Shang-Chi: The Legend of the Ten Rings director Destin Daniel Cretton will be helming the new Avengers movie titled, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, according to a representative for Marvel Studios, state media sources.
Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige announced The Kang Dynasty during the company's wide-ranging presentation at San Diego Comic-Con, as part one of the two-part conclusion to the Multiverse Saga -similar to how 2018's Avengers: Infinity War and 2019's Avengers: Endgame concluded the Infinity Saga, said reports.
Media sources added that unlike the last two Avenger films, which were filmed and directed back-to-back by MCU veterans the Russo Brothers, Cretton will only be directing The Kang Dynasty, which is set to debut on May 2, 2025. The follow-up to the film titled, Avengers: Secret Wars, is due to open just six months later, on November 7, 2025. No director has been announced for the film.
While there has been no screenwriter or casting announcements for The Kang Dynasty either, the title makes clear that Jonathan Majors' Kang the Conqueror who will be first introduced in the 2023 MCU film, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania', will play a central role in the film, state sources. As his name suggests, Kang did indeed successfully conquer Earth in a Marvel comics run in the early 2000s, until the Avengers defeated him.
Shang-Chi was the first Marvel film to get an exclusive theatrical release following the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown, earning $432 million at the global box office. Prior to Shang-Chi, Cretton was best known as the director of the 2013 indie drama, Short Term 12, which helped to launch the career of its star Brie Larson all the way to playing Captain Marvel in the MCU. Brie has since appeared in all of Cretton's movies, starring in the 2017 biographical drama The Glass Castle, along with Michael B. Jordan.