Written by Chris Snelgrove | issued
Time passes even faster than Sam Wilson. It’s been over two years since then. captain america 4 Announced at San Diego Comic-Con. The film’s release date, scheduled for 2024, has already been pushed back to February 14, 2025, ostensibly due to a writer’s and actors’ strike, but the postponement is due to improvements in the film’s quality after negative test screenings. Many have speculated that it may have something to do with Disney’s desire to
Currently, there are reports such as: captain america 4 Filming will be reshot within three months before release. This reveals one depressing thing. It’s just that Disney no longer has a true creative vision for the MCU.
Captain America 4 disaster
There had previously been speculation that Disney wanted to postpone the event. captain america 4 To remove potentially controversial elements. Among them was Israeli hero Sabra, who could cause a stir in the wake of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.
There was also widespread speculation that the previous reshoots were done due to a negative test result, but this time around, the reshoots may have been due to audiences deciding that the film was boring and not essential to the larger MCU. It is said that this was because. This is a sign that Disney has lost their creative vision for this superhero series and instead of just releasing a great movie and letting critics and audiences judge the movie on its own merits, they’ve decided to adjust the content to suit the audience’s wishes. This is clear evidence of his desperation.
At first, this may sound contradictory. After all, Marvel will be reshooting based on negative test results. teeth Let the audience decide. Well, yes and no. As you can see, it makes good business sense to do one edit and reshoot based on feedback from a bad test screening. reshoot Also Based on the movie being released within 3 months. more Negative feedback means Disney is receiving conflicting feedback from fans about what they like and what they don’t like captain america 4 And instead of releasing a film based on the director’s sole vision, they try to skew themselves based on this feedback.
Why Disney’s current approach is a bad idea
I’ve written about the biggest problem with this approach before. Marvel has a whole multiverse And most of them have vastly different ideas of what the MCU should be like.
The irony here is that most of Marvel’s best decisions for its cinematic universe were ones that many audiences would have turned off the idea of ​​had they been warned beforehand. For example, Robert Downey Jr., a disgraced former drug addict who was in prison, crazy Casting choice for Iron Man, just a chubby, stocky feel parks and recreation Star Chris Pratt was a crazy choice to headline an action movie filled with superhero C-listers.
If possible, many Marvel fans would have vetoed those choices (eventually perfection Because they would have refused to include overtly adult MCU content such as: daredevil and jessica jones Available on Netflix (a show currently considered the gold standard for Marvel series). Ideas like turning Thor into a comedic character or disbanding SHIELD would have met similar resistance. Fortunately for fans around the world, the directors and creators behind these potentially controversial decisions simply focused on creating a quality film and didn’t care about anything else (no matter what). (including the tendency of fans to clutch their pearls even at the slightest irritation) were resolved naturally.
The Marvel movie universe suffers from a devastating dependence on committees
now, captain america 4Reports of reshoots surrounding negative screenings reveal that Phase 5 of the MCU (and likely beyond) is plagued by a disastrous decision to rely on committee and executive decisions. . The best example of this is: bladeis a movie with a ridiculous concept (a cool vampire who can survive sunlight kills other bloodsuckers) as Disney tries to create a compelling story in its most delayed Marvel movie , lost a star. At one point, it was reported that the title character would be the fourth lead in a film focused on female heroes, but that decision turned out to be dumber than trying to climb uphill on ice skates.
And, of course, the most clear A sign of the film being made by committee is the decision to bring back Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom. This is Disney’s attempt to create a memorable Big Bad after the courtroom drama surrounding Jonathan Majors, but it also reveals just how creatively bankrupt the House of Mouse really is. be. After trying to force his bizarre story down our throats to make Kang the Conqueror a reality, the studio abruptly reversed course and decided to make Marvel’s Marvel version of what was inevitably going to be another empty variant cameo. A small amount of money was spent to bring back the most famous faces.
The reported reshoots for Captain America 4 may or may not make the movie better, but in the end, the creators should be willing to do more than stick with the status quo where audience expectations are empty. It’s a sign of Marvel’s major failure to establish a bold vision for . Once upon a time, studios seemed to understand that big hits only come from big swings. That’s why directors like Jon Favreau and Taika Waititi were given so much creative freedom. For these particular directors, the sequels to their MCU debuts were clearly much weaker than the first films; iron man 2 and Thor: Love and Thunder it wasn’t that important iron man and Thor: Ragnarok It changed the entire world of this movie for the better.
Marvel must forget this feeling of helplessness or doom is over
The gist of my plea to Marvel is this. Forget the helplessness that comes from screening for a bad test or scrolling through social media for feedback from a disgruntled neckbeard.
Hire talented directors to create the kind of killer comic book content that once made the MCU a blockbuster movie franchise. Otherwise, this cinematic universe will continue to decline, and the days when fans nostalgic for Marvel’s creative risk-taking will be passionate about the future of the DCU and the boundless creativity of superstar creator James Gunn are far from over. Probably not. Incidentally, Gunn was previously fired from Marvel, not because of fan demands but because of panicked executives.
Marvel has a lesson to learn. They don’t know what it is until the committee waits about five years or so to figure it out.
