The current Marvel Cinematic Universe planning has gradually caused more "drag" to each movie than the "driving" effect.
Read Entertainment | yiqiduyu
Text | Zero One
In the previous "post-Spring Festival file" forward-looking analysis, "Black Panther 2" and "Ant-Man 3" are the highest box office expectations, after all, the former Marvel IP appeal is huge, and there are no other new films in the same schedule to join the competition. But Marvel's performance can only be said to be indisputable, "Black Panther 2" is an old film that was released in overseas markets last year, and the previous work also received a mediocre response in China, and the poor box office performance is understandable, but "Ant-Man 3" was released simultaneously with North America, and its performance in the Chinese market was the worst in the series:
The Douban score is 6.1 points, far lower than the 7.7 points and 7.3 points of the first two films; the box office is only 160 million after 6 days of release, and the agency predicts that the box office has dropped from 600 million to less than 300 million in the early days, and the first two "Ant-Man" won 670 million and 830 million box office in the mainland market respectively. At the same time, this "Ant-Man 3" is still the most expensive one in the same series.
"Ant-Man 3" is the opening of the fifth phase of Marvel, introducing the new villain "Kang the Conqueror" and once again setting the tone for the multiverse narrative since the fourth phase. However, its market reputation performance is weak, but it still continues the weak trend since the fourth stage.
The global market is also not optimistic, "Ant-Man 3" Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB scores are the lowest in the series, its first weekend global box office is 225 million US dollars, and without the blessing of the Chinese mainland market, last year's "Thor 4", "Black Panther 2" and "Doctor Strange 2" first weekend global box office more than 300 million US dollars, it can be seen that even North American audiences are only paying for Marvel IP based on consumption inertia.
Disney changed its CEO last November, Bob Cappek stepped down, and old boss Iger returned. One of Igers' first goals after taking office is to reorganize Disney's movie content output, "Ant-Man 3" and even the upcoming "Guardians of the Galaxy 3" in May are actually "legacy products" that have been basically completed during Chapec's tenure, and the follow-up "Captain Marvel 2" has been announced to be postponed from the original scheduled July 28 to November 10, and some Marvel series projects have also been cut. Disney is probably ready to make a big adjustment to Marvel IP. At this point, we may be able to focus on a few issues:
First, from the perspective of creative technology, what is wrong with Marvel movies in recent years?
Second, from the perspective of IP linkage, is the narrative mode of the Marvel Cinematic Universe coming to an end?
Third, in the mainland film market, have the head imported films really lost their box office appeal?
1
Since the fourth phase of Marvel
Special effects and stories that have regressed dramatically
For the weak performance of Marvel movies in the mainland market, the industry will worry about whether this represents the shrinkage of the imported film market, and domestic audiences have become ideologically tired of Hollywood blockbusters? But Reading Entertainment still believes that the poor performance of imported films certainly has the factor of aesthetic changes in the audience, but the more important factor is probably simpler and more direct: Marvel movies have indeed regressed a lot in recent years.
In 2022, "Thor 4", "Black Panther 2" and "Doctor Strange 2" three Marvel movies have all entered the global box office TOP10, which seems to indicate that the Marvel movie market is still strong after the recovery of the global film market, but in addition to director Sam Raimi in "Doctor Strange 2" with a unique style to bring some surprise experiences to the audience, including "Black Widow" and "Spider-Man: Homeless", all Marvel movies in the past three years can be described in almost one word: boring.
In the years under Chapek, Marvel movies have completely become vassals of IP, and consumers of IP feelings - boring sequel stories, almost no advancing overall story rhythm and characters, lack of creative visual effects are not even "spectacle".
One of the important details is that even at the level of "popcorn visual blockbusters", Marvel movies are now becoming more and more perfunctory and insincere. As early as "Iron Man", the selling point of Marvel movies to survive is excellent visual performance, Iron Man each generation of combat uniforms are relished by netizens to inventory the details, Downey wearing different uniforms of the scene is the highlight of every movie, since then "Avengers" New York War, "Doctor Strange" in the city distortion space, "Captain America 2" action scenes, "Avengers 3 Infinity War" in the Titan Star Fighting Method, are quite visual design art of special effects creation, is a movie visual magic that can make the audience more into the play.
Since the fourth stage, we will find that the special effects of Marvel movies are becoming more and more mediocre and cheap, extremely lacking in imagination and design, and more just pure stacking of colorful and messy models. For example, the special effects of "Thor 4" are so crude that they are ridiculed as five-haired special effects, and a large number of scenes seem to be half-finished; We can no longer see the Iron Man suit with such rich details in the past, and almost all scenes involving the suit are replaced by the so-called "nano suit" setting, which is more technological in the setting positioning, but it is much less troublesome for special effects production.
For example, in terms of the visual wonders of the virtual world, in "Thor", "Doctor Strange" and "Black Panther", we can still see a large number of scene design concepts with traces to follow, and the quantum world in "Ant-Man 3" is basically equivalent to making things up, and there is neither a source nor an explanation for the characteristics of the native creatures and the world in the quantum world, as if the creators themselves have not thought well, just to tell the story to forcibly build a "Star Wars", "alien battlefield"-like scene, completely without characteristics at all.
