Marvel pulled out all the stops for its return to Comic-Con‘s vaunted Hall H after a year away, bringing nearly two dozen stars from multiple franchises, introducing two high-profile new projects, and giving ample spotlight time to Ryans Gosling, Reynolds, and Coogler — all met with thunderous approval from 7,000 true-believer fans. But now that the smoke has subsided and the applause died down, it’s time to more fully examine the projects showcased during the panel and rank them in order of Oscar-worthiness based on what we saw… and what we know from past performance.
4. Ghost Rider
The first film introduced at the session, Ghost Rider will star Ryan Reynolds as the demonic bike-riding vigilante Johnny Blaze with Shawn Levy directing for a 2028 release.
While we’re months away from Reynolds and Levy’s team-up on Star Wars: Starfighter, initial word on the film is strong. Between that and their individual résumés, from Reynolds’ Drive, La, La Land, and Project Hail Mary to Levy’s work on Stranger Things, Night at the Museum, and Deadpool & Wolverine, we have high hopes that their Ghost Rider will be miles beyond Nicolas Cage’s 2007 take on the fiery antihero. Levy has a Best Picture Oscar nomination for producing Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival and Gosling has three acting nods (and possibly a fourth in the offing for Project Hail Mary), but the reason this film ranks lowest on our list is the unproven nature of the franchise, the challenge of getting horror-adjacent projects Academy attention (despite recent inroads), and the potential taint from the Razzie-nominated original.
3. Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Jon Bernthal was next up on the stage to show off a clip from the film, out July 31, in which his Frank “The Punisher” Castle joins Tom Holland’s webslinger in an epic battle with Mark Ruffalo’s rampaging Hulk.
The fourth film in Holland’s run as Spidey, and the ninth live-action Spider-Man film since 2002, should net huge box office. And, based on the wall-crawler’s track record, the film could be in play for a statuette or two. Three of the previous live-action Spidey flicks have accounted for six nominations: three for Best Visual Effects, two for Best Sound, and one for the now-defunct Best Sound Mixing. Spider-Man 2 won Oscars in the two latter categories.
2. Avengers: Doomsday
The bulk of the panel was devoted to the latest Avengers assemblage, with Robert Downey Jr. serving as ringleader to a massive collection of supes from the Avengers, X-Men, Thunderbolts, Fantastic Four, Black Panther, and Shang-Chi movies.
The MCU has been a fairly reliable below-the-line player at the Academy Awards, with 19 total Oscar nominations to date, 10 of those coming for Best Visual Effects. The Avengers, Infinity War, and Endgame all received nods for their effects, as did the non-MCU X-Men installment Days of Future Past. (We’ll get to the Black Panther films below.)
Given the overall might of the Avengers films and its scope compared to Brand New Day, we think Doomsday has the edge in both the visual effects and sound races at the 2027 Oscars.
1. Black Panther 3
Marvel boss Kevin Feige always love pulling out a “one more thing” at these presentations, and after the Doomsday crew shuffled off, he came back to the stage to bring out newly minted Academy Award winner Ryan Coogler for some news on his return to Wakanda for the threequel.
Black Panther 3, which will introduce David Jonsson as Toussaint, the grown son of the late Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa, and feature Denzel Washington in an unspecified role, is easily our choice to be the most Oscar-competitive of the films touted at Comic-Con.
2018’s Black Panther received seven nominations (Best Picture, costume design, production design, score, song, sound mixing, sound editing) and won three (costume design, production design, score). The 2023 follow-up, Wakanda Forever, tallied five nominations (Best Supporting Actress for Angela Bassett, costume design, makeup and hairstyling, song, and visual effects) and won for costume design.
Sight unseen, we’re already penciling in Black Panther 3 for Washington, costume design, and song at the very least, and based on Coogler’s bona fides, we can see the new film being even a bigger force when it arrives in December 2028.
