4 canceled Marvel movies that could’ve reshaped the direction of the MCU

[#item_full_content] [[{“value”:”Marvel Studios has built one of the biggest brands in cinema history with the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), a franchise that is poised for yet another monumental event (or two) over the next couple of years that are sure to rule the box office (nothing can slow down an Avengers movie at this point).
But what about the movies that didn’t happen? Projects that were either dramatically retooled, watered-down, or simply… vanished from the release calendar. There are a few huge “what ifs” when it comes to the Marvel slate over the past several years, so I thought it might be fun to dig into the history and see how four of those aborted (or massively reconfigured) projects could’ve changed the trajectory of the MCU had things gone down differently.
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Inhumans
This is honestly one of the biggest, wildest fumbles in all of the MCU — and it’s one that’s largely been forgotten. But for a hot minute, before we knew Disney/Marvel would eventually reacquire the rights to the X-Men and mutants, the studio was positioning the Inhumans to potentially fill that super-powered void within the MCU.
A theatrical movie was announced, then kicked down the calendar, then retooled into a TV miniseries on ABC (with an awkward IMAX premiere for the pilot). The only problem? The show was absolutely terrible. A low budget, muddled mess that was largely ignored and forgotten by Marvel and everyone else almost immediately.
The Marvel series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was also toying with an Inhumans arc at the time, but it also was orphaned when Marvel decided not to do anything further with the Inhumans franchise. The only thing a casual fan might recognize? Anson Mount reprised his role as a variant of Black Bolt in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, only to immediately be killed by Wanda.
But had Marvel stayed on the Inhumans train? They could’ve essentially replaced the mutants as the catalyst for super-powered folks popping up all over the MCU, and we could be 2-3 movies deep into an Inhumans film franchise right beside the Avengers movies.
Armor Wars
Now to be clear, this one could still potentially happen at some point — but I’m not holding my breath. Announced in 2020, the project was initially a Disney+ miniseries (back when Marvel was doing all those big streaming shows), and would’ve starred Don Cheadle back as War Machine. Basically a big Iron Man-esque story to pick up the post-Iron Man era.
The project was eventually reworked into a feature film around 2022, and we haven’t heard much of anything sense then. The comic story is a cool one, and it’s wild to think Marvel wouldn’t at least take a shot at a project like this, especially considering how much the original Iron Man trilogy carried the MCU when it came to box office hits. The closest we got was the Ironheart series on Disney+, which was fun! But you’d think Marvel would want to find a way to keep an Iron franchise back on the big screen.
Blade
The SDCC of 2019 was a different era, one where Marvel was riding high and announcing projects left and right in Hall H. One buzzy film on the slate? A reboot of Blade, starring Mahershala Ali. Though the MCU had been rolling for a while at that point, it’s easy to forget that Blade was one of the earliest — and most successful — Marvel franchises on the big screen. The original trilogy with Wesley Snipes were all hits, and it’s a series that people know.
So a film reboot made a lot of sense on paper. But, the project has spent the past six years mired in development hell, bouncing between different writers and directors (one pitch apparently turned Blade into a secondary character in his own movie) with no concrete release date staked out on the calendar. The project is mostly being reported as “dead” at this point, and Ali seems to have moved on (it’s been seven years, hard to blame him).
But with Marvel intruding Ryan Gosling as the new Ghost Rider in the next phase of the MCU? It could be the perfect time to finally, finally get the Daywalker back off the bench.
Avengers: Kang Dynasty
Yes, this is easily the biggest abandoned MCU movie of the bunch. After a full saga pitting Earth’s Mightiest Heroes against Thanos, the next era of the MCU was setting up the classic time-traveling villain Kang as Marvel’s next big bad. We got teases in the Loki show, and a version of Kang was the antagonist in the latest Ant-Man movie.
All that was supposed to tee up the planned next Avengers movie, Kang Dynasty, which would’ve starred Jonathan Majors as the titular villain causing trouble for the Avengers at the same scale as Thanos back in the day. Destin Daniel Cretton was set to direct (him instead shifting to Spider-Man: Brand New Day worked out well for everyone, though!)
Then… Majors’ career took a turn due to personal issues, and Marvel basically tossed the script for Kang Dynasty — and seemingly the plan to have Kang be a major player at all in the MCU — and announced Avengers: Doomsday would be taking the film’s place on the calendar, with the Russo brothers back to direct. They backed up a Brinks truck to bring Robert Downey, Jr. back to play the new Doctor Doom, and now we’re off to the races.
But had that original plan stayed in place? We’d apparently be gearing up to see the Avengers take on Kang in a wildly different movie this winter, which would’ve almost certainly set up a very different Secret Wars movie the year after. You’d have to think the locked-up script for the unmade Kang Dynasty will remain one of the great “what if” mysteries of the MCU.
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