Whilst I’m sat here typing away, already l can hear the sound of blades being unsheathed from scabbards, as the more excitable members amongst your number prepare to come at me for daring to question the wisdom of Marvel. To those of you, I would plead with you to stay your hand. I’m no click-baiter, or internet troll. I’m not wording this to provoke anger or hate. I’m just a simple writer, who’s voicing his opinion.
An opinion which counts for very little. Many other opinions are available. And you most likely will disagree with me, but if on any level this article prompts you to stand back and re-evaluate your thoughts and ideas about the direction the studio is taking, then feel free to carry on and attack me. I’ll fall happy in the knowledge that I’ve achieved what I set out to do.
Here we are then, in the ninth year of the MCU. As we look back over what transpired back in 2016 it was somewhat of a mixed bag for Marvel Studios. Sure, they wowed the fans with a number of casting announcements for their forthcoming movies. And the two MCU movies they did release earned them a cool $1.7 billion dollars. But arguably the one thing happened that they really didn’t want to. They failed to stop DC from getting a foot in the door.
Yes, the editing issues with ‘BvS’ and ‘Suicide Squad’ may have caused both movies to take a figurative kicking from the majority of critics and audiences alike, but the sheer amount of hype and divisive discussion that surrounded both releases dwarfed everything Marvel had put out for their movies.
Even the impact of ‘Civil War’ was somewhat lessened by the larger debate over the DC releases. And as 2017 opens, it’s where the DCU is going to go, and what DC need to do with their main characters that is dominating the fan forums and Facebook pages. Not what’s going on with The Avengers.
Unfortunately, it also wasn’t just the DCU that Marvel was undermined by, it was undercut by its own properties as well. The biggest Marvel star of last year? Deadpool, hands down. A character that the studio doesn’t own, who made his name off openly mocking Marvel’s ability to buy back its own characters, or integrate them into the existing MCU. An approach that was entirely new and fresh, unlike anything Marvel had been brave enough to try, much like what DC had tried to replicate with ‘Suicide Squad’.
The second biggest Marvel star of last year? Spider-Man, who Marvel again don’t fully own the rights to, and had to negotiate in order to loan the character back into the MCU. Looking forward to this year, what are people more excited about? Black Panther? Or Spider-Man: Homecoming? Andy Serkis, or Michael Keaton?
Which brings us to the heart of the real problem. Repetition. Having now burned through their biggest and best opening lineup of characters, Marvel are now starting to run a little bit dry for her ideas and material as they continue to mine their canon in order to to fill out a wildly expanding MCU.
You know the reason why ‘Doctor Strange’ didn’t exactly send the fans wild? Because it was a tired retread of ‘Ant-Man’, just taking all of the science plot aspects and replacing them with magic. This was a movie with an ‘Inception’ scale level of special effects, and arguably the biggest British actor of today in the lead role. It really shouldn’t have just come and gone with people more excited about the post-credits scene than the rest of the film.
Fans are bored of the same generic origin stories being churned out over and over again, which is why there’s still so much discussion around BvS. People care less that it didn’t work, but more that it tried to do something drastically different.
Time and again, Marvel find their talking points and fan support depending on the actions of the their older characters to wow the fans, despite their best efforts to build and create new ones. Bucky Barnes has been around since the beginning of the MCU, and was the beating heart and soul of ‘Civil War’. Alongside him are Clint Barton and Natasha Romanov, who are equally integral to the success of the franchise.
So why haven’t we had Widow or Hawkeye solo movies yet? Why haven’t we had a ‘Budapest’ movie, explaining what actually went down in that famous mission? Because Marvel haven’t yet been brave enough to give a female character a solo movie, unlike DC who went straight in for a Wonder Woman movie. Yes, I hear you cry, ‘what about Captain Marvel’? More on her later.
Marvel are continuing to try and throw weaker characters into the mix, in order to try and bulk out their cast for ‘Infinity War’, and it’s not really paying off. Consider the latest two MCU arrivals. Of the two, Black Panther has the best chance of success, with a deeply emotional debut, and some nice interactions with Natasha Romanov during ‘Civil War’. Essentially though, he’s another billionaire in a suit, who high-kicks and scratches, and flies an invisible plane around. Alongside him, stands one of Marvel’s most notorious failures of recent times. Vision.
Paul Bettany is an award-winning actor, who’s ably supported the franchise for six years as JARVIS. His touching relationship with Tony Stark has kept fans going through two weak Iron Man solo offerings. So what do they do? Turn him into an invincible, multi-colored plastic nightmare, who’s virtually impossible to fit into the overall story. Do the fans really want him mooching around about Paprika? Or popping through the walls to surprise other characters with some stilted and irrelevant dialogue? He’s too powerful to put up against the other Avengers, and too badly conceived to stand alongside them effectively. Chances of surviving ‘Infinity War’? Zero.
You have to ask, given their huge financial profits, why aren’t Marvel actively trying to buy the rights back to Namor, or the Fantastic Four? Where’s Moon Knight? Why are they relegating the Defenders characters to TV? And speaking of TV, why is this infighting still going on between the television and movie properties? Other than the occasional reference of sub-character cameo in ‘Agents Of SHIELD’, the studio is still refusing to link the two worlds up. Which is a bit stupid considering the positive feedback for new Netflix properties. As a result, both arms of the studio pursue their own separate agendas, which I’d argue dilutes the material.
