The 2008 release of Iron Man and the launch of the Marvel Cinematic Universe transformed the movie industry and left Marvel’s chief rival DC playing catch up for over a decade. After acquiring Marvel in 2009, Disney spent the 2010s delivering one blockbuster superhero movie after another, while Warner Bros.’ attempt to build a competing franchise received a far worse reception, despite a few financial and critical hits. But 2026 could be the year when the balance of power starts to really shift.
Marvel’s fortunes have been on the decline for years now. While Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame both made more than $2 billion and remain in the top 10 grossing films of all time, interest in the franchise waned after the decade-long saga reached a satisfying conclusion. Attempts to pass the MCU off to another generation of heroes were further hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic scrambling projects and transforming viewing habits.
Marvel had its worst year ever in 2023, with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 providing its sole bright spot as a swan song for the quirky spacefaring team. Director James Gunn then jumped ship, taking over the DC Universe and rebooting it with Superman in 2025. That movie made $616 million, a modest sum by the old MCU standards but enough to beat out Marvel’s three 2025 releases: The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Thunderbolts*, and Captain America: Brave New World.
Gunn is moving fast to build on Superman’s momentum. Craig Gillespie’s Supergirl, which releases on June 26, will follow Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock), Kal-El’s drunken mess of a cousin, on a space adventure based on the beautiful Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow comic by Tom King and Bilquis Evely. Combined with the events of Peacemaker season 2, which saw Lex Luthor (Nichola Hoult) get back into the U.S. government’s good graces, Supergirl will lead into Gunn’s 2027 tentpole, Man of Tomorrow. Gunn has picked one of the best DC villains of all time in Brainiac, a character absolutely perfect for our age of AI anxiety, to serve as Man of Tomorrow’s antagonist.
2026 will also see the release of Clayface, a body horror film where Tom Rhys Harries plays the shapeshifting Batman villain. While Gunn has said Clayface is part of the DCU, it sounds like a very different story from the wholesome heroics of Superman. I’m a little worried about this one since it went through multiple scripts — with Hossein Amini replacing Mike Flanagan — but hopeful that DC is experimenting with the breadth of comic book stories rather than flattening the genre in the way that made the MCU feel so generic.
Meanwhile, Marvel is desperately trying to reclaim its past glory with an enormous nostalgia play in Avengers: Doomsday. Robert Downey Jr. is back! Thor is back! Steve Rogers is back as Captain America! The Fox X-Men are back! Loki is back! The Russos are directing! But is that actually enough to recapture the old Avengers magic?
The fact that the Russos spent so much time shooting Doomsday without a finished script and with the actors in isolation from each other doesn’t bode especially well. Bringing back so many of these characters undermines the sacrifices they’ve made and the narrative arcs they’ve had for a product that feels like it’s leading to a bigger version of Deadpool & Wolverine. Maybe fans will turn out to see Magneto try to rip Doctor Doom’s mask off, but the whole project reeks of desperation.
It’s also cannibalizing what bright spots the MCU had left. We’ve already gotten multiple teasers for Doomsday, which premieres Dec. 16, 2026, but just the tiniest peak of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which comes out five months earlier on July 31. Sony’s marketing team operates independently from Disney’s, so the silence might be on them, but it could be a sign that Hollywood has shifted to accommodate the needs of 2026’s Marvel tentpole.
Brand New Day also has issues of its own. While Spider-Man: No Way Home was a major nostalgia play that brought together heroes and villains from three different Spider-Man franchises, that film’s ending promised a more grounded version of the webslinger moving forward. Bringing the Hulk into the story hints that Brand New Day is probably going to involve more Doomsday setup and less friendly neighborhood antics than we’d hoped.
Doomsday will ultimately feed into Avengers: Secret Wars in 2027, but the future of the MCU is murky after that. Ryan Coogler said Black Panther 3 is his next movie, but Marvel hasn’t announced a release date; Armor Wars is in limbo, along with Blade. Thunderbolts* director Jake Schreier says he’s working on an X-Men movie, but it’s unclear how it fits into the multiple X-Men continuities Disney now has control of — the best case scenario seems to be a total MCU reboot.
As the DCU is winding up, the MCU may finally be spinning down, following the example of many other comic book crossover events and using Doomsday as a chance to start fresh with new actors and a clean slate canon. But first, Marvel needs to prove people still care about the Avengers at all. If a reboot really is in the works, the studio may suddenly find it’s the one playing catch-up to a competitor.
Whether Supergirl takes off or Doomsday is doomed, 2026 may prove a decisive battle in the war for superhero movie dominance.