In terms of the theme pattern of the story and the interestingness of the plot, we will remember the political game and spy war elements of "Captain America 2", the discussion of superhero supervision in "Captain America 3 Civil War", the god-level performance of the civilian protagonist and the chattering brother in "Ant-Man", and we will remember the despair from "Avengers 3 Infinity War" to the grand end of "Avengers 4 Final Battle". And in the past two years of Marvel movies, what can we see? It is a large number of works that seem to have nothing to say and have to be filmed. "Thor 4" in order to be funny and funny to make an almost mentally retarded plot, "Black Panther 2" is filmed to solve the problem, the completely unintentional Su Rui Gang duck on the shelf, "Ant-Man 3" did not play the boring tired, as if with the "Fast and Furious" crew next door...
It can be said that in the past three years, Marvel movies have hardly taken a step forward in any sense except for the introduction of the concept of "multiverse". The most successful box office "Spider-Man: Homeless" is consuming the feelings of the old trilogy and "The Amazing Spider-Man" with Sony Pictures, but this kind of fried cold rice with "three generations in the same frame" is obviously disposable, otherwise there is no essential difference from those domestic "crew reunion" variety shows, right?
The root cause of these problems is that Disney's future planning for Marvel IP in the past three years is in a state of confusion, insufficient investment in quality, and insufficient innovation motivation. In order to provide content for streaming media platforms, a large number of new dramas have been launched unevenly, and the rapidly expanding content territory has brought a large number of special effects production and screenwriting communication needs, but under the impact of the epidemic and the turmoil within Disney, the quality of content is obviously not put first.
2
Is the cinematic universe heading for a "dead end"?
For Hollywood blockbusters facing the global market, creation is indeed a difficult thing to let go. The differentiated ideologies in different cultural contexts mean that film creators can often only return to the universal emotions of family, love, and freedom to tell stories, which is also a major reason why "Avatar 2" has encountered many negative reviews: creators tend to seek stability in emotional expression and lack of unexpected joy.
Innovation is a huge risk, looking back at the development of Hollywood movies in the past decade, huge sequel movies occupy the mainstream of the market, which is also solidified to some extent - just like the American drama market, as long as an IP does not shoot a loss, it can continue forever.
In addition to the bad shooting of the movie itself, the most important problem facing the development of Marvel movies is becoming more and more obvious: the current Marvel Cinematic Universe planning has gradually caused more "drag" to each movie than the "driving" effect.
First, the background setting of the story is becoming more and more complex and abstract. After the fourth phase began, Marvel chose to tell the story of the "multiverse". After the stage exceeds the level of a single universe, the complexity of film linkage must go up a level, and the threshold for the audience to understand the plot must be a step higher. This not only confuses the occasional passerby audience, but even the Marvel screenwriters themselves may not have thought about how the story should be told - in "Doctor Strange 2", "Homeless" and "Ant-Man 3", the way and result of entering the multiverse are obviously different.
The more serious problem is that as the confrontation between the pros and cons in the film is based on the "cosmic level", then the living scenes and conventional character shaping are less and less space, but it seems to go to the abstract and conceptual settings in the comics - creation gods such as infinity, eternity, death, the court of life, the transcendent, the OAA, which are above everything in the omnipotent universe, the setting is an exaggerated brain hole, but for moviegoers, will it really be interesting?
Why is it that in the past few decades, there are basically no film works to join these abstract gods in American comics? Largely because these are not the parts that the audience likes, and most of them are mechanical séances or editorial endings when the comic story cannot end. We will find that the more highly acclaimed superhero film and television works, the more closely related they are to real life and human nature, including DC's "Batman" series, "Watchmen", Marvel's "Iron Man", "Captain America 2, 3" and "Spider-Man" are actually the same.
Second, individual film projects have to pay more attention to the "tool" identity in the film universe. The actors, the scripts, all had to serve the universe. For example, "Black Panther 2" and "Ant-Man 3" are all like this, one is to modify the script in response to the death of Chadwick Boseman in reality, and the other is to lead to the multiverse villain Conqueror Kang, in the first three stages, the film project is still not falling on both sides in terms of linkage and independent perception, but the recent works feel that it is completely for the bottle of vinegar of the movie universe to wrap this dumpling.
The ideal effect of the linkage between the movie universe should be to become the key to enhancing the motivation of continuous moviegoing, rather than giving up the charm and ideological expression of independent hero movies for the sake of cosmic linkage. Marvel needs to look back and think that it was with the success of "Iron Man" that led to the epic collection of "Avengers" later, relying on the beginning of "Ant-Man 3" now, can "Kang Dynasty" really play around? Disney and Marvel should obviously understand that it is not the Marvel IP that has made the success of Marvel movies, but the previous Marvel movies have made the success of Marvel IP.
So returning to content refinement is a top priority. In a previous Disney earnings call, Iger mentioned that it is crucial that the company is based on storytelling, empowering storytellers to decide how to design and market movies, and returning marketing and distribution rights to the creative department. "Our new structure is designed to put more power back in the hands of creative leaders and hold them accountable for the financial performance of their content. The previous structure severed this connection and it had to be restored. ”
For those Hollywood movies that are truly entertaining, truly have elements of visual spectacle, and have reasonable stories, the demand of the mainland film market is still unmet. "Avatar 2" in the case of the story is not popular with mainland audiences, the box office is still out of the long tail effect, "Godzilla vs. King Kong", "Fast and Furious 9" and "Jurassic World 3" The plot is seriously mentally retarded and still sweeps 1 billion +, which shows that as long as it is "large and sufficient", the audience will still pay.
But today's Marvel movies seem to be gradually unable to satisfy even the entertainment.