The MCU has been teetering on the brink of disaster, if not downright flirting with it stubbornly, since after Avengers: Endgame and the introduction of the multiverse, but according to the fans, its reckoning is coming sooner than anyone anticipated.
If you look at the legacy of Phase Four and the majority of the ongoing Phase Five, all you see is a series of half-baked projects that barely made it out of the box office movie grinder alive. Black Widow, Shang-Chi, Eternals, Thor: Love and Thunder, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and the third Ant-Man all received mixed reactions and failed to resurrect the MCU’s glory days for the House of Ideas.
The Marvels failed to break even and ended up losing the studio money, so despite Deadpool & Wolverine offering much-needed relief to Kevin Feige’s post-Endgame efforts to keep this cinematic ship floating, it wasn’t the be-all and end-all flick as far as the future of the MCU is concerned. If anything, the Deadpool threequel grossing a whopping $1.3 billion at the box office is more a testament to the power of Reynolds’ Regenerating Degenerate and the hype factor of Hugh Jackman returning as Logan than anything Marvel Studios itself could’ve conjured up in the meantime.
So, if Deadpool & Wolverine was a singular outing and in no way a hint that the MCU is finally pulling itself together, then where next can we expect that deliverance or doom to arrive?
Why, the next movie in the line-up, of course, which just so happens to be the fourth Captain America installment, spearheaded by none other than Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson. Captain America: Brave New World is the next MCU movie, slated for release in February 2025, and according to the sentiment echoed by fans on social media, this will be the movie that determines the prospects of the MCU.
Barring Iron Man, the Captain America offshoot has always been a cornerstone of the MCU. The first movie was decent enough, but The Winter Soldier and Civil War were profoundly developmental for the cinematic universe, not to mention a spectacle of epic proportions. Will the fourth film capture that magic again, or will this go down as another failed MCU project post-Endgame?
If we’re being honest, of course, Marvel isn’t counting on Brave New World to curb its decline. That critical task is going to Robert Downey Jr., who is returning to the fictional world as the villainous Dr. Victor von Doom. Everything about that announcement screams a last-ditch attempt to correct the course, so don’t be surprised if Brave New World turns out to be another underwhelming and lackluster entry.