The multiverse saga has been like a roller coaster of projects, but the box office results have been a collective spectrum of good and bad.
Whatever you wanna say about the multiverse saga as of 2025, its overall box office to me is very similar to how the audience and critics viewed and responded to them. i see them as good, but not the worst due how they were affected to the real world effects on them. But do these numbers affect my thoughts and feelings as a long time mcu and marvel fan in general no, some of the movies themselves i find from great to decent. But i fully understand how the results are not on the same levels as the infinity saga numbers, but its not all doom and gloom, and it won't be like that in 2026 and 27 either.
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*.....Now I see people gobble that shit up.*
It's also depressing that shitty video game adaptions like Mario and Minecraft are doing so much better than the actually good Sonic movies.
The best parts of Sonic were better, but those movies have a lot of flaws.
Most of the human-centric plotline in the second movie was among the worst stuff put onscreen in a major video game adaptation in the last 5-6 years.
Honestly, I just hope they keep making things for Marvel fans and if it resonates with the general public, that’s great. It should reflect the comics, though. Not every run is for everyone.
Brave New World had Red Hulk in all the marketing, which would be a big draw (especially for more ignorant watchers that might think it's Hulk Hulk in a different colour lol) and Fantastic Four is a recognizable brand/group name with a unique spin (the retrofuturist aesthetic).
I concur that Thunderbolts was an absolute diamond, but I *do* get why it had the lowest take this year.
-Timing (came out in early May, but wasn’t a huge tentpole like Superman or F4, Sinners and Minecraft both were still in theaters and eating everyone else’s lunch)
-Lesser known characters (Bucky’s the most recognizable character in the whole bunch for someone not deep into Marvel since Endgame. Knowing others required homework in the form of movies and shows that were less popular)
-Poor reception/isolation of previous entries (Brave New World was messy and uneven, and Deadpool and Wolverine was mostly disconnected from the MCU beyond the TVA stuff, which was only featured in Loki)
-Marketing was well-done, but the big “New Avengers” reveal being hidden meant that general audiences thought it was skippable (ironically, they did the thing we want of hiding big reveals and it might have helped them this one time to have made it public)
-General economic uncertainty leading to concentrated ticket buying (Sinners was an outlier, but even the big IPs were up and down. Mission Impossible underperformed, Lilo and Stitch made bank, so did Minecraft. If you had kids you probably spent your movie money on seeing one of those two in theaters and skipped the rest)
Take your pick. Lots of factors, all of them a bummer for my favorite post-Endgame movie.
A new cast probably doesn't help either.
No way home is actually such a poor movie, if it wasn’t for the returning characters giving a nostalgia boost then it would be seen in a much dimmer light.
Deadpool and Wolverine was fun but also a relied heavily on the nostalgia crutch.
I have some unpopular opinions, for one, I thoroughly enjoyed Love and Thunder and Quantummania. Am I going to watch them again? Probably not, but they were perfectly fine as a fun movie. That’s all I need at times.
Look at all the mileage Phases 1-3 got out of conflicts between Thor & Loki, Steve & Bucky, Gamora and Nebula.
People don’t understand that Phase 3 was a huge exception for the MCU in terms of quality due to a lot of insane factors going perfectly
In my opinion, most of the arguments levied at the phase 4/5 projects aren’t actually criticisms of the projects themselves. Take DS2. “They didn’t do much with the multiverse so it sucked.” Ok would you have preferred they call it Doctor Strange and the Book of Vishanti? Because that’s not a complaint about the movie…just the title.
And people’s arguments about the multiverse saga are loaded with nonsense reasons like this…
Multiverse Of Madness is only an embarrassing overstatement in the context of being released around the same time as "Everything, Everywhere, All At Once", which was never going to be topped as a weird as hell multiverse film by a Disney movie.
And that’s not Multiverse enough for you? Lmao
Reminds me of how MODOK a character with a weird design was criticized for the character looking weird
Ultimately though, that really isn’t the core complaint. That may be what people talk about in subs like this, but the vast majority of normal movie going audience members just didn’t like it, flat out. I don’t blame them. It was so unfocused, internally inconsequential, and straight up ugly to look at.
