10 Steps To Saving The MCU’s Multiverse Saga Before It’s Too Late

The Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s Multiverse Saga is in trouble, but it isn’t too late to save it. Marvel Studios is currently in the middle of laying the groundwork for its next culminating event. Unfortunately, unlike the Infinity Saga, its current storytelling has been more divisive. This is becoming a cause for concern, especially with regard to the chances that the MCU can stage another satisfying massive crossover that’s at least with what Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame were able to accomplish.

Luckily, Marvel Studios has more than enough time to make some changes to ensure that they are not setting themselves up for failure. There are currently several more years left before the Multiverse Saga is wrapped up by Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars. If Kevin Feige and his team execute some, if not all of these alterations, they may have a shot at delivering another successful culminating event to their fans.

10 Marvel Can Slow Down Its Release Schedule

One of the biggest changes that Marvel Studios enacted in the Multiverse Saga is the expansion of their production. Aside from films, Feige started creating their own TV shows for Disney+. This essentially doubled the MCU’s project output in the last few years, which means that storylines were also fast progressing. Despite the clamor for the franchise, however, Marvel Studios seems to have overdone it. The increased output made it difficult for fans, let alone the general viewing audience, to keep up with every single release. Moving forward, it’s best for Marvel Studios to slow down. There’s no need to rush its storytelling, anyway.

9 Marvel Can Refocus Movies & Shows On Its Characters

Amid exciting crossovers and big action set pieces, the MCU’s backbone has always been its characters — something that Marvel Studios appears to have overlooked in the Multiverse Saga. Instead, the focus of the projects has been on setting up more storylines forward. Character-centric stories such as WandaVision, Ms. Marvel, and James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 were all received positively thanks to their prioritization of their heroes. While it isn’t impossible to balance its storytelling between having a contained narrative and setting up the future, it’s tricky to find the perfect mix. So far, Loki is the only Multiverse Saga project that has been able to do this.

8 Marvel Can Establish A Clearer Central Storyline

The overall arc of the Infinity Saga didn’t become clear until Avengers: Age of Ultron. That being said, Marvel Studios was already setting up its culmination as early as Thor with the tease of the Infinity Gauntlet and The Avengers with the debut of Thanos. All these clues were seamlessly added to the storylines, which didn’t make them distracting. In the Multiverse Saga, however, narratives are still scattered. Instead of tackling very different storylines, Marvel Studios can start with prioritizing cohesion by doing more projects that have direct ties to the Multiverse Saga’s culmination.

7 Marvel Can Be More Creative With Its Marketing

The Infinity Saga featured some of the franchise’s most inspired promotional campaigns. Some of the most memorable ones include the bizarre but wildly entertaining “Ants” clip with Paul Rudd and Michael Douglas and America: Civil War’s “divided we stand, united we fall” tagline. Since then, however, the MCU’s promotional endeavors have been boring. Marvel Studios can rectify this by being bolder with their approach. Secret Invasion‘s secret website is a step in the right direction.

6 Marvel Can Assemble The Avengers Before The Kang Dynasty

In the Multiverse Saga, Marvel Studios changed the function of the Avengers films, saving them as Saga cappers instead of movies that simply focus on Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. This means the next Avengers installment after Avengers: Endgame won’t arrive until 2026 with Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. This puts an unnecessary burden on Destin Cretton’s film as instead of focusing on Kang the Conqueror, it also needs to assemble this new breed of Avengers. Marvel Studios can easily remedy this by establishing this new roster before any culminating project. It needs to function similarly to 2012’s The Avengers, which allows them to focus on their mission in Avengers 5.

5 Marvel Can Bring Back Its Big Missing Characters

A big reason why the Infinity Saga worked was because it had clear prominent players. Iron Man and Captain America were involved in almost every single big incident in the MCU during their time on the roster. It wasn’t a coincidence that they were also the face of the franchise in its first decade. The Multiverse Saga doesn’t have anyone like them because of how scattered its storytelling has been. Marvel can address this issue by bringing back Doctor Strange and Scarlet Witch. They are two of the most powerful heroes in the universe who have direct ties to the burgeoning multiverse, but both have been absent in the MCU for quite a while.

4 Marvel Can Fix Its CGI Problems

Despite its success, Marvel Studios has been plagued with recurring issues, including the lack of visual language. Both critics and audiences have been complaining that MCU movies and shows often look flat and dull, bar a few projects. This has become a much bigger issue in the Multiverse Saga, with recent projects having widely inconsistent CGI quality. As part of its efforts to slow down its release schedule, Marvel Studios can address this problem by giving the overworked VFX community enough time to work on their projects.

3 Marvel Can Establish Kang As A Formidable Villain Before Avengers 5

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania officially debuted Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror, who is poised to be the primary villain of the Multiverse Saga. Aside from the ongoing personal scandal that the actor is currently involved with, however, Phase 5 won’t also actively set up his bigger role in the franchise, with only Loki season 2 as his confirmed appearance. However, Marvel Studios shouldn’t wait until Avengers: The Kang Dynasty to fully set him up as a formidable villain the way they did with Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. They can do this by slowly fleshing out the antagonist before his headlining film.

2 Marvel Can Halt Team-Up Movies That Aren’t The Avengers

The lack of Avengers movies in the Multiverse Saga means that there hasn’t been any proper crossover since Avengers: Endgame. Marvel Studios attempted to make up for it by doing smaller team-up movies such as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness with Doctor Strange and Wanda and Spider-Man: No Way Home with Spider-Man and Doctor Strange. That being said, they don’t have the same impact as seeing several heroes all come together for an ensemble project. Marvel Studios can halt these kinds of films because not only do they desensitize people to crossovers, but they also don’t scratch the Avengers itch.

1 Marvel Can Address Its Bloated Production Costs

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is the highest-grossing franchise of all time. This allows Marvel Studios to have financial freedom when crafting their project, but that doesn’t mean that it should let its production cost be more than what it really needs to be. Much has been said about the bloated budgets for several Multiverse Saga projects, with Secret Invasion more notably spending a whopping $212 million for a six-episode show. For context, Warner Bros.’s billion-dollar feature, Barbie only used $145 million. Marvel Studios needs to remember that higher production value doesn’t mean better quality.