Why I'm Looking Forward to the Next Chapter of the MCU

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of those franchises that will live with me forever. I’ll always enjoy every couple of years doing a full marathon of the movies which extends year on year. Disney and Marvel have done a wonderful job in bringing this universe to life and I’ll never get bored of it.

During the franchise, there’s been some lows, more lows than ever since Avengers: Endgame but there’s been some good stuff in there too. No Way Home, Deadpool & Wolverine, Multiverse of Madness, and others just to name a few.

We’re currently in phase 5 which began in 2023 and so far we’re still in it but there’s so much to look forward to again. This is a plus for me as 2024 felt largely empty with only 1 movie in despite that movie being a masterpiece in Deadpool & Wolverine.

2025 is embracing us with Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts. After this, we have The Fantastic Four, Shang-Chi 2, Secret Wars, Doomsday, and Spider-Man 4. It’s likely there are still other projects to be sprinkled in there like Black Panther 3, Doctor Strange 4, and others which is a plus for the franchise.

For me, it shows a leap forward from the cheap and shoddy writing of Love and Thunder or the pointless story of Eternals. We’re seeing films that matter, the build-ups to the characters we’ve seen in the series, there’s a lot to like. Whether or not these projects pull off is another question but I’m all for it.

Up until now, I’ve only talked about the movies. There’s a series scattered in those release dates too. Daredevil and Ironheart dropped this new one, and some great animated content is coming our way. It feels like Marvel has listened to the backlash and making memorable moments again, but positive ones (hopefully).

One of the reasons why I feel like they’ve listened above all else is the Daredevil trailer. I was incredibly worried that Disney was going to butcher this in comparison to the Netflix adaptation of the series but the trailer looks like they’ve taken direction from Netflix and used it which is what fans want. We don’t want to see a yellow suit Matt Murdoch flirting with She-Hulk or a badly designed Skaar just show up out of the blue.

We need these stories and these moments to be impactful and I feel like that’s where we’re heading to. Brave New World will show us Sam Wilson fully takes the mantle of Captain America and lives for it, similar to what we saw in Falcon & The Winter Soldier. We’ll see the impact of No Way Home in Spider-Man 4. We’ll even get to see Robert Downey Jr. return as Dr. Doom. There’s so much to like and be excited for.

I feel like a massive nerd as I write this but it’s felt so hit and miss to the point when I go and see a movie in theatres, or I sit on a couch and watch the opening episode of a series I feel worried. I don’t feel like that moving forward, I feel hopeful and I want these types of series and movies to do well.

Here are the top 5 projects I’m most looking forward to personally;