Just days after Tom Holland confirmed that Spider-Man 4 is officially moving forward, Disney set a release date for the film — on July 24, 2026, just two months after Avengers: Doomsday hits theaters. While Marvel has taken to making two to three superhero movies a year most years — something that inevitably puts them in close proximity — there’s something interesting about the specific configuration of a major Avengers release with a new Spider-Man film. It feels like it has to be consciously echoing the incredibly short window between Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home. And that could hint at some inner turmoil for Peter Parker.
This is the first Avengers movie since Endgame, and so pairing it with a rapid-fire Spider-Man follow-up certainly feels like it has to be intentionally mirroring the release pattern of Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home. In the case of Far From Home, the movie picked up almost immediately after the conclusion of Endgame, and Peter’s internal struggle with the death of Tony Stark in that movie’s conclusion.
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Since Spider-Man 4 is coming hot on the heels of Avengers: Doomsday, a movie that brings back Robert Downey, Jr. — this time as Doctor Doom — it seems reasonable to assume that the parallels in the release date suggest a parallel emotional journey.
Fans have a lot of questions about the nature of Downey’s performance — will he be playing Victor Von Doom, a guy who just happens to look like Tony Stark? Will Victor be a version of Tony from an alternate universe? Or something in between, or totally different?
One possibility — particularly since the Russo Brothers are back at the helm, and they obviously are no stranger to Captain America lore — is that Doom might be the child of Howard Stark and another woman (maybe Latverian royalty?) in an alternate timeline. That would blend elements of a number of fan theories, and give the filmmakers a chance to revisit characters from First Avenger, which is always a popular idea.
All of this, obviously, is a lot of conjecture — but given how important Iron Man’s relationship with Spider-Man was to the first trilogy, it seems reasonable to assume that having his fourth movie come out mere weeks after Robert Downey’s return is a statement.
Last time around, Peter was dealing with the loss of Tony Stark. This time around, Spider-Man has almost no connection to the world, having essentially retconned Peter Parker out of existence at the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home. A few years have passed since then, but it’s difficult to know how much time will have passed in-story, at least until we get some official description of the premise. If Peter is still entirely, or mostly, alone, it would make a lot of sense for him to be hit especially hard by whatever tie Doom has to Tony Stark — one of three parent-figures he has lost in the years since he got his powers.
This is obviously a lot of speculation with little more than a few release dates and a feel for Marvel’s formula to back it up. Still, one could reasonably take the speculation one step further and guess that Peter’s focus in Spider-Man 4 — a movie that takes place in between Doomsday and Secret Wars — is to somehow “save” Doom, giving the universe back a version of Tony Stark and making up for his inability to save him in Avengers: Endgame.
Whether or not saving, or redeeming, Doom is even plausible may be completely down to what his plan is, and why he’s doing it. If, for instance, his world is hanging in the balance, then maybe Peter’s genius could help him save it, giving Doom a happy ending and making him a somewhat redeemable figure. There are likely several other, similar circumstances that could make either a redemption arc, or at least some other way of giving Peter closure with Doom/Tony.
What do you think? Is it likely that the MCU is mirroring one of their most successful eras, or are we just seriously overthinking how a calendar works? Hit me up on Bluesky or Threads to yell at me about how wrong I am.