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“Superhero Fatigue” is the name of the game. There’s been a deep shift over the past year or two, where tens of millions of superhero-fans suddenly got really f–king tired of what was on offer. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantunmania was released a year ago to a lukewarm reception and it barely made its cost back for Marvel. The Marvels was unquestionably a huge bomb. And then there was the whole Jonathan Majors mess – Majors’ Kang was supposed to be the centerpiece of like four future Marvel projects. Instead, they fired him as soon as he was convicted of abusing his girlfriend. So, what’s going on with Marvel these days? They are “quietly retooling,” according to the Hollywood Reporter. There was some interesting stuff in this piece:
Marvel isn’t doing endless reshoots anymore: These public-facing moves come as studio boss Kevin Feige recalibrates the creative direction behind the scenes. Early in February, the company completed reshoots for Agatha: Darkhold Diaries, the WandaVision spinoff starring Kathryn Hahn that is expected to hit Disney+ this fall. The company usually budgets five days of reshoots into the schedule, but the studio completed the work in just one, fueling a sunny outlook around the show internally, according to sources associated with the series.
Marvel is hiring mature, professional screenwriters & showrunners: The studio also quietly hired Eric Pearson to polish the script for Fantastic Four, which will shoot this summer in London. Pearson is a company stalwart who worked on Thor: Ragnarok and Black Widow and has a reputation for taking projects over the finish line. Marvel also hired Joanna Calo, the showrunner of acclaimed FX series The Bear, to work on the script for Thunderbolts, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The film will begin shooting in March in Atlanta. Her hiring adds a flair of prestige to the project, which stars Florence Pugh and — according to a source who has read previous drafts of the script — centers on villains and antiheroes going on a mission that was supposed to end with their deaths.
Cleaning up the Jonathan Majors mess: Marvel is also cleaning up the creative mess left in the wake of Jonathan Majors, the once-rising actor cast to play the lynchpin villain role in the next Avengers movies but who in December was found guilty of reckless assault in the third degree and harassment in a Manhattan court after a domestic incident with his ex-partner, a movement coach he met while working on Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Marvel dropped Majors hours after the conviction and is rewriting those movies, which will now either minimize the character or excise him entirely. The first of the new Avengers movies, due out in 2026, was initially titled Avengers: The Kang Dynasty but will be getting a new title to remove the character’s name, though sources say that even before Majors’ conviction, the studio was making moves to minimize the character after Quantumania underperformed, grossing $476 million.
Giving more control to showrunners: On the TV side, Marvel has been reorganizing its operations to allow for greater control from showrunners, a move made after the critical failure of the expensive Samuel L. Jackson spy series Secret Invasion, which sidelined executive producer Kyle Bradstreet after a year, with various creative factions vying for influence in his wake.
A retooling, not a reboot: “The focus is internal this year,” says one insider of all the tinkering going on behind the scenes. Execs are not calling it a reboot, not even a soft one, but more of a creative retooling. It’s no secret that since the 2019 Avengers: Endgame, the company was asked to scale up in an unprecedented way to feed its fledgling streaming service, Disney+, then a top priority for Disney, which was in the thick of the streaming wars. “Some of our studios lost a little focus. So the first step that we’ve taken is that we’ve reduced volume,” Bob Iger said on a Feb. 7 earnings call. “We’ve reduced output, particularly at Marvel,” in order to ensure “the films you’re making can be even better.”
The strikes helped Marvel: The dual writers and actors strikes, while costly to Hollywood, ironically gave Marvel breathing space. It was able to reschedule its movies so that only Deadpool & Wolverine will be released in 2024. And only two series — Echo and Agatha — are bowing on Disney+ this year. Other movies remain in the script stage, while TV shows (such as Ironheart) have filmed, but have no release date in sight. It is all designed to give creatives some breathing room and give audiences the chance to miss the MCU, just a little bit. “They’re not going to give up,” says a source who has worked with Marvel over the past year. “They want to make something great.”
Here’s the thing: Marvel is now taking/getting credit for reinventing the wheel. They’re doing things they should have been doing all along, like hiring a good script doctor to polish their scripts months before the production begins, and hiring qualified, professional show-runners and giving them power and a lot of creative control. That’s what was supposed to happen, dumbasses! Believe it or not, before this modern era of superhero filmmaking, most productions didn’t have to block out millions in the budget for expensive reshoots, nor did every problem get “solved” in post, with the use of CGI and what have you. I think one of the most telling moments of “superhero fatigue” was the larger conversation about how Marvel’s VFX increasingly looks cheap and ugly, to the point where no one could focus on whatever plot. I am glad that it sounds like they’re completely reimagining what they’ll do with Kang and those stories though. Again, that’s what should happen!
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
WESTWOOD, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA – DECEMBER 13: President of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige arrives at the Los Angeles Premiere Of Columbia Pictures’ ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ held at the Regency Village Theatre on December 13, 2021 in Westwood, Los Angeles, California, United States.,Image: 647918124, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Kevin Feige, Credit line: Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon
WESTWOOD, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA – DECEMBER 13: President of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige arrives at the Los Angeles Premiere Of Columbia Pictures’ ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ held at the Regency Village Theatre on December 13, 2021 in Westwood, Los Angeles, California, United States.,Image: 647918151, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Kevin Feige, Credit line: Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon
Influencer, YouTuber and gamer Elz the Witch interviews Jonathan Majors on the red carpet at the UK Gala Screening of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania at BFI IMAX Waterloo, London, UK on 16 February 2023.,Image: 756771587, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Tina Korhonen / Avalon
SANTA MONICA, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA – FEBRUARY 18: Kathryn Hahn wearing a Ronald van der Kemp dress with Roger Vivier shoes arrives at the 49th Annual People’s Choice Awards 2024 held at The Barker Hangar on February 18, 2024 in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, California, United States.,Image: 848337708, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Kathryn Hahn, Credit line: Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon
