Marvel Studios is assembling Earth’s mightiest heroes — a lot of them — in Avengers 5.
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Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy is in talks and Marvel’s “top choice” to direct the next Avengers movie after Shang-Chi‘s Destin Daniel Cretton bowed out of the project in November, according to Deadline. A source told the outlet that “more than 60 MCU characters could reprise their roles” in what is being described as an “ensemble feature” and “one of Marvel’s largest productions to date.”
Unlike previous installments with the core six — Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) made up the team in 2012’s The Avengers and 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron — the next iteration will reportedly find the super-team on more “equal footing.”
Among the names listed in the report: Original Avengers co-stars Hemsworth and Ruffalo, Doctor Strange‘s Benedict Cumberbatch, Shang-Chi‘s Simu Liu, Guardians of the Galaxy‘s Karen Gillan, and Loki‘s Tom Hiddleston.
At San Diego Comic-Con in 2022, Marvel Studios president and producer Kevin Feige officially announced Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars as the end of the “Multiverse Saga” and Phase 6 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The two movies, originally set to release months apart, were initially dated for May and November 2025, but have since been pushed back: the now-untitled Avengers 5 will bow on May 1, 2026, followed by Avengers: Secret Wars on May 7, 2027.
Marvel reportedly dropped “The Kang Dynasty” title after firing actor Jonathan Majors, who was set to reprise his role as the titular villain Kang the Conqueror before the Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania star was found guilty of reckless assault in the third degree and guilty of harassment in December. It has also been reported that Marvel parted ways with Quantumania writer Jeff Loveness and that the studio is “moving away” from the Kang storyline that threaded both seasons of the Disney+ series Loki and Ant-Man 3, and which was to continue in future installments of the Multiverse Saga.
Michael Waldron, the head writer on Loki season 1 who also penned 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, wrote the Avengers 5 script that has been submitted to Levy, according to Deadline. Levy’s first MCU movie, the R-rated Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman-starring Deadpool & Wolverine, also involves the multiverse and has already broken pre-sale ticket records ahead of its July 26 release in theaters.
