The MCU Is Collapsing 

**WHY I DIDN’T MENTION BLADE**: When that movie came out in the 90s, most people didn’t know it was based on a comic book. It was financially successful, but not the $100M domestic blockbusters I talk about throughout the video-and Blade was most certainly not considered a superhero at the time. The movie is retroactively known and considered a landmark comic movie, but at the time it didn’t do anything for the genre because no one even knew it was a part of it.

Chris Hemsworth bowing out of any more movies 'unless they are different' is a sign that they are losing one of the few charismatic characters still left.

The mcu right now feels like that one assignment you submit 5 minutes before the deadline. Every script feels like it was written in an afternoon.

While watching Endgame back in 2019, I remember thinking "there s no way Marvel could possibly top this." And yes as it turns out they couldn't.

I feel like the biggest problem is how much Marvel is trying to push out in such a short amount of time. A lot of stuff feels rushed and disconnected from each other.

MCU phase four really is the gift that keeps giving with how utterly pointless and bad it is. It’s amazing how we went from Endgame to this.

After hearing Charlie Cox say, “ Born Again isn’t as violent as Netflix “ *which is fine - but when he said* “We need to find what worked for The Netflix Show and make it work for a *Younger Audience* “ it’s pretty much a wrap. Daredevil for kids or in the style of Moon Knight still spells out it’s gonna be trash

It's really just an example as to why ending a story is incredibly important. Endgame was the climax, the movie the entire franchise was building up to. And now that they're still being forced out, the MCU is slowly and painfully realising that there's nothing left to tell.

There's a reason why the boys and invincible are doing so well. It's not fatigue. It's approach. Marvel has no other tricks, they're a one trick pony.

Strange is such a missed opportunity for a main character. He’s a multiverse travelling wizard so he could be any series in any world, he’s insanely skilled with magic so there are plenty of reasons for people to look for him and include him in the plot, he’s tasked with protecting the multiverse so he could easily have motives to defeat villains, and he could even lead a new team considering his skills and charisma.

Doctor Strange's spell in NWH was so powerful that it collapsed the franchise IRL

I think one problem with Phase 4; there’s too much! With the inclusion of Disney+ shows (essentially 6 hour long movies) there’s just too much to watch if you want to keep up with the MCU. During the Infinity Saga that’s part of what led to success for any movie in the MCU, audiences felt like they had to see every one.

Agreed!! Robert Downy Jr was a big reason why the MCU worked really well! You can feel his absence in the new phases.

If you ask me they’re lacking street level criminals and styles of fighting. That’s the one thing in common I’ve noticed. Spiderman swinging through buildings, cap plowing through red army soldiers with a shield, Ironman having to deal with being a normal human, etc. street level stuff is relatable. It’s human. Every single movie just has to involve multiple dimensions and all kinds of aliens, it can get confusing really easy

Hemsworth went from saying he was excited to continue after endgame to saying he wants out after one movie 💀

Someone finally voicing the same concern I had about strange not even being a main character in MoM- thank you!

I think if they simply took a break after Endgame/Far From Home and actually worked on Phase 4 and the plot, than I think we'd be in a *much* better situation then we're in right now.

Used to be a giant MCU fan as I grew up. It meant a lot to me. It was always, "yeah, there are a few duds, but there are still the classics and there's still the heart". Sad to see it fall apart like this and feel like soulless cash-grabbing.

The fact is they don't respect their already established characters. The character previously acted a certain way and now it looks like oneday they woke up and lost 100 IQ points. They just don't feel the same characters.

