'Doctor Strange' to Hit Theaters on July 8, 2016

When Marvel Studios announced five new release dates for upcoming movies on Friday, it seemed like they were revealing the schedule beyond Ant-Man. Based on a Variety report, though, it turns out that those five movies are in addition to Doctor Strange. Marvel had previously called dibs on July 8, 2016, for an unnamed movie, and according to Variety, that's when Doctor Strange will hit theaters.

OK, so taking this into account along with the fact that I totally screwed up the math on when The Avengers 3 would hit theaters, let's look at what Marvel has in store for us in Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and beyond.

We know that Ant-Man is opening on July 17, 2015, with Captain America 3 following on May 6, 2016. If Variety has its stuff right, Doctor Strange will be next on July 8, 2016. Marvel also claimed May 5, 2017, last year. And from Friday, we know that the studio's next five movies after that are coming out on July 28, 2017, Nov. 3, 2017, July 6, 2018, Nov. 2, 2018, and May 3, 2019.

Let's assume Marvel keeps releasing an Avengers movie every three years. Avengers: Age of Ultron opens on May 1, 2015. Marvel hasn't announced a movie for May 2018. If The Avengers 3 opened on July 6, 2018, and closed out Phase Three, that phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe would have seven movies, one more than Phase One did. That would leave three unnamed movies between Doctor Strange and The Avengers 3. Two of the obvious choices for those three slots would be Thor 3 and a Guardians of the Galaxy sequel that would probably feature the Hulk and set up Thanos for The Avengers 3. Could Black Panther be the third, maybe? If Marvel wants to go with the Nov. 2 date for 2018, we'd have to fill out one more slot for Phase Three. At this point, we'd be totally guessing what else could fill in Phase Three. Ms. Marvel? Black Widow? Inhumans?

What if Marvel wants to supersize Phase Three and hold off on reassembling the Avengers until May 3, 2019? That would be a year longer between Avengers movies than there was between The Avengers and Age of Ultron, but that would put The Avengers 3 right in Marvel's now-standard early May slot. With a threat like Thanos looming for the Avengers, it would be reasonable that Marvel would want to spend the extra time and movies to introduce a few new members of the team before matching them up against Thanos in The Avengers 3.

I can't imagine that Marvel Studios would announce these dates just days before Comic-Con if they weren't planning on filling in the blanks very shortly. If Marvel does wrap up Phase Three with The Avengers 3 in 2018, it's going to need another big film to kick off Phase Four on that May 3, 2019, date. At this point, Robert Downey Jr.'s contract with the studio will be up, and the world will have gone without an Iron Man movie since Iron Man 3 in 2013. This would be the perfect time to capitalize on the momentum of an Avengers movie and introduce the re-casted Tony Stark in Iron Man 4.