Marvel's Kevin Feige Talks DAREDEVIL, PUNISHER, ANT-MAN, AGE OF ULTRON, DOCTOR STRANGE And Hints At PHASE THREE Announcement At SDCC14

Marvel's Kevin Feige is the face of Marvel Studios. So, when he drops hints and talks about future films we should take notice. He recently made the press rounds during the London premiere of Thor: The Dark World. Kevin gives his thoughts on the recent Ant-Man casting rumors (via HuffingtonPost) and the fate of Daredevil and The Punisher (via BleedingCool). What James Spader's performance as Ultron will entail for Avengers: Age of Ultron (via HuffingtonPost). When we can expect Doctor Strange (via Movies), a female heroine getting a film and the rest of the Phase Three lineup to be announced.

"Well, sometimes it's because we are legitimately talking, and sometimes it's just because he's a prominent actor out there now. And lots of rumors surround prominent actors..."Well, nothing is true yet. I like Paul Rudd, too." 

“We’re trying to figure out what to do with Daredevil now. Punisher could show up at one point. You know, once we get characters back into the Marvel fold we don’t want to do something right away, we want to do the smart thing at the smart time.”

"Well, I think it will be more than a voice role -- we'll be capturing his face and his body to create a whole performance. He's a very unique and incredibly exciting and unpredictable actor. And Ultron in the comics is a robot, but what's cool about him in the comics -- and certainly how Joss Whedon is interpreting him for the movie -- is that he is much more than just a robot. That he's infused with much character. And I don't want to say too much, but you can imagine James Spader will be very dynamic in his portrayal of this character....[Laughs] We did not hire James Spader to do a robot voice."

“Doc Strange, as I’ve been saying for years, is a movie I believe we should make — we’re just figuring out how to make it a great movie. It is in active development right now,” Feige told us. “Whether that’s one of the movies we announce for 2016 or 2017, we have to see. I think it’ll be the middle of next year before we announce officially what the post Ant-Man films will be."

"I know we have numerous exciting female heroes, whether none of them are currently slated, some of them are in development -- frankly, you can look at what Jane Foster does in [Thor: The Dark World], look at Pepper Potts literally saving the day and defeating the bad guy in Iron Man 3, and I'd say we already have great female heroes that are showcased and play major roles in our universe now. Captain America: The Winter Soldier, as you will see, features Black Widow in her biggest role yet in any of our films. In terms of a solo standalone female hero, I'm not sure when that will be. We make two movies a year, we've planned through 2015 and we have some ideas of what we're doing in 2016 and 2017, so we'll see what happens."

At the moment Marvel hasn't made any official announcements concerning the rest of the Phase Three releases besides Ant-Man in July 2015. However, there are a few new characters they've been trying to put together for their own films such as Doctor Strange, Inhumans, Black Panther, Heroes For Hire (or solo films for Luke Cage/Iron First), Ms. Marvel, Black Widow and possibly a new Hulk installment.

Strange and Black Panther have scripts in place which led to lots of casting rumors concerning both projects. Names like Viggo Mortenson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Javier Bardem, Benedict Cumberbatch and Joel Edgerton have been linked over the last couple of years/months. I personally like the idea of having Tom Hanks (recently is campaigning for any superhero role) take the role which is expected to become the Tony Stark of Phase Three. Since Marvel has a tendency to consider Disney alumni and Oscar caliber actors, Hanks seems like a solid candidate. Plus, it wouldn't hurt to give some age to the character. Panther on the other hand has had a overwhelming amount of actors interested in the role. Two of them have been apart the MCU,  The Dark World's Idris Elba and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. Not to mention Guardians of The Galaxy's Djimon Hounsou who is among many favorites for the role. Along with others being linked or fan favorites such as Chadwick Boseman (42), Nate Parker (Non-Stop, Red Tails), Chitwetel Ejiofor (Children of Men, Serenity, 12 Years A Slave, American Gangster), David Oyelowo (The Butler, Planet of The Apes, Reacher), Aldis Hodge (Leverage) and Morris Chestnut (Kick-Ass 2, Nurse Jackie). It seems likely that both films are strong contenders for Phase Three.

The trades previously reported that Ms. Marvel has a script in development over at Marvel. Along with rumblings that Emily Blunt (Looper, Escape From Tomorrow) and Ruth Wilson (Luther, Lone Ranger) were in the running for the role. Even Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica, Riddick) tossed her hat in the ring for the part a few weeks back. We've heard Joss Whedon talk disliking the Carol Danvers incarnation of the character. So it's possible the studio could be going another route with her instead. Marvel recently bought Spawn's Angela and added her to books Age of Ultron and Guardians of The Galaxy. This combined with a new Ms. Marvel comic book on the way led BleedingCool to speculate that Angela could be the new Ms. Marvel. Allowing the character to exist without connections to The Kree and having defined/limited powers. While still having cosmic connections to The Guardians and even possibly Ultron. It's quite possible that Marvel could even move forward with Nicole Perlman's (Guardians of The Galaxy) script for the Black Widow film. Since Johansson's character will be getting a lot more screen time thanks to Winter Soldier and Age of Ultron.

Inhumans has been gathering steam for sometime and at one point was competing with Guardians of The Galaxy as the second last release in Phase Two, before Avengers: Age of Ultron. There is talk the film is going to be the MCU's version of the X-Men with Inhumans possibly replacing mutants. There is also talk of taking influence from Game of Thrones having warring factions within the world of Ihumans. Some speculation that Vin Diesel's real Marvel role could be that of Black Bolt and taking Groot in Guardians was just to get his foot in the door. Besides a script there isn't else much in place with the film but there is chatter it's further along in development than most suspect.

The Hulk was obviously the breakout character in The Avengers and around it's release there was talk that a new film could be on it's way. Joss Whedon and Mark Ruffalo talked about putting it together, with Joss considering writing it. Since then there had been rumblings that stories such as Planet Hulk (Hulk is banished to a warring planet which is populated with aliens as strong as he is) and Indestructible Hulk (Hulk is apart of S.H.I.E.L.D and is s hero rather than a fugitive) could be source material for a new string of movies. There's even a new cartoon Hulk And The Agents of S.M.A.S.H. which could be easily help influence a film. Instead of having Banner on the run making him the primary hero.