How Disney’s Marvel movies are not living up to expectations.
“Money Making Machine”. This is a term that frequently comes up whenever you read up on Walt Disney Studios, and indeed it’s the truth. Ever since Disney acquired Marvel Entertainment for around $4 billion its net revenue from the films alone comes in at around $16 billion, with a profit of approximately $12.5 billion and what some would call a very good investment. However, while the Walt Disney Company continues to earn billions off of the ideas and products of more creative minds some of us wonder whether it was all worth it because, if you hadn’t noticed the newer movies under their Disney leader seem to be losing the essence that made them great in the first place.
Do you remember the first time you saw the 2008 Iron Man film? Because I sure do, and since that day I’ve probably seen it another dozen or so times. Something that didn’t use to be that unusual considering I’d done countless times with superhero films such as those of Christopher Nolan’s: The Dark Knight Trilogy and Sam Raimi’s: Spider-man Trilogy but hardly for any superhero movie since and less so for any of the marvel products since Disney’s acquisition. In fact the only truly special and unique film the studio has produced since Iron man is the first Guardians of the Galaxy. These two movies (Iron Man & GotG) are the only Marvel films that I think anyone should have gone to see on the big screen because honestly they’re the only ones that offer something truly unique and visually inspiring.
In my opinion the reasons these movies were such a great success is because they were alike, and I don’t mean within the films. Indeed the plot, characters, atmosphere, direction and humour are completely different, but not just between each other. Iron Man and GotG are alike in the way that they differed from any other superhero movies we’d ever seen before them, and that is what made them something special.
One could argue that Iron Man wasn’t so much different from Sam Raimi’s 2002 Spider-man in the way that it tells the story an ironically humorous superhero. Or how jumping into outer space for GotG wasn’t so much a risk after the immense success of James Cameron’s 2009 film: Avatar. But from my point of view they’d be wrong. Yes, Iron Man did rely heavily on the humour that the character brought to the film much like spider-man but the type of humour involved was quite different and you could tell. Tony Stark used his in the same way his weapons worked, for total destruction. His humour was never used to from bonds but to break them and to attack whereas Spider-man’s use of comedy was more a sort of playful buffoonery to lighten the mood and make others take to him in a good way. If you think about it, it makes total sense considering tragedies they endured at a young age and how it affected them. But that article is for another day. And where GotG is concerned I admit the world’s immediate take to Avatar and the financial success of Thor: The Dark World definitely made it possible for the studio to envision a Marvel film that takes place outside of Earth without developing too much of a Star Wars-zy appearance. I do however think that GotG did take some major risks in the film that paid off although the resemblance between Chris Pratt and Sam Worthington does seem a tad suspicious. Nevertheless, giving lead roles to a green alien ninja, a murderous raccoon and a one-worded tree is pretty ballsy not to mention that most people had never heard of Guardians of the Galaxy before. And this is why the movies were great, because of the risk taking.
Robert Downey’s alcohol and drug related problems were well known and yet the studio took a big risk casting him as the lead in a movie about a comic book superhero that not many people were familiar with and GotG was the first movie of its kind in which the studio invested large amounts resources ≈$232 million (more than budget for the 2002 Spider–man or Christopher Nolan’s: The Dark Night) and all these risks paid off big time.
What disturbs me though is the fact that while this method of taking big risks seems to pay off incredibly well it’s only been attempted a couple of times. I mean either the studio doesn’t realise this which would come as a total surprise or they would rather spew out a dozen unoriginal mediocre films that tend to do somewhat well in the box office but less so visually, artistically or in reviews and take a chance once every 7 or so years on a movie that’s actually got something worth seeing and being impressed by. I believe that this is a true testament to the character of the studio under Disney, they would rather make profit than seek both creative filmmaking and financial success. If we look at a good portion of their films (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2, Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor, Thor: The Dark World, Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3 etc …) we realise that they hardly put in any creative or artistic effort. These movies were extremely underwhelming and only did well in the box office because of the momentum built up by the occasional good ones they produced (Ant Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, iron Man, Dr Strange) by taking advantage of an audience who hoped to see something special but were left disappointed by the fact that they wasted 9 bucks and 2 hours of their lives on completely unimaginative stories that brought nothing new to the table. What the studio seems to be ignoring is that we don’t want to see sequels to great movies just because they’ve got the same characters if they’re not going to be offering us the same level of uniqueness that the first one did. Every time they produce a movie they should be taking as great a risk (if not greater) as the previous one and at this stage of the company’s life, where its financial growth has reached unprecedented heights they could be taking risks on every single one of their projects instead of just the occasional one and prove to the world that they are more than your average corporation whose goal it is to make the most money for the least amount of work.
I loved some of the marvel movies, but by making them all the same way with no variations in humour, direction, atmosphere, or point of view they’ve made me hate most of them. This is a big reason why Disney shouldn’t acquire Fox. Just imagine what an X-Men movie produced by a Disney led Marvel studio would look like, how it would destroy what the previous films built.
Give us something extraordinary Disney! Not this PG-13 generic nonsense you’ve been throwing our way for the last decade. What I do approve of however is how you’ve been taking risks in your TV division with your Netflix shows (Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Daredevil …) but please bring this type of innovation to the big screen too.
The Viewers' Cut 