Black Panther is now officially in theaters, and fans seem to be pretty darn ecstatic about the film they’re seeing. As it stands, the film has a 98 percent critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 76 percent audience rating.

On the box office front, its Thursday numbers seemed to hint at perhaps the most successful standalone film opening to date (yes, including the sequels). With that in mind, we can’t help but ask ourselves…when can we expect a sequel?

At this point, given the world they created with Black Panther, it would be a waste not to indulge in at least one sequel, right? Plus, if the performance keeps up, they’d be fools not to plan one for Phase 4. But how soon can we get a sequel? Let’s take a look at the confirmed Marvel slate.

Phase 3 will be ending with Avengers 4 on May 3, 2019, less than a year after Avengers: Infinity War. Though despite that being the end of Phase 3, it isn’t all we know about the Marvel slate.

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Spider-Man: Homecoming 2 already has a release date of July 5, 2019. The next film after that is Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, sometime in 2020. With that film being the only one we know about, March release date doesn’t seem completely out of the question.

Marvel Studios usually has three films per year, so Guardians is likely the first of those three to come…but does that mean Black Panther could hit in 2020? We don’t think that would be wise. While it’s not impossible, I think shooting for another film within two years would be rushing it, especially if they want director Ryan Coogler to return. As Guardians director James Gunn has proven, something closer to three years is likely the best recipe for success.

Luckily, Marvel Studios has new franchise Doctor Strange they can continue with, along with the possibility of new franchises that they can fall back on for those second two films, leaving open 2021 as a worthy candidate.

With that in mind, that’s where I think it could land, but I won’t discount the possibility that Marvel will want to fast-track it to 2020 during the summer, which would be a great fit for the character.

When would you like to see a sequel to Black Panther? Let us know down below!

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