I planned to write a new installment of "State of the Superhero" for 2024, but I really only have anything to say about the MCU. The rebooted DC films under James Gunn haven't really gotten off the ground yet, and their television offerings have been scarce under David Zaslav. There aren't any more upcoming Sony Spider-Verse movies after "Kraven," aside from the far-off promise of "Beyond the Spider-Verse," and "Spider-Noir."
So, let's talk about what's going on with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In short, the Multiverse Saga (Phases 4-6) is not going well. Phase Four was massively impacted by the pandemic, and the quality of the television and film output was hit-or-miss, introducing a lot of new characters like Shang-Chi and the Eternals. There was some grumbling about sub-par sequels, but the box office was still mostly okay. Then came Phase Five, and the wheels really started coming off. 2023 was the worst year for Marvel Studios to date, with the awful "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania," and "Secret Invasion." "The Marvels" bombed spectacularly, though it didn't deserve it. The allegations against Jonathan Majors came out around the time "Quantumania" did, prompting his removal from the franchise, despite playing the villain, Kang, who was set to be the big bad of the next "Avengers" film. Then along came the SAG/WGA strikes, which meant more disruption and delay.
I'm not going to get into all the turmoil going on at Disney and Marvel Studios behind the scenes that has contributed to the chaos, but everyone seems to agree that the increased amount of Marvel content due to the Disney+ streaming service has drastically affected its quality across the board. Nearly every announced project has seen multi-year delays, and I've lost track of all the directors who have come and gone from the perpetually in-limbo "Blade" move with Mahershalla Ali, which was initially announced back in 2019 was recentlly taken off the schedule entirely. The new "Daredevil" series had to be extensively retooled after several episodes had already been shot. I'm not going to say much more about the upcoming Disney+series, because they'll be dealing with a backlog of already announced projects for at least the next year - none of them very interesting. However, at least they're hiring more seasoned showrunners for future streaming projects.
What prompted this post was the 2024 Comic-Con announcements, which promised some big things going forward, and signaled that there have been a lot of frantic attempts to fix things out of the public eye. The biggest news is that Jonathan Majors' Kang is being replaced by a new Big Bad - Doctor Doom, who will be played by Robert Downey Jr. The fifth Avengers movie, formerly known as "Avengers: Kang Dynasty," has been renamed "Avengers: Doomsday." The sixth Avengers film is still "Avengers: Secret Wars." The Russo brothers, who have made some underwhelming films since "Endgame," are returning to helm both. In other words, Marvel's getting the band responsible for their most lucrative movies back together. I've seen some disappointment that Marvel is playing it safe and playing the hits, but I honestly think this is a pretty good outcome for everyone involved. The Russos get a steady paycheck for a few years, and the next "Avengers" films are in the hands of directors with a lot of experience.
We also got a much better look at the next few MCU films coming our way. 2025 will see the release of "Captain America: Brave New World," "Thunderbolts*," and "The Fantastic Four: First Steps." I'm not too enthused about any of them. "Brave New World," is going to be another espionage thriller in the same vein as "Winter Soldier," more grounded and realistic, despite Harrison Ford Hulking out in some of the leaked footage. "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" series was such a mess, I'm glad that Anthony Mackie will have a chance to relaunch his version of Captain America, but the best case scenario that I can see is that this ends up being a homage to political thrillers of the 90s like Harrison Ford's Jack Ryan movies. "Thunderbolts*" (I expect the asterisk is meant to represent the six main characters coming together) is a team-up movie for the MCU's antiheroes and reformed villains - mostly from "Black Widow" and " The Falcon and the Winter Soldier." Frankly, it looks like a much less interesting version of "The Suicide Squad," and I'm not really a fan of any of the featured characters. Florence Pugh's Yelena, the new Black Widow, is okay, I guess. Bucky's charms continue to elude me.
Finally, we have "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" which Marvel is pinning a lot of their hopes on. It's kicking off Phase Six, and will likely lead straight into "Avengers: Doomsday." However, this has been a difficult piece of material to adapt, and frankly I've never seen any adaptation of "The Fantastic Four" that I've liked. Nothing about the new attempt is catching my interest so far. The '60s setting isn't going to help bring in audiences, the "First Steps" title is meh, and the cast is not anybody's first choices for these characters. The hovering car makes me think this movie is going to be aimed at an audience a lot younger than the ones for the three movies it's following - one of which is the R-rated "Deadpool & Wolverine" that made a billion dollars.
At the time of writing the next "Spider-man" movie was just announced for 2026. It seems awfully fast, but Marvel is going to need those reinforcements.
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