10 things Marvel needs to do to save the MCU

6. Be more sensible when it comes to budgets

While there has been a decline in box office performances of recent Marvel movies, those movies are still among the highest-grossing of the year. Sure, the numbers aren't as high as they once were, but to say there is no longer a demand for these types of movies when they're producing box office totals of anywhere between $500 million and $200 million would be uninformed. Heck, when they get it right, like they did with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 for example, it can still result in jaw-dropping successes like $800 million.

So yes, there is still a clear demand for Marvel projects, meaning that there is still plenty of life left in the MCU. Now it's all about how to make that life successful, and one easy way of doing that would be to lower the budgets.

Looking at the underperformance of The Marvels, there are some things that can be learned here. The movie, like most MCU projects, had a huge budget somewhere between $200 and $300 million. That's an awful lot to spend on a movie that didn't offer as much to the overall MCU story. Now don't get me wrong, The Marvels was a delight, but it wasn't exactly renowned for its incredible special effects - which is likely where most of the budget went.

Similarly, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was seen as an underperformer simply because of its huge budget. The two previous Ant-Man movies cost less to make and, because they didn't rely so much on special effects, they were more enjoyable all around. Granted, they made more money than the third, but even then, Quantumania's earnings would have been less of a disappointment if its budget wasn't so high.

If Marvel Studios goes back to the drawing board and finds unique ways of lowering budgets, particularly for experimental projects like The Marvels (which focused on two newer MCU heroes), then they stand a better chance of being success stories when their box office runs come to an end. And on that note, Disney Plus' Secret Invasion did not need a $200 million budget either.