![]() Kevin Feige, the head of Marvel Studios, offered a deceptively simple explanation in Variety: “I’ve always believed in expanding the definition of what a Marvel Studios movie could be. Avengers: Endgame,released in the spring, has won rave reviews and generated so much demand that online movie ticket retailers had to overhaul their systems to manage the number of requests. At the same time, they average an impressive 84% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes (the average for the 15 top-grossing franchises is 68%) and receive an average of 64 nominations and awards per movie. Its 22 films have grossed some $17 billion-more than any other movie franchise in history. Yet Marvel’s concerted attempts to bring this cinematic universe together risk creating an impenetrable narrative web worthy of Spider-Man himself.In just a decade Marvel Studios has redefined the franchise movie. For so long, this has been the foundation of the universe’s strength, with Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame capping off this strategy in a swirl of bombast. Just like the comic books it is derived from, the MCU has spun a wide-ranging mythology. Tying all these characters together is a fanboy’s dream, but it also risks bamboozling those who aren’t fully up to date. What’s more, Thor will be making an appearance in the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy 3. ![]() In 2022, Benedict Cumberbatch will return as the titular hero in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, where he is due to come up against Scarlet Witch. While said glibly, using one MCU film to describe another is symptomatic of the wider creative problems the studio is facing. ![]() Alfred Molina’s Doc Oc, first seen in Sam Raimi’s 2004 Spider-Man 2, will appear, and is likely to be joined by previous Spider-Men Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. ![]() As such, the intention is clear: use this cosmic quirk to fill the screen with as many pre-loved characters as possible. In an interview with Empire, director Jon Watts described the upcoming Spider-Man: No Way Home as “Spider-Man: Endgame”. It is through the Multiverse, a concept steeped in comic-book lore, that it is looking to redefine the superhero story. Despite this, its final fight is staged within the confines of the superhero structure, and Marvel arguably needs to begin challenging the framework that it has proved so critical in popularising. S hang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings thrived with a crackling cast and thundering score, but also introduced wuxia-inflected action and new, refreshing layers of mythos to the MCU. Introducing creators such as Zhao is fundamentally a good thing for the richness of the MCU, even if her subtle sensibilities may have been blotted out on a superheroic canvas. More so, the longevity of the genre does surely rely on it taking wider narrative and thematic swings. The box-office takings have remained healthy, and this is of course an important bottom line. Tom Hiddleston and Sophia Di Martino at a screening of Loki in London in June 2021. Set after the events of 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, the film lacked meaningful stakes, given that Marvel fans already knew the eventual fate of the super-assassin. It’s a film, too, that was released years too late. ![]() Cate Shortland’s Black Widow felt as if it was forced from above to quip its way out of a much darker, frankly more interesting tone. While films such as Iron Man 3 and Thor: Ragnarok were comedic riffs on the parameters that the MCU so clearly defined, its latest offerings have balked at the chance to deliver something new, and suffered for it. This suggests a huge amount of confidence, but the MCU is in danger of fluffing its creative lines. Notwithstanding the impact of the pandemic, the response to its films and TV properties has been uneven, with the Multiverse-shaped way ahead promising to make the universe ever more complex. Marvel is very far from crisis stations, but its “fourth phase” has proven fickle. It’s by no means a washout, but the film has been criticised for its dense plotting and patchy CGI and, despite the efforts of Chloé Zhao in the director’s chair, it has seemingly been hampered by the idiosyncratic hallmarks of the MCU. ![]()
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