The Rise Fall and Potential Redemption of the MCU | PART 1

The Rise Fall and Potential Redemption of the MCU


Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re looking at the rise, fall, and potential redemption of the MCU.

Fans have several theories about why the MCU isn’t consistently hulk smashing critical and box office records anymore. Some have blamed superhero fatigue, others point to the characters and projects the studio has focused on and others blame the screaming goats from the fourth Thor. Before we dive into the multiverse of mistakes that are damaging this comic book company’s reputation, it’s worth taking a look at how this cinematic universe got its marvelous crown. Instead of exploring each of the 40+ projects in detail, we’re going to do a Quicksilver rundown of how the studio became cinema royalty. And unlike Quicksilver, we promise you that we won’t die before we get really interesting. So, without further ado let’s race through:

THE RISE

While most modern moviegoers know that the MCU’s reign started with Iron Man’s explosive debut in 2008, everyone might not realize how ridiculously lucky and successful they’ve been. If you don’t believe us, allow us to drop a few astonishing facts about this cinematic universe. The MCU released its first 23 movies over the course of 12 years. During that time, they had only had one financial flop. Can you guess what that is? Time’s up! If you said “Incredible Hulk”, you win…more wild MCU statistics!


Although the green guy’s solo film didn’t double its $150 million budget, it still made a decent $264 million worldwide. And Marvel didn’t get too stressed about this because not a single movie over the next 11 years made less than $370 million. By the way, that last stat is foreshadowing for later and we’ll talk about it in the fall section. But before we get to their big flops, we also have to mention that Marvel’s financial triumphs also came with solid critical reception. They released 23 movies without falling less than 67% on the tomatometer. Guess which movie in the first 3 phases had that dishonorable distinction? If you named Incredible Hulk, sorry, but that was a trick question! The green guy’s tomatometer rating is actually tied with “Thor: The Dark World”. Having just two movies with that low of a critical reception in that huge pool of films is an impressive achievement. And if you think it’s weird to put the movie “Thor the Dark World” in the same sentence as the word impressive, consider this. In the long running James Bond franchise, 10 of their first 23 movies earned less than a 67% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Why was Marvel doing 5 times better than the world’s most famous spy? We think it boils down to three key elements of a winning formula that they’ve forgotten to apply to phases 4 and 5.


First and foremost, Marvel built strong stories around a unique set of characters. To paraphrase Bane, most audiences didn’t even know who Iron Man was before RDJ put on the mask. But everything changed once we saw a man who once sold weapons that caused global strife become a hero who chose to wield a powerful suit of armor meant to defend the world. The combination of a self contained story and charismatic lead performance led to huge success. That simple yet effective formula eventually gave the MCU its highest rated movie to date: “Black Panther”. Earning an astonishing 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, this film was proof that ten years after Marvel started making obscure characters popular, the studio still had the power to create cultural icons. But even building up characters wasn’t enough to guarantee they’d be hits.

The second element of Marvel's winning formula was its variety. If you look at any combination of three films in the first 3 phases, you’d get three very different kinds of stories. For example, 2016 started with a thriller where two factions of superheroes fought to determine the future of the Avengers. It was then followed by a magical adventure that introduced a soon to be key hero while hinting at a multiverse of possibilities. This hat trick capped off with a space opera where friends have to rise above their issues and team up to stop Star Lord’s evil and egotistical dad. Another big factor that helped Marvel’s movies feel so fresh and thrilling is that heroes largely solved their own problems. Neither the Guardians nor Strange had any help from outside heroes. And while “Captain America: Civil War” was admittedly a barely hidden Avengers 2.5, it still came after the solo “Ant-Man” adventure. Having characters solve their own issues led to a roster of heroes that felt extremely capable and ensured each movie had high stakes. But we’d argue that Marvel’s variety wouldn’t have been enough if it wasn’t for a third key ingredient: Time.

Between 2008-16 the studio produced only a maximum of two major films a year. It was only in 2017 that they decided that 3 a year was the magic number. And outside of the cinemas, TV releases were also equally spaced out. The ABC shows like “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”, young adult projects like “Runaways”, and Netflix titans like “Daredevil” all shone on different networks. And you didn’t have to worry if you couldn’t make time to see a TV version of Ghost Rider that wasn’t a walking meme. Since the shows were all loosely or barely connected to the wider MCU, you were free to just watch what you liked without worrying about how it would factor into the next film. Fans also had the luxury of completely skipping bombs like “Iron Fist” and the annoying “Inhumans.” For the first three phases, Marvel fans grew to expect character driven stories from different corners of the universe delivered a few times a year. And thanks to “Far From Home” earning over a billion dollars and critical praise at the end of phase 3, the future looked bright. But behind the scenes, decisions were being made that led directly to…


THE FALL

Before we start taking shots at any of the bad CGI, critically panned stories, or critically panned stories with bad CGI, it’s worth addressing one major global event. 2020’s Covid-19 pandemic did cause Marvel to have to alter its film and tv release schedule. But the original slate still contained a lot of the problems that contributed to the studio’s fall. To get an idea of what we mean, let’s make like Makkari from “Eternals” and speed through the original plan. And if you’ve already forgotten who that speedster is, don’t worry, we’re going to talk about why. First, let’s dive into how Marvel’s schedule would’ve been rough either way.

