WEEKLY RECAP #29: Marvel Exposé & SAG-AFTRA Strike Updates
10/29/23 -- 11/4/23
Marvelous Catastrophe
The other day, Joe Russo (one half of the Russo Brothers, the director-pair responsible for several Marvel movies, including Avengers: Endgame) made a really stupid “clap-back” (???) against Martin Scorsese on TikTok. Marty had made a harmless joke about his dog being named “Oscar,” to which Joe Russo (who I guess feels implicitly threatened by any reminder that Scorsese has no interest in his films) responded by claiming that his dog is named “Box Office”. And the winner of the Definitely Not Mad Award goes to…!
I was gonna write a paragraph or two about how lame that completely unprovoked response in (especially since Scorsese’s latest picture is in theaters right now with positive reviews), but forget that — there is WAYYYYYYY bigger Marvel news to discuss this week. Like, a metric fuck-ton of news. Variety dropped a bombshell of a report (featuring excellent artwork by Rafa Alvarez that I included above) that breaks down the overwhelming number of challenges and outright disasters that have plagued the world’s most successful franchise for the past few years. You might already be keen on a few of them, but even if you pay relative attention to movie news, I can assure you that there’s even more to discuss as you think. Rather than summarizing the article, I’m going to list the craziest highlights (to me, at least) and follow them with brief thoughts and my typically intellectual ruminations.
The Kang Dilemma. In perhaps one of the biggest “you hate to see it” falloffs from the past few years, up-and-coming actor Jonathan Majors, who had a major role in three different films this year, had been hit with allegations of abuse and mistreatment of staff, and now has an up-and-coming court case later this month. As much as I genuinely love Majors as a performer, he can’t be making movies if he acts like a monster towards those around him, and that fact remains glaringly apparent for Marvel execs, who have spent the past two years basically setting him up as “Thanos 2”, in the form of Kang the Conqueror. Given there’s a good chance Majors will face a jail sentence in the coming months — and that his silver-screen debut was in an Ant-Man movie that was poorly received to begin with — their choices are to either make a last-minute recasting decision OR shift direction away from Kang entirely. Now, as someone who literally studies story structure for school, the thought of having to go back on several movies and seasons of television to reframe your cinematic universe around a different villain sounds like a living nightmare. The obvious answer is a recast, and while it may not sound satisfying, that is literally the only way Disney won’t be fucked with the 2026-slated Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. And when I say “fucked,” I’m making a direct quote — a top dealmaker cited in the Variety article literally says that “Marvel is truly fucked with the whole Kang angle” and that they “don’t see a path to how they move forward with him.” Mamma Mia, what a mess!
Disney+ Original Series. This subsection is the least flashy, yet probably the most insulting of the revelations. It’s no secret that Marvel’s post-COVID strategy has been pretty ass: creating a bunch of streamable TV shows that quintuple the amount of viewing hours fans are used to (and are essential viewing to know what’s happening in the universe) is not a good move. As soon as you start talking about watching your show like completing homework instead of enjoying entertainment, you’ve fucked up. But it’s not just the existence of these shows that is poorly-executed — they were also made in a haphazard and irresponsible way, too. Quality control for the VFX in Marvel products has been getting so bad that shows like WandaVision and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law were receiving updates to their effects AFTER THEY HAD ALREADY DEBUTED ON DISNEY+. A lack of oversight on script development seems to be the real issue: studio execs making eleventh-hour changes that require VFX artists to work absurdly long hours to fix. (The article provides an example in which Marvel’s brain trust realized that having a scene of She-Hulk getting her powers in Episode 8 would make way more sense in the pilot — fucking shocker — and something tells me the VFX artists probably would’ve liked to know that beforehand.) It’s all fun and games until you exploit the labor of your post-production workers. I don’t want to hear a single head of Marvel Studios bitching about their VFX teams unionizing, because they’re getting exactly what they deserve.
The Marvels. The sequel to Captain Marvel, titled The Marvels and featuring new main characters that were first introduced in Disney+ shows (lmao), is hitting theaters pretty soon. Unfortunately, on a budget of $250 million (you’ve got to be fucking kidding me) the movie is tracking to earn $75-80 million opening weekend, which is less than ideal if it’s looking to make a profit. (What’s funny is that, back in 2019, Captain Marvel passed a billion dollars at the worldwide box office — back in that magical 2015-2019 era, when literally every other blockbuster just got to waltz into the Billion Dollar Club.) It seems that audiences aren’t starving to see a movie that follows several disappointing MCU entries, and a test screening for The Marvels, held in Texas in June and yielding “middling reviews” due to a muddle storyline, isn’t a good sign. Some people — dumb people — are shifting blame for the lame-looking film onto the director, Nia DaCosta, since a) she’s been surprisingly vocal in recent months about how little control or passion she held for The Marvels, and b) she literally moved to London IN THE MIDDLE OF POST-PRODUCTION to work on her next movie, an adaptation of the play Hedda Gabler starring Tessa Thompson. You could choose to get upset at DaCosta for not caring, but as someone who understands that directors need to prioritize energy for projects they’re truly passionate about, I could not give less of a fuck. Come on, guys, let’s laugh a little: it’s objectively hilarious that the director of the movie bailed before it was even finished. Hedda sounds way more interesting anyway, so who cares?
