Phase Five technically doesn’t start until tomorrow when Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania comes to theaters, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s Phase Five is already on the ropes.
There was widespread hope that the opinion-splitting Phase Four was a necessary bump in the road given the level of table-setting required to shore up the foundations of the Multiverse Saga, only for Paul Rudd’s third solo outing to land with a thud among critics to continue sliding downwards on Rotten Tomatoes, where it’s already the franchise’s second worst-reviewed feature ever.
Those hoping that the ship would right itself could be in for even more bad news, though, with The Hollywood Reporter offering that almost the entire slate of Disney Plus projects scheduled for 2023 could be delayed indefinitely. According to the outlet, only the second season of Loki and Secret Invasion are virtually guaranteed to arrive as planned, leaving the rest up in the air.
That puts Ironheart, Hawkeye spinoff Echo, and Agatha: Coven of Chaos in a sticky predicament, seeing as all three have either finished shooting or are in the midst of principal photography. Kevin Feige did hint that he was planning to slow down the speed at which Marvel Studios releases new content, but nobody thought it would apply to shows that are already nearing the finishing line.
Doom and gloom is one of the internet’s favorite things, so you can guarantee there’s going to be a lot of chatter swirling around the aforementioned trio if they do indeed end up being hit with the pause button.