Highlights
- The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has been a dominant force in pop culture since its inception in 2008, but recent shifts in philosophy have affected its performance at the box office.
- The MCU's focus has shifted from making standalone movies with a connection element to making movies where the connection is the entire point, which has led to the need for extensive knowledge and viewing of previous films and TV shows.
- The MCU's emphasis on building a unified narrative arc has made movies feel overcomplicated and less impactful, and the overflow of content has made it challenging for casual viewers to keep up and enjoy the franchise.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has had an unbreakable grip on pop culture since it first began in 2008. Recently, however, the atmosphere around the MCU has been shifting a bit. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 performed well at the box office, but not as well as films such as Barbie or The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Meanwhile, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania underperformed while The Marvels is expected to do the same.
While there are several possible factors at play here, such as lack of creative control given to directors, an overabundance of content, or general cultural fatigue, the problem at the heart of everything is Marvel's subtle shift in philosophy. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has changed from being a series of good movies with a connection element to a series of movies where the connection is the entire point.
Avengers: Endgame Ruined Two-Part Movie Finales
The climactic finale to the 'Infinity Saga', Endgame did more than just break box-office records... it also broke the two-part finale format
The Beginning of the Marvel Cinematic Universe
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a noteworthy phenomenon for many reasons, most obviously the enormous financial success and massive cultural impact. However, an especially interesting aspect of it, especially taking those two factors into account, is the lack of competition. Typically, when a certain style of film achieves such an enormous amount of success, the industry follows the trend. The Marvel Cinematic Universe, however, stands relatively isolated as far as connected film universes go.
There have been attempts to replicate the formula, but none have really panned out the way the MCU did. DC tried to create their own superhero film franchise, and got off to a strong start with the relatively well-received Man of Steel. However, the studio then misfired by releasing their first big team up movies, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League far too early on for fans to have grown attached to the characters or universe yet. The poor critical reception to both films didn't help. A much less notable attempt was made by Universal Studios, who were planning on launching a Dark Universe centered around the monster characters they owned, beginning with 2017's The Mummy reboot. Unlike the MCU or DCEU, the Dark Universe's first film was blatantly marketed as being the beginning of a cinematic universe. This apparently did not have the desired impact on audiences, as The Mummy performed horribly both financially and critically, making it clear to the studio that the interest was just not there and killing the Dark Universe before it ever began.
What DC Comics and Universal failed to understand was something that Marvel now seems to be forgetting: the allure of a cinematic universe is a series of good movies that happen to be connected, not the connection itself. If no one likes The Mummy, no one's going to care about the assortment of followups that take place in the same universe. It is true that Marvel began production of The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man with the intent to create more films in the same universe, culminating in a big team-up blockbuster. What's important, though, is that their idea revolved not around the tantalizing premise of a cinematic universe, but around making good movies that would build audience interest in more of them.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is available to stream at Disney Plus.
The success of Iron Man and the failure of The Incredible Hulk were surprising to the Marvel executives who expected the opposite result, but the fact is that the first Iron Man is a solid, entertaining movie that still holds up to this day. It has a self-contained character arc, fun action, excellent visuals, and strong performances, especially from Robert Downey Jr. It's simply a good movie, and audiences became excited for more Marvel movies not because they were invested in the cinematic universe yet, but because they liked Iron Man and wanted to see more like it. The first followups to Iron Man followed suit. Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger are well-crafted, relatively serious movies with broad appeal. Importantly, they also stood on their own, not depending on viewers having watched Iron Man to be enjoyable. Thor and Captain America each had obvious details connecting them to Iron Man, but they could still be enjoyed and fully understood without ever having seen another movie in the series.
The Avengers was an unprecedented event for film, taking characters from multiple different movies and uniting them on one screen. There had never been anything quite like this done before, and for a film combining so many existing movies together, it was understood that there would be a bit more lore to be aware of going in. There were five MCU movies released before The Avengers. That leaves, at maximum, five movies to watch to have a solid understanding of what's going on in The Avengers. Certainly a lot to ask for a single film, especially when the concept was brand new, but nothing too outlandish.
