In the summer of 2025, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige summoned a group of journalists to his office for an uncharacteristically unvarnished interview. One week before the release of The Fantastic Four: First Steps, he admitted to the press that the sprawling Marvel Cinematic Universe had started to feel like homework. “It is a no-homework-required movie,” he said of Fantastic Four. “It literally is not connected to anything we’ve made before.” In the same breath, he conceded that the MCU had taken a wrong turn in the post-Avengers: Endgame era: “For the first time ever, quantity trumped quality.”

2025 was supposed to be a year of course correction, where Marvel scaled back production (slightly) and focused on great storytelling. Feige was finally going to shake off the dust that had settled in the wake of Thanos’ snap, and retake control of the greatest cinematic franchise in Hollywood history. At least, that was the idea.

The reality was… different. While 2025 marked a slight but noticeable upswing in the quality of Marvel’s cinematic storytelling, this failed to translate into success at the box office, at least at the level the MCU was once known for. The studio's three major releases this year — Fantastic Four, Thunderbolts*, and Captain America: Brave New World — all struggled to recapture the momentum of Marvel Studios in its prime. All combined, they suggest that even, when putting its best foot forward, this once-unstoppable superhero franchise keeps releasing one embarrassing........

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