Last year, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania was supposed to kick off Phase 5 in style; instead, the movie served as an example of why a blockbuster shouldn't be shot on The Volume and made some major blunders with its portrayal of the MCU's supposed new big bad, Kang the Conqueror.
A difficult year followed, with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 the highlight in a year which included missteps with the likes of Secret Invasion and The Marvels. Now, The Hollywood Reporter reveals that Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige is "[recalibrating] the creative direction behind the scenes."
The Fantastic Four has tapped Eric Pearson to polish the reboot's script thanks to his reputation for helping movies like Thor: Ragnarok and Black Widow successfully cross the finish line.
Joanna Calo, the showrunner of The Bear, has also been hired to sort out Thunderbolts' script. The trade notes that, in previous drafts, the story "centres on villains and antiheroes going on a mission that was supposed to end with their deaths."
As for the fallout from Jonathan Majors' trial, the plan now is indeed to rewrite both Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars to "either minimize [Kang] or excise him entirely." In fact, the former is going to be retitled to remove Kang's name, moves which were being put in place even before the controversy thanks to the Ant-Man threequel's poor critical and commercial performance.
On the small screen, there's some good news for Agatha: Darkhold Diaries, a series which only needed one of five planned days of reshoots. Marvel Studios is also looking to increase the power given to showrunners, bringing executives vying for power back under Feige's control.
It's a creative retooling of the MCU which will hopefully put the studio back on the right track. While Ironheart, for example, has been shot, it has no release date because creatives are being given more breathing room; Disney also wants audiences to miss the MCU a little after being bombarded with a seemingly endless run of TV shows on its streaming platform.
"They're not going to give up," one source says of Marvel Studios. "They want to make something great."
It feels like the franchise is heading in the right direction and this summer's Deadpool 3 will be a crucial next step. The expectation right now is that it will be the first MCU movie since Spider-Man: No Way Home to surpass $1 billion worldwide, a fitting reminder that Marvel Studios remains a dominant force in Hollywood despite "superhero fatigue" talk.