After the brilliant success of Avengers: Endgame, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) plummeted in both quality and box office revenue.

The Marvels only earned 47 million USD, officially replacing The Incredible Hulk (2008) to become the film with the lowest opening weekend in the North American market in MCU history. Perhaps, Marvel Studios themselves did not think that their new brainchild would have lower sales than a forgotten work released 15 years ago. And yet, The Marvels is even lower than DC’s “flop bombs” such as The Flash (55 million USD) or Black Adam (67 million USD).

Experts say that the failure of The Marvels forced Marvel Studios to review its strategy of releasing movies too quickly. In 2024, the company plans to only release Deadpool 3 and a number of television series. Other movies based on Marvel comics such as Madame Web, Venom 3 or Kraven The Hunter are all produced by Sony.

The Marvels is considered by many critics and audiences to be the worst work of the MCU ever.

The snap changed the destiny of the MCU

Over the past 15 years, Marvel Studios has created a successful cinematic universe based on their superhero comic books. Starting with Iron Man (2008) , this brand has expanded with more than 30 film projects and many television series. MCU also surpassed many famous franchises such as Star Wars, Harry Potter, and James Bond to become the most successful film empire of all time with a total revenue of nearly 30 billion USD.

However, that success gradually disappeared after Iron Man’s snap in Avengers: Endgame , when the central character of this cinematic universe sacrificed to revive half the universe. In recent years, the MCU has continuously faced a lot of criticism from critics as well as their most fervent fans.

Iron Man sacrificed himself to save half the universe but left a difficult problem for Marvel Studios.

Phase 4 of the franchise begins with the Black Widow movie and the WandaVision series, the franchise’s first television series produced for Disney+, and ends with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever , marking the most intensive production period of the franchise. Marvel Studios dates from the inception of the MCU. However, quantity does not always come with quality. This series of new projects has been criticized for their superficial content, seemingly created just to “milk” fans, taking advantage of the brilliant success of the previous three periods.

Going into phase 5, the situation has not shown signs of improvement as there are consecutive “failures” such as Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania or The Marvels . The rare film that received praise was Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is meant to be a work that puts an end to the MCU’s popular superhero team.

Struggling with experiments but not finding a direction

After the events of Avengers: Endgame , MCU entered a completely new chapter when expanding the story to the multiverse scale (Multiverse). This direction opens up a series of opportunities and challenges for the studio’s superhero filmmakers. Many people excitedly wondered what direction Marvel Studios would take the franchise next, but this feeling gradually diminished with each subsequent project of the studio.

During phases 4 and 5, Marvel Studios focused on introducing new characters to its universe. However, these names have not left too much of an impression compared to the superheroes that made up the Avengers team in the previous 3 stages. At the same time, the company also brings a series of characters that most likely the audience will not have the opportunity to see again in the next MCU films. Typical cases include Hercules in Thor: Love and Thunder , Clea in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness , Starfox in Eternals , Namor in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever .

Marvel Studios has yet to find a worthy replacement for the Avengers team.

After past projects, audiences can see the core problem that Marvel Studios is facing. The sheer scale of the multiverse makes it more difficult to build clear connections between each project. Instead of finding a thorough solution, the studio’s directors often choose a rather superficial solution by increasing the humor in these new works in the hope that viewers will be so busy laughing that they will forget the huge limitations. in the script.

The multiverse concept was first introduced in Phase 4’s Loki and has since been developed in projects including Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Ant-Man and the Wasp : Quantumania . However, MCU constantly offers different explanations about this very concept, making most of their viewers also become confused and confused with their favorite brand.

The MCU is still struggling with explanations of the multiverse after Avengers: Endgame.

For a long time now, the most loyal and stubborn fans of the MCU have often had to tell themselves “it would be good to put their brains aside and watch it”, in the hope that the studio will soon solve the headache problem in this world. The multiverse of superheroes. However, the audience’s patience is limited when they have not seen much progress in the MCU’s general story over the past 3 years. The catastrophic failure of The Marvels is just a drop in the bucket as fans of this brand have continuously had to accept superficial and poor quality works over the past time.

Marvel Studios certainly recognizes its own big problem when it continuously takes strong actions to revive this cinematic universe. The company continuously incorporates other superhero brands from Sony and Fox to increase appeal and attract new fan groups. At the same time, they also decided to slow down the release rate of new projects to avoid works being completed hastily and carelessly like before.