- calendar_today September 1, 2025
Ironheart: Marvel’s Final Phase Five Show Gets Premiere Date
Ryan Coogler is having a very good year so far. Following the theatrical run of his new movie Sinners, the director is already back to work and primed to helm another project for Marvel in the form of the limited series Ironheart. The studio has shared a new sleek trailer in the lead-up to the show’s official June 2025 release.
Ironheart is an upcoming six-episode Marvel Cinematic Universe television series starring Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams, also known as Ironheart, a teenage technology wunderkind and original comics protégé of Tony Stark. This will be the last television installment to be included in the MCU’s Phase Five.
Ironheart was initially announced all the way back in December of 2020. At the time, the series was set to premiere in 2023. But this timeline would ultimately be pushed back to summer 2025 as Marvel shifted its long-term goals and decided to reduce the quantity of content being released per year. This was in part due to fear of market oversaturation. Details about the series itself are still emerging, but footage first presented at the 2024 D23 convention described it as “a crime show with an Iron Man twist at the center” and hinted at darker, more grounded tones compared to other MCU TV series.
Ironheart’s central character, Riri Williams, was first introduced in 2022’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. In the film, Riri gets caught up in a conflict between Wakanda and Namor and his army of blue-skinned people after developing a vibranium detector while enrolled at MIT. As the film progresses, Riri and Shuri form a friendship built on their mutual love of science, and Riri ultimately constructs an armored suit similar to Iron Man’s to help Wakanda battle its enemy. After Namor retreats and the war is over, Riri must return to MIT after being forced to leave the suit behind with the Wakandans.
Mixing Technology and Magic
Ironheart is set shortly after the events of Wakanda Forever. The official synopsis states, “Set after the events of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Ironheart pits technology against magic when Riri—determined to make her mark on the world—returns to her hometown of Chicago. Her unique take on building iron suits is brilliant, but in pursuit of her ambitions, she finds herself wrapped up with the mysterious yet charming Parker Robbins, aka ‘The Hood’ (Anthony Ramos).”
Other actors confirmed to star in Ironheart include Lyric Ross as Riri’s best friend, Natalie Washington; Alden Ehrenreich as Joe McGillicuddy; Manny Montana as Cousin John; Matthew Elam as Xavier Washington; and Anji White as Riri’s mother, Ronnie. Shea Couleé is also on board as Slug. Jim Rash is returning to the MCU as the dean of MIT, a role he originally played in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War. Sacha Baron Cohen is also confirmed to be in the series, though his character has yet to be officially revealed.
The new trailer immediately jumps into the action, beginning with a scene of Riri walking through a closed-down pizza restaurant only to find that all the doors have been locked, leaving her trapped inside an elevator with only two minutes to live due to the presence of an ison gas in the air. It turns out that the dangerous situation was a test—or “interview,” as its perpetrator puts it—orchestrated by a man calling himself The Hood. The Hood tells her over the intercom that she will die if she doesn’t open a floor-mounted locked box and retrieve a gas mask within, and if she breaks the lock, he will activate a camera inside to monitor her efforts. Riri, however, has no intention of cooperating with him and instead sets out to find her method of escape.
Impressed by her ingenuity, The Hood offers Riri the opportunity to join him in whatever he is planning to do, though he is noncommittal about the specifics and the legality of the venture. Riri, wanting to put her talents to use and create something “iconic,” quickly agrees after some hesitation. Her friends, especially Natalie, aren’t as convinced as she is about the decision and have qualms about getting involved with a man as shady as The Hood. They may have reason to be concerned, too, as The Hood tells Riri later that “Anyone who has ever accomplished anything iconic in life has had to do some questionable things to get it done.”
On a narrative level, it sounds like the series will be mining some of the same territory as Coogler’s previous MCU movies, like Black Panther, which explored the price of power and self-identity as well. No doubt fans will be curious as to how far Riri is willing to go to get what she wants and what she may be sacrificing to do so.
Marvel has said that the first three episodes of Ironheart will be released on June 24, 2025, on Disney+, followed by one episode each week after that. No information has been given on a potential second season, but it is not out of the question, especially if the initial three installments perform well. In the meantime, viewers will be able to get an early look at the action, thrills, and interpersonal drama promised by the trailer, as well as a behind-the-scenes featurette.
It may be too early to tell at this point if Ironheart will be as popular with fans as other MCU properties, but given Coogler’s track record of big-budget hits with character drama and grounded storytelling combined with Thorne’s owomising performance as Riri, it could very well be the next must-watch Marvel series, building off of Iron Man’s high-tech legacy and adding in a street-level crime drama to tell a brand-new MCU story.
