Marvel’s Disney+ era has been a mixed bag, to say the least.
When the burgeoning streaming service first rushed to fill its roster with post-Avengers: Endgame content for a hungry Marvel fandom mourning the halcyon days of Iron Man and Captain America, audiences were certainly treated to some real live-action gems from Marvel Studios as the pandemic lingered and kept many people inside glued to their screens.
WandaVision captured people’s imaginations by provoking endless theories, while Loki gave us some fantastic retro-futuristic visuals and time-traveling adventures. Meanwhile, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier brought Steve Rogers’ winged sidekick Sam Wilson and a traumatized Bucky Barnes together for some pricey, globetrotting action.
People wanted more, and they got more. Hawkeye returned for his own solo show, and Phase 4 soon introduced Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight, and She-Hulk. Opinions were hit-or-miss, but became more miss than hit when Phase 5 began with the disastrous Secret Invasion and continued with two more underwhelming projects: a “Marvel Spotlight” spinoff for Echo and the long-awaited Ironheart. Even the Netflix-Marvel era got time to shine again as Daredevil returned to screens, but that didn’t make much of a splash either.
With the exception of Agatha All Along and the rather left-field Wonder Man, Marvel’s recent live-action series just haven’t matched the quality of the ones it dropped onto Disney+ in its infancy. Disney and Marvel also seem to have realized that too much content has diluted Marvel’s brand. The MCU just hasn’t felt as “special,” not when you can watch its endless superheroes arrive with a new project at home every few months alongside its blockbuster movies. It’s all been too much. Too many sequels, too many characters, too many plotlines, and too many post-credits scenes teasing things that may or may not ever be revisited.
In response to its own whiff of “superhero fatigue,” Marvel’s strategy shift has been to dial back the number of projects it’s putting out. Head honcho Kevin Feige recently addressed that shift in strategy at SDCC while promoting the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, saying, “A lot of it is a strategy we’ve talked about for a while, of focusing on quality. We always try to focus on quality, but when quantity is so much, you get spread thin. We didn’t want to be spread thin, and the Avengers is as important as it comes.”
But this shift in strategy isn’t just about generating fewer MCU movies; it also seems to have been applied to the studio’s Disney+ output. Wonder Man recently saw its season 2 renewal revoked, and Nova is now set to become a movie instead of a show. Indeed, after this year’s WandaVision trilogy-capper VisionQuest, the only live-action show in the works is an already-wrapped third season of the viewership-challenged Daredevil: Born Again.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that third season of Born Again was its last. Nor would I be surprised if Marvel puts an end to its live-action Disney+ shows completely. While the studio seems committed to continuing its foray into animation, with further seasons of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Marvel Zombies, and X-Men ’97 on the way, it appears ready to take a well-earned break from its live-action projects.
Would this really mean no more live-action Marvel projects heading to Disney+? Perhaps. I do think the studio might be swayed by further one-off passion projects or “Special Presentations” like Werewolf by Night or the recent Punisher: One Last Kill in the coming years, but with quality over quantity in mind, all of Marvel’s focus needs to be on making the MCU feel like an exciting reason to visit the multiplex again. The studio will be encouraged by Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s incredible box office and pre-sales for Avengers: Doomsday, but only time will tell if Marvel can build the MCU back up to its former glory and put the lows of its Disney+ crunch era behind it.
