This weekend, Hall H at San Diego Comic Con was full to the brim with pop-culture news on the DCEU, Westworld, and, of course, Marvel Studios. I will be writing some more posts, updating you on the other news that came out but, for now, I will be breaking down all the highlights from the Marvel panel.

The Lineup

Closest to us, the Black Widow film was announced to be released on May 1 2020, Falcon and the Winter will hit autumn next year and rounding off the year, we will see the Eternals drop on November 6. Shang-Chi will drop February 12 2021, we will see the development of Scarlett Witch and Vision’s relationship in WandaVision when it drops that Spring, and May 7 of the same year will see Stephen Strange return for Doctor Strange 2: In The Multiverse of Madness. Spring 2021 will also see the Loki TV show drop on Disney+, an animated show titled What If?, a Hawkeye film will drop 6 months later and finally, Thor: Love and Thunder will see Chris Hemsworth return as the first MCU hero to have a fourth solo film.

Black Widow

The Black Widow film has been filming in London for a while now and will follow Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanov before her time as a SHIELD agent. Directing the film is Cate Shortland (Lore, Somersault) and it will star David Harbour (Strange Things, Hellboy) as Alexi, Rachel Weisz (The Lobster, The Favourite) as Iron Maden (presumably our central antagonist for the film), and Florence Pugh (The Falling, Lady Macbeth) as Yelena Belova – a character that, in the comics, has been known to carry the Black Widow mantel. Other than this, we do not know much about the film. What we do know is that it will be set in Budapest and, as a trailer was shown at SDCC, the Taskmaster may appear as a villain.

The Eternals and Schang-Chi

The two newest additions to the MCU (in comparison to the other release announcements that are sequels or spnoffs from previous MCU ventures) are The Eternals and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the 10 Rings. We know almost nothing about the former other than the fact that it will star Richard Madden (Bodyguard, Game Of Thrones), it will be directed by Chloe Zhao (The Rider), and Angelina Jolie, Kumail Nanjiani, Salma Hayek, and Brian Tyree Henry will all also star. The film is in pre-production and is set to be ‘full Jack Kirby’ according to Kevin Feige.

Shang-Chi is even more mysterious. We know Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12, The Glass Castle) will direct and the Mandarin will return (played by Tony Leung of Internal Affairs and In The Mood For Love). Other than that, we only know that Awkwafina (Ocean’s 8, Crazy Rich Asians) will appear in a still-unannounced role and Simy Liu (Kim’s Convenience, Blood and Water) will be playing our protagonist.

Taika Is Back

Somehow, between starring as Hitler in a film he is writing and directing, making an Akira film, and directing a Time Bandits show for Apple TV, Taika Waititi (What We Do In The Shadows, Hunt for the Wilderpeople) will be finding time to return to the MCU and direct the fourth Thor film – Thor: Love and Thunder – and, if you couldn’t tell by the title art or just the title alone, this film is set to be just as brilliantly ridiculous and hilarious as Thor: Ragnarok. Chris Hemsworth will, of course return, as will Tessa Thompson. More surprisingly, however, is the return of Natalie Portman who, other than the Endgame Cameo, we haven’t seen in the MCU since Thor: The Dark World. This return is made even more interesting by Waititi’s comments on her return. After Portman came on stage and was gifted a Mjolnir prop to wield, Waititi mentions that he was reading Jason Aaron’s Mighty Thor run while writing the film. This is the run in which we see Jane Foster wield the famous hammer herself. Waititi said ‘[I thought to myself] there’s only one person who can do that’. To be honest, I doubt that we will see Jane hold the hammer but we will see on November 5 2021.

The Loose Ends

Finally, there were a few brief mentions by Marvel that were not really elved into at all. It was announced that we will be seeing a Blade film in which he will be played by Mahershala Ali (Moonlight, Luke Cage). It was not really explored at all but I am interested to see if and how this would fit into the MCU as Mahershala Ali has already appeared in the universe as Cottonmouth in Luke Cage. We also got comfirmation of a Hawkeye film/show that will show more of Barton’s adventures as Ronin and will feature Kate Bishop – a character who has been known to carry the name of Hawkeye in the comics. We also found out that Elizabeth Olsen will be appearing in Doctor Strange 2 and, on a less Marvel-related note, Taika Waititi will be guest-starring in Rick and Morty season 4. Finally, we were briefly teased about the Fox merger as Feige said of the panel: “We talked about so much tonight, it’s a shame we didn’t have time to talk about Black Panther 2, about Captain Marvel 2, about Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 […]” and joked, “We didn’t have time to talk about the Fantastic Four, or about the mutants.” Though this means nothing, it does confirm 100% that Marvel will have access to the characters and will almost definitely use them in some capacity.

I hope you liked this post and be sure to check out more of our content at ScreenHub Entertainment such as our post on how Stranger Things has changed or our Montreal Comiccon coverage of the Star Trek panel. Also, as always, please help support our site by letting us what you think in the comments, leaving a like, and sharing this post. Thank you.