Considering Marvel has a plan to release movies through 2020 I don't that is the issue. Pretty much I think they are expecting that Ant-man is only going to do so-so, which is why they are moving it away from James Bond release. However by moving it to the end of a blockbuster summer I think they are going to have the same problem with burnout that The Wolverine faced this summer and Ant-man doesn't have Hugh Jackman playing a very popular superhero that he epitomizes as the live action version.
I think they would have been better off putting it out in Jan/Feb 2016 but that probably throws off their phase 3 timetable.
yeah and there have been movies that have been planed to be trilogy but got panned and thus scrapped.
It's a cycle though, it may last to 2020 or it may last to 2015 but everything dims for a bit before making a resurgence. At one point in time, no one could imagine Westerns not being very popular and a time where very few are made. We are in that time period. Eventually it will come back.
And yeah Hugh Jackman murdered (a good thing) the Wolverine role. Although I remember there was a lot of doubt, skeptics, and some saying it's plain wrong and wont work with the casting of Jackman as Wolverine. They were wrong. I remember people saying Batman days were over when Nolan Ryan version was on the horizon especially with Christian Bale as Batman, many didn't see it. I remember the laughs and WTF and people thought they was off their rocker when Heath Ledger was cast to play the Joker and the Broke Back Mountain jokes. They were wrong again and he also killed the role and seemingly himself too. Maybe this guy will own The Ant role, although it will be tougher because not many people remember The Ant. We'll soon know and maybe The Ant may be the next big thing. Maybe people are tired of Wolverine movies as good as Jackman is in the role and the likes.
But there is also a good chance they make it to 2020 without burn out. One thing in their favor is they have decades and decades worth of lore. They just have to use it. Wolverine isn't the only interesting X-Men character. I don't know how true this is, but rumor is that they originally had no plans on making Wolverine the center. They were planning on doing a few Storm with Halle Berry, Professor X, and Magneto movies of course with Wolverine as a bit player here and there. The other part of the rumor is that originally Wolverine origins was supposed be blended with Professor X origin story and how he came across Wolverine and helping him remember with a storyline within storyline of him going back to the place he was created. But he became such a big star that the rest of the origin stories were all scrapped and Magneto kind of sorta got an origin story blended with Prof. X story in first class.