The world only learned about Avengers: The Kang Dynasty during Saturday's Marvel Studios Hall H panel at Comic-Con International: San Diego, but the 2025 MCU epic has already found its director, and it’s someone very familiar to Marvel fans. Destin Daniel Cretton, the man who brought Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings to the big screen, will be responsible for the first half of the next big Avengers storyline – but he’s just one in a number of directors being added to Marvel projects across the next few years.

Beyond his Legend of the Ten Rings credit, Cretton is already developing a second Shang-Chi movie (as yet unscheduled) as well as a Wonder Man live-action series for Disney+.

Details about Avengers: The Kang Dynasty remain under lock and key inside the Marvel Studios brain trust at the moment, beyond the fact that it’s the first of two Avengers movies that will close out both the studio’s Phase 6 plans and what is now known as the Multiverse Saga. (The second and final movie in the saga will be Avengers: Secret Wars; it’s currently unknown who will helm that installment.) It is worth noting that the first movie in Marvel’s Phase 5 – next February’s Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania – will feature the first full appearance by Kang himself, as played by Jonathan Majors.

Avengers: The Kang Dynasty isn’t the only Marvel movie gaining a director in recent days. Bassam Tariq (Mogul Mowgli) will take on Blade, while the newly announced Captain America: New World Order will be helmed by Luce’s Julius Onah. The similarly newly official Thunderbolts feature closing out Marvel’s Phase 5 plans on July 26, 2024 will be directed by Jake Schreier, of Paper Towns fame.

With these hires, it’s clear that Marvel Studios is staffing up what is already a packed slate for the next three years, with multiple features in development and production alongside further projects for Disney+ including the upcoming Secret Invasion series and Loki Season 2.

News of the directorial placements was first broken by the Hollywood Reporter.

Here's the full slate of Marvel Studios' Phase 5 plans for the MCU.