Originally, 2020 would’ve started with “Black Widow”, flown over to “Falcon and the Winter Soldier” and ended with “Eternals”. Since we can’t pull a Dr. Strange and look into another reality where these were released as planned, it’s hard to make any box office comparisons. But if we’re just talking critically, the year would’ve ended with “Eternals”, the MCU’s first rotten film. 2021 would’ve worked to win audiences back with a packed release schedule. “Wandavision”, “Shang-Chi”, and “Multiverse of Madness” would’ve kicked off the year. This trio would’ve been followed by “Loki” , “Spider-Man; No Way Home” and “Thor: Love and Thunder”. That means Marvel would’ve had yet another year where they ended with their weakest project. Overall, their original plans would’ve left them in the same rocky boat they’re sailing in our current timeline. Why does Marvel’s phase 4 and 5 fall seem to be a canon event in every reality? It once again boils down to three key factors. But before diving into those, let’s also address the “woke” flerken in the room.

There’s no question that projects surrounding female leads like Captain Marvel and She-Hulk have faced lots of vocal backlash online. Additionally, several commenters and articles have argued that increased gender and racial diversity in phases 4 and 5 may have also harmed the overall brand. Some critics have even started calling the universe the “MSHEU” over claims that the majority of their projects are female focused. So, how do these criticisms translate into the types of projects, critical reception, and box office receipts? After staring at a list of numbers higher than the Avengers Tower, a few observations became clear. Let’s start with claims that most of the projects are female focused. These are the demographics of the 22 MCU film and tv projects that have been released for phase 4 and 5 as of November 2023.

A total of 9 projects featured female protagonists that were either solo, co-leading a story, or in charge of groups. 13 stories centered on men by themselves, co-leading a story, or in charge of groups. And one focused on a sentient tree. By comparison, the first 22 MCU movies featured 20 films total where men were solo or leading groups, 1 co-led film, and 1 movie with a female protagonist. These numbers show that while men are still leading in the last 22 projects, there have been 4.5x more female led stories in phases 4 and 5 then there were in the first three phases combined. How does this character pivot translate into box office and critical reception? Since we don’t have an AI in an iron suit or guy in chair, we crunched the numbers ourselves and got the answers.

Out of the 22 projects released between phases 4 and 5, 2 projects that were solely named after female leads were box office failures. Both movies share two interesting similarities however. This duo of films were each rated fresh by fans and critics on Rotten Tomatoes. They also came out under extreme circumstances. While “Black Widow” was released in movies and on streaming the same day, “The Marvels” was the only MCU movie to be released during the actor’s strike. Meanwhile, “Shang-Chi” broke Labor Day records while featuring a Chinese hero at the lead. A year later, “Wakanda Forever”, which features a Black Woman as the main hero, made $859 million worldwide. Since box office numbers can’t tell the whole story, let’s also take a critical look at the phases.

The only two projects in phase 4 and 5 that were rated rotten by fans were “Secret Invasion” and “She-Hulk”. While the substandard spy thriller featured a Black lead, the lawyer show featured a female lead. On the flip side of the critical train, shows like Ms. Marvel and “WandaVision” had 80% or higher rotten tomatoes scores among fans and critics. The duo of “Shang-Chi” and “Wakanda Forever” are also in the top 5 best rated shows/movies in the entire phase. So, what’s the final conclusion? Thor, sum this up. Okay. Never mind, Thor, we’ll jump in. There are unquestionably more female led projects in the MCU. And out of 22 projects, two female led projects were box office failures, 1 project centered around a Black lead was a complete critical failure and 1 female led show was poorly received by fans. Those very low numbers compared to the whole objectively suggest that the increase of diverse and female led projects is not responsible for the MCU’s problems. So, we decided to make like Leo in “Inception” and go deeper to find the bad ideas ruining the studio. During our deep dive, we identified three major recurring issues that have cropped up among MCU projects.

