Should Marvel invest more in quality movies than diversifying into TV shows? The rise and fall (and rise?) of MCU, analyzed

Disclaimer: This article solely reflects the author’s opinion. Reader discretion is advised.

While live-action Marvel adaptations have been around since the late 20th century, they started receiving popular and critical acclaim since the first 1998 Blade movie. However, the Marvel adaptations reached popular consciousness in the 2010s, when the MCU, or the Marvel Cinematic Universe, began with 2008's Iron Man.

While Marvel movies were a thing before the 2008 movie, it is imperative to note that the Blade, X-Men, Spider-Man, Daredevil (2003), and Punisher movies were made by partnering with other studios. Meaning, the rights to those characters were owned by a different studio. Marvel had sold off the rights to those characters after experiencing bankruptcy in the 90s.

Today, the MCU's struggle with a glut of content has a few opining that Marvel should focus on creating more quality movies rather than TV shows. Getting rid of the shows in favor of the movies is not the answer, though. The answer is far more complicated.

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The tale of Marvel Studio's MCU explained:

The scene of Tony Stark building the metallic armor in 2008's Iron Man is very metaphorical of what the comic book publishing giant went through in the previous decade. They slowly started acquiring back the rights to lesser-known characters like Tony Stark, Natasha Romanoff, Thor, and Steve Rogers. So, the first phase of the MCU is a very meta tale of how Marvel came out of its financial struggles.

However, after 2019's Avengers: Endgame, people have been wondering where the MCU will go from here. The answer we got was the Multiverse Saga. However, unlike the Infinity Saga, Marvel's Multiverse Saga has lost viewers and fans with its disjointed narrative. Since 2021's Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, several post-credit scenes have set up possible plot lines that haven't been answered yet.

This has people wondering if the problem with the MCU is too many shows and very few theatrical releases. Some, like Disney CEO Bob Iger, would even agree with this line of thinking. During a July 2023 interview with CNBC, Iger had this to say on this topic:

"Marvel is a great example of our focus on streaming content. We ended up taxing our people way beyond their time and their focus, they had not been in the television business at any significant level. Not only did they increase their movie output but they ended up making a number of television series, and frankly, it diluted focus and attention, and that is more the cause [of the poor box office] than anything else."

This was not the only quote by Iger regarding the oversaturation of MCU content, though. During the second-quarter earnings call, the Disney CEO had this to say:

“I’ve been working hard with the studio to reduce output and focus more on quality, that’s particularly true with Marvel.”

Iger further continued:

“We’re slowly going to decrease volume and go to probably about two TV series a year instead of what had become four, and reduce our film output from maybe four a year to two or at the maximum three,” Iger added. “And we’re working hard on what that path is, we’ve got a couple of good films in ’25 and then we’re heading to more Avengers, which we’re extremely excited about.”

Now in March 2025, some will point out that Captain America: Brave New World wasn't that good. But it needs to be said that despite all the different behind-the-scenes troubles, Brave New World didn't turn out to be as bad as we heard it supposedly was. Moreover, Marvel seems to be doing fine with its streaming shows. One important thing needs to be said, though.

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Basing Marvel Cinematic Universe has become something of a cottage industry:

It is important to note that there are legitimate issues with the MCU, but they are also overblown. For almost a decade, online negativity has gained a lot of traction, and the channels that peddle the negativity have a financial incentive to indulge in that said negativity.

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It's not that Marvel is struggling; it is a billion-dollar franchise. It's just that the target audience has grown into adults, and the younger generation might prefer something that's not saddled by the baggage of decades-long lore. It will be hard to believe, but yes, Marvel is almost twenty years old now.

So, it is also probably wiser for Marvel Studios to come up with a plan to simplify its 17-year-old continuity. Build a plan, but don't abandon shows in favor of movies or vice versa. All that needs to be done is to come up with a rough outline of a plan but have enough flexibility to let creators work on the sandbox too.