The Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s unprecedented business strategy has seen the interconnected superhero series establish itself as the biggest and most popular franchise in the industry by a huge distance. Before Iron Man was released in 2008, the idea of having dozens of movies tied together in one overarching narrative had never been attempted before, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise that many other rival studios have tried to replicate the formula in the last decade to much lesser degrees of success.
Plans for each Phase are laid out meticulously in advance by Kevin Feige and his team, and fans sometimes have to wait years for even the smallest of dots to join together. However, the MCU is far from perfect, and there have been several major mistakes that can’t be explained away by in-canon reasons, leaving Marvel to simply throw their hands up and admit they got it wrong. It doesn’t happen often, but longtime fans are always quick to notice.
For instance, James Gunn admitted that he didn’t realize how seriously people would take the Adam Warlock Easter Egg in Thor: The Dark World‘s post-credits scene (which he directed), when his cocoon was glimpsed in the Collector’s museum, especially when Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 made it a lot more obvious that the character was on his way to the MCU. Meanwhile, the director also apologized for Stan Lee’s meta cameo at the end of Vol. 2 that referenced events that hadn’t yet happened in the main timeline.
Elsewhere, teasing the Infinity Gauntlet in the background of Odin’s vault in Thor was a blunder when it became clear that Thanos was set to be the Infinity Saga’s big bad, though that was lazily dismissed as being a fake in Thor: Ragnarok as Marvel addressed the issue head-on. Speaking of the God of Thunder, Kevin Feige also admitted that dying Chris Hemsworth’s eyebrows blonde for the first installment was a terrible idea, and since going back to his natural look, it hasn’t been mentioned.
The single biggest mistake Marvel have owned up to, though, is Spider-Man: Homecoming‘s time jump, which had fans scratching their heads trying to figure out how the pieces fit together. The Russo brothers have since called it incorrect, while the studio released a detailed year-by-year breakdown as it was quietly retconned.
Not every franchise is perfect, and while these sorts of issues don’t come up very often, Marvel are always quick to point out the error of their ways knowing how closely people track even the smallest details.