The Marvel franchise has been the reason I still go to the movies lately. Marvel is such a recognizable brand, and I know about their releases before most other movies nowadays.
The main difference between “The Infinity Saga” and the “Multiverse Saga” has been that fans have been able to catch content, as streaming old films and new series has become more popular than buying a ticket to the theater. But as the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) transitions into “Phase Six,” there seems to be lots of uncharted territory in which Disney and Marvel hope to make more money at the box office.
The MCU began the year with the release of “Captain America: Brave New World” this past February. According to “Cinema Blend,” the film grossed $88.5 million the first weekend, keeping the streak alive for MCU movies to win at the box office. However, this result is a giant disappointment for Marvel as a whole as this Captain America film did not live up to the hype compared to other films, which garnered over $200 million opening weekend.
Since the last Avengers movie, the biggest box office successes in the last few years were, 2021’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home” grossing $600 million ($260 million opening weekend) and 2024’s “Deadpool & Wolverine” grossing over $500 million ($211 million opening weekend), according to “The Direct.” It has been hard to top the box office production for Marvel movies since the COVID-19 pandemic. It also has to do with Marvel fans recognizing that the film will eventually go on Disney+, the streaming hub for all things Marvel. Given the fact that the Spider-Man movie franchise is owned by Columbia Pictures, which is not an entity of Disney, people had to see the series in theatres, not knowing when the movies would end up on streaming.
Recently, “Daredevil: Born Again” was released on the streaming service on Mar. 4. Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) navigates the streets of New York City, balancing crime fighting as Daredevil with his daily life working in Hell’s Kitchen as an attorney at law. Cox previously made appearances in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law,” so a series all about his alter ego was inevitable and finally came out. Since the MCU started making series’ to stream exclusively on Disney+ in 2021, lots of the content was built to be watched from home, along with never-before-seen footage.
This summer will see the release of two more films, “The Thunderbolts” and “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.” “The Thunderbolts” is set to be the next release on May 2, while “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” will launch in theatres on July 25. The story of “The Thunderbolts” revolves around the question, “Where have the Avengers gone?”
Since many of the well-known Marvel superheroes disappeared during the blip in the last Avengers movies, trials started to happen, which are supposed to answer whether or not they still exist. Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) embraces life as the new Black Widow leading this team of antiheroes working for the US government, while Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), is on the outside looking in, seeming to track the antiheroes down. This film will be followed up the events of the last Black Widow movie from 2021.
But there is some reason to be excited as Marvel released “The Avengers: Doomsday” which has just started production and is currently filming. They revealed on social media the actors’ chairs of all the actors which will star in the new Avengers movie. This MCU extravaganza comes out in May 2026, so that gives so much yet so little time for character development between the heroes and villains in the upcoming films and series until then. Some of the cast of superheroes already announced are Captain America (Anthony Mackie), Black Panther (Letitia Wright), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Ant Man (Paul Rudd), Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) and even “The Fantastic Four.”
The Marvel franchise has even expanded to include some “Stranger Things” favorites, including Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn, Eddie Munson) from “The Fantastic Four” and Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (David Harbour, Jim Hopper) from “The Thunderbolts.” They are all rocking and rolling after a social media teaser came out at the start of filming. There has already been a change in the antagonist from “The Kang Dynasty,” as Jonathan Majors is no longer working on the films, to Doctor Doom to be played by Robert Downey Jr., who played Iron Man which was revealed at the San Diego Comic Con last summer.
Marvel clearly is entering an era which is uncharted and I’m wondering if the upcoming Avengers movie will make as much at the box office as the highest grossing films of the previous decade. These were some of the first movies I saw when I was younger, so now that I am older, it’s different seeing new actors come and go throughout the franchise. Hopefully this summer Marvel brings enough energy to these new releases to get Marvel fans excited for the upcoming cinematic releases.
