Kevin Feige Says Marvel Has Movies Mapped Out Until 2042, With the X-Men at the Core of a New Universe

Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios, said Marvel has already mapped out movies up until 2042, and that the X-Men will be at the core of the single universe the MCU becomes after Avengers: Secret Wars. He also ruled out splitting Secret Wars into two parts and said the studio absolutely has plans for a live action Miles Morales.

There was a lot to break down from what he said at the time. The question that framed his biggest answer described a seven year plan for Marvel, but his response showed the studio has things planned much further in advance than I thought. I will get to that 2042 date below.

Kevin Feige says Avengers: Secret Wars will not be split into two parts

In an interview with Joshua Horowitz, Kevin Feige said Secret Wars will not be split into two different parts. We had been talking a lot about whether this would happen. It seemed like Marvel had been discussing it, but at that point Feige said not in our universe, not in this universe, would it be split up into two parts.

He could be lying. It is very possible that he could be lying. Still, my guess at the time was that Marvel would probably just stick with Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, rather than splitting Secret Wars into two separate parts.

The MCU will not fully reboot after Secret Wars, according to Kevin Feige

Feige also said the MCU is not going to fully reboot after Avengers: Secret Wars. He went on to talk in detail about the plan and what Secret Wars will specifically do to the multiverse and to a singular universe. Marvel does have a very specific plan, but for anyone worried that a lot of characters will simply go away, that is probably not going to happen based on what he said.

It is not going to erase the past of the MCU we have seen so far, and I have always maintained that this is really good, because we want everything to still be intact. We want the story of Iron Man, of Captain America and Steve Rogers, of Thor, to stay intact. But we also want the new that is coming, and it looks like Feige has a clear idea of what that is going to be.

Doomsday and Secret Wars are inspired by the Time Runs Out and Secret Wars comics

The fuller answers came from a big Q&A Feige did in Shanghai, published by the Chinese website weibo.cn. The questioner described a seven year plan running from Avengers 5 to Avengers 6, meaning Doomsday and Secret Wars, and beyond, and said the film layout suggested groups like the X-Men and the Fantastic Four would play very important roles. They added that a friend had told them not to let Feige give his signature vague answer.

Feige said Avengers 5 and Avengers 6 are heavily inspired by the Marvel Comics storylines Time Runs Out and Secret Wars. That is what I had been explaining for a while: Time Runs Out is really Avengers: Doomsday, and the Secret Wars comic is Secret Wars. He said that, as is customary, the comics offer major guidelines for the movies.

He then laid out two goals. First, tie up some storylines that began even before Iron Man, which includes the original X-Men characters. Second, simultaneously set the stage for the future.

Kevin Feige calls Secret Wars a beginning for a single, streamlined universe

"Avengers 4 was truly an ending," Feige said of Avengers: Endgame. Afterward, he said, Marvel tried and experimented with a lot of new things, but Avengers 6 is a beginning. It will establish a streamlined, simplified, single universe that allows the studio to keep going. Some things will be familiar, but many, many things will be brand new.

I think this tells us a lot about the end of Doomsday and Secret Wars. Maybe Doom creates Battleworld at the end of Doomsday, and in Secret Wars it becomes not just one planet but an entire new universe, the singular universe we continue on from. Or maybe Franklin Richards, Reed Richards and some others, Loki maybe, create one new sacred timeline at the end. Either way, Feige confirmed we are going into one universe after Secret Wars. My own guess is that it actually probably happens during Secret Wars, maybe even at the end of Doomsday.

The way I see it, the multiverse gets destroyed at the end of Avengers: Doomsday. Moving forward we get one universe, a culmination of a bunch of different universes combined, and that is the new MCU. I think it works because you bring over a lot of the old characters and stories while adding a lot of new characters. "I think it's kind of the best of both worlds," with the X-Men and the Fantastic Four essentially getting a new beginning for an entire other half of the universe.

The X-Men will be at the core of the next MCU universe

Feige tied this new universe to attracting younger people and connecting with a new generation of audiences, saying that is exactly what the next universe will do, and that fundamentally the X-Men will be at the core of it. So we are getting the X-Men as basically the main characters of the next part of the MCU. Marvel will still do the Avengers and the Fantastic Four, but it will heavily focus on the X-Men.

