Ever since Marvel pushed the MCU into Phase 4, one of the constant complaints from fans has been that there is “too much content.”
Following the events of Avengers: Endgame, Marvel expanded into television, creating a slew of Disney+ series including WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Solider, Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, and She-Hulk: Attorney At Law.
Photo:©Marvel Studios 2021.
For die-hard Marvel fans, this was a dream come true. It seemed as if every couple of weeks more Marvel content was dropping.
For more casual fans, however, the introduction of the streaming, combined with the advent of the multiverse, made Marvel less accessible and more confusing.
Mark Guggenheim Says Marvel Needs to “Prune the Tree”
In a recent interview, Mark Guggenheim, who created the Arrowverse at DC, stated that the MCU may be in need of a reset.
“If I was suddenly in [Marvel Studios President] Kevin Feige’s role, basically I would do what Iger was saying, which is prune the tree. You know, there’s just too much content. I’m like the biggest Marvel nerd ever, and I haven’t seen Moon Knight. I just can’t keep up. There’s just too much content.”
Photo: THR
Reflecting back on the success of the MCU, Guggenheim noted that the franchise’s early films were “fundamentally something very simple.” He also referenced recent comments by Disney CEO Bob Iger that Marvel has become too diluted.
“And then of course like Iger was saying, there’s a question of how much content can you produce at quality. To me the difference between Phase 4 and Phases 1 through 3 is fundamentally something very simple, which is you could even be watching ‘Infinity War’ without having seen the prior X number of movies,” Guggenheim explained.
Demanding Too Much of The Audience
To reinforce his point, the Arrow creator referenced two of Marvel’s most popular films Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Black Panther.
“‘Winter Soldier’ was its own movie with a beginning, middle, and end. And yet, that movie set the foundation for things that, you know it didn’t deal with Infinity Stones, but it did deal with Hydra and SHEILD and Steve Rogers’ relationship with the government and the Winter Soldier. There were alot of pieces. And same thing with ‘Black Panther.’ ‘Black Panther’ works great as a movie beginning, middle, and end, even though it’s setting up this whole world of Wakanda that figures very large in ‘Infinity War.”
Photo: Marvel
By comparison, Guggenheim talked about Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which audiences would likely not understand had they not seen WandaVision.
“Compare that with ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ where in order to understand the villain of the movie, you had to watch – not a movie – another TV show. A TV show that you had to spend money to subscribe to the service that aired it. That’s the problem. Each of these movies in Phases 1 through 3, they all stood on their own. Look I get it. ”
Image: Also Marvel Studios
Could ‘Secret Wars’ Be The Reset?
With Avengers: Secret Wars set to bring the multiverse together, Marc Guggenheim sees an opportunity.
“And my guess is what they are building up with Phase 4 is – the ‘Secret Wars’ that they’ve announced is not the ‘Secret Wars’ of the 1980s, it’s Jonathan Hickman’s ‘Secret Wars’ which basically was sort of like a reset for the Marvel Universe. So, I think they are gonna, if they do what I expect them to do, they will end up pruning the tree, as I said.”
Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.
As a longtime Marvel fan, I would hate to see the stories that the franchise has told be disregarded. With that being said, Marvel may have stretched itself too thin.
With Bob Iger continuing to say that the brand has become stretched too thin, I would expect to see a change in how quickly Marvel content is released.
Image: Marvel.com
Hopefully, the new pacing will give fans to catch up and follow along, without requiring an entire MCU reset.
Thanks for visiting MickeyBlog.com! Want to go to Disney? For a FREE quote on your next Disney vacation, please fill out the form below and one of the agents from MickeyTravels, a Diamond level Authorized Disney Vacation Planner, will be in touch soon! Also, thanks for reading!
