Welcome to TechRadar's Marvel Phase 5 hub. In this article, you'll find the latest news and rumors on Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)'s current phase, which is due to end in July 2025.
It's somewhat surreal that MCU Phase 5, which only began in February 2023, is almost over, but there are a number of new movies and Disney Plus shows to look forward to before it bows out. Indeed, there are still six more projects set to arrive as part of the comic book giant's latest film and TV series line-up, and you can learn more about their release dates, cast rosters, trailers, and plot details in this handy guide. So, what are you waiting for? Dive in, superhero!
Marvel Phase 5: every upcoming movie and TV show
Here's a full list of every Marvel Phase 5 project that'll launch between now and June 2025. That includes the official release dates for numerous Marvel TV shows that'll air in late 2024 and early 2025, such as Daredevil: Born Again – information previously teased on Disney's press image database that suggested Marvel was gearing up for a bumper 2025 with six new Disney Plus shows.
For the time being, we've included Ironheart as there's some discrepancy over whether it'll be a Phase 5 or Phase 6 project. Once we know for certain, we'll either keep it here or move it to our Marvel Phase 6 hub.
- What If...? season 3 – December 22, 2024
- Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man – January 29, 2025
- Captain America: Brave New World – February 14, 2025
- Daredevil: Born Again – March 4, 2025
- Thunderbolts* – May 2, 2025
- Ironheart – June 24, 2025
Marvel Phase 5 movies
Captain America: Brave New World
Release date: February 14, 2025
Director: Julius Onah
Confirmed cast: Anthony Mackie, Harrison Ford, Danny Ramirez, Tim Blake Nelson, Giancarlo Esposito, Shira Haas, Liv Tyler, Xosha Roquemore, and Carl Lumbly
Captain America: Brave New World, whose title has ties to a shocking Marvel comic series, will see Mackie return as Sam Wilson/Cap 2.0 and Ford take on the role of Thaddeus 'Thunderbolt' Ross/Red Hulk, which was held by William Hurt until his death in March 2022. Ramirez and Lumbly reprise their roles as Joaquin Torres and Isaiah Bradley from Falcon and the Winter Soldier, while Nelson's Samuel Sterns/The Leader and Tyler's Betty Ross also make their first MCU appearances since 2008's The Incredible Hulk.
At San Diego Comic-Con 2024, Esposito revealed he's playing Seth Voelker (aka Sidewinder, the Serpent Society's leader), while Marvel.com confirmed Haas is playing Ruth Bat-Seraph, a former Black Widow. The identity of Roquemore's character is currently unknown.
Brave New World's first trailer arrived in early July and teased plenty about the film's plot. Not only does it look like it'll follow in The Winter Soldier's political thriller footsteps, but also confirmed Ross will ask Wilson to help him rebuild The Avengers, plus Ross' transformation into Red Hulk. It has ties to Eternals, too, with various nations set to battle it out for the adamantium – yep, that precious metal – encased in the corpse of Tiamut. You know, the deceased Celestial that's been sticking out of the ocean since 2021.
Thunderbolts*
Release date: May 2, 2025
Director: Jake Schreier
Confirmed cast: Sebastian Stan, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Olga Kurylenko, Wyatt Russell, Hannah-John Kamen, Lewis Pullman, and Geraldine Viswanathan
Billed as an anti-hero Avengers-style film, Thunderbolts* (don't ask about the astericks) will be Marvel Phase 5's final flick. The MCU movie rode out its long-gestating creative storm to start filming in late March and surprisingly wrapped production just three months later.
Stan's Bucky Barnes, Dreyfus' Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Pugh's Yelena Belova, Harbour's Red Guardian, Kurylenko's Taskmaster, Russell's US Agent, and Kamen's Ghost are all set to feature. Newcomer wise, Viswanathan will reportedly play Fontaine's right-hand person, while Top Gun: Maverick's Lewis Pullman is playing Bob Reynolds/Sentry.
Thunderbolts' first trailer dropped in mid-September, one month after Thunderbolts' D23 Expo 2024 teaser was leaked online. The pair gave us good looks at its paranoia thriller vibes, a first glimpse of Pullman's Bob, the uneasy alliances at play between the titular group's characters, and a surprise revelation that Fontaine is seemingly the new owner of Avengers Tower.
Marvel Phase 5 TV shows
What If...? season 3
Release date: December 22, 2024
Director: Bryan Andrews
Likely cast: Anthony Mackie, Simu Liu, Sebastien Stan, David Harbour, Teyonah Parris, and Oscar Isaac
Revealed in January via a sneak peek video (see above), a third and final season of animated anthology series What If...? will arrive in late December. It's unclear if it'll release in full or if new episodes will drop daily as they did with What If...? season 2. One entry will be a comedy road-trip story starring Red Guardian and The Winter Soldier, while a recent Marvel Look Ahead trailer teased a Shang-Chi-starring cowboy adventure and a Gundam-style Captain America-led episode.
Speaking on the Official Marvel Podcast episode 2, Marvel's Head of TV and Streaming Brad Winderbaum said: "What If...? season 3 feels like the completion of a trilogy. It takes us to places you'd never expect. It goes beyond the first two seasons in its exploration of the multiverse and it pulls in characters that are very unexpected. And it has, what I think, is an extremely moving and fulfilling culmination for Uatu the Watcher."
