After Avengers: Endgame, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has never been the same, and there are some aspects of the movie that explain how it broke the universe. The latest of Marvel Studios’ Avengers movies, 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, is the biggest superhero movie of all time. The MCU was at the height of its popularity during Phase 3, so when it came time to end the Infinity Saga, Marvel had to deliver, and the studio did so in spades. Avengers: Endgame was the perfect finale to the Infinity Saga, superbly wrapping up the more than 10 years of storytelling the MCU had set up to that point.

Following Avengers: Endgame’s ending, the MCU had to radically change. Marvel Studios was able to release more projects in Phase 4 than it had ever done before — Phase 4 had a mind-blowing 18 projects over just two years, almost matching the Infinity Saga’s 23 movies in an 11-year span — thanks to Disney+. While the addition of TV series and other formats to the MCU allowed Marvel to introduce more characters and give supporting heroes their time to shine, which movies would not have allowed, there was a clear quality drop from Avengers: Endgame to Phase 4’s movies and series. Sadly, Avengers: Endgame contributed directly to the MCU’s recent disarray.

  • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝AEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    The MCU’s Phase 4 had a lot of problems, with some of the worst-rated projects in the entire franchise coming during the two years of Phase 4. Going from Avengers: Endgame, which focused on the MCU’s most popular heroes and brought pretty much every character together for the movie’s final battle, to setting up smaller characters led to a loss of interest in the MCU. It did not help that Marvel Studios started to release projects at an unprecedented pace, which resulted in uneven stories, rushed character arcs, and poor CGI on several projects.

    They needed to take their time, tell great stories about characters that made you care for them and draw together the wider story arc in the end credits. Like they did the first time around.

    Unfortunately, they didn’t and tried to force the next story arc into being as part of the main story, so each film and TV show wasn’t satisfying in its own right, it was just a building block in the franchise. BP:WK was the worst example of this - it seemed to just exist to move characters from point A to point B so they were viable in some future project.

    It’s saveable as they have some major cards still to play - the Fantastic Four and X-Men, for example. And they could take inspiration from their best trilogy of films, GotG, and let a talented filmmaker loose in their own corner of the MCU (GdT and the horror characters come to mind, Midnight Sons/Suns, Legion of Monsters, etc, perhaps with Sam Raimi tagging in for Marvel Zombies). However, fundamentally, they need to focus on films that are satisfying in their own right - Shang-Chi came closest and threw it away in the final act.