If you’re feeling the crushing weight of expectations from the upcoming Avengers 5, that’s not just your imagination: per Deadline, the movie will allegedly feature a whopping sixty returning characters to the MCU big screen.
That’s a lot of characters.
Assuming this is true – from a purely hype perspective, it makes sense that Marvel would want to let this tidbit slip out into the ether, despite the fact that the probably-will-be-retitled Kang Dynasty doesn’t come out until 2026. With the mostly-accepted fact that we’ve entered a period of MCU fatigue/malaise, Marvel wanting to get fans drooling at the concept of so many characters returning to save the day makes sense, even if we’re still two years out from the film’s anticipated release.
But from a narrative perspective, how does that work, exactly? It has to be assumed that many of the characters might just have blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameos, similar to the climactic battle scene in Endgame. But if that’s not the case, and somehow a narrative were to be crafted around so many characters, what’s to stop the movie from feeling like some kid playing with his action figures in the back yard, as opposed to an actual narrative feature? Eventually, everything has the potential to buckle under its own weight, and this could be the thing that tips the scale on the MCU to the point of no return.
The same Deadline article names Shawn Levy – currently helming Deadpool & Wolverine, a.k.a. The Movie That Will Save the MCU – as attached to direct Avengers 5. If true, Levy has a huge task ahead of him: namely, how to create a working movie with so many characters, especially if it heralds the arrival of the Young Avengers, which has been something the MCU has been quietly building toward for several years now. Effectively passing the baton to the next generation is hugely important if the MCU wants to remain relevant and fresh-feeling (even with the eventual addition of the X-Men on the horizon). So balancing that with five-dozen characters while telling a coherent story is Levy’s true task at hand. And as big as this thing is expected to be, grossing anything less than a billion dollars globally will likely be seen as a bust, further feeding the “MCU is dead” storyline.
No pressure.