How the All-Consuming MCU is Collapsing itself

Evan D.

Trying to keep track of 40+ MCU projects feels a little like Spider-Man getting sensory overload

Spider-Man: Brand New Day opened to $360 million in its first domestic weekend. According to Box Office Mojo, that’s the highest grossing opening weekend of any film, ever. An astonishingly successful start for a franchise that desperately needed momentum. Following on the heels of the massive success of The Odyssey these kinds of ticket sales are hugely encouraging for theaters. Despite pacing for a multi-billion dollar haul, Tom Holland’s MCU film generating just a fraction of the cultural conversation that his Nolan film did over the last few weeks. Some of that has to do with the bad faith discourse machine that consumed The Odyssey like Odysseus’s men with Circe’s stew. Yet failing to turn box office into cultural staying power has also become something of a norm for the once impenetrable Marvel machine. 

You’ll no doubt have noticed that this is not a review of Brand New Day, a film that is — like most MCU fare these days — mostly fine if bloated by the need to tee up new installments in the long running franchise. Rather, this is a lament for casualties of a machine that has turned the prime years of multiple stars into grist for a series of decreasingly essential films. 

Destin Daniel Cretton is a wonderful director and likely gets the more heart out of this Spidey script than most could. His debut Short Term 12 is one of the most essential films of the century and helped springboard stars like Brie Larson, LaKeith Stanfield, Rami Malik and Kaitlyn Dever to a new level. He’s also spent the last 5 years working exclusively in the Marvel sandbox with another Shang-Chi movie likely in the works. 

The same goes for some of the stars of the Spider-Man, as well as the broader universe he inhabits. Florence Pugh —  who delightfully reprises her role as Yelena in Brand New Day — almost won an Oscar for her role in 2019’s Little Women. In the 7 years since she has appeared or will appear in as many Marvel projects (6) as any other non-MCU, non-Dune films. Since her supporting turn in Oppenheimer the balance is 4 for Marvel against only We Live in Time. Franchise commitments have all but consumed the schedule of one of the most interesting young actors in the world. 

As for the aforementioned Brie Larson, appearances as Captain Marvel comprise almost the entirety of the Oscar winner’s filmography for the past 7 years. This problem is not showing signs of slowing down either. Ryan Gosling had to drop out of the Daniels’ follow up to Everything Everywhere All at Once over scheduling conflicts, only to be revealed as the new Ghost Rider a few weeks later. David Jonsson — one of the most exciting young actors of this new generation — parlayed a number of critically acclaimed performances into the lead role in the next Black Panther movie. 

Who can blame Jonsson for getting the bag or Gosling for his self-proclaimed pivot to making movies for his kids? The incentives are obvious for the talent involved here and at one point it was genuinely exciting for filmgoers to see actors of this caliber sign onto the biggest films in the world. But an MCU film isn’t a guarantee at the box office anymore and even when it is the cultural footprint left behind could be blown away by a mild breeze. 

None of the three MCU movies of 2025 — bonus points if you can remember all 3 without looking them up — managed to surpass the domestic haul of a Jurassic World reboot that was universally reviled. The year before that Deadpool & Wolverine was a smash hit that feels like it disappeared into the ether. Movies like Challengers and The Beekeeper made 1/10th of the money and come up in conversation far more frequently. 

Spider-Man holds a different cultural cache and the film is far better than Deadpool & Wolverine  and at least 2 of the 2025 MCU properties. Even so this latest installment begs the same question: why are we still doing this? As long as the money keeps rolling in that will be the answer but more than ever an MCU project feels more like homework than an event. I know I’d rather see an original Cretton film than his spin on the 38th movie in a 20 year old franchise of films I can barely keep track of anymore. 

There is some hope here. One aspect of it comes from the actors that have extricated themselves from the Marvel conveyer belt. Chris Evans followed up his seeming exit with Knives Out, easily his best film role in years. Robert Downey Jr won an Oscar in Oppenheimer. Please ignore that the fact that these two jumped right back into the deep end of the kiddie pool shortly after. Eternals director Chloe Zhao also serves as a great example, cashing her paycheck and promptly reinserting herself into the Oscar conversation with Hamnet.

Even more reason for optimism comes from the fact that three of the leads of Brand New Day opened a massive Christopher Nolan movie just 3 weeks prior. Holland, Zendaya and Bernthal were able to do both despite their Marvel commitments. Exhibitors are taking notice as well. Despite being the flashiest Marvel titles in years, Brand New Day and Avengers Doomsday lost out on IMAX real estate to The Odyssey and Dune 3, respectively. 

Marvel has already moved far away from their original model of introducing solo characters and teaming them up. This particular film is as much an extended teaser for an undated X-Men project as it is a Spider-Man movie. The complexity and interconnectedness that was once exciting has begun to weigh on the overall product. We’e seen the same faults time and again across the clunky multi-verse phase. As the culture shifts away from Disney’s superhero monolith so too will the money, eventually. When it does, I’ll be thrilled to see the talent they’ve consumed along the way return to making the type of film that got Marvel interested in them in the first place.