When the untitled Avengers 4 rolls around in May of 2019, it will serve as a giant capstone to everything Marvel Studios have built in Phase Three - but they're wasting no time at all moving into Phase Four. The sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming is scheduled to arrive in theaters just two months after the team-up movie, and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige recently explained why that's happening:
The Infinity War movie and untitled Avengers are, yes, just by their nature, very big and are going to have a lot of universe-shattering events happen. How to process that, how to fathom that, how to come back to earth after that... of course you want Peter Parker to lead you through that.
In promotion of Spider-Man: Homecoming, Kevin Feige sat down with Fandango in the last few weeks to chat about the hero's future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and executive/producer explained the strategy behind releasing Spider-Man 2 as the immediate follow-up to Avengers 4. It's been previously confirmed that the spidey sequel would pick up mere minutes after the end of the Joe and Anthony Russo-directed comic book movie, but now we know that it's because Marvel plans to help bring fans back to Earth (potentially literally) with a more grounded, small-scale story.
What's funny about this is that situation almost makes it seem like the franchise jumped the gun a bit with the title of Spider-Man: Homecoming. The title certainly makes a fair amount of sense both because A) the film features a homecoming dance, and B) because it's Spider-Man's "homecoming" to the Marvel Cinematic Universe - but given the set up for the sequel, it would have been a very appropriate for Spider-Man 2 to get that particular subtitle:
What you see there is the cover of Spider-Man #252, which actually sports a story titled "Homecoming." Why is this significant? Because this was one of the first issues that Marvel Comics released set in the aftermath of Secret Wars - their first ever gigantic comic book crossover event that began in the spring of 1984 - and featured Spider-Man returning to Earth following his major cosmic battle with other popular Marvel heroes and villains. Because of this, Homecoming would have been a perfectly fitting name for Spider-Man 2... but I suppose they'll just have to go a different route.
Of course, with Spider-Man set to go through a whole lot in the next two years, we really can't say at all what Spider-Man 2 will be about - even after seeing Spider-Man: Homecoming. Of course, that's not going to stop us from speculating about his potential future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe or following regular updates about what he's up to, so stay tuned here on CinemaBlend!
