Captain America: Civil War will kick-off phase three of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe in a couple weeks, and with ten more movies scheduled between now and 2019 it’s safe to say that there is no end in sight for the hugely successful franchise. That’s not to say that there won’t be any big changes ahead though, and Civil War will mark the beginning of the MCU’s transformation.

“You build things up and people enjoy the experiences you’ve built up”, Civil War co-director Joe Russo explained to Entertainment Weekly. “But then you kind of reach an apex or you reach a climax, a moment where you go ‘this structure is really going to start to be repetitious if we do this again, so what do we do now?’ So now, you deconstruct it. We’re in the deconstruction phase with Civil War and leading into Infinity War, which are the culmination films”.

The Hannibal Smith of the MCU is Kevin Feige, and he teased a very different phase four for the MCU; “I think there will be a finality to moments of phase three, as well as new beginnings that will mark a different, a very different, a distinctively different chapter in what will someday be a complete first saga made up of three phases”.

Some of that difference will undoubtedly be influenced by the fact that many of the actors’ contracts will be up after Avengers: Infinity War. It’s going to be interesting to see if Feige & co decide to kill off or retire characters or decide to recast. Good luck to the man who has to follow Robert Downey Jr if it’s the latter…

Directed by Joe Russo and Anthony Russo, and starring Chris Evans, Robert Downey, Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Chadwick Boseman, Tom Holland, Anthony Mackie, and Sebastian Stan, Captain America: Civil War opens in UK cinemas on April 29, 2016 and May 6, 2016 in the US.

Images: Marvel