The thing is, this didn't start with 2022 and the stuff they produced there. It started when they dropped/disbanded the Marvel Creative Committee (the people planning that overarching stories and keeping Behind The Scenes creators [writers, directors and more] on that track) between 2015 and 2016, combined with Disney overtaking the franchise. The fact is they started hiring people who not only didn't care for the MCU itself or the running premise of what they were signing in to DO --rather blatantly too, starting most obviously with Taika Waititi, as far back as Thor Ragnarok (link at the bottom as to his own quotes declaring outright that his intent from the start WAS to screw up and scrap every character IN Ragnarok and ignore/disrespect both the film and their creators not just before him? But, leave the mess he made or other after like Gunn to clean up): and general fans ate it up: which just resulted in more hires with Taika's mentality.. such as Waldron (who by his own admission didn't write a Loki show; he adapted his old and already rejected time travel script into a Sylvie Lushton script: and added a 'alter-Loki' tag to her, while changing the name of the male character to Loki to make all that pass as part of teh bait and switch from the *opposite* that they had been promoting in live cons and more prior to it's airing) Herron.. and yes, sadly even Raimi. The Loki BTS team were, are and remain as loudly and unapologetically destructive of the title character/s they were hired and entrusted to portray: but the fact is, that yes.. Taika is where that mentality and hypocrisy started, along with the mess of not having even a basic outline of an idea to where they're going with any of it since MCC was disbanded shorty after managing a loose outline for where phase 3 was supposed to go (and the fact they abandoned half of it, and especially the foundation work with Loki and his story having been manipulated/tortured post 2011 Thor into being front man for Thanos' first attempt at wiping out half the planet to do the same to the rest of the universe [remember: we know Thanos had been doing this and torturing his daughters for decades prior to 2012, the NY invasion was the first grazing peek at that: watch GotG 1& 2, or Infinity War for some examples on screen: and I'll provide inks for the creative teams and actors interviews stating that outright below too.] Part of the reason that Raimi's Strange 2 didn't go well, was the fact that in order to further mess it up from SMNWH (reminder: the entire premise of the Master of the Mystic Arts, their entire major reason for existing and not getting involved in most of Earth's other affairs like the Invasion of New York directly? Was because they exist specifically to deal with threats from other universes IN the Multiverse just like Dormammu; and that is said outright AND NAMED in the first film 'Who are you in this vast Multiverse, Mister Strange?') AND, with two of the pre-existing characters in play? (Wanda and Strange especially) Raimi admitted he didn't watch ANY of the films or show, or even clips outside of his initial viewing of DS1 years ago when it first dropped in theaters SIX YEARS prior. In other words? While making the sequel.. he had little to no understanding of the characters he was directing that sequel story for: including the main title character himself. He didn't watch endgame, didn't watch infinity war, didn't watch Ultron or Civil War, or WandaVision: or even refresh his memory by re-watching the first film.. to even try to make the second one work even a little better. Well and, no; it did not help that SMNWH while great otherwise? Absolutely helped set him up for that skip on professionalism with the dumbing-the-Order-down line and ignorant premise of 'The Multiverse is a concept about which we know frighteningly little.' alone. There's.. a lot more, but yeah. This snowball has been rolling towards this result since they hired in Taika Waititi and still let him keep his job to keep his promises then going into Love and Thunder, after building his portion of the MCU skyscraper supports under it in 2016 out of swiss cheese and not only setting that example? But getting patted on the back for it by gen fans for Disney to take that behavior and dismissive, destructive intent as a good approach. Just sayin': Fans of the Thor corner and Loki have seen this coming since then. Sorry to burst anyone's bubble but yeah.. this has been seen coming for more than half a decade. -- mentioned links: Taika Waititi -- why Love & Thunder was not a surprise to Thor and Loki fans: youlackconviction.tumblr.com/post/682116567726735360/oh-thank-god-there-was-also-this-gem-waititi Loki, his torture & manipulation through the mind stone [including concept art they decided against portraying on film to keep a PG 13 rating] : blindtaleteller.tumblr.com/post/688424996626972672/hey-you-said-in-a-post-that-the-creators-and-tom Some of the major Cannon Story ignored and misrepresented in the Loki series (and the amazing POC actor-directopr whose role they diminished in the process): blindtaleteller.tumblr.com/post/684803757028016128/mostlybuckystuff-softlanwangji-thor-rushing-off There's a lot more than what's in those threads.. but yeah. This has been going on a while, and this post is long enough: so imma stop there. I would HIGHLY suggest you look up some of it yourself, but a lot of the problems started with who and especiallt with what mentality they chose their BTS creatives since Taika. Most of them either didn't understand how counting to phase 5 worked or works.. or just plain blatantly did not care so long as they could put their name on something in it, before it went down.

