We may be reaching a turning point for Marvel.
It is not clear if they can bring people out to the theater as they used to. The Marvels was just released, and it opened with the worst opening weekend in studio history, just $46.1 million here in North America. So far, Rotten Tomatoes scores sit at 61 percent from critics and 84 percent from audiences. Those are not huge numbers.
This is not the first sign of Marvel’s declining performance. It’s been a while since they had a big hit, and more and more people miss coming out, like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania or Thor: Love and Rain. Several factors play into this whole thing. Of course, there is the super fat phenomenon, but there is also a complete saturation of the superhero market. The special cases with The Marvelsaccording to some critics, they are a strange plot and strange tonal shifts that are almost constant.
Then there’s the huge number of Marvel shows on Disney+ as well. Just before the start of the pandemic, Marvel received orders from Disney to increase the production of its streaming TV shows – which it did. But now it seems there may be such a thing as too much of a good thing.
READ MORE: 20 actors who were wasted in bad MCU roles
Many productions, for Marvel and the rest of Hollywood, have been delayed due to the recent (and final) writers and actors strikes. As a result, many major blockbusters are going to be delayed from their originally planned release dates. For all these reasons, Marvel is only releasing one movie in 2024. Except for 2020, the worst year of the Covid pandemic, Marvel has not released just one movie in a calendar year from 2012, the year of the first. Avengers.
2024 will be the only MCU movie Deadpool 3, with Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman. No doubt they will get some moviegoers in the theater away from the star power, Jackman’s return, and the fame of the filmmaker. Deadpool series only. But can they keep that momentum going until 2025, when many more films are now slated for release? Movies like Blade, Thunderbolts, or the historical problem Fantastic Four? That remains to be seen.
Deadpool 3 is slated to open in theaters on July 26, 2024.
Marvel’s upcoming Phase Five and Six movie and TV series
Here are all the movies and shows that Marvel currently has scheduled for release in Phases Five and Six of their cinematic universe.
