For years, Marvel fans have been trying to work out what comes after the Multiverse Saga. Now, for the first time, the answer is starting to look less like a wall of rumors and more like an actual era. Avengers: Secret Wars is still the dividing line.
Disney currently has the movie scheduled for December 17, 2027, after moving it from its previous May date. Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige has also made it clear that Secret Wars is designed to set up whatever comes next. And what comes next already includes mutants, a flaming supernatural biker, another trip to Wakanda, a new espionage series and increasingly ambitious Marvel Animation projects.
Fans and entertainment sites commonly call this period Phase 7, although Marvel has not unveiled a neat “Phase Seven” slate containing every movie and Disney+ show below. That’s worth remembering whenever an unofficial graphic starts circulating with twelve logos and three Avengers sequels nobody has actually announced. The real post-Secret Wars MCU is interesting enough without inventing half of it.
Secret Wars is Marvel’s big reset point
Marvel’s theatrical calendar currently ends the Multiverse Saga with Avengers: Secret Wars on December 17, 2027. Variety reported the date change when Disney pushed both upcoming Avengers movies deeper into their respective release years, with Doomsday moving to December 18, 2026 and Secret Wars following one year later. The more important detail is what Marvel thinks Secret Wars means for the franchise.
Feige has repeatedly discussed the movie as a transition into a new version of the MCU rather than simply another gigantic Avengers battle. In 2025, he confirmed that the post-Secret Wars landscape would include a newly cast X-Men team, while describing Marvel’s future as a kind of reset without necessarily using the word “reboot.” That makes 2028 particularly important. It’s the first full year after Secret Wars, and Marvel now has three major theatrical movies firmly planted there.
X-Men arrives on May 5, 2028
This is the obvious centerpiece. Marvel’s new X-Men movie is officially scheduled for May 5, 2028, with Thunderbolts* filmmaker Jake Schreier directing. And this is no longer one of those MCU projects where all we know is a logo. Marvel revealed a substantial chunk of its new mutant roster at D23 2026. According to Variety’s coverage of the announcement, the cast includes Kit Connor as Cyclops, Sadie Sink as Jean Grey, Samara Weaving as Emma Frost, Inde Navarrette as Rogue, Christopher Abbott as Professor X and Maya Boyd as Storm.
The villain might be the most exciting casting of all: Adam Driver is playing Mister Sinister. Driver has since confirmed his enthusiasm for the project, telling Jimmy Kimmel Live! that Schreier’s vision and the script helped persuade him to finally join Marvel after years of conversations about other roles.
That makes X-Men easily the clearest sign of what the MCU wants to become after Secret Wars. Marvel spent the Multiverse Saga borrowing heavily from its own past. The next era looks ready to build around characters audiences have been waiting years to see properly integrated into the MCU.
Ryan Gosling’s Ghost Rider follows in July
Then things get supernatural. Marvel officially announced at San Diego Comic-Con 2026 that Ryan Gosling will play Ghost Rider, with Shawn Levy directing. This one had been a fan-casting dream for years, which makes it slightly surreal that it actually happened.
Variety reported that Kevin Feige brought Gosling and Levy onstage during Marvel’s Hall H presentation to reveal the project. Disney later dated the movie for July 28, 2028. Jonathan Tropper is writing the screenplay, with Levy and Gosling also producing alongside Marvel’s usual creative team. What makes this project especially interesting is that it apparently began with Gosling himself.
Feige later explained that Gosling developed the idea and brought the pitch to Levy before the pair took it to Marvel. In other words, this wasn’t simply Marvel scrolling through its character library and assigning a star to Ghost Rider. Gosling wanted the character.
That should immediately make fans curious about what kind of Ghost Rider movie he’s trying to make. We still don’t know how much the film will connect to Marvel’s other supernatural characters, and there is no confirmed Midnight Sons movie attached to it. But Ghost Rider becoming one of the first three post-Secret Wars theatrical releases tells us Marvel considers the supernatural side of the universe worth betting on.
Black Panther 3 closes out 2028
The third major movie on the calendar is Black Panther 3, currently dated December 15, 2028. And this one comes with a major change to Wakanda. At Marvel’s 2026 Comic-Con presentation, David Jonsson was announced as T’Challa II, the son of T’Challa and Nakia who was introduced as a child at the end of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Variety’s report says Jonsson will play the new Black Panther, with Ryan Coogler returning to direct. Letitia Wright is also returning as Shuri, while Winston Duke will reprise M’Baku. That immediately tells us Black Panther 3 is not simply going to repeat the status quo of Wakanda Forever.
