Marvel Studios' Phase 4 has been a disappointment.
Some of you might not agree with that statement, but as we look back at everything from Thor: Love and Thunder to She-Hulk: Attorney at Law's bizarre finale and creative decisions like Ralph Bohner and the fate of The Illuminati, it's hard to know how else to describe it. There's been a lot of great content, but also a huge amount of filler.
This quantity-over-quality approach can primarily be blamed on Disney+, and with Phase 5 on the horizon, the endless churning out of content is showing no sign of slowing down.
We'll see how that goes, but there are some films and TV shows in that next Phase we think should be scrapped. Or overhauled. Either way, they should not be released in their current iterations, hence why we feel they need to be revisited down the line and, in some cases, cancelled.
Find out which MCU Phase 5 films and TV shows we've included by tapping that NEXT button.
Honourable Mention: Fantastic Four
Before you jump down our throats, there's a reason Fantastic Four only gets an honourable mention here. We don't want the film to be completely scrapped; it just needs to be removed from the Multiverse Saga.
There's already a lot going on as we build to Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars, and Marvel's First Family would arguably benefit most from not being shoehorned into either of those following their introduction. Yes, we want to see Reed, Sue, Ben, and Johnny meet Earth's Mightiest Heroes, but there's no need to rush that.
We're not saying Fantastic Four, in its current iteration, won't be great. It just deserves better than being overshadowed by the next two Avengers films, especially when this team has so often struggled on screen.
5. Thunderbolts
We've been waiting years for Marvel Studios to make a Thunderbolts film, but this...this wasn't what we were expecting or hoping for. The roster above isn't inherently bad, but it's underwhelming, a little boring, and not representative of the comics.
Five out of six members of this team are super soldiers. In fact, Ghost is one of the only characters here with any sort of real history with this team, and unless Baron Zemo, Songbird, and Moonstone are being added down the line (and Red Hulk, for that matter), we don't fully understand why this is the direction the Thunderbolts are being taken down in the MCU.
Rumors of The Sentry showing up have excited us, but we don't think it would be the end of the world for Marvel Studios to take this concept back to the drawing board and start over.
4. Echo
There are already rumors that Echo hasn't been an easy production, while the Disney+ series recently slipped back from summer 2024 to winter of that same year. Something tells us major work is needed to overhaul the project, and we'd do so by turning this six-episode TV show into a Marvel Studios Special Presentation.
Pivotal flashbacks involving Daredevil and The Kingpin could still be included, as could whatever journey Maya Lopez is going to be taken on over the course of this series.
We've always questioned why this character needs an entire TV show devoted to her. Marvel Studios may well prove us wrong with the finished product, but we don't need yet another stretched-out story solely because Disney+ wants content.
3. Agatha: Coven Of Chaos
As impressive as the cast Marvel Studios has put together might be, we've seen nothing that suggests Agatha: Coven of Chaos needs to be yet another MCU TV series.
There are already more than enough of those heading our way, and while Kathryn Hahn frequently stole the show in WandaVision, she's a character who really doesn't need more than a Special Presentation at most. A big part of her origin story has been told, and outside of serving as a mentor to the Scarlet Witch, we don't care too much about her future.
Chatter online suggests this is where we'll meet Billy Kaplan, a.k.a. Wiccan, and as important as that Young Avenger could be to the MCU, Agatha: Coven of Chaos feels like a terribly overlong way to go about it. Prove us wrong, Marvel Studios!
2. Blade
Let's just start this slide by making one thing clear: Blade is a film that absolutely should happen down the line. However, amid a change in directors, creative issues that include an unfinished script, and an unhappy lead in Mahershala Ali, why not just put the brakes on this one rather than making it just another Phase 4 film?
While it's already been significantly delayed, cramming the Daywalker's MCU debut into the Multiverse Saga - along with the introduction of vampires and other supernatural elements - feels like a massive blunder in the making.
We'd argue that Blade would be better served coming out after Avengers: Secret Wars, serving as something of a palette cleanser that sets the tone for another new era of storytelling. Heck, this is even a project that might benefit from becoming a TV series!
1. Daredevil: Born Again
Now we're getting controversial! Charlie Cox's return as the Man Without Fear has quite rightly been welcomed by fans, and everything we've seen from him thus far - in Spider-Man: No Way Home and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law - makes it clear Marvel Studios made the right decision by putting the hero front and center in the MCU.
An eighteen-episode TV series, however? That's mighty ambitious, and reports Daredevil: Born Again will lead directly into Spider-Man 4 for a team-up against The Kingpin leaves us with concerns the show will be more filler than killer.
Marvel Television made a lot of blunders, but if Phase 4 has established anything, it's that Marvel Studios isn't quite as adept at making TV shows as they are movies. Telling a story over eighteen episodes isn't something we're confident they can pull off, so why not tighten this story up or spread it across a couple of seasons?