With apologies to Dua Lipa, 2025 ought to be a good year to assess the state of superhero movie fatigue and/or fervor in our pop culture landscape. After all, there’s a new Superman film coming out, and he’s pretty central to the whole concept, que no? With my personal queasy feeling about 2025 noted for the record, let’s start this escapism-focused listicle with the question of Anthony Mackie’s America:
Captain America: Brave New World / Marvel Studios / February 14
Captain America: Winter Soldier premiered in theaters 10 years ago, heralding a period of, let’s be real, not-fully-anticipated excellence in the superhero movie genre. The perfect proportions of prestige thriller beats and comics-intensive lore formed an exquisitely-assembled action-genre martini. Since then the star of The Apprentice has been elected President of the United States twice, Hydra’s evil algorithm plan seems to have entered the real world via our social media feeds, there was going to be a Dazzler & Tigra series at one point, all kindsa stuff has happened.
The Anthony Mackie-led sequel seems to follow the tonal model of Winter Soldier in its stylistic reference to ‘70s spy thrillers like The Parallax View and Day of the Jackal, which could be a fine case of not fixing the ain’t-broken thing. The original title, the provocative Bush-I-era catchphrase “New World Order,” was changed to the current Brave New World, and Harrison Ford turns into a Red Hulk. Although the surfeit of snake-themed villains was apparently de-emphasized in reshoots, I personally won’t be sad if there’s a lot of the Serpent Society in it. BIG QUESTION: Does it “get political?” Will it be very detectable where it is edited to not “get political?”
Marvel 1943 / Skydance New Media / TBA 2025
This high-profile video game headed by Uncharted‘s Amy Hennig features Captain America and Black Panther in a World War II setting, presumably with some miscommunicated objectives that cause them initially to fight each other. It’s reportedly coming out some time next year, and it looks kind of great. Best case, evokes Insomniac’s Spider-Man fused with Call of Duty? A QUESTION: Does younger Wolverine make a cameo?
Daredevil: Born Again / Marvel Television / March 4
Daredevil Season 1 debuted on Netflix in 2015. To my mind, along with Jessica Jones, it remains Marvel’s finest television adaptation. Charlie Cox and the whole ensemble cooked, and Season 3 (which largely drew from the comics storyline titled Born Again) definitely left us hanging. Personally, I have some concern that the D+-based DD rebirth might be a little like the Aaron Rodgers Going To The New York Jets thing, as in, recapturing the old magic years later with different management is a tricky task. But Wilson Bethel as Bullseye was just chillingly great, so even if this Born Again has to rehash some of Born Again again, I’m into it. BIG QUESTION: Is there any way the new series goes as far into the bleak heart-piercing places as say, Karen Page’s origin episode in Daredevil Season 3?
Andor Season 2 / Disney+’s Star Wars hub / April 22
Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor isn’t technically a Marvel/DC superhuman, but he did a heroic feat, as the vessel of Tony Gilroy’s beautifully-twisted script verbiage, by articulating what this Rebellion vs. Empire fight is really all about without just using the labels “dark” and “light” a lot. Andor did a trick similar to Winter Soldier by making the Gen-X-nostalgia-nerd property seem a little grown-up, although in the case of Star Wars, the dissonance may have been more jarring. This is the one where I can’t wait for the monologues.
BIG QUESTION: As much as I’d like to see characters from the Rogue One crew appear, will they attempt a retcon as difficult as Star Trek Discovery‘s addition of an adopted sister Spock always had but never once mentioned?
Thunderbolts* / Marvel Studios / May 2
Hey, it’s one of those team-ups of lesser-known characters that worked really great for Guardians of the Galaxy! Although I have next to no idea how this one fits into the grand scheme of MCU Lore, I have high confidence in Florence Pugh’s accent, and will be happy to see Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost again. Fun fact: Olga Kurylenko, the Ukraine-born actor who plays gender-bent Taskmaster, also played the revenge-bent Camille Montes in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace. BIG QUESTION: What is the asterisk in the Thunderbolts* title about, besides intriguing marketing? Dare we hope for Asterisk the Gaul?
