For a few years now, Marvel has been losing traction. Maybe not in our hearts, but definitely in the box office and on streaming services.
From 2012 to 2021, Marvel released 10 movies that grossed over one billion dollars each. This quota includes four of The Avengers movies, two of the Spiderman movies, and other titles such as Captain America: Civil War, Captain Marvel, and Black Panther.
In these nine years, Marvel largely dominated the box office. In 2012, 2018, 2019, and 2021, a Marvel movie secured the spot of the highest-grossing movie of the year. Avengers: Endgame even holds the title of the second highest-grossing film of all time.
On Disney Plus, many fans subscribe to see Marvel TV Series. Shows like Hawkeye, Wandavision, and Loki– all released in 2021- were fan favorites and received high ratings on Rotten Tomatoes.
But after the deaths of many characters in Avengers: Endgame, Marvel hasn’t had a clear cut story to build upon. With key characters in the MCU suddenly absent, Marvel has attempted to focus on smaller side characters.
Take shows like Agatha All Along or Ironheart, for example. Both shows are set to feature side characters from previous Disney Plus series. Agatha, played by Katherine Hahn, appears as a side character in the 2021 series Wandavision. Her new series is set to be released on Disney Plus on September 18th. Ironheart, played by Dominique Thorne, also appeared as a side character in the 2022 film Wakanda Forever. Her miniseries is set to debut in September of 2025. Both shows are attempts from Marvel to start expanding on newer characters, and leave the old ones behind.
Even with the promises of these new series and characters, Marvel has been faltering with its latest releases on Disney Plus. Ms. Marvel, a story that follows a New Jersey teen discovering her superpowers had the lowest 5-day viewership of any Disney Plus show, despite its high ratings. This same theme follows suit in the box office, with movies like the most recent addition to Ant-Man’s story, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. The film, released only last year, was the first movie in the MCU to lose profit post-pandemic.
“Marvel, lately, is in a cycle where they make one enjoyable product, but then they immediately follow up with something boring,” says Robin Bishop, a senior at Desert Oasis. “They did this with Wakanda Forever, where they have a story that’s keeps their audience engaged while bringing back beloved characters, and there’s a decent movie there. However, they follow up with Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania…a bland story that drags on for what feels much longer than two hours”
So, it’s been three years since Marvel released a movie that grossed over a billion dollars; the most recent being Spiderman: No Way Home. The MCU has lost a lot of its viewership on all platforms, and seems to have fallen from its peak with the supposed end of the Avengers franchise. It seemed for a while that Marvel was out of ideas, and there wasn’t much hope.
Then came some other superheroes… in 2019, Disney acquired 21st Century Fox studios in a massive merger deal. With the deal, Disney gained every movie and character obtained by Fox when Marvel made sales of rights in the 1990s including the infamous X-Men. Heroes like Wolverine, Gambit, and Deadpool, along with other previously Fox-owned characters like Blade and Elektra are the heroes that could not only save their worlds, but save the Marvel world as well.
The third installment of the Deadpool franchise, Deadpool & Wolverine, was released in theatres on July 26th, 2024. The film stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman as Deadpool and Wolverine. Dafne Keen reprised her role of Laura (or X-23) from Logan, while Jennifer Garner and Wesley Snipes made appearances as their famous X-Men characters. Channing Tatum also made a cameo, finally debuting as The Gambit after having his pervious Gambit movie cancelled during the Disney-Fox merger.
In its opening weekend, the film profited $444 million. Three weeks after its release, it surpassed $1 billion at the box office, and it’s become the highest-grossing R-rated movie ever, surpassing the record previously held by the 2019 DC film Joker.
With the movie becoming the first Marvel movie to profit over a billion dollars since 2021, many fans believe the entertainment company is finally making a comeback.
“I think this film has restored a lot of faith in fans,” says Adam Haworth, a film student at the University of Nevada Reno. “I think it also managed to do a lot of things successfully that Marvel has really struggled with lately…Marvel has a tendency to break emotional moments with badly timed jokes that ruin the beats that make a good screenplay; Deadpool & Wolverine let the audience sit in the moment and grounded the film a lot more,” he explains.
Haworth also believes that cameos have presented a big issue in recent Marvel productions, being used as a tactic to “nostalgia bait” audiences into liking a movie more. Haworth also adds that these cameos are often poorly executed and are used to compensate for an overall poor story.
“The constant cameos are a little tiring,” agrees Bishop. “A lot of them feel like their purpose is just to get people into the theater instead of adding anything to the story or future stories.”
Deadpool & Wolverine, boasts a seemingly limitless amount of cameos, with A-listers like Chris Evans appearing as Human Torch, Matthew McConaughey as Cowboy Pool, and even Blake Lively as Lady Pool. It also has smaller, more niche cameos, like Wrexham FC player Paul Mullin as Welsh Pool.
“In Deadpool & Wolverine, the cameos were done leagues better, and all existed to push the story forward and add to the world the story takes place in,” said Haworth.
With the hilarious punchlines, perfectly timed jokes, the obscure amount of cameos and pop culture references, and the billion dollars raised in the box office, it seems that Deadpool and Wolverine is ready to bring back Marvel back to life- and make it better than ever.
To add to the excitement brought to the MCU by Deadpool & Wolverine, an exciting Comic Con panel revealed that Robert Downey Jr. would be returning to the screen with Marvel- not as Iron Man- but this time as the supervillain Doctor Doom. This allows Marvel to continue with its signature plethora of cameos, and draw audiences into the theatre by bringing back an iconic actor into the franchise.
With multiple anticipated releases upcoming, including an X-Men movie, the question is, can Marvel continue the trend from Deadpool & Wolverine, and pull themselves out of the ashes? Could Robert Downey Jr’s return bring back Avengers: Endgame level numbers?
“Marvel has shown in the past few years that they’re capable of setting up interesting stories,” says Bishop, “they’re just not as capable of following through with them.”
