by Jonas Reichel on February 22, 2024

The MCU is facing a number of challenges: Series such as "She-Hulk" fell short of expectations in terms of quality, and in terms of box office, last year was also far from great. Now Marvel seems to be looking to make some changes in order to regain its former glory.

A year ago, "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" was supposed to take the MCU to the next level. Yet instead of setting a new peak for the franchise, including the first real appearance of supervillain Kang, Peyton Reed's film was just the start of a year packed with bad moves, box office mistakes and PR nightmares for Marvel Studios.

However, as The Hollywood Reporter points out, things are at least currently going a little better for Marvel: the trailer for "Deadpool & Wolverine" set a record of 365 million views in 24 hours. The cast of "The Fantastic Four", which was unveiled just in time for Valentine's Day, also attracted lots of attention. At the same time, the trailer for "X-Men '97", a revival of the popular animated series from the 90s, also established an internal record.

However, these recent achievements cannot hide the fact that the studio is having to deal with huge changes. A reorganization is required in light of the dismissal of Kang actor Jonathan Majors in particular. Majors was originally supposed to play a key role in the next "Avengers" movies, but was fired from the franchise due to a conviction involving assault and harassment. This not only led to a title change for the fifth "Avengers" film - cutting out Kang - but also to a reworking of the storyline of the MCU phases. As things currently stand, Kang won't play any role in it, or at least only a very minor one.

Nevertheless, it was high time for a reorientation of the MCU: since the grand finale "Avengers: Endgame", Marvel has been constantly working on expanding its universe on the Disney+ streaming service. An impressive 12 series have been released so far, but most of them have not lived up to expectations. Studio boss Kevin Feige has promised to do better: the motto now appears to be "quality over quantity", as the number of new projects has been significantly reduced. Only one movie project, namely "Deadpool & Wolverine", will be released in cinemas in 2024. Apparently, the company wants to allow the creative team and the audience to take a breather in order to recharge their batteries for future projects - the quality of which will hopefully be able to match that of the old days.