Matt Goldberg in the MCU of Madness

It’s weird to think of Marvel as the biggest blockbuster franchise around. After the massive success of The Avengers, people thought it would change the nature of franchise filmmaking with massive, interconnected universes, and yet ten years later, Marvel remains the only studio to successfully and consistently execute that particular vision. Oddly enough, now that its interconnected storytelling is no longer a novelty, the studio’s success has inevitably bred resentment and disdain. What was once an exciting experiment is now passé and seen as soulless filmmaking designed to appease corporate overlords (this latter argument never holds a lot of water with me because it could just as easily apply to blockbusters outside the MCU).

As the MCU enters its 14th year, I completely understand people who are exhausted with the whole enterprise. I think the core flaw of the franchise is that ultimately everything has to be superheroes. That may seem like a weak argument—being mad at superhero movies for having superheroes—but the aspiration of the MCU is that it can be all kinds of movies. All the characters may share the same universe, but Captain America: The Winter Soldier can be a spy movie and Guardians of the Galaxy can be a space movie and the latest entry, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, can be a horror movie. But even with these genre shifts, Marvel is still required to incorporate big CGI fights where good conquers evil. Even the one movie where the bad guy wins (Avengers: Infinity War) is merely a cliffhanger for when the good guys eventually win.

These kinds of escapist Manichean struggles have held our interest for millennia; we want to believe that heroes will come and save us from evil, and blockbusters, which are designed to appeal to the largest audience possible, are not in the business of convincing us otherwise. And to their credit, the MCU movies are for the most part well-made. They’ve got humor, they’ve got likable characters, and they’ve got some fun action scenes. It is the fast casual of entertainment: rarely spectacular but satisfying enough.

When looking at the MCU, I think it’s important to address two questions: 1) Are the MCU movies and TV shows enjoyable? 2) Is the MCU bad for the entertainment industry? I want to separate these because I think it’s far too easy to conflate these to issues. It’s simple to argue that the MCU is bad for any number of reasons and that the success of this bad franchise hurts the entertainment industry. I don’t agree with that argument, but first let’s start with how I feel about the MCU.

I like the MCU, but also I’m a sucker for superhero stuff. I genuinely believe my life would be radically different had I not watched the Batman and X-Men animated series in 3rd grade, but I did, and here we are. That being said, I don’t think all MCU entries are created equal, and I believe the franchise has largely settled into passable comfort viewing with the occasional outlier. Post-Endgame, most of the MCU stuff has been resoundingly fine. Nothing has been amazing, and nothing has been atrocious. I had fun with WandaVision, Loki, Hawkeye, Moon Knight, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and I shrugged at The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, What If…?, Black Widow, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Eternals, and Spider-Man: No Way Home. To say I felt passionately about any of these would be a stretch, but that’s also a consequence of making four-quadrant PG-13 movies. It’s nice when a director like Sam Raimi comes in and gets to leave his stamp on one of these movies, but that’s the exception rather than the rule. Marvel and Disney are happiest when the IP is the star rather than the filmmaker or the actor because the studio owns the IP.

If Marvel movies were the only movies, this would be a problem, and this is where we get to “Is Marvel bad for the Entertainment Industry?” I can only answer that Marvel is more of a symptom of the landscape than its cause. Disney and Marvel have built the best mousetrap. They didn’t invent blockbusters, they’re just making blockbusters that hit the right balance of comedy and action within a PG-13 framework, making them a safe option. I believe people want the safe option.

It's easy to look at this weekend’s multiplex showtimes and bemoan that all the screens belong to Multiverse of Madness. Part of that is Disney’s onerous demands on theaters that wish to show their films, but the other part of that is that everyone in the business is trying to mitigate risk. Disney mitigates risk by only making movies that are built around the most valuable IP, and exhibitors mitigate risk by showing movies they believe will have the largest possible audience. However, exhibition has become limited because now they have to compete with streaming.

Thirty years ago, it was a lot easier to have competing blockbusters because that was the marketplace. Television couldn’t match the scale of theatrical exhibition, so you’d get greater diversity in movie theaters. Now streaming is here, you already pay for it, and it’s harder for any movie to say, “Hey, we would like you to pay $20 to leave your home and give us at least two hours of your time to be around total strangers who may not know how to behave themselves in public. Also, if you don’t like the movie, you’re out $20.” Say what you will about Red Notice (it’s quite awful!), but as a Netflix subscriber, you’ve already paid for it through your subscription, and you can sit on your couch fiddling around on your phone while Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds get into shenanigans. And if you want to watch something that’s actually good, there are about a billion prestige TV series that everyone says you need to watch and you promise you’ll get around to it just as soon as you finish your 500th re-watch of The Office.

In this entertainment landscape, is it really any surprise that something as safe and digestible as Marvel movies are what’s popular right now? They appeal to our desire for good to triumph over evil, they have the veneer of being different genres even though they ultimately must adhere to superhero tropes, and they have a proper mix of action and comedy so that you feel like you’re getting enough bang for your buck. One could argue that the longform storytelling aspect—the idea that you’re rewarded for sticking with every MCU thing, and you can’t leave due to the sunk cost fallacy—is a draw, but with Endgame serving as such a clean stopping point, I think the interconnected angle is for a subset of viewers rather than the masses (I’m genuinely curious how the MCU Disney+ series are performing, but we’ll never get that information).

If there’s any frustration to be had, it’s that blockbusters themselves aren’t as diverse as they used to be, but that’s the fault of changes in technology. For exhibitors and audiences, Marvel is the most reliable option available, and it should be noted that it’s a miracle that any movie gets made, and an even greater miracle if it’s good. The fact that Marvel can maintain a consistent level of quality is remarkable even if they’re not going to shake up their formula in any meaningful way. I wish they empowered filmmakers with specific visions like Sam Raimi rather than the aggressively bland work of journeyman filmmakers, but Spider-Man: No Way Homecrossed a billion dollars worldwide in the middle of a pandemic without breaking a sweat because I’m the outlier. I’m the weirdo who will happily spend money and take a chance on a strange movie I may not like because I adore movies. I don’t expect most people to be like me; I expect people to take advantage of the numerous entertainment options available to them, and when they’ve got something safe like Marvel, they’ll go out to the theater. For cinephiles, it may be maddening, but it’s not strange.