Marvel Studios is admitting the Multiverse Saga's failure with a major decision surrounding Avengers: Doomsday. The next giant crossover film, directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, reaches theaters on December 18, with Robert Downey Jr. back in the franchise as the villain Victor von Doom, better known as Doctor Doom. The Russos already steered Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, the two films that closed out the Infinity Saga and pulled in close to $5 billion between them. Now they face a tougher job, following a long run of movies and Disney+ shows that struggled to hold the audience Marvel once took for granted.
The Russo brothers, speaking at a recent SXSW London session (via The Hollywood Reporter), opened up about their plans for Avengers: Doomsday, with Joe Russo stating that the film will take the Marvel Cinematic Universe back to what he called "phase zero." He described the film as a clean start that refuses to lean on "anything from the past" several years:
"We were both talking about this concept that we are back to phase zero. This is starting over from scratch. We want to make sure everybody feels like this isn’t leaning on anything from the past.”
The comment works as a blunt admission that the Multiverse Saga, the stretch of MCU films and series that were released after Avengers: Endgame, was a failure. The Russos treating Doomsday as a reset feels like they want to distance themselves from the MCU's most problematic stretch and provide a simpler entry point for the casual viewers who tuned out somewhere along the way.
The logic here is basically that a new viewer should be able to buy a ticket for Doomsday without first catching up on years of films and a stack of Disney+ series.
The Multiverse Saga Struggled To Win Over Fans
Looking back at the box office numbers for the Multiverse Saga's films is enough proof of its failure. The Marvels ended its run at roughly $206 million worldwide, the lowest total in Marvel Cinematic Universe history. Captain America: Brave New World fared a little better yet still disappointed, closing at about $415 million against a budget north of $180 million before marketing costs.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania crossed $476 million but collapsed by roughly 70 percent in its second weekend. Then there's Eternals, which became the first MCU film to earn a "Rotten" score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Even the films that critics praised could not reverse the slide. Thunderbolts, widely seen as one of the stronger recent entries, stalled at around $382 million worldwide, well short of what a movie carrying the Marvel name once guaranteed. Thunderbolts was a pretty strong indication that audiences were rapidly drifting away from the Marvel brand itself.
Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige even admitted the Multiverse Saga had issues, conceding that Marvel Studios "expanded too much". The studio released more than 127 hours of film and television in the six years after Endgame, more than twice its output across the previous 12 years.
Is Avengers: Doomsday Starting From Scratch a Good Direction?
The reset strategy makes sense on paper, because the saga’s worst wound was self-inflicted. The Marvels did not flop necessarily because audiences hated Carol Danvers. It flopped in part because Marvel chained it to a Disney+ series, Ms. Marvel, that most ticket buyers never watched. Distancing its biggest crossover from the baggage associated with Phases 4, 5, and 6 is a smart play that could easily draw even non-Marvel fans in.
The issue here, however, is that "phase zero" could turn out to be a mere slogan rather than a real reset. Doomsday still relies heavily on Robert Downey Jr.’s history with the franchise and a roster stuffed with returning heroes, so the movie can’t pretend nearly two decades of stories never happened. If the plot still expects viewers to recognize a dozen characters and their backstories, the fresh start falls apart on contact.
The smarter takeaway, though, is that Marvel Studios is not erasing its history so much as lowering the price of admission. Doomsday can still reward longtime fans while opening the door wide for everyone else, striking the same balance that Spider-Man: No Way Home and Deadpool & Wolverine did during this same rocky era. If the Russos deliver a story that stands on its own, the reset becomes the franchise’s strongest argument that the worst of the Multiverse Saga is behind it. If they fall short, though, this "phase zero" mantra will join a long list of promises the MCU made but sadly could not keep.
Geraldo Amartey is a writer at The Direct. He joined the team in 2025, bringing with him four years of experience covering entertainment news, pop culture, and fan-favorite franchises for sites like YEN, Briefly and Tuko.
