For years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe thrived on the idea that every movie mattered to a larger whole. Miss one chapter, and you risk being lost by the time the next Avengers movie event hits theaters. That approach once felt exciting and ambitious but, lately, the interconnectivity of every MCU movie has started to feel more like homework. With Marvel heading into a make-or-break stretch, one analyst has argued Marvel needs to make a bold shift and, honestly, it’s hard to disagree.
That argument came up in a recent industry deep dive published by The Wrap, which examined why the 2026 movie schedule could either stabilize the MCU or push it further into trouble. In the piece, analyst Dave Gonzales pointed to the franchise’s lingering issue of relentless commitment to interconnectivity. According to him, Marvel might be better off letting go of that burden altogether. He says:
Let the DCU … deal with that. Let James (Gunn) go and have that headache, since he seems to kind of enjoy it, and move back to embracing what makes each character interesting to you and to the audience. I think there’s a lot of interesting places you could go with that because the Marvel Universe is vast.
Gonzales' analysis addresses a core frustration some fans have been voicing since the Multiverse Saga kicked off. Instead of standalone stories with clear emotional arcs, many MCU projects have felt like puzzle pieces designed to set up something else. You don’t just watch a movie anymore, but you are expected to track timelines, variants, and post-credit easter eggs that may not pay off for years–if ever.
Ironically, this obsession with everything connecting is part of what made the early MCU work. But, back then, the connections were light seasoning, not the main course. You could watch Iron Man, Thor, or Captain America without needing a flowchart, and the shared universe was a nice little bonus.
Even Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige has acknowledged that the studio released too much content too quickly, especially on its streaming platform, hoping fans would pick up a Disney+ subscription. Overexpansion diluted the sense of event filmmaking and made casual fans feel locked out. When every story is tied to three others, none of them gets room to breathe.
What Gonzales is really suggesting isn’t that Marvel abandon its universe, but that it stop treating every project like a chapter in a never-ending saga. Let a Doctor Strange movie be weird and self-contained and a street-level hero story exist without multiversal consequences. What is essential is for the studio to take the time to give individual characters compelling stories again. Put character first.
Meanwhile, the newly launched DCU under James Gunn seems more willing to embrace that chaos of connectivity, at least for now. If Gunn enjoys juggling that complexity, fine. Marvel doesn’t need to compete on the same battlefield anymore. Besides, they laid the groundwork, showed how it's done, and can now go on to other bigger and better things. Focus on what is best for their brand.
If Marvel wants to rebuild trust and momentum, dialing back the constant interconnectivity could be less a retreat and more the creative reset the franchise needs. That said, the immediate future of the MCU is still firmly linked, with the upcoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day feeding directly into the next major crossover, Avengers: Doomsday.
