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This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at FSU chapter.

Most Marvel fans can agree that Marvel’s projects haven’t been the same since the release of Avengers: Endgame back in 2019. Many movies and TV shows released since then have gotten bad ratings and struggled at the box office, with many fans skipping projects entirely. Without the same excitement from audiences, many people wonder what happened to the franchise. 

Marvel recently released plans to focus on putting out high-quality projects instead of focusing on quantity like they have been recently. This leaves a lot more time between release dates. However, fans have already begun to be more optimistic about the Marvel Cinematic Universe based on their more recent and successful releases. Marvel also announced plans to bring back big stars from earlier in the MCU, hoping to pull more fans back in. 

NEW RELEASES

Marvel released a schedule for their future projects, including Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts, which are both set to come out in 2025 following the slowdown to focus on quality in 2024. Marvel also teased their newest Avengers movies, Doomsday and Secret Wars, which will be released in 2026 and 2027. Critics are hopeful these upcoming movies will restore people’s faith in the Marvel franchise after they took the time to make sure these films meet audience expectations. 

Another sign that Marvel might be stepping in the right direction is the success of recent projects like Deadpool & Wolverine. The first few episodes of Agatha All Along, a spinoff of Marvel’s highly successful WandaVision, have been successful as well. Neither of these projects has reached the same level of success as Marvel’s earlier movies, like 2018’s Black Panther. However, they’ve still done better than the movies released in more recent years that have gotten lower than 70 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, like Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and Thor: Love and Thunder. Audiences have been more and more excited about the future of Marvel with these last two releases, showing the studio is heading in the right direction.

returning stars

Marvel has also been trying to make a comeback by bringing back stars from their earlier films that they know fans love. After the legal drama with actor Jonathan Majors, who’d been playing Kang the Conqueror, the franchise’s latest villain, Marvel announced that Majors would no longer be a part of the MCU. Instead, Robert Downey Jr. will be making a return to the franchise, but not to reprise his role as Iron Man. Instead, he’s taking on the role of Doctor Doom. 

Fans are both excited and concerned about RDJ’s return. Some think that this is a great move to get audiences excited about Marvel again, but others are worried the storyline will be confusing and that the studio is only capitalizing off the actor’s fame. Only time will tell whether this was a good move on Marvel’s part. 

Robert Downey Jr. isn’t the first actor they’ve brought back to the MCU. In Deadpool & Wolverine, there were quite a few cameos from past heroes, including *spoiler alert* Chris Evans, who returned as Johnny Storm from the Fantastic Four. This is also a nod to Marvel tying in the Fantastic Four storyline to their new projects and adding Doctor Doom, who appeared in the Fantastic Four comics.  

Bringing in old characters and actors from the franchise has gotten a lot of people excited about the future. However, it’s also left fans feeling skeptical that Marvel is just trying to gain more attention with big names. Either way, bringing these actors back could be key to getting audiences excited to go back to the theaters. 

can they make a comeback?

Overall, I think Marvel is trying hard to turn things around after all the disappointing reviews from the last few years. They seem to have made a lot of progress showing that they’ve been listening to the criticism fans are providing. I’m not sure they’ll ever be able to reach the same level of content that they were releasing at their peak, but I think the future is promising for Marvel fans. I’m looking forward to watching their movies in the future!

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Regan Gomersall is a Staff Writer in her third year at FSU studying Editing, Writing, and Media with a minor in Music. Outside of Her Campus, Regan has been involved in a few different ensembles with the College of Music where she plays clarinet. She is also an avid writer and enjoys listening to music, being outdoors, and reading in her spare time.