The worst part is that underlying feeling of betrayal you can feel as a fan. There seems to be a weird pattern of writers and producers not knowing the source material before making a multi-million dollar movie about it. Not only is not an accurate representation, but it’s switched into a new “modern” narrative that only seems to pertain to a very small group of people. I don’t need over complicated and over stuffed movies, I want a 3 part story that simply makes sense and reaches a sound conclusion. The problem with the MCU, in my opinion, is simply this: the creators stopped worrying about making actual stories, they are now trying to make movies more like “events” and it doesn’t stick.

I'd say the biggest mistake Disney made with MCU was bring in all the "meta" stuff. It was them basically siding with everyone who disliked the MCU, "hey cool kids, look, we're making fun of the comic silliness too, we're cool aren't we?". Disney forgot that those "cool kids" who openly mock comic stuff aren't going to stick around to consume comics entertainment, because ultimately comics are just about people in silly colored costumes punching giant aliens. The emperor has no clothes and all that.

They could have fixed this by simply pumping out less content and taking a semi hiatus for 5 years after endgame.

I really feel bad for the SFX artists, actors, and writers who are probably doing their best with what they have. A decent chunk of the writing problem probably comes from the top, with pressure from executives at Disney, who have quite a bit of control over what gets made and how (example being the Owl House and it’s semi-cancellation). That’s not even talking about the hours for writers or SFX artists, and the pay/AI issues that also affect actors. Hollywood is basically on fire right now, and not in a literal (or good) way.

I agree on everything except the Miles Morales point. Spiderverse was so great on its own. The animated movie was perfect in every way though Sony took Miles story for the multiverse. Anyways the writers did a great job distinguishing miles from Peter.

One thing that is still confusing to me is how the multiverse works. The Ancient One was the first to explain it, and then in phase 4 there are multiple contradicting/confusing explanation on what it is like in Loki, Multiverse of Madness, No Way Home, etc.

It started going downhill with Endgame. Even with No Way Home the only reason that movie made money was because of cameos and fan service. Phase 4 was garbage. And what's worse is that they keep rehiring the same writers that worked on phase 4 to make future projects. They will be just as bad. Hollywood doesn't learn lessons. They won't get better.

Guardians 3 made me nostalgic for the old mcu so I’ve been doing a rewatch of the infinity saga. It really shows how perfectly crafted the overarching story of the infinity stones and thanos as well as the formation and breakup of the avengers was throughout the movies. Everything came together effortlessly and the direction was clear. It’s obvious now that they’re just throwing shit at the wall and hoping it sticks

MCU should’ve went on a hiatus after ENDGAME for a couple years with no movies and then come back some years later with fresh content that had been thought out and filmed in secrecy with no deadlines and total creativity and passion rather than the sole agenda of making money. THEN it would’ve made a huge comeback that everyone would’ve loved.

I’m really hoping that phase 5 and further get their spark back and that phase 4 just be that one phase that we all choose not to talk about or acknowledge, like a meme.

Looking back, I really think that the MCU was the single most culturally influential thing in the 2010s.

Just stumbled upon your channel, you do amazing work man, nothing but props to you!

I'd say the cracks in the wall for the Marvel movies started to appear as far back as Endgame.

Thank you for saying Dr Strange was basically a feature in his movie. I said this the second after I saw the movie and people said I was crazy...

I really miss phase 1-3 MCU. It actually had heart to it.

5:16 they actually started if off very well with WandaVision. WV was extremely well received and got double digit Emmy nominations the first marvel project to ever actually receive nominations for prestigious awards. It was the other shows that weren't good or received very well and the phase tanked from there

The MCU was what made me love movies again. It's over now. It happened so fast I didn't even have time to process that.

One thing I’ll also add on is that Dr. Strange or Black Panther should have been the central characters to push the MCU forward after Iron-Man and Cap exited but Marvel screwed it up by killing off T’Challa because the actor died (which I think was a terrible decision because T’Challa’s full story hasn’t even scratched the surface yet) and then not focusing on Dr. Strange the man who literally knows all about the multiverse and protects reality. Yeah Phase 4 really dropped the ball completely. They should have either recast T’Challa and centered on him or focused on Dr. Strange but like Nate Moore said “we don’t hire actual comic fans to write or direct our movies”…….yeah and Phase 4 shows that completely

I find it interesting that the Disney Renaissance, which is said to have lasted from 1989 to 1999, lasted almost the same length of time as the MCU's prime of life, from 2008 to 2019, both being followed by years of aimlessness and staleness, with a breakout hit here and there. If we project based on the post-Renaissance years, the MCU is in for quite a few more years of this.

