Recently, two giant announcements came out of Hollywood. Marvel and DC announced their movie schedules for the next four years. We thought this would be a good time to look at what your movie-going future will look like for a couple years.

I’ll start by first looking at Marvel since they just had one of their biggest announcements in the history of the movie franchise. But before that happens, I would like to say that I am just a movie fan, not a diehard comic book fan. If you have read the comic books, of which these movies are based off, then you already know ten times as much as I do. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk movies. Marvel, as well as DC, has released a schedule of their movies through 2020. This can be found at Super-Movie Schedule.

Marvel

Marvel calls this new block of movies Phase 3. In case you were wondering, Phase 1 was everything before The Avengers, and

Phase 2 is everything between The Avengers and The Avengers: Age of Ultron. This almost guaranteed blockbuster comes out May 1, 2015. It features all the superheroes you loved from the first Avengers movie plus Hawkeye. The Avengers will be fighting the evil robot Ultron, and his robot army. From the trailer, the movie looked a little gloomy with the shot of Mark Ruffalo running through the woods and the shot of Captain America’s unbreakable shield broken in half. It reminded me of Man of Steel with how serious it looks. But on the bright side, you’ll get to see Andy Serkis actually playing a human, and not a chimpanzee or whatever Gollum was. This movie will also introduce two new superheroes, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. From the trailer, it looks like they start out as villains and then switch sides. The entire trailer can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmeOjFno6Do.

There are many other notable Marvel movies that are set to come out. Another one coming out in 2015 is Ant-Man, starring Paul Rudd. It will be interesting to see how an actor best known for his comedies will do playing a superhero. There is also a Fantastic Four remake set to to debut in August of next year. This will star a relatively young cast of Kate Mara as Sue Storm, Miles Teller as Reed Richards, Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm, and Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm.

In the following three years, there will be many important movies that will come from the Marvel Universe. One of the most important is Captain America: Civil War, which comes out in May of 2016. In this movie the Marvel Universe is divided in two opposing groups who disagree over something called the Superhero Registration Act. This is basically an act that is designed to make superheroes register to be super police officers. The group in favor of the act is lead by Iron Man and the group against the act is lead by Captain America. This conflict was teased in the first Avengers movie with Stark and Rogers frequently disagreeing and almost getting into fights on many occasions. Another interesting note is that Spider-Man is the only one who doesn’t take a side.

During the four years after Avengers: Age of Ultron, there will be many more movies coming out of the Marvel Universe. I’ll just touch on the more important ones. First, there is Dr. Strange which comes out November of 2016. It is about a great surgeon who breaks his hand and will do anything to fix it so he can work again. His name was dropped in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  Basically, he goes to this shady healer and through a sequence of events, becomes the most powerful wizard in the universe. Then, there is Wolverine 3, which is the worst thing on this newly released schedule. After the six, and by then seven, movies that focus on him, I don’t want to again see Hugh Jackman play a role he could do in his sleep. Hopefully Marvel will make up for this with the release of Gambit, a cool X-Man whose backstory hasn’t been beaten like a dead horse.

Then there is the new superhero Black Panther, which is important in many ways. This is important in the sense that it should connect in a lot of ways with other movies, but that this is the first superhero movie focusing on a African American main character. But this should not be the first time you see Black Panther because it is predicted that he will be seen, if at the least mentioned, in Avengers: Age of Ultron. This is because Marvel has already said that the aforementioned Andy Serkis will play one of Black Panthers main villains.

There is also Captain Marvel, who is the first original female main character in the Marvel Universe (by original I mean that I’m not counting the supposed female Spider-Man spinoff). Captain Marvel is basically the female Superman of the Marvel universe, and frequently teams up with the Guardians of the Galaxy. Finally, there are the Inhumans, which are a secret society where when you become old enough you walk into this magical mist and get a random superpower.

DC

Because I know that that was hardly enough information and you guys don’t want the superhero info to stop, I’ll move on to DC.

The next DC movie coming out is the much anticipated Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice which isn’t released until March of 2016. In this movie, Henry Cavill reprises his role as Superman, pitted against Ben Affleck in his new role as Batman. Affleck is not the only new face you’ll see as DC chose to introduce many of their new heroes in this movie, even though their own movies don’t come out until later on the calendar. It also has Jesse Eisenberg starring as the main antagonist Lex Luthor.

