[A handsome man enters.]

But now for what will really happen.

Ant-Man
Hank survives, Hope as the the Wasp gets teased but doesn’t happen — they try to save it for the sequel (a la War Machine in Iron Man 1). But the sequel never comes, because this movie bombs and Marvel cuts bait after the flop, Incredible Hulk-style. However, Feige decides that most of the highlights were thanks to Adam McKay’s rewrites, and offers him a future Marvel movie (Inhumans) that gets stuck in development hell and never happens.

Cap 3: Civil War
I really wanted to make a funny joke about the cause of the conflict between Cap and Iron Man, but the internet has pretty much covered all of them already. So my real guess is basically just an extension of AoU. Tony comes up with some kind of scheme for world peace that Steve finds extremely irresponsible. Honestly, the specific scheme barely even matters — Iron Drones, a Dark Knight/NSA mega invasion of privacy tap, precogs — whatever it is will probably just be a plot device to get us to the hero vs. hero conflict. So the most interesting speculation is the split of sides. I think they’ll try to find a way to make it at least remotely even. So my guess is:

Team Tony: Iron Man, War Machine, Vision, Nick Fury, Hawkeye, and Black Panther. Fury and Vision are two of the only big players not confirmed for the movie yet, but them showing up in some form feels plausible. I agree that Rhodey being on the opposite side would be more interesting, so switching him and Black Widow would make this more interesting, but this seems the safer bet for him. Hawkeye and BP are wild cards too. Putting Clint here would create the conflict of him vs. Natasha, which would seem ludicrous after all we’ve seen between them, but that’s kind of the whole point of this concept: pitting characters against each other in a way designed to be painful, and characterization be damned. T’Challa will probably only have a small role here methinks, but if they use a Christopher Priest-style characterization, it would make sense for him to initially support Tony in an effort to have greater info about any potential threats to Wakanda. Vision gets pulled in by the supposed logic of Tony’s side; this would also put him and Wanda (the two biggest heavy hitters) on opposite sides, and create a moment in the thick of battle where they realize they’re in love, then have hot android/witch sex on Cap’s corpse.

Team Steve: Captain America, Black Widow, Falcon, Winter Soldier, Scarlet Witch, and Spider-Man. The first four seem likely to be joined at the hip, which might mean they’ll change things up just to be unpredictable. Wanda seems a sure bet for Steve’s side, given that she’s already lost her parents and brother to Tony’s poor efforts at good deeds and his past neglect. Putting Spidey on Team Tony could be an interesting twist (especially if he’s a young genius seduced by Tony’s scientific mind), but it’s hard to imagine right now.

I already laid out a lot of my initial concerns about Civil War months ago. To add to that now, my biggest new concern is that we kind of already did that in AoU. Not the same scale, obviously, but from the party celebration to the new team unveiling, almost every Tony/Steve interaction revolved around Tony brashly going too far and Steve getting pissed at him for it — basically, exactly what we all expect for Civil War. This ties into another problem: whatever elements of the comics story worked, worked in large part because it felt shocking to see Iron Man vs. Captain America. But we’ve only seen those two together for two movies pre-Civil War, and they spent the majority of both Avengers films bickering. I still think of them as friends just by habit, but we’ve actually seen very little evidence that they would be on film. That’s not necessarily a deal-breaker, but it does create a different dynamic in their relationship that will be interesting for the Russos to address when filling their conflict with emotional stakes.

Finally, I don’t think Cap dies. I used to, because as you said, all the elements feel like they’re in place. But since the two-part Infinity War idea was announced, I’ve changed my mind. I feel like Marvel’s endgame there revolves largely around around those being the movies that bring everyone together for the first time; take away one (or especially two) of your major tentpoles, and I don’t think it feels quite as big. Plus, to cheat a bit, Chris Evans has already alluded to his shooting schedule for the Infinity War movies, all but confirming he’ll be involved in those. It’s possible he could die in Civil War and be used in Infinity as a flashback or vision, or even a straight resurrection though I’m skeptical the MCU wants to really dive into that revolving door (I know they did for Coulson, but AoS is far lower stakes, and they still seem unwilling to let post-resurrection Coulson show up in the movies again). So once we get to Infinity War, I think at least one of the Big Three dies, but I feel confident they’ll all make it there. Since someone presumably has to die in Civil War, I’ll pick Bucky.

Doctor Strange
Yeah, pretty much everything you said.

Guardians of the Galaxy 2
James Gunn has become kind of deflect-y about that cocoon, stating it wasn’t Warlock’s after all. I still think he’ll show up, but I’m not at all sure; I think there’s at least a chance they decide to find a way around using him at all in the Thanos stories. Thanos will definitely play a bigger role, but I don’t think he’ll be the main Big Bad until Infinity War, so the question remains who the main villain could be here. A pretty high percentage of Marvel’s most recognizable cosmic villains names probably belong to Fox through its FF and X-Men rights, so I don’t have a great guess here. As much as I’m rooting for Ego the Living Planet, I think Grandmaster makes sense.

