Marvel’s Most Regrettable Mistakes In The MCU
'Marvel'-lous Mistakes in MCU Which Didn't Save the Day
Marvel Entertainment holds the top spot when it comes to superhero movies in Hollywood. The MCU boasts a vast roster of celebrated stars and iconic characters, ready to be deployed whenever the plot demands. Generally, MCU films rank among the highest-grossing and are almost always guaranteed hits. However, there have been times when Marvel stumbled so badly that it was completely uncharacteristic of their usual charm.
The Inhumans Fiasco
On paper, this was announced as a blockbuster movie and fans immediately thought that this was going to be the next best thing. In reality, it ended up becoming a TV-show and was rated as one of the worst TV shows in the MCU catalog. This was a total, unmitigated failure. Inhumans was meant to be Marvel's answer to Game of Thrones. Instead, due to internal power struggles (and a desire to replace the Fox-owned X-Men), it was rushed to TV, given a tiny budget, and was critically panned as an unwatchable mess. It remains the MCU's most embarrassing public failure.
Killing Quicksilver
Why would you introduce a major Avenger and just simply kill him in the same movie itself. Pietro Maximoff's death in Avengers: Age of Ultron remains one of the MCU's most baffling fumbles. It was a cheap shock-value death that failed to land, robbed Wanda of her twin brother (a core part of her character), and wasted the potential of actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson. It looked even worse when Fox's X-Men franchise was simultaneously doing a version of the same character that stole every scene he was in.
The Netflix "Snap"
This single act from Marvel was so bad that it can be considered a felony. They gave us something totally unexpected and gritty, creating a beloved, critically acclaimed, and perfectly cast street-level universe (Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage) on Netflix, only to have it all end. As Disney+ prepared to launch, the partnership with Netflix dissolved, leading to the abrupt cancellation of all the "Defenders" shows. This forced Marvel into a no-win situation: either leave these perfect castings (like Charlie Cox and Krysten Ritter) in limbo or attempt a reboot that risks alienating a fanbase that still loves the originals.
Wasting Gorr the God Butcher
Marvel didn't just waste a character, they wasted the actor that they had hired for the role. Christian Bale the "perfect" casting for this nihilistic and destructive villain yet, all Marvel did was make him a barely used side character. He was just a pinch of salt in a movie full of jokes. Taika Waititi's comedy, which worked so well in Ragnarok, was cranked up so high that it drowned out the film's "cancer" plotline and, most criminally, its villain. Gorr the God Butcher is a character with a deeply tragic and horrifying backstory, but in the film, he was a non-entity, a problem a more balanced script would have easily fixed.
The Original "Mandarin" Twist
Imagine fumbling so bad that you need literally 8 years to apologize to the fans. Mandarin was not a just a villain in the comics, he was "the" archenemesis to the Iron Man and what did the Marvel directors do with him? Took Marvel's most iconic "Iron Man" villain and turning him into a drunken, out-of-work actor named Trevor Slattery. The backlash was so immediate and intense that Marvel spent the next eight years apologizing for it. They first released a "Hail to the King" one-shot to confirm a "real" Mandarin existed, and then finally made Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings to fix the mistake.
Firing (and Re-hiring) James Gunn
This was a PR nightmare. After a targeted bad-faith campaign, Disney panicked and fired Gunn. The move was universally condemned by the cast and Hollywood, halted production on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 for years, and resulted in Gunn temporarily jumping ship to DC to make The Suicide Squad. Disney (correctly) reversed its decision, but the entire fiasco was a massive, self-inflicted wound. And now, we are seeing the major effects of this amazing decision. James Gunn's Superman has become an instant favorite and he is set to become the savior of the DC Universe characters.
The Original Hulk Recast (Edward Norton)
The Incredible Hulk is the black sheep of the MCU. Star Edward Norton, famous for his desire for creative control, clashed with the studio, and the film was a critical and commercial disappointment. The relationship was so broken that Norton was replaced by Mark Ruffalo for The Avengers. This recast broke the illusion of a perfectly planned universe and left the Hulk's solo-film potential tainted for a decade.
The "Perlmutter Era" (Delaying Diverse Heroes)
For years, Kevin Feige tried to get Black Panther and Captain Marvel made, but was blocked by Perlmutter, who famously believed female-led and Black-led superhero films would not be profitable. This internal creative war is why it took until 2018—a full decade—for the MCU to release a non-white-male-led film. Feige eventually had to go over Perlmutter's head directly to Disney to get the movies greenlit.
The War Machine Recast (Terrence Howard)
Terrence Howard was reportedly the highest-paid actor in the first Iron Man. When the sequel came around, Marvel (and a newly powerful Robert Downey Jr.) wanted to renegotiate his salary downward. Howard refused, and the studio recast the part with Don Cheadle. The move was so jarring it had to be lampshaded in Iron Man 2 ("Look, it's me, I'm here, get over it") and remains a black eye on the franchise's early days.
The Jonathan Majors / Kang Situation
This is, without question, the single biggest creative and financial regret in Marvel history. Kang the Conqueror was set up in Loki and Quantumania to be the next Thanos—the central villain for an entire phase of films. Following Jonathan Majors's legal troubles and subsequent firing, Marvel is now in an impossible position: either perform a jarring, mid-saga recast or scrap their entire multi-billion dollar storyline.
