The Future of the MCU

(Endgame Spoilers)

I’m a little worried about Marvel’s future after Endgame.  I’ve heard a lot of people talk about being tired of superhero movies, and Endgame is the best possible stopping point for those who want to get off the train.  I’m curious to see if “Spider-Man: Far From Home” does well.  It looks like a fun movie, but it’s not going to come close to making Endgame money.

Remember when Solo didn’t do well, so Disney blamed “Star Wars fatigue” and cancelled all the Star Wars spin-off movies?  If and when Spider-Man fails to keep the Marvel momentum going, I wonder if Disney will start being more selective there too.  Now on the bright side (and it pains me to type this in any context), but the Marvel movies are way better than Star Wars (seriously, ouch).  Star Wars will always be my #1 fictional universe, but I can’t with good conscience claim that it has maintained the same consistency of quality as the MCU.  It’s not an insult, any more than it insults gold to say it’s not quite platinum.  But Star Wars simply isn’t as impressive as it was when I was a kid, back when there wasn’t as much sci-fi for it to compete with.

It will be a pity if the MCU winds down.  With these first 22 movies, the MCU has done a great job of presenting iconic versions of their most popular characters.  But they’ve also done a decent job of introducing the world to some lesser-known characters.  Now’s the time to phase out the old characters and really start giving up-and-coming heroes more exposure.  If the series were to end in the next couple of years, it just means it would get rebooted in a decade with the same tried-and-true characters.  Characters Disney considers safe, characters who have been proven to sell tickets.

But if they can keep the current MCU going, with the current actors gradually aging out and the new generation of heroes taking their place, it will be better for both the comics and the movies.  Giving exposure to some of the more obscure heroes keeps things interesting – I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of the same six heroes being plastered on everything.  Also, the most iconic characters tend to be white males, and it would be nice if more variety would become mainstream.

Look, call me a “Social Justice Warrior” all you want, but it’s not just about racism/sexism.  The sea of white male faces just gets boring.  The MCU has been really good about choosing diverse supporting characters, but until the last three or four movies, they were just that – supporting characters.  It’s hard for anyone to break through and become a main character while the big four (Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Thor, and Bruce Banner) are around.

But now that Endgame has come and gone, we have a new generation in the works.  Sam Wilson as Captain America?  That’s cool and all, but so far there aren’t any movies on the horizon that would necessarily have him in it.  (Yes, I know about the TV series, but I’m talking about movies right now.)  I doubt we’ll see much of War Machine either; I just don’t know where they’d work him in with the upcoming selection of movies. 

In a couple of months we get “Spider-Man: Far From Home” – This is the only MCU movie with a definite release date.  After that, the whole series goes dark for a while.  It’s odd, for the last few years, they’ve always had approximate dates for at least the next five movies.  But after Spider-Man, they’re being kind of vague.  There’s a lot of stuff in the works, but everything’s so early in production that any one of them could still get cancelled or rescheduled.  Maybe that’s on purpose, they want to give people a break to avoid super hero fatigue, before they dazzle us with a bunch of new characters.

Here’s what’s supposedly on the horizon, and their estimated/rumored release dates:

Black Widow (2020) – It’s hard for me to get excited about this one.  Yeah, I love the character, and any female-led movie is great.  I guess it would be neat to see her origin story, but I have to wonder what will keep it from being a generic spy movie.  I think it would do better as a TV series than a movie, to be honest.  With the right script and director, Black Widow could be the next James Bond, but I just don't think that will happen.

The Eternals (2020) – So far I have no interest in this one.  The title makes me think of The Inhumans, which was not good.  Wikipedia says it’s about a race of godlike beings, which sounds boring.  I hope they surprise me.

Doctor Strange 2 (May 2021) – I can’t wait for this one, the first one was so fun and flashy. 

Black Panther 2 (2021) – I love the character, but his movie was just okay.  I hope this one has more action scenes, and a bigger special effects budget.

Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (2021) – The GotG series is one of my favorites, so I have high hopes for this one.

Shang-Chi (release date unknown) – I know nothing about this character.  It’s nice that it has an Asian lead, but again, I wonder what will keep it from being just another martial arts movie.  Netflix already cornered the market of “super hero whose main power is to punch people” with Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist.  It’s hard for me to get excited about what’s basically a kung fu movie with the Marvel logo stamped on it.

Ant-Man 3 (release date unknown) - Of course this will be fun, though this series is so shallow that it barely even feels like part of the MCU.

Blade (release date unknown) – Yeah, according to some sources, they're working on bringing Blade into the MCU.  I really, really, really don’t care.

So, yeah, I’m looking forward to a couple of those, mostly the sequels.  I’m hoping the rest will surprise me.  But I just don’t get some of the choices they’re making.  Surely there’s more Marvel heroes than this.  I’ve been reading comics since I was a kid, and I know there’s a lot of characters more interesting than the ones they’re picking here.  I mean, I was more of a  DC fan, but I've heard of better Marvel characters... oh wait, those were mostly X-Men.  Well, that's a problem that should be rectified shortly.

I’m not saying these movies won’t be good, but like I said, I’m just worried that they won’t draw a crowd.  I don’t want Disney to ax this series after a couple of them underperform.

I want the MCU film series to last long enough that more of the obscure characters become title characters, and become moneymakers in their own right.  I want it to last long enough that Tom Holland ages out of the Spider-Man role, and they start making live-action movies with Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy.  That’s what I want, I just don’t know if the momentum is still going to be there.  I just have a feeling the series is going to peter out in a couple of years, things will get quiet for about a decade, and we’ll see another reboot starting over with new actors playing the same old characters.  I love Steve Rogers and Tony Stark, but I don’t want to see them again when there’s underrated characters out there that deserve the spotlight.

Update:

Marvel is now saying that there will be some big announcement about future MCU movies after “Spider-Man: Far From Home” is released.  Maybe I should have held off on this blog a little longer.  I hope it’s good news.