Summary

San Diego Comic-Con showcased exciting footage for upcoming Marvel films, including
Captain America 4
,
Thunderbolts*
, and
Fantastic Four
.

Captain America: Brave New World
introduces adamantium from a Celestial, potentially setting up the X-Men in the MCU.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps
teaser promises a retrofuturistic epic film treatment with a Galactus teaser at the end.

Marvel Studios Hall H Panel on Saturday, July 27, 2024, was this year’s big event at San Diego Comic-Con. Following Thursday’s special Deadpool & Wolverine screening, the studio had an impressive drone show that teased their big plans as Galactus’s head loomed large at the San Diego Convention Center and the Fantastic Four logo lit up over the sky. Fans lined up for days to get into Hall H to glimpse what was in store for the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

MovieWeb was lucky enough to be in Hall H for the Marvel Studios panel. While the footage shown is not available to the public, we can break down what we saw, which was footage from their three upcoming films: Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts*, and Fantastic Four: First Steps. Here is a breakdown of the footage that Marvel showcased and the biggest revelations about what to expect from these future MCU films coming in 2025.

Marvel Studios just released a trailer for Captain America: Brave New World two weeks ago, so the footage shown for the upcoming Captain America movie was a few extended scenes along with a few new pieces of trailer footage.

One pivotal scene showcased President Ross (Harrison Ford) at a special summit with various world leaders. He talks about how, ever since the Celestial head Tiamut emerged in the Indian Ocean after Eternals, various world powers have been fighting for control of it. He then says thanks to the efforts of Captain America (Anthony Mackie), they have discovered a special new resource. Ross introduces the world to adamantium.

Yes, the Celestial will be the source of adamantium in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, possibly setting up the future of the X-Men in the main Marvel Universe. This is where the scene cuts, but given the location, this is the same sequence in the trailer where Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) takes a shot at President Ross.

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The next scene is one that was featured at Cinema-Con and is cut down for the film’s trailer. President Ross wants Captain America to reform The Avengers. Sam Wilson points out that Ross broke up with The Avengers when he signed the Sokovia Accords, but Ross now says since he represents the American people and the Avengers helped bring half of the country back, he wants to back them. Sam Wilson raises a similar question that Black Widow asked Ross in Captain America: Civil War: what happens when the Avengers and Ross disagree, but Ross tells him to work with him? It cuts before an answer can be given.

This is followed by a scene in which Sam Wilson bursts into a control room and tells everyone to leave, but the character of Ruth (Shira Haas) stays. Ross tells Sam that she stays, but Sam informs the president that he thinks his inner circle has been compromised. Ross tells Ruth to put an end to this, and when Sam calls Ross out about this, Ross informs him that this is politics. Ruth is the MCU version of the character Sabra, a character who has generated a great deal of controversy. Here, she has been reimagined from the Mosaad-trained superhero to a former Black Widow and appears to be a villainous character.

The footage also showed a montage of different action scenes, but the big final moment of the footage was the reveal of The Red Hulk. While the trailer teased Red Hulk, the Comic-Con footage seemed to show Ross’s first transformation into the character, emerging from behind a podium with the Presidential seal. Audiences got their first look at Red Hulk’s face, and the VFX team did a good job of matching Harrison Ford’s face. It looked pretty incredible, and when audiences get to see it fully, it might have a chance to draw a big audience who might be burned out by Marvel movies but are curious about the prospect of seeing Harrison Ford as a Hulk.

The Thunderbolts* Trailer Was Revealed

The audience at San Diego Comic-Con got to see the very first trailer for Thunderbolts*, a movie set for release in May 2025. A trailer isn’t likely to be released to the general public until the holiday season, and it will be interesting to see how much it matches the Comic-Con reveal. It began with Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) knocking on the door of her adopted father, Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (David Harbour). He is living in a rundown apartment, and she asks if he is happy, to which he lies and says yes.

She then begins to tell him how she feels like there is something wrong with her while footage shows Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) walking into a courtroom and John Walker/U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell) reading an article about him on his phone called “Fall of a Hero” with his daughter in a crib. The Pixies song “Where is My Mind” begins to play as Yelena finds herself in a secret lair before being attacked by U.S. Agent.

