How to Revitalize the MCU

Tips to make comic book movies successful again

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is in trouble. It hit its high point with Avengers: Endgame, which made all the money. They even just gave them the ticket sales of any other movie playing at the same time because everyone agreed Avengers: Endgame deserved it all (“Thor has two hammers! This is the greatest thing in all of cinema!”).

But it’s been downhill since. They’ve run out of A-list and B-list and even C-list superheroes and are now making movies of characters like Shang-Chi — who I haven’t googled but is presumably from a Marvel comic book. And then they made a movie about the Eternals, who I’m 80% sure they just made up.

And now it’s hit its low point with Marvels. After Captain Marvel came out — Marvel’s first female-led movie — and the film was widely tolerated, Disney said, “Let’s do even more girl power!” And so they took the charisma black hole Captain Marvel and paired her with characters from Disney+ shows no one watched and spent $275 million on it. Somehow, this has led to the MCU’s lowest opening weekend ever. Marvel seems doomed (thanks, girls!).

But luckily, I am super-smart and have lots of ideas to fix things. Here you go, Disney.

Ideas to Revitalize the MCU

• Learn from recent big hits. While MCU movies have been doing poorly lately, there have been some big successes lately… namely Barbie and Oppenheimer. People are tired of superheroes, but they love toys and historical figures. So maybe take one of your heroes, like Ant-Dude or whatever, and team him up with Friedrich Hayek (I know you think scientists like Oppenheimer are where it’s at, but I have a feeling economists are the next big thing) and a robot made out of Tinker Toys. Boom! Something for everyone.

• Better villains. One of the problems since the beginning of the MCU is that many of the villains have been pretty lackluster. Initially, part of that was because they didn’t have access to the more famous villains like Dr. Doom or Magneto. They now have the movie rights to those characters, but I think they need to go for more realistic villains everyone hates: college kids. Those people are a bunch of Commies plus Nazis and would devastate the world to force everyone to pay off their student loans. Man, if we had a movie where Iron Man was tossing whiny college kids around the same way he did terrorists in his first movie, I would watch that twenty times.

• More diversity. One problem with the movies is it’s the same sort of people who are the heroes in all of these movies. Why not have diversity? There could be a Christian superhero. Or maybe a Trump-voter superhero. Or even a straight white male superhero. I know; you’re probably thinking, “No one will want to see heroes like that!” but you have to give diversity a try.

• The only codas movie. What are people’s favorite part of MCU movies? Those after-the-credits scenes which tease what is coming next. You never know what you’re going to get with those; they’re so exciting! So why not start a Marvel movie with the credits and it’s then all codas after that — scenes with cool cameos teasing all the things that we might see in movies that could quite possibly get made if you don’t go bankrupt soon.

• Take place in the 80s. The 80s are widely regarded as the pinnacle in human history, so why not a superhero movie that takes place then? You could have Captain America team up with the original Iron Man — Ronald Reagan — and a CGI Mr. T to fight the Commies. And here’s my idea for the soundtrack: 80s music. Relax; do do it.

• Forget superpowers. I think people are just tired of superpowers. Instead, give the superheroes guns. And have them wear a suit and live in a highly organized world of secret assassins. And have them out for revenge because someone killed their dog. That sounds like a good movie.

• Cut the actors’ tongues out. Actors only cause trouble when they talk outside of movies, so maybe cut their tongues out after they film their parts. I guess that might be trouble if you need them back for sequels, so maybe just put some sort of device in their mouths that locks their tongues and keeps them from talking.

• Realistic female superheroes. I think people are getting a little wary of these petite female superheroes fighting men twice their size. Couldn’t they once do a realistic movie with female superheroes where, in the final battle, they call for stronger men to come help them? That might have saved that Marvels movie.

• Finally, add those popular characters everyone loves. No, I’m not talking about the X-Men. The X-Men are dumb, and all they do is whine about how they’re discriminated against. And the best one just has claws on his hands; his powers are equivalent to a guy holding knives. Get the really popular characters: Batman and Superman. Sure, Marvel doesn’t have the rights to them, but they do have the money for extended legal battles. Just use them and say you got confused which superheroes were yours. When D.C. makes a big fuss, it’s free publicity (other than the legal costs).

• Have Punisher kill everyone. This is more for when you think you’re finally done with these stupid comic book movies for kids and want to make one final bit of cash. This was actually a comic back in the day where they just had Punisher go around and kill every single superhero (and then kill himself). Just do that as a movie — the grand finale. “Better see this movie; it’s your last chance to see any of the superheroes.” Take all the money from that and quit the movie business and maybe invest in the next big thing. People always need defense contractors.