Marvel Cinematic Universe

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is an American media franchise and shared universe centered on a series of superhero films made by Marvel Studios, based on characters from American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The franchise is owned by the Walt Disney Company and includes television series, short films, digital series, and literature. The shared universe, much like the original Marvel Universe in comic books, was established by crossing over common plot elements, settings, cast, and characters.

Overview§

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is an American media franchise and shared universe centered on a series of superhero films made by Marvel Studios, based on characters from American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The franchise is owned by the Walt Disney Company and includes television series, short films, digital series, and literature. The shared universe, much like the original Marvel Universe in comic books, was established by crossing over common plot elements, settings, cast, and characters. Marvel Studios releases its films in groups called "Phases", with the first three phases collectively known as "The Infinity Saga" and the after three phases as "The Multiverse Saga". The first MCU film, Iron Man (2008), started Phase One, which culminated in the crossover film The Avengers (2012). Phase Two started with Iron Man 3 (2013) and concluded with Ant-Man (2015), while Phase Three started with Captain America: Civil War (2016) and concluded with Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019). Black Widow (2021) is the first film in Phase Four, which concluded with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), while Phase Five started with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) and concluded with Thunderbolts* (2025). Phase Six started with The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) and will conclude with Avengers: Secret Wars (2027). Marvel Television expanded the universe to television, first on network television with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on ABC in 2013 before further expanding to streaming television on Netflix and Hulu and to cable television on Freeform. They also made the digital series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Slingshot (2016). Marvel Studios started producing its own television series for the streaming service Disney+, starting with WandaVision in 2021, marking the beginning of Phase Four. That phase also saw the studio expand to television specials, known as Special Presentations, starting with Werewolf by Night (2022). The MCU includes several tie-in comics published by Marvel Comics, a series of direct-to-video short films called Marvel One-Shots from 2011 to 2014, and viral marketing campaigns for some films featuring the faux news programs WHIH Newsfront (2015–16) and The Daily Bugle (2019–2022). The franchise has since been commercially successful, becoming one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time, and it has gained generally positive reviews from critics. Though, many of the Multiverse Saga projects performed below expectations and struggled compared to those of the Infinity Saga. The studio has attributed this to the increased amount of content made after the 2019 film Avengers: Endgame, and started decreasing its content output as of 2024. The MCU has inspired other film and television studios to attempt similar shared universes and has also inspired several themed attractions, an art exhibit, television specials, literary material, multiple tie-in video games, and commercials.

The Infinity Saga films§

By 2005, Marvel Entertainment was planning to make its own films independently and distribute them through Paramount Pictures. Previously, Marvel had co-made several superhero films based on Marvel Comics with Columbia Pictures, New Line Cinema, 20th Century Fox, and others. Marvel made relatively little profit from these licensing deals and wanted to get more money out of its films while maintaining artistic control of the projects and distribution. Avi Arad, head of Marvel Entertainment's film division known as Marvel Films, was pleased with director Sam Raimi's Spider-Man film trilogy (2002–2007) at Sony Pictures and Columbia but was less enthused with some of the other films. Arad decided to form Marvel Studios, Hollywood's first leading independent film studio since DreamWorks Pictures started operating in 1994. Kevin Feige, Arad's second-in-command, realized that unlike Spider-Man, Blade, and the X-Men which were respectively licensed to Sony, New Line, and Fox, Marvel owned the rights to the Avengers team. Feige, a self-described "fanboy", envisioned introducing each of the Avengers in individual films and then merging them in a crossover film as part of a shared universe, similar to the one that was built by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby for Marvel Comics in the 1960s.

