Is the MCU Rebooting After ‘Secret Wars’? Here’s Everything Kevin Feige Has Said

The multiverse has officially become Marvel’s biggest headache, and fans have spent years wondering whether ‘Avengers: Secret Wars’ would wipe the slate clean once and for all. With Phase Six barreling toward its finale, that question has finally gotten a real answer straight from the top.

Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has weighed in directly on whether ‘Secret Wars’ will function as a full reboot for the MCU, and his response has sparked plenty of debate among longtime fans of the franchise.

Kevin Feige Addresses the MCU Reboot Rumors

Speaking on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, Feige was asked point blank whether the MCU would reboot after ‘Avengers: Secret Wars’. His response was simply “No,” putting an end to years of fan speculation that the film would wipe the slate clean.

Rather than starting over from scratch, Feige explained that Marvel is looking to Jonathan Hickman’s Secret Wars comic as a roadmap for what comes next. He noted that he always looks to the comics for guidance on storytelling direction.

Those comments seem to put an end to one of the most persistent fan theories surrounding the franchise, since Marvel has never actually rebooted its cinematic universe the way DC has done with its own franchise. Every film has existed in the same continuity since ‘Iron Man’ debuted back in 2008.

Why the MCU Reset Theory Won’t Go Away

Even with Feige’s denial of a full reboot, the idea of some kind of course correction hasn’t disappeared entirely. Feige himself helped fuel the discussion when he previously described Marvel’s plans as more of a “reset” than a reboot, saying reboot is a scary word that means different things to different people.

He specifically pointed to a singular timeline going forward, with the X-Men being the next place that reset would happen. In separate conversations with trade publications including Variety, Feige confirmed that the studio plans to recast the X-Men characters entirely once the team gets its own dedicated MCU movie.

That distinction matters because the current ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ cast includes several original X-Men actors from the Fox era, even though a full recast is expected down the line. Director Joe Russo has also added fuel to the fire, describing the upcoming Avengers films as bringing Marvel “back to phase zero,” a phrase that has only intensified fan theories about a soft reset.

What a Soft Reboot Could Actually Mean For the MCU

The comic book version of Secret Wars was essentially a reset for the Marvel universe on the page, folding the sprawling multiverse into a single Battleworld and pitting every character against each other in a canonical battle royale. That structure is a big reason fans expect the movie adaptation to follow a similar path, even if it stops short of erasing everything that came before.

Phase Six adapts elements of Hickman’s 2015 comic alongside pieces of Avengers vs X-Men, with Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom drawing inspiration from Mark Waid’s Doctor Doom, The Book of Doom arc. That comic influence lines up with Feige’s comments about using Secret Wars as a narrative roadmap rather than a full wipe.

Several major questions about the post ‘Secret Wars’ era remain unanswered, including whether Phase Seven will launch a brand new X-Men franchise and how the future of Fox era characters will actually play out on screen. Fans are left connecting the dots between Feige’s public statements and what little concrete information Marvel has shared so far.

‘Avengers: Doomsday’ and ‘Secret Wars’ Release Timeline

‘Avengers: Doomsday’ was originally slated for release on May 1, 2026, but was pushed to December 18, 2026, while ‘Avengers: Secret Wars’ shifted from May 7, 2027, to December 17, 2027. Anthony and Joe Russo return as co-directors for both films, working from a script co-written by Michael Waldron and Stephen McFeely.

‘Secret Wars’ will officially close out Phase Six of the MCU and is expected to begin filming in mid-2026. The film will also feature the main cast of ‘Fantastic Four: First Steps’, including Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Joseph Quinn.

The Multiverse Saga officially ends with ‘Avengers: Secret Wars’, the film that closes Phase Six and is widely expected to serve as a soft reboot for the franchise moving forward. With Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom expected to carry the story beyond December’s showdown and into the finale, the stage is set for one of the most consequential years in the franchise’s history.

So is the MCU rebooting after ‘Secret Wars’ or not. Sound off with your own theory on what “phase zero” really means for the future of the franchise.