Kevin Feige Reportedly Admits MCU Feels Like ‘Homework’ as Employees Express Worry Over ‘Marvel Fatigue’

Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige reportedly spoke about a major problem with the MCU’s recent movies and TV shows. While the MCU remains the highest-grossing franchise in movie history, it hasn’t seen the same level of success as it did in the past.

Feige reportedly pointed out that the MCU has become too complicated for audiences who haven’t kept up with the story over the years.

With the Multiverse Saga introducing more releases in four years than the Infinity Saga did in 11 years, the MCU is becoming overwhelming for those who haven’t watched every project.

In response, Feige is leading an internal overhaul to simplify the MCU. He wants fewer TV shows and stand-alone stories that don’t require viewers to have an extensive knowledge of the franchise’s past.

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Feige shared with colleagues that watching all the MCU’s new movies and TV shows was starting to feel more like homework than entertainment.

This issue was partly caused by pressure from Disney, which wanted Marvel to help boost Disney+ subscribers and maintain a steady stream of connected superhero stories for the platform.

This constant push to release new content led to viewers feeling overwhelmed, and it also stretched Feige and his team thin. As a result, the quality of some recent MCU projects suffered.

To get the MCU back on track, Feige and his team are planning a major change. Starting in 2026, the MCU will release fewer projects each year, about three movies and two TV shows. Feige is focusing more on the movie side of things, especially after some recent films, like Captain America: Brave New World, didn’t do as well at the box office.

A former Marvel employee discussed how Disney’s strategy changed after the Infinity Saga. According to the source, Disney’s new approach was simply “expansion, expansion, expansion.” Feige admitted he went along with this strategy because of his desire to get new stories out and be a “good corporate citizen.“

However, this approach quickly overwhelmed the studio. Feige had to make many more decisions every day, even with multiple showrunners and executives in charge of each project. He also became harder to reach for feedback, and sometimes the feedback was irrelevant because of the tight deadlines to release shows.

In recent years, the MCU has also shifted away from being entirely interconnected. For example, Thunderbolts director Jake Schreier spoke about his discussions with Feige to make sure the movie could work for people who hadn’t seen other MCU films.

“For all of [the characters], we tried to start fresh,” Schreier said.

Starting last year, the MCU began releasing TV shows under the Marvel Spotlight banner. This initiative was meant to offer character-driven, standalone stories that didn’t require viewers to have seen previous projects to enjoy them.

 “Marvel Spotlight gives us a platform to bring more grounded, character-driven stories to the screen, and in the case of Echo, focusing on street-level stakes over larger MCU continuity. Just like comics fans didn’t need to read Avengers or Fantastic Four to enjoy a Ghost Rider Spotlight comic, our audience doesn’t need to have seen other Marvel series to understand what’s happening in Maya’s story” said Brad Winderbaum when the banner was first revealed.

The first show released under this banner was Echo. However, viewers quickly realized that wasn’t entirely the case.

Another issue emerged before the release of Deadpool & Wolverine. During the movie’s promotion, several executives claimed that it could be watched without any prior knowledge of the Fox X-Men universe.

However, the majority of the film (including many of its jokes) heavily relied on familiarity with the Fox X-Men films and characters, and in the case of Chris Evans, the movie also relied on fans knowing previous Fantastic Four films to an extent.

It remains unclear how this issue will be addressed, but simply claiming that viewers don’t need to do their “homework” doesn’t make it true.

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