Marvel's Avengers: The Kang Dynasty Loses Director Destin Daniel Cretton
Shang-Chi filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton has exited Avengers 5, leaving The Kang Dynasty without a director.
Avengers: The Kang Dynasty is without a director. Destin Daniel Cretton has departed the fifth installment of the Marvel Studios franchise, Deadline reports. According to the report, Cretton's exit was an "amicable" one, and the Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings filmmaker remains attached to the as-yet-untitled Shang-Chi sequel and the Disney+ TV series Wonder Man. Disney has dated the fifth Avengers movie for May 1, 2026, and will cap off the Multiverse Saga and Phase 6 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Avengers: Secret Wars, scheduled for May 7, 2027.
Cretton boarded the Avengers: Endgame follow-up last July as part of an overall deal with Disney and Marvel Studios. Under that same deal, Cretton began developing the Yahya Abdul-Mateen II-led Wonder Man series he co-created with Andrew Guest (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Community) for Disney+.
The Short Term 12 and Just Mercy director joined the Marvel franchise with 2021's Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which grossed $432 million worldwide during the pandemic era. Cretton's reported exit comes amid reports that Marvel Studios is reconfiguring the ongoing MCU Phase 5 centered on Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) and "moving away" from the Kang storyline that threaded both seasons of Loki, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and the upcoming Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars.
According to Vanity Fair reporter and MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios co-author Joanna Robinson, Quantumania writer Jeff Loveness is no longer penning the script for Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. Kevin Wright, executive producer of Loki season 2, seemed to confirm with ComicBook that Loki season 1 and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness screenwriter Michael Waldron is scripting both Avengers 5 and 6.
Cretton's exit from Kang Dynasty comes amid wider shake-ups at Marvel Studios that have happened since The Marvels bombed at the box office with a franchise-low opening weekend. Last week, Disney reshuffled the Marvel Studios slate, delaying Deadpool 3 (from May 2024 to July 2024), Captain America: Brave New World (from July 2024 to February 2025), Thunderbolts (from December 2024 to July 2025), and the Blade reboot (from February 2025 to November 2025). The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars — originally dated for May 2, 2025, and November 7, 2025 — are currently set for release on May 1, 2026, and May 7, 2027.
The Shang-Chi sequel, which is expected to reunite Cretton and star Simu Liu, has yet to set a release date. In an update over the summer, Liu reported on social media that he was told Shang-Chi 2 "would follow Avengers, but that keeps pushing back due to circumstances beyond my control."
Deadline also reported that Cretton directed the first two episodes of Wonder Man and remains aboard the television series as executive producer. Wonder Man will resume production after the Thanksgiving holiday and is slated to release under the recently launched Marvel Spotlight banner, which gives Marvel Studios a "platform to bring more grounded, character-driven stories to the screen" — stories that are set in the MCU canon but are essentially siloed from the rest of the interconnected universe.