We’re apparently jumping far enough forward for T’Challa’s son to become a major player. That also makes the movie one of the strongest pieces of evidence that Secret Wars may substantially rearrange the MCU timeline or its characters’ circumstances. Whatever happens between now and 2028, Wakanda is going to look different afterward.
Marvel Television enters the new era with Zodiac
The post-Secret Wars MCU isn’t limited to movies. At New York Comic Con 2026, Marvel Television boss Brad Winderbaum announced Zodiac, a new live-action series coming to Disney+ in 2028. According to ABC News, Winderbaum described the show as a spy thriller, while deliberately refusing to explain much more about its plot.
Production is expected to begin in London in spring 2027. The title immediately opens plenty of possibilities for comic readers. Marvel Comics has used “Zodiac” for multiple villainous groups and characters connected to the twelve astrological signs, while the logo unveiled at NYCC apparently contained clues for fans.
Marvel isn’t revealing which interpretation it is using yet. What matters more is the genre. After years of Disney+ shows frequently functioning as extensions of Marvel’s movies, a dedicated spy thriller suggests the television side may once again be trying to build its own identity.
Marvel Zombies is refusing to stay dead
Animation also has a surprisingly detailed roadmap. Marvel used NYCC 2026 to announce three additional Marvel Zombies events spread across successive Halloween seasons. ABC News reported that the undead universe will continue with:
- Marvel Zombies: Winter Soldier around Halloween 2027
- Marvel Zombies: Fist of Khonshu around Halloween 2028
- Marvel Zombies: The Last Guardian around Halloween 2029
That means Fist of Khonshu sits directly inside the same broad 2028 period as X-Men, Ghost Rider, Black Panther 3 and Zodiac. The title also strongly points toward Moon Knight mythology, although Marvel has not revealed enough story information to start treating specific character appearances as confirmed. The larger takeaway is that Marvel Animation isn’t being treated as filler between live-action releases. The studio is building recurring animated franchises with their own schedules and identities.
X-Men ’97 should also remain part of the conversation
The mutant takeover isn’t limited to live action either. Marvel showed footage from X-Men ’97 Season 3 at NYCC and confirmed that season for 2027, with a fourth season also planned. That creates an interesting situation where Marvel could potentially have both its animated X-Men universe and its completely new MCU X-Men team active within roughly the same period.
They are separate projects, of course. But from a fan perspective, it reinforces the obvious conclusion: mutants are moving from the edge of Marvel’s strategy to the center of it. After spending years slowly introducing mutation into the MCU while simultaneously bringing back actors from Fox’s X-Men movies, Marvel is finally reaching the point where the X-Men can exist as an ongoing pillar rather than a nostalgic guest appearance.
This doesn’t mean every Phase 7 rumor is suddenly real
Here’s where things still get messy. Once fans know X-Men, Ghost Rider and Black Panther 3 are happening, it becomes tempting to fill every empty calendar slot with whatever project sounds plausible. Midnight Sons. Shang-Chi 2. Doctor Strange 3. Another Fantastic Four movie. Blade. A new Star-Lord project.
Some of those ideas may eventually happen. That doesn’t make them part of a confirmed 2028 “Phase 7 slate.” Disney has also reserved future Marvel theatrical dates without attaching public titles to all of them. Variety reported, for example, an untitled Marvel movie dated November 9, 2029. Until Marvel puts a name on a date, it remains exactly what it says: untitled.
And that distinction matters more now because Marvel has openly acknowledged that releasing too much content hurt the brand. Feige told Empire in 2026 that the studio was deliberately reducing output because producing too many projects spread Marvel’s attention too thin. The 2028 lineup reflects that philosophy remarkably well. Three big movies. One newly announced live-action Disney+ series. Animation continuing in its own lane. That’s already plenty.
Marvel’s next era finally has an identity
For years, “Phase 7” was mostly a blank section on fan-made timeline graphics. That is no longer true. Secret Wars ends the Multiverse Saga in December 2027. Then Jake Schreier’s X-Men arrives in May 2028 with an entirely new mutant cast.
Ryan Gosling becomes Ghost Rider in July. Ryan Coogler returns to Wakanda with David Jonsson’s T’Challa II in December. Zodiac gives Marvel Television a new espionage corner, while Marvel Zombies and X-Men ’97 keep animation moving alongside the live-action universe.
What Marvel still hasn’t done is give all of that one tidy official label. Maybe it eventually will. But we’re far more interested in what the projects themselves are telling us.
The Multiverse Saga was obsessed with alternate worlds, variants and the MCU’s own history. The world after Secret Wars looks like it wants to build something new. And if Marvel really is entering its mutant era with the X-Men, Ghost Rider and a new Black Panther all arriving in the same year, 2028 could end up feeling less like “Phase 7” and more like the MCU’s second beginning.