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man
Release date: January 29, 2025
Director: TBC
Confirmed cast: Hudson Thames and Colman Domingo
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, which isn't canon in the MCU, follows Peter Parker during his high school days and apparently features a fresh take on his Spider-Man origin story.
At D23 Expo 2024, Marvel revealed Thames and Domingo will voice Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Norman Osborn. Per IGN, a whole host of supporting Spider-Man characters will feature, with showrunner Jeff Trammell later telling the Official Marvel Podcast that Amadeus Cho and Pearl Pangan are two such supporting characters. The image in IGN's X/Twitter post confirmed we'll get the odd Marvel superhero cameo (Doctor Strange is also set to appear) in this project, too.
Speaking on a different episode of the Official Marvel Podcast, Winderbaum elaborated further on what fans can expect. "The showrunner is Jeff Trammel," he said, "Who made a show called Craig of the Creek, which was a kids cartoon that spent seasons in the connected backyards of this neighborhood and had a whole mythology that grew out of it, and characters you really grew to care for over the course of the series. He's amped that up in such a major way playing with characters like, not just Peter Parker, but also Nico Minoru, Lonnie Lincoln – who's my personal favorite – and Harry Osborn and others who really flesh out this teenage ensemble."
Daredevil: Born Again
Release date: March 4, 2025
Directors: Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson
Confirmed cast: Charlie Cox, Vincent D'Onofrio, Deborah Ann Woll, Elden Henson, Jon Bernthal, Ayelet Zuhrer, and Wilson Bethel
Daredevil: Born Again was in serious trouble after Marvel decided to give its a near-total overhaul in October 2023. However, our faith in Daredevil's MCU TV show was restored a few weeks later, with Dario Scardapane (The Punisher, Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan) confirmed as its new head writer, and Moorhead and Benson (Loki season 2, Moon Knight) directing it.
The Marvel Phase 5 series is now a pseudo-sequel to Netflix's TV adaptation, with numerous actors returning to play the same characters. That includes Cox, who returned as the titular vigilante in MCU projects Spider-Man: No Way Home, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and Echo, and D'Onofrio, who showed up in Hawkeye and Echo.
Filming wrapped on Marvel's Daredevil TV show in mid-April, but not before leaked Daredevil: Born Again footage had Marvel fans fearing for a beloved character. Per Winderbaum, Born Again will also be "similar to X-Men 97" with how it's reviving a beloved TV show with a modern twist. As part of an 85th birthday celebration video, Marvel revealed an official first look at Born Again in late August, before 20 more seconds were unveiled in Marvel's most recent Look Ahead trailer (see our What If...? season 3 entry for a link to that video).
Ironheart
Release date: June 24, 2025
Directors: Samantha Bailey and Angela Barnes
Main cast: Dominique Thorne and Anthony Ramos
This Marvel Phase 5 TV show will see Thorne's Riri Williams/Ironheart star in her own MCU project, which is slated to arrive next June. It's been written by Chinaka Hodge (Snowpiercer) and Black Panther director Ryan Coogler is one of Ironheart's executive producers.
Ramos (In The Heights) will play Parker Robbins, aka The Hood, who specializes in dark magic. There are rumors Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat) will portray Mephisto, a previously rumored WandaVision villain. Elden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story) and Anji White (per Deadline) are also reportedly part of the cast.
Like Daredevil: Born Again, Ironheart's first-look footage, which showed Williams flying through some Chicago traffic in her Iron Man-inspired supersuit was teased in Marvel's 85th anniversary celebration video. The studio's latest Look Ahead teaser treated us to 15 brand-new seconds, too, including official looks at Ramos' antagonist and Williams' new white and silver super-suit.
Marvel Phase 6: every announced movie so far
Marvel Phase 5 is the primary focus of this guide. However, if you want details on every confirmed Phase 6 movie and TV show, here's a brief rundown on what's coming from late 2025 onwards.
With the comic titan altering its Multiverse Saga plans following the 2023 Hollywood strikes and Marvel's firing of Kang actor Jonathan Majors, the headline news is that Avengers 5 is now known as Avengers: Doomsday. One of nine huge announcements that wowed us at Comic-Con 2024, Robert Downey Jr. will return as one of Marvel's legendary villains in Doctor Doom. He'll also show up in Avengers: Secret Wars, which might bring the curtain down on MCU Phase 6.
Before those two Avengers movies, plus Spider-Man 4, bring the Multiverse Saga to an end, there are myriad other projects due to be released. Here's a complete list on what's coming soon:
- The Fantastic Four: First Steps – July 25, 2025
- Eyes of Wakanda – August 6, 2025
- Marvel Zombies – October 2025, date TBC
- Wonder Man – December 2025, date TBC
- Avengers: Doomsday – May 1, 2026
- Spider-Man 4 – July 24, 2026
- Avengers: Secret Wars – May 7, 2027
- Armor Wars – TBC
- Blade – TBC
- Untitled Vision TV series – TBC
- X-Men 97 season 2 – TBC
For more Marvel-based content, find out how to watch the Marvel movies in order. Alternatively, read our X-Men movies in order article, Spider-Man movies in order guide, and best Marvel movies piece.
