The "soft-reboot" isn't real.
There have been rumors of a soft reboot going around for a while now, and they're all false. Some say that Feige confirmed it, but their sources are third hand, misinterpreted quotes by social media news sites.
So, in the July of this year, Feige invited press to Marvel Studios, and basically did a bunch of interviews, and those were published. Among one of the many things Feige said that day, this was a highlight for many ([Source](https://variety.com/2025/film/news/marvel-x-men-recasting-secret-wars-1236465269/))
>The all-new [X-Men](https://variety.com/t/x-men/) are coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe — and an all-new Tony Stark will (eventually) join them.
\[...\]
In future films, however, X-Men characters who appeared in previous movies will be played by new actors, along with mutants making their big screen debut. The decision echoes changes in the composition of the Marvel comics following the 2015 “Secret Wars” storyline, which involved multiple timelines collapsing and re-converging, mixing up the characters of the main Marvel timeline in the process.
“We’re utilizing that \[story\] not just to round out the stories we’ve been telling post-‘Endgame,’ just as importantly — and you can look at the at the ‘Secret Wars’ comics for where that takes you — it very, very much sets us up for the future,” Feige said. “‘Endgame,’ literally, was about endings. ‘Secret Wars’ is about is about beginnings.”
But Feige was also careful not to characterize the changes as a “reboot”; instead, the executive said “Secret Wars” will serve as a “reset” for the MCU.
“Reboot is a scary word,” he said. “Reboot can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. Reset, singular timeline — we’re thinking along those lines.” Later, he added, “‘X-Men’ is where that will happen next.”
And that's it.
Paraphrasing here, but everything that portion of the article says is:
* New X-Men are coming, and there will eventually be a new Iron Man.
* The multiverse will collapse.
* Secret Wars is being used to tie together the stories they have right now, and also set up the future.
* This is not a reboot.
* There will only be one timeline post Secret Wars, and it starts with X-Men.
>Even more intriguingly, Feige also indicated that other Marvel characters will eventually be recast, including its most iconic roles, like Tony Stark and Steve Rogers. He pointed to many other major film franchises that have done the same thing, multiple times over.
People will get recast, but that does not imply a soft reboot to the level of what DC Studios is doing right now, where they scrap most things, and keep a small handful. That is false. There is no soft reboot.
Some also refer to the 2015 Secret Wars having 'soft-rebooted' the comics, but anyone's who read that knows that the main difference (and frankly the only significant one) is the existence of Miles Morales in Earth-616. Replace Miles with the Fantastic Four and the X-Men and that's probably what the post-Secret Wars timeline will be. Not a reboot, as clarified by Feige himself.
So, in the July of this year, Feige invited press to Marvel Studios, and basically did a bunch of interviews, and those were published. Among one of the many things Feige said that day, this was a highlight for many ([Source](https://variety.com/2025/film/news/marvel-x-men-recasting-secret-wars-1236465269/))
>The all-new [X-Men](https://variety.com/t/x-men/) are coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe — and an all-new Tony Stark will (eventually) join them.
\[...\]
In future films, however, X-Men characters who appeared in previous movies will be played by new actors, along with mutants making their big screen debut. The decision echoes changes in the composition of the Marvel comics following the 2015 “Secret Wars” storyline, which involved multiple timelines collapsing and re-converging, mixing up the characters of the main Marvel timeline in the process.
“We’re utilizing that \[story\] not just to round out the stories we’ve been telling post-‘Endgame,’ just as importantly — and you can look at the at the ‘Secret Wars’ comics for where that takes you — it very, very much sets us up for the future,” Feige said. “‘Endgame,’ literally, was about endings. ‘Secret Wars’ is about is about beginnings.”
But Feige was also careful not to characterize the changes as a “reboot”; instead, the executive said “Secret Wars” will serve as a “reset” for the MCU.
“Reboot is a scary word,” he said. “Reboot can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. Reset, singular timeline — we’re thinking along those lines.” Later, he added, “‘X-Men’ is where that will happen next.”
And that's it.
Paraphrasing here, but everything that portion of the article says is:
* New X-Men are coming, and there will eventually be a new Iron Man.
* The multiverse will collapse.
* Secret Wars is being used to tie together the stories they have right now, and also set up the future.
* This is not a reboot.
* There will only be one timeline post Secret Wars, and it starts with X-Men.
>Even more intriguingly, Feige also indicated that other Marvel characters will eventually be recast, including its most iconic roles, like Tony Stark and Steve Rogers. He pointed to many other major film franchises that have done the same thing, multiple times over.
