Is The MCU Back?
In terms of box office, the MCU is looking to have an exciting year. As of the day of publication, Spider-Man: Brand New Day has already made $2.3 billion at the box office. While the pre-ticket sales for Avengers: Endgame: Encore and Avengers: Doomsday are fantastic! People have been asking the question, is the MCU back as there’s clearly excitement for the MCU in a way that there has not been in a while. Here are my thoughts!
Why I Don’t Like “The MCU is Back” Phrase/Question
This has kind of been this on-going debate/question for a for years now on the MCU. It feels like every time the MCU puts out something great there is this debate as to whether the MCU is back. It happened last year when back-to-back we got Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 and Thunderbolts*, and every time we get multiple MCU projects in a row that are great people say that the MCU is back. While I am a massive fan of the MCU and I do not think the MCU has quite jumped ship the way many other people think it has, I can acknowledge that the overall quality since Endgame has not been great. But I still do not think the MCU has been back since Endgame. Every time I hear the notion that the MCU is back, I always counter argue with it.
The big reason for that is whenever people say that statement, they always ignore the box office and the tv shows…
The reviews for Thunderbolts* and The Fantastic 4: First Steps were quite positive; their Rotten Tomatoes scores are both in the high ‘80s. But both underperformed at the box office, First Steps did about $150-$200 million more than Thunderbolts*, it did make $521 million at the box office while Thunderbolts* made $382 million. So, the MCU is back in terms of quality, they put out two movies that got very solid reviews. But neither one of them made a big splash at the box office, and when the MCU was at its peak every movie would get this big box office boost. In 2017 we had Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Thor Ragnarok which all made over $800 million. Black Panther and Captain Marvel each made $1 billion. And those ⅘ of those movies got positive reviews, that are still talked about as very solid MCU films almost 10 years later. You have a movie with Thunderbolts* that currently holds an 88% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it did not even make $200 million domestically. They switched the title to The New Avengers after opening weekend, which means an Avengers movie did not even make $200 million domestically. For the MCU to truly be back, they need to put out great movies that do great box office numbers. In 2025 they put out great movies that did decent or underwhelming at the box office.
The other thing that people ignore related to this are the tv shows. They ignore the overall quality and viewership of the tv shows. People were saying that the MCU was back with the triple punch of Daredevil: Born Again season 1, Thunderbolts*, and The Fantastic 4: First Steps, but in there we also got Ironheart which was not great. People just ignore the weak link in there to prove their point, but you cannot cut corners to make your point. If Ironheart comes out and it is not good, then the MCU is back because they put out a weaker project there. Even Daredevil: Born Again, which both seasons got positive reviews, the viewership for them is not great. The MCU fans watch the show, but average MCU viewers have no interest in that show. Therefore, I do not think you can say that the MCU is back if “normies” are interested in the material that you are putting out. I am not saying that every new movie or show that the MCU puts out must have record breaking numbers and get glowing reviews across the board. But there needs to be the excitement for the MCU in the mainstream stuff and the obscure stuff, that is more risks. Something like Guardians of the Galaxy was a risk back in 2014, but it was a risk that connected with people and launched multiple careers to stardom and turned these D-level characters into these fan favorite characters that got a ride at Disneyland before The Avengers did.
Is the MCU back with Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers?
The back half of 2026 has been interesting for the MCU. Where Spider-Man: Brand New Day has been absolutely killing it at the box office. As of the time of writing, the film has already made $2.3 billion at the box office and is the third highest-grossing film of all time. We are getting two different Avengers movies hitting theaters with Avengers: Endgame: Encore at the end of the month and of course Avengers: Doomsday. Both pre-sales of those movies have been good for the movies and releases that they are. Endgame is only $125 million behind Avatar, and it is looking like it could surpass it to be the highest grossing movie of all time. And then Doomsday is tracking for a $300 million domestic opening, which would make it the biggest domestic opening of all time.
With these substantial numbers, people are saying the MCU is back because the excitement for the MCU is back like it was during the Infinity Saga. As much as I would like to say the MCU is back, I do not think Brand New Day, Endgame: Encore, and Doomsday are the best examples. The reason for that is because Spider-Man and Avengers movies work on a different level. Both are event films and not traditional MCU movies in the traditional sense. People get excited for Spider-Man and Avengers movies simply because of the brand. Spider-Man is the most popular superhero and every time a new Spider-Man movie comes out it is treated as this event.
In the case of our Avengers movies, in two different senses they are nostalgia baiting. Avengers: Endgame: Encore is a re-release of the MCU’s most popular movie and a movie that everybody loved and felt was satisfying. It was an event back when it came out and they’re marketing as adding in four-minutes of new footage that ties into Avengers: Doomsday. Plus, it’s a film that no matter how many times you’ve seen, people are excited to experience Endgame on the big screen again and get to see this movie again on the big screen with a packed crowd that are just as excited as you are to see this movie. Avengers: Doomsday is more of a classic version of nostalgia baiting where we have Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, and Chris Hemsworth returning, plus the original X-Men coming back and whoever the other surprises in the movie. Most of the marketing has been as simple as “look at the cast.” The fact that Doomsday is tracking to a $300 million domestic opening, maybe even $400 million isn’t surprising because it’s doing the formula that made Spider-Man: No Way Home and Deadpool & Wolverine all make over $1 billion, it’s pulling from the past. I do not mean to sound like nostalgia baiting is necessarily a bad thing, it is not but it is what they are doing. Plus, it is the first Avengers movie in seven years. People are just excited to see a new Avengers movie on the big screen and hoping that the magic can re-capture some of the excitement and experience of watching Infinity War and Endgame on the big screen.
Final Thoughts: I saw all of this because I do not think you can say that the MCU is back. Because the movies that are hits are the obvious hits and the events, Spider-Man and Avengers. For the MCU to be back, we needed Thunderbolts* to get great reviews and make $700-$800 million. Fantastic 4: First Steps should have made much more money than it did. We need the big event films to be hits, but we also need the “smaller” films to be hits. And we need the tv shows to also be hits and get great reviews, and thus far the tv shows are not doing that. We will see in 2028 when we get X-Men, Ghost Rider, and Black Panther III and how well those movies do, and after that we can debate whether the MCU is back.
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