The superhero genre has been dominating the entertainment industry for years, with a number of shared universes competing at the box office. DC co-CEO James Gunn is crafting a new one, thanks to projects in theaters and streaming with a Max subscription. The first movie Superman is killing it in theaters, and now Marvel boss Kevin Feige is giving the title its flowers… while also getting real about some MCU missteps.
Fans who spent years watching the Marvel movies in order will recall how Guardians of the Galaxy filmmaker James Gunn pivoted over to DC. The latter shared universe’s first slate of projects is titled Gods and Monsters, with Superman being the first entry for the big screen. While speaking with Variety about the state of the MCU, Feige offered his reaction to the new DC flick saying:
I liked it a lot. I love you just jump right into it. You don’t know who Mister Terrific is? Tough, you’ll figure it out. This is a fully fleshed out world.
upcoming DC movies and TV shows. And that’s largely thanks to the vision of James Gunn.
concerns about superhero fatigue. In the same interview, Feige addressed this saying:
Look at Superman. It’s clearly not superhero fatigue, right?
So if moviegoers are still interested in comic book projects, what’s been happening at the MCU? There have been a number of missteps the years since Avengers: Endgame, including The Marvels bombing at the box office, and other disappointments like Eternals, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. There are also number of shows that were released to varying levels of success for those with a Disney+ subscription.
In his long interview with Variety, Kevin Feige addressed the MCU changing its release strategy in Phases Four and Five. After Endgame we were treated to a ton of content, both in theaters and on Disney+. The Marvel boss spoke about what happened, saying:
For the first time ever, quantity trumped quality. We spent 12 years working on the Infinity Saga saying that’s never going to happen to us. We always had more characters than we could possibly make because we weren’t going to make a movie a month. Suddenly, there’s a mandate to make more. And we go, ‘Well, we do have more.’
In the end, it looks like this was a huge learning experience for Feige and the rest of the powers that be at Marvel Studios. They’re looking to pump the breaks on its pacing of content, especially regarding the live-action shows that go to Disney+. We’ll just have to wait and see how fans react to this pivot in release strategy moving forward.
Feige seemingly admitted that the studio got in the sauce of producing and releasing as much content as possible, seemingly echoing concerns of fan fatigue. It should be interesting to see if the quality of future MCU projects rises as a result.
The next MCU movie hitting theaters is The Fantastic Four: First Steps on July 25th as part of the 2025 movie release list. The hype for that project is very real, especially as the team is expected to pop up in upcoming Marvel movies.