel.com/news/movies/23547/marvel_studios_announces_full_phase_3_slate_at_special_event

This is what their schedule looks like for the next five years. Very exciting, right? All of that plus some new TV shows makes Marvel the leading “man” in this battle. The Hollywood Reporter was kind enough to give us the 5 biggest takeaways from the event, as well as 5 things missing from it.

Takeaways:

1. Marvel goes to the fans and the fans come to Marvel: Lines for the event started as early as 6am.

2. Marvel will launch a superhero of color–led film first: Black Panther will debut three years ahead of DC’s Cyborg.

3. With no Black Widow stand-alone in sight, it appears that Warners/DC will be first out of the gate with its female-led superhero movie: What they don’t now yet is that Captain Marvel might be a female lead. Let’s wait and see.

4. Given its success, Marvel is ready to expand to three movies a year: Hurray for Superhero fans!

5. Marvel isn’t concerned about superhero saturation: Hurray for Superhero fans, again!

Missing:

1. Benedict Cumberbatch: From what we gathered from news sources and the Internet, the actor is in talks to play to supernatural hero, Doctor Strange. Maybe they haven’t reached an agreement yet. Here’s hopping they do.

2. Scarlett Johansson: No spin-off for the female lead. That’s sad, considering her movie Lucy did very well at the box office.

3. Anthony Mackie: The actor introduced a popular character (Falcon) in the last Captain America movie and then he was just forgotten. Could Marvel be saving him for phase 4, or is he destined to be a secondary hero?

4. Whither the Hulk? This was rather expected. The franchise has had two different feature films, with two different leading actors, plus an even different one for The Avengers. It seems the studio just doesn’t want to take chances with this character in a standalone movie.

5. Spider-Man: This one is sad, but it is no surprise. Sony still owns the rights to the character and its universe, and they recently rebooted the whole thing. I guess it is going to cost Marvel a lot of money to get this one back before their contract ends. No matter how important the character is in this upcoming storyline.

However, DC is not far behind. They have also announced their movies up to 2020, along with their already successful television shows on the air and in production. The one thing DC does not seem to grasp as well as Marvel, is the coherence of their universe. For example, they have one actor (Grant Gustin) playing The Flash on TV, but they casted a completely different one (Ezra Miller) for their upcoming feature. This drives fans insane, making them revolt in all corners of the web. I know DC is a big fan of the multiverse (multiple existing universes), but this just gets fans confused and a little outraged. My suggestion: take a page of advice from Marvel’s book: make it coherent and connected across all media outlets. That just makes us fans so engaged, jumping from one place to another, loyally following their footsteps.

This is the list of DC’s upcoming feature films, up to 2020:

- Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, directed by Zack Snyder (2016)

- Suicide Squad, directed by David Ayer (2016)

- Wonder Woman, starring Gal Gadot (2017)

- Justice League Part One, directed by Zack Snyder, with Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill and Amy Adams reprising their roles (2017)

- The Flash, starring Ezra Miller (2018)

- Aquaman, starring Jason Momoa (2018)

- Shazam (2019)

- Justice League Part Two, directed by Zack Snyder (2019)

- Cyborg, starring Ray Fisher (2020)

- Green Lantern (2020)

One last thing! This current Hollywood trend of splitting one movie in two parts is just ridiculous and I’m tired of it. Yes, Harry Potter. Yes, Hunger Games. Yes, Avengers. And now yes, Justice League. Oh, and I guess that sparkling vampire did the same. Who cares? Just do the one movie, and then do another. Do not go splitting them in two. I checked, and no one wants that!