I refuse to even hatewatch Phase 4. It's not worth my time, and I don't want to reward Disney's rancid cashgrabs

This video came up on my feed and i hope your career as a creator is going well bc ive been starving for grounded reviews of movies like this 😭

I loved the idea of a multiverse. It was so exciting because it's never been done to this degree. Now everyone franchise has a multiverse these days

Phase 4 was so bad, I didn’t see Thor 4 or Black Panther. I never thought i’d miss a MCU movie or show, but now I’m waiting for reviews first to even give them a shot.

Great , great stuff. I’m definitely a fan. Great pacing with your vids and just funny.

I was a big Batman, Nightcrawler & X-Men the Animated series fan growing up. There was so much diverse aspects of media & it was genuine. The story of mutants was universally relatable. Captain Planet. Spawn was so awesome and the entire world around him is so unique. There's such a creative range of character's, creatures, unique things, weird things, macabre things. I loved how things used to not be afraid to embrace things, odd things, difficult things. Good stories used to be told, in very creative intelligent ways. Nowadays everything is this cheap cop out shallow live action version nonsense. I miss the Era of creativity, of animated series, of things that made us utilize our intelligence and our internal structure that connects us to any character no matter what kind of character, creature, specie's they are. There is so many stories we could be telling and art that could be creating but we are treating our entire audience like they are 2 yr olds that just need shiney keys waved in front of their face for entertainment... But at the end of the day it's very shallow cheap way to entertain... That's how I look at a lot of modern day media. ~~~~~~~~ I sincerely don't think kids who are younger than 20 understand just how open-minded & creative the 90's were. I was born in 1989 & I had a very diverse range of friends. The media, commercials, movies, TV shows were all Genuinely diverse and well made. Man I miss that era and I don't get how we have actually went BACKWARDS. Video games, animated series, TV shows, movies, things to do, everything was just so awesome and creative and people were real. I hope we reconnect with that.

I know this might be a hot take, but honestly, if comic book movies/TV slowed down in release number after this year, that might be a good thing. It's tough to keep up with everything, and it might promote more originality/creativity in Hollywood, who knows?

As a comic fan, it annoys me so much to watch them REPEAT the failures of Marvel comics less than a decade ago. They are adapting the failed comics from 2012-2018. Ya know, the comics that kept getting cancelled or rebooted.

I always love it when the Most Replayed section is the timestamp immediately following the in video ad. One Team, One Dream

Excellent!!

Phase 4 was such a disappointment, and even more than that Im 50, and Marvel comics have been part of my life since the late 70's. And even I was just watching stuff, just because it came out and was Marvel, in case I missed something that might matter. This was the phase I have never rewatched anything every again. While I have watched the previous 3 phases movies multiple times over the years. I hope Phase 5 with Antman in February is a reset to this "the message" and "men are stupid" garbage.

Superhero movies as a whole might be falling out of fashion. It’s like how westerns were a massive trend back in the 60s and 70s but fell out of fashion. To paraphrase Jake Skywalker “It’s time for the Hero’s to end.”

Very well said. I like your mention of the Monsterverse. "Mild success", at least compared to other giant film franchises, is how I'd also describe it.

Ideology can’t be ignored as a big reason for the MCU’s failure. You can track most of the current problems (bad characterization, bad plotting, bad metadirection choices…) to exactly *that* which is why focusing on that problem as much as people have is warranted.

I saw that Jeremy Renner's accident may lead him to lose his legs. Everything is falling apart even in real life, I hope he gets better and that his condition right now is not permanent.

You failed to mention Blade in your chronological record, it came out before X-Men and it was moderately successful on a 45M budget and generating little over 130M at the box office, plus the DVD sales since they were still in use at the time.

