I've just got out of my time machine. I went forward a week in time to see what people think of Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 and I didn't have to defy the laws of physics to say it was underwhelming and won't save the Marvel Cinematic Universe from its fate.
In reality, you have to feel a little sorry for James Gunn, his contribution to the MCU has been 'good' and he deserves the respect he's earned for directing fun hero films. He seems to have a feel for the genre, as evidenced by the excellent Peacemaker series last year and giving him the entire DC Extended Universe to play with seems a little like a no-brainer, especially if he can give it some cohesive future. Except, I think it's now a forlorn appointment, one made from desperation rather than planned.
The superhero film is dying. It's not dead yet and it still might resurrect itself, but I'm doubtful, because I can't see anything new, anything different being done. The latest two releases are a perfect example of how the genre is suffering. Shazam: Fury of the Gods essentially bombed at the box office and is currently about $100m shy of its initial costs; it's already streaming and there won't be a third Shazam film. It was good enough, but the big fight scenes were just, you know, yawn... It's like fireworks but without the smell.
Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania is the lowest ranked Marvel movie since the films started, it hasn't lost money, but the $75m profit it's showing is not as much money as the post-pandemic Black Widow and Kang was greeted with howls of derision - audiences actually laughed at him and his sidekick MODOK. The big fight scenes in this were ... kind of lost in a sea of CGI and left viewers somewhat bemused by how little happened in two hours.
Kang is also not a Thanos level villain even if you factor in the possibility that Jonathan Majors might be up for sexual assault on May 8. The fans were not impressed and the rumours spreading around that John Boyega will replace Majors wasn't met with much enthusiasm. The franchise has hit the buffers on a creative level and it seems whatever direction they go it's not what the fans wanted.
Thor: Thud & Blunder, [Minus] Black Panther: Wank Ada Forever, Dr Strange and the Multitude of Blandness, Eternals, Shang-Chi and the Legend of My Burning Ring were all critical flops; none of them lost money, in fact, they made huge amounts of money, but in this case it was the critical response that's key; the fans thought they were okay, but in a lot of cases slightly let down and in some cases slightly confused. Even the weirdness of Dr Strange couldn't avoid the big finale - every superhero film has a specific story arc ending with a big fight scene.
Marvel's Phase Four was really just a case of throwing a lot of shit at the wall and see what sticks; at least that's how it's viewed among the small amount of people with far-reaching audiences. The negativity is like osmosis though, it seeps into the psyche of average punters, like doubt and they think, 'Nah, I'll see something else' or nothing at all.
In the grand scheme of things, superhero films are still viable, except that will change very quickly if audiences continue to stay away. GotGv3 needs to be a huge success and it needs to achieve something, it has to leave a legacy that reinvigorates audiences and I simply can't see that happening. If Endgame was effectively a jumping off point for many, could the final part of Gunn's intergalactic trilogy be the next one? Will it lose more than it gains?
There have been massive changes to the forthcoming Marvels film; reshoots, changes to the script and continuity issues have meant it's been put back to an unusual November release; even despite noises coming from inside Disney that the film might simply not be good enough. Brie Larsson hasn't stated publicly she won't return to the role of Captain Marvel, but she probably won't, with Monica Rambeau likely to replace her, as she did in the comics in the 1980s.
Then there's 2024's releases; Captain America: New World Order is going to be a Hulk movie in every way apart from the Hulk won't be in it; they're saving him for the 2nd part of New World Order, the Thunderbolts movie. The other two films - if both happen - will be Blade and Deadpool 3. Mahershala Ali's reboot of the Wesley Snipes vehicle has also been plagued with problems in production and more existentially, how it will fit into this new look MCU. There are noises in Disney that the film should not be part of the MCU franchise.
Rumour has it that Deadpool 3 is going to be a kind of road movie, except he's going to be travelling through major events that have already happened in the MCU. Imagine Zelig but done for PG-13 laughs? It could be fun, it's likely to be horrendous with the audience screaming for some bad language and indiscriminate violence.
Over at DC, changes have been made to the upcoming Flash film that will reset the entire DCEU timeline; effectively starting it from the beginning again, in terms of what James Gunn has planned for it. The Flash looked like it was going to be a fun film; possibly slightly different from other superhero films given the Flash's lack of actual physical strength, etc. However, new trailers suggest so much more now going on in what might actually make the film worse than it might have been; but this is something we're likely never to know. It is about time travel and altering the past to the detriment of the future and has a number of Batmans in it, a Supergirl, three Flashes and possibly other DC heroes. It's going to be a messy fight fest at worst.
Then there's Blue Beetle, effectively a reboot despite us never meeting Ted Kord's Blue Beetle and while it wasn't officially part of the new DCEU, edits have shoehorned it in and the second Aquaman film The Lost Kingdom will be the first official part of Gunn's Gods & Monsters ongoing story.
This is re-appropriation to save Warner's some money, but it's not really going to save the genre is it? Blue Beetle? Another Aquaman film? No one is going to be very interested in this until the Superman reboot happens, then all eyes will be on them again. If that isn't a blockbuster...
Can you say with any real conviction that you think any of the coming movies are going to change the course for the genre movie? Even Marvel's proposed Fantastic Four, double dose of The Avengers and possibly another Spider-Man film are so far away there might not be much left to save. Superhero fatigue really exists and giant cosmic battles have been done extremely well already, whatever the big finales and fight scenes there are in these upcoming films, they're always going to be pale imitations or reruns of past glories. Plus, they don't have Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov or Tony Stark any more and really that's like rebooting Star Trek without Kirk, Spock and Bones.
