Credit: Marvel StudiosIn the last 15 years, Marvel has become one of the biggest film studios in the industry. It’s helped make superstars out of little-known or “washed-up” actors and has skyrocketed them into household names.
Unfortunately, this has come at the cost of superhero fatigue, and an overabundance of content. With the rise of streaming and Disney+, Marvel switched gears to focus on several original series, including WandaVision, Loki, and, most recently, Secret Invasion. They’ve also started to focus on the concept of a multiverse, allowing the studio to essentially turn every movie into some version of a team-up, featuring several cameos by other actors and characters.
Unfortunately, it has started to affect Marvel’s performances, most notably with the release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) earlier this year, which became Marvel’s worst-performing movie. Since last year, there’s been a slew of delay announcements, including Secret Invasion, Agatha: Coven of Chaos, Loki Season Two, and the release of The Marvels (2023). From delay announcements to overall uncertainty, Marvel’s future is starting to look a little unclear.
Recent comments from Bob Iger have confirmed this with the Disney CEO outright stating that Marvel bit off more than it can chew and overexerted itself with the amount of streaming content it put out. The legacy of Marvel has also been denounced by Robert Downey Jr., its top actor for the last decade and a half. Recently promoting Christopher Nolan’s upcoming Oppenheimer (2023), Robert Downey Jr. said that he was afraid that his time spent with the MCU was going to negatively impact his acting skills, saying that it didn’t challenge him.
Another Marvel actor recently spoke out with similar sentiments as Simu Liu from Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) gushed about his time on Barbie (2023). Although he stated that he would “happily show up” whenever the call comes, he stated that with Marvel, “things are changing, always in flux.” Liu discussed his own future in the MCU and the uncertainty of a Shang-Chi sequel.
While the follow-up film has been confirmed, there’s been no other information revealed about the movie as of yet, although it’s already suffered its own series of setbacks and delays. With all of the circumstances surrounding Marvel Studios right now, including Iger’s own doubt, it’s very likely that the MCU may be facing a major cross roads as it determines the fate of its future projects.
Facing down so many delays within the last year and a changing perception of the film industry as a whole, it could affect Marvel projects that have already been confirmed as well. Unfortunately it may be time for the studio to take a hard look at how it’s approached movie making over the last handful of years and get back to the heart and feel of the original MCU movies.
What do you think about Marvel’s future? Share your thoughts in the comments below!