Home Movies

The complicated origins of the next MCU movie that could earn over $2 billion are already coming back to bite it

That didn't take long.

kang ant man and the wasp quantumania
Photo via Marvel Studios

Forget Secret Invasion, Marvel fans are already casting their sights further afield to think about Avengers: Secret Wars, the grand finale to both Phase Six and the Multiverse Saga as a whole. It’s fair to say, then, that Secret Wars is primed to become the biggest MCU movie since Avengers: Endgame and is probably the franchise’s next bet shot at reaching the kind of insane box office numbers that the Infinity Saga closer and its predecessor, Avengers: Infinity War, managed.

Recommended Videos

On the other hand, a big part of what helped hyped up those two movies before their releases is that hardcore fans couldn’t wait to see the arc of Thanos claiming the Infinity Gauntlet become a reality, as we mostly knew what to expect from the MCU itself and also the clear source material it was drawing from. Secret Wars is much more mystifying project, however, because — as comic book readers will know — there are two very different events that go by that name in Marvel lore.

Avengers Secret Wars
Image via Marvel

And the downside of this confusion is already becoming apparent, thanks to a discussion on the r/MarvelStudios subreddit which makes clear that no one really knows what we’re going to get from the film adaptation. Will it primarily draw from 1984’s Secret Wars, which saw the Avengers manipulated by the Beyonder on Battleworld, or from 2015’s Secret Wars, which had a much greater focus on the Fantastic Four and Doctor Doom as well as rebooting the canon? Only Kevin Feige can answer that. And, well, he’s not.

In some ways, you could argue that Marvel keeping us on our toes like this is a good thing, but on the other hand it’s not always smart to keep us too much in the dark — we can’t be excited for what we’re approaching if we can’t see the path ahead of us. Especially when we’re not even sure who’ll be playing the movie’s main villain, what with all the current uncertainty surrounding Jonathan Majors’ future as Kang.

As of right now, Avengers: Secret Wars is scheduled for release on May 1, 2026.