MCU fans used to get two feature films in a single year. That was an easy load to bear and keep track of. Now a single MCU show can take up twice as much time all by itself. That giant time commitment can make viewers feel like they have to watch everything if they want to understand anything. That’s an easy way to lose exhausted fans. So Kevin Feige is trying to eliminate that pressure with a major rebrand. Marvel will now call its live-action Disney+ shows Marvel Television. And MCU cartoons like X-Men ‘97 will instead go by Marvel Animation.
In news we first saw at Variety, the iconic Marvel Studios logo will not appear, for the first time ever with an MCU release, in the opening credits of Agatha All Along when it debuts in September. This rebrand is Marvel Studios’ way of letting viewers know they don’t have to watch every single release, including its TV shows. The days of complete MCU interconnectedness is over.
This rebrand is also meant to alert fans that they might be getting a story with a very different type of tone that they’re used to. That way they can only watch what they want without thinking they’re missing out.
That’s a far cry from the serialization formula that helped make the MCU the world’s biggest franchise. But that doesn’t mean this is a mistake. Only time, and viewerships numbers, will tell us if it is.
