Popverse's top stories of the day

• How Disney+'s What If...? is the moonshot for the next 50 years of Marvel Studios & the MCU
• Watch: Dune: Prophecy's Desmond Hart explained: His secret identity, his past, and his possible future [SPOILERS]
• Dune: Prophecy's Desmond Hart explained: His secret identity, his past, and his possible future [SPOILERS]

Marvel Studios scored big when they scheduled the Deadpool & Wolverine movie to open in theaters the same week as Comic-Con International: San Diego, thereby having one of the biggest stages in the world to show the movie, market the movie, and get people excited about the movie. All the major press outlets are there, as were 120,000+ fans. During the weekend we noticed that Marvel Studios was lining up to do the same in 2025 with a SDCC-scheduled movie, and again in 2026 with an as-yet-untitled movie. But now, Marvel is pulling back on those plans.

Disney has quietly killed off plans for a Marvel Studios movie to come out the traditional time period of Comic-Con International: San Diego 2026. That pairs down Marvel Studios' 2026 plans to two movies, but with two new MCU movie release dates held for 2027 (more on that in a second). The 2026 San Diego Comic-Con might seem like a far way away, but it holds special meaning: the organizers of the con have openly suggested they plan on leaving San Diego after that year's event unless the city of San Diego organizes its local businesses to give it a better deal.

This uncertainty about SDCC 2026 could be giving Marvel Studios some pause, but it's more likely that it's revising its schedule after the serial delays to Blade (which is scheduled to come out in late 2025), and the delays to Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. It could also be that 2026 is when the next D23 Expo is happening, and perhaps they do not want to be seen as playing favorites with SDCC over its in-house convention.

Marvel Studios has pencilled in plans for a SDCC-ish 2027 movie with a July 23, 2027 release date, however. 

Marvel Studios is still on to be at next year's Comic-Con International: San Diego - it's scheduled the Fantastic 4: First Steps to open the weekend of SDCC 2025, as Deadpool & Wolverine did this year.

Keep up to date on Popverse's Marvel coverage, with these highlights:

• How Disney+'s What If...? is the moonshot for the next 50 years of Marvel Studios & the MCU
• Marvel Studios has accidentally created a new Phase that predates Phases 1 - 6: the MCU Phase Zero
• Overgrown children of the atom: Marvel's X-Men can't evolve past their '90s commercial peak
• The biggest outstanding questions of the Marvel Studios' movies & TV shows
• Donald Trump is the landlord for Marvel's House of Ideas
• Marvel Studios swapping out Doctor Doom for Kang offers the chance to jettison the Multiverse Saga
• What Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige is saying (and not saying) about the MCU X-Men franchise says a lot about the future of the Mutant Saga
• If Marvel is going to bring Loki back for Secret Wars, it's time to give him an upgrade
• With Daredevil, and spinoffs from Black Panther, What If, and more, Marvel Studios' 2025 Disney+ slate is bigger than ever, and that might be a big deal for the future
• If Kraven the Hunter flops, Sony's Spider-Man Universe could look for a Marvel-assisted reboot
• In 2021, Sony's boss said people won't miss Spider-Man in its Spider-adjacent movie. Turns out, they do.