The MCU Needs To Stop Listening To Its Fans

thegamer.com:

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is at that odd stage in a Marvel movie’s hype cycle when it moves from theatres to streaming, and we start hearing more details about what could have been. There’s always another active Marvel thing to promote - right now it’s Ms. Marvel and Thor: Love and Thunder - so there are constant interviews and opportunities to ask about not only the movie about to come out, but the movie that just came out. With Doctor Strange, there are signs that fans could be leading Marvel off a cliff.

The MCU is the most popular media product of my lifetime. Given the fact it is in the ascendancy in the age of social media when opinions from around the world are blown up and shoved in your face, conversation around the MCU is louder than it has been for any other piece of media in history. If you wanted to know what Star Wars fans were thinking in the ‘70s and ‘80s, you had to attend conventions. To know what Marvel fans are thinking, you just need to exist.

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With the MCU considering itself a risk-averse crowd pleasing venture where sky-high profits are virtually guaranteed, it seems to be increasingly reliant on using this eternal fan forum as a focus group. Despite some cheap early victories, it needs to move on from the idea soon.

In a recent interview with The Direct, MoM director Sam Raimi shared Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige's thoughts on John Krasinski’s appearance as Reed Richards in Doctor Strange. “Because this is an alternate universe, Kevin said, ‘Let’s make that dream come true’," is the quote that has had the most discussion. The alternate universe surprises me, because all other characters are