This isn’t one of those post-Avengers: Endgame spoiler articles (we already got one). I’d like to do that. My brain really wants to do that. The teenage me who saw Iron Man in 2008 desperately wants to do that. Catch me in a bar and we can engage in conversation/ugly weep into each other’s arms until the sun resets.
But let’s just take a moment to reflect in the awe of producer Kevin Feige’s masterplan of films achieving the improbable by rounding off the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sure, there have been—let’s call them—unsuccesses like Thor: The Dark World (which I defend to this day) and The Incredible Hulk (which has no alibi). But they nailed the ones that counted the most, with Endgame completing a fantastic series of blockbusters with mighty scores on Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, Metacritic, Letterboxd, and any other film site that puts an aggregated numerical value on movies.
Now that it’s all done, I can go gently into that good night called ‘superhero fatigue’.
I’ve felt third-degree burnout from the genre for a while now, but my tether to the MCU kept me going. While Hollywood often churned out the same-old-same-old super-stories, there was always this promise of the MCU giving us something we’d never seen before—a conclusion to a universe of films.
With that tether gone, I’m starting to feel comfortable with the idea of not needing to see another superhero film in cinemas for quite some time. Yes, this includes Spider-Man: Far From Home, and the version of me who loved Homecoming would slap current me square in the teeth for saying such blasphemy.
If most people feel the same way I do, it’s not a good sign for the genre. The absolute biggest of the big has been delivered, making the rest look like finger food, and while finger food can be delicious, it’s not why you go to the restaurant.
(Well, maybe a tapas restaurant. My analogy might have holes.)
So what’s the next meal? Marvel could do a whole new set of cinematic phases with a whole new band of heroes fighting a whole new intergalactic villain, but the format isn’t new anymore. DC dropped the ball with their universe, The Conjuring had a good thing going until recently, and the Dark Universe started and ended with The Mummy.
We can compare ‘universes’ to other franchise formatting fads like ‘trilogies’. Or ‘remakes’. Or ‘splitting the last film into two parts’.
Not that formats die, per se. We’re about to get the end of a John Wick trilogy, the world’s frothing at the mouth for The Lion King remake, and you could technically call Endgame the Part Two of the third Avengers cinematic story. But by the sheer mass of what has just been achieved, a new set of MCU phases could go the way of The Hobbit, unnecessarily bloating a follow-up in an attempt to replicate former cinematic glory. (I’d love to be wrong, though.)
Perhaps Disney’s crystal ball foretold this and they’ll try something that combines online content with cinematic experiences (more than the Netflix shows did, at least). Or perhaps it’s just a startling coincidence that their new streaming service, Disney+, lands in November just in time for Endgame‘s small-screen debut alongside the slew of Marvel stories ready for the platform.
If this really is the start of a downward box office slump caused by superhero fatigue, Disney’s pulling a clever manoeuvre here. Whatever loss they face by lower cinema audience attendance can be judo flipped into their streaming service, a place where familiarity thrives.
Series have also given second chances to movies that don’t deserve it. I’m still perplexed at how a suck-ass financial failure like The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones can succeed all the way to a third season on TV, but enough people have flocked to it.
Changing services isn’t the only way to keep a genre fresh, mind you. Bold narrative shifts shown by the likes of Logan and Deadpool have proven their value while other superhero films NOT made by or starring a white guy have expanded horizons and led to box office gold like Black Panther and Captain Marvel, as well as DC champs Wonder Woman and Aquaman.
Perhaps Disney can sustain another decade of a Marvel universe powered by new voices. Hell, maybe the DCEU can get it right this time.
There’s still plenty of ground to cover and many eyes who haven’t seen enough of themselves celebrated as the caped saviour on screen. It bodes well for the likes of Marvel’s Shang-Chi, DC’s Wonder Woman 1984, and Black Widow’s long-awaited feature.
Then again, there’s the solo Gambit film, a standalone The Flash movie, another Batman feature, 2 Fast 2 Venom… I feel fatigued just thinking about it.
