Bloody Marvelsous!
The release date for Disney Marvel Studios' The Marvels has been pushed back. Again. How many times is that?* But at least we now have a poster to whet the appetite.
Last September, when asked by Variety how long she would play Captain Marvel, Brie Larson responded: I don't know. Does anyone want me to do it again?
Some commentators have interpreted this as a response to the unenthusiastic reception met by her debut, sandwiched between Avengers: Infinity War and the closure of the MCU's third phase with Avengers: Endgame. But I suspect this credits her with either too much self-awareness, or interest in the Marvel fandom…or h8rz
as Larson's stans would have it.
It's rumoured she's pissed that this entry into the MCU pantheon isn't titled as a direct sequel to that first solo outing: Captain Marvel 2: The Somnambulist Returns. Instead, she has to share the billing with two Disney+ upstarts, despite Kevin Feige previously saying that her character would become a major force in the franchise post-Endgame. So her question may well have been aimed at the studio, rather than the audience.
Given the rumours of divaesque on-set behaviour, her position on the poster seems quite fitting. Subliminal messaging, perhaps?
* Originally slated for release on 08.07.2022, the date has been pushed back to 11.11.2022; 17.02.2023; 28.07.2023; and now 10.11.2023.
Unrelated to The Marvels per se, but more a reflection of what the MCU has become:
The physical standards between men and women in the MCU are actually hilarious now. On one side you've got Chris Hemsworth, a guy with godlike genetics, juiced to the gills, and the other you've got... Florence Pugh, who looks like the fourth cutest girl at my local Pet Smart.
The Burning Sensation, commenting on Drinker's Chasers - The Marvels Will Be A Massive Disaster For Disney, Critical Drinker After Hours
(LOLZ)
The first trailer has dropped, as the hep katz 'n' kittenz are wont to say, and the results look…amateurish. This despite the release being delayed for over a year. And there's the lame, goofy humour that induces more cringe than laughs. It hasn't degenerated to children's TV shaving foam pie-fights yet, but it's only a matter of time.
Still, at least Brie Larson gets to use more than one facial expression and throw a childish paddy, so that's something. Even if it's not a particularly compelling something.
[ Merrie Melodies intro ]
I could've been both wrong and ahead of the curve at the same time. According to the director of The Marvels: The biggest difference from the other MCU movies to date is that it’s really wacky, and silly
. Just what superhero film and comics fans really appreciate. (clown)
So perhaps Larson's stroppy performance wasn't a childish paddy, but comedy
. And the shaving foam pie-fights could be in after all; propeller bow ties, even.
I now have a mental picture of the Marvels turning up in a clown car: a bang; a cloud of smoke; and the doors falling off. It's more entertaining than I suspect the film may actually be.
Th-th-th-that's all folks!
[ Merrie Melodies outro ]
Yes, I am aware that Merrie Melodies, as well as Looney Tunes, is a Warner Bros title.
Incoming theatrical catastrophe?
The trailer released back in April promised the crazy cat ladies that they'd be well-catered for. And the latest poster confirms it. Someone misunderstood Kevin Feige's demand for more pussy in the MCU. (shrug)
It's almost as if the studio's no longer even trying, and simply leaning into the wacky and silly
. Or the sponsorship from Whiskas.
Hey ho, it's all good for a laugh.
Marvel Studios
The Marvels will be released to theatres at the end of this week. And, as the anticipation reaches fever-pitch, the final trailer has dropped. And, just in case anticipation was nowhere near fever-pitch, Marvel threw in a few member berries of the good old days, before the MCU turned to dog shit; or, in this case, cat shit.
The film's definitely one for the ladies who don't see enough female representación!(representación!) on screen. Not only does it boast three female protagonists, but the antagonist is a gender-swapped, nonthreatening take on Dar-Benn—a minor character from the comics—who shall be known as Dar-Bint, to avoid confusion with her more fearsome, real-villain namesake. According to an almost despondent-sounding Nick Fury: She can't be matched. Can't be controlled.
I don't know how Samuel L. Jackson manages to keep a straight voice with this hyperdramatic bullshit; plenty of past experience, I guess. Whatever, the man's a deadpanning legend.
Gone are the goofy attempts at humour, although what remains is still funny; as in so gay, it's funny. It just goes to show, you can get more laughs by playing it straight. I particularly liked this line from one of the diversities: She tore a hole in space!
I couldn't help but mentally replace it with She tore space a new one
. (LOL)
Despite the estimated how much?
production budget, savings appear to have been made that heighten the levity. For instance, given that Dar-Bint is now supposed to be a Thanos-level threat, the effort made in transforming Zawe Ashton—pantomine clothing, with shoulder-pads to stir the green-eyed monster in Alexis Carrington—compared to that given to Josh Brolin seems almost tragic. She doesn't even have the presence of Ronan the Accuser. Some characters are simply expendable, and are just sent out to die.
Marvel Studios
Black girl magic!This is a thing, a thing that was actually said in the trailer. (SMH)
The reviews from early screenings are trickling in; some enthusiastic, others less so. The only point of this update, however, is to highlight The Irish Times' Donald Clarke's waspish sense of humour, which he'd previously brought to bear in his review of Eternals:
To say The Marvels is hard to watch would be to risk understatement. It’s not just that it’s not very good. It is hard to watch in the sense that a tree is hard to defibrillate.
Donald Clarke, The Marvels review: The Marvel Cinematic Universe disappears up its own black hole, The Irish Times
He urges us to pity Samuel L. Jackson for appearing as a dignified janitor in a permanently collapsing skyscraper.
I don't buy it. I have no knowledge of Jackson's contractual obligations, but he must've had an opportunity to bail out at some point, and it's not as if he's unaware of the declining quality of Marvel Studios' output. He made his choice; he takes the pay cheque; he deserves no sympathy.
The Marvels hasn't been quite the box office hit that some had predicted, or hoped for. It claimed two records for the MCU within its first two weeks in theatres: the lowest domestic opening; and the largest second-week drop-off. Wowzers! And those records aren't limited to the MCU alone, with it also having taken those dubious accolades from Warner Bros' less successful entries into the DCEU.
But worse was to come. With a global total of just $197M, Marvel Studios has now pretty much thrown in the towel, only a month after release.
The studio wrote on Sunday in a note to press, “With ‘The Marvels’ box office now winding down, we will stop weekend reporting of international/global grosses on this title.”
Rebecca Rubin, ‘The Marvels’ Ends Box Office Run as Lowest-Grossing MCU Movie in History, Variety
This is on a budget variously guesstimated at around $270M—taking into account known disclosures and UK tax relief, and unknown fixings in post. Subsequent marketing and distribution costs will have taken the overall cost to Disney to something in the region of $400M. Their box office return will be around a quarter of that.
Oh well, never mind. Sometimes the creative vision simply cannot be held to commercial ransom, dahling.