New Marvel Movie Removed as Studio Speaks Out Days Before Next MCU Release

This week Marvel Studios will officially debut its next blockbuster movie, but looking past that, the future is less clear.

Four years after The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Disney and Marvel will officially debut Anthony Mackie’s Captain America on the big screen. Julius Onah’s Captain America: Brave New World (2025) will release on February 14, bringing fans back to the Marvel Cinematic Universe for a new espionage thriller set against a global political fallout.

Casting controversies and production reports have been frequent during the development of the fourth Captain America movie, and early box office projections place the film at hitting around $100 million domestically and close to $275 million on the global market. Not a bad showing considering the previous discourse.

The MCU may be in a state of flux at the moment but the studio will be hoping the momentum of last year’s billion-dollar Deadpool & Wolverine hit will keep fans baited through 2025. That said, a new statement from Marvel now confirms months of theories that one project will face removal from the slate.

Armor Wars is a project that has been stuck in development limbo for quite some time. Originally conceived as a Disney+ series, the project was later retooled into a feature film starring Cheadle as James “Rhodey” Rhodes, AKA War Machine.

However, despite this shift, there has been little movement on Armor Wars, leaving even Cheadle himself in the dark. When asked about its current status, the actor told TV Line, “I don’t know; I’m not sure where anything is right now.”

A report surfaced regarding the Vision series not long ago, adding additional pressure to Armor Wars. According to entertainment insider Alex Perez of The Cosmic Circus, Vision will borrow plot elements originally planned for the Don Cheadle-led movie.

Now, it seems like all the reports have added up to Armor Wars essentially being declared dead at Marvel Studios. Producer Nate Moore, who will work on Captain America: Brave New World  before stepping away from the company (he will later come back for the recently announced Black Panther 3), has confirmed that the Cheadle-led feature film is no longer on the “front burner.”

“You know, that’s not my project, to be honest,” the producer told Collider last week. “But, I do know, as Marvel [Studios] continues to go through this phase, we want to make sure whatever we’re making is awesome.

So that means we had to slow down some things that were on the front burner. It doesn’t mean we’ll never make it, but it does mean we just have to be a little bit more considered so that every time out, audiences are guaranteed quality.”

The last time MCU fans saw Rhodey, they were met with one of Secret Invasion’s biggest twists—the revelation that he had been replaced by a Skrull named Raava for an undisclosed period. This shocking development cast a shadow over one of the MCU’s most emotional moments: Rhodey’s farewell scene with Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) in Avengers: Endgame (2019).

Moore’s comments echo what has seemingly become the standard response from Marvel following Disney CEO Bob Iger’s return in late 2022. Iger criticized the studio for making too much content and pledged last year that the MCU would only release so many movies and TV shows each year.

Brad Winderbaum, Marvel’s Head of Streaming, Animation and Television also made similar remarks, saying that the studio will develop more than it produces.

At present, Marvel seems ready to bid farewell to Phase Five with its releases of Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts* (which just got a new trailer over Super Bowl weekend), before kickstarting Phase Six with the highly-anticipated The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025).

From there, the Russo Brothers will deliver Avengers: Doomsday (2026) and, a year later, Avengers: Secret Wars (2027). Sandwiched between will be Spider-Man 4 coming in July 2026.

Looking back to TV, what do the Armor Wars changes mean for Vision? Well, while it’s unclear exactly what plot points will carry over from Armor Wars, one intriguing possibility looms large: the return of James Spader’s Ultron.

The AI menace, originally introduced in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), is deeply intertwined with both Vision and the larger Iron Man mythos. Given War Machine’s connection to Tony Stark, it would make sense for Armor Wars to have included Ultron in some capacity.

Only time will tell whether Armor Wars gets back on track, but judging by Cheadle’s own comments, as well as Nate Moore’s statement, and the fact elements were supposedly borrowed for another project, it seems unlikely that it will ever see the light of day.

How do you feel about Armor Wars being removed from the “front burner?” Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!