Finally, someone explaining why the movies are bad now without saying "woke culture whatever" and just pointing out the writing isn't cutting it, and they aren't setting up characters to replace what they cashed in in End Game.

great video man, best of luck

honestly if the writing wasn't so horrendous phase 4 wouldn't be that bad. but writers hate canon and the characters they're writing about and here we are

The point regarding not utilizing Dr. Strange as the centerpiece of this entire phase is spot on. Each multiverse iteration seemed to operate outside of each other, when they should have been intertwined. There was never a real link between the TVA collapsing, Dr. Strange's spell screw up, and all the stuff that happened in MoM. It was kind of a return to how the Netflix and ABC Marvel TV shows were never truly allowed to intersect with the MCU. That just ended up making it fall flat. For instance, the fact that Phil Colson dying was an integral part of The Avengers, but him coming back to life for years never caught the attention of The Avengers and Agents of Shield never really crossed paths with anyone, either. Same with all the street level Netflix characters never really interacting with the MCU.

I'm writing my research paper for english on Marvel's decay and I'm using you as a main source, thank you for the video man!

First vid I’ve seen from you but I’m here ready to support

I believe one thing Disney doesnt get anymore is what many franchises fail to see now days. The MCU was built in respect and love letter to the audience who waited for this for more than 40 years to happen. Now days they took the best and most profitable IP existed on earth and they sh*t right in front of the eyes of the average nerd/fan/moviegoer.

Dude! This is one of the most packed, concise, and best written scripts I’ve ever seen in a RU-vid video. wow.

Really think ...when did Kevin Feige start being called a genius? That’s when the wheels began falling off. That guy is just living in the house RDJ built but no one ever calls him on it

Let’s be real, we all knew it would go downhill after the original storyline of the infinity stones ended

Blade was the movie that showed superhero films had the potential to be a money making juggernaut. Not X men

I think The Incredible Hulk is the MCU's most underrated movie. I absolutely loved the way they introduced the Hulk in a horror scene. I loved Tim Roth reveling in the gifts he received from the Super Soldier Serum. And I loved the final fight when Hulk was going gangster on the Abomination and it was a scream from Betty that snapped him out of it. Not a flawless movie, but I loved it.

Shang-chi continues to get unnecessary hate.

Good work

I think little credit is given to Blade, which it gave a massive kickstart to the comic book movies again and pertrude the way for, as you stated, the first X-Men movie.

The biggest problem they've had is they keep having people with no experience writing action films as the creators. The writers for She-Hulk admitted they had no interest or any kind of history in the genre. So many of these different people have no history of it and then they're being given the reins to a big budget action film so what are you expect except for failure. Also there's a dangerous line between showing how much money a film is made along with critiquing the quality of it. Films making a lot of money doesn't really make it a success artistically. I would like to believe we all know that but I'm not sure if people do

Well done, subscription earned.

1998's Blade deserves credit too for helping to save the superhero genre. And many argue it's thanks to Blade that Marvel was able to stick around and later create the MCU.

I think the main problem is no clear direction. With the avengers the first set of movies built up to them meeting up and THEN moved onto the Thanos arc. The MCU always had a clear cut well thought out direction and I'm ngl phase 4 just feels like "WHAT STORIES CAN WE DO THAT ARE BIG AND COOL TO TOP END GAME" /like NWH and MoM. They seem like world changing events but in the end aren't that massive in the grand scheme of things

I’m SO glad we got the Russo brothers to finish off the Infinity Saga strong. Do you know how lucky we were? There is a LOT to handle in those movies we totally could have had a Multiverse of Madness situation ruining the entire saga. If this had to happen, I’m glad it happened after we had some sort of conclusion.

Yo, your opinion and arguments are really objective and respectful. So I appreciate and respect and agree with your opinions and ideas. I just hope they will handle better the following movies, there is so much juice with these characters.

Literally spot on on every single thing

The biggest issue for me is that they just wanted to make all the avengers teens or 20’s. There are younger versions of like all of them now. They could have had amazing stories with established characters but they went cheap hired young and unknown and thought too long term

Too bad you didn't mention BLADE as a historical point for popular Marvel movies.

