After Marvel’s third “Ant-Man” movie began receiving negative reviews, Disney swiftly pushed back its “Captain Marvel” sequel from a prime summer release date to November on the film’s opening day.
Marvel Studios is finally rethinking its release strategy and everyone will be the better for it. Marvel Studios; Marianne Ayala/Insider
Around the same time, Marvel’s Disney+ schedule for the year quietly shrank from five to reportedly two (“Secret Invasion” and a second season of “Loki”).
After a string of divisive, middling, and overstuffed sequels combined with subpar streaming shows, Disney’s finally rethinking the MCU’s needlessly relentless release strategy.
Thank God.
Now tied for the worst-reviewed Marvel Cinematic Universe film since 2021’s “Eternals,” “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” may have finally given Marvel Studios the wake-up call it desperately needed.
Marvel’s releasing too much content back-to-back and no one can keep up.
Marvel used to be a fun escape for a few hours every few months, where fans looked forward to getting lost in a fantastical world of superheroes. Over the past two years, Marvel’s devolved from fun to homework, a routine appointment we begrudgingly attend just to be part of the pop culture conversation.
Let’s face it. Marvel releases don’t feel special anymore.
Keeping up with the MCU feels like homework
Brie Larson stars in “The Marvels,” a “Captain Marvel” sequel that was pushed from summer 2022 to a November release. Courtesy of Marvel Studios
Marvel never used to release so much content every year.
From 2008 to 2016, we received a steady stream of around two MCU films per year. But in 2018, Marvel Studios upped the ante and released three films. It paid off. Two of those three — “Black Panther” and “Avengers: Infinity War” — crossed $1 billion at the box office. Disney became the first movie studio to have seven movies cross $1 billion at the box office the following year (two of which were Marvel).
And so three Marvel movies per year became the norm.
From then on, the mantra became “more is more.” In 2021, Marvel released four movies and five Disney+ Marvel shows. The next year, Disney released an additional three movies, four original series, and two specials — a 700% increase in output from a decade before.
Disney appears to think Marvel fans want content all the time but that isn’t the case.
Fans simply can’t keep up.
A November 2022 survey from Fandom of 5,000 entertainment and gaming fans in the US and UK, found that 84% of Marvel fans are “overwhelmed with the constant stream of MCU content.” Thirty-six percent said they felt “fatigue” from the number of Marvel releases last year (there were nine). Yet, despite the constant flood of releases, fans said they’d still head to theaters and stream the latest series.
A separate August 2022 study from Morning Consult, which surveyed 2,200 US adults in November 2021 and July 2022, found superhero fatigue to be up among adults and Marvel fans. While 82% of Marvel fans said they still enjoy superhero films, 31% said they’re “getting a little tired of so many of them.”
Many people may not be aware of some of Marvel’s Disney+ shows, like “Ms. Marvel,” since so many are dropping around the same time. Marvel Studios/Disney+
Marvel Studio head Kevin Feige seems at least in part aware of this paradox.
In a February interview with Entertainment Weekly, Feige said some people like rewatching all of the Marvel shows and movies before going out to see the next new release. “People like to do the homework” and “find the fun in the homework,” he said.
Feige, nobody loves homework.
Marvel has put the burden on its fans to follow an increasingly enmeshed series of characters and plots, that has long since left the pages of its source material.
It’s getting to the point where you can’t watch Marvel titles as standalone films. “Quantumania” would’ve been immensely confusing if viewers didn’t have knowledge of the first film’s villain (“Ant-Man”), the Quantum Realm (previous “Ant-Man” films), and Kang the Conqueror (who first appeared on Disney+’s “Loki”).
In 2019, Feige told Bloomberg’s Devin Leonard that fans would likely need to supplement their film-going with a Disney+ subscription in order to fully engage with new Marvel releases. If this sounds like a thinly veiled ploy to bolster Disney+ subscriptions, well, Disney+ crossed 100 million subscribers just 16 months after launching, and it’s forecasting it will hit between 230-260 million subscriptions by 2024.
The completist nature of the MCU has sucked some of the joy and fun out of the MCU. Fans are punished or feel dumb for not keeping up.
It’s not just fans, employees can’t keep up with the churn either. As a result, projects are sometimes released unpolished.
