With Avengers: Doomsday arriving in theaters on December 18, Marvel Studios is approaching another defining moment. After years of uneven box-office results and declining audience enthusiasm, the studio has been rethinking its approach—scaling back its release schedule, reducing its Disney+ output, and reconsidering its future projects. Kevin Feige and Disney clearly recognize that something needs to change.
But as Marvel prepares to return to the kind of massive crossover event that once made it the dominant force in Hollywood, I wonder whether the studio is addressing the right problem. The conventional wisdom is that Marvel simply made too much content. I think the explanation goes deeper than that.
Too many movies. Too many television shows. Too many characters, too many interconnected storylines, and too much homework required to understand what's happening in a universe that once seemed so inviting.
It's an argument that makes sense. Even Disney CEO Bob Iger has acknowledged that Marvel's aggressive expansion, particularly into streaming, diluted the quality of its productions.
But I think that explanation misses something fundamental.
The problem isn't simply that Marvel started making too many superhero movies.
The problem is that Marvel stopped making other kinds of movies.
Because when the MCU first became a cultural phenomenon, Marvel Studios wasn't really making superhero movies. At least, not in the way we think of them today.
It was making movies in established cinematic genres, using superheroes as the characters through which those stories were told.
And that distinction may explain more about Marvel's extraordinary rise—and its subsequent struggles—than the number of projects on its release calendar.
When Marvel Movies Were Something Else
Think back to the original Iron Man in 2008.
Yes, Tony Stark builds a technologically advanced suit of armor. Yes, he flies around and fights a villain in another technologically advanced suit.
But that's not really what makes the movie work.
At its heart, Iron Man is a character study of an arrogant, brilliant, deeply flawed man who is forced to confront the consequences of his own success. His transformation from a self-absorbed weapons manufacturer into someone willing to take responsibility for the destruction he helped create is the engine of the film.
The suit is almost incidental to what makes Tony Stark compelling.
Then came Thor in 2011, directed by Kenneth Branagh, a filmmaker whose career was defined by his work with Shakespeare.
That wasn't an accident.
Thor was a Shakespearean family drama about two brothers, a father, succession, jealousy, betrayal, and the meaning of worthiness. The setting was Asgard rather than Denmark, and the weapons were magical hammers rather than swords, but the underlying story would have been familiar to audiences centuries before comic books existed.
That same year, Captain America: The First Avenger offered a World War II adventure, complete with period aesthetics, military camaraderie, and a hero whose greatest strength wasn't the serum that transformed him, but his determination to do the right thing.
The following years offered even greater variety.
Iron Man 3 returned to Tony Stark as a character study, this time examining trauma, anxiety, and the psychological consequences of having helped save the world.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier was a political conspiracy thriller. Its story of government surveillance, institutional corruption, and the dangers of sacrificing liberty for security owed as much to 1970s espionage cinema as it did to comic books. Casting Robert Redford only reinforced the connection.
Guardians of the Galaxy was a science-fiction space opera built around a dysfunctional found family of criminals and outcasts.
Ant-Man was a heist movie. Scott Lang wasn't trying to save the universe from an existential threat. He was a burglar recruited to steal something, and the film followed the familiar rhythms of assembling a team, developing a plan, and pulling off an impossible job.
Doctor Strange was another character study, this time about an arrogant surgeon whose entire understanding of reality is shattered, forcing him to rebuild both his worldview and his identity.
And the approach continued.
Spider-Man: Homecoming was a John Hughes-style high school coming-of-age comedy. Black Panther was a political and family drama about inheritance, national identity, isolationism, and the responsibilities of power. Thor: Ragnarok reinvented its franchise as an irreverent science-fiction buddy comedy.
These movies weren't all masterpieces. Some were better than others, and many still followed recognizable Marvel formulas.
But they offered audiences something more than a different set of costumes and powers.
They offered different kinds of cinematic experiences.
And this wasn't some accidental quality that fans have identified years later through the forgiving lens of nostalgia.
It was part of Marvel's actual philosophy.
In a 2014 interview with Hollywood.com, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige explained that he didn't view comic books as a single genre, any more than novels could be considered a single genre. Marvel's mission was to embrace the differences between its characters and explore other cinematic genres to make each movie a unique experience.
He warned that allowing every film to feel like the last was a recipe for the enterprise to come crashing down.
Marvel understood something important about its own success.
The superhero wasn't the genre. The superhero was the vehicle.
The Early Movies That Forgot the Formula
Of course, Marvel didn't always follow this philosophy successfully.
In fact, some of the MCU's earliest disappointments offer an interesting contrast to its successes.
Consider 2008's The Incredible Hulk, starring Edward Norton.
The film had the ingredients for a compelling psychological thriller about a man whose greatest fear is losing control of himself. Its early sequences, following Bruce Banner as he hides from the military while searching for a cure, suggest exactly that kind of story.