Are Cloak and Dagger really going to be good enough to support their own series? If you’d polled the fans about who they might want to have a solo series, I doubt they were high in the list. Is the choice of a comedic ‘Damage Control’ series really in the studio’s best interests? Again, DC have already managed to already get their foot in the door here with ‘Powerless’, and maybe the tepid response to that should serve as a warning to Marvel against trying the same thing.
And then there’s the ‘Inhumans’ series. Initially announced as a movie, but instead shakily debuted in ‘Agents Of Shield’, the studio just didn’t seem to know what to do with the MCU’s version of mutants. So they canned the movie, and decided to go with a TV show. The first set photos have shown a leather-clad Anson Mount sharing a set with a giant model of Lockjaw. You know? Lockjaw? The teleporting dog? Why this persistence to push for weaker and weaker TV properties? Why not just try and converge both the existing TV and movie narrative arcs into some bigger storylines, such as ‘Shadowland’ or ‘Secret Invasion’, rather than the two ignoring each other and paying occasional lip-service?
Sticking with those existing TV properties, 2017 has started as something of an ‘annus horribilis’ for the company. Last year’s arrival of ‘Luke Cage’ may have set new viewing records for a streaming platform, but it was much less of a critical success than either previous Netflix series. Hardly surprising being as the big climactic battle was with a man in a metallic suit that looked like it was borrowed from an episode of ‘Dr Who’. And things have gone on to get worse with the horrendous debut that ‘Iron Fist’ has just experienced.
From the shonky CGI title sequence, to the stilted dialogue and sub-par fight scenes, this is a failure that potentially even outweighs the cancellation of ‘Agent Carter’ after two weak seasons. And then there’s ‘Legion’. Show so fucking random it makes a Wes Anderson movie look like the real world. with scattershot plot inter-cut with dance numbers and psychedelic flashbacks, it’s virtually inaccessible, to even the most hardened of fans. There are harsh lessons to be learned here for Marvel. Fan love for the characters will get you so far, but it won’t cover up for poor production and storylines.
Returning to the cinematic arm of the company, and ‘Infinity War’, I’d argue that the studio has more resting on the success of this project than ever before, for a number of reasons. The biggest of these rests firmly at the feet of Josh Brolin. Marvel have been teasing the arrival of Thanos for years now. For the time he’s taken to get here, we could have killed off all the Avengers and built an entirely new team.
Thanos needs to be the ultimate evil that the studio can use to replace Loki, who they are still horrendously reliant on. And judging by the makeup and concept art we’ve seen so far, essentially what the fans are going to get is a purple CGI wrestler wearing a gold boxing glove. Brolin is risking a lot, as he’s far from the safe pair of hands the studio need here. He’s starred in more than his fair share of clunkers, including the infamous ‘Jonah Hex’, and if he doesn’t hit it off with audiences, the damage caused may well be irreparable.
The decision for the Avengers storyline to go up and out into space is also a big risk. The success of the MCU was built on the suspension of disbelief, but you can only suspend that so far before fantasy becomes farce. It’s one thing to see human heroes having an epic battle in New York, but quite another to have Cap and Tony fighting ET’s out in space.
Whilst ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy’, was a huge hit, it’s success rested on the performances of the lead actors, and the revival of 80’s nostalgia. Already with the trailer for GOTG2, the warning signs are there. The film seems to be relying on the cuteness of a CGI tree, and Dave Bautista clowning around and camping it up. Add to this a bewhiskered Kurt Russell, and a whole hell of a lot of gaudy gold scenery, and alarm bells are ringing. It’s all looking a bit too ‘Fifth Element’ to be truthful.
If rumor is to be believed, the main Avengers cast have contracts coming to an end with ‘Infinity War’, with some suggestions that Chris Evans will be bowing out as Cap. If that’s the case, the film simply has to resolve the ongoing Cap/Tony issues, which were stretched to the absolute breaking points of believably in ‘Civil War’. One minute they’re best buddies, then they’re not. But they still love each other. It needs finalizing, and if Cap is to die, then a decision on whether to create a new captain, or promote an existing contender needs to be made.
Marvel have been hammering along, expecting to keep producing hit after hit after hit. Initial rumor, for what its worth, is indicating the Black Panther movie is shaping up into being quite the success. But the side result of this made be a negative effect on the ‘Captain Marvel’ movie. Here is a character who has no introduction or setup anywhere else in the MCU yet, with an academy award winning actress cast to play her, but no script completed yet to put with her. It’s a risk. A big one, and may well end up being the big failure that Marvel have been dodging so far.
Marvel have to face up to the fact they’ve been relying on quantity rather than quality of late. The decision to run an individual series for each of the Defenders has only half worked, and the failure to include Jon Bernthal’s Punisher from the outset has led to that project diversifying even further.
The diluted and tepid reviews to ‘Age Of Ultron’ also seem to have gone unheeded, as the studio continue to crowbar and shoehorn more and more characters into each of the new movies. They need to slow down, stop, and take a good look at what they already have to play with, rather than trying to keep finding the next big thing.
Do you think Marvel is starting to run out of gas? Be sure to tell us your thoughts in the comment section below!