Avengers: Endgame Producer Calls Phase 4 Bittersweet

It took over ten years and nearly two dozen movies but finally, Marvel Studios wrapped up their first massive slate of films with Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home. Beginning next May, Marvel’s Phase 4 kicks off with Black Widow — the Cate Shortland prequel which will follow Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) in the period between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War. The film is set to be the first of many new franchises in Phase 4, the first chunk of films from Marvel that fails to have an Avengers team-up.

Suffice to say, there’s at least one producer at the studio that feels like it’s a bittersweet occasion. Avengers: Endgame executive producer Trinh Tran spoke with us in the lead-up to the film’s home media release and admits it stings a little bit moving away from the roster of characters featured for the past decade.

“This September will be my 12th year at Marvel and I started as an assistant on Iron Man,” Tran recounts. “Being a part of this journey, to be able to be a part of Infinity War and Endgame has been crazy and the last four years have been dedicated to just these two movies alone because we did it back to back.”

“I’ve been able to work with the Russo brothers and Marcus McFeely on the last four projects, which is a good eight years,” she continues. “But it is bittersweet because when I’m in the process of it all and it’s pretty … There was a period of time where it was pretty grueling because it’s two big gigantic movies and we were doing it all together.”

Tran remembers back to the time she first saw Avengers: Endgame in theaters. She went with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, the Russo Brothers, and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely to catch an opening night event. It’s there Tran says she realized just how big of an impact Avengers: Endgame had on the fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“I’d never experienced anything like that before,” says Tran. “It was like this made the four years and the process so worth it because I love the movie and I’m so happy that people love it as much as I do. It’s rewarding, but it is bittersweet because it’s come to an end, but I am very, very excited about phase four and looking forward to all of the new characters that we’re going to be introducing into the MCU and how that’s going to evolve into, knock on wood, another decade worth of storytelling that we can do with these characters.”

Which Phase 4 movie or Disney+ show are you looking forward to most? Share your thoughts in the comments below or by tweeting me at @AdamBarnhardt to chat all things MCU!

The entire MCU Phase 4 slate is as follows: Black Widow on May 1, 2020, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier in fall 2020, The Eternals on November 6, 2020, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on February 12, 2021, WandaVision in spring 2021, Loki in spring 2021, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness on May 7, 2021, What If? In summer 2021, Hawkeye in fall 2021, and Thor: Love and Thunder on November 5, 2021.