But ultimately, the film falls back on conventional superhero action, culminating in a massive CGI fight between the Hulk and another giant monster.
The possibilities of Bruce Banner's internal struggle take a back seat to the spectacle of two superpowered creatures beating each other senseless.
The movie wasn't a complete failure, but it lacked the distinct identity that made Iron Man, released just weeks earlier, so memorable.
Iron Man 2 suffered from a different problem.
The original movie was built around Tony Stark and his transformation. The sequel attempted to continue that story while simultaneously introducing new characters, establishing S.H.I.E.L.D.'s larger role, and laying the groundwork for The Avengers.
The result was a film that often seemed more interested in what came next than in the story it was supposed to be telling.
Then there's Thor: The Dark World.
Where Branagh's original Thor embraced Shakespearean family conflict, its sequel offered a relatively generic fantasy adventure, complete with another powerful villain threatening catastrophic destruction.
The personal relationships that had made the first film interesting were still present, particularly between Thor and Loki, but they competed with a more conventional superhero plot and the need to advance the larger MCU mythology.
These films weren't box-office disasters. Iron Man 2, in particular, was a substantial commercial success.
But they were comparatively disappointing creative efforts in a franchise that was otherwise establishing a remarkable track record.
And they offer a revealing pattern.
When Marvel made a movie about a character, it often created something memorable. When it made a movie primarily about being a superhero, or about setting up other superhero movies, the results tended to be less distinctive.
That distinction existed long before Endgame. The difference is that, back then, Marvel's more interesting approach generally won out.
The Avengers Were the Reward, Not the Assignment
There was, of course, another ingredient to the MCU's success: its interconnected universe.
Marvel accomplished something genuinely revolutionary when it brought characters from different franchises together in 2012's The Avengers.
But the original Avengers movies served a different purpose from the individual films.
They were the payoff.
Audiences had spent years getting to know Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Thor, Bruce Banner, and the others through stories that largely worked on their own. Watching those characters finally interact was exciting because we already cared about them.
The crossover was a feature of the universe, but it wasn't the primary reason to watch every installment.
You could enjoy The Winter Soldier without caring about Thor's next adventure. You could enjoy Ant-Man without knowing the intimate details of Tony Stark's history.
The universe made the individual stories richer, but the individual stories justified their own existence.
And this wasn't an entirely new concept Marvel Studios invented.
It was precisely how Marvel Comics had operated for decades.
Marvel Comics Already Had the Blueprint
One of the most remarkable things about Marvel Comics has always been the shared universe.
Spider-Man lives in the same New York City as Daredevil. The Fantastic Four can encounter the Avengers. Events in one character's life can have consequences for another.
But that interconnectedness doesn't mean every comic must be about the fate of the universe.
Consider Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's Daredevil: Born Again, a deeply personal story about Matt Murdock's life being systematically destroyed by the Kingpin.
Or Matt Fraction and David Aja's Hawkeye, which spends considerable time exploring Clint Barton's comparatively ordinary life when he isn't saving the world.
Or Tom King and Gabriel Hernández Walta's The Vision, a suburban family drama that uses an artificial man's attempt to live a normal life to explore what it means to be human.
These stories don't ignore the greater Marvel Universe. They exist within it.
But they don't need to advance some massive crossover event to justify their existence.
The characters have lives, relationships, conflicts, and challenges independent of whatever cosmic catastrophe the Avengers might be facing.
And when Marvel Comics does bring its characters together for events like Secret Wars, Civil War, or Infinity, those stories can feel significant precisely because the characters have been developed through their own adventures.
Comic books aren't immune to the temptation to overuse crossovers, either. Readers have complained about event fatigue for years.
But the fundamental model remains sound.
A shared universe should be the setting in which individual stories take place, not the story that every individual title is obligated to tell.
Marvel's early movies understood this distinction.
Somewhere along the way, the studio began to lose sight of it.
When Every Movie Had to Be an Avengers Movie
Then came Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame.
They were extraordinary cinematic achievements, bringing more than a decade of storytelling to a satisfying conclusion.
They also generated extraordinary box-office returns.
And I suspect that success fundamentally changed the way Marvel approached its films.
For years, the studio had used smaller, character-driven projects to build toward massive crossover events. But after the unprecedented success of Endgame, Marvel increasingly seemed to approach individual movies with the expectations and ambitions of its biggest tentpoles.
Every movie needed enormous stakes. Every new villain needed to be more dangerous than the last. Every adventure needed to contribute to the next major event.
The studio had built an incredibly successful business around superhero movies. It now appeared determined to make every release a major superhero spectacle.
The pressure to expand intensified with Disney+ and the demand for an unprecedented volume of interconnected content.
And gradually, the relationship between the individual stories and the larger universe changed.
The shared universe stopped being the reward for watching individual stories and started becoming their primary purpose.