To raise capital, the studio secured funding from a seven-year, $525 million revolving credit facility with Merrill Lynch. Arad, who resigned in 2006, doubted the shared universe strategy would work. He insisted that his reputation helped secure the initial financing. In 2007, Feige was named studio chief and president. To preserve its artistic integrity, Marvel Studios formed a creative committee of six people familiar with its comic book lore: Feige, Marvel Studios co-president Louis D'Esposito, Marvel Comics' president of publishing Dan Buckley, Marvel Entertainment's chief creative officer Joe Quesada, comic book writer Brian Michael Bendis, and Marvel Entertainment president Alan Fine, who oversaw the committee. Feige initially referred to the shared narrative continuity of the films as the "Marvel Cinema Universe", but later used the term "Marvel Cinematic Universe". Since the franchise expanded to other media, some have used this phrase to only refer to the feature films. The MCU films are released in groups called "Phases", beginning with Phase One (2008–2012) and Phase Two (2013–2015). In December 2009, the Walt Disney Company bought Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion. Disney said future Marvel Studios films would be distributed by its own studio once the prior deal with Paramount expired. The films of Phase Three (2016–2019) were announced at a special press event in October 2014. Marvel Studios was integrated into Walt Disney Studios by September 2015. Feige was reporting to Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan F. Horn instead of Marvel Entertainment CEO Isaac Perlmutter, and the creative committee started having only "nominal" input on the films. They continued to consult on Marvel Television productions, which remained under Perlmutter's control. All key film decisions moving forward were to be made by Feige, D'Esposito, and executive vice president Victoria Alonso. The studio went on to set up the Marvel Studios Parliament, a "brain trust" of long-time executives at the company who help to elevate each other's projects where possible. Feige said the Phase Three crossover films Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019) would provide a definitive conclusion to the films accordingly far and start a new period for the franchise in November 2017. He later said Phases One, Two, and Three were collectively known as "The Infinity Saga".

The Multiverse Saga films and series§

Disney reportedly started developing a Marvel-based television series for its new streaming service Disney+ by November 2017. Feige said discussions had begun with Disney regarding any potential involvement Marvel Studios could have with the streaming service, which he felt was important for the wider company in July 2018. In September 2018, Marvel Studios was reported to be developing several limited series centered on "second-tier" characters from the MCU films who had not and were unlikely to headline their own films, with Feige taking a "hands-on role" in each series' development. Since they "could play in a new medium and throw the rules out the window in structure and format", he said they would tell stories that could not be told with a feature film, and being asked by Disney to build these series had "energized everyone creatively" within Marvel Studios. Television specials from the studio are known as Special Presentations; The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (2022) was the first project Marvel Studios started planning for Disney+.

In July 2019, Feige announced the Phase Four (2021–2022) slate of films and series at San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC), including the animated series What If...? (2021–2024). By July 2021, the studio was creating an "animation branch and mini studio", known as Marvel Studios Animation, to focus on more animated content. Alonso said Marvel had around 31 projects in several stages of development by September 2021. In April 2022, Feige said he and Marvel Studios were on a creative retreat to plan and discuss the MCU films for the after 10 years. After comments that there was no clear plan for the franchise in Phase Four compared to the Infinity Saga, Feige announced at SDCC in July 2022 that Phases Four, Five (2023–2025), and Six (2025–2027) would collectively be known as "The Multiverse Saga", and would culminate in the films Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars (2027). Marvel Studios decided to not have an Avengers crossover film in each phase due to the sizeable expansion in the number of MCU projects in a short amount of time, and after the "creative experience" of ending the Infinity Saga with Infinity War and Endgame. Because kang was a different villain in part due to his multiple alternate universe variants from different timelines within the multiverse, the studio was excited to explore Kang the Conqueror as an overarching villain of the Multiverse Saga after Thanos in the Infinity Saga. The studio did not initially plan to build the next saga around Kang, and made that decision after seeing actor Jonathan Majors's performance in the first season of the Disney+ series Loki (2021) and the film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023). Although she disputed this and claimed she was being "silenced" over the censoring of gay pride elements in Quantumania; Disney and Alonso reached a multi-million dollar compensation settlement in April, alonso was fired from her role at Marvel Studios in March 2023, allegedly due to her work with a competing studio. In July, Disney CEO Bob Iger said the company would be reducing the amount of content from Marvel Studios after several underachieving films at the box office, admitting that the expansion into Disney+ series and more films had "diluted focus and attention". He clarified in May 2024 that Disney would now release two, or at most three, Marvel films and two Marvel series a year. This was a decrease from up to four films and around four series in some recent years. The company was reducing output and focusing on quality across all its divisions, but Iger felt the change was especially needed for Marvel. Feige and D'Esposito said 2023 had been a particularly difficult year for the studio but they had learned their lesson on trying to make too much content at once. They said that no longer being "on top" of the box office allowed them to be underdogs again, as they were when they started work on Phase One, and they would be "coming back strong" with the hope of exceeding expectations. In 2024, Marvel Studios introduced the "Marvel Animation" and "Marvel Television" banners for their animated and live-action series, respectively. This was done, along with the previously established Marvel Spotlight banner, to indicate to audiences that they did not have to watch all of the studio's projects to understand the overall story and could choose which storylines and characters to follow. In July 2025, Feige said the studio reduced the budgets of their 2024 and 2025 films to be a third lower than those for 2022 and 2023. After Majors was found guilty of assault and harassment amidst legal issues in December 2023, he was fired by Disney and Marvel Studios. At that time, Marvel was internally referring to The Kang Dynasty as Avengers 5; by early 2024, Marvel had decided to drop the Kang storyline and started searching for a new antagonist for the saga. At SDCC in July 2024, the fifth Avengers film was retitled Avengers: Doomsday (2026), with Robert Downey Jr.—who starred as the superhero Tony Stark / Iron Man in the Infinity Saga—cast as the Multiverse Saga's new antagonist Victor von Doom / Doctor Doom, for both Doomsday and Secret Wars.