Even for bad projects I see these sorts of unreasonable arguments too. Like secret invasion is just a god awful show, but I see people complaining about G’iah having all those powers and I’m like cmon really? Creative use and adaptability of all of those powers to make the MCUs more awesome power filled version of Super Skrull is your problem? Not the writing and character development that lacked and didn’t make sense, or stuff like Fury having a wife out of nowhere. Nope the one good thing with the dumb fun super skrull is the issue.
(Just my 2 cents, some obvious examples of this I see)
You can complain about the multiverse on top of that, but most of the complaints I’ve seen — especially from non-diehards — are related to how fake it all felt, how silly the character decisions were, and how it felt closer to one of those universal rides that just takes you through “wacky” scenarios than an actual story. Cunberbstch himself expressed worry before release that Strange didn’t even really have an arc.
All in all just not a good film, and the same goes for most projects in the recent phases.
Marvel movies were never barn burners individually. Even the best movies (barring the avengers flicks) in the golden age were just solid. What the whole franchise had going for it was focus. There was this factor to the whole thing that was almost like a magic trick — somehow, each individual movie felt full, contained, satisfying, and accessible, but then, after 10 movies or so, there was this other larger story that you didn’t even realize you were watching. *that* was the novelty.
Compare that to even the good multiverse movies. I’m the first guy to admit that no way home was wild in the theatres, but is it a good movie that holds up later? I don’t think so. It feels extremely thin. Ironically, that movie feels like the cinematic equivalent of Spider-Man straining to keep hold of his webs while he tries to stop a runaway train. It’s like a meal that’s all sugar and fat — it gives you a rush, but it leaves you with nothing. It bombards you with nostalgia, crowd-pleasing moments, and payoff without buildup. It borrows so much from other movies, both mcu and otherwise, that it ends up with a lot of good *parts* while the *whole* feels like a loose Frankensteining of stuff that just doesn’t amount to anything. Same is true of Deadpool.
And those are the good ones.
Something like Captain America 4 doesn’t even have a reason to exist. There’s not an element of that movie that indicates that anyone actually wanted to make it. Yeah, marvel movies have always been corporate products, but at least there was some energy and excitement in front of and behind the camera. Cap 4 felt like they were saying “how do we get to the finish line” from day 1.
Basically, phases 1-3 felt like someone saying “I have this idea” and then organizing the pieces to make it work. The multiverse saga feels like a bunch of ideas have already been sourced from the junkyard and the filmmakers are like “I guess we have to make something with these”.
I’m not saying there aren’t good moments, or even good movies — guardians has always felt pretty separate, and, as such, the third one really suffers from none of the problems the other films do. What I am saying is there’s no sense that this is anything but a chore anymore. It feels like every project exists to “fix” an in-universe or real life problem; course correction for characterizations so certain arcs could be adapted; course correction for problems with real world casting; course correction for business mergers that change ip rights. I no longer feel like I’m watching a story build, I feel like I’m watching a comedian who doesn’t realize he ran out of material 20 minutes ago. It’s not just a problem with the overall mcu story, it manifests in the individual movies. Characters often don’t have reasons to do the stuff they’re doing.
Idk. It’s just not fun anymore.
But tell me this, considering you mentioned the larger plot came around later (I assume infinity war and endgame is what you are referencing), tell me how most of those films preceding worked into that plot? Iron Man 2? Iron Man 3? Cap 2? GOTG 2? Incredible Hulk? Ant-Man? Etc?
Think of it like a mosaic: Phases 1-3 were made up of really neat images that, when you took a step back, worked together to create a different, larger image. The current era is trying to build a similar larger image, but the individual pictures are unidentifiable; they’re twisted and off so that they can contour to fit together. It’s like they want to make a picture of a building using many smaller pictures of peoples faces, but to make the building clear, they have to wash out the faces and bend certain eyes and noses. The faces are technically faces, but there’s an uncanny valley element to them that just isn’t appealing.
