34
votes
Crisis at Marvel: Jonathan Majors back-up plans, ‘The Marvels’ reshoots, reviving original Avengers and more issues revealed
Link information
This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.
- Authors
- Tatiana Siegel
- Published
- Nov 1 2023
- Word count
- 2773 words
Disney's problem with Marvel, and Star Wars, seems to be that they relied on the brand's reputation to carry sales, instead of continuing to build a brand that people wanted to buy. Most people don't buy brands because of the name, they do it because of the consistent quality of the product.
With rare exceptions the shows don't tell stories worth telling, especially with their runtime. Wandavision started out interesting, and by the end was a 'standard marvel sky laser fight'. Then the subsequent movie threw out most of the characterizations/motivations so there could be a 'standard villain'. Same as with the new Star Wars trilogy, there was such a distinct lack of planning that makes it seem like a very blase attitude at the top with people who care scrambling to make something presentable with the arbitrary deadlines given. The successes like Andor are from when leadership basically weren't paying attention and someone wanted to tell a more interesting story than just "people running and collecting macguffins or the world might die, in Star Wars/Marvel".
The Marvel/Star Wars brand for the last decade has been "here's something that looks like the thing you care about." Which is an amazing strategy for killing off interest. It's why legacy brands are so diligent about protecting their trademarks/copyrights, they don't want that kind of market dilution to hurt them. Where Disney basically did it to themselves.
This is extra frustrating in marvel's case because up to endgame and even with things like loki, they demonstrated they're more than willing and able to actually build a good brand, and that's what started this rocket when people were sick of things like transformers which were doing exactly what Disney is now.
Its a shame that these things always trend towards squeezing out the dollar bills rather than keeping quality.
You see the same thing in the James Bond fandom. A lot of fans chomping at the bit for interconnected spin-off movies, TV shows etc. I'm alright with a blockbuster Bond movie every 3 or 4 years if it remains entertaining and fun (I don't expect a top tier Bond film like Goldeneye, Casino Royale or Skyfall every time but generally the Bond franchise is pretty solid, excepting a few duds of course).
You saw the same thing with the Bond novels, after Fleming passed away Kingsley Amis wrote a pretty solid book and then they got John Gardner to write a Bond novel every year for 14 or 16 years and apart from one or two novels the vast majority were shite. I think they realised they were diluting the Bond brand with these rushed novels so from 2008 onwards they've instead offered the chance for established authors to write a Bond novel with Anthony Horowitz fairly recently writing a trilogy and the quality of the books has substantially increased.
Alghough it seems like they're starting to relent in regards to the Bond films. With the long downtime between No Time to Die and present, they've got a Bond themed reality TV show coming out on Amazon this month.
From what I've read, this is the result of a combination of a lot of things -- some entirely their fault (as detailed in this article) and others not, like COVID messing with their production timelines. Wanda was not always supposed to be the villain in the film.
Funnily enough, I think the Marvel Cinematic Universe is now facing the same difficulties as the comics: there's too much interwoven content for a newcomer or casual fan to consume. And with the sheer amount of Marvel media and the rate they churn them out, there's far more mediocre and bad finished movies and shows since they don't have the time to polish and refine them. Every production has a deadline that revolves around other projects not directly related to their own because they need to fit in some schedule, get new content out regularly.
New Marvel content used to feel like an event, but now it's just normal.
I think you're also at a point where they really have to let the world change, and they either can't or won't. The Marvel earth simply would be extremely different than our Earth, and I think it's going to be increasingly difficult to tell satisfying stories if the end result is just business as normal.
That reminds me of a YouTube comment I saw just last night. The reason why writers have heroes avoid killing villains in comics isn't just moral high ground, but so they can bring back the villain since they still need to have more comics. Movies can let villains die more freely because they don't really have that issue—or at least, they shouldn't.
Marvel seems to have big events happen in the movies more often than not, events which SHOULD be acknowledged by other characters and films. Heck, some should have way more characters involved since so many climaxes involve the world being threatened. Since they have paid actors for the roles, they can't just have a character appear whenever it would be logical though. And like this article mentions with Johnathon Majors/Kang, it becomes a problem when an actor can't perform the role.
With how they seem to escalate the action and stakes in each film, "business as normal" just isn't as feasible anymore.
Exactly! I can't just pick up somewhere in the middle of the movies and shows. Every movie and show is connected to another and if you don't know the whole web of past plot you're probably going to miss out somewhere along the line. I stopped keeping up with Marvel a while ago and it's frustrating I can't be a casual viewer.
I'm still down for Marvel and superhero content in general. The problem is that the there are some good or decent shows/films, but they're outweighed by the bad/mediocre ones. At least that's how I see it.
Post-Endgame started strong with Shang Chi & Spider-man. But Black Widow was okay and Eternals wasn't that good. Dr. Strange was okay and Thor was enjoyable. Black Panther was good enough considering the context. Quantumania was bad and GoG3 was really good.
As far as the shows go, Ms. Marvel and Loki are pretty good. But the former may not be for everyone. Falcon & Winter Soldier suffered in part due to the pandemic. The other shows were okay at best.
There will always be an audience, but they're not going to recapture Infinity War + Endgame period. I don't know anything about the business. But I think it would serve them better to step back and focus on quality over quantity.
Eternals had the makings of a good story and the plot wasn't bad. They just had to rush it to fit it into a movie. There's no way to get us to care about 8 completely new superheroes in 156 minutes.