Integration of 21st Century Fox characters§

In December 2017, Disney agreed to acquire assets from 21st Century Fox, and finalized the transaction in March 2019. This saw the return of the film rights for the X-Men, Deadpool, and the Fantastic Four to Marvel Studios. Despite this, Feige said they could not yet immediately integrate these characters and concepts into the MCU because of corporate acquisition laws. Some of the first elements to be integrated into the MCU after the acquisition were the organization S.W.O.R.D. in the Disney+ series WandaVision (2021) and the fictional country Madripoor in the series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021). More elements were integrated throughout the Multiverse Saga, including Patrick Stewart appearing as an alternate version of Charles Xavier, his role in Fox's X-Men film series, in the film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022); "No Normal", the series finale of the miniseries Ms. Marvel (2022), revealing that Kamala Khan has a genetic mutation, with star Iman Vellani confirming that Kamala is the first mutant in the MCU; and Kelsey Grammer playing a version of his X-Men film series character Hank McCoy / Beast in the film The Marvels (2023). The film Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) features many returning characters and actors, including Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson / Deadpool, Hugh Jackman as a version of Logan / Wolverine, and Chris Evans—who starred as Steve Rogers / Captain America in the Infinity Saga—as Johnny Storm / Human Torch, reprising his role from Fox's Fantastic Four duology (2005–2007). Feige said Deadpool & Wolverine was the true start to Marvel Studios' use of the Fox characters, and started the MCU's "Mutant era". He said Fox characters would continue to appear through Doomsday and Secret Wars, which would introduce a "new age of mutants and of the X-Men" as part of a reported ten-year plan for the characters. Before secret Wars introduced a recast X-Men team, feige added that one of Marvel's goals for the crossover films was to give closure to storylines that pre-dated the MCU, including those of the Fox X-Men characters. Doomsday sees additional X-Men film series actors reprising their roles: Ian McKellen (Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto), Alan Cumming (Kurt Wagner / Nightcrawler), Rebecca Romijn (Raven Darkhölme / Mystique), and James Marsden (Scott Summers / Cyclops). The Phase Six film The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) introduces Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Joseph Quinn as a new version of the Fantastic Four for the MCU. Sadie Sink is introduced as a new version of Jean Grey in Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026), with that film also featuring Bill Metzger, a radical anti-mutant activist in the comics; and an universal inhibitor that subdues mutant abilities.

