What Next For The MCU After Avengers: Endgame?

How quickly will the X-Men change Marvel's mega-franchise?

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Marvel Comics

Has the Marvel Cinematic Universe peaked?

At the time of writing, Avengers: Endgame is a critical and commercial monster. Not only boasting a Rotten Tomatoes score of 94%, a Metacritic rating of 78 and a rare A+ CinemaScore audience rating, the Russo brothers' superhero epic is less than $70m away from toppling Avatar to become the highest-grossing movie in history.

Not only that, but Endgame also assembled one of the most star-studded casts of all time to deliver the conclusion to a narrative the studio had been building for eleven years over twenty-one previous movies. In short, it is one hell of an impressive achievement from all involved.

But where does the MCU go from here?

The pieces have been moved and the deck has been shuffled. Robert Downey Jr., for so long synonymous with the series, is gone. Chris Evans, the beating heart of the Avengers, followed suit. The core team that built the MCU from the ground up have been scattered. Those are some big shoes to fill.

Having gone from a startup production company to undisputed kings of the Hollywood blockbuster in little over a decade, it seems like Marvel Studios know what they're doing. And yet, the future of the MCU has never been as cloudy as it is right now. One thing is for certain, the next few years will be absolutely pivotal in the continued success of cinema's most lucrative franchise.

10. Looking Forward, Not Back

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Marvel Studios

By the time the end credits started rolling on Avengers: Endgame, Marvel Studios had more than kept their word that the movie would be the culmination of twenty-two movies' worth of storytelling that brought a definitive end to the Infinity Saga. It may not have been the all-encompassing total reset of the franchise that many people were expecting, but there's no denying that the events of Endgame reshuffled the deck in a huge way.

Bidding farewell to some major characters that anchored the shared universe for over a decade was definitely something that the MCU needed to freshen things up, but now Kevin Feige and company need to make sure that the focus goes squarely on the superheroes that are still around, instead of constantly making reference to the founding members of The Avengers in future movies.

Over-relying on nostalgia or callbacks and references to previous movies in a franchise is a very modern problem that has blighted many blockbusters in recent years, and is a trap the MCU can't afford to let itself fall into, regardless of the fact that its position as the biggest brand in Hollywood has become virtually unassailable.

Iron Man and Captain America were without a doubt the heart and soul of the first ten years of the MCU, but their time is over and there are plenty of other popular and marketable characters to carry the franchise into the future.

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