The Marvel Problem
With the disappointing box office of The Marvels, the studio is doing some soul searching, but the answer is obvious to anyone who has ever written a story.
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If you check up on pop culture stuff, you may be aware that the latest release from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Marvels, isn’t doing so hot at the box office domestically or internationally. This is all relative, of course1; the film is going to earn hundreds of millions at the box office, so it’s not exactly a movie people are actively fleeing. On the other hand, the film reportedly cost $300 million or so when you factor in marketing, so it’s not exactly a massive success financially2.
There are a lot of thinky pieces out there trying to figure out why Marvel has struggled so much recently. After all, the studio kind of invented and then perfected the whole “cinematic universe” concept, somehow elevating a bunch of B-squad comic book characters into a multi-billion dollar film series that saw even shit like Thor: The Dark World earn $645 million worldwide3. It’s like a mystery: How come the studio could release basically anything between the years 2008 and 2019 and mint money, but suddenly no one gives a shit about a character whose introductory film, Captain Marvel, earned $1.13 billion worldwide4?
It’s not a mystery at all, of course, at least if you’ve ever written a story, ever. The answer is actually obvious to any writer: It’s because the story ended.
I Can’t Actually Do This All Day
The Marvel experiment was kind of amazing: Over the course of 21 films, they introduced and established characters, back stories, interpersonal relationships, and a central storyline involving the Infinity Stones and Thanos, a Titan convinced that the only way to save the universe was to murder half the population in order to free up resources5. This was a really amazing gambit, as it could have gone very, very wrong6. But if you got caught up in it, it worked surprisingly well. The 21 films7 starting with Iron Man in 2008 through Captain Marvel in 2019 managed to create a complex fictional universe populated by complex characters, establish a lot of emotional connections, and piece together Thanos’ plan before paying it off in spectacular fashion in Avengers: Infinity War, a rare superhero movie that was all darkness and defeat, with half the heroes we’d come to like so much turning into dust8.
And then came Avengers:Endgame, which is a bit of a bloated mess, but it paid off all the emotional beats and plot points from the previous 21 movies in spectacular fashion. Relationships had their moment9, details came back to play a role, and the whole film felt like an ending, because that’s what it was. It’s literally the title of the movie. The story ended, relatively satisfyingly, and in a sane universe that would have been it. Everyone would have cashed their multi-million dollar checks and moved on to the next artistic challenge.
Except they didn’t. They just kept making movies, and those movies have felt like an extended epilogue to a story you probably only sort of liked in the first place. And that’s the problem.
Money!
Of course, Marvel isn’t in the business of telling stories, really. They’re in the business of making money10. Billions! And billions! So of course they don’t care at all about endings—in fact, endings are likely deprecated, as that would give people an excuse to stay home11. So of course they have already released eleven movies since Endgame, with eight more on the schedule12.
Some of these did well enough13, but the reason there’s no excitement is obvious: The story is over. They ended it. Sure, there’s a whole new villain and a whole new slow-moving story, but for the average viewer this feels weird. We beat Thanos! We ended the story! Everyone cried at Tony Stark’s funeral and forgot that Black Widow existed and now we move on14!! So it’s not surprising at all to any writer why no one cares about the new Marvel movies. They’re still trotting out a lot of the same characters, and it’s still set in the same basic universe15, so it’s difficult to understand why we’re still expected to care when the story we followed for more than a decade is over, and ended.
Eventually, of course, there will be a reboot. Younger actors, lower budgets, and the expectation that we all fall in line and buy tickets or on-demand orders as instructed. I’ve personally soured on the theater experience in my dotage, so I’ll just wait until they show up on basic cable (if it still exists) and watch them at drunk midnight with 500 commercials, and have no memory of them in the morning, as is my way16.
NEXT WEEK: Blue Beetle and the benefits of taking your time.
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I would, of course, commit murder if I was promised that one of my books would sell that many copies, so it’s difficult to comprehend that this is a failure in the same way Kris Davis’s 2017-2020 seasons were a failure despite the fact that he earned $23 million per year.
If you need proof that money is a construct, there you go.
Man, I remember when I was an insufferable 15-year old and Don Mattingly signed a $3 million contract with the New York Yankees and I argued that no baseball player was worth that much money. Today that’s basically the league minimum and you can be a millionaire and still not be rich. Inflation is a trip.
A remarkably clear and simple motivation for a villain. There’s a writing lesson here: Think of your villains as politicians and treat their plots like campaigns. It’s not hard, is it?
To see just how it could have gone wrong, just look at every other studio that tried something similar. I mean, have you seen the piece of shit that is Tom Cruise’s The Mummy? Woof.
TWENTY ONE MOVIES? Have I … have I wasted my life?
I still cry when Spiderman looks at Tony Stark and says I don’t feel so good. Other movies that make me cry? Field of Dreams (because I am a Basic white man), Schindler’s List (when he breaks down at the end I am just an emotional mess), and this fucking abomination that makes me tear up just thinking about it and everyone involved should be arrested for emotional terrorism.
Including my favorite hack movie technique, the Quiet Moment of Emotional Connection that Goes On for Five Minutes While The Biggest Battle of ALL TIME is Going On Around You.
This is the mistake I made, because I keep choosing to write stories instead of making money. DAMN YOUR EYES SEND ME SOME MONEY <bursts into tears>
Joke’s on them. I haven’t left the house since 2019.
I’m exhausted just writing that.
I’d argue that Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 did pretty well is because it was paying off a bunch of separate character arcs, and because it’s always felt like a ride-along to the main MCU. Also, this movie also make me cry so now I am big mad at it.
This is how I imagine my own funeral: I die, and 36 minutes later Taylor Swift dies in jet crash on the way to her inauguration and literally everyone forgets about me.
I mean, the whole Infinity Saga was the typical TV sitcom reset trope writ large. Those magnificent bastards made resetting the universe to its previous state a feature!
Am I wearing pants in this scenario? What do you think?
The writing is just bad now. It's become campy and jokey. Then you have the links to D+ shows that I have no interest in watching. CGI overload too. It's Live Action CGI. The characters don't even look real when fighting now. The Black Panther CGI fight was some of the worst CGI ever. Dumb CGI physics. There's definitely soapbox activism taking place since Phase 4 started and I want nothing to do with that. And then... We've had 20 years of superhero flicks and I'm tired of them. It's not just the MCU I've stopped watching. It's all of them. Super hero fatigue is a real thing. The genre needs to be put on ice for a decade (same for Star Wars). I'd like to see real cinema come back to the theaters.
I think the biggest problem with Marvel these days is that most of the new films have Required Readings before you plant your butt in the theater. You better have watched Ms. Marvel and Wandavision before going to see The Marvels, because we can't be bothered to do a recap and there WILL be a quiz! Imagine what a travesty Infinity War would've been if they sucked out all the scenes explaining Thanos' motivation and put them in Agents of SHIELD, that tepid dumpster fire, instead. You'd end up with a Matrix Reloaded situation, where playing the video game and watching the Animatrix were largely essential to unwrapping the plot. Sure worked out well for them!
I'm sorry, Disney, but I don't want to watch Loki, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, She-Hulk, Wandavision, and Secret Wars before I see your movie. I don't want homework. I just want to enjoy a film. I understand that you are doing a serialized narrative, but each part needs to stand on its own or the entire edifice will crumble.