People will get recast, but that does not imply a soft reboot to the level of what DC Studios is doing right now, where they scrap most things, and keep a small handful. That is false. There is no soft reboot.
Some also refer to the 2015 Secret Wars having 'soft-rebooted' the comics, but anyone's who read that knows that the main difference (and frankly the only significant one) is the existence of Miles Morales in Earth-616. Replace Miles with the Fantastic Four and the X-Men and that's probably what the post-Secret Wars timeline will be. Not a reboot, as clarified by Feige himself.
Commentaires
It’s a reset, not a reboot.
There are no rules to how these terms are used. It could mean anything. He’s just trying to keep people excited for the upcoming movies.
We don’t know what’s going to happen after Secret Wars.
But, eventually, the current version of the MCU will need to end. Actors are starting to age out or retire from the roles. In a few years, the MCU won’t have any of the popular heroes left, unless they recast/reboot.
Variants, the TVA, the Void, Wanda’s Hex, Dream Walking, Incursions, Anchor Beings, “New Avengers”, all the kids being introduced…
It’s not all for nothing. You do know that, right?
Also, that’s a lie about the previous saga. Thanos was never the plan from day one. And Civil War was a huge surprise when they announced it.
They had a five year plan. *Phase One* was five years long, for reference. This wasn’t meant to go on this long.
because the comics are known for large interconnected stories between different writers with no miscommunication or misunderstandings at all!
But a lot of stuff is most likely not going to be heard from ever again. For example, Young Avengers/Champions ain’t happening any time soon. I doubt we’ll see a lot of the new characters again either.
Let’s not forget Harry Styles and The Black Knight from Eternals. Marvel clearly had plans that had to be changed.
Accept it and move forward.
Feige contacted RDJ about Doom several months after announcing Kang Dynasty and long before any controversy about the character or actor.
Kang was what Disney wanted because Majors was getting buzz as an actor. Doom was what Feige wanted because he has common sense and knows what fans want. That’s why they originally announced two Avengers movies within one year. Both sides of the board room get what they want.
The only reason to not believe Doom was always in the cards is pure cynicism and blatantly ignoring all the evidence.
So what you expect us to believe is that Feige announced Secret Wars (which was announced at the same time as Kang Dynasty), planned on Dr Doom playing a major role, but hadn’t yet discussed it with the actor?
Feige MAY have discussed Doom with RDJ prior to Majors’ issues, but we have no idea what those initial plans were. He likely wanted Doom for AFTER Secret Wars.
Remember, Disney didn’t just drop Majors because of his legal issues. Audiences didn’t show up for Kang’s debut in Quantumania and Disney got cold feet.
It’s not cynical in any way at all to recognize that Disney and Marvel significantly adjusted their plans following underwhelming box office performances and audience reactions.
It’s entirely cynical to assume that they are only using Doom because Kang didn’t work out.
Kevin Feige is the guy who got his start sneaking X-Men comics onto set when Bryan Singer banned them. He then fought with top Disney execs over getting movies like Captain Marvel and Black Panther made. He cares about the source material. Any rational person can recognize that.
But you think he was just ignore Doom entirely while bringing back the Fox X-Men and a new Fantastic Four for *Secret Wars* of all things?
That is pure cynicism. Give me a break.
Jackman will have played Wolverine for 27 years by that point. Maybe others like Holland, Hemsworth, Cumberbatch and Larson will follow suit.
Others can also be recast without continuity being rebooted.
Shang-Chi and the Thunderbolts were announced in the main cast for Doomsday.
The only new characters seemingly getting the shaft that were actually positioned for bigger roles are the Eternals.
All the rest are Disney+ characters and nobody knows what the plans for them were, but a lot of them are also in concept art for the Avengers movies. Also, Agatha All Along was watched by more people than Daredevil.
America Chavez, Cassie Lang, Ironheart, and Sabra are all likely done.
And most of the Disney+ shows were not well received, so they’re done. She Hulk and Moon Knight are done (actor issues). Echo, Ms Marvel, Kate Bishop, and G’iah are all in limbo with no new projects announced. They might appear in Secret Wars, but they won’t be main characters and will most likely just be cameos at best.
Except for the Sony Marvel movies this decade
It's like I'm seeing a 20; year old going kids these days while they themselves are wrong stupid kids to mw
Amazing!!! AHAHHAHAHAHHAHA
Please go on. Its great.
It's amusing.
You were saying?
It's also going to be about implementation. Black Panther 3 is supposedly coming out after Secret Wars, and we assume that won't be a rebooted/reset franchise. It's probably gonna be really messy.