Blade. I think I saved the funniest (and dumbest) story for last. Remember back in 2019 when Kevin Feige announced that Marvel would be doing a Blade remake that’s set in the MCU with Mahershala Ali in the lead role? What’s that? You don’t, because the pandemic has eroded your sense of the passage of time? That’s fair, Dear Reader, but that Blade movie is still on Marvel’s slate… or is it? Turns out, the folks in charge at Marvel don’t even know! The movie has gone through “at least five writers, two directors and one shutdown six weeks before production,” and the script at one point took the form of a female driven narrative “filled with life lessons” (????) where Mahershala Ali was fourth-billed (?????). How do you fuck up this badly on such a basic premise, you guys?! It’s pretty straight-forward — Blade is a cool guy who kills vampires! Is a Rated-R concept really that difficult to mesh into the MCU’s PG-13 vibe? How did we get to the point where Marvel — a studio that was lauded for turning the Guardians of the Galaxy, a group of nobody characters, into iconic household names — can’t figure out a way to make a movie about a dude that ALREADY HAS THREE MOVIES ABOUT HIM?!?!? At this point, just look at what made the older movies good and copy that! This might be the most blatantly I’ve seen the people running the MCU freestyling out in the open — so blatantly that Ali almost left the project and Kevin Feige was close to pulling the plug on the entire thing. Embarrassing.
So, what to take away from all this? It seems a mixture of bad luck, post-COVID paradigm shifts, and general overconfidence have combined to create a perfect storm of Marvel fatigue in the general public. I’ve predicted before that the 2020s will be a revolutionary decade for cinema, but if Marvel actually croaks as a franchise soon, that would be more revolutionary than what even I anticipated. Things are looking so dire that even some of the most notoriously sycophantic, Funko Pop-licking comic book nerds on Film Twitter have lost faith in the once-unbeatable studio. Like, someone made an earnest prediction that the MCU will be dead by 2030, and honestly… that doesn’t sound terribly unbelievable at this point. Isn’t that nuts? I literally came of age alongside this franchise, and now I’m going to be officially entering adulthood as it dies. And yes, if you couldn’t tell from the last few sentences, I’m not betting on things getting better for Marvel. Despite the Variety article doing its best to end on a hopeful note, I don’t see Marvel movies returning to the way they used to be. Even if all the upcoming movies mentioned above aren’t horrible, it’s highly unlikely any of them will be great, and with these ballooning budgets, any movie that doesn’t have strong word-of-mouth will not generate enough profit for investors in the long run.
In my opinion, the best possible thing Marvel could have done post-Endgame was say, “Hey, we just acquired Fox, so we’re gonna end our series on a high note, wait like three-to-four years, and then make a new universe with the X-Men.” That sounds naive, but given how many people are (or were) obsessed with the MCU, I don’t think it would’ve been that unreasonable. I get that pumping the brakes for a studio that large is unthinkable, but look where their ideology led them: into a roadside ditch filled with cacti and wasp nests. What a shame they don’t have me on their advisory board… I would’ve helped them prevent this mess years in advance.
“We’re in the endgame now.”
Hey — just because no deal has been made yet doesn’t mean I can’t provide an update! SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP have spent the week in talks, and they’re reportedly attempting to reach a denouement (which is French for “epic legal agreement”) over the weekend. The studios have offered a new agreement — what they claimed to be their “Last, Best, and Final Offer”, according to SAG-AFTRA —and now deliberation amongst the guild will determine whether the deal is accepted or the strike keeps going. A studio-side source has claimed that talks this week have gone well, and that the ball is now in SAG-AFTRA’s court to make a deal — but this is coming from an AMPTP ally, and you all know the rule of law: NEVER FRATERNIZE WITH THE ENEMY. Regardless, I really hope an agreement on AI is reached, since every single minute detail set into stone with their inevitable contract will set a precedent for the future. Even if the contract being negotiated over only covers the next three years, a lot can happen in those three years, and the more protection writers have, the better. I have a feeling we’re on the brink of a deal, and as dismayed as I’ll be to stop hearing the name “Duncan Crabtree-Ireland” in the weekly news cycle, I really hope this shit ends by next week’s recap. Let’s get the film industry back on track.