Several recent Marvel movies flopped both critically and commercially, raising concerns about the future of the MCU. Once a near-guaranteed box office powerhouse, the MCU has experienced a string of disappointments that suggest something deeper than franchise fatigue.
From Eternals and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania to The Marvels, these projects failed to connect with audiences on a core emotional level. Pedro Pascal, who plays Reed Richards in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, touched on this in a recent interview with Reuters, saying, "It's about family. It's about caring for humankind. It's about protecting human innocence and knowing that you can't do it alone. We can only do it together."
The actor's emphasis on family and unity might seem like standard superhero movie marketing speak, but his words actually highlight the secret ingredient that Marvel's biggest flops have been missing.
While Marvel Studios has always excelled at spectacle and action, their most successful films have one thing in common: they understand that superhero stories work best when they're fundamentally about family bonds, whether biological or chosen.
The Family Formula That Built Marvel's Success
The original Avengers film didn't work because of its impressive action sequences or star power alone. It succeeded because it created a dysfunctional family dynamic between its heroes, complete with sibling rivalry, parental figures, and the ultimate lesson that they're stronger together than apart. This formula has been the backbone of Marvel's greatest successes.
Guardians of the Galaxy transformed a group of unknown comic book characters into beloved icons by centering their story around a found family. While the film wasn't free from criticism, its emotional core came from watching these misfits learn to care for each other, culminating in the powerful moment when they literally hold hands to save the universe.
Black Panther grounded its Wakandan mythology in family legacy and responsibility, while Spider-Man: No Way Home brought together three generations of Spider-Men to create a multiverse-spanning story about mentorship and brotherhood. Even Iron Man worked because it was ultimately about Tony Stark learning to be part of something bigger than himself.
However, not all the films followed that formula well. Here are the ones that failed.
Eternals - Too Many Characters, No Family Chemistry
Eternals should have been Marvel's easiest family story to tell. The film literally featured immortal beings who had lived together for thousands of years, with some characters being romantically involved and others sharing mentor-student relationships.
Yet despite this built-in family structure, the film failed to create any meaningful emotional connections between its characters.
The problem wasn't the ambitious scope or complex mythology, but rather the film's inability to make audiences care about these relationships. With 10 main characters competing for screen time, none of their bonds felt genuine or lived-in. The film told viewers these characters were family but never showed why that mattered.
Director Chloé Zhao's approach prioritized philosophical themes and visual grandeur over character development. While the film looked stunning and tackled weighty concepts, it forgot that Marvel's audience comes for the characters first, spectacle second.
Thor: Love and Thunder - Lost Family Magic
Thor: Ragnarok succeeded by stripping away the pompous mythology and focusing on the dysfunctional relationship between Thor and Loki, while building a found family with Hulk and Valkyrie. The film's emotional stakes came from Thor learning to be a better brother and king, not from the destruction of Asgard itself.
Thor: Love and Thunder abandoned this approach entirely. Despite featuring Jane Foster's cancer storyline and Thor's relationship with his ex-girlfriend, the film treated these potentially powerful emotional beats as comedy fodder. The movie was so focused on being funny that it forgot to be emotionally resonant.
The film's treatment of Gorr the God Butcher exemplifies this problem. Christian Bale delivered a compelling performance as a father driven to extremes by the loss of his daughter, but the film never properly explored how his grief connected to Thor's own family struggles. What should have been a story about different types of fathers and their relationships with their children became a shallow spectacle.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania - Abandoning the Family Core
The first two Ant-Man films succeeded because they were fundamentally family stories. Scott Lang's motivation was always about being a good father to Cassie, while Hank Pym's relationship with Hope provided emotional depth. These films understood that shrinking powers and quantum realms were just window dressing for stories about parenthood and legacy.
Quantumania abandoned this family-centric approach in favor of multiverse building and an introduction to Kang. While the film paid lip service to Scott's relationship with Cassie, their father-daughter dynamic felt forced and artificial.
The film's version of Cassie Lang exemplified this problem. Instead of the grounded teenager from previous films, she became a generic young activist whose rebellious streak felt disconnected from her established character. Her relationship with Scott lacked the authentic father-daughter chemistry that made the previous films work.
The Marvels - Three Heroes, No Connection
The Marvels brought together three powerful female heroes but failed to create meaningful connections between them (read about Brie Larson's response to The Marvels' reception). Carol Danvers, Kamala Khan, and Monica Rambeau were essentially strangers thrown together by plot mechanics rather than characters who naturally complemented each other.
The film's body-switching premise should have been a perfect vehicle for character development, forcing these heroes to understand each other's perspectives and challenges. Instead, it became a source of physical comedy that rarely translated into emotional growth. The lack of genuine chemistry between the leads made their eventual teamwork feel unearned.
Kamala Khan's hero worship of Captain Marvel could have provided the emotional foundation for their relationship, but the film never properly explored what it means to meet your idol or how mentorship works.
The Success Stories: When Marvel Gets Family Right
Marvel's recent successes prove that the family formula still works when properly executed. Spider-Man: No Way Home brought together three generations of Spider-Men and created genuine emotional moments through their shared experiences and mutual mentorship. The film's massive success wasn't just about nostalgia but about authentic character connections.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 served as a masterclass in family dynamics, bringing the team's emotional journey full circle while introducing new characters who fit naturally into their found family structure. The film's emotional impact came from watching these characters grow and change together over multiple films.
Even Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, despite dealing with the real-world loss of Chadwick Boseman, managed to create powerful family moments by focusing on grief, legacy, and how communities heal together. It treated its characters as real people dealing with loss rather than just superhero archetypes.
The Path Forward for Superhero Stories
Marvel's early success came from understanding that superhero stories are fundamentally about people, not powers. The studio's recent struggles suggest they've lost sight of this fundamental truth, becoming distracted by multiverse-building and franchise management at the expense of character development.
However, Pedro Pascal's emphasis on family and unity in The Fantastic Four: First Steps suggests that Marvel Studios recognizes the need to return to its emotional roots.
The Fantastic Four are Marvel's "first family" in comic book lore (read about the official team members here), making them the perfect vehicle for demonstrating that the studio hasn't forgotten what makes superhero stories work.
Pascal's experience with family dynamics in The Last of Us and The Mandalorian makes him an ideal choice to lead Marvel's return to form. His understanding of how to create authentic emotional connections within fantastic circumstances could be exactly what the MCU needs to reclaim its throne.
The success of The Fantastic Four: First Steps could signal Marvel's redemption story, proving that even the most powerful superhero universe can find its way home by remembering that true strength comes from the bonds we forge with others.
In an increasingly divided world, the message that "we can only do it together" might be exactly what audiences need to hear.
