Ant-Man & Doctor Strange Movies Confirmed For Marvel Phase III

Phase I of Marvel’s integrated universe concluded last summer with The Avengers. Now we’re into Phase II, which kicks off with Iron Man 3 and will take us through Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, and finally The Avengers 2 in 2015.

You might think that’d be enough for Marvel to have on its plate, but plans for Phase III are already in motion, with President of Production at Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, confirming that two long rumoured movies are part of those plans – Ant-Man and Doctor Strange.

He told MTV News, “Ant-Man is definitely part of Phase Three. Like Iron Man 3, it’s certainly set in the Marvel Universe, but it’s also through the lens of (director) Edgar Wright – which is the only reason we’re making the movie. I’ve known Edgar since our first lunch together at Comic-Con in 2004. He asked me what Marvel was doing with Ant-Man – we weren’t even a studio then; what a difference eight years makes! It’s very much an Ant-Man origin movie from the perspective of Edgar Wright and his co-writer Joe Cornish. It will of course be firmly planted in the MCU, but a different corner than we’ve seen before.” Ant-Man is likely to reach cinemas on November 6, 2015 release date.

When asked which other characters are being developed for Phase III, Kevin Feige confirmed that Doctor Strange is one of them, saying, “Doctor Strange, which I’ve been talking about for years, is definitely one of them. He’s a great, original character, and he checks the box off this criteria that I have: he’s totally different from anything else we have, just like Guardians of the Galaxy. He’s totally different from anything we’ve done before, as is Ant-Man, which keeps us excited.”

We can also expect some changed in the Phase I characters as they movie through Phase II. “So much of the stories we’re telling [right now] is about the core ‘Avengers’ characters we’ve now met,” he says, “And they’ll be evolving in big, surprising ways, in Cap’s next movie and Thor’s next movie and of course in Iron Man 3, as we get them all into the next Avengers film. Beyond that, Ant-Man is the only one officially announced, but you probably don’t have to look too far to guess at the next list of characters we’re toying with and beginning to develop.”