MCU Movie Drought Drags On: Another Year-Long Gap After Avengers: Doomsday, Even With Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Marvel is about to make us do the waiting game. Again. After already sitting through a 371-day gap between The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Spider-Man: Brand New Day, there’s another long stretch coming — this time between two Avengers movies.

The timeline (and the missing piece)

Here’s the setup: Avengers: Doomsday hits theaters on December 18, 2026. Avengers: Secret Wars follows on December 19, 2027. That’s roughly a year apart — and, crucially, Marvel has nothing else on the movie calendar between them. The empty space isn’t an accident; a previously scheduled, not-yet-revealed July 2027 movie was quietly pulled, which is some classic release-calendar inside baseball.

If that one-year gap sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve seen it before. Back in 2018–2019, the wait from Infinity War to Endgame was the same length... except Marvel ran Ant-Man and the Wasp and Captain Marvel in between to keep the pump primed. This time? No such buffer on the big screen.

Fans are split on the drought

"We should be left wanting more, not bogged down by what feels like 'required viewing'."

• Some are already bracing for the silence, saying the stretch from Doomsday to Secret Wars is going to feel very long, especially without any theatrical pit stops.
• Others point out the Infinity War/Endgame year worked because Marvel slipped in Ant-Man and the Wasp and Captain Marvel. This time, no safety net.
• There’s a camp that thinks one movie a year risks losing casual interest and would rather see two films annually, with a show or special to bridge the gap.
• On the flip side, plenty of folks feel the audience is still recovering from Marvel’s rapid-fire release era. Less can be healthy.
• Quality-over-quantity diehards are happy to wait if it means better movies.
• And then there are the optimists who love the idea of a buildup: the longer the gap, the bigger the pop when the movie finally drops.

So... what do we watch in the meantime?

It won’t be total silence. The small-screen pipeline should keep trickling. Expect Marvel to lean on Disney Plus with shows like Wonder Man and more Daredevil: Born Again. The Daredevil situation is a little messy title-wise — depending on who you ask, the next batch gets called season 2, while some chatter frames it like a third go-round of the Born Again run — but the gist is the same: more Daredevil episodes are coming.

That also applies to the current gap we’re in right now between The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Tom Holland’s next web-sling in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Even with the big-screen pause, Wonder Man and Daredevil: Born Again (let’s call it season 2 for sanity) are meant to fill some of that space on Disney Plus.

The bottom line

Mark your calendars: Avengers: Doomsday lands December 18, 2026, and Avengers: Secret Wars follows December 19, 2027. No other MCU movies are currently slotted between them. Whether that feels like a breather or a drought probably depends on how you felt about Marvel’s recent firehose approach. Either way, the wait is part of the plan this time.