This is really just gonna be a semantics arguement though. What does reboot and reset mean?
Doomsday is set to be released on December 18, 2026. Dune Part 3 is set to be released at the same time. I think it's likely that Doomsday gets pushed back (more sore than Dune Part 3). Dune is gonna get the IMAX screens over Doomsday. Push back Doomsday to May 2027, which results in Secret Wars getting pushed back to May 2028.
Black Panther 3 is rumored to be targeted for February 2028. Which would mean it would come out a few months before Secret Wars.
One of them will likely move. WB is apparently not moving. Marvel's already moved the film date once, and they could easily do it again.
This was also pretty similar to the Mission Impossible vs Oppenheimer issue. Mission Impossible lost the IMAX screens to Oppenheimer pretty quickly and was thought of having contributed to that film's lack of success.
Here's what I'm talking about.
https://www.indiewire.com/news/analysis/imax-oppenheimer-mission-impossible-q3-earnings-analysis-1234919908/
> While the seventh “Mission: Impossible” (which opened July 12) had a 9-day head start on “Oppenheimer” (and thus, “Barbie,” both opening July 21), Christopher Nolan’s epic snatched all Tom Cruise’s North American IMAX screens upon premiere. (Unlike “M:I 7,” “Oppenheimer” was shot entirely on IMAX large-format cameras.)
> “M:I” star Cruise tried to personally claw a bunch of those back, according to a Puck report, but he proved unsuccessful. As did “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part 1.” To-date, “Oppenheimer” has made more than $945 million at the global box office; “Dead Reckoning” drew $567 million. “Oppenheimer” got three full weeks at 1,550 of IMAX’s total 1,700 venues worldwide. Clearly, the company bet on the right horse.
So again, who is IMAX siding with between Dune Part 3 and Avengers Doomsday? If seems like they are gonna side with Dune. If so, Marvel should leave that date.
I don't think that's really a soft reboot though? Gunn's DCU is closer to a hard reboot as very little carries over. Unless I'm mistaken, a soft reboot still keeps *most* of the previous continuity canon, even if the tone/style or actors have changed.
And articles like this try to cancel the "rumors", but then say even stupider things so the only true answer is we have to wait to find out.
We already got a new Captain America, two of them, but they weren't Steve.
One difference that likely helped is that the DCEU was very disjointed in terms of projects, especially at the end, and so you can easily fit the events of Pacemaker 1, TSS, and Blue Beetle into the characters' backgrounds. The MCU has a much bigger and more interconnected past and at most they can create variants with more difficulty in establishing what is part of the canon and what is not.
Gunn have also made changes as well to differentiate from the DCEU version. The Corto Maltese mission took place in 2022 in DCU while in DCEU, the mission took place in 2021, DCU Rick Flag Jr. was still dating June Moone while cheating on her with Emilia Harcourt but he is too afraid to break up with June because he feared the Enchantress within June will go on rampage which indicate that the Enchantress is still alive in DCU while in the DCEU, the Enchantress is dead at the end of the first Suicide Squad and the Justice Gang (along with Superman and Supergirl) show up too late to Peacemaker at the end of the Butterfly invasion in the DCU while in the DCEU, the Justice League (except Batman and Cyborg) show up too late to Peacemaker at the end of the Butterfly invasion.
DCU is not connected to DCEU and not a continuation from DCEU either. DC Studios under James Gunn & Peter Safran chose to start over DC shared universe with DCU because DCEU was way too messy and not worth the time, efforts and resources to fix the DCEU. The reason why Creature Commandos and Peacemaker Season 2 which are part of DCU still referenced the events of The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker Season 1 which both are part of DCEU because Creature Commandos and Peacemaker Season 2 were originally gonna be part of DCEU as Gunn was in the middle of writing them before he got hired as co-CEO of DC Studios.
Instead of scrapping the whole thing, Gunn chose to take some parts from those two and made it as backstories for DCU such as Project Starfish on Corto Maltese, Rick Flag Jr.'s death at the hands of Peacemaker, Weasel being part of Task Force X, the Butterfly Invasion, etc as canon events that occurred in all universes like Krypton's destruction, the Waynes' murder, Peter Parker's bitten by radioactive spider and Uncle Ben's murder. Gunn have also made changes as well to differentiate from the DCEU version. The Corto Maltese mission took place in 2022 in DCU while in DCEU, the mission took place in 2021, DCU Rick Flag Jr. was still dating June Moone while cheating on her with Emilia Harcourt but he is too afraid to break up with June because he feared the Enchantress within June will go on rampage which indicate that the Enchantress is still alive in DCU while in the DCEU, the Enchantress is dead at the end of the first Suicide Squad and the Justice Gang (along with Superman and Supergirl) show up too late to Peacemaker at the end of the Butterfly invasion in the DCU while in the DCEU, the Justice League (except Batman and Cyborg) show up too late to Peacemaker at the end of the Butterfly invasion.