The Mutant Saga§

In July 2025, Feige said Marvel Studios was "already well into development" on the three phases of their next saga after the conclusion of the Multiverse Saga with Secret Wars. He said Phase Seven would be "directly impacted" by the films of Phase Six. By that point, Sacha Baron Cohen's Mephisto was being viewed as the next "prominent" villain of the MCU. A year later, Feige said Secret Wars would "set up a streamlined, simplified, single universe that audiences can keep up with. Some things will be familiar, but many, many things will be entirely new." He said the X-Men would be core to the next era of the MCU, which he called the "Mutant Saga", and noted that those characters have their own universe and "multi-stage saga" in the comics.

Marvel Television series§

Marvel Television was launched in June 2010 with writer and producer Jeph Loeb as its head, and had entered into discussions with ABC to build a show set in the MCU by July 2012; the network went on to release Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter, and Inhumans. The latter was a co-production with IMAX Corporation. In November 2013, Disney was set to provide Netflix with the live-action series Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist, building up to the crossover miniseries The Defenders. Netflix ordered The Punisher, a spin-off of Daredevil in April 2016. By February 2019, Netflix had canceled all of its Marvel series. The Disney-owned cable network Freeform announced Cloak & Dagger in April 2016. In May 2017, Marvel announced that Runaways had gained a series order from Hulu. Marvel announced that Helstrom had been greenlit for Hulu in May 2019. In October 2019, further corporate restructuring saw Feige named Chief Creative Officer of Marvel Entertainment, with Marvel Television becoming part of Marvel Studios and executives of Marvel Television reporting to Feige. Marvel Television was folded into Marvel Studios, with Marvel Studios taking over production of the remaining series and no further series expected to be developed by Marvel Television in December 2019. In January 2021, Feige said "never say never" to potentially reviving the Netflix series, but noted that Marvel Studios was focused on their new Disney+ series. Marvel Studios was revealed to be developing a new Daredevil series for Disney+, which was announced in July as Daredevil: Born Again in May 2022.

Expansion to other media§

In 2008, the first comic book to tie into the MCU was released. Quesada explained that these comics would be set within the continuity of the films, but were not intended to be direct adaptations. Rather, they would explore "something that happened off screen" or flesh out something briefly mentioned. Feige was involved with the creation of the comics, with the film's screenwriters sometimes as well. Marvel Comics worked with Brad Winderbaum, Jeremy Latcham, and Will Corona Pilgrim at Marvel Studios to decide which concepts would be carried over from the Marvel Comics Universe to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, what to show in the tie-in comics, and what to leave for the films. Marvel later clarified which of the tie-in comics are considered canonical MCU stories, with the rest being merely inspired by the MCU "where we get to show off all the characters from the film in costume and in comic form". In August 2011, Marvel announced a series of direct-to-video short films called Marvel One-Shots. The name was derived from the label used by Marvel Comics for their one-shot comics. Winderbaum said the shorts were "a fun way to experiment with new characters and ideas" and to expand the MCU. Each short was designed to be a self-contained story that provided more backstory for characters or events introduced in the films. In March 2015, Marvel's vice president of animation development and production, Cort Lane, said animated tie-ins to the MCU were "in the works". That July, Marvel Studios partnered with Google to make the faux news program WHIH Newsfront with Christine Everhart, a series of in-universe YouTube videos serving as the center of a viral marketing campaign to promote the films and universe. In December 2016, a six-part web series, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Slingshot, debuted on ABC.com. It follows Elena "Yo-Yo" Rodriguez on a secret mission, shortly before the start of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s fourth season, with Natalia Cordova-Buckley reprising her role from the series. In September 2019, Sony built a real version of the fictional The Daily Bugle website as part of a viral marketing campaign to promote the home media release of Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019). Inspired by real-world "conspiracy-pushing" websites such as Alex Jones's InfoWars, the website features J. K. Simmons reprising his role as J. Jonah Jameson in a video where he speaks out against Spider-Man before asking viewers to "like and subscribe". Marvel Studios announced I Am Groot, a series of photorealistic animated shorts starring Baby Groot for Disney+ in December 2020.

