Marvel Cinematic Universe Aiming for a New Character and a Sequel Every Year

In a new interview with /Film, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige laid out a general plan for Marvel Studios releases, saying that he'd like to alternate between sequels to established properties, and new concepts. "I think it's important, in an ideal world, that we have an additional story on a pre-existing character and then introduce a new character," Feige said. "So next year is The Winter Solider, Guardians…Year after that, Age of Ultron, Ant-Man. That's a nice rhythm. It might not always be like that. I mean [this year was] Iron Man 3 and The Dark World, so it won't always be like that necessarily, but that's certainly something to aim for. So we have additional stories of the existing characters in development and the new ones, all of which you've heard before." The studio exec also hinted that San Diego Comic Con International was indeed a likely venue for some major film announcements this year, saying that he had a hard time picturing how he would get announcements out before then, but allowing for anything to happen.

"It's all in flux," Feige said. "Well, not all in flux, but specific titles for those dates, we are honing in on them. It probably wouldn't be earlier than Comic-Con to announce that, but perhaps. It's a long way away." He also confessed that while they're working on plans for Thor 3--for which star Chris Hemsworth is signed--they aren't solid yet. With a third Avengers in the offing in the not-too-distant future, as well as likely sequels to at least one of the new films (Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man), they could arguably back-burner Captain America and Thor until they had the perfect script, if that's the direction they wanted to go, and still alternate between  new and established properties while rolling out expected announcements like Doctor Strange, The Inhumans and Black Panther.