Marvel SDCC 2026 Panel: My Thoughts! Excitement and Concerns?
Marvel Studios had their panel at San Diego Comic Con last night and in typical Marvel fashion we got some extremely exciting news and updates about the future of the MCU. Let us get started!
Overall Thoughts: Marvel is in an interesting spot right now, after Doomsday and Secret Wars, they’re in a rebuilding phase so I wasn’t sure what exactly was going to be announced at this panel because I don’t know what the future of the MCU is after Secret Wars. Now having seen the panel, I still do not really know what the future of the MCU is after Secret Wars and there is a sense in which I like that. I like that they did not announce a bunch of new movies and tv shows that start 2028 after Secret Wars and go until 2032. We do not know what the MCU is like after December 2028 and that is a good thing. As of now, we only have two movies after Secret Wars and that means they can focus more time and resources on getting those films. I saw some people on Twitter saying they are very underwhelmed by the Marvel panel and wish we got more. I can understand that I like that it was not just a bombardment of Marvel announcements.
AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY: There was not much on Doomsday highlighted here except the cast coming out on the stage and the people in attendance getting exclusive posters. I was not expecting there to be much about Doomsday. I thought they were debuting the trailer there, but they debuted it a few days early so after that I did not really expect anything major about Doomsday. They did reveal information about who is and who is not in Doomsday. They walked Hayley Atwell out on stage and confirmed that Peggy Carter is returning. That part is not too surprising to me, especially since it seems like they are going back to the Steve Rogers that we see in Endgame and even saw in that teaser back in December. The other one was that it seems like Ryan Reynolds is not returning as Deadpool. There was this whole skit with Reynolds as Deadpool during the panel that was funny. They used some of the meta humor to confirm that he is not in the film. Which at face value to me is not too surprising, for several reasons that I said a few days back.
GHOST RIDER
This was the most surprising announcement of the evening. The other big announcement that we will talk about later, I expected to have happened. The one that got a lot of people talking is the fact that Ghost Rider is finally joining in the MCU, and he will be played by Ryan Gosling. If you do not know, Gosling loves the character and there have been a lot of rumors about Gosling being Ghost Rider for many years. He has been asked about it for years now. I first heard about it when he was promoting The Gray Man in 2022. They finally announced that Ryan Gosling is Ghost Rider and a Ghost Rider film is hitting in 2028 with Shawn Levy directing the film. Kevin Feige even said that part of the reason Levy is directing is because he has seen Star Wars: Starfighter and loved it and seems like Gosling and Levy love working together so Levy is directing the film.
As far as Ryan Gosling joining the MCU, I have a couple of thoughts about this. First, I think Gosling joining the MCU is a bigger win for Marvel then it is for Gosling. Marvel needs Gosling more than Gosling needs Marvel. Gosling is of course one of the biggest movie stars currently working that has done prestige Oscar dramas as well as blockbusters. He is one of these actors that has not joined a big superhero franchise. He has been in Hollywood for 20 years now and has not been in a superhero movie so now is his time. In an interview after the panel, Kevin Feige said that Gosling approached Marvel about playing the character and even pitched them an idea and it sounds like that idea is the movie they are going forward with.
Because of this, a lot of people have been making the comparison to Mahershala Ali as Blade. That casting was announced seven years ago and there have been multiple writers and directors attached. The film still has not come out yet and Feige himself has recently during the Spider-Man: Brand New Day press tour has expressed his frustrations and disappointment that Mahershala Ali was never able to get a Blade movie made. At face value, I can see the comparison of the two and I can see why people are concerned. To me, I do not share that same concern simply because of Kevin Feige’s recent comments. Where he does not want to fail Gosling the same way he’s failed Ali. He is working even harder to make sure that Gosling gets his Ghost Rider movie made. The other thing that works in Ghost Rider’s favor is they already have a director and a 2028 release date. Which means that this movie is going to have to be shooting here in the next couple of months. This film is going to start shooting by the end of the year. They also said that the screenwriter for Star Wars: Starfighter is writing this film. They already have a director, cast, and release date for Ghost Rider. As opposed to with Blade when they announced Mahershala Ali it was just the casting, and we did not know a director until much later and in 2022 it was set for a 2025 release. This Ryan Gosling Ghost Rider can far apart in the same way Ali’s Blade did. But as of right now, I have more confidence because it seems like it is further along then Blade ever really was.
One final thing, I love that Josh Horowitz from Happy, Sad, Confused was involved with the announcement. Josh is great and Happy, Sad, Confused is a great podcast interview series on YouTube and all the other podcast apps. He has been asking Kevin Feige about Ryan Gosling as Ghost Rider for years now, which was addressed during the announcement by both Feige and Gosling.
BLACK PANTHER III
This announcement was exciting but was not too surprising considering we’ve all kind of known that a third Black Panther would happen. During the press tour for Sinners, Coogler confirmed that he is working on the script and that it will be his next film. A lot of us were predicting some sort of Black Panther announcement at Comic Con. As far as the specific details, we know the film is hitting theaters December 15th, 2028. So that will be our big Christmas release for 2028 and that is exciting and it will be three years in a row where Marvel will be dominating December and January.
Beyond that, I love the fact that Ryan Coogler is returning for Black Panther III especially Sinners printed money for WB and got multiple Oscars. Coogler is in a position where he can get anything he wants green-lit and he wants to do Black Panther III and close out this story. I love that, I love that he is willing to return to Marvel. I have seen some people say that it is unfortunate that Coogler keeps on going back to the corporate machine. I do not think that is important at all. I like the fact that he is going back and forth between franchise films and original films. I think by doing that he is building a great legacy for a career. One of the things that Coogler mentioned was that this film is going to be shot on 65 mm film, which is cool that a Marvel movie will be shot in this format and not on digital.
The other big thing to talk about here is related to Black Panther III. We got confirmation that T’Challa’s son will be in this movie and he will be played by David Jonsson from Alien: Romulus and The Long Walk and I love this casting. After watching those movies, I knew that he was one of the rising stars of Hollywood. It was only a matter of time before a big studio was to pick him up and it seems like Marvel has him. This guy is our new Black Panther; he is T’Challa’s son and that is extremely exciting. If you have not seen The Long Walk from last year, please do yourself a favor and watch it because it is incredible and he is fantastic in it.
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