You’ll notice that there was no 3,000-word Oscars preview here like I wrote last year, that’s because most of the movies nominated this year weren’t worth anyone’s time. Shoutout to Dune Part 2, the fact that multiple academy voters said they didn’t even watch it tells you all that you need to know about the voting process. But hey, dozens of fans will now go check out Anora and The Substance before turning them off after 20 minutes.

Anyways, I saw Captain America: Brave New World last week and it got me thinking about what the hell has happened to the MCU and where they can go next. I liked the movie, it wasn’t anything special, but it was far from the worst thing Marvel has given to us since Endgame. However, it fell into the same formulaic garbage that we’ve been fed the last five years. This is the bad guy! But wait, it’s actually this bad guy! But then there’s an even worse bad guy pulling the strings! The “Multi-Villain” problem across all superhero movies right now is obnoxious. When done at a macro-level (Thanos introduced in post credits of The Avengers) it can be effective, but it feels like every studio is copying or modifying the Joker/Harvey Dent dynamic from The Dark Knight. The best Marvel Movies “do small, big”, let’s go back to saving the city and stop focusing on saving the world.

When Avengers: Endgame released, it was a pop culture phenomenon. Fans of several different franchises had been brought together on a decade long journey which culminated in one of the greatest cinematic experiences of our lifetimes. 20+ movies of small crisis’s led to every hero banding together to save the universe. Unfortunately, since then it hasn’t been great. They’ve had some hits: Shang Chi and the Legend of The Ten Rings, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Deadpool & Wolverine were all great. Loki, WandaVision, & Hawkeye were great on Disney+, most of the other shows were watchable at least – other than She Hulk and Secret Invasion, those were so bad. But ultimately it feels like there is no big stage set, these movies and projects aren’t really working together. You’re not going to get Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, King T’Challa or Natasha Romanoff back in the gang unless we start resurrecting from the dead (when that happens, MCU is cooked). What version of The Scarlett Witch will we get? Are any of the Guardians returning? No one even remembers Spider-Man. What ever happened to the re-created Vision? 

Well let’s see what’s coming out next. Thunderbolts has potential to be awesome, but all the characters are side shows who are only known by diehard fans who watch every project. I wonder how commercially viable this will be, but I am excited to check it out. Later this summer, we finally get the Fantastic Four: First Steps which looks great. Adding them and the X-Men into the MCU is going to be a huge boost, and it’s a shame we had to wait his long for it. Then next spring comes Avengers: Doomsday. I don’t blame Marvel/Disney for the Jonathan Majors fiasco, but when you spend multiple movies and shows building up Kang the Conqueror, it’s tough when you must drop the plot altogether.  They’re bringing Robert Downey Jr back to play Dr. Doom; I really hope it’s not an alternate timeline Tony Stark and that they allow him to just be a new character. Does this Avengers movie have any of the hype that the previous four did? I don’t think so, who are going to be the main characters? The obvious answer is Spider-Man, but Dr. Strange wiped the memory of everyone who remembers him. Captain Marvel is super powerful, but she couldn’t even headline her own sequel. Thor will certainly be there, as will new Captain America Sam Wilson and Hulk/She Hulk. Does Disney want to keep marketing Leticia Wright as the new Black Panther? They already started introducing her succession in the last movie lol. Will Dr. Strange be back? He seems miserable. My guess is the “core group” will be comprised of Spider-Man, Thor, Hulk, Captain America, Ant-Man and Captain Marvel. Those five will keep enough continuity to blend with all the new characters while they take on their new bad guy.

I have been a fan of the MCU since I saw Iron Man in 7th grade. I have watched every movie and show, even when I knew they sucked. I’ll never forget the magic of seeing the first Avengers movie with my friends in high school. I’ll never forget when I finished Infinity War and left the theater thinking it was all over. I’ll never forget being in a packed theater on opening night for Endgame and standing up cheering as everyone came back through the portals. My point here is that I genuinely love these movies, and it sucks to see them get watered down and ripped apart. About 2 years ago Disney outed Bob Chapek and put Bob Iger back in charge. This led to a slowdown of all MCU projects, and I really hope they used that time to fix the product. Let’s see what they got, I really hope they get it going again.