I remember people being so hyped for Infinity war and Endgame. Those days are long gone and people don't even talk about MCU anymore. How the mighty have fallen

Great video! New subscriber!

Everything you’ve mentioned was accurate and spot on.

I am cool with the MCU collapsing. When they wrapped it up with the defeat of Thanos I was pretty satisfied and didn't intend to watch any other MCU movies. Maybe Doctor Strange I figured. Well I saw Doctor Strange, and it was rather confusing. Apparently I had to watch a TV series to understand what was going on? Wandavision? That is when I fully checked out. I am not going to spend all of my time consuming Disney properties so I can understand and watch other Disney Properties.

Your video is a masterpiece 👏

Thanks!

“But….but it’s setting up the next phase!!” *Secret Wars rumored to bring back OG cast, making the sacrifices/send off from endgame pointless.

Considering Invincible and MHA, superhero fatigue is a flimsy excuse. Another big problem was the fact that they blew their load too early with Endgame. I really think phase 4 should've taken place during the snap years. Let people see the full effect rather than a few glimpses.

Dude I appreciate the thank you at the end, but you viewership is well deserved. Your content is well thought out, well researched, well written, well delivered, and well edited. What more could one ask for?

You got one of the counter comments to sound like the button from the cut very nice

The consensus on miles I see, is that all of his best stories are not from the comics, but the movies and games. That's honestly pretty sad

I enjoyed this video as you've hit the nail on the head with all your points. Good luck with the next step of going full-time with your channel. Your videos have had some major numbers, it just shows the high quality of your content!

Good points

I really appreciate your style of analysis on the subject. I’ve seen other people do deep dives on why this or that movie is bad, and their defenses are “I didn’t like how this joke fell flat” or “I wish this character that I like was taken more seriously“, but you explain the numbers then explain how we got here and compare it to where we came from in the previous phases.

Basically, the problem is Disney took over.

Your guess as to what caused the decline in box office revenue was missing one crucial factor. Disney Plus. A lot of people have no problem waiting for it to end up on their living room TV now as opposed to going out to a theater, especially when dealing with kids going crazy running around a movie theater.

Imagine making "only" 300 MILLION dollars and that being considered a flop. Maybe spend some of those millions on actual writers.

I've always thought that the sacking of James Gunn messed up the MCU something fierce. This could be the Mandela effect coming into play, but I'm sure I once saw Marvel talk about the MCU's direction after Endgame. While there would still be movies set on Earth, the storyline would go into space. To coincide with Disney devouring Fox in 2019, characters like Galactus and the Silver Surfer would debut. But the most important detail was that Gunn would take the helm. It was going to be "The Cosmic Saga". Then Gunn was fired, snatched up by DC and announced he was leaving Marvel after Guardians 3. Feige panicked, until he saw the success of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. By the time Sony's movie came out, Endgame had already been completed. The main aspect of Endgame was time travel. Prior to Gunn's dismissal, plot points, like 2012 Loki getting away with the Tesseract, could easily be handwaved by saying that they didn't happen after Captain America returned the Infinity Stones. Feige thought "Well, time travel and alternate realities are still cosmic, so it works!" The Cosmic Saga was hastily retooled into The Multiverse Saga. Unfortunately, remnants of Gunn's original plan were also left in. That's why the Ten Rings are broadcasting a message into space. That's why Ms. Marvel's bangles are from the Noor Dimension. That's why Hulk went back to Sakaar. I bet you Guardians 3 has no connection to the Multiverse Saga because Gunn's not changing his original storyline. We got Spider-Man: No Way Home out of it, but the rest of Phase 4 was horseshit.

Phase 4 should’ve been a epilogue to phase 3. After endgame release Spider-Man far from home, but then have a Disney+ show showing the events of the movies from the perspective of the citizens. The avengers Captain America, the Winter soldier, age of Ultron, the 5 year blip would have made a great show displaying what the citizens suffer through that we don’t see in the movies

Right on brother

I see you failed to mention Moon Knight which honestly rocked, I really hope they bring Punisher back. I have been patiently waiting for Ghost rider to enter the mix and F up the MCU we need an anti-hero who can stand in as a villain some times