- calendar_today September 1, 2025
Ironheart Trailer Teases Crime Thriller with Superhero Twist
If the impressive box office returns of his latest film, Sinners, weren’t enough for you, Ryan Coogler already has a new and very big project in the works. Ironheart, the Marvel Cinematic Universe limited series, will mark the director’s return to big-budget superhero filmmaking—and he’s only getting started. On Wednesday, Marvel released a sleek new trailer for the show, which has an extremely hot early summer 2025 release date.
Ironheart, which is part of Marvel’s Phase Five and consists of six episodes, stars Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams, a.k.a. Ironheart. She’s a teenage technological genius in the comics who counts Iron Man’s alter ego, Tony Stark, as a mentor figure. The show is the final TV addition to the MCU’s fifth phase.
The project was first announced in December 2020 with a planned 2023 release. Eventually, though, Marvel altered its long-term plans for its franchises and decided to publish less content in any given year. The move, at least partially, was a response to market saturation, so instead, Ironheart moved to a summer 2025 release. Footage shown during the 2024 D23 convention described it as “basically a crime show with an Iron Man twist at the center,” with a much darker and more down-to-earth tone than many MCU series have had.
Ironheart, though, marks Riri Williams’ second on-screen appearance. The character first showed up in 2022’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. In that movie, Riri, while attending MIT, created a vibranium detector device that caught the eye of Namor and his band of blue-skinned sea-dwellers, with whom she became embroiled in conflict. Throughout the film, she developed a relationship with Shuri over their shared interest in science, and eventually constructed an armored suit of her own (somewhat similar to Iron Man’s original creation) to aid Wakanda in its time of need. After a pact of peace is reached and Riri is forced to return to MIT, she leaves her suit with the Wakandans.
An MCU Series Spanning Science and Sorcery
Ironheart, however, takes place directly after the events of Wakanda Forever. The official synopsis notes: “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).”
As for the supporting cast, Lyric Ross will play Riri’s best friend, Natalie Washington, while Alden Ehrenreich will star as Joe McGillicuddy, Manny Montana as Cousin John, Matthew Elam as Xavier Washington, and Anji White as Riri’s mother, Ronnie. There’s also a character named Slug, played by Shea Couleé. The MCU will also get a welcome return from Jim Rash, who will play the dean of MIT (having last appeared in that role in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War). Sacha Baron Cohen is also confirmed as being a part of the series, though Marvel has yet to disclose what character he’ll be playing.
The new trailer is suitably brisk in its action. It opens with Riri in a recently shuttered pizza restaurant. After entering, the restaurant’s elevator door malfunctions, sealing her inside with two minutes to live before the elevator’s self-disposing gas kicks in. Riri finds the entire situation to be an “interview” (or, more to the point, a test) set up for her by a mysterious person who calls himself The Hood. Talking to her through the restaurant’s intercom system, The Hood tells Riri that she’s going to die unless she makes it into a gas mask stored inside a device built into one of the elevator’s floors. She instead decides to take matters into her own hands, with The Hood remarking, “She refused to do what I asked, but she still found a way out.” Riri not only solves the problem, but does it with flair. Impressed, The Hood then gives Riri an invitation to join him in some unspecified criminal activities (since they’re both headed to the same place, probably). Riri, whose desire to prove herself and create something “iconic” isn’t lost on The Hood, hesitates and then accepts.
The decision does not sit well with her friends, who sound several alarms about working with The Hood, whose motives come across as murky and shady. Riri’s friend Natalie, for one, chimes in to warn her about The Hood, though it’s probably a bit too late, given that The Hood flat out tells Riri that, “Anyone who has ever accomplished anything iconic in life has had to do some questionable things to get it done.”
If the trailer is any indication, then viewers can expect to see Riri being tested to her moral breaking point by not just The Hood and the tasks he sets for her, but also by the challenges of her ambitions. And as The Hood warns, if Riri does decide to go on this new path, then the end goals are likely to wind up being lost in the moral compromises that it will force her to take.
The three episodes of Ironheart will release on June 24, 2025, on Disney+, with the following three episodes coming out each following Friday. A second season of the show has not been announced, but that possibility remains open depending on how the first season does with critics and audiences. Marvel has also released a featurette behind the scenes of the show, which fans can take a look at along with the trailer here:
