It could’ve been argued that the MCU was starting to lose its appeal since the conclusion of Phase 4 of the narrative, but those claims were proven undoubtedly true in 2023 when Marvel Studios objectively recorded the worst performance in its history with almost all of its scheduled projects. Thus, 2024 seems to be the year that the cinematic juggernaut will try to bounce back from the setback.
And despite its recent offerings not being the hottest topics of conversation outside severe hot takes, there were two in particular, namely its miniseries titled Secret Invasion as well as the major motion picture The Marvels, which acted like a wake-up call to Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige.
Thus, he now has decided to take his foot off the gas a little and rethink the path that the company is on at the moment for a better future.
Two Marvel Studios Projects That Made Kevin Feige Realize What Needed To Be Changed With The MCU
15 years ago, when the first film in the MCU was just about to release, people had little faith that it would become anywhere close to successful in the industry. Fast-forward to 2019, and it was believed that Marvel Studios could never fail after seeing the fervor of the fans behind them, which was in 2023, proven wrong as the year marked the worst performing one in its history.
This entire year of bad projects and negative reception has made Kevin Feige rethink the approach of Marvel Studios of just churning out content left and right for both the big screen as well as for its streaming service. Now, as reported by both official and unofficial channels, the President of the cinematic juggernaut is quietly making internal realignments to the franchise and focusing on better projects rather than more projects. One insider source said (via The Hollywood Reporter):
“The focus is internal this year,”
This wake-up call came in the wake of the performances of projects like their Disney+ miniseries titled Secret Invasion as well as the worst performing film in the franchise’s history with The Marvels. The negative reception by the public as well as the first flop movie on their roster was enough to send the head honcho of the company into a deep retrospection of their workings.
This has resulted in Disney CEO Bob Iger issuing a statement on Feb 7th, claiming that Marvel Studios will be slightly lowering its scale of operations in the future to provide better quality projects that the public will wholeheartedly enjoy and will focus on quality over quantity going forward.
Why Did The Marvels And Secret Invasion Fail?
One of the biggest reasons for the failure of both projects on the critical and commercial scale boils down to the subpar quality of the projects and the lackluster narrative that the fans witnessed on screen.
Despite both projects being just as ambitious as the other, the eventual connection between the show and the film proved to have led to nothing in the end as all the development had a net-zero impact on the wider narrative, Along with that, their projects were some of the most expensive ones that Marvel Studios produced, and seeing lackluster returns of their investment were indicators enough that these offerings were failures for the company.
Secret Invasion and The Marvels, streaming on Disney+.
