[Endgame?] Hollywood’s franchise fatigue: Are we witnessing the end of the cinematic universe?

Just a few years ago, the cinematic universe was Hollywood’s undisputed king. With Marvel’s Avengers assembling to shatter box office records, every studio scrambled to build their own interconnected world of sequels, prequels, and spin-offs. It was a seemingly infinite money-making machine, a formula for guaranteed success. But the landscape is shifting. Recent blockbusters, once considered sure-fire hits, are stumbling. Audiences, once ravenous for any morsel of interconnected lore, now seem tired and overwhelmed. Is this just a temporary slump, or are we witnessing the final act for the cinematic universe as we know it? The once-unbeatable model is showing cracks, and the question on everyone’s mind is whether it can be saved.

From iron man to inevitability: The golden age of the connected universe

The concept of a shared universe wasn’t new, but it was the 2008 release of Iron Man and its post-credits scene that lit the fuse for a cinematic explosion. Marvel Studios embarked on an audacious, multi-film experiment that culminated in 2012’s The Avengers. The success was staggering. It proved that audiences were not only willing but eager to follow intricate, long-form stories across multiple films and characters. This model, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), became the blueprint for modern blockbuster filmmaking.

Hollywood took notice. Warner Bros. accelerated its plans for the DC Extended Universe, Universal attempted to launch its Dark Universe with classic monsters, and Legendary Pictures built its MonsterVerse around Godzilla and King Kong. The logic was simple: build a universe, and the audience will come. For a decade, it worked. The promise of a future crossover or a universe-altering event kept viewers invested, turning moviegoing into something akin to reading a comic book series, where each installment was essential reading.

Too much of a good thing? The symptoms of superhero burnout

The very thing that made cinematic universes so successful—their scale and interconnectedness—is now becoming their greatest weakness. The initial novelty has worn off, replaced by a sense of obligation. To understand the latest film, audiences often feel they need to have watched a dozen other movies and several streaming series, turning entertainment into homework. This has created a significant barrier for casual viewers, who are increasingly choosing to sit out films with convoluted backstories.

This “superhero burnout” is manifesting in several ways:

• Oversaturation: With multiple franchise films and streaming shows released every year, the market is flooded. What once felt like a special event now feels like a constant, unceasing content stream.
• Declining Quality: The relentless pressure to produce content has, in many cases, led to a perceived drop in quality. Rushed visual effects, formulaic plots, and a lack of creative risk-taking have left audiences feeling that many new entries are simply filler.
• Complex Continuity: Multiverses and alternate timelines, once exciting concepts, have made storylines confusing and lowered the stakes. If any character can be brought back from a different universe, do their sacrifices even matter?

Films like The Marvels and The Flash, despite featuring popular characters, severely underperformed at the box office, signaling a clear disconnect between what studios are producing and what audiences want to see.

When blockbusters go broke: The unsustainable cost of infinity

Behind the creative exhaustion lies a looming financial crisis. The cinematic universe model has encouraged a culture of exorbitant spending. Production budgets for these tentpole films regularly soar past $250 million, and that’s before adding another $100-150 million for global marketing campaigns. This financial model is a high-wire act with no safety net. For a film to be considered truly profitable, it often needs to gross close to a billion dollars worldwide.

When the formula was working, these were safe bets. But now, with audience fatigue setting in, these nine-figure gambles are becoming increasingly risky. A single high-profile flop can cost a studio hundreds of millions of dollars, creating a ripple effect that impacts its entire release slate. The pressure for every installment to be a monumental success is unsustainable. Studios are realizing that they can’t afford to keep making quarter-billion-dollar movies that only appeal to a shrinking base of die-hard fans. The economics simply don’t work anymore.

Beyond the multiverse: What comes after the cinematic universe?

If the interconnected universe is on its way out, what will take its place? The future of the blockbuster may lie in a return to fundamentals. The staggering success of films like Barbie and Oppenheimer—two completely original, standalone “event” films—proves that audiences are hungry for fresh ideas and director-driven stories. These films became cultural phenomenons not because they promised a sequel, but because they offered a unique and complete cinematic experience.

We are also seeing the rise of a new kind of IP adaptation. Video games, with their rich worlds and established fanbases, are becoming the new frontier. Hits like The Super Mario Bros. Movie and HBO’s The Last of Us have shown that these properties can be adapted successfully without the baggage of a sprawling, multi-decade cinematic universe. The path forward for Hollywood may not be in building infinite worlds, but in focusing on crafting singular, compelling ones. The focus is shifting from “what’s next?” to “what is this story about right now?”

In conclusion, the era of the cinematic universe’s total domination seems to be ending. The very elements that fueled its rise—interconnectivity, massive scale, and a constant stream of content—have led to audience burnout and an unsustainable financial model. While superhero films and big franchises aren’t going away entirely, their form must evolve. The future likely belongs to a more balanced ecosystem: a mix of standalone event films, fresh IP adaptations, and perhaps smaller, more contained sagas instead of never-ending universes. Hollywood’s “endgame” for this model may not be a sudden death, but a necessary transformation into something more creative, accessible, and ultimately, sustainable for studios and audiences alike.

Image by: Tima Miroshnichenko
https://www.pexels.com/@tima-miroshnichenko