It should've been a Disney+ TV show with maybe one episode per character and then a longer one for the big finale.
? I've heard him give multiple interviews about this. He says he just dieted and worked out a lot as far as I remember (he doesn't look that fit in the movie to me so the whole thing seems weird but... Good for him for feeling good about himself?)
I'm pretty sure their contracts say that they can't mention any PEDs they are given.
On the other hand anyone of us could "do a Kumail" if we are given a free gym, a professional personal trainer, a personal chef with a meal plan and $3 million to do it.
And doctors and certified nutrionists closely monitoring our input.
He's 100% on some sort of test. There's no way you can reach that level of muscle mass without it especially considering his age and the fact that he had never been in shape before in his life.
Yeah, I thought it was pretty crazy how much effort he put into completely transforming himself just to be in a middling superhero film most people don't care about.
It seems like he maybe had some insecurities about his appearance though, which I can understand. As an American Indian, it can sometimes feel like you're at an immediate disadvantage in terms of looks. There's tons of gorgeous Indian people, but American Indians are often depicted more as nerdy dorky looking guys. Hes Pakistani but I imagine its a similar feel. Maybe he just jumped at the opportunity to try and be someone different.
I think you're on to the bigger issue. When you have fans invested in a property, they'll put up with periods of less-interesting content in hopes of an eventual big pay off. They'll stay on the train assuming they will one day be rewarded for having kept up to date and having seen everything.
When you put out so much content - none of it particularly strong - that seeing everything becomes actively difficult, you lose a lot of that internia. Once someone skips a new movie or show for the first time, they'll be way more likely to keep sitting out in the future.
One, the title should be Crisis of Infinite Dearth, but aside from that...
Marvel got extremely lucky that the Infinity Saga was good when it had to be good and could tread water when it had to. Phase 1 was a bunch of great to okay superhero films until Avengers tied it together. Phase 2 was coasting on Avengers until 2, which was shaky and leaned a lot on James Gunn and the Guardians to keep the hype train rolling. Phase 3 was hit after hit, and the dull points that were there could be smoothed over by watching the gears in motion and waiting for the drop. Phase 4 was a lot of table setting and cleaning the board, with minimal teamups and interconnectedness, leading up to a phase that is a little too much build up for a little too much abstract stakes for a little too many unproven faces, let alone the 900 pound Kang in the room.
Would an Avengers old guard reunion bring back the good times? It's a trick that can only be played once and the torch has mostly already been passed, but the narrative of "this will all sort itself out after Secret Wars" doesn't really inspire confidence for me, because I don't know how interested I'll be in this franchise in two-three years, let alone the audience.
EDIT: 2020 was also a massive trauma of a year, and the idea that the world can be saved after a couple buildings get punched through and a guy speeches about humanity so hard that the world changes it's mind about bigotry or something rings a bit hollow and may not be what the world wanted right at that moment. And when that audience was there, Top Gun was a better Iron Man, Everything Everywhere was a better Doctor Strange, and RRR was one hell of a teamup.
Zeroing in on the Kang problem, I don’t get why they can’t just recast with someone like John Boyega or Damson Idris who’d be a great fit for the character. They’ve recast major characters before, and audiences can roll with it as long as it’s well-written. Changing the entire story of Phase Four, not so much—is Majors really so essential that the only alternative is to reinvent the wheel?
Really, the writing itself is gonna suffer no matter what they do in Phase Four if the execs are so fixated on the next big payoff that they force people to abandon the fundamentals of good filmmaking. All this stuff about bad CGI getting fixed after their shows are released and major plot points getting rewritten due to outside constraints would be less of a problem if they commit to telling coherent stories rather than sticking to a schedule.
They've even got a decent excuse for it in-universe, as they're intended to be multiversal variations. Loki had a different actor for just about every variant we saw in his show.
My personal belief is that Disney's lawyers have reviewed his situation and have determined at worst this situation is going to turn out similar to Depp vs Heard, where it's likely both parties were in a mutually abusive and toxic relationship, and even if it was re-actively abusive on the woman's part, the man will win the PR battle. And I have no doubt that, if necessary, they will push the needle with some PR subterfuge to villify the woman. (side note: I'm not making any fault judgements on the Depp v. Heard case, I only followed it just enough to get the sense they were in a mutually abusive relationship)
Either way I think Marvel learned its lesson with James Gunn, that you don't want to appear woke too quickly and cancel someone who's talents are so good, people are willing to overlook their past indiscretions.
Fans will overlook the whole situation short of a completely devastating loss in the court for Majors because he's a fantastic actor, and even then they might not care, because that's what fans do. But ultimately most people will be ignorant to the whole situation.
What's really killing the MCU, is in the middle of the article. The fatigue, and spreading themselves too thin. But that is a dead horse we've all poked enough.
I think the Gunn tweet that got him sacked from Disney was well over a decade old, from a time when he was a super edgy Troma horror director and Twitter wasn't a place where actual politicians and world wide media spent time in and the way people wrote was ... different.
The Gunn situation also prompted me to start automatically deleting my tweets, likes and retweets that are older than 6 months.
I don’t have experience with this firsthand, but I’ve read that what was going on with his offensive tweets was that he was taking advantage of a quirk in the old Twitter UI, where it looked like the person who posted the original tweet was also posting other people’s responses to it. He was making it look like his friends were saying incredibly disgusting things by replying to their tweets.
Let me get the obligatory comments out of the way so maybe we can have a different discussion this time: