Blogocentric Formulations

Reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated

Today I'm feeling a little sullen. If you pay attention to the happenings in the entertainment industry, you might have noticed that my company's latest film, The Marvels, had the lowest opening weekend performance of any film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with only $46 million at the domestic box office. It's a misfire, for sure, and I'll admit the movie isn't one of our best (although it's also far from one of our worst). The reason I'm feeling sullen, though, isn't because of the disappointing box office. It's because the disappointing box office is coming on the heels of a series of articles and analyses predicting the demise of Marvel. There have been articles like these for months:

          Crisis at Marvel  
          In Marvel we no longer trust  
          Why 'The Marvels' can't solve the Marvel Studios brand problem  
          Marvel's Release Delays Mean The MCU Matches DC In One Very Disappointing Way  
          Marvel used to reliably churn out billion-dollar hits. Now Disney has a mess on its hands  
          The MCU Is In Big Trouble  

Second off, I can take criticism of my employer and my work... when it's warranted. The problem is, I don't really think it's warranted. Marvel Studios has presided over a record-shattering run of success in Hollywood. To date, it's released 33 films that have grossed a collective $30,000,000,000 at the box office. For context, the next highest grossing franchises are Sony's Spider-Man franchise at $10.5 billion (also a Marvel property, which isn't factored into the MCU's grosses), and the Star Wars franchise at $10.3 billion. For reference, other franchises like Harry Potter, Fast and Furious, James Bond, Batman, Jurassic Park, Transformers, and Lord of the Rings are all less than $10 billion each. Having a string of 32 consecutive profitable films is unheard of at pretty much any studio or production company in the industry in the last 75+ years at least. So it feels like maybe declaring the MCU dead and buried after a handful of less than stellar (but still profitable) films and one actual bomb feels a bit presumptuous. It's like looking at a baseball player who goes 32-for-32 with 20 home runs, 8 triples, and 5 doubles to start the season, then strikes out once and suddenly everybody throws up their hands and goes, "Wow, their season is basically over. What a failure!"

Third off, I think it's gross when people pre-judge the success of something before it comes out. When I was first starting my career in this industry, I worked on a movie called Who's Your Caddy? which is objectively not a good movie, and is currently #40 on IMDb's "Bottom 100" list of Lowest Rated Movies. Here's the thing though... and this was one of my first lessons in how social movements can shape opinion... that movie was #3 on that list a week before it was released. Voters on IMDb decided they hated the movie and gave it a bunch of one-star ratings before any of them actually had a chance to see it. And the same thing kind of happened here. All the Marvel Studios hit pieces, the rumors that this movie was going to tank... all the negative talk started weeks ago. There are flaws with The Marvels for sure. And Marvel Studios is going through a bit of a rough patch right now for sure. But it's weird how many people were so convinced this movie was going to bomb without having seen more than a trailer or a TV spot.

Fourth off and finally, and somewhat related to the point above, I think life is hard enough right now without a bunch of people rooting for things to fail. So many companies (Disney and Marvel Studios included) have just gone through rounds of layoffs and cost-cutting. There are or have been labor strikes in multiple industries. Income inequality has never been worse, and many people are having a hard time just making ends meet. It feels like a weird time to root for things to fail, knowing that failure could very well affect people's livelihoods. I know that bad news is far more engaging than good news and everybody loves to watch a train wreck, but it almost feels like we're reaching a point as a society where we're gleefully hoping to create train wrecks so we have something to entertain ourselves with. It makes me really sad, and sullen, that there are so many people out there who revel in and even celebrate others' failure.

So, yeah, I'm feeling a little sullen today.

The opening weekend of The Marvels was a disappointment, to be sure. The next project I'm working on is really frustrating me because of a few wrinkles I'm trying to iron out. But I'm also super excited for our upcoming slate of projects. Deadpool 3 is going to be amazing, and I'm really looking forward to Captain America 4 as well. Disney as a company (including Marvel) has pivoted in a lot of ways, and it feels like we're coming out of a rough season and headed into a new one with a lot of optimism and enthusiasm. I'm not sure it's sustainable to expect that we're going to continue to hit home runs every time we step up to the plate, but that's okay too. Even if there are more misfires in our future, I still love the types of movies and shows that we produce, and I love my job contributing to the process.