Marvel's Balance Between Super and Stale

This is a condensed and somewhat edited version of a more in-depth article by Andrew Wheeler which can be read in full over at ComicsAlliance.com

Guardians Of The Galaxy just enjoyed a very successful week at movie theaters, setting industry records left and right with its box office earnings. The movie also stands at 92% positive reviews on aggregator site RottenTomatoes, joining all previous Marvel Studios movies in receiving predominantly favorable notices.

Marvel Studios is doing very well. In six years and ten movies, it has avoided both critical and commercial disasters, and frustrated naysayers who hailed the demise of the superhero movie at every step. So how does Marvel do it, and can they keep doing it?

The secret to Marvel’s success owes much to necessity. Marvel simply can’t afford to screw up the superhero movie business, because it’s the only business the studio is in (unlike other studios). That sounds like a circular argument — it succeeds because it can’t fail — but Marvel’s singular focus forces it to be smart, ambitious, and innovative in ways that its rivals are slow to understand. Marvel Studios succeeds because it goes all-in.

The studio maintains rigorous standards that seem designed to please as wide an audience as possible. Marvel strives to satisfy its core fan base while also entertaining general movie-goers. It tries to stay fresh by mixing superheroes with other flavors — fantasy, espionage, space opera. The studio created an overarching franchise that is just episodic enough to build anticipation, build audience, and build brand loyalty between movies, but also sliced up into sub-franchises that won’t overwhelm audiences or leave anyone behind. These strategies have helped Marvel establish a trustworthy brand and lure increasing numbers to take a chance on its pictures.

The sub-franchise method is effective, because if one stalls it can simply be put on the back-burner in favor of other properties. For example, The Incredible Hulk is by-and-large the least popular film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (though still a profitable and well-liked movie on its own), so the green giant was simply put into a holding pattern until The Avengers four years later (and with a different actor as Hulk's human alter-ego).

However, it is unlikely that even Marvel anticipated the overwhelming successes of each and every franchise it has so far launched. The problem is that the success of existing franchises doesn't leave a lot of room in Marvel’s schedule for new franchises, even when the studio moves up to three pictures a year. Here’s what the schedule looks like:

May 1st 2015: Avengers: Age of Ultron
July 17th 2015: Ant-Man

May 6th, 2016: Captain America 3
July 8th, 2016: Doctor Strange (unconfirmed date)

May 5th, 2017: Unknown
July 28th, 2017: Guardians of the Galaxy 2
Nov 3rd 2017: Unknown

May 4th, 2018: Unknown (likely Avengers 3)
July 6th, 2018: Unknown
Nov 2nd, 2018: Unknown

This is a condensed and somewhat edited version of a more in-depth article by Andrew Wheeler which can be read in full over at ComicsAlliance.com

Between now and the end of 2018, Marvel has five dates reserved for unannounced new movies. One of those dates will definitely be Avengers 3. Another will likely go to a Thor 3. If Ant-Man and Dr. Strange have Marvel-typical success and are deemed worthy of sequels, that leaves only one spot left for a new sub-franchise in the next four years.

Would this be a problem? Yes, if the old franchises start to wilt (Iron Man anyone?) and Marvel doesn't have any new franchises set up to take their place. And the risk of old franchises wilting seems exacerbated by rapid changes in audience profiles and audience appetites.

Marvel Studios has made strides in acknowledging diversity, putting female heroes and heroes of color on the screen in productions that didn’t require their presence. Sif, Black Widow, Heimdall, War Machine, Falcon, Gamora, Peggy Carter; these are all great characters. Marvel Studios’ own television division is giving a spotlight to Peggy Carter, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. But no minority character has their own movie to headline, and looking at the upcoming schedule, it’s easy to imagine that we won’t see a movie with a female or non-white lead until 2019.

A studio that once looked bold and risk-taking is now in danger of looking conservative and cautious, weighed down by its own success — just like other studios which have many projects and are not solely dedicated to the superhero genre. The lack of female protagonists makes Avengers director Joss Whedon rather unhappy, saying to Newsweek last year, "People will point to the two terrible superheroine movies that were made (Elektra, Catwoman) and say, 'You see? It can’t be done.' It’s stupid, and I’m hoping The Hunger Games will lead to a paradigm shift. It’s frustrating to me that I don’t see anybody developing one of these movies. It actually pisses me off."

Of course, Whedon can now brighten up a bit as Sony is reportedly planning a superhero movie with a female lead for 2017. But even if Marvel now does likewise, it’s going to look like it’s following Sony’s lead. On the subject of a movie with a female lead, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige recently indicated to Comic Book Resources that he is not unaware of the conflict between the lack of superhero diversity and simple scheduling issues:

“I think it comes down to timing, which is what I’ve sort of always said, and it comes down to us being able to tell the right story. I very much believe in doing it. I very much believe that it’s unfair to say, ‘People don’t want to see movies with female heroes,’ then list five movies that were not very good, therefore, people didn’t go to the movies because they weren’t good movies, versus [because] they were female leads. And they don’t mention Hunger Games, Frozen, Divergent. You can go back to Kill Bill or Aliens. These are all female-led movies. It can certainly be done.

"I hope we do it sooner rather than later. But we find ourselves in the very strange position of managing more franchises than most people have — which is a very, very good thing and we don’t take for granted, but is a challenging thing. You may notice from those release dates, we have three for 2017. And that’s because just the timing worked on what was sort of gearing up. But it does mean you have to put one franchise on hold for three or four years in order to introduce a new one? I don’t know. Those are the kinds of chess matches we’re playing right now.”

As for a movie with a non-white lead; if Marvel makes Thor 3 before it makes a rumored Black Panther film, it will have made ten movies headlined by blond white men named Chris (Evans, Hemsworth, & Pratt) before it makes one movie headlined by someone who isn't even white. (They can cast a black actor named Chris; that’s totally okay.)

Heroes like Captain Marvel and Black Panther are undoubtedly on Marvel Studios’ to-do list. Yet Marvel’s unprecedented success may just be the chief factor responsible for keeping those characters from our screens. We may have to wait for another franchise to fail before Marvel gets that far down the list. But is that good enough? Audiences deserve to see new kinds of headlining heroes and different populations deserve greater representation. And don't forget, it's still in Marvel's best interest to not only promote equality, but also have the financial security net of new, emerging sub-franchises.

The secret of Marvel’s success is that it took risks in order to grow. The danger of Marvel’s success is that it may force the studio to stop taking risks just when it really needs to.

This is a condensed and somewhat edited version of a more in-depth article by Andrew Wheeler which can be read in full over at ComicsAlliance.com