It’s no secret that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has found itself floundering in its time post Avengers: Endgame (2019). It’s not that there hasn’t been success, but rather it hasn’t found the same consistency for success since Iron Man (2008), back when the Marvel Cinematic Universe could only get bigger.
Recently Kevin Feige, President of Marvel Studios and Chief Creative Officer of Marvel Entertainment, sat down with a group of journalists about the future of the MCU. It was a rare appearance, hot on the heels of the upcoming Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025). He discussed how the studio plans to evolve, as well as how it has reacted to the last phase of films and TV shows.
In the interview he discussed the problem that the modern MCU had in regard to quantity over quality. In their article Variety quoted, “We produced 50 hours of stories between 2007 and 2019, but in the six years since Avengers: Endgame concluded the Infinity Saga, we’ve had well over 100 hours of stories — in half the time. That’s too much.” The article went on to note that if you include animation that’s 127 hours of content released in less than six years.
Feige went on to discuss the trap that Marvel Studios had fallen into, that in their pursuit to keep introducing new heroes and new stories they’ve found themselves focused on quantity over quality. He didn’t mention where quality had dropped over the course of the interview, but that’s not important right now.
What is important is the theory that the MCU has fallen because there’s too much of it. Superhero fatigue isn’t a new topic of conversation: The Eagle Online explored the topic earlier in 2025, The New York Times in 2023. Forbes and Digital Spy have articles in 2019, and there’s an article in The Atlantic about superhero fatigue in response to the trailer for the first Avengers (2012). There’s an interesting quote in The Atlantic article that reads, “The great Joss Whedon directed this picture, so there’s good reason to hope that it will be a fun, rollicking ride. That said, we hope this is the end of superheroes.”
In his interview Feige discussed Marvel Studios plans to rein themselves in, putting out less films, less television per year. I think it’s a good move, but not for the reason of overabundance.
The problem is in his numbers: the claim that Marvel Studios produced 50 hours of stories between 2007 and 2019 versus the over a hundred hours post-Endgame ignores the existence of every Marvel show developed during the Infinity Saga. Just adding Daredevil (2015) to the count adds 39 hours, which would be fair to include in the calculation considering the fact that Daredevil: Born Again (2025) is, in essence, season four to the Netflix show. Born Again featured the Punisher, whose show would add 26 hours. The character of Jessica Jones is coming back for Born Again season two, with Krystin Ritter returning, so add another 39 hours to the tally.
That brings the total Marvel content released from 2007 to 2019 to 154 hours, and that’s not even mentioning Iron Fist (2017), Luke Cage (2016), The Defenders (2017), Inhumans (2017), Agents of Shield (2013), Agent Carter (2015), Runaways (2017), Cloak & Dagger (2018), Legion (2017), The Gifted (2017), or Helstrom (2020), let alone the Marvel productions released by Sony. While a lot of this content represents storylines that are disconnected from the MCU, the return of characters that were established in the Netflix shows emphasizes the importance of their original stories, not to mention shows like Agents of Shield and Agent Carter that began as extensions to the main continuity.
The main difference is ownership of IP. The end of the Infinity Saga also brought about the rise of a new empire: Disney Plus. Those 100 plus hours Feige was referring to the combined filmography that was released on Disney Plus, and those 50 hours of stories released from 2007 to 2019 excluded the Netflix, ABC, FX, and Hulu television shows developed under the Marvel banner. The problem is that his point only carries weight because of the exclusion, and without excluding those shows it’s clear that there’s been more hours of stories created during the Infinity Saga than after.
It would be more accurate, from a financial perspective, to say that the films aren’t bringing in the money versus their cost, and it would be even more accurate to say that the television shows and Disney’s streaming service haven’t been profitable. In 2024 Forbes published an article analyzing why Disney Plus lost over 11 billion dollars in operating costs since its creation in 2019, so cutting down on the amount of shows would also cut down the expenses.
It would be more accurate, from a planning perspective, to say that the amount of films and TV shows have created so much content that the Marvel method (more on that later) can barely keep up the illusion that these stories exist in a shared universe. Wandavision (2021) connected to Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), but forgot that Vision was a character. If you watched Secret Invasion (2023) you might find yourself wondering what happened to Nick Fury’s estranged wife that doesn’t appear in The Marvels (2023).
The lack of planning also impacts the hook of the MCU that kept the franchise running high from Iron Man through Endgame, and that was the promise for what came next. There were promises and there were payoffs, and Endgame was the finale of an assortment of stories, a film almost entirely dedicated to paying off promises made over the years. Now the films and the TV shows make promises for what comes next to uneven results. Even in the interview Kevin Feige asked if people would even be interested in the stories following up some of those promises, including extensions to post credits scenes involving the like of Charlize Theron and Harry Styles.
The issue has never been about the overabundance of content, and if there’s anything that can be taken from the success of such films as Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 (2023), or Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), or Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), it’s that people aren’t tired of superhero movies. The problem can be best seen in the movie Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), and the Marvel method.
The Marvel Method is an extension of the ideology of Stan Lee’s approach to storytelling. In the comics that meant that the overall gist of the story was settled on, but the details were left out, they’d be figured out in the progress of getting from the beginning to the end. In the films that meant rewrites and reshoots. The original Iron Man is considered a huge success for the franchise, overcoming daily rewrites to a screenplay that was constantly shifting.
The budget for Iron Man was approximately $140 million. In comparison, the budget for Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was over $300 million. 14 different companies provided the special effects for Iron Man, 40 different effects companies worked on Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. It’s little wonder that anytime any actor in Quantumania stared off into the distance at something strange that they all look like they had no idea what they were supposed to be looking at. Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania wasn’t a terrible movie because there’s an overabundance of superhero films, nor was it a terrible movie because of superhero fatigue.
I actually agree with Feige’s plan, despite my disagreement with his reasoning. I think it’s better off to have fewer movies and fewer TV shows because that might mean each one gets more attention in its development. If the aim is to create and maintain continuity, it would be easier to do so with less content. That’s no guarantee for success, but with any luck the added focus on fewer projects will give the ones that make it a better chance of success, or at least a chance to be released at all.