Deadpool & Wolverine isn’t the solution for the MCU’s problems

In its second weekend at the box office, Deadpool & Wolverine took in approximately $97 million… which is more than most films make in their first weekend. By the end of next weekend, it will likely pass $500 million domestic, which would make it one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s biggest hits to date. The executives at Marvel Studios and Disney are surely celebrating the film’s success, especially after Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels bombed in 2023. But if they think that Deadpool & Wolverine is the solution for all of the MCU’s problems then they are sorely mistaken.

One hit is not going to solve the issues that have plagued Marvel since 2019. There have been some huge movies that came out during that timespan, including Spider-Man: No Way Home and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, that performed like peak MCU flicks. But more often than not, there’s been a downward trend in both the quality of Marvel’s films and the response that they’ve received from the audience. Pretending that Deadpool & Wolverine fixed all of those issues isn’t going to help anyone, least of all Marvel, if the studio can’t learn from its mistakes.

To illustrate our point, we’re going to lay out our case why Deadpool & Wolverine isn’t the solution for the MCU’s problems.

Deadpool & Wolverine relied too much on star power and nostalgia

It’s worth noting that Deadpool & Wolverine has already surpassed the box office totals of the first two Deadpool films. That’s not just because of the marketing muscle of Disney and Marvel. Bringing Hugh Jackman back to play Wolverine for the first time since 2017’s Logan was a massive coup. Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool couldn’t pull in these kinds of numbers by himself. But when paired with Jackman’s Wolverine, the pairing is clearly box office gold.

Additionally, this movie has several unannounced co-starring and cameo roles from the 20th Century Fox era of X-Men and Marvel movies. The only similar situation in recent memory was 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, which united the heroes and villains from three iterations of Spider-Man films. Both times, nostalgia brought Marvel fans back into theaters in massive numbers.

The problem is that this kind of success isn’t easily replicated. After doing it once, would Deadpool & Wolverine 2 have the same impact, even if Jackman could be convinced to come back yet again? There’s only so many times that even Marvel can go back to the well without diminishing returns.

Marvel’s upcoming films lack the excitement of Deadpool & Wolverine

The next Marvel movie to hit theaters will be Captain America: Brave New World in February 2025. Anthony Mackie has largely been a supporting player in the MCU for over a decade, aside from co-headlining The Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney+. But it’s foolish to suggest that Mackie has the same kind of drawing power that Reynolds or Jackman do, and Brave New World isn’t likely to achieve the same kind of success that Deadpool & Wolverine has enjoyed.

In some ways, Marvel has been a victim of its own success. $200 million movies just can’t cut it when the films cost that much or even more in the first place. Yet even if Brave New World outperforms the first two Captain America films — the third movie, Captain America: Civil War, was essentially Avengers 2.5 and it had bigger returns than its predecessors — and lands in the $300 million domestic range, it may still be branded a failure compared to the money that Deadpool & Wolverine pulled in.

There may be too many Marvel movies in 2025

Because of the 2023 writers and actors strikes, Deadpool & Wolverine is the only MCU movie coming out in 2024. In 2025, there may be as many as four. After Brave New World in February 2025, Marvel has Thunderbolts in May 2025 and The Fantastic Four: First Steps in July 2025. The Blade reboot is still attached to its November 2025 date, but that film doesn’t seem very likely to make it. Blade doesn’t even have a director lined up at the moment.

As much fun as it is to see multiple Marvel movies in a year, dropping three films in the span of seven months is oversaturation. That’s one of the big reasons why the MCU started its downward spiral in the first place. If every movie is great, they can co-exist with each other. However, quality control remains a big issue with Marvel. Even Deadpool & Wolverine has a pretty weak plot while squeaking by on the performances of its two leads. These films don’t have the same advantage to fall back on.

There are still substandard Marvel movies coming from Sony

It’s bad enough when Marvel makes its own low-quality films. Outside of Venom, Sony’s attempts to turn Spider-Man’s villains and supporting characters into movie stars has been a disaster. Morbius and Madame Web are the kind of flops that only feed superhero fatigue, and Kraven the Hunter seems likely to get the same reception later this year.

All of those films may be produced by Sony, but they’ve got Marvel’s name on them too. Until recently, the MCU seemed immune from the same kind of backlash. But as shown by Marvel Studios’ own failures in 2023, that’s no longer the case.

DC has a chance to reestablish its own brand

It’s no secret that DC’s attempt to emulate the MCU’s interconnected films failed to live up to sky-high expectations. The Flash, which some at DC and Warner Bros. hyped up as the greatest superhero movie of all-time, was anything but. Next summer, DC is getting a fresh start with Superman, from director James Gunn, which will be out in theaters two weeks before The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was the only live-action Marvel movie of 2023 that was a hit, and now he’s exclusively making DC movies going forward in addition to being the co-CEO of DC Studios. If Gunn can get DC to consistently produce good or even great superhero films, then that may cut into Marvel’s bottom line as well.

The two rivals have released movies in close proximity to each other before, but not this close. And if audiences respond more favorably to Superman next summer, then it’s likely to impact The Fantastic Four‘s overall totals. That’s a box office battle that Marvel didn’t ask for, but the studio will still have to deal with it one way or another.

Let’s be clear: We want Marvel to be successful in theaters because the MCU has done a lot to keep theaters alive in the last 16 years. If people stop going out to see superhero films, then we’re all in trouble because no other genre has performed as well in the 21st century. Barbie, Oppenheimer, and even The Super Mario Bros. Movie were all outliers. Until Inside Out 2 exploded this summer, this year’s box office was shaping up to be a disaster.

Luckily, Deadpool & Wolverine gets to help save theaters this year. Next year, Marvel needs to figure out how to save itself. And throwing obscene amounts of money at the Russo brothers and Robert Downey Jr. isn’t going to change that when the next two Avengers movies aren’t arriving until 2026 and 2027, respectively.