MarvelBlog News for February 25th, 2024
Nobody at Marvel likes to use the term “superhero fatigue,” but it’s not really up to them.
The reality is that other studios like Warner Bros. and Sony have oversaturated the market.
Now, all comic book films must clear an extraordinarily high hurdle to satisfy spoiled fans.
Source: Jessie Grant/ Disney/ Getty Images
Kevin Feige and his team are aware of this emerging issue and taking steps to prevent it.
We’ll discuss some of the tactics in this week’s MarvelBlog News.
A Tough Year and Its Repercussions
Credit: Marvel
A year ago this week, the Marvel Cinematic Universe went off the rails.
On February 17th, 2023, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania debuted in theaters and immediately earned $106.1 million.
Most people at the time viewed the total as solid for Marvel but really good for an Ant-Man movie.
Source: Marvel Studios
There was just one teensy problem. The reviews for Quantumania suggested that word of mouth would be atrocious.
Sure enough, 52 weeks ago, Quantumania experienced a massive second-weekend box office drop to a paltry $32 million.
Somehow, that number seemed nightmarish at the time, but The Marvels wishes it had grossed that much in weekend two.
Image: Marvel
That’s really the whole story right there.
If not for the easily marketed conclusion to the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, last year would have been a wipeout for the MCU.
As things stood, the year was basically a wash for a studio that was used to headline after headline celebrating its box office dominance.
Image: Marvel
In between Quantumania and The Marvels, the MCU caught two other bad breaks.
Secret Invasion proved to be borderline unwatchable, a haphazardly edited mess that critics and fans alike despised.
Even worse, a few weeks after Quantumania’s release, the breakout star from the film, Jonathan Majors, faced charges.
Source: Marvel
Majors had struck his then-girlfriend during a dispute. A jury later convicted him of two charges, forcing Marvel to fire him.
The MCU had plotted its next two Avengers movies around the threat of Kang the Conqueror.
Kang the Conqueror #2. Photo: Marvel Comics
Then, the actor playing the role threw away his golden ticket in an act of violence, forcing Marvel to reconfigure on the fly.
The two Hollywood strikes forced delays of two other MCU films as well.
A Fresh Start
Image: Marvel
As Marvel entered 2024, it only claimed one theatrical release, Deadpool and Wolverine. That’s the capper on a brutal year.
In the aftermath of 2023’s horrors, Marvel didn’t have enough in the queue to overcome its recent issues.
Yes, Deadpool 3 will be a blockbuster; it might even become the number-one film of the year.
Image: Marvel
Other titles Captain America: Brave New World, Fantastic Four, and Thunderbolts suffered delays due to the strikes.
Now, Marvel finds itself rebooting on the fly, and we recently learned some of what’s happening behind the scenes.
The first effort happened last week, as we discussed. Disney, Marvel’s owner, leveraged Fantastic Four in an unusual way.
Source: Marvel
The former owner of Marvel, Isaac Perlmutter, would like to control two seats on Disney’s Board.
His partner had planned an orchestrated media appearance for Valentine’s Day Week.
Disney responded by announcing the official cast for Fantastic Four on that date.
Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss Bachrach have been officially announced as the cast of ‘FANTASTIC FOUR’.
In theaters July 25, 2025. pic.twitter.com/NvuX0NHCKA
— Fantastic Four Updates (@F4Update) February 14, 2024
Those of you who have read MarvelBlog over the past few years realize what an ordeal that process has been. It’s over now, though.
Fantastic Four will begin filming soon, and everyone expects this project to do well.
There’s a track record of success with this franchise, the 2015 debacle notwithstanding.
Source: Marvel
To a larger point, Disney’s tactic with Fantastic Four indicated that Marvel finally had its house in order after, well, four years.
Let’s be honest that the pandemic has wrecked many of the MCU’s plans and negatively impacted the quality of some projects.
Nobody outside Hollywood will ever truly understand the difficulties of filming during the social distancing era.
Source: Marvel
Marvel doesn’t get to blame valid excuses, though. Its critics are too loud and demanding.
Still, the Fantastic Four casting suggests a fresh start behind the scenes.
The Other Changes Happening at Marvel
Image: Marvel
Here are some of the things that have either recently happened or are starting soon.
X-Men ’97 exceeded all expectations with its online reception, besting other Disney animated series like What If…? with its trailer views.
Reshoots started on Agatha: Darkhold Diaries, arguably Marvel’s most important Disney+ project of the year.
Remarkably, this reshoot only required one full day of filming, a rarity in this industry.
I previously mentioned in a different article that the most telling sign about Loki’s excellence was that it didn’t require reshoots.
The next Agatha Harkness series is very close to that same achievement.
Agatha break free. Photo: Marvel
Marvel also brought back an old friend in Eric Pearson. You may not know his name, but you’ve probably seen his work.
Pearson worked on famous MCU one-shots like A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer, Item 47, and Marvel One-Shot Agent Carter.
Marvel One-Shot: Agent Carter (2013). Photo: IMDb
His writing on that last time led to his working in the writer’s room on the highly underrated Agent Carter, which you can and should watch on Disney+.
Since then, Marvel has hired Pearson to work on the scripts for Black Widow and Thor: Ragnarok, among others.
Photo: Marvel Studios
Now, Pearson will polish the script for Fantastic Four, which needs to be terrific. Otherwise, the MCU will stagnate again.
Somehow, Pearson isn’t the most significant writer, though.
Marvel has quietly added Joanna Calo as well. You may not know the name, but you know her show.
Source: Marvel Studios
Calo is the showrunner for arguably the hottest streaming series right now, The Bear.
She’s working on the script for Thunderbolts, which starts filming in March.
That’s a masterstroke, one that should immediately instill confidence in the film’s eventual quality.
The Final Change
I’ve covered this for a while now, but Marvel is finally ready to admit the obvious.
Plans to alter the next two Avengers films have been underway for nearly a year.
Marvel sources claim they’d planned to downgrade Kang’s importance independent of the Majors criminal investigation.
The thought process is that the icy reception to Quantumania showed that the character wasn’t engaging enough.
I’d argue that Loki season two would have changed all that, but we’ll never know.
Marvel will rename The Avengers: Kang Dynasty to something else, and the villain will no longer be the short-term focus of the MCU.
Photo: Disney+
So ends the reign of the next Thanos. And it raises questions about whether a different villain like Doctor Doom is about to ascend.
Overall, these changes should help Marvel avoid future claims of superhero fatigue.
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Featured image: Marvel
