Upcoming Marvel Movies and TV: MCU Release Date Schedule for Phase 5 and 6

The Sony Spidey-verse may be dead (for now), but the Marvel Cinematic Universe is poised for a rebound. Building off of the excitement of Deadpool & Wolverine and X-Men ’97 in 2024, Marvel hopes to keep things going with high-profile projects The Fantastic Four: First Steps and the revival series Daredevil: Born Again.

The rest of Phases 5 and 6 look just as good, including Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts, a pair of big Avengers movies, as well as TV series Wonder Man, Ironheart, and more.

If you’ve been a little confused by Marvel’s shifting dates and streaming priorities, never fear! We’ve got a comprehensive release calendar for you here detailing all the upcoming MCU projects, so you’ll always be able to find the latest updates when you need them.

Let’s take a look at everything that Marvel has in store for the next few years, and any lingering projects from the Marvel Studios-Sony partnership…

Captain America: Brave New World

Release Date: February 14, 2025

For most of its production, Captain America: Brave New World seemed like a cursed project. It spun out of the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which had a mixed reception, and was plagued with everything from a controversial subtitle and character to multiple reshoots. The latest round of revisions added a whole new character in Giancarlo Esposito’s Sidewinder, leader of the terrorist group the Serpent Society.

But then the first trailer dropped, which promised not only ’90s political thriller action but also Harrison Ford’s Thunderbolt Ross turning into the Red Hulk. Then, footage from SDCC confirmed that the movie will finally deal with the Celestial Tiamut, last seen protruding through the Earth’s crust in Eternals. And then, the same footage revealed that Tiamut would be the source of adamantium, further teasing the arrival of the MCU Wolverine.

All of that information has turned Captain America: Brave New World into one of the most anticipated films of 2025. Written by FWS alums Malcolm Spellman and Dalan Musson and directed by Julius Onah, Brave New World stars Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson in a new and badass Captain America costume, alongside Tim Blake Nelson as the Leader, and Shira Haas as Israeli superhero Sabra.

Daredevil: Born Again

Release Date: March 4, 2025

Matt Murdock returns to the Marvel fold once again in 2025, this time for a nine-episode season on Disney+. We’ve already seen Charlie Cox play lawyer Matt and his alter ego Daredevil in Spider-Man: No Way Home, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and Echo, the last of which also featured Vincent D’Onofrio as Kingpin.

But now the duo gets the spotlight, with a storyline that sees Fisk running for Mayor of New York City. Matt will be joined by Deborah Ann Woll, Elden Henson, and Jon Bernthal as Karen Page, Foggy Nelson, and the Punisher, respectively, and Mohan Kapur will appear as Kamala Khan’s father Yusef, Matt’s client. Wilson Bethel returns as Dex Poindexter, now in full Bullseye garb, and the series adds Nikki M. James as fellow lawyer Kristen McDuffie and Kamar de los Reyes as vigilante White Tiger.

After a long production process that saw the original showrunners canned and the finished material scrapped, current showrunners Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (lately of Loki) are ready to bring Daredevil home to the MCU.

Thunderbolts*

Release Date: May 2, 2025

No, that’s not a typo. The official title (at least at this point) of the Thunderbolts film is Thunderbolts*. What that asterisk means is still unclear, but smart money is on the team becoming the Avengers, at least the morally-ambiguous team known in the comics as the Dark Avengers.

In the comics, the Thunderbolts are villains who masquerade as heroes and take advantage of the public’s trust. However, the film version directed by Jake Schreier and co-written with Beef‘s Lee Sung Jin is about a black ops team that CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) has been assembling across projects such as The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

Led by Bucky, this version of the Thunderbolts consists of Ghost from Ant-Man & the Wasp, USAgent from The Falcon and the Winter Solder, and Red Guardian, White Widow, and Taskmaster from Black Widow. The team gets together to deal with a man called Bob, who is probably the Sentry.

