20th Century Fox has finally announced the release date for their sequel to The Wolverine, tentatively title Wolverine 3. It's set to be released on March 3rd, 2017. This confirms previous statements made by writer/director James Mangold his Wolverine sequel would shoot next after X-Men: Apocalypse. No story elements have been confirmed, but I have a strong feeling we could be seeing Omega Red end up the big-bad of the third installment.
They went even further by announcing The Fantastic Four 2 release date, which at this point hadn't even been teased. The first film hasn't even begun production, but Fox has set the sequel's release for July 14th, 2017. Of course, this release date will likely depend on the first film being a success in 2015. The move here could be to lock-in director Josh Trank and the cast to the date, just in-case.
A third Marvel film was also announced for July 13th, 2018, but project is currently untitled. It could end up being X-Force (which is expected to happen sooner than 2018) or possibly a X-Men/Fantastic Four team-up, not unlike The Avengers.
The one thing that seems apparent with this news, Marvel/Sony/Fox are likely talking to each other to figure out release dates for their Marvel films. A sort of unified-front, rather than competing with each other. It looks like an all around good thing for the franchises, I can't say the same about future DC films and their release spots. As Warner Bros. will have manoeuvre their projects around multiple Marvel summer tentpoles in the future.