Consider the evolution of Ant-Man.
The original movie was a relatively modest heist comedy. Its sequel was a family-centered adventure built around rescue, relationships, and some wonderfully inventive uses of shrinking technology.
Then came Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
Suddenly, Scott Lang was fighting a powerful multiversal villain in an elaborate computer-generated world, with the larger implications for the MCU looming over the entire story.
It was bigger, louder, and more consequential to the franchise.
But was it a more interesting Ant-Man movie?
The qualities that had originally distinguished the character's films—the playful heist mechanics, the modest stakes, the grounded humor—were largely displaced by the requirements of a sprawling superhero epic.
And that's the central problem.
Too often, the genre that once defined an individual franchise has become little more than a flavor added to a standardized Marvel product.
Look at Secret Invasion. On paper, the premise is perfect for a paranoid espionage thriller. Shape-shifting aliens have infiltrated positions of power. Nobody knows who can be trusted.
That's the foundation of an excellent spy story.
Yet the series ultimately culminates in another superpowered battle.
The genre premise becomes secondary to the superhero spectacle.
Marvel didn't simply make more content. It increasingly made content that felt more alike.
And that, I would argue, is a much better explanation for superhero fatigue.
The Exceptions Prove the Point
To be fair, Marvel hasn't completely abandoned its earlier approach.
In fact, some of its most interesting post-Endgame projects have been the ones willing to embrace a different genre.
WandaVision began as a remarkably creative exploration of grief through the format of classic American television sitcoms. It was funny, unsettling, and unlike almost anything Marvel had previously attempted—even if its conclusion eventually returned to familiar superhero conventions.
Werewolf by Night embraced the atmosphere and visual language of classic horror cinema. It demonstrated how refreshing a Marvel project could feel when its genre identity was allowed to lead.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings brought martial arts cinema into the MCU. Loki experimented with science fiction, bureaucracy, and questions of identity and free will.
And Thunderbolts found its emotional center in damaged, isolated characters struggling with guilt, depression, and the consequences of their pasts.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps embraced a distinctive retro-futuristic aesthetic and a family dynamic that separated it from much of the surrounding franchise.
These examples matter because they demonstrate that Marvel is still capable of the creative variety that fueled its initial success.
And the spectacular success of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, with its renewed emphasis on Peter Parker's personal struggles, should make anyone skeptical that audiences have simply stopped wanting to see superheroes.
Of course, none of this guarantees commercial success. Thunderbolts, despite positive critical reception, struggled to match the financial performance of Marvel's biggest hits.
But commercial success and creative identity aren't the same question.
The fact that an individual movie doesn't generate Avengers-level revenue shouldn't mean it failed to accomplish something valuable.
Not every issue of Daredevil needs to sell as many copies as Secret Wars.
And not every Marvel film needs to be Endgame.
Marvel Doesn't Need a New Formula. It Needs to Remember the Old One.
There's a revealing distinction between a movie that incorporates elements of another genre and one that actually commits to being that kind of movie.
A spy thriller isn't a spy thriller simply because the characters work for an intelligence agency. It's about suspicion, uncertainty, deception, and the fear that the institutions we trust may not deserve that trust.
A heist movie isn't a heist movie because somebody steals an object. It's about planning, preparation, improvisation, and the tension of watching a carefully constructed plan fall apart.
A character study isn't defined by a few emotional conversations between action sequences. It works when the protagonist's internal conflict drives the choices that shape the entire story.
Marvel understood those distinctions when it made The Winter Soldier, Ant-Man, and Iron Man.
The genre wasn't decoration.
It was the foundation.
Imagine a Marvel courtroom drama with Matt Murdock. A genuine horror film involving Doctor Strange. A grounded investigative mystery with Jessica Jones. A political thriller about Wakanda's place in a changing world.
These ideas don't require abandoning superheroes or the shared universe.
They require allowing those characters to inhabit stories that are more than superhero stories.
And perhaps, most importantly, they require accepting that every movie doesn't need to be the biggest movie of the year.
A smaller film can be a success without generating a billion dollars. A television series can be worthwhile without introducing the next Avengers villain. A character can experience a compelling story without the fate of the multiverse hanging in the balance.
Marvel already knows how to do this.
Its comic books have been demonstrating the possibilities for decades, and its early movies showed how successfully that approach could translate to the screen.
Fewer releases might help. Better production schedules and more creative freedom certainly wouldn't hurt.
But simply making two generic superhero movies instead of four won't solve the underlying problem.
The MCU became the most successful film franchise in history because it understood that the world was big enough to contain many different kinds of stories.
War stories. Spy stories. Family dramas. Comedies. Mysteries. Adventures.
Superheroes gave those stories a common mythology, but they didn't make them interchangeable.
Marvel doesn't need to stop making superhero movies.
It needs to start making movies that happen to have superheroes in them again.