Naturally, TV is the place for things to go to but Disney+ like all streaming services, is struggling with the cost of living crisis in its major subscriber countries and there is so much competition now that they really have to up the ante with their MCU content and the forthcoming Secret Invasion looks like it might be a TV event in the vein of the second and third Captain America films, while Loki returns at a time when he's probably needed. Other projects have either been delayed indefinitely or shelved; Disney wants Marvel to decrease content but make it more of an event. What happens to some projects is still up in the air as Disney is unlikely to authorise certain projects as they stand.
All eyes will be on San Diego in August, which seems a long way away at the moment but in film and TV worlds it's just round the corner and Marvel needs to turn a few heads. DC needs to win people back and neither are going to do that with their current schedules, so expect changes to be made, given some stars might not be available. Confidence is high in Kevin Feige's office that the Guardians film and Secret Invasion will reinvigorate the franchise. The problem with Guardians is it's the end of a cycle and the problem with Samuel L Jackson's Nick Fury series is it's a TV series.
Maybe what is needed in superhero films is what made them good originally - by going back to the source material and updating that for the 21st century. That was done with the best of the 60s and early 1970s material and directors' have also dipped their toes into more modern classics, such as Dark Knight or Watchmen, so maybe what is needed is something radical, something like Miracleman...
Marvel almost did it with Dr Strange and the Multitude of Blandness by turning Wanda into a proper bad ass villain who wiped out some of an earth's strongest heroes with ease, but there was an easy ending and it was good for the heroes. What Marvel needed to do is take a leaf out of The Empire Strikes Back and have the heroes lose. Really turn the franchise on its head - have Wanda as a Miracleman character - who just lays waste superheroes like they're going out of fashion. They introduced the Multiverse, your new heroes can be drawn from all over that to defeat her.
If that's too drastic, have a hero that doesn't play by the books - not the Punisher or Batman - but someone with superman like powers who decides that the world isn't a fair place and decides to become judge, jury and executioner. Make the world of superheroes darker and scarier, make it unpredictable.
I've recently been reading the Ann Nocenti/John Romita Jr run on Daredevil's comic between 1988 and 1992 and the thing about the first year of that partnership is that in almost every issue Daredevil had his arse handed to him on a plate; he was out of his league and becoming the punch drunk fighter his dad was. It was brilliantly depressing stuff and it culminates with a story called 'A Beer with the Devil' where DD and Mephisto sit in a bar and chew the fat - it was remarkable for a superhero comic book of the time. I'd watch a TV adaptation of that, but would the masses? Maybe?
I've just read Planet Hulk and World War Hulk and what fabulous films they would have made had they had the right characters in place and the right Hulk. There's a hero called The Sentry introduced by Marvel around 2000 who would work in the world of film and TV because of his unique backstory, he's a principal character in the Hulk's life, but also in the lives of all the heroes until he was erased from history. I'm not a film script writer but I see far more potential in that than where they appear to be going.
Yet, everyone who has read comics over the last 50 years will be able to tell Marvel and DC where they are going wrong and what comics would make brilliant adaptations, and we'd all be right and also wrong. For the average punter Marvel, DC and anyone else doing this kind of nonsense simply produce popcorn films and no one is interested in the politics, corporate shuffling, hirings and firings behind them. If they stop happening very few people will lose sleep over it and some new Sci-Fi and fantasy franchise will fill the void, but probably in a smaller way, because the age of the cinema is also coming to a close - but that's a different story.
This might be the way Marvel is planning on going; with the changes in viewing habits especially amongst the under 25s, they might look to release more stuff to streaming and websites; this is a model they're looking into with Ironheart, with a look and feel reminiscent to the Power Rangers and potentially targeting a similar, but younger audience, to Ms Marvel. There is also a Young Avengers project in the pipelines, which definitely isn't targeting older - established - audiences. They are trying to introduce us to newer versions of existing heroes, but this is where things fall apart, because there is a lack of belief within Marvel/Disney that the films will ever regain their former glories even with new younger heroes. This is why they are desperate to find new ways to make money from a franchise that eats money for breakfast.
So what now? As punters we sit and wait. There are still big audiences out there as proven by Avatar: The Wan in Wanker, so there is an opportunity, but that requires thinking outside of the box and as there are so many 'outside of the box' superheroes floating around TV and fringe cinema, you can see where the problems lie. Does the DCEU go the way of The Boys and embrace hyper-reality and realism in their films; would Marvel even consider doing something 'different'?
The superhero film is at a crossroads. It's been through the teething years of the 1990s, the first experimental forays into CGI and bigger ideas in the 2000s, it hit its stride in the 2010s and reached a peak in 2018, because for all of its flaws Avengers: Endgame is probably not going to be bettered in terms of a finale, so it has been downhill all the way since then. You loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy and when The Hobbit was announced, as a three-film deal, you were so excited, desperate for the brilliance to be revisited and what happened? If you lead with your most ambitious idea everything else pales into insignificance. The new extended Tolkien universe reminds me of DC, not good enough and far too late to be of consequence.
If I had to put prophet's hat on I'd say superhero films as a concept could be dead by 2030 - remember westerns? We've had about 20 (if that) notable westerns since the late 1960s when they went out of fashion and several of those have been remakes. There will still be superhero films, but they won't be events, some will surprise the critics and most will be made with streaming in mind - production values will drop, but the CGI might improve because of less pressure on it and the changes I foresee happening in the entertainment world over the next ten years will be the most consequential; conventional TV and film will be for a diminishing audience because as people who grew up on that die there's no one to replace them, or at least not enough. There will still be films and TV, it's just like we've seen money go into computer games, we'll see investment in whatever 'kids' find trendy or however they decide to watch their entertainment.
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