Here is all we can expect from Phase 4 of the MCU, with new characters, storylines and threats
After the release of Avengers: Endgame, all the geek community got really anxious, thinking what would happen next. The movie, released in 2019, was a closing to the third phase of Marvel Cinematic Universe and left everyone wondering what new stories would take part in the fourth one.
In order to help us understand what can we expect from Marvel upcoming productions, we interviewed Amanda Oldman (@amanda_oldman), a 26 year old woman who owns the Youtube channel Amanda Oldman and is one of the runners of the Em Alta Podcast. Both are related to pop/geek culture, constructing analysis about movies and series from this universe – including from Marvel.
Check it out below some of Amanda’s opinions and everything you should know about some main releases in MCU during this fourth phase:
- WandaVision and the future of multiverses
-
As we could already see, Marvel will start working with series on Disney + too, and not only the movies. WandaVision already showed us some of this new dynamic, and for eight weeks, every Friday the fans had one more episode from the story of Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) to watch.
In Amanda’s perspective, the series was a great hit: “WandaVision was a huge risk taken by Marvel, using this different format that the public was not used to seeing. It was really brave for them to go beyond what they were already used to, that they already knew it would work. For me, this was a big strike, a great positive point for the beginning of this new era.”
But after all this wonderful development of the Scarlet Witch, all we really want to know is: what will happen next? (and if you haven’t watched the series, here’s a spoiler alert).
Well, while we do not know if or how the “villain” Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) will be more well developed in further productions, we can already affirm that Wanda Maximoff will be taking part in the movie Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, scheduled for 2022. As we could see, Wanda is even more powerful now that she is discovering her abilities, and we can be sure that Marvel will explore a partnership between her and Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) in this mix of action and thriller that Multiverse Of Madness promises to be.
There is also an expected “spider-verse” to be explored in Spider-Man: No Way Home – but in that case, we still wait for more clues about what exactly will be connected to the movie. Probably, Doctor Strange as Peter’s (Tom Holland) mentor and more multiverse issues to be solved.
- A new side of Falcon and The Winter Soldier
-
March 19th was another happy Friday for Marvel fans, since the first episode of Falcon and The Winter Soldier was released. With around 50 minutes, the production started with a more traditional way to tell the stories, introducing, with a lot of action already,how Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) and Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) are after what happened in Endgame. And, specially, how Falcon dealt with the responsibility of being chosen by Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) to hold the shield as the next Captain America.
Amanda sees this production as an opportunity, and highlights that, with these series being released on Disney +, “they are choosing characters who have a huge potential, that have been sidekicks, to present these characters to the public and develop a story. Bucky has a certain complexity already and we know him for a long time, but Falcon not yet.”
- The development of Black Widow (finally!)
-
The release of a solo movie of Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) has been awaited for a long time, and the pandemic made us wait even more. The movie Black Widow was scheduled for 2020, but was postponed due to Covid-19 and now is supposed to come in May 2021. It will have the return of Scarlett Johansson as the hero, but the plot will happen in the past, since the death of Black Widow occurred in Avengers: Endgame.
According to our interviewee: “Marvel always thinks ahead of its time, in order to not let the movie get outdated, making it work at any time. But I wonder if in this case we will be able to feel something out of context, just because it was produced to be released in another time, and it wasn’t. I hope that Black Widow can be more related to leading us to know the character more deeply, because we know how amazing she is in her work, but we don’t know her origins.”
The expectation, in that case, is that Marvel finds a way to turn this heavy weight of past that the movie carries into something truly intriguing and worthy to be seen, even after Natasha Romanoff’s unfortunate death – and according to the trailers, we can suppose that this is the exact path that the movie will take.
- New villains and Loki with his biggest weapon: sarcasm
-
“I keep thinking if they are going to follow the logic of taking villains from the comics, or even those who already showed up somehow but that the public can’t measure all their power yet, and develop them”. That is one of Amanda’s bets for the evolution of new villains in MCU, and something we should see during the next productions, either series or movies, since Thanos (Josh Brolin) is not playing with infinity stones around the world anymore.
And we have a production that promises to follow this trend really soon: Loki (Tom Hiddleston). “Watching the trailer of Loki, I feel like the narrative is going to be really different”, says Amanda. She notices with the trailer that the series about Thor’s “bad” brother may involve a political plot, with him tricking and cheating many people as usual. We can expect that he will keep his essence as a manipulator, but in a sarcastic way, mocking around people.
About the new villains that may come, some fans got really disappointed after Mephisto, a powerful villain from the comics that was expected to show up somehow during WandaVision, actually didn’t. But according to Amanda, that can make his introduction in the future even more interesting: “I think it was amazing to have this break of expectations from the fans, because I think that this is part of the entertainment: when you are thinking that something will happen, but then there is a plot twist, a revelation, and my theory is overturned.”
- Thor: Love & Thunder – high expectations for the god
-
We do not have a trailer yet, but Taika Watiti is already back as the director of Thor: Love and Thunder, the fourth movie of the hero. Even with few information about the production, we can already say that the Guardians of Galaxy will have a participation in the plot and Natalie Portman will shine again as Jane Foster.
Great expectations rise with the curiosity about the plot, leading the movie to be between the most awaited ones from Amanda: “ I think it is something outstanding, there are characters there that people like me, who didn’t read comics when we were little, never heard about before. I’m seeing Natalie Portman getting ready, and I’m curious!”
As a matter of fact, there are many Marvel releases that will insert new names in the stories, and many already known characters will be shown in ways we have never seen before. Therefore, Amanda agrees that, in a general view of phase four, we can expect to be surprised: “looking at the previous phase of the MCU, everything was already predictable. When a new trailer was released, the fans already unveiled it in seconds, making content explaining it. You went to the cinema already knowing the essence of the story. I guess that considering the upcoming productions, we can expect to be surprised now with what is coming. With stories that we can’t predict what will happen at first sight”.
———————————————————————–
The article above was edited by Carolina Grassmann.
Liked this type of content? Check Her Campus Casper Libero home page for more!