The Marvels opened this month with the lowest box-office numbers of any of the 33 movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While that obviously isn’t good news for Marvel Studios, it’s not as if its producers suddenly forgot how to make entertaining movies: audiences will likely show up again, especially when an MCU movie has “Avengers” or “X-Men” in the title.
It does mark the end of an era of unquestioned dominance–and because Marvel has set the pace for Hollywood for the past 15 years, its current situation helps illuminate Hollywood’s future trajectory.