First and foremost, the release schedule went from being enjoyably spaced to a mighty test of endurance and willpower. In 2021, fans were tasked with watching 4 movies and 5 tv shows. That added up to an estimated 2,150 minutes or 36 hours of content over the course of just one year. For context, you could watch every MCU movie between “Iron Man” and “Homecoming” and you’d still be done faster than someone watching everything from 2021 alone. And to be fair, Marvel was more reasonable in 2022. Fans only had to watch 1,368 minutes or 22 hours of content to keep up. These extraordinarily high watchtimes made it easy to see why most fans felt like watching MCU content had become like homework. If you miss just one series, you could risk being left out the loop for one of the major releases that year.

A quick but extremely noticeable side effect of this packed schedule has been the overall decline in CGI quality. In a rush to push out so many projects, the studio forced its special effects artists to work ridiculous hours to meet demand. While these workers are heroes for doing what they could, they simply didn’t get enough time to finish key effects. Dr. Strange’s third eye, Asgardian floating heads, and the infamous first trailer for She-Hulk were all too unreal for fans. The biggest eyesore released worldwide was far and away “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania ''. Although it was supposed to be released in July 2023, it got pushed up to February to allow for “Marvels” reshoots. And to make matters more difficult, VFX artists were reportedly told to work more on “Wakanda Forever” than the Ant-Man threequel. However, we’d be lying if we said that the CGI was Quantumania’s only issue. Its story problems reflect the second major MCU issue: characters are no longer the priority.

To demonstrate this point, we have a question to ask about “Multiverse of Madness”. And no, we’re not asking why the all powerful Captain Marvel was killed by an ordinary statue. Our question is: Who is the movie mainly about? If you said Dr. Strange, Wanda Maximoff or America Chavez, congratulations! You’re just as right and confused as we are. Since the story has to constantly split between the trio, we never get enough time to latch onto any one person. We also get extensive screen time for Wong, Christine, and an entire team of heroes. The gigantic cast list makes the movie feel like a “Infinity War” team up instead of a Strange sequel. This crowding has become a major distraction. Thor seemingly brings every living character from his previous movies plus the Guardians into “Love and Thunder”. Meanwhile, Eternals tried to introduce ten new faces at once while giving them random portions of screen time. Heroes like the objectively coolest Eternal Makkari barely got time to shine. Projects like “Guardians 3” prove you can have a huge ensemble of characters that each get development and affect the plot. Unfortunately, a lot of phase 4 and 5 projects aren’t fully focused on their heroes. They’re much more occupied with the third major issue killing the MCU: set-up.

Marvel slowly built up to the end of the Infinity Saga over 10 years. By contrast, they’ve budgeted literally half a decade to get to the conclusion of the Multiverse saga. Since there’s less time, a lot of their projects are occupied with introducing important concepts or characters. This means we sadly have to pick on “Multiverse of Madness” one more time. While it failed to give its leads rich arcs, it succeeded at introducing Incursion events. They’re basically when…actually, we’ll just let John Kransinski’s Mr. Fantastic explain. The movie really makes sure the audience understands what Incursions are by literally showing them before literally telling us about another incoming one. And when there’s time, we get some character development too. The trend of using a series or movies to set up future pieces at the expense of the main heroes story can be seen in the recent duds.

“Quantumania '' spends vastly more time setting up the threat of big bad Kang than it does on “Ant-Man” himself. Meanwhile, “Secret Invasion” tries to convince us that Nick Fury returning to Earth is significant…just to toss him back into space by the end of the series for the next thing. And “Eternals” sped through character intros so much that we bet that you can’t name all ten eternals right now! “Loki” is arguably the only project that gave its character a satisfying arc and successfully managed to set up the threat of the next big bad at the same time. But that’s just one standout out of 22 total projects. Overall, Marvel’s habit of sacrificing characters in the present for the sake of an unknown future has made it difficult for fans to embrace many of the new heroes. The studio’s loveable icons once pulled us into stories. But now, it’s expected that the promise of ambitious plots will get us to care about the characters. When this strategy was combined with the overwhelming amount of content and overcrowded movies, Marvel was left with some majorly disappointing results.

Fans are absolutely exhausted with the overabundance of content overstuffed with obvious nudges at the future. And although good projects have come along, they’re often forgotten as soon as Marvel drops another disappointing story. At this point, can the studio come back from the brink of death and give fans another mostly flawless 10 years of content? Let’s see what you think after you hear about the MCU’s:

Sorry, but just like Captain America got cut off at the end of “Ultron” before he could say assemble, we have to cut things in half here. Next time, we’ll answer if and how the MCU could come back from the edge of annihilation.

But what’s the first thing you would do for the MCU if you were in charge? Let us know in the comments and we’ll see you in part 2.