By Elijah Haimowitz
In the past, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) was an untouchable franchise with “Avengers Endgame," the second highest grossing film of all time. However, in recent years, the universe has started to slow down, and the most recent movie, “The Marvels,” continues a new common trend that shows that the MCU’s reign might be ending.
Recently, Disney Plus began releasing shows that must be watched to understand the full MCU timeline. These shows not only add an overwhelming amount of content, but they also seem to be overwhelming, as some characters start acting completely differently between small gaps of time. This is mostly caused by a lack of communication between the managers of projects.
All of this culminated in the launch of "The Marvels,” which made only 46 million dollars (in profit) on opening weekend. This may seem like a lot, but for a movie with a 200 million dollar budget made by a huge company, this is a horrible amount. This is similar to other recent Marvel movies but to a new extreme. This is the lowest grossing MCU film ever, performing even worse than "The Flash,” which was also considered a major flop.
These problems will continue unless Marvel starts to make changes. Many people are suggesting that Marvel should scale back and ensure that all projects are given enough time to work and can communicate with other projects to make the narrative cohesive. This may help the MCU slow down and put quality over quantity. There are currently four shows and one movie set to premier throughout 2024. This is mostly because of a large number of delays with many other projects. While this can be seen as a step in the right direction, there is a lot more that needs to be done soon if Marvel wants to keep its name as one of the untouchable franchisees.