However, commercial success is not always directly related to quality. And a downward drift for the Disney-owned unit raises legitimate questions about whether Marvel’s efforts to power the parent studio’s streaming service, Disney+, have helped dilute its output.
It’s no secret that Disney has made establishing its streaming service a top priority, relying heavily on Marvel and Lucasfilm to create the kind of content fans will want to watch. Given that the service exceeded subscriber projections at more than 137 million based on the latest count, the plan worked.
Yet while sister unit Lucasfilm has dabbled in television for a while – even stealing its theatrical arsenal to do so, with “Obi-Wan Kenobi” having been redirected from a planned movie to a format of series – Marvel continued to diligently hammer on both fronts. While its Disney+ fare delivered some worthy titles (as well as a few lesser-known titles), the movie slate presented a mixed bag during this time.
Obviously, a few mandatory disclaimers apply here. For starters, Covid-19 caused a major setback to theatrical cinema and surely dulled the box office performance of two titles released in 2021, “Eternals” and “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”, both of which depicted new-to-screen characters, based on Marvel Comics launched in the 1970s.
Marvel also entered what amounts to a throat-clearing phase following the epic conclusion of the Thanos-Avengers saga, so some degree of playing field reset was expected. Plus, there’s another massive sequel, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” due later this year.
Finally, these questions are not new. Indeed, during the launch of Disney+, the Observer questioned aloud the limits of the studio’s appeal in an article titled “How Marvel’s Too Marvel?”, a theme sounded about n’ any established entertainment brand given the pressure to capitalize on them.
Even so, the flaws of “Eternals” — a movie that apparently bit more than it could chew adapting a little-known product — and now the flaws of “Thor” feel like invitations to debate whether all of that is attributable to an overabundance of content.
The law of averages in Hollywood says no one beats a thousand — indeed, in baseball terms, getting one in three puts you in the Hall of Fame. Marvel’s enviable scorecard of success has topped that, but with every new property being developed for streaming, from the disappointing “Moon Knight” to “Ms. Marvel” to the upcoming “She-Hulk” – the studio seems to be tempting fate and test those odds.
Marvel, of course, has excelled at playing a very long game, starting with its audacious plan to crank out a quartet of films toward “Avengers.” Everything has since followed that trajectory, adding dimension (and dimensions) to its cinematic universe.
The big unknown hanging over Marvel’s approach, however, has always been its ability to continue building outward without gutting the core. To the extent that Disney+ has fueled demand for Marvel titles featuring lesser-known heroes, it seems logical, if not inevitable, that these efforts will put more pressure on the theatrical portfolio.
Does this mean Marvel and Disney should press the panic button? Barely. But that raises some warning flags.
Thanks to streaming, Marvel finds itself with another very hungry mouth to feed. This doesn’t automatically lead to a higher percentage of misfires, but it does increase the chances that trying to please everyone will be less often greeted with “Thunder” applause.