Someone should invent a term for that!
We know that the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Avengers will merge into the same timeline. To the inhabitants of the MCU it will be as though these teams have always co existed. Future phases can answer questions about what the other teams were up to.
It will also give them the perfect excuse to reboot certain characters like Iron Fist.
Although the part I'm not too happy about is recasting Iron Man and Captain America. I would much rather they continue on with their successors or introduce newer characters. Feels like they capitulating to the haters. They could always bring back the actors for flashback sequences, like imagine a WW2 flashback sequence with Evans as Cap and Jackman as Wolverine freeing a concentration which includes a young Magneto ala X-Men Evolution episode "Rebirth" or a flashback to a science conference where Stark, Banner and Reed exchange ideas.
I actually wouldn't mind the Banner getting recast. I think Ruffallo has had a good run but is getting too old for the role whilst there is still a lot to explore with the Hulk character.
He gives me stoner vibes. Not someone who has a constant internal struggle.
The reason why Creature Commandos and Peacemaker Season 2 which are part of DCU still referenced the events of The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker Season 1 which both are part of DCEU because Creature Commandos and Peacemaker Season 2 were originally gonna be part of DCEU as Gunn was in the middle of writing them before he got hired as co-CEO of DC Studios. Instead of scrapping the whole thing, Gunn chose to take some parts from those two and made it as backstories for DCU such as Project Starfish on Corto Maltese, Rick Flag Jr.'s death at the hands of Peacemaker, Weasel being part of Task Force X, the Butterfly Invasion, etc as canon events that occurred in all universes like Krypton's destruction, the Waynes' murder, Peter Parker's bitten by radioactive spider and Uncle Ben's murder. Gunn have also made changes as well to differentiate from the DCEU version. The Corto Maltese mission took place in 2022 in DCU while in DCEU, the mission took place in 2021, DCU Rick Flag Jr. was still dating June Moone while cheating on her with Emilia Harcourt but he is too afraid to break up with June because he feared the Enchantress within June will go on rampage which indicate that the Enchantress is still alive in DCU while in the DCEU, the Enchantress is dead at the end of the first Suicide Squad and the Justice Gang (along with Superman and Supergirl) show up too late to Peacemaker at the end of the Butterfly invasion in the DCU while in the DCEU, the Justice League (except Batman and Cyborg) show up too late to Peacemaker at the end of the Butterfly invasion.
A hard reboot is more like what the DCU actually is. Few things are kept from the past continuity, and the world is fundamentally different and separate from the DCEU.
Instead of scrapping the whole thing, Gunn chose to take some parts from those two and made it as backstories for DCU such as Project Starfish on Corto Maltese, Rick Flag Jr.'s death at the hands of Peacemaker, Weasel being part of Task Force X, the Butterfly Invasion, etc as canon events that occurred in all universes like Krypton's destruction, the Waynes' murder, Peter Parker's bitten by radioactive spider and Uncle Ben's murder. Gunn have also made changes as well to differentiate from the DCEU version. The Corto Maltese mission took place in 2022 in DCU while in DCEU, the mission took place in 2021, DCU Rick Flag Jr. was still dating June Moone while cheating on her with Emilia Harcourt but he is too afraid to break up with June because he feared the Enchantress within June will go on rampage which indicate that the Enchantress is still alive in DCU while in the DCEU, the Enchantress is dead at the end of the first Suicide Squad and the Justice Gang (along with Superman and Supergirl) show up too late to Peacemaker at the end of the Butterfly invasion in the DCU while in the DCEU, the Justice League (except Batman and Cyborg) show up too late to Peacemaker at the end of the Butterfly invasion.
Maybe you could argue that Hickman's Secret War tried to, but it didn't.
Marvel tried to do the whole "616 is dead" idea, but that was never serious and didn't even last a month or so.
I think Secret Wars will set up a way for that to happen without negating important things that happened in storyline. The Fantastic Four First Steps also did it by just having it take place in an entirely different reality. Might be made easier for those realities to co-exist and tie in whenever desired.
To have a fresh start after the bulls\*it multiverse saga.
The only things I see defenetly them keeping are:
* F4
* Spider-Man
* Deadpool
Then maybe some other characters. This at least is my opinion.