A few years ago, Marvel Studios seemed to be a powerful and dominating force in the entertainment industry. Now, we may see the work of this beloved studio come to an end in terms of quality. Following the release of “Avengers: Endgame” in April 2019, which was rated 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and made a whopping 1.223 billion dollars on opening weekend, movie goers thought there was nothing Marvel could do wrong. 

But the movie “Eternals” marked a decline of quality for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, getting a rating of only 47% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and costing 52 million dollars in the production process. But this was just the begining. Marvel had another hit with “Spider Man: No Way Home” making 1.916 billion dollars, and earning the title of highest grossing Spider-Man movie ever, but these good times would not last. “Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantimania” only made a profit of 30 million dollars, and Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness” made a profit of 183.4 million dollars, but cost an estimated 100 million more to make than expected. 

Marvel seemed to make a financial comeback with “Guardians of the Galaxy 3” making 844.86 million dollars at the box office, and a score of 82%from critics on rotten tomatoes. But, the release of the most recent movie “The Marvels” made only 47 million dollars domestically on opening weekend, the worst opening in Marvel history.

So why is this happening? Why is Marvel Studios losing so much money? There are a few reasons. First of all, Disney, the company that owns Marvel created a streaming service called Disney Plus to compete with streaming giants like Netflix in 2019.This, according to Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, requires Disney to consistently pump out new content to keep its viewers entertained. This creates a system in which industry executives value quantity over quality and force movies into theaters faster than normally.

COVID-19 has also been a big influence on the company, forcing Marvel to halt productions and postpone releases. The halting of production imposed a high toll on the company. This also contributed to the loss of quality and thus profits.

Marvel Studios is a big company that will likely not go away any time soon. What is happening will not be the end of it. But the ramifications of this decrease of quality could spell the end of a golden age of Marvel, with the cinematic universe we all know and love becoming less and less like quality entertainment. It seems that 2019 really was the endgame for the best era of the Marvel cinematic universe.