Without a doubt, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (AKA the MCU) is the most successful Superhero franchise and the most successful film franchise of all time – raking in a profit of USD 8.5 billion. The second highest-grossing film franchise, the Star Wars Universe, doesn’t even come close with a box office total of USD 4.2 billion. However, despite this success, we are now three TV series and one movie in the Phase Four part of the MCU and Marvel hasn’t had that crazy impact we expected it to have. What is happening to the MCU and how will they rectify it?
‘Avengers: Endgame‘ gave a brilliant homage to the last decade of (almost) cinematic excellence in storytelling, while ‘Spiderman: Far from home’, the last film of MCU’s Phase 3, set the tone for Phase 4. Then, the coronavirus pandemic hit worldwide. And there were no more MCU movies for a year.
In some ways, this has been good for Marvel. A considerable break after the emotional rollercoaster ending to the ten-year cinematic saga will help Marvel fans (who will probably be the only ones following the MCU projects from now on) move on and get ready for the new Superheros lined up and take the mantle from Captain America, Iron-Man and Black Widow. But that also seems to be part of the problem.
This break has also caused people to stop watching the newer MCU projects – with many thinking that the ‘Avengers: Endgame’ was the perfect ending to a brilliant franchise (in some ways that is true). This break also lessens the impact of the films and TV series which were expected to release earlier to keep the hype train going and it shows. ‘Black Widow’ didn’t wow audiences, ‘WandaVision‘ and ‘The Falcon and The Winter Soldier‘ didn’t have the impact we thought they would have. The only project that has lived up to its hype has been the ‘Loki’ series.
And again, in some ways it makes sense. We have been following the likes of Iron-Man, Captain America, Thor, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Ant-Man who are all front centre in their own movies and in the “team-up” films, while Wanda, Vision, Falcon and Winter Soldier were all side characters that got elevated to “primary character” status after the MCU Phase Three ended. And it would have been fine if these TV series had come out earlier – which it didn’t (and couldn’t) and that seems to have hurt Marvel. Loki was already a beloved villain/ anti-hero throughout the MCU and a series based around him was always going to have hype and Marvel returned the fans’ expectation with gusto (season finale still pending at this point).
The true impact of Marvel Phase 4 will now depend on how the characters of Shang-Chi and Eternals will be welcomed into the MCU – if the films will have the impact of ‘Black Panther’ or ‘The Incredible Hulk’, we will have to wait and see. Then again Marvel did have a slight dip during its Phase 2, so we are sure fans will tolerate a few mishaps as long as the overall story manages to be good.