Take DS2: it’s my own subjective opinion that that movie has painfully thin characterizations, arcs, and plot points, but it’s an objective fact that major changes were made to accommodate the shifting pieces of other projects, business decisions, and that larger story. Some of them were unavoidable (boseman, majors, Covid), but many weren’t (IP shoehorning, poor planning and inconsistent writing for arcs like Wanda’s, lack of communications with key creatives resulting in team turnover and inconsistent creative visions).
To answer your question, I think the movies you listed did a lot of heavy lifting for the infinity saga story. It was just invisible. Yes, Mickey Rourke didn’t play a key role in endgame, but Iron Man 2 did a lot to endear me to Tony, set up thematic payoffs for his finale, and flesh out the world, all without making me feel like I was watching a trailer for the next thing. I don’t feel that that focus and presence remains.
They didn't have an avengers film in phase 4-5 to bring everything together. Worse yet, none of the films seemed to be a sequence to each other. Everything was stand alone - except for maybe Eternals and Brave new world (celestial) but none of the characters appeared again!
Phase 3 - all Payoff.
Phase 4-5 - wasted effort, forgot that all those characters live in a shared universe.
Objectively speaking phases 4 and 5 had BY FAR the most connections of anything in the MCU. I’ve seen it mapped out and it’s not even close. It’s way more connected than ever.
The issue is that all of these connections are dumb and meaningless. For example did you know that the GRC (world government essentially) from TFAWS appears on a bus in Moon Knight? Probably not because it’s completely meaningless but it is a connection.
That sort of stuff fills out phases 4-5.
Sure Yelena, Val, Kingpin, and the Young Avengers plot threads have popped up here and there but that’s really not enough.
I really do agree we needed an avengers movie, probably 2 before doomsday
Thor 3 had Banner as a key character, very much a critical supporting character. Thor 4 had the GotG as a gag at the very beginning of the film and then they weren't seen again, their contribution was also completely meaningless. Kingpin in Hawkeye? You mean just at the end for a quick fight? Nah. In Echo, yes. Daredevil and Ronen appearing was ok, but still too short. Matt in She Hulk? That was actually good.
The closest thing to a real connection was Wanda and Strange in MoM, and thunderbolts with the whole team being from various properties. Even if Ghost doesn't mention Antman or anything related to it once.
I also think Phases 4-5 are actually really awesome with only a few flops
As for post credits scenes, I mean the Thanos tease took many years (both of them), the leader tease infamously took way way too long, The Collector taking the stones took forever, Trevor Slattery being in prison took forever to be followed up on, Mordos post credits scene infamously took forever and is still sorta unanswered, the Adam Warlock tease took forever, as did Kraglin getting Yondus arrow, The Scorpion tease is only now getting answered.
By comparison the show post credits scenes are almost always immediately followed up on by the next episode, so that’s like a week. The celestial thing took a few nears but not horrible. The kingpin Mayor tease didn’t take long. Val assembling the Thunderbolts was addressed quite a few times. The Victor Timely tease was fairly quick. And Beasts post credits tease won’t take long to be addressed.
Obviously I picked and chose examples to prove my point, but if you actually look at them it’s pretty equal between the Infinity Saga and Multiverse Saga, the shows may even put the Multiverse Saga on top in terms of faster Post Credits scenes followed up on. They’re all kinda just all over the place and random as to whether they’ll get addressed or not and when
A forest through the trees.
I get Shang Chi was straight after covid but ppl just didn't seem to care abt Thunderbolts
Hopefully they still get sequels
Put me out of my misery.
Kevin Feige already explained this in 2019: They had a ton of projects under their belt to keep them busy for five years.
yes, and that would be 1 billion.
*Also the yellow text makes it difficult to read Black Widow's total.*
It's hard to read yellow on white
Even though I don't rank it highly, I'll still always appreciate the triple swap fight choreographs, the Kamala and family moments, and the Cats scene. I still rewatch it with my folks, something I would never do with worse movies like L&T.