Puck News reached out to Hollywood insiders for a look at what has changed the most in the business over the past five years, and Marvel came up in a big way.
The responses point to a major shift in Hollywood: the end of Marvel’s dominance, the broader industry’s obsession with IP, and the shrinking influence of traditional critics as social media and Rotten Tomatoes now drive more of the conversation.
Hollywood has been ‘de-Marvelized’
One manager gave Puck News the most direct superhero-related answer, saying the movie business has gone through what they called “the de-Marvelization of the business.”
“The de-Marvelization of the business. The greatest run in the history of entertainment ended, and the industry stopped being suffocated by Marvel’s success. The second everyone else stopped chasing them, there was more opportunity for originals, more creativity, new voices, and new stars.” —A manager
That’s a pretty blunt way of describing what has happened since Avengers: Endgame.
For more than a decade, Marvel Studios controlled the box office conversation. The MCU didn’t just dominate theaters. It changed how every studio looked at franchises, shared universes, post-credit scenes, fan service, and long-term planning.
Studios wanted their own Marvel machine. Warner Bros. chased it with DC. Universal tried it with the Dark Universe. Sony kept trying to build around Spider-Man characters. Streaming services also chased franchise-sized IP that could keep subscribers locked in.
Now, that grip has loosened.
Marvel is still a major brand, but it no longer feels untouchable. The MCU has dealt with underperforming movies, weaker Disney+ reactions, franchise fatigue, and a fan base that no longer shows up for everything with the Marvel logo attached.
The source’s point is that Hollywood may actually be better off now that everyone stopped trying to copy Marvel.
Superheroes were just the start
A producer also told Puck that the industry’s reliance on IP has expanded far beyond superheroes.
“It used to be just the superhero genre that relied on I.P. Now it’s everything. Rom-coms (Devil Wears Prada 2), action (Nobody and Violent Night got sequels!), and of course, horror, which used to have a much stronger mix of originals.” —A producer
That quote hits on the bigger problem.
Hollywood didn’t move away from IP after the superhero boom cooled down. It doubled down on IP in other genres.
Rom-coms now get legacy sequels. Action movies become franchises. Horror, which has traditionally been one of the best places for original ideas, is increasingly built around recognizable titles, sequels, prequels, requels, and brand extensions.
So while the Marvel model may have faded, the IP-first mindset is still very much alive.
The difference is that studios are no longer only trying to build the next Avengers. They are trying to turn everything into a brand.
Rotten Tomatoes and social media changed the critic game
Another source pointed to a different major change in Hollywood: critics no longer carry the same weight they once did.
“Social media and RottenTomatoes have eliminated whatever weight the critics still had.” —A publicist
That has become obvious with fan-driven movies, superhero films, horror releases, and franchise titles.
A bad review no longer kills a movie on its own. A strong Rotten Tomatoes audience score, TikTok buzz, X reactions, YouTube breakdowns, and fan word-of-mouth can matter more than a traditional critic review.
At the same time, Rotten Tomatoes has turned reviews into a scoreboard. A movie is fresh or rotten. A show has a fan score. The nuance often gets lost.
For superhero movies, this has been especially important. Fans now watch critic scores, audience scores, CinemaScore, PostTrak, social media reactions, box office tracking, and YouTube reviews like a sport.
Critics still matter, but they are no longer the only gatekeepers.
Marvel’s run ended, but the franchise machine did not
The big takeaway from Puck’s Hollywood sources is that Marvel’s peak era changed the business, but Hollywood is still dealing with the fallout.
The MCU’s success trained studios to chase brands over movies. It made every executive want a connected universe. It also showed how powerful fan communities could become when they felt invested in a long-term story.
Now the industry is in a different phase.
Marvel is no longer suffocating the business the way it once did. Superhero movies are no longer automatic billion-dollar events. Audiences are more selective. Studios are being forced to rethink what actually gets people into theaters.
But that doesn’t mean Hollywood has suddenly become original again.
As one producer put it, IP is now everywhere.