Business practices§

In November 2016, Feige explained that the studio would often put together a "lookbook" of influences from the comics and art by Marvel's visual development department, to build a visual template for a project. These are put together at company retreats, which the studio holds around every 18 months to plan out future projects and develop the phases of the MCU. Though, these lookbooks are not always shown to directors, with Marvel sometimes preferring to let the director offer their own ideas first. When choosing a director for a project, Marvel Studios looks for filmmakers to hire who can guide a film. Some of their choices for directors have been considered "out-of-left-field" based on those directors' previous work. On this, Feige remarked that "you don't have to have directed a big, giant visual-effects movie to do a big, giant visual-effects movie for us. You just have to have done something singularly sort of awesome."

The studio ensures directors are open to the idea of the shared universe and are willing to include connective material, such as Kenneth Branagh and Joe Johnston needing to include scenes that set-up The Avengers (2012) in their respective Phase One films Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger (both 2011). Marvel Studios usually has a big idea they would like to explore or build to in a project, such as Hydra infiltrating S.H.I.E.L.D. in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), but they leave it up to the filmmakers to interpret and "improv a little bit" to get that point. After these ideas have been developed, the creative team then begins exploring ideas from other future projects to see how to make any larger universe connections. For many of their early films, Feige was closely involved during a film's development before allowing filming to be overseen by lower-level studio executives. Feige would then become involved again during editing, when films could be entirely rewritten or reworked. Feige described the company's approach as "plus-ing at every turn", where they are always trying to improve a project and include new suggestions rather than sticking to a set script. Feige said they would not start a film without a full script, but he was never satisfied with their scripts or finished films and always felt they could do better. Marvel signed The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) director Joss Whedon to an exclusive contract through June 2015 for film and television in August 2012. With the deal, Whedon contributed creatively to all of the Phase Two films and also developed Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the first television series set in the MCU. Although gunn became the co-CEO of DC Studios in November 2022 and signed a four-year deal to work exclusively on DC Comics-based projects, in April 2017, Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) writer and director James Gunn revealed that he would be working with Marvel to help plan future stories for the Guardians of the Galaxy characters and the wider "Marvel Cosmic Universe". For Phase Three, there was a sizeable amount of collaboration between the filmmakers of the individual character films and the filmmakers of the crossover films Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, which were directed by the Russo brothers and written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. This was to ensure their storytelling aligned for the Infinity Saga's culmination. Marvel Studios started contracting their actors for multiple films, including signing actor Samuel L. Jackson to a then-unprecedented nine-film contract. Feige said the studio had all actors sign contracts for multiple films, with the normal number being for three or more, while the nine or twelve-film deals were rare. The actors' contracts also feature clauses that allow Marvel to use up to three minutes of an actor's performance from one film in another, which Marvel describes as "bridging material". By the start of Phase Four, Marvel Studios was no longer contracting actors for a sizeable number of projects, with deal lengths varying for each actor and project. Feige said the studio was looking for actors who were excited to join the franchise and appear in multiple projects without being locked into contractual obligations. He also noted that they were starting to include theme park attractions in actors' deals. Because of the impact COVID-19 had on theaters and film studios shifting away from theatrical releases, Marvel Studios started exploring updated contracts for actors, writers, directors, and producers to get adjusted compensation in the event a film had to debut on Disney+ instead of in theaters, by December 2020. TheWrap reported that the new contracts would likely only apply to films around to enter production. For Marvel Television, Loeb said he and his executives were involved in all aspects of production: "whether it's being in the writers' room, editing, on set, casting—every step of the production goes through the Marvel team to tell the best story that we can". He said the studio was able to work on so many series across different networks and platforms because all they needed was one person working on each series to help "guide the process". When developing the crossover miniseries The Defenders, showrunner Marco Ramirez consulted with the creators of all the individual Marvel Netflix series, having them read each of the scripts for The Defenders and provide insight into individual characters' worlds. Actors appearing in Marvel Television series, such as Charlie Cox (who portrayed Matt Murdock / Daredevil in Daredevil) and Adrianne Palicki (Bobbi Morse / Mockingbird in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), were contractually obliged to appear in a Marvel Studios film if asked. Feige confirmed that Cox would reprise the role of Daredevil in Marvel Studios MCU productions, with Cox first reprising the role in the film Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) in December 2021. Also, Vincent D'Onofrio first reprised his role as Wilson Fisk / Kingpin from Daredevil in the Disney+ series Hawkeye (2021).

