The MCU's Masterplan Is A Myth: How Marvel Really Plans Its Future
The MCU's masterplan is a myth. In 2008, Marvel Studios gambled the house on a new shared universe model. Nobody was entirely sure how things were going to pan out, as the new studio's ambition dwarfed anything seen before in Hollywood. But the MCU's success story was sealed in 2012, when The Avengers—the crown of Phase 1—grossed over $1.5 billion in the global box office. Since then, Marvel's mystique has grown with every year.
It's now commonplace to hear fans discuss Marvel's so-called «masterplan». The general assumption appears to be that the MCU is fully planned out years into the future, with everything from upcoming movies to major character arcs decided years in advance. Every scene in the latest Marvel movie or Disney+ TV show is combed through in the hopes of spotting Easter eggs that point the way to the franchise's future. It's easy to see how this idea has taken hold; after all, 2010's Iron Man 2 featured a SHIELD hotspot map that hinted at Wakanda, eventually introduced five years later in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and potentially Atlantis, which is expected to debut 12 years later in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Related: MCU Phase 4 Is Delivering On Canceled Marvel Plans From 2004
While this view of the MCU is fully understandable, it's also completely wrong. Like any film franchise, the MCU exists in the context of an ever-changing popular culture, and producers, directors, writers and production teams need to have the freedom to react to changes in that context. The reality is very different — and, frankly, far more impressive.
It's not hard to see why many viewers assume Marvel Studios has a detailed long-term plan. There's a sense in which the entire MCU was born from Iron Man's post-credits, which
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