Why MCU films are a dying brand?
Understanding the potential causes for increasing MCU flops in 2023.
The Marvels (2023) has been in theatres for about two weeks at this point. Amidst the ongoing internet wars between a fragmented Marvel fandom, one thing is clear; The Marvels (2023) will not be a Box Office success. The MCU has taken another hit monetarily and in terms of reputation (regarding quality of content) through this movie. I personally have not seen the movie and hence will not be giving any direct reviews regarding it. However, I was wondering why I chose to avoid this MCU movie. What was it about the MCU that broke the proverbial camel’s back in terms of willingness to see this movie?
For long time MCU movie goers, it was an inevitable outcome, as the MCU papered over its cracks through relative box office successes in 2021 and 2022 such as Black Widow (2021), Eternals (2021), Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022). (Although the 2021 movies might not have earned as much, it was impressive considering that they were released partially in a worldwide pandemic situation). These movies benefited from audiences still being captivated by the original MCU movies (Phase 1-3)'; Also the leads were A list stars who were quite likeable worldwide and at the same time there were potential setups from the previous MCU films that were going to pay off in those movies. Hence many fans took the effort to see those films despite being mediocre when compared to the standards set by the original MCU movies. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule as Marvel did manage to produce brilliant movies like Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) in the post Endgame era as well. However, the overall trend of decline in quality has resulted in oversaturation of mediocre/ poor content and unfortunately for Marvel, the audiences have become wise to it.
Although many might disagree with me regarding the decline in quality of content, the objectivity of box office performance probably cannot be ignored. In the case of The Marvels (2023), it is a clear case of the movie being rejected by most of the audience. Despite being blinded by the box office collection of movies in 2021 and 2022, Marvel should have seen this issue coming a while back especially with the release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), which garnered a lot of attention for its poorly executed CGI and bad writing from critics and audiences alike. Although I personally enjoyed Paul Rudd’s third solo outing as Ant-Man, the movie had a lot of flaws in terms of the plot and visual concepts, which ended up being widely mocked online by the Marvel fanbase.
However, to focus the criticism on Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) and The Marvels (2023), would be quite unfair and short sighted in my opinion and I hope that Marvel realizes that these movies have borne the financial brunt born out of a collective failure of Phase 4 and Phase 5 of the MCU. This collective failure is due to multifaceted variables across a 5-year period, but I will try to outline some of the major reasons for the decline in quality and points to potentially reverse some of the decline:
1. Visual effects supplement the story, the story does not supplement visual effects:
Effectively this has been a major faltering factor for Marvel where the movies have become lights and laser shows rather than gritty action sequences based on heartfelt storytelling. In the Pre-Endgame era directors like Russo Bros, James Gunn, Jon Favreau etc. understood this concept very well, and were able to curate theme-based movies that did justice to the vibe of the characters they revolved around. Unfortunately for Marvel the approach has reversed where directors in the name of fan service are just creating crazy looking visual effects for the heck of it, leaving audiences relatively uninterested. Examples of this can be specially seen in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) as well as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) where although the visual effects look quite interesting, the lack of rhetoric foundation leaves the audience confused and uninterested. Instead, if Marvel focuses on the uniqueness of their characters and tries to create a visual masterpiece around them they will be more successful.
2. Oversaturation of Marvel content:
With the OTT wars in full swing due to the major success of Netflix, Marvel also decided to enter this war by introducing OTT exclusive high budget Marvel TV shows. Although many shows have been successful like Loki and What If, the high-profile nature of these shows is ruining a movie goer’s experience. I explored this topic in my earlier article titled “The Homework required to watch Marvel Movies” where essentially the amount of things to know before one can watch a Marvel movie is getting close to ridiculous. This was especially true for Kang from Loki Season One (2021). Although he was about to take the mantle from Thanos soon, most people had no idea about his significance. The Marvels (2023) also suffered from this issue as Kamala Khan supposedly is a big character in the movie, however audiences who did not watch Ms. Marvel (2022) were not that interested in watching a whole movie with her as a vital character. Marvel TV shows did exist pre-OTT era as well, but their relevance never intermingled or superseded the MCU movies. Now with major characters from Phase 1, 2 and 3 getting their own shows along with newly introduced characters who play key roles in MCU movies, a fan is expected to know a lot of things related to them from the TV show before enjoying a MCU movie. Unless they dial back the content and try to curate it more effectively, this oversaturation problem will continue endlessly.
3. Do not resort to factory film making:
Back in 2019 when Martin Scorsese made headlines by criticizing the MCU movies as “being closer to theme parks than they are to movies as I’ve known and loved throughout my life”. He essentially said that the MCU was not real cinema or an art form, rather a thrill-seeking business-like theme park. As I came out of the theatre after watching Avengers: Endgame (2019), I was baffled by Scorsese’s comments and scoffed at the idea that someone could defy such an amazing movie(s) from being an art form. However, in 2023 I can kind of see Scorsese’s point coming to be true. The MCU has resorted to a very corporate approach for their filmmaking in the post Endgame era. Their main goal has been to throw in some actors/ directors together and connect them with major VFX houses. The artists themselves are compelled to work in a way to facilitate profitability rather than creativity. This has resulted in every MCU movie looking exactly the same in tone with zero visual uniqueness. Creative choices have been limited to appealing to pre-teens and politically motivated US based viewers rather than facilitating proper story-based filmmaking that encourages different ideas and concepts and builds up compelling narratives. There is not one film from Phase 4 and 5 that has not suffered from this issue. Marvel’s overworked VFX artists have also highlighted this issue in recent years as they have been pressured constantly to meet studio deadlines. The result is a badly rendered visual effect that attracts the mockery of fans rather than praise. Alternatively, if MCU sticks to a formula that has worked for them in the past and creates films which are more about conveying compelling concepts that dazzles the viewer’s intelligence rather than dulling it.
Overall unless Marvel changes their approach and reworks on some of the ethos surrounding the studio, problems like the box office performance of The Marvels (2023) will only continue. I certainly hope that Marvel can empower its artists more and give them a chance to dazzle audiences with their creativity and vision.