What Captain America: Brave New World Means for Marvel’s Future

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Captain America: Brave New World.

Captain America: Brave New World is nominally a political thriller in which the new Captain America (Anthony Mackie, taking over the role from a retired Chris Evans) must uncover a conspiracy to mind-control soldiers and embarrass the newly named President of the United States, Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford, filling in for the late William Hurt).

But the fourth Captain America movie is also filled with subplots. It drops a lot of nuggets of information on an audience primed to make connections across all of the many Marvel Cinematic Universe movies and shows. A gang called Serpent led by some guy we've never heard of called Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito) has emerged, and is, apparently, a major antagonist to Captain America. A barely-onscreen character from The Incredible Hulk named Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson) has been nursing a grudge against Ross for the better part of two decades. The giant Celestial that emerged from the ocean in The Eternals is full of a precious metal. Oh, and also Bucky (Sebastian Stan) is running for Congress now.

Read More: Breaking Down the Captain America: Brave New World End-Credits Scene

That's a lot of information to unpack, and these Brave New World revelations could have major implications on the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe going forward. The movie is trying to set a foundation for what's to come: specifically two new Avengers movies that could return the MCU to its former glory.

Marvel Studios has been in a slump for the last few years thanks to a flooded superhero market, the decreasing quality of its movies, and a slew of mediocre TV shows that not even the most devoted fans could keep up with. The success of Deadpool & Wolverine was a bright spot in 2024, but that movie soared to success in part by poking fun at Marvel's failings. Critics have not been kind to Brave New World, but it may still serve an important role in rethinking how Marvel makes movies.

Hints that Captain America will lead a new super-team and face off against threats from parallel universes at the end of Brave New World harbinger a new MCU where X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and a handful of the Avengers all live and fight in the same universe. This is laying the foundation for new stories will supplant the current cinematic slate that simply isn't capturing audiences' attention. Here's what to expect from the MCU.

The discovery of Adamantium could usher in the X-Men

In case the connections to the oft-forgotten The Incredible Hulk weren't strange enough, Brave New World ties itself to another not-so-beloved MCU movie: The Eternals. For those of you who missed out on Chloe Zhao's beautiful-looking but tonally discordant superhero film, you need to know that the Celestials were an ancient race of beings who contained immense energy. At the end of that movie, the calcified corpse of a Celestial emerged from the Indian Ocean.

And apparently remained there until the events of Brave New World. In the film, President Ross announces that the Celestial is filled with Adamantium, an element he describes as even stronger than Vibranium. The isolationist nation of Wakanda, where Black Panther hails from, controls all the Vibranium in the world and uses it to run their city, develop medicine, and build their weapons. (It also is built into Captain America's shield and wings, Bucky's metal arm, and Black Panther's suit.) President Ross proposes that the world share Adamantium equitably.

Read More: What Is Adamantium, the Metal in Wolverine's Body?

Astute superhero fans might also recognize Adamntium from the X-Men movies. Wolverine's skeleton and claws are made of the nearly indestructible material. The presence of Adamantium in the MCU hints at a world in which a new Logan is born, raised, experimented upon, and turned into Wolverine.

Alternatively, Marvel could usher a version of Wolverine into Captain America's world even more quickly by simply pulling one over from a parallel universe, whether he's played by Hugh Jackman or someone else. Marvel has long been teasing a clash of universes that will likely usher the X-Men officially into this version of earth. Speaking of which...

Samuel Sterns teases a war between parallel universe versions of the Avengers

In the end-credits scene for Brave New World, Captain America visits the villainous Samuel Sterns in prison. Sterns has the ability to calculate the odds of, well, everything, and he tells Captain America that, in all likelihood, this earth is not the only earth. "Do you think you're the only ones? Do you think it's only this world?" he asks.

Marvel has been churning out movies about parallel universes for years now, from Spider-Man: No Way Home to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness to Deadpool & Wolverine. So it shouldn't come as a shock to the audience that a supervillain with a giant brain is able to predict something we've already seen with our own eyes.

But it's Sterns' second prediction that lays the groundwork for what's to come. "We'll see what happens when you have to protect it from the others." In short, there are multiple versions of each Avenger across parallel universes. Think: the evil Doctor Strange from Multiverse of Madness or Tobey Maguire's Spidey meeting Tom Holland's version in No Way Home. Sterns believes that the different versions of the Avengers will need to fight each other.

And, indeed, they will. Marvel has already announced that Avengers: Secret Wars, based on a comic book of the same name in which parallel universes crashed together, will debut in 2027. The one remaining world, Battleworld, pitted all the heroes against each other. So, yes, Cap will probably have to fight one or more other Caps...and Iron Men and Hulks and Buckys.

Bucky is running for Congress...but also a member of the Thunderbolts?

Speaking of Bucky: A major plot point that the upcoming Thunderbolts* movie will have to resolve is why, exactly, Bucky is a part of that particular super-team.

Let's set aside the fact that Bucky has spent the majority of his life as The Winter Soldier, a brainwashed assassin who murdered hundreds of innocent people. Perhaps he's turned over a new leaf.

Read More: All the Future MCU Movies Announced in Marvel’s Major Revamp

But trailers for The Thunderbolts*, due out in May, show him fighting alongside Florence Pugh's Yelena, Wyatt Russell's John Walker, and others on a sort of low-rent Avengers team brought together by Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. He shoots missiles at cars, punches bad guys, and rides motorcycles. All seems like rather risky behavior for someone on the campaign trail!

Then again, the President of the United States turned into the Red Hulk during a press conference, so maybe super-politicians are the future of the MCU.

