10 Ways Marvel Can Stop The MCU From DYING
3. Make More Serious Movies With Real Stakes
Further on the whole notion of stakes, the MCU has an ongoing problem with its general refusal to take itself dead-seriously.
Even in the MCU's more downcast movies, the bleak moments are typically punctuated by a quip or fit of physical comedy.
Take Thor: Love and Thunder, which tried to tackle themes of mortality and loss inside of a goofy superhero comedy and turned out to be a tonal trainwreck.
If everything's a joke, then why should the audience actually care about anything?
Captain America: The Winter Soldier is meanwhile perhaps the blueprint for a Serious Movie that also had a beating heart, strong character development, and a firm sense of place within the MCU while also not being totally miserable.
There's a sure audience appetite to see more straight-laced MCU films that aren't merely pandering to the most undemanding of viewers, who wish to uncritically guzzle down unchallenging "funny" blockbuster fare while never thinking of it again once the end credits roll.
In the right hands the upcoming Blade movie could certainly be a gritty, serious-minded movie, yet it's reasonable to expect the MCU's blandly amusing comedy to end up infesting every strand of its DNA.