Marvel’s Cinematic Universe (the MCU) kicked off 13 years ago with 2008’s Iron Man and the often-neglected The Incredible Hulk starring Edward Norton before the role was recast and given to Mark Ruffalo. Most of that 13 years has been dominated by the ‘Infinity Saga’, involving phases 1-4 of the MCU and producing crossover movies like never seen before. Starting with The Avengers in 2012, Marvel have repeatedly surpassed themselves with successively larger and more ambitious projects, culminating in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, which finally saw the main antagonist of the decades-long story arc brought to justice. Now the MCU is entering an entirely new phase of its storytelling and many of the OG Avengers are hanging up their super suits. So far this year we’ve seen series like WandaVision and Loki thrill audiences on Disney’s home streaming service, and recently box office hits Black Widow and Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings have hit the big screen! Now the end of 2021 is in sight, let’s take a quick look at what’s left in store this year:
The Eternals
The Eternals is the next big Marvel project to hit the cinemas, due at the start of November! The Eternals follows the titular group and will seemingly explain their backstory. In the comics, The Eternals were created by a super powerful race known as the Celestials. The Celestials also created an antithetic race known as the Deviants, which will surely hold a significant spot in the film’s storyline. The Eternals are immortal and have been present for much of Earth’s history, so part of this story will also be dedicated to explaining why they did not intervene during the events of the Infinity Saga!
Hawkeye Series
After the success of Black Widow, fans are eagerly awaiting the release the solo series of Natasha Romanoff’s closest on-screen friend and partner, Clint Barton, known to the team as Hawkeye. The series will see Jeremy Renner in the titular role training his replacement, the new Hawkeye Kate Bishop, played by Hailee Steinfeld. Florence Pugh will be reprising her role as Natasha’s younger sister Yelena. The series will debut on November 24th on Disney+.
Spider-Man: No Way Home
The 3rd instalment of the 3rd iteration of the Spider-Man series has been long anticipated by fans. Sticking to the thematic series of names, No Way Home will follow the storyline of the young Peter Parker (Tom Holland), picking up where we left off after the first (Homecoming) and second (Far From Home) movies. Dr Strange will be making a significant appearance in this movie and it is said that it will deal with the multiverse, as will many upcoming MCU movie following the events of the Loki series which saw the MCU multiverse thrown into chaos. The most exciting aspect of this movie is its potential to exploit the multiverse to include previous iterations of Spider-Man characters. Antagonists from previous Spider-Man movies, such as Jamie Foxx’s Electro from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Alfred Molina’s Dr Octopus from the original Spider-Man 2, have already been confirmed to appear. Rumours have circulated that Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Men will also feature in the movie, but this has not yet been confirmed.