Ironheart / Marvel Televsion / June 24
Dominique Thorne stars as Riri Williams, who first appeared in her MCU incarnation in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The six-episode series proclaims to conclude Phase Five of the Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline, which I assume means that there’s a really large explosion at the end. A QUESTION: She karaokes a Rihanna song at some point, right?
Superman / DC Studios / July 11
Inevitable memes about Krypto the Super-Alien Dog/Doge? Hawkgirl with D & D Handbook-accurate spiky mace? Compressing/eliding the origin story so we’re at the Superman part quicker? Sure, why the Sam Hill not? The world’s appetite for a new cinematic Superman is something I’m eager to overanalyze, given the fractured state of the actual world and the question of whether the superhero-movie buffet has finally run out of crab legs, if you know what I mean. A personal caveat: If Mr. Terrific says the phrase “A.I.” even once, I’m walking out of the theater. BIG QUESTION: James Gunn speaks Dude fluently, and he speaks to an audience of dudes. Without getting all heavy about it, what will Gunn/Superman tell us about being a dude?
Fantastic Four: First Steps / Marvel Studios / July 25
So let’s begin this MCU Phase Six thing with a Thing! Seriously, the most fascinating part of this third-or-fourth try at an FF movie is, for me, the Thing. Ebon Moss-Bachrach, such a compelling actor in Andor and Blow The Man Down, plays Ben Grimm. The character of The Thing represents the essential Marvel myth in much the way Spider-Man does: He’s a relatable guy from the neighborhood with the tragicomic problem of gaining a superhuman ability that also makes him a big relationship-deprived weirdo. As opposed to Superman’s vibe, where it’d almost-indisputably be nice to be him, for like, several days a week. BIG QUESTION: Can the movie convey the pathos of being the Thing, a concept almost as universally-familiar as turning into the Hulk? Because then maybe we can ease back from all the spectacle and multiversal database-management that’s become much too mandatory toward enjoying these shows.
Eyes of Wakanda / Marvel Televsion / August 6
I don’t believe a ton has been revealed about this project, but it’s definitely based in the Black Panther area of the MCU. Ryan Coogler’s non-Marvel horror film Sinners is slated for release in April 2025, which is a great thing just for the sake of diversity within genre blockbusters — we definitely don’t want all our talented filmmakers only doing the Marvel/DC entertainments. BIG QUESTION: Will there be a pop cultural revelation in the next four years that echoes the cultural impact Black Panther had in 2018? It’s an unfair question, I just find it useful to remember what a welcome surprise was our first encounter with big-screen Wakanda, in my case, in the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland, amidst grateful applause and cheers, near Children’s Fairyland.
Wonder Man / Marvel Television / TBA December 2025
Wonder Man in the comics is a white dude who is a Los Angeles actor type and also is made of pure energy and also is Vision’s half-brother, or something. If I’m remembering right, he’s the most West Coast-ian and specifically Southern Californian of the Avengers, who were generally very New York-centric, until they came up with the Runaways and such, but anyways. With the kinda ridiculously charismatic Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in the lead, I wonder if we’ll be so blessed to see a montage of Wonder Man doing screen test auditions to be every other character in the Marvel Universe. A QUESTION: What is your social media handle, Person Who Loves Wonder Man More Than Any Other Marvel Character? You, and the Person Who LOVES Planet of the Apes, you’re two fan types I’m eager to meet in this big ol’ world
Being honest, it’s almost a sure thing that the release schedule revamps again and fifty new shows get announced before we get to Wonder Man, and I’m totally cool with that.
What films, shows, games are you most looking forward to in the upcoming year? Feel free to @ me on social media and say how this list does or doesn’t correlate with your nerd needs. Have a safe and pleasant New Year’s Eve, whatever that may mean to you.