Here’s a scene from act three of “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” which includes heavy visual effects. Marvel Studios
Visual effects artists and technicians recently told Vulture they were working under “unrealistically short” deadlines, sometimes clocking 80-hour weeks to deliver shots for “Quantumania” as work on “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” took priority. Understaffed, shortcuts were made to “cover up incomplete work.”
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It’s not the first time visual effects (VFX) folks have aired grievances about working with Marvel. Last July, another anonymous VFX worker told Vulture they worked seven days a week for nearly six months to deliver just one Marvel movie, detailing the many changes Marvel may demand at any given time.
“Maybe a month or two before a movie comes out, Marvel will have us change the entire third act. It has really tight turnaround times,” they said.
As Gizmodo’s Linda Codego noted, you’ll see “incredibly sharp and realistic VFX work in one scene, and then two minutes later, the VFX work looks choppy and rushed” across the board in Marvel titles due to the company’s reportedly “erratic” direction.
Former visual effects artist Dhruv Govil who worked on “Guardians of the Galaxy,” tweeted that working on Marvel shows pushed him to leave the VFX industry. “They’re a horrible client, and I’ve seen way too many colleagues break down after being overworked, while Marvel tightens the purse strings,” he wrote.
As a result of unrealistic and ever-shifting VFX deadlines, films and shows are premiering unfinished, with Marvel quietly making changes to its films and shows after release.
Inventive camera work during multiple action scenes in recent rival studio releases, including “Dungeons & Dragons” and “John Wick: Chapter 4,” where the camera either gives you a bird’s-eye view or moves with the character makes it easy to notice how mundane similar Marvel sequences have become.
“Quantumania” should have truly immersed audiences in an otherworldly Quantum Realm, teased since 2015’s “Ant Man.” But instead, the film underwhelmed, resembling a cheap, live-action version of Disney Animation’s “Strange World” flop. It was as if Marvel had no clear direction for what the world should look like so the studio lazily borrowed from another one of its films.
Shots from “Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania” and Disney’s animated film “Strange World.” Marvel Studios, Disney Animation
Most films since “Avengers: Endgame” feel overstuffed, often playing like a commercial for the next Disney+ series or a teaser for a sequel, and fans agree. Since 2021, four out of six Marvel Studios’ releases have received B/B+ Cinemascore moviegoer polls, the lowest of any MCU films, suggesting fans aren’t digging the releases as much as they used to.
Additionally, the films continue to trend lower on Rotten Tomatoes critic’s score. Three recent releases — “Eternals” (47%), “Thor: Love and Thunder” (63%), and “Quantumania” (47%) share the MCU’s lowest Rotten Tomatoes critic scores.
Films are underperforming (by Marvel standards anyway). “Spider-Man: No Way Home” aside, which was a joint production with Sony Pictures, Marvel hasn’t had its own $1 billion movie since 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame.” (Let’s be real. If you’re a Marvel movie not hitting $1 billion, are you even considered a success in the Mouse’s eyes?)
Marvel nis killing its brand unnecessarily. Releases need to feel special again.
the Ant-Man and The Wasp Quantumania world premiere at Regency Village Theatre in Westwood, California, on February 06, 2023. Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney
Post-pandemic, there’s less of a sense of urgency to head to theaters when fans know they can just catch a new film or series in a few months on Disney+.
Marvel releases need to feel special again. The studio should return to delivering one or two polished movies and one to two shows, max, per year.
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Kevin Feige, at least, may be ready to heed that advice.
In February, Feige implied to EW that Marvel would change the pace at which it’s rolling out new shows on Disney+ so “they can each get a chance to shine.” The MCU head said that meant spacing out shows and releasing fewer in a given year.
Feige’s proposed new schedule would give each release some room to breathe, give fans time to catch up, and perhaps give the overworked and underpaid visual effects teams a much-needed break.
At this point, Marvel is only competing with itself in the superhero space. Currently, Warner Bros. and Sony (again, Spider-Man aside) are tossing out underperforming, embarrassing clunkers, though DC may be on the rise in the near future now that it’s found its own Feige. In October, the studio announced director James Gunn would be stepping in to take the brand in a new direction,
So why is Marvel trying so hard to win the crown when it’s already king?