Marvel is trying to bring in big stars to revive interest in the MCU

As the insertion of ultimate movie star Harrison Ford into Brave New World might suggest, Marvel is eager to recruit A-listers who will generate interest in their struggling franchise. Ever since Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, and Scarlett Johansson retired from the MCU, Tom Holland and Zendaya took a break from churning out Spider-Man movies, and Chadwick Boseman tragically passed away before he was able to film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the studio has been struggling to coax audiences to theaters to watch sidekicks be promoted to leading roles. You can see this in the box office returns: only a handful of recent movies (including Wakanda Forever, Deadpool & Wolverine) have done well at the box office, with a few actively underperforming (The Marvels, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania).

While Anthony Mackie has appeared in seven Marvel movies and two Marvel TV shows as Captain America's buddy, some critics have pointed out that his character of Sam Wilson hasn't been given the chance to develop. There simply wasn't time when there were dozens of other Avengers to attend to in those team-up movies. Sam is noble and patriotic but little else.

Read More: Bucky Barnes Has a Surprising New Gig in Captain America: Brave New World

He's not the only ill-served superhero. Paul Rudd's Ant-Man worked well as a comic foil to other MCU characters, and his movies were a fun break from superhero world-building. But the character floundered when thrown into Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, a dour movie that took itself very seriously: It spent too much of time explaining faux-physics and parallel worlds and too little cracking jokes. Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange, whose smarts and arrogance render him a less-charming version of Iron Man, hasn't quite convinced audiences he is worthy to take up the mantle as the leader of the Avengers. And Letitia Wright, though a good actor, was perhaps too young and untested to live up to the undeniable movie star aura that surrounded Boseman as Black Panther. The same is true of Mackie's Sam Wilson: he's a solid sidekick, but the character flounders when he's suddenly the main character.

These aren't bad actors. Some of them rack up accolades in prestige films and TV shows. They just are not being given the best parts. Marvel ran though its most interesting characters in the first few phases of its filmmaking. There's a reason Spider-Man comic books have always sold better than Doctor Strange ones: Peter Parker is a relatable kid thrust into an impossible situation, not an impossibly powerful being thrust into bizarre situations. Sure, Marvel Studios now finally owns the rights to The Fantastic Four and X-Men, among the most popular characters in comics. But those characters have also already featured in many, many films. The studio has to reinvent them for the screen, a harder task than bringing Iron Man to life for the first time.

So Marvel is betting on a few more big names. There is, of course, Ford, whose star power may just be able to overcome poor reviews for Brave New World. Pedro Pascal, who stars in two of the biggest shows on TV right now with The Last of Us and The Mandalorian, will head up the new Fantastic Four movie. And the Thunderbolts* promos appear to be emphasizing that movie's two biggest stars outside the MCU, newly-minted Oscar nominee Sebastian Stan and prestige drama darling Florence Pugh.

But historically, what seems to work best is paying big money to well-known actor to reprise beloved roles. Hugh Jackman agreed to appear as Wolverine—even after the character was killed off in an earlier film—opposite Ryan Reynolds in last year's Deadpool & Wolverine. Heck, they even got Chris Evans to return for a cameo in that film. And Tom Holland is said to be starring in a fourth Spider-Man movie despite the actor's public reservations about returning the role.

Marvel's biggest gambit is bringing back Robert Downey Jr. not as Iron Man but as Doctor Doom, a Fantastic Four antagonist and one of the most beloved bad guys in Marvel comics. The two Avengers films will be built not around its heroes but this villain. And Downey Jr.—who went on to win an Oscar after his run as Iron Man—has the type of charisma that's hard to duplicate.

Still, some day Downey will have to retire. Hopefully the MCU will have found a suitable replacement to build its movies around by then.

What's next for the MCU?

The next MCU movie is Thunderbolts*, about a group of misfit superheroes recycled from other MCU movies. The marketing has really been emphasizing that asterisk in the title, which makes sense given that Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross—after whom the group is named in the comics—was humiliated and imprisoned at the end of Captain America: Brave New World. Naming a new supergroup after him wouldn't exactly be auspicious. They will likely take on a different title by the end of the movie. Perhaps the Dark Avengers?

Then Marvel's favorite family of superheroes make their MCU debut in The Fantastic 4: First Steps in July. The retro-futuristic movie set in the 1960 stars Pascal as Mr. Fantastic, Vanessa Kirby as the Invisible Woman, Joseph Quinn as the Human Torch, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as the Thing.

Avengers: Doomsday, which well serve as Downey's debut as Doctor Doom, is scheduled for May 1, 2026. And Spider-Man 4 is also slated for that year. Then on May 7, 2027 comes Avengers: Secret Wars. That is the movie that will pit parallel universe superheroes against each other, and only the most bankable stars will emerge victorious.

Read More: Why Robert Downey Jr.’s Surprise Return to Marvel Could Work—and Why It Might Not

Despite the fact that Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige has promised to ramp down Marvel content on Disney+ after flooding the service with too many shows for fans to keep up with, the studio still plans to put out five shows this year. Daredevil: Born Again, a sequel to the Netflix Marvel series, will premiere on Disney+ in March, reuniting lawyer-turned-superhero Matt Murdoch (Charlie Cox) with his arch-nemesis Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio). Then comes two Wakanda Forever spinoffs, Iron Heart centered on Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) in June and Eyes of Wakanda in August.

In the fall, Disney+ will air the animated series Marvel Zombies and the live-action Wonder Man, the latter of which stars Watchmen breakout Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. Intriguingly, Wonder Man was written by Andrew Guest who cut his teeth on comedies like Community and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. There's also a Vision series in the works due out in 2026.