The two fight one another before Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) show up, and a massive fight happens. They then meet Bob (Lewis Pullman), who is all but confirmed to be Robert Reynolds, aka The Sentry. Bob is in a hospital gown, and when Yelena asks who sent him, he is confused and shocked they were sent, implying he was kidnapped and taken there. The room suddenly closes, and the characters discover they are in a trap.

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The trailer highlights how all of these characters have been contract killers and that somebody wants them all gone. An action montage occurs with some interesting details, such as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis Dreyfus) attending a party at what might be the old Avengers Towers while Bucky is shown washing his Vibranium arm in the dishwasher. A group of soldiers also shoots at Rob, but the bullets all hit the ground before they reach him. The trailer features the tagline “Be careful who you assemble” before the whole team is gathered in an elevator, and Valentina Allegra de Fontaine tells them, “There are good guys, and you’re bad guys…but there are worse guys.” Is that worse guy, Valentina, alluding to The Sentry, or is it herself?

The final part of the footage featured a comedic tag with Red Guardian driving everyone in a beat-up car, telling them they have the makings of a great team that would be great on a Wheaties box, while Yelena tells everyone it is best to ignore him when he starts talking before Red Guardian. For what was initially pitched as “Marvel’s Suicide Squad,” it is interesting how the team is less a government task and gathered together just by the sheer act that someone wanted to kill them and now have formed an uneasy alliance.

The most exciting piece of footage, though, was for the newly retitled The Fantastic Four: First Steps. The movie hadn’t even begun filming, and production does not start until July 30, 2024, but director Matt Shakman not only brought out the cast of the movie, including Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, but he showcased some test footage they had made. What was screened was a sizzle reel that sold the tone that the film was going for. While there is a chance none of this footage makes it into the finished film, it helps inform the audience what to expect, and it appears Marvel Studios will give audiences the Fantastic Four the epic film treatment they deserve.

Much of the footage is in 4:3 aspect ratio with a film grain meant to invoke that classic 1960s feel. The footage is brought to viewers by The Future Foundation and features Reed Richards (Pascal) teaching what looks like an old-school kids’ science program titled Fantastic Science with Mr. Fantastic, where he explains the concept of parallel dimensions, hinting at the film’s place in the multiverse. When the kids seem bored, he offers to show them an explosion before igniting a jet engine.

The following footage shows some playful banter between Reed Richards and Ben Grimm (Moss-Bachrach) in their flight suits during an interview before they go into space. It is followed by a brief hint of a house tour by Susan Storm (Kirby) that has Reed tell the camera that they always make sure to have one family dinner together a week. There is also footage of a romance game show where the three male members of the Fantastic Four are contestants, and we see The Thing’s silhouette.

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Intercut between all of this is epic footage of the main four characters in their space suits, in a montage, having a good time together and walking to the ship in slow motion. It feels like a mix of The Right Stuff and Apollo 13, all set to the retrofuturistic images audiences would hope to see if they made a live-action Jetsons movie. Audiences get a brief look at the Fantasti-Car, and then Sue tells the camera crew filming them that her younger brother Johnny Storm is single. All of the footage of them walking to the ship is in widescreen. The rocket blasts off into space, with the title card popping up set to composer Michael Giacchino’s epic-sounding score.

The final tag at the end of the footage showcases Galactus. The giant, powerful being is shown looking in through a Skyscraper, likely the Baxter Building. It gives a great sense of the character’s size as the camera is on the point of view of a person looking at Galactus instead of a wide shot of him. While there is a chance none of this makes it into the final film, it is the best sales pitch for the movie as it promises to deliver the scope that no previous Fantastic Four film has and deliver on the comic’s tagline of “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine.”

That is our breakdown of the Marvel Studios footage showcased at San Diego Comic-Con. While some might say the Marvel Cinematic Universe has had a rough few years, despite only one of their films bombing at the box office, this current slate of films might be just what they need. Between Captain America: Brave New World looking to possibly reshape the status quo the way Captain America:Winter Soldier did, Thunderbolts* featuring a rag-tag team of misfits like the Guardians of the Galaxy but pulled from various corners of the MCU like The Avengers, while The Fantastic Four: First Steps is not only the grand return of one of Marvel’s biggest franchise but truly looking unlike any superhero movie before, the future looks bright for the MCU.