My theory on why MCU( Disney+) shows failed

1. The budget of these shows is one of the main reasons why they failed. I have always seen this pattern that shows function better when they are restricted to a lower budget. 2021 D+ shows had a budget exceeding 150 million dollars. They were throwing money on the shows without any regulation with a very dissapointing output and Poor CGI.
2. Shows are the reasons that there is no connectivity left in the universe anymore. Not every movie goer enjoys watching shows. Nobody enjoys having to sit through 10-20 hours of shows to understand a film. This is what i liked about netflix marvel shows even when they were mid. They worked in their own seperate universe without having any effect on the films.
3. Another thing is that connectivity with shows isn't a bad idea if their are only two shows coming out in the summer and fall. But 8 shows were released in 2021 and 2022 alone.
4. Hiring Poor ,unimaginative, visionless writers. The writer of black widow didn't even read the comics. How could you give such incompetent bafoons the power to handle your legacy characters.

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Commentaires

Techno_Core2025-10-23 17:17

Also the Netflix series set a REALLY high bar. A bar Disney was unwilling to try to meet because they're Disney.

FewWatermelonlesson02025-10-23 17:23

Ehhh… Daredevil and Jessica Jones, maybe. The rest weren’t anything special, even if I really liked the first half of Luke Cage season 1.

Techno_Core2025-10-23 17:35

Nonetheless those first two seasons of DD, and first seasons of JJ and LC set a bar nothing on D+ came close to.

Single-Pianist-22112025-10-23 17:17

Your points are all true, but the biggest reason was that they were badly written and many beloved characters were narratively destroyed

Massive-Cream17992025-10-23 17:28

Hawkeye was made to introduce kate bishop instead of giving some depth to clint. Neither did the show do anything with the effect the events of endgame had on him besides a few scenes.

Present_Lychee_31092025-10-23 17:19

Not necessarily CGI. Idk what they spent so much millions on but some of the shows just had bad stories. CGI complaints shouldn't be a reason in many shows actually.

jeremy10152025-10-23 17:20

My kids all prefer the long format of the shows to the films.

BaronZhiro2025-10-23 17:24

I do too. And I’m an old guy.

eBICgamer20102025-10-23 17:20

Anyway, the funniest outcome of the Multiverse Saga is that Spidey and His Amazing Friends will probably surpass Agents of SHIELD as the longest running Marvel TV show. It's already been greenlit for 6 seasons, just one fewer than AOS.

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pennygirl1082025-10-23 17:21

In my opinion the shows failed because the mcu could not commit to renewing them. Some gained good fanbases and explored interesting characters that wouldn’t have ever been big enough for the movies. If the mcu could have picked out the gems and renewed them on a reasonable budget for a yearly release, then they could have been so successful. Having to chase the tv show characters around to different projects over years between appearances was a good way to kill interest.

jrodfantastic2025-10-23 17:30

Sort of agree, but the marketing and promotion was definitely an issue. Disney failed to communicate exactly what these series were going to be, so fans expected them to be recurring, multiple season experiences. When the reality is that they were always designed to be one-shot stories.

It is a big reason why the Guardians Christmas special and WbN were so well received (in addition to their overall quality).

Kane_richards2025-10-23 17:23

To be fair, the cost hurt them sure but the sheer fact they're awfully written crippled them. A CGI heavy, bloated budget series can be stupendously successful if people watch but post Endgame, if they were chocolate, Marvel/Disney would have eaten themselves. They felt they could put anything out and the fans would lap it up like they always had. Couple that with the idea that a streaming service is going to blow up and bring in all the money because again, the fans love Marvel so why wouldn't they, and it means you've got a juicy bubble straining to burst. They thought they could do what they want to rushed out a ton of sub par characters thinking they would become fan favourites and most were just.... meh.

Obvious exceptions of course, Wandavision and Loki but most of what Marvel have done recently have failed to find the audience Disney seemed to think was out there for it.

Clit_Eastwhat2025-10-23 17:25

The problem with the series is simply that they have been written really badly for some time now.

She Hulk wouldn't be any better with a tenfold budget. And that wouldn't be the case even if she had already appeared in the movies.

The same goes for Ironheart.

It's not that deep.

A good MCU series doesn't need a huge budget or a connection to the movies.

FewWatermelonlesson02025-10-23 17:26

I think the most significant factor is something Feige himself admitted, which was approaching them as long movies and not grasping the structural differences between a movie and TV show.

There was also an obsession with everything needing to have big, world ending stakes, which was unnecessary. Ms. Marvel didn’t need time travel or alternate dimensions, and Moon Knight didn’t need CGI kaiju fights or another glowing sky portal (sigh).