Another new group you probably won’t be familiar with is the Suicide Squad which is introduced in the next DC film after Batman vs. Superman. If you are a fan of the show Arrow, you have already seen a mini version of the Suicide Squad in season two episode 16. The Suicide Squad is a team of government controlled super villains that carry out jobs that the government normally couldn’t do. Over its comic book history, it has featured many different super villains including Deadshot and Deathstroke who are two of the main villains in Arrow. It has also had a couple of heroes including Robin and Green Arrow’s sidekick, Roy Harper.

After that, jump almost an entire year to June 2017 and the release of Wonder Woman. This will be the first superhero movie to be released with a female lead. This stars Gal Gadot, who is most known for driving cars in the Fast and Furious, and not saving the world from intergalactic enemies.

Then, the much anticipated Justice League movie comes out later that year. For this movie to happen, one would have to assume that Batman and Superman resolved what conflict they had in Dawn of Justice. Part of the reason that DC made this movie was to compete with the Avengers movies. Since there is no Avengers movie in 2017, it will have to compete with six different Marvel movies that year.

Next up is The Flash, which will debut in March of the following year. I don’t know why they are making a Flash movie when there is currently a very popular TV show on now. Then there is Aquaman, starring Game of Thrones horse lord Jason Momoa. We hope they won’t make him a waterbending Dr. Doolittle like his powers suggest. Next up is the movie Shazam. This is about an orphan boy who meets an ancient wizard that gives him magical powers. So now when he says “Shazam!” he transforms into an adult who can fly, shoot lightning, and has super strength. Why is he not better than Superman?

After Shazam there will be a second Justice League in June of 2019. This will be followed in 2020 by Cyborg and Green Lantern. These movies mark the end of the “super movies” release. You might remember Cyborg from the Teen Titans on Cartoon Network. Then there will be a Green Lantern remake after the last one starring Ryan Reynolds was a gigantic flop.

Winners and Losers.

Because we like competition we’ll pick some winners and losers, some real, some fictional.

Losers

•  Hawkeye, Black Widow, and The Hulk- Now that Marvel is releasing a smorgasbord of new characters, these characters have to be feeling forgotten. All three of these Avengers didn’t get their own movie, and Marvel says they’re probably never going to. Even though Marvel did say that in Age of Ultron these characters will have major roles, we will probably never see them starring in their own movie.
• Reality- In these movies, there will be aliens, people who can fly, a giant green monster, aliens, wizards, and talking animals. No one is really complaining though.
• Spider-Man- Now the Marvel universe probably won’t be complete just because Spider-Man is owned by Sony. So he will probably not be in Civil War or either of the Infinity War movies. It would be awesome if these companies worked together.
• Villains- To be clear, this doesn’t mean villains in the sense that their evil plot to foil the world will be thwarted (even though thats probably true). This means the great villains played wonderfully, by great actors. More roles like Heath Ledger as Joker (which no one could live up to), Robin Lord Taylor as The Penguin, and Tom Hiddleston as Loki. Can Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, or James Spader voicing a big robot, give villains a comeback?

Winners

• Competition- When these movies come out, they will definitely not be the only thing that will draw people to movie theaters. For example, just next year, Age of Ultron will have to compete with Jurassic World, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Mission Impossible 5. Next year should be a great year for movies.
• Disney- Since Disney owns both Marvel and Star Wars, they will be making a very, very, large amount of money. And who doesn’t like piles upon piles of money?
• Everyone- Within the next couple of years. there will be some fantastic movies being released. It will be a great time for anyone who is a fan of dynamic storylines and mind-blowing action. It will be a great time to go to the movies, so I highly suggest marking your calendars and saving money for overpriced popcorn

If you want to learn more, here are some helpful videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE6cfsfKOKc&list=PLFWHlH4koGZAeH9x2wWeTB32VCESjRI51&index=16

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaoSYqjPY7s&list=PLFWHlH4koGZAeH9x2wWeTB32VCESjRI51&index=18