Marvel is dead. It should have passed peacefully with Tony Stark in End Game, but it didn't. Disney had too much invested in the brand and, logically, it was a multi-billion dollar franchise. No corporation would throw away the chance to keep the golden eggs coming from that goose.
Maybe in a different reality, Disney understood that in order to keep Marvel alive it had to handle its property with care. Every release needed to be crafted with care and storylines needed to be written out meticulously well into the future. They likely would have understood that oversaturation would have killed the specialness of a Marvel release, and would have chosen quality over quantity. They definitely would not have dipped their feet into divisive politics.
But we don't live in that reality. We live in this one where Disney squandered everything, embraced radical politics, put an emphasis on content over care, and threw their franchise to those least qualified to carry the torch.
(READ: Disney/Marvel's Biggest Reason as to Why It's Failing So Miserably)
At first, the people were angry, but now they're not. Now it's much worse than that. Now people just don't care.
As Brad Slager reported on Sunday, the opening weekend for The Marvels has come and gone and it can be considered nothing short of a disaster:
What has been apparent for some time is that this was going to be problematic for Disney. Initial expectations of the film garnering a $100 million opening weekend were scaled back to a $70-80 million range; then the tracking was revised down even further as advance ticket sales showed diminished interest. Last week, the estimates were in the $55-70 million window, but now that has become even worse as actual numbers are coming in.
Based on the Friday-Saturday box office returns, it is looking like a $47 million return is the dismal reality, making for the lowest opening for a film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The reality behind this and the explanations given are notably divergent, and therein lies the story. Two primary excuses for this failure are being offered – “superhero fatigue” and, of course, sexism. As expected, both wither under analysis.
It's easy to understand why The Marvels failed so spectacularly despite the reasons being multi-faceted. As mentioned earlier, Disney took its golden goose and forced it to produce without ceasing, exhausting both its own workers and the public with an unending stream of content. It didn't help that the content it produced was lackluster at best, and infuriatingly divisive at worst.
But this particular movie crashed and burned because the titular character that was featured in it embodies the very issue that Disney/Marvel is now having. Brie Larson's Carol Danvers (a.k.a. Captain Marvel) is a character that few people actually like. Why? Because she's not a character.
As I explained in a short video, Captain Marvel exemplifies the "strong woman" trope of being too perfect while being about as shallow as a shower.
The lack of any meaningful character development due to not needing any doesn't make for a compelling character to start with, but then you add on top of this issue the fact that Disney/Marvel was attempting to use this as a propaganda piece to push radical feminism into their films and you have what amounts to an object that wards people off.
(READ: 'Strong Woman' Tropes Makes for Weak Characters)
This isn't just feminism, it's an adherence to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), in general, that's caused Marvel to go from a "must-see" brand to a "must-avoid" burning pile of trash. DEI requires unnecessary race swaps, weakened and ineffectual men, overly strong and hyper-competent women, "and then" storylines, and shoehorned-in leftist philosophies.
These guidelines are actually very narrow when you look at them, and because of that, you find Disney/Marvel repeating the same story beats over and over again with the variations just being characters and places.
It's all boring, unrelatable, and to a degree, insulting.
It insults the swiftly departing fans, it insults the shareholders, and it insults the legacy of those who built, not just Marvel, but Disney as well.
Disney chose its own addiction to politics over the people who supported it, and because it didn't listen to those who offered valid criticism — instead attacking them as racists and bigots — the goose that gave them the gold has been crushed and smothered under the weight of its foolishness.
I'd say "R.I.P. Marvel," but it's unlikely that Disney will leave its corpse alone.
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