I was listening to the radio the other day, and found out that apparently, some people think Harry Potter is a Christmas movie? How? It doesn’t even happen on Christmas. I got a little in the weeds this week thinking about this again, and I’m convinced now that no one knows what a Christmas movie is, and the conversation is mostly about bullying people into accepting the popular opinion. Everyone gives you crap for talking about Die Hard, but they give Die Hard for kids, aka Home Alone, a pass; I never hear anything about Gremlins or other Christmas horror movies; people keep playing Frozen this time of year just because it’s snowy, even though Christmas isn’t snowy for anyone abouts Texas or below. The biggest rule is whether or not it’s a movie you saw or would have seen as a kid. And I saw Die Hard as a kid with my family.
I saw Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom this week. It’s good and fun. Biggest flaw is that Black Manta was short-shrifted in his own movie; in general, they have a great actor in Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, who gave a great performance, but his story is lacking, the finale isn’t what it should be, and his motivation is arguably weak. That aside, good movie. Fun action-adventure plot with amazing visuals and a good cast. In many ways, it’s what you want superhero movies to be.
I could try to take to task critics who panned the movie, because they’re the people who complain about superhero fatigue, a phenomenon only those who complain about it experience, but I won’t. I kind of get their perspective: They’re already not inclined to like superhero movies, so there’s nothing a superhero movie can do to earn their approval, and can only earn praise “despite the genre.” I can understand that, to some extent. I spent a couple of these blogs complaining about how Christmas everywhere is suffocating, after all. There are other movies to watch and talk about, and while fatigue-riddled critics should focus on those instead of complaining about the MCU for their own piece of mind, I get that the omnipresence is still an annoyance.
What I would like to talk about is the interesting moment we can agree superhero movies are currently in. Johnathan Majors is now a convicted abuser, and will no longer be playing Kang for Marvel. This puts Marvel in a pickle, given that they already made huge plans, publicly, for Kang to be their next big villain and named an Avengers movie after him. This on the heels of The Marvels, a fun but messy film, and in the same year as Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which was real bad, yet also the same year as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, arguably their best film to date. On their TV side, they had a success with Loki following the absolute failure that is Secret Invasion. At the same time, DC is in a sort of inverse position, with a rocky start with Flash being followed by Blue Beetle and Aquaman, both of which were fun and solid; also, I thought Shazam: Fury of the Gods was similarly good, but it wasn’t liked by many. All this while DC is publicly planning an all-but-full reboot of their movies, headed by James Gunn, who made Marvel’s three best-regarded movies and (if you look back) did the set up that actually made Thanos a worthy villain. So, a lot going on.
Let’s look at Marvel first. Ever since Avengers Endgame, people have been looking at the MCU differently. The movies they have made since could no longer be good, fun movies with a couple easter eggs or connective references, and then an Avengers would pretend it was all part of a master plan. People started expecting a lot of planning and build-up and strategy from these past two phases that they incorrectly remember from the first three. That’s why, despite there being a lot of great movies since Endgame and about the same ratio of misses, there’s been this big shadow hanging over them. Marvel is a victim of its own success: Now that people have seen how all their years of moviemaking can lead to an Avengers Endgame, fans expect the same from every single movie that follows, and that’s just not what’s happening. I would argue that what they’ve done these past two phases is to their benefit, but they’re no longer in a position with spectators to “not have a plan,” you know?
In this position, we have a tumultuous year for Marvel Studios, capped off with the untimely exit of their new big bad. Whatever Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars were going to be before, they were supposed to be the thing that changed everyone’s minds about how “nothing’s going anywhere.” So what do they do? They could easily recast Kang, and I could see a fun movie starring a team of elite Kangs, all played by different actors, showing up and wrecking the place, all while trash talking Quantumania Kang as the weakest. That would keep those plans on track, and I think Kang can still be a good, fun villain, so it could be worth a shot. But it’s fair to say that, with all that’s happened, they’re not confident they can un-sour the public on a poorly portrayed big bad; also, I heard Majors may have had it in his contract that he was the only one to play Kang, despite him being the time travel/“variant” villain.
Odds are, they go with a new villain. None of the options already out there are great, and they might end up using a variant Tony Stark. Like, that could work, I’ve heard a good argument for it, but also no, right? I’m not excited about that idea. I would posit that you could make this the time for Count Nefaria, with the whole point being that you wouldn’t have known he was there, amassing power in the shadows. He’s been working with the Power Broker, he’s what Kingpin is scared of, he has secret deals with Wakandan and Talokanil mercenaries, etc. The first movie shows you what he’s been doing and why he’s a threat, and then we do Secret Wars. He could even form a Masters of Evil, if you wanted. I just like him and the Maggia, and honestly, why not? If done right, it would be a fun, exciting twist that shows you don’t have to see a threat on that level coming. If you have to redo all your apparent setup anyway, you might as well do someone without setup, and the best choice there is to go completely left-field. And yes, if you’re wondering, I’m imagining Kenneth Branagh. They won’t do any of that, of course.
All that is to say, the issue is really hard to crack. They have a lot to do before Avengers 5: Untitled comes out, and whatever they do has to be something that gets fair-weather fans on board and convince critics that they’re serious about these movies. It’s a huge swing, especially with two out of three of their movies this year not doing well, and only one coming out next year. It’s hard for this all not to feed into doomsayer narratives about superhero fatigue, a phantom Marvel primarily has to grapple with.
While they’re grappling with this, they lost what was arguably their best weapon: James Gunn. Gunn has made some of the best superhero movies in this recent era, including three of Marvel’s best regarded films. Now he’s the head of DC’s movie ventures, with an ambitious slate of films and shows scheduled for release in the next couple of years (I forget the exact timeline). Everything we’ve seen and heard about this new slate is good, and Gunn has the goodwill to do basically anything he wants. On top of this, the year for DC’s movies has been pretty good, overall; none of the four were critical darlings, but three (in my estimation) were good, fun movies, which keeps feelings for DC’s future warm. While Marvel is struggling with an apparent slump, their biggest success was made by the person who’s managing a huge upswing for their competitors on the heels of a positive year. So, while DC still faces the “superhero fatigue” hordes, they’re much better armed to do so and don’t have to face the full brunt of it.
That’s what’s so interesting about this moment. Marvel will likely turn things around, even if it’s on the other side of a flopped Secret Wars when they can focus on the X-Men. It’ll be bumpy until then, though. Simultaneously, DC will be putting out a lot of good movies and shows that can genuinely compete with the MCU the way the DCEU couldn’t. Assuming it all goes like that, it’ll garner them a lot of public praise on Marvel’s back, and potentially revive interest in the superhero genre.
In the end, though, this is all about how big blockbusters can stay afloat. They’re the kinds of movies I like, so I’ll see them, but we need the studios to invest in and stand behind other kinds of movies. The real lesson from this year in blockbuster films is Godzilla Minus One, the best reviewed and one of the best-selling blockbusters of the year. It’s a foreign movie that was made in a totally different paradigm, which is how it looks as good or better than anything in Hollywood and hits strong themes hard without flinching, all for only fifteen-million dollars. There are other homegrown stories like that we could tell, but this coming from Japan likely hits executive sensibilities differently. While I’m not expecting the studios to stop ripping productions off to line shareholder pockets, they’d be smart if they saw the Big G as a sign that low-to-mid-budget movies can be very successful and profitable. They can start by banking on a franchise name; Marvel could easily make a 100 mil movie and be very profitable just because it’s Marvel, assuming it still ends up good. It’s not like Blade has to cost Black Panther money. Just a thought.
Weekly Thoughts 12/23/23
Life in the Gutters 