With the exception of current and so far sole exception Deadpool 3, the Marvel Cinematic Universe will remain an almost exclusively PG-13 franchise geared towards children and families, something that isn’t expected to change in any sort of meaningful fashion.
That being said, should more and more R-rated projects follow in the wake of Ryan Reynolds’ return as the Merc with a Mouth, the doors would be kicked wide open to explore the MCU’s darker corners, ones the movies and TV shows would never even consider tackling.
A new post on Reddit from random_guy_somewhere posited an interesting question that generated a myriad of varied responses; would the Snap have inspired a cult or religious fanaticism on Earth after half of the population was wiped out by a single click of Thanos‘ fingers?
Thanos has been worshiped as a god-like being in the comic books before, so there’s no reason why several of the planets he’d decimated before getting his hands on the Infinity Stones wouldn’t view him as a higher power after he spared their lives at the expense of half the population.
Ebony Maw certainly talks about his master in an almost deified manner, so perhaps people would adopt his words as their teachings. Of course, Thanos is 100% a genocidal maniac and the Avengers would have made that very clear in public, but as we’ve seen far too many times already, certain subsets of society are happy to ignore the facts if it doesn’t suit their agenda.