In 2023, Marvel Studios took a year off from the hype house that geeks built, San Diego Comic-Con. And so did everyone else: Between writers’ and actors’ strikes and general production delays everywhere, Hollywood didn’t have much to show at SDCC last year, and the actors and writers who would normally be the centerpiece of every presentation were busy on the picket lines.
In 2024, Marvel Studios is back in Hall Hwith big plans on the horizon – the biggest in the five years since the release of Avengers: EndgameThough it comes after half a decade of erosion in the MCU’s cultural dominance, can Marvel reclaim its status as cinema’s biggest hype machine? You bet your bottom dollar, and here’s how.
Marvel, the company
A Marvel Studios Hall H panel is a brand presentation dressed up like a concert event. It’s a cynical and unsexy thing to say, but the gist of it is that Marvel needs to look like it’s going to make shareholders a ton of money between now and the next San Diego Comic-Con. After a string of disappointments at the Marvel box office, from Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Unpleasant Eternalsthat is no guarantee.
Marvel comes from its worst box office grosses ever for a mainline MCU film, and the conviction on assault and harassment charges of the current phase’s cornerstone actor. And then there’s the general Hollywood woes — inflation, macroeconomic uncertainty, the slow recovery of the theater industry after 2020.
Of the four MCU films scheduled for 2025, one has been extensively reshot and rewritten; another is in pre-production limbo since its announcement in 2019; one is a low-buzz villain movie; and one is a tantalizing potential fresh start, but based on a franchise associated with three iterations of Hollywood flops. The promised 2026 return of an Avengers-style team-up movie looks rockier than any of them, after stripped of his title and rid of its villain.
The first thing Marvel needs to do is show that it is a movie studio with a confident and competent plan, one that responds to events beyond its control.
Marvel, the franchise
Second, the plan must give the impression that it tells an interesting story.
After the upheaval of the pandemic and strike delays, declining streaming revenue, and the MCU’s first (unforced) year-long hiatus, what does the shape of the MCU look like? narrative? Are we going to recast Kang, to try to make fetch happen again? Are we going to go to Doom? What’s the new name of the russos Avengers 5Where is this all going?
The Infinity Stones were an irresistible source of speculation and investigation for fans, and a set of MacGuffins that fit into almost any traditionally structured scenario. It would be difficult for anything that followed to recapture their usefulness as an interconnected cinematic storytelling device – but if the post-Endgame MCU has proven one thing: Kang wasn’t the one.
The time-traveling man and his literal infinity of disconnected multiversal identities flopped as connective tissue and failed as a tangible threat. So is Marvel picking up the pieces and putting them back together? Or is it pivoting? If the company wants to lure anyone beyond the dwindling ranks of MCU diehards, it needs to bring the answers to these questions to Hall H.
Marvel, the creative studio
Marvel’s last five years of output have been defined by a marked decline in quality from a studio once known for improbably consistent output. There was a time when an MCU project was reliably a solid good time in the movies – if not a masterpiece, then never a complete failure.
There were early signs that change was coming Eternalsbut the one from 2023 Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was barely a finished film. The miracles arrived heavily scarred from the re-editing. And Secret Invasion…well, who remembers that? Secret InvasionMarvel Studios spent 2023 with flops, and 2024 was quiet.
If the studio wants to regain the attention of everyone outside the hallowed walls of Hall H, unveiling a new slate of titles and dangling a new Avengers storyline won’t be enough. Marvel needs to show that there’s still creative life in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Is the MCU still a place where filmmakers have the space to bring their own vision to the screen, And the studio support to do it right? Is it the company that had room for James Gunn and John Watts to make their mark on the Guardians of the Galaxy and Spider-Man trilogies? Or is it the company that spent four years trying to find someone to Sheet? The company where “fix it in post” is synonymous with a visual effects studio that collapses, burns out, and goes bankrupt? Is it a place where Black Panther: Wakanda Forever‘s deeply meaningful tribute to Chadwick Boseman is hemmed in on all sides by franchise considerations? Where the comedy niche of an Ant-Man movie is sacrificed on the altar of Kang? Where a charming little story like The miracles is made incomprehensible in the editing?
Even Marvel’s money-making machine needs to show it cares about getting great movies out to audiences, because the studio’s competitors are coming down hard. 2025 marks the beginning of Warner Bros.’ new, purposefully untethered DC Comics franchise, helmed by none other than James Gunn, director of Marvel’s only undeniable success of 2023.
Marvel Studios isn’t down for the count — there are way too many smart people in the halls. But will those smart people make it to the stage? Either way, the future of the MCU begins this Saturday in Hall H.