Did Marvel Studios Ever Have a Plan?
Let’s look at a popular myth surrounding the successful superhero movie studio.
Four weeks ago, Captain America: Brave New World opened in theaters. In those four weeks, it has grossed 373 million dollars worldwide, placing it on the lower end of the spectrum when it comes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s box office fortunes. It’s consistent with the franchise’s hit-or-miss track record in recent years, which some have attributed to the current batch of films (the so-called Multiverse Saga) not being as carefully planned as its predecessor (the Infinity Saga). And yet, the opposite is almost certainly true.
The MCU has frequently been compared to a TV series, and it does share a core characteristic with the small screen medium as far as the ongoing storylines are concerned: per everyone involved, there is a plan, but it’s vague enough to account for any necessary adjustments along the way. In the specific case of Marvel Studios, when they first unveiled their plans to produce their own films, there was a generic notion to bring the main heroes together in an Avengers movie. But how they got there was pretty much up to the individual filmmakers: the first Captain America film, for example, went through multiple iterations in the early stages of development, not least because it wasn’t initially clear how much of the movie would be set in the past.
Even The Avengers, with which hindsight laid the foundations for the Infinity Saga, wasn’t really made with any grand designs in mind: the Tesseract (the film version of the Cosmic Cube from the comics) and Loki’s scepter were clearly not intended to be Infinity Stones (specifically, the Space Stone and the Cube are two separate objects in the source material), and Thanos’ mid-credits cameo was intended primarily to set up the cosmic side of the franchise (tentative plans for what became Guardians of the Galaxy were already in place at that point).
In fact, to give an idea of how many things needed to fall into place to lead to the ultimate outcome of Avengers: Endgame in 2019, here’s a partial list of alternate timelines – to use the franchise’s own imagery – that could have altered the films and TV shows considerably:
- Robert Downey Jr. decides to call it quits after Iron Man 3 (whose final scene was scripted and shot to account for that possibility).
- Sony Pictures decides to continue its own The Amazing Spider-Man film series and doesn’t cut a deal with Marvel to share the character.
- Kevin Feige, the producer of all the films to date, leaves the studio in 2015 due to his continued disagreements with Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter and the creative committee that informally signs off on the scripts.
- 20th Century Fox retains the rights to Daredevil past their initial expiration date in late 2012.
- Ant-Man releases in 2012 as originally planned, with Edgar Wright in the director’s chair and a markedly different script (the Quantum Realm, which played a crucial role in the resolution of the Infinity Saga, was not included in this version).
If anything, based on what’s been released so far, the Multiverse Saga was more thoroughly sketched out, at least in terms of the overarching storyline and its stakes: Kang the Conqueror (well, technically his variants, but still) and the prospect of a Multiversal War were set up in the first season of Loki, at the very beginning of Phase Four in the summer of 2021, and the intention to make Kang the next Big Bad was confirmed a year later, with the announcement of Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars. Except this time, a previously unforeseen event had a not-so-positive impact on the studio’s plans: in 2023, Kang actor Jonathan Majors was removed from the franchise due to legal issues, and the two Avengers movies were retooled (with The Kang Dynasty changed to Doomsday) to focus on Doctor Doom instead.
Basically, the main difference between the two Sagas is one had fewer production-related setbacks (in addition to the Majors situation, the Multiverse Saga also had to deal with the pandemic, the 2023 labor strikes in Hollywood and, in the case of the second Black Panther movie, the death of star Chadwick Boseman). And it’s worth remembering that, prior to Endgame essentially redeeming some of the MCU’s less appreciated moments, not all the movies in Phases 1-3 were held in the same regard. It is therefore possible Secret Wars, scheduled to release in two years’ time, will have the same effect on what we’ve seen in Phases Four and Five. And then the process will start anew in 2028, most likely…