The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is a collection of movies, cartoons, TV shows that are produced to center superheroes as well as villains. Starting from 2008, it has produced numerous high quality movies such as superhero trilogies Spiderman, Captain America and Iron Man, and their jewel: The Avengers. After the global success of the movie “Avengers: Endgame”, which ended the “Infinity Saga” (2008 – 2019), the whole MCU has gone to the new era, “Multiverse Saga”. This marked the beginning of a new Marvel cinematic era, and also what could be considered as the fall from grace for the MCU.
Disney+
Disney decided to take ownership over the Marvel franchise in 2009. Disney had already been popular with animated series for kids, so they decided to buy Marvel for the purpose of reaching out to older target audiences. After the “Infinity Saga” ended in 2019, Disney had proven its success for over a decade. They had done their duties pretty well, playing a pivotal role of a financial backer and distributor. However, the release of Disney + in late 2019 changed the course of the franchise.
Marvel suffered a long silence in 2020. Even though “Black Widow” was aired, it became a total flop, receiving only 6.6/10 on IMDB and 79% on Rotten Tomatoes. In the next year, the new era “Multiverse Saga” began with “Loki” and “Shang Chi and The Legend of Ten Rings”, leading us to the advent of the multiverse. At this point, all the shows of the MCU were aired on Disney + , which was mainly responsible for the MCU’s downfall.
With the launch of Disney plus, Disney invested heavily on creating content for their biggest franchises to promote people to subscribe to the new service. As stated by the Los Angeles Times, Disney plans to lure subscribers with its first live-action “Star Wars” series, “The Mandalorian”; a new “High School Musical” show and multiple Marvel series”. This led to Disney to start pumping out huge amounts of Marvel content, and not focus so much on its quality. Starting from the overrated TV shows “Wanda Vision”, “Loki” and two movies “Shang Chi: The legend of ten rings”, “Spiderman: Way from home”, the Multiverse Saga was expected to be more developed and interesting compared to the Infinity Saga in the previous decade. However, in 2022 began the madness that the audiences had never seen before and until now, most of the shows were not even close to 7.0 in IMDB. Sadly, the majority of them that we saw on the screen became disasters and this was the sign of Marvel’s disorientation because they didn’t give us a sense of “Multiverse Saga”. Thanks to Disney’s Policy “Quality over quantity”, their effort to boost the MCU’s image worldwide had become a complete failure. This policy was supposed to be a motive for the MCU’s growth, but the results were against it. Furthermore, the audiences expected so much to see Marvel rise. However, the more they expected, the more despondent they became.
Yes, the MCU had lots of characters and stories but did they have connections? In this new saga, they didn’t. Factfully, they didn’t give us too many hints, which made the storyline of the Saga vague. We weren’t really sure who would be involved in the main storyline, the fact that there were a variety of universes and timelines even added more tension and confusion to the viewers themselves.
The downfall
Most of the shows were underrated, which kept mounting like growing trees and lacked quality, although some of them outshined. The first reason for this was the sophisticated mess about the multiverse. Too many characters in different timelines didn’t show us the exact avenue that Marvel is heading to. As a result, the main storyline was left unsolved, making it something strange and alien to the viewers. Apart from this, other underlying reasons for this could be the increasing workload for the Marvel production staff, the demand for CGI advancements, etc. Having a plenty of projects meant that the production team had to distribute into small units to work on them, which decreased the quality of the streaming shows. All of these factors decreased the quality of every Marvel show, robbing Marvel of its actual prestige that it once had. Since then, a new phenomenon appeared showing that “the bad movie series were parallels to the actually good movie series”.
A surprising “Turnover”
The MCU directors were really certain about their grand project: “The Avengers: Kang Dynasty”. The project was expected to be the MCU’s center of the “Multiverse Saga”. However, Jonathan Majors, playing “Kang the Conqueror”, was arrested on March 25th, 2023 due to assault allegations between him and his ex – girlfriend. He was promptly fired, no longer being the MCU’s “Kang the Conqueror”.
From that moment on, they got rid of the “Kang Dynasty” project and decided to change the MCU’s direction to the two new projects: “Avengers: Doomsday” (2026) and “Avengers” Secret Wars” (2027). Besides the news that Robert Downey Jr, who played Iron Man previously, was set to come back with the role “Doctor Doom”. So, what are the reactions? First of all, from the perspective of our “Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man” Tom Holland, he said: “ I’ve been speaking to Robert Downey Jr a lot, especially about him making his Marvel return, which is super exciting”. Secondly, from his die – hard and beloved audiences, they went eagerly wild as well as confused over his comeback to the MCU as the biggest villain in the current saga. While a majority of them supports or even praises Marvel for this effort, others just express their concern over this announcement as Robert’s comeback can be a part of the following total failure at the box office.
Recently, There hasn’t been much information about these two projects at the moment and the directors are still working very hard on these potential blockbusters.
The current status
At the moment, all the audiences worldwide have witnessed the complete uncertainty of the MCU’s direction, putting us in a confusion with a large amount of TV shows and movies produced in these years. The viewers are decreasing, along with its prestige and quality. While there have been many achievements (Loki TV Series, Spiderman: No Way Home, Moon Knight,…) along the way, the flops (She Hulk, Mrs. Marvel, Black Widow,…) can also be easily seen, even greater. In other words, we expect the MCU to have more excellent, interesting shows; yet we saw them in a totally opposite way.
Hope
Despite an erratic journey since the “Multiverse Saga” began, there is still hope spared for the Marvel fans and audiences in general. If you expect the movie “Avengers: Kang Dynasty” to reach the public, don’t be too disappointed. That’s because there are a number of upcoming projects that will take you to the height of excitement and joy. In June 2025 comes the project of 100% comic – based “Fantastic Four” with the participation of actors Pedro Pascal and Joseph Quinn. Also, Tom Holland will come back in his fourth Spiderman movie with a whole new adventure and many more. Last but not least, as I have mentioned earlier, Robert Downey Jr will come back with two grand movies “Avengers: Doomsday” and “Avengers: Secret Wars” in 2026 and 2027, respectively.
Soon, the MCU will regain its reputation it used to have and revive afterwards. No matter what challenges they face, the MCU is still doing its best to serve their fans and audiences.
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