By Ada Kessler

Throughout the 2010s, it seemed that no franchise was bigger than the Marvel Studios movie universe. 

The Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU for short, was immensely popular. These movies were derived from the Marvel comics and told the stories of superheroes like Captain America and Iron Man. These films would make hundreds of millions of dollars on average with Iron Man garnering $585 million and Captain America: The First Avenger gaining $370 million according to forbes.com.

The stories weren’t always the most comic-accurate, but they still captivated large audiences. In fact, Avengers: Endgame is the second highest-grossing movie of all time, with Avengers: Infinity War being the sixth according to the-numbers.com. 

Recently, however, Marvel’s latest movie, The Marvels, was their worst box office performance to date. The film cost 274.8 million dollars to make and would need to make over 439.6 million dollars to make profit according to comingsoon.net. The film failed to gross even half of that.

On top of this, their newer Disney Plus shows have also been underperforming. It seems that the popularity and love attached to the Marvel Cinematic Universe has started to slip.

So, how did this decline happen?

To begin, there are too many projects and consequently, too many characters. The MCU acts in phases that tend to revolve around specific characters. For example, Phases One through Three focused on the six Avengers: Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow, and Hawkeye. 

This meant the majority of the projects in these phases somehow revolved around these characters. Occasionally, new characters were introduced that would be vital in the climax of the story like Doctor Strange, Black Panther, and Captain Marvel.

However, these newer phases of the MCU seem to just be introducing new characters left and right. This is largely due to the MCU’s Disney Plus shows. 

These shows were originally received quite well when there were only a handful of them, but as the number climbs higher and higher, a variety of fans have begun to resent them. A poll from finance.yahoo.com confirms this, stating 31% of Marvel fans are “getting a little tired of so many.” 

Casual fans don’t want to watch 20 shows just to understand the main plot of the new phase. This means the MCU has mostly lost previously loyal fans because the universe has become too expansive and subsequently hard to follow. 

On the other hand, hardcore fans aren’t happy about the shows either. They also dislike the amount of shows, but their main issue is that they dislike the characters.

Currently, these shows are focusing on comic characters the MCU hadn’t previously explored such as Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk. These shows aren’t being received nearly as well as early shows because fans have no emotional attachment to these characters. 

Originally, these shows were received quite well because they discussed pre-existing characters, such as Loki or Wanda Maximoff, and the problems they faced following Avengers: Endgame. Fans already knew these characters and therefore tuned into the shows because they wanted to see the direction of these characters’ stories. 

Now, the Disney Plus shows focus on introducing characters fans won’t know of unless they’ve read the comics. Even so, the MCU doesn’t tend to stay very comic-accurate, meaning comic fans won’t be attached to them either.

Previously, when Marvel Studios had a new character to introduce, said character was introduced in a movie. Since the Disney Plus shows began, new characters have been established with their own show. This creates a disconnect between the audience and the character as fans aren’t used to new characters being shown through this medium. 

This disconnect could also be due to fans disliking the diversity of all the new characters. 

Of the original six Avengers, not one of them was a person of color, and only one was a woman, a very sexualized one at that. These new shows have featured a much more diverse set of characters of people of color, women, and disabled heroes.

Some fans perceive this as “too woke” and decide they want no part in this new Marvel according to medium.com. In fact, the newer phases have been called the “M-She-U” in a derogatory manner and the diverse shows have been review bombed. Stereotypically, superheroes are men and so are the enjoyers of these superhero stories. When this changes, it can turn away certain viewers.

As a whole, it seems the Disney Plus shows are the root of the MCU’s downfall. This is no surprise once you consider how poorly Marvel Studios treats their workers, specifically their visual effects or VFX workers. An article from Vulture.com shares the story of a Marvel VFX worker. She claims she would work around 64 hours a week and other VFX workers would be consistently breaking down around her. 

When so many of Marvel’s superheroes require some sort of visual effect for either their outfit, magic, or general scenery, it makes sense the poor treatment of VFX workers has led to a decline in quality. If the movies don’t sell the picture they’re painting, every other aspect falls apart.

It appears Marvel Studios has gotten greedy, caring less about the quality of their projects, and instead focusing on quantity. While they may have thought this wouldn’t harm them, given the massive franchise they once were, they were wrong. In fact, this has contributed to their downfall even more as it has left everyone wondering, what happened to Marvel?