Marvel Revealed Their Most Problematic Line-Up 7 Years Ago, Including The MCU’s First Box Office Failure & A Movie That Still Isn’t Out

While every Phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been met with some combination of trepidation and excitement, the most unambiguously disastrous slate in the history of Marvel Studios was revealed in July 2019. If the box office failure of Disney’s live-action Moana remake proves anything, it is that no franchise is truly too big to fail. From Star Wars movies to Disney’s spate of live-action remakes of animated classics, there is no end of profitable projects that seemed destined to last forever until they weren’t.

Maybe one of the most notable instances of this phenomenon comes from what remains one of the biggest franchises in cinema history, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The franchise requires no introduction, but it can be helpful to cast your mind back to 2008 and the release of Iron Man to recall just how humble the beginning of this comic book franchise really was. By 2019, a series that started with one $150 million hit had turned into a sprawling, three-Phase saga of 23 movies. Marvel seemed too big to fail, and that’s when July 2019’s Phase 4 announced the impending arrival of Blade and Eternals, among others.

Marvel Announced Phase 4 In July 2019

To be clear, there were many more movies in the first phase of the Multiverse saga than just Blade and Eternals. Black Widow was also announced as part of Phase 4, as was 2022’s Thor: Love and Thunder, the same year’s long-awaited sequel Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Phase 4’s final outing Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Of these movies, Black Widow underperformed at the box office, but this could largely be blamed on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, while Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was an unambiguous commercial and critical success.

However, considering all the excitement around Marvel Studios’ legendary Phase 4 presentation, it is astounding to look back on just how many of these projects failed. Not only was Eternals a box office disappointment, but the movie was hated by critics and considered one of the first major failures of the franchise. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was a critical success that fared better at the box office, but 2022’s Thor: Love and Thunder received the worst reviews of any movie in star Chris Hemsworth’s saga so far.

One Movie From Marvel’s Phase 4 Announcement Still Hasn’t Happened In 2026

Although 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home was both a gigantic box office success and a huge critical hit, 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness disappointed many critics who hoped to see The Evil Dead franchise creator Sam Raimi inject some of his signature verve and lunacy into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, playing it safe was not the biggest problem with Phase 4’s projects, as one of the movies announced back in 2019 simply never even happened in the years that followed.

While Marvel Studios announced a Blade reboot starring Mahershala Ali in 2019, the movie never materialised amid a string of behind-the-scenes delays, problems, and setbacks. Directors Bassam Tariq and Yann Demange both left the project in the years since, while scripts by writers like Stacy Osei-Kuffour, Nic Pizzolatto, Eric Pearson, Ben Sokolowski, and X-Men ’97’s Beau DeMayo have all been rewritten, revised, and replaced since the movie was first announced. At this stage, it is unclear whether the final Marvel Studios movie announced as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2019 will ever see the light of day.