Spider-Man: The Next Avenger
This isn’t the official title yet, but there was a rumor they might use it, and despite an initial eyeroll, I think I buy it now. I imagine Sony and Marvel will both want to draw as much attention as possible to the idea that this new Spidey shouldn’t be dismissed as a third quick reboot because this one gets to play with Iron Man. While I’m rooting for our first live-action Kraven the Hunter, my guess is Doc Ock here.

Thor: Ragnarok
I’m pretty sure Surtur will be the Big Bad here, but I’m holding out hope we get the Fenris Wolf as the secondary baddie.

While someone important surely should die for the Norse apocalypse, I’m sticking to my statement that the Big Three of the Avengers will all make it to at least the first Infinity War movie alive. So that probably means Loki dies, methinks, completing his vacillation between good and evil by sacrificing himself for the Nine Realms. This would also leave/force Thor to take his place as king, bringing him back around full circle to where we began his solo trilogy.

That said, it wouldn’t hurt to introduce a possible Thor analog that could replace him after Infinity War, when the original actors will probably all be done regardless of whether their characters live. Cap already has Bucky and/or Falcon to carry on for him. Iron Man has War Machine, though I’m skeptical Don Cheadle will go much further either. So this brings me to my greatest hope for Thor 3: bring in Beta Ray Bill. Come on, Marvel. Do it. You’ll take all my money forever if you do.

Infinity War, Part 1
Supposedly the Defenders will also have a small role in one of these two movies, assuming they’re done forming on Netflix by then (my gut says as extended cameo in protecting New York while the big guns do the main battle).

I think at least one of the Big Three dies in these two movies. The only question in which one(s), and if they want to kill them now or in the second one. Cap feels like the most marked for death of the trio. I’m tentatively guessing he dies at the end of this one to raise the stakes to their highest point yet. Perhaps he sacrifices his life to temporarily foil Thanos without handing him a final defeat, allowing us to pretend the threat is reasonably non-imminent for the two movies taking place between Infinity installments. I also think maybe Vision dies when Thanos takes the Mind Gem.

Black Panther
Spoiler alert: this is going to be the best of all the movies on this slate. I’m saying that based more on wishful thinking than any hard evidence, but I’m calling it that Andy Serkis’ return as Klaw will be a top 3 Marvel villain ever.

Captain Marvel
The main drama to me here is whether Marvel makes Carol more cosmic in scope or more Earthbound. She’s been a lot of each through the years. Marvel has also said that they want to wait and premiere her in her solo film, so we probably won’t have her set up as much in advance, if at all, as T’Challa will be before his.

Infinity War, Part 2
At least two more heroes die to stop Thanos for good. One Avenger and one Guardian of the Galaxy, perhaps? Feels like Iron Man should be the obvious choice for the former, and indeed, my initial instinct was to guess he makes the final sacrifice to seal the ultimate victory. But I don’t know, I can’t shake the feeling that maybe they actually give Tony a happy ending, letting him retire for real this time at the end. So perhaps it’s Cap here instead, or any number of the many, many heroes we’ll be up to by then. But I think, maybe the Hulk is actually the other big death among the Earthlings. Drax is the obvious choice among the Guardians, as it’s practically his character destiny.

Inhumans
This movie will never actually get made.

Doctor Strange 2
If the first film uses Baron Mordo, I assume it’s full-on Dormammu for the sequel. Unless this is a trilogy (it probably is), and they save that for the third. I’m also hoping one of these movies gives us a cool (and more P.C.) version of Brother Voodoo.

Squirrel Girl
This movie will star Anna Kendrick as Squirrel Girl after the Cosmic Cube has turned all other living creatures in the universe into squirrels at the end of Infinity War Part 2. It will win 17 Oscars.

Stingray
This movie will be co-written by our own Andy Greene and a powerful new AI software that Kevin Feige builds to spit out an algorithm for successful summer blockbusters. Andy successfully sells the idea of Stingray to Feige as an alternative after Marvel continues to fail to secure the murky rights to Namor, and Andy is set to direct it too. However, last-minute creative differences between Andy and the AI bot cause Marvel to replace him with Edgar Wright.

Guardians of the Galaxy 3
Three words: Pip the Troll.

Untitled Spider-Man reboot
After the commercial failures of Asa Butterfield, Marvel and Sony decide to finally turn Spidey over to a young white actor and maybe use Green Goblin or something.

Beta Ray Bill
Bill breaks every box office record so thoroughly that they no longer bother to even count box office records after this.