Ironheart

Release Date: June 24, 2025

The first series to explore the legacy of Iron Man and Tony Stark in the MCU, Ironheart stars Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams, a teenager at M.I.T. who creates her own suit of armor to right the wrongs of the world. She’s already made her debut in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and will definitely be a character to keep an eye on as the MCU evolves.

Anthony Ramos (In The Heights) will play Parker Robbins, aka The Hood, as the primary villain of this series. We think The Hood could have a big future in the MCU and explain why here if you know little to nothing about him other than he’s a great card in Marvel Snap. Now that the name Mephisto has been spoken in Agatha All Along, maybe Marvel’s devil will finally appear on screen to give Parker his powers.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Release Date: July 25, 2025

Phase Six begins with The Fantastic Four: First Steps! Marvel’s first family seems to be arriving at just the right time, bringing with them the optimism and big imagination that launched the Marvel Age of comics in 1961.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps stars Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm, aka the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Thing. Directed by WandaVision‘s Matt Shakman and written by Josh Friedman, First Steps takes place in an alternate reality retrofuturistic 1960s, where the team are worldwide celebrities.

The first trailer gives viewers a taste of the movie’s zippy aesthetic, complete with Pascal adopting a Mid-Atlantic accent for Reed and snippets of a stirring score from Michael Giacchino, cementing The Incredibles feel. Even better, fans got a quick look at the movie’s primary antagonist Galactus, played by the gravelly-voiced Ralph Ineson, complete with purple helmet.

Marvel still hasn’t revealed much about the movie’s supporting cast, which will include Julia Garner as the Silver Surfer, as well as John Malkovich and Paul Walter Hauser in undisclosed roles. We wrote more about our hopes for the MCU Fantastic Four movie here.

Eyes of Wakanda

Release date: August 6, 2025

Created by veteran Marvel storyboard artist Todd Harris, the animated series Eyes of Wakanda follows warriors sent to return Vibranium relics to their home country. Black Panther director Ryan Coogler is involved as a producer.

At this point, Marvel’s only released two quick clips from the series, but we wrote more about some of the show’s implications here.

Marvel Zombies

Release Date: October 3, 2025

Season 3 was the end of What If…?, but Marvel isn’t ready to give up on the alternate worlds. The House of Ideas has a Halloween treat for 2025 with Marvel Zombies, a special that looks in on a world ravaged by zombified superheroes, including monstrous versions of Wakanda’s Dora Milaje!

Wonder Man

Release Date: December 2025

Hawkeye turned out to be a wonderful holiday present from showrunner Andrew Guest, who returns in December 2025 with Wonder Man. Co-created with Destin Daniel Cretton of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Wonder Man stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as struggling actor Simon Williams, who gets a part as superhero Wonder Man.

Who gives Simon the part? What does it have to do with his villainous brother Eric Williams (Demetrius Grosse) aka Grim Reaper? And what does Trevor Slattery, the once and never-again Mandarin from Iron Man 3, have to do with it all? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Avengers: Doomsday

Release Date: May 1, 2026

Easily the biggest news coming out of SDCC 2024 was about the second-to-last film of the Multiverse Saga. Originally, Marvel planned for Kang the Conqueror to be the big bad of Phases 4 through 6, with Avengers: The Kang Dynasty leading into the capper Avengers: Secret Wars. But when Kang actor Jonathan Majors’ misdeeds came to light, Marvel went into a panic trying to come up with a new plan.

After shuffling through various directors and writers, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige decided to go back to what worked in the past, in more ways than one. Avengers: Doomsday will be directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, who left the franchise after helming Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. With them comes Robert Downey Jr., but not as Tony Stark. No, he’ll be playing Victor Von Doom, the long-awaited MCU version of Doctor Doom.

