Thanks to the announcement of Avengers 5 and 6, the multiverse is a concept that will play an important role in the future of the MCU and while its origins technically lie in Doctor Strange, when the Ancient One states, “This universe is only one of an infinite number. Worlds without end.”
Despite the MCU laying these foundations for the multiverse in earlier films, the concept has not truly been explored in detail until Phase 4, with Loki, Spider-Man: No Way Home and origins of the MCU's multiverse lie in the Season 1 finale of Loki with the death of He Who Remains and the arrival of Kang, who will be the biggest villain presence up to Avengers: Secret Wars. The problem with that is that a significant proportion of the MCU's audience simply did not watch Loki and will now be asked to understand the multiverse without the necessary homework.
With a concept as integral to the future of the MCU as the multiverse, Marvel was right to dwell on its origins. This raises the central problem for the franchise as it continues to grow: how can the studio ensure that each film remains accessible to audiences when the narratives are increasingly reliant on those which have come before? The Disney+ series exacerbate this problem, but hidden in how the franchise handled the introduction of the multiverse across both s Season 1 finale and Spider-Man: No Way Home is evidence that Marvel has a solution. But No Way Home solves the problem of people looking at the Multiverse Saga with bemusement, having missed Loki's key information.
The MCU Is Now So Big It Has A Story Set-Up Problem
It used to be the case that each Marvel film would make small movements towards a larger goal – the objective of which would be a franchise-wide event that encapsulated everything that had built up to that point. Thanos’ reveal is a prime example of this. The Mad Titan was first teased in The Avengers, appearing again in Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers: Age of Ultron, all before his character-defining turn in Avengers: Infinity War. This incremental build-up provided the villain with anticipation of his arrival. However, the teasers of Thanos’ presence in the MCU were not major distractions for audiences who had not seen the movie preceding it.
The growth of the MCU means that this is no longer an option. Each film is made to be a part of the bigger picture to such an extent that the studio needs to carefully decide where major plot points are going to begin to ensure that they have the maximum impact in the future. The result is a franchise that relies on audiences doing their homework, with Marvel Studios assuming that their viewers have watched the majority of their preceding projects before going into the next. This requires the studio to analyze not only where plot threads can logically begin, but also consider the number of people that are likely to watch each installment.
Marvel's Disney+ Shows Are Not As Popular As MCU Movies
Deciding where to begin important concepts has created something of a power structure in the MCU. Away from the structuring of heroes based on their comic book popularity (assuming that a project such as Spider-Man: Homecoming would be more popular than relatively unknown heroes like Guardians of the Galaxy), Marvel Studios also considers the difference in audience numbers between their TV and feature-length projects. If a franchise-changing concept is going to be introduced in a project with fewer audience numbers, then the studio must consider how to reintroduce the idea later.
This level of analysis is exemplified in the disparity between Loki's finale and No Way Home – the two projects that are integral to the MCU’s multiverse conception. According to a report by Episode 6 of Loki was watched in 2.5 million US households – a record-breaking number for a Disney+ series at the time. This impressive number is dwarfed by comparison to No Way Home – whose multiverse was heavily reliant on Loki – with Deadline reporting that the film received 3.7 million US viewers on its opening day alone. With both projects marking the beginning of the MCU’s multiverse storyline, it makes sense that the concept of the multiverse’s origins would be explored between the two.
The MCU's Confusing Multiverse Origins Helped Solve The Problem
Considering the disparity between the viewing figures for Loki and No Way Home, the only way for the MCU to ensure that the maximum number of audience could understand No Way Home’s plot was to provide an alternate origin for the multiverse. Those who watched Loki would be aware that the multiverse was established by Sylvie and Strange’s spell merely opened a gateway between these pre-existing universes. For those watching No Way Home with no prior knowledge of Loki on the other hand, Strange’s spell can be understood as the origin of the multiversal split. Marvel Studios understands that a concept as integral to the MCU’s future as the multiverse needs to be explained to the most people possible, so while its official origins lie in Loki, No Way Home provides an alternate origin that is not reliant on audience needing to do MCU homework before watching.
The notion of restating certain pieces of key information is not new for the MCU. The integral time travel in Avengers: Endgame required audience knowledge of the same technology in Ant-Man and the Wasp – a comparatively underseen film when compared to Marvel’s more bankable heroes. The result was introducing the technology in Ant-Man and the Wasp, before re-explaining its potential in Endgame, thus catering for those who had seen the previous film and those who had not. As the MCU continues to grow so too do its concepts. A principle like the multiverse requires a strong foundation if it is to define several years of storylines and this explains why Marvel has been so careful to ensure that the audience understands the concept’s potential. Instead of simply covering the same information twice, Spider-Man: No Way Home’s introduction of the multiverse provided an alternate origin to Loki, ensuring that the MCU’s future is secured by its strong grounding.
