Highlights
- Marvel's golden era may be coming to an end as movie theaters struggle and audiences become less willing to support big-budget blockbusters.
- The issue with most Marvel releases is not that they don't make money, but that budgets have become too high and their reputation has declined.
- Marvel's overreliance on CGI has led to derision from audiences, and their treatment of VFX professionals has created a culture of abuse. Resolving these issues is crucial for regaining goodwill with fans.
Remember when everyone was excited about Marvel's cultural domination? It's hard to recall a time when ten more years of new superhero films with increasingly interconnected stories and characters were thrilling rather than depressing. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is responsible for some of the finest pieces of genre filmmaking of the past few years, but its golden era is waning, and the endgame may be nearer than once thought.
As movie theaters struggle to survive one critical wound after another, audiences become unwilling to support most big-budget blockbusters. The risk of the entire pastime of moviegoing becoming extinct will entice film fans to pursue anything new and different. As the market gets overcrowded and the same options are rehashed repeatedly, the old guard will be forced to innovate or die.
Marvel Projects Have Underperformed
Make no mistake. Marvel movies rake in an enormous amount of money. Their financial winnings have been strange to graph out. The most telling example is likely Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. It was the first entry of Phase Five. All of Phase Four took place in the shadow of the ongoing pandemic, which wreaked havoc on the returns of several entries. The third Ant-Man vehicle brought home $476.1 million on a $200 million budget. That would exceed the traditional cost of production and marketing, but Marvel was working with a $600 million break-even point. It suffered a second-weekend drop of 69%. Critics weren't any kinder to it, handing down a brutal 46% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was considerably more successful, but Ant-Man wasn't the first disappointment.
The problem with most Marvel releases isn't that they don't make money. They're guaranteed a nine-figure return with the brand name alone. The issue is that the budgets have ballooned out of control, and their reputation has declined. Each entry needs to make three-to-four times its production budget to be considered a success. Various non-Marvel blockbusters have struggled with similar expectations. Disney needs to show growth on the balance sheet each quarter to make its shareholders happy. That implies the studio can never go backward. Disney can't backpedal now. Every entry must build on the success of the last. Each film and streaming series creates the foundation for the next big hit. If those foundational pieces start to rot, the entire empire could be on the decline.
Overreliance on CGI Has Hurt Marvel
Marvel's VFX has become its most widely derided element. The studio uses shoddy CGI to recreate details that could easily be captured practically. It's beyond communicating every action set piece and alien being with digital creations. Marvel uses CGI to create blank office walls, unpopulated city streets, or traditional props. Their overreliance on computer-generated imagery offers many benefits. Audiences have grown to hate it, but it's too enticing for Disney to stop using it. A CG environment can be changed without reshoots. Producers, legal representatives, and studio heads can request substantial rewrites without creating a new set. In addition, actors are often unavailable for reshoots, encouraging the studio to make footage as impactful as possible. The more sinister justification ties into Marvel's sordid history with VFX professionals.
Set designers, costume designers, make-up professionals, hair stylists, drivers, location managers, scouts, and many other crew members are affiliated with film unions. VFX artists are not unionized. Marvel has created a culture of abuse of their VFX professionals. Artists have noted brutal crunch, frequent last-minute changes, and no tolerance for missing absurd deadlines. Marvel has demanded a studio recreate the third act of a film a month or two before its scheduled release, then blacklisted artists who failed to deliver. As one of the biggest studios in the industry, Marvel has the power to bully and abuse the VFX professionals who make their films worth watching. CGI artists need to take a page out of every other film union's book.
The Strikes Have Pushed Everything Further Back
The only way for Marvel to regain goodwill with fans is by resolving their issues and delivering quality films. Unfortunately, the studio would rather let everything burn than pay people what they're worth. The WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes will be a massive blow to every major studio. The last big WGA strike changed film and TV forever. This one could reshape the medium. Marvel will be one of the biggest targets. If Marvel would rather die than promise the people who make them their money a living wage, they deserve their fate.
Marvel is responsible for its current predicaments. Every problem they have can be solved. Marvel has climbed to the top of the entertainment industry by briefly tempering their greed to make more money later. Every other attempt at the cinematic universe model has failed because their studios have tripped over themselves, desperately clawing for what Marvel has. If they were able to exercise that level of restraint again, they'd simply negotiate with labor, pay people what they're worth, and let filmmakers create art that draws in new and old fans. The world will have to wait and see whether the world's biggest stable of superheroes can save themselves.