The Switch To the Plan
Compare this to Marvel's most recent film, The Marvels. In order to understand the plot of this movie, one would have to, at minimum, watch the movie Captain Marvel as well as the two TV series' Miss Marvel and WandaVision. However, to understand both of these shows, one would have to have seen Avengers: Endgame, which means they would have had to watch Ant-Man and the Wasp and Avengers: Infinity War. However, to understand the former, they would have to have seen Ant-Man, and the latter at minimum Thor: Ragnarok and Captain America: Civil War, each of which have their own set of prerequisite films required for full comprehension. The chain keeps traveling backwards until eventually, the viewer would find themselves needing to watch The Avengers and the four films that preceded it, right back where things all began. Getting caught up for Marvel's latest team-up movie has gone from taking around nine hours to talking well over sixty.
Not all of this is really fair to criticize. In a series of films sharing the same cinematic universe, of course it's a good thing for the story to keep building on itself, for the events that happen to stick and have lasting consequences. Needing to watch more of a series as it continues to grow is just going to happen. Unavoidable as it might be, however, the fact is that a film requiring this much homework is going to be intimidating for a lot of viewers, especially given that the MCU largely attracts casual movie fans who may not go to the theater more than a few times per year. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Kevin Feige said:
I do think one of the powerful aspects of being at Marvel Studios is having these films and shows hit the zeitgeist. It is harder to hit the zeitgeist when there's so much product out there — and so much "content," as they say, which is a word that I hate.
Something that does seem fair to critique is the reason why viewers need to have seen more movies going in now. While The Avengers makes more sense having seen the MCU movies that precede it, the plot of the film is actually relatively self-contained. The movie explains the bulk of what's happening, and someone who has never seen another MCU movie could probably follow along just fine. The reason to watch the other films first was to enhance the depth of the characters. The Avengers is better when audiences know the relationship between Thor and Loki or why Steve Rogers might naturally distrust someone like Tony Stark. It's enhancement, not fundamental understanding.
Compared to this, something like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania feels like a complete slog to prepare for. If a viewer watches the entirety of the Loki TV series or Falcon and The Winter Soldier, it will not give them a remotely deeper understanding of Scott Lang and what makes him who he is. If they don't watch both shows, however, they probably will have no idea about the greater societal ramifications of Thanos' snap or who Kang is.
This, fundamentally, is the issue with the current MCU. The focus has shifted from making good films to making content that collectively moves the greater narrative forward. The MCU before Endgame had a general outline guiding it, but there was no set plan in motion. Movies contradicted each other all the time, because they were given the creative freedom to do so. Iron Man 3 ends with Tony Stark blowing up all of his suits and with the potentially world breaking Extremis virus in existence. And yet after Iron Man 3, Tony is back to being an armored Avenger by Age of Ultron and Extremis is never mentioned again. These aren't things that happen in a story planned out to the most granular detail, but no one seemed to mind them, because they worked in the context of Iron Man 3 and could be safely discarded after that one movie.
The overemphasis on incorporating everything into one unified arc makes every movie feel simultaneously overcomplicated and toothless. There can't be a world ending cosmic threat in every movie, or these stakes will stop meaning anything. Some people praise the MCU for its immaculate planning leading up to Endgame, but in reality that storyline didn't start dominating until Infinity War. The buildup of Thanos' plan was mostly happening in brief mention of Infinity Stones or in Guardians of the Galaxy, and most Earth based characters didn't know Thanos existed until his final plan set into motion. There is just no reason to throw the next ultimate villain into the first film of the new wave, especially if that film is an Ant-Man movie.
The MCU is suffering from a problem Disney seems to be having across the board lately, which is an overflow of content. The massive financial success they had with event cinema like Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Avengers: Endgameseems to have blinded them a bit. Event cinema only works if it actually feels like an event. If there's more and more of it releasing constantly, it begins to feel like sludge. It seems as though many are just not finding the MCU as fun to keep up with as it used to be. It was one thing when keeping up with it meant preparing for the big team-ups by watching a handful of pretty good movies. It's another thing entirely when watching any minor MCU property requires watching hours upon hours of movies and TV shows, most of which are reportedly not that great.
MCU
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is a sprawling movie and television franchise that weaves together individual stories of superheroes including Captain America, Thor, Spider-Man, Hulk, Black Widow, and many more. The first film in the franchise, Iron Man, was released in 2008. The MCU has garnered critical praise and financial success, earning billions at the box office and becoming a cultural phenomenon.
- First Film
- Iron Man
- TV Show(s)
- WandaVision , The Falcon and the Winter Soldier , Loki , Ms. Marvel , She-Hulk