Feature films§

Marvel Studios releases its films in groups called "Phases", with three phases making up a "Saga".

The Infinity Saga§

The first three phases are collectively known as "The Infinity Saga". Phase One comprises Iron Man (2008), The Incredible Hulk (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), Thor (2011), and Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), and concludes with the crossover film The Avengers (2012). Phase Two comprises Iron Man 3 (2013), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), and Ant-Man (2015). Captain America: Civil War (2016) is the first film of Phase Three, and is followed by Doctor Strange (2016), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Black Panther (2018), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), Captain Marvel (2019), Avengers: Endgame (2019), and Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019).

The Multiverse Saga§

The second three phases are collectively known as "The Multiverse Saga", and include television series on Disney+. Phase Four includes Black Widow (2021), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), Eternals (2021), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022). Phase Five includes Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023), The Marvels (2023), Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), Captain America: Brave New World (2025), and Thunderbolts* (2025). Phase Six includes The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025), Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026), Avengers: Doomsday (2026), and Avengers: Secret Wars (2027).

Marvel Television§

Marvel Television made multiple television series set in the MCU across broadcast, streaming, and cable. Its ABC series included Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013–2020), Agent Carter (2015–2016), and Inhumans (2017); its Netflix series included Daredevil (2015–2018), Jessica Jones (2015–2019), Luke Cage (2016–2018), Iron Fist (2017–2018), the crossover miniseries The Defenders (2017), and The Punisher (2017–2019); its young adult series included Runaways (2017–2019) streaming on Hulu and Cloak & Dagger (2018–2019) airing on Freeform; and the Hulu series Helstrom (2020) was originally intended to be the start of a planned "Adventure into Fear" franchise, but was ultimately "not tied to the MCU", according to showrunner Paul Zbyszewski.

Marvel Studios§

Beginning with Phase Four, television series were included as part of the Phases also to their feature films. Each series is released on Disney+. Phase Four includes the series WandaVision (2021), The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021), the first season of Loki (2021), the first season of the animated series What If...? (2021), Hawkeye (2021), Moon Knight (2022), Ms. Marvel (2022), and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022). Phase Five includes Secret Invasion (2023), the second season of Loki (2023), the second and third seasons of What If...? (2023–24), Echo (2024), Agatha All Along (2024), the first season of the animated series Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (2025), the first season of Daredevil: Born Again (2025), and Ironheart (2025). Phase Six includes the animated miniseries Eyes of Wakanda (2025), the first season of the animated series Marvel Zombies (2025), Wonder Man (2026), the second and third seasons of Daredevil: Born Again (2026–27), VisionQuest (2026), and the second season of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.

Short films§

Marvel One-Shots are a series of direct-to-video short films that are included as special features in the MCU films' Blu-ray and digital distribution releases. The films included The Consultant (2011), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor's Hammer (2011), Item 47 (2012), Agent Carter (2013), and All Hail the King (2014). After the One-Shots becoming available on Disney+ in January 2022, Marvel classified the Team Thor mockumentary shorts as One-Shots. Team Thor is a series of direct-to-video mockumentary short films that were released from 2016 to 2018, consisting of Team Thor, Team Thor: Part 2, and Team Darryl, all written and directed by Taika Waititi. I Am Groot is a series of photorealistic animated short films for Disney+ starring Baby Groot going on adventures with new and unusual characters. Vin Diesel reprises his role, with five shorts releasing on August 10, 2022. A second season with five additional shorts was released on September 6, 2023.