He said getting the rights to the X-Men is not just about Wolverine being an outstanding character who got to team up with Deadpool. The X-Men is about much more than Wolverine and much more than the original team. Fundamentally, he said, it is a universe, a saga spanning multiple phases in its own right.

Feige has been saying since around 2019 that he wants to focus on different sides of the MCU, and that is basically what he is talking about here. There will be one big universe, but within it there will be different corners. I do not literally mean separate worlds; it is all on Earth, in the same universe. The X-Men will be their own thing, existing alongside the Avengers, until eventually the stories come together. We have Nova and the cosmic side, the Eternals, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four and the Avengers, each with their own storylines that eventually unite, which is the great thing about the MCU. I love what they were working toward.

Marvel Studios has already mapped out movies up until 2042

Feige said he had not told anyone this before, that it was not a vague answer, and that Marvel had just been in the Marvel Studios conference room: "we have already mapped out movies up until 2042." That is a long way out. They know what they want to do, though that is not to say it will not change, which Feige acknowledged himself.

Marvel has a lot mapped out for the new Avengers team and the new X-Men, and it was starting that work then. That is why I think it is a really great idea to bring in Sadie Sink as Jean Grey and introduce some of the new X-Men in Secret Wars. They clearly have it planned.

Feige continued by asking whether they will make it to 2042, and whether the movies they make will actually be those movies, answering who knows to both. But he said this is how Marvel incrementally plans the massive volume of potential stories from the comics, and that having guidance helps them act with more purpose, especially with the X-Men, which already has 10 movies, "some very very good, and some that I don't think delivered on their promise." That is Feige being polite about some X-Men films falling short, a very studio head answer. The question, in his words, is how to lay out the mutant saga in a very grand way. To me it means Marvel Studios has thought about this extensively, and that there is so much coming after Doomsday and Secret Wars too.

Avengers: Doomsday puts three colliding Earths at the centre

Feige also said Avengers: Doomsday will be very different from Avengers 4, because in Endgame everyone was united against Thanos. In Doomsday the situation is much more fragile, with three different universes and three different Earths literally colliding. The question becomes whether the heroes will kill each other to protect their worlds or find a way to work together to save all three, and how Doctor Doom will factor into all of it.

I love hearing that. From what we have heard, the X-Men have destroyed other universes before. So when our Avengers get to their universe, that is why we get the Avengers versus the X-Men, because the X-Men are used to fighting to save their own universe. I cannot wait to see that.

Kevin Feige says Marvel absolutely has plans for a live action Miles Morales

The final answer I wanted to cover was about Spider-Man and Miles Morales. The questioner asked whether there would be a Spider-Man 5 in the Peter Parker series, and about the status of a live action Miles, recalling that Feige once said he had to wait for the Spider-Verse animated films to conclude. Feige pointed to the line in Spider-Man: No Way Home where Electro says there has got to be a black Spider-Man out there somewhere, noting audiences cheered because it could be hinting at Miles.

He called Sony's Spider-Verse films beloved and brilliant and said Beyond the Spider-Verse would come out the following year. Then he said Marvel absolutely has plans for a live action Miles, and that he thinks it is the destiny of the live action Spider-Man movies to have Miles join at some point after the Spider-Verse series wraps. He added that they are always talking about more Spider-Man adventures regardless of agreements or contracts, that his producing partner Amy Pascal is already working on it, and that they have discussed in depth what the next two, three, four or five Spider-Man movies might look like.

So basically, I take that to mean Tom Holland's live action Spider-Man movies will get Miles. I do not think there is a real issue with the rights. Feige and Pascal have worked together for a long time, Spider-Man has been in the MCU since Civil War, and both parties know what works. With Feige talking about two, three, four or five more films, they probably have plans for a long time. Eventually Tom Holland steps out, a new Spider-Man steps in, and that could be Miles Morales. Feige did not really hold back in this Q&A, and I came away more excited for the MCU than ever.

Do you think Feige meant it when he said Secret Wars will stay a single movie, or would you rather see it told in two parts?