“What?” you ask? “How” you ask? “Don’t know!” we answer. While there is some comic book precedent for an Iron Man/Doctor Doom connection, some reality swapping will probably be involved. Early reports suggest that, in addition to the Avengers, Doomsday will also feature the Fantastic Four and the Thunderbolts.

Spider-Man 4

Release Date: July 2026

After much discussion and speculation, Tom Holland recently revealed that a fourth Spider-Man MCU movie will shoot in summer 2025 and will be directed by Destin Daniel Cretton. Outside of that, we don’t know anything else about the movie. In fact, given the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, we don’t even know if Zendaya and Jacob Batalon will be back as MJ and Ned, making this one of the more compelling Spidey films in years.

Vision Quest

Release Date: 2026

Turns out, Agatha All Along isn’t the only show spinning out of WandaVision. Marvel recently announced a Vision series, coming from Star Trek: Picard season three showrunner Terry Matalas. We don’t know anything else about the show so far, but given the excellent work that Matalas did on Picard, we can’t wait to learn more!

Avengers: Secret Wars

Release Date: May 7, 2027

It had long been rumored, and now we know for sure: Avengers: Secret Wars is coming in 2027! However, since there have been a few versions of the Secret Wars saga in Marvel Comics, it’s unclear which story the MCU iteration might follow. But this is the end of the Multiverse Saga, so the movie will probably adapt the 2015 series by Jonathan Hickman.

In that storyline, Doctor Doom recreates reality in his own image, with Reed Richards leading a revolt to set things right.

We’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for cast and story info on this one as its development unfolds!

X-Men ’97 Season 2

Release Date: Unknown

We already know that the excellent X-Men ’97 animated series will return for a second season, but it’s unclear when that might be. When the show does come back to Disney+, it’ll undoubtedly pick up where the timey-wimey finale left off. We have some theories about which comic book stories may be adapted in the second season here.

Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse

Release Date: Unknown

The final (?) part of Sony’s animated Spider-Man trilogy no longer has a release date, but we’re sure it’ll arrive eventually. Look, if they want to make 15 of these, we’ll watch ’em all.

Armor Wars

Release Date: Unknown

And now we hit the “will this ever actually happen” section of this list.

Just days after a different major project was removed from Marvel’s schedule (more on that shortly), writer Yassir Lester took to social media in October 2024 to assure fans that Armor Wars was still happening. But a couple months later, in February 2025, MCU producer Nate Moore gave a fuzzy answer when asked about it.

If it does ever happen, Armor Wars will be a sequel to Secret Invasion that stars Don Cheadle as James Rhodes, who was replaced by a Skrull imposter sometime around Captain America: Civil War. Originally imagined as a Disney+ series and then retooled into a movie, Armor Wars still remains in development, despite initial plans to start filming in 2023. We’ll see.

Live Action Wakanda Series

Release Date: Unknown

Somehow, we know even less about a live action Wakanda series than we do Eyes of Wakanda. The series comes from Coogler’s production company Proximity Media, so the director will be involved somehow. But outside of that, we can only hope that we’ll see more of the franchise’s great characters, such as Winston Duke’s M’Baku and Danai Gurira’s Okoye.

Blade

Release Date: Unknown

After years of trying to skate uphill and make a movie about a C-list superhero that fit in the MCU and also paid respect to the original films and also somehow met star Mahershala Ali’s lofty ambitions, Marvel has put a spike into the Blade film. Well, they removed it from the calendar anyway.

That’s not quite the same thing as cancelation, but given everything we’ve heard about a production that has no vision or direction, it’s hard to believe the Daywalker’s next movie will see the light of day.

Reports say that Marvel is also working on Shang-Chi 2, a Nova project, and apparently a Knull project is coming to the Sony Spidey-Verse! Maybe! We’ll keep updating this with new information as it becomes available!

What upcoming MCU projects are YOU most looking forward to? Let us know in the comments!

The post Upcoming Marvel Movies and TV: MCU Release Date Schedule for Phase 5 and 6 appeared first on Den of Geek.