Massive-Cream17992025-10-23 17:33

They didn't even have showrunners

DavidEDavid222025-10-23 17:26

It failed for many reasons, really bad millennial kinda writing or whatever u wanna call it matched with equally bad CGI. Then we have prioritizing side characters and hero’s that the general audience didn’t ask for and never came to really like and on top of that 6 episodes seasons where each episode is like 30 min, yeah okay Netflix created daredevil without any Disney connections or even the wider MCU and that show is still the standard compared to mcu shows which are just copy and paste. I don’t even like stranger things but at least u can tell they give a shit. But it’s not all Disneys fault cause to me the biggest reason it failed was the fans! The fans who allowed mediocrity to seep into every project they put out and applaud it, for every fan who gave the impression online that the this was the right direction to move to, to all the fans who eat the slop the way most of the world eats McDonald’s, can’t blame the big corporations for taking advantage of the idiots who happily eat shit

DrManhattan_DDM2025-10-23 17:28

I don’t think any of the D+ shows get even close to 10 hours of runtime, with the exception of Loki which comes in around 9.5 hours for both seasons together, and What If?… which specifically isn’t meant to be necessary for the movies.

BaronZhiro2025-10-23 17:29

Honestly, I think each show stood or fell on its writing, and particularly the resolutions/finales.

I also think the pandemic was the perfect time to release so many series, and still don’t see anything wrong with that.

Just my two cents.

HowardBunnyColvin2025-10-23 17:33

just too many of em and the plots were not particular interesting IMO.

MCU tried to oversaturate the market with so many marvel tv shows and I barely watched any of them. I only saw Loki and WandaVision. WV was okay but Loki season 1 was so bad it turned me off from watching any other MCU television properties.

SinginGidget2025-10-23 17:33

The shows failed?

eBICgamer20102025-10-23 17:36

The biggest indication of whether or not a show failed is not getting a season 2, which was true for many of these MCU TV shows.

Gorguf622025-10-23 18:12

And how many of those shows were intended to get a season 2?

matty_nice2025-10-23 18:49

Intention is probably hard to say.

But if they were true hits, I'm sure Marvel would have wanted extra seasons. D+ is struggling for hits, so anything they could have put out would have been a bonus.

For story reasons, Wandavision and Falcon and the Winter Solider were followed up in seperate movies.

But everything else would likely be eligable for a second season. Moon Knight, Ms Marvel, She-Hulk, Hawkeye....all have had people involved talk about a second season.

eagc72025-10-23 21:56

Should be noted that Brad Winderbaum the head of Marvel TV said that with some expections (Loki and What If), these shows were always intended as one-offs, even those with cliffhangers were never written with a season 2 in mind. the idea was more to introduce them via these shows and then have them pop out every now and then in other projects

Its just now starting with Daredevil: Born Again that they are developing shows with the intent of doing multiple seasons

Notoriously_So2025-10-23 17:35

I'm just glad they got Daredevil back on the right track. Can't wait for Born Again Season 2 and more. 👉

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TheMarvelMunchkin2025-10-23 17:45

My very personal - they failed since they came out just after endgame so the bar was too high
I like what they are trying now, shows are marvel TV and hopefully not “must see” for the movies and you have the main MCU - so that if people want to watch they have the shows but you don’t need to invest the time if you don’t and they can have all the experimental things on TV
I do not think they will be massive blockbuster things, and that’s great, not everything will be an Endgame- but it’s great for the fans that want to watch them, again, not all of them will be for everyone

matty_nice2025-10-23 17:48

Marvel failed to defined and failed to communicate the relationship between the shows and the movies. Sometimes the shows didn't relate to the movies, and sometimes they did. Fans didn't know which ones were important to follow the films. They also used tv characters and put them in the movies. At least with the Netflix shows, we knew they weren't gonna impact the movies.

The format also didn't work. Marvel tried to replicate the "prestidge streaming" format for these shows, where they would be between 25 and 60 minute episodes, 6 to 9 episodes a season, and seasons weren't coming out every year. That format doesn't work here.

I think your points are valid.

Going foward, they need to clearly define the shows as NOT having an impact on the movies. They also need a better format. I think 4 episode seasons, 45 minute episodes for a total of 3 hours is best.

eBICgamer20102025-10-23 17:51

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matty_nice2025-10-23 17:55

I'm only talking about the live action shows.

Cartoons are more complicated. I wasn't refering to FNSM.

That show is currently like 30 minute episodes, 10 episodes a season. So 5 hours total. Not sure if that's best, but don't have a strong opinion on those types of shows.

Quality over quanity also refers to the number of episodes.

No_Imagination_24902025-10-23 18:37

They didn't 'fail'.

RT scores aren't everything, admittedly, but how are these shows failures?

WandaVision - 92%, 82% (plus 8 Prime Time Emmy nominations)

Loki - 87%, 87%

Hawkeye - 92%, 88%

Moon Knight - 86%, 88%

Ms Marvel - 98%, 80%

Agatha All Along - 84%, 82%

Other shows had more mixed responses, but Secret Invasion was the only outright failure IMO. The Disney+ shows have been far more consistently good than the movies have been from phase 4 onwards.

rwinger242025-10-23 19:24

Joke opinion. Using the long Marvel Studios intro and fanfare every episode fatigued people.

Sir__Will2025-10-23 21:53

> But 8 shows were released in 2021 and 2022 alone.

Eh, 7. What If doesn't really count.

2021 was unusually busy, but that's because things were just kicking off and they were trying to get people to D+. And WandaVision, Loki, and Hawkeye are some of the more highly regarded D+ shows.