Marvel Studios has admitted to committing some huge movie mistakes in the MCU's more than a decade history. After years of striking deals with other studios to produce their films, Kevin Feige decided to launch an independent studio and kick things off with Robert Downey Jr. and Jon Favreau's Iron Man. From there, Marvel Studios has slowly built its 23-film franchise, which includes the highest-grossing film in history in Avengers: Endgame but it hasn't been all plain sailing.
Needless to say, the MCU is not perfect. While it remains the most popular franchise in the world with other studios trying to copy its creative and business formula, it has some notable mishaps. For starters, some of the franchise's films have been criticized for their formulaic storytelling and - particularly early on - there were accusations of weak villains. While major continuity is preserved with a clear throughline, some of MCU's smaller timeline details don't add up. Marvel Studios typically brush these issues to the side, opting to focus on the movie series success and impressive track record.
Looking back, building the MCU to where it is now could not have been an easy feat. Marvel Studios did make a lot of great creative decisions that made it the franchise that people love and support now, but there have been issues along the way. From an Easter Egg problematically ahead of its time to a disastrous aesthetic choice, these are some of the mistakes that Marvel Studios have actually admitted to committing, whether through confession or retconning to change them.
James Gunn Admitted His Adam Warlock Easter Egg Was A Mistake
One of the post-credit scenes in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 teased that Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki), the Golden High Priestess of the Sovereign have created Adam Warlock, director James Gunn has already teased the powerful character before. In Thor: The Dark World's stinger which the filmmaker helmed, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Lady Sif (Jamie Alexander) visited The Collector (Benicio del Toro) to hand him the Reality Stone for safekeeping. During this time, Adam's cocoon can be seen in one of Taneleer Tivan's glass cases, which excited a lot of fans. Several years later, Gunn revealed that he regrets including the reference, which supposedly shouldn't be more than that. “I made a mistake in the first one because I put something that looks like Adam Warlock's cocoon in the Collector’s museum. For me, at the time, I was just making up fun stuff to put in the Collector’s museum. I didn’t know how seriously people were gonna take the Easter eggs,” he said. While the director's once again hinted that Warlock is indeed coming to the MCU in a more explicit way, there's still no word on how much of a part he'll play in Phase four or five.
Spider-Man: Homecoming's Time Jump Makes No Sense
After debuting in Captain America: Civil War, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) went on his own adventure in Spider-Man: Homecoming and to better incorporate the character into the MCU, Marvel Studios featured a prologue explaining the origins of the film's primary villain, Adrian Toomes/Vulture (Michael Keaton). The flashback takes place on the heels of the Battle of New York in The Avengers, which was technically four years prior to the events of Homecoming, establishing Toomes as a blue-collar worker who owned a company that cleans up the wreckage left by the Earth's Mightiest Heroes battle with Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and his Chitauri army. Unfortunately, the film's title card reads "Eight Years Later" which doesn't add up. Typically, Marvel Studios comes up with an explanation when it comes to continuity slips and snafus, but there's no way of explaining this one. Avengers: Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo called it "incorrect." Meanwhile, Marvel Studios has also quietly retconned the mistake when they released a year-by-year break-down of their films, confirming that Homecoming did take place just four years after The Avengers.
The Fake Infinity Gauntlet In Thor: Ragnarok
Long before Marvel Studios confirmed that the Infinity Stones play a part in their overall narrative, the Infinity Gauntlet had already made an appearance in the franchise in Kenneth Branagh's Thor film. Released in 2011, the now-iconic metal glove was first spotted inside Odin's (Anthony Hopkins) vault on Asgard, so fans were understandably confused when Thanos put it on at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron. Marvel Studios sneakily resolved this continuity issue by revealing that the first one was a fake replica. In Taika Waititi's Thor: Ragnarok, Hela (Cate Blanchett) roamed around her father's vault where she saw the same Infinity Gauntlet from the 2011 film. She then hilariously and sassily tipped it over, saying it's fake — it was a meta-explanation to a question that fans have had for a couple of years, even if it didn't' actually make sense.
Stan Lee's Guardians Vol 2 Cameo Made No Sense
As with every Marvel film until his death in 2018, Stan Lee had a cameo in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. The comic book brand's pioneer had different roles in different movies, and the one from James Gunn's 2017 film was arguably among the most interesting of the bunch. In it, Lee plays an astronaut telling a story to The Watchers of all of his cameos; unfortunately, he mentions that time when he was a delivery man back on Earth referring to his Captain America: Civil War role as a FedEx Man delivering Steve Rogers' (Chris Evans) package to "Tony Stank." While the Joe and Anthony Russo threequel hit theaters in 2016 — a year before Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, chronologically, Civil War takes place a couple of years after the cosmic team's face-off with Ego the Living Planet (Kurt Russell). On the heels of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Gunn quickly addressed the confusion clarifying that it was a mistake on his part. "I'll own up to my mistake because Guardians of the Galaxy 2 theoretically happens in 2014 which is before Infinity War. And Stan Lee in the movie says, 'That time I was the Fed Ex guy,' which is what he is in Civil War. I screwed up; I wasn't thinking, But I'm going to say that probably Stan Lee used the guise of a Fed Ex guy more than one time," he explained.
Kevin Feige Wanted To Take Back Thor's Dyed Eyebrows
MCU architect Kevin Feige is often proud of what they've built over at Marvel Studios. However, as the Infinity Saga neared its ending back in 2018, he had been asked with retrospective questions including any regrets he's had over the course of the franchise's history. Feige maintained that he's happy with all the creative choices made in the last decade except for one thing — dying Chris Hemsworth's eyebrows blond in the first Thor film. As he explained, the primary reason for this decision was because the God of Thunder is blond and so they thought his eyebrows should match that. As the years went by, Thor's looks as the character have gone through different phases. Now, fans wonder if Thor will maintain the weight that he gained in Avengers: Endgame when he returns on the big screen in Taika Waititi's Thor: Love & Thunder. At least it's certain the MCU Thor won't be sporting blond eyebrows ever again.
