Marvel’s Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier wrapped up last week, and the studio has cleared any doubts about a followup.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney’s putting a Captain America 4 into development, with Malcom Spellman, the show’s showrunner, tapped to write the screenplay along with series writer Dalan Musson.
Captain America has been part of the MCU since the franchise’s first phase—Captain America: The First Avenger kicked off that main pillar of the series back in 2011, and was soon followed up with Captain America: Winter Soldier in 2014, and Captain America: Civil War in 2016, all the while Chris Evans’ character Steve Rogers popped up in The Avengers films and a handful of others.
In Avengers: Endgame, Rogers got the peaceful life he’d never had, leaving his friends Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), and a government-appointed successor, John Walker (Wyatt Russell) to pick up the shield in his absence in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. As we saw in the series, Sam was reluctant to take on the role of Captain America, but eventually embraces it, donning a new suit and picking up the shield.
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With Marvel working on the next chapter in its cinematic universe, it is adding Captain America to its growing list of films, presumably, with Sam taking the title role. The Hollywood Reporter notes that it’s early, and Marvel hasn’t said what the story will be, who will appear in it, who will direct it, or when it will hit theaters.
The film will join a number of announced projects that are in the works: The franchise’s fourth phase is currently underway, and will see Black Widow, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Eternals, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love and Thunder, Black Panther 2, Captain Marvel 2, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Guardians of the Galaxy 3, and Fantastic 4 coming out in theaters between now and 2023. (Not to mention a ton of TV shows: Loki, Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye, Moon Knight, She-Hulk, Secret Invasion, Ironheart, Armor Wars, and a Wakanda-set series). And, in addition to Captain America 4, there are a couple of other film projects in development: Blade, Deadpool 3, as well as a mutants film.
Marvel certainly isn’t adverse to sequels, and as the MCU continues, it’s keeping some of those main pillars that supported the first phases of the franchise intact, even if some of the faces are changing: Thor has his own film coming up (and will presumably appear in Guardians of the Galaxy 3), and judging from the upcoming Disney+ shows, it looks like Hulk will get some screentime, as well as some sort of continuation or handoff of the Iron Man franchise with Ironheart and Armor Wars. A continuation of Captain America makes sense as the franchise marches on.
