2026 is going to be a big year for superhero franchises, but let's recap 2025 first. The big winner was the newly rebooted "Superman," which cleaned up at the summer box office, but also signals that James Gunn isn't too keen on embracing family audiences. The heightened level of violence and the tie-ins to the very adult second season of the "Peacemaker" series mean a more limited audience. Over in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (hereafter the "MCU"), none of their three theatrical releases did as well as Disney hoping, with "*Thunderbolts"/"The New Avengers" putting in especially concerning numbers for a summer release with good reviews. Disney is also scaling back their Disney+ shows, having finally released the long-delayed "Ironheart," "Wonder Man," and "Daredevil" series.
So, what's coming up in 2026? The Sony Spider-verse is extinct at this point, with the very limited exception of the third "Spider-verse" movie tentatively scheduled for 2027. However, Tom Holland's Spidey will return in "Spider-man: Brand New Day," the big MCU release for the summer. The hope is that this will be the start of a new trilogy for the character. However, the real test for the continued viability of the MCU will be "Avengers: Doomsday," which has announced a massive cast and has already had its release date moved back once, to December. This will be the first "Avengers" film in seven years, and attempt to provide some kind of climax to Phases Four, Five and Six of the MCU. I expect that both films will make a lot of money, and solve none of the franchise's problems.
Currently, the only MCU live action series scheduled to premiere on Disney+ in 2026 are the second season of "Daredevil: Born Again," and "Vision Quest," which is the sequel series to "WandaVision" featuring Paul Bettany's Vision. After crossover attempts with some of the features, the MCU is no longer going to try and tie in their streaming series into the feature continuity so heavily. We'll still get some cameos, like characters from "Davedevil" reportedly showing up in the next "Spider-man" movie, but probably not more situations like "The Marvels" or "Thunderbolts" where major characters who were introduced in one of the streaming series go on to headline a film. This should reduce the concerns about too much "homework" to keep up with the current releases. It is not looking good for "She-Hulk" on the big screen.
Over at DC, James Gunn is taking his time. He's not sticking to a wider roadmap, but claims he's greenlighting films based on whatever finished scripts are ready to go. So "Supergirl" with Milly Alcock is coming in June, which has an uphill battle as a female-led superhero movie, but does have the benefit of a good director in Craig Gillespie and good source material behind it. The other DC release is a much smaller horror film, "Clayface," featuring a Batman villain who can change his appearance at will. The only live action DC series in the works for 2026 is "Lanterns," which will feature not one, but three Green Lanterns in the DC equivalent of "Training Day." They have the right cast, with Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre playing Hal Jordan and John Stewart, but I'm curious whether the tone is going to be closer to the feature films or the more adult series like "Peacemaker" and "The Penguin."
What's concerning are the titles that aren't anywhere on the schedules for 2026 or 2027. Aside from "Spider-man," the MCU hasn't made a sequel to any of its films released since 2020, and has fumbled several already announced titles, including "Blade" and "Armor Wars." We still get announcements for projects in development, but not much concrete. I don't see another three-movie year for the MCU for the foreseeable future. DC is in better shape, and 2027 should see sequels to both the 2025 "Superman" and "The Batman" if everything works out. However, it also quashed some projects, including the "Sgt. Rock" movie that was potentially going to be directed by Luca Guadagnino.
As superhero films continue to recede at the box office, we'll likely see the MCU and DC offerings continue to shrink. They won't be totally gone anytime soon, but it's clear to me that their dominance of the box office is quickly fading, and we're likely to see a transition away from interconnected universes back to individual character franchises. Batman, Superman, and Spider-man will all be okay, but everyone else will need to watch their step.
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