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Credit: Marvel StudiosThe Marvel Cinematic Universe is on rocky ground, and it may mean that a beloved component of the franchise will sadly come to an end.
Superhero movies are feeling tired at the box office. In terms of live-action, the last big superhero genre hit was Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). Thanks to rampant rumor and speculation, the third movie from director Jon Watts netted billions at the global box office, but since, Kevin Feige’s studio has simply not recovered.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) caught some of the hype, what with the Multiverse basically paving the way for any cameo ever to happen. Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) were released to varied reception, but it would be the beginning of Marvel Phase Five which would prove the franchise had holes in its armor.
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Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) was released to extremely poor reviews and one of the worst box office revenues in Marvel Cinematic Universe history. Even with the Kang the Conqueror setup, played by the now-problematic Jonathan Majors, the second Ant-Man sequel was caught up on heavy CGI and a questionable script from Jeff Loveness.
Upon Bob Iger’s return as CEO of The Walt Disney Company, the executive commented on whether audiences even wanted a third and fourth movie about the same characters. Or whether they would appreciate newness in the 15-year-old franchise.
Marvel TV Shows
This leads us to the fresh comments made by Iger, who admitted that Marvel’s lack of television footprint meant that the Disney+ show execution “diluted” the saga and split the fanbase. It’s easy to see where Iger is coming from: Marvel Studios injected so much into the streaming shows that the casual moviegoer then needed to have a subscription and watch multiple seasons and multiple episodes to be in the know about events.
Let’s not forget that the Loki television show was the place where the Marvel Multiverse first got explained in detail. The Multiverse that the entire Phase Four, Five, and Six is based on…
And in 2023 this problem of over-saturation in Marvel TV shows has never been clearer, because the opposite has happened. At the time of writing, only one Marvel show has been released. Secret Invasion was once part of a huge group of upcoming streaming shows that were set to debut across 2023, according to reports. What If…? Season 2, Ironheart, Agatha: Coven of Chaos, Echo, and Loki Season 2 were all slated for release, and now it looks like most have been pushed, with only Loki Season 2 confirmed to release this year on October 6, 2023, and Echo on November 29, 2023.
In addition to the problem of too many projects, the Disney+ shows — as a whole — are a mixed bag, with each receiving differing levels of criticism and audience response. In fact, while many hoped Secret Invasion would ground the franchise once again, it came out with one of the poorest opening scores on Rotten Tomatoes.
What have been jointly successful, though, are the Marvel TV Specials. The first of these was Werewolf by Night (2022) by Michael Giacchino and then The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (2022) from James Gunn. The former has a 90% critic score and 89% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, while the latter has a 93% critic score and a slightly lower 80% audience score. The combined success of the TV Special Presentation initiative is a far cry from the muddled response of the regular streaming service series.
The next TV Special show has been rumored to feature Mephisto and was reportedly filmed during the production of Agatha: Coven of Chaos — the upcoming Marvel television show starring Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha Harkness. However, new reports are circulating saying that the next Special is an adaptation of the “Witches Road” from the 2016 “Scarlet Witch” (2015) comic book.
This would make sense, even if it hasn’t been confirmed by Marvel or Disney. And that is because Elizabeth Olsen and her character Wanda Maximoff, AKA the Scarlet Witch, are incredibly beloved. Olsen took joint billing with Benedict Cumberbatch (Dr. Stephen Strange/Doctor Strange) in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and while her fate was suggested, it was not confirmed. The popularity of an actress like Olsen and a character like Wanda may be the ticket to getting more viewers onto Disney+, inching it toward profitability, which is, of course, Iger’s ultimate mission.
“Unfortunately, it sounds like Disney+’s recent financial issues and loss of subscribers (the streaming bubble has well and truly burst) means these are no longer set to be a regular occurrence on the platform to flesh out the wider MCU,” Comic Book Movie reported. A tweet from @CanWeGetToast said:
With the less than stellar performance of Disney+ as a whole, Marvel is looking to do less Special Presentations moving forward.
With the less than stellar performance of Disney+ as a whole, Marvel is looking to do less Special Presentations moving forward. 😪 pic.twitter.com/ti3ytyvIPi
— CanWeGetSomeToast (@CanWeGetToast) July 12, 2023
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Only time will tell if this will be the end of Marvel’s critically-acclaimed Special Presentation initiative, but with the decrease in longer-form TV series, it doesn’t look good for these shows.
Would you like to see more of Marvel’s TV Specials and fewer Marvel TV shows? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!
The Marvel television shows WandaVision, the Captain America spinoff The Falcon and the Winter Solider, Loki, the animated series What If…?, Hawkeye, Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (which featured Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock, AKA Daredevil), and Secret Invasion can all be streamed on Disney+.