10 Ways Phase 3 Could Ruin The Marvel Cinematic Universe

8. It Could Become Too Unwieldy

On the other hand, expanding the universe much further could see the audience's attention span stretched to breaking point. One of the great strengths of the films over the comic books is how they've managed to synthesise decades of storylines and character development into a more palatable, easy-to-digest form than digging through literally hundreds of issues to understand Cap's deal. In the format of two-hour features instead of arcs that span dozens of issues, sometimes of multiple different comic series, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has told familiar stories in a way that's accessible to the general audience. By spreading their attention to over corners of that universe, that accessibility could be lost. Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter and (potentially) the Netflix series not counting much towards the films is annoying for the hardcore, but if you continue to expand outside the core Avengers line up then you get to the point that the main films could be completely incomprehensible to the uninitiated. Just like comics are now.