[ad_1]
It’s official: For the first time since 2009, we’re in a year without Marvel movies, with the latest delay in the Black Widow release date marking 2020 as an MCU-free zone.
Of course, we won’t be completely without any Marvel narration: Despite the coronavirus delays, the Disney + WandaVision series is apparently still hitting the streaming service towards the end of the year, but by far, this will be the longest hiatus in. Marvel’s worldwide beating. highly successful machine in over a decade. Really, you have to ask yourself if you jeopardize the whole project.
Now, I know what you are thinking. To suggest that a couple of years between movies is a deal breaker seems ridiculous, especially when Star Wars movies have sometimes had decades between them and still draw large audiences.
But the Marvel Cinematic Universe is slightly different. In many ways, the appeal of these movies has become momentum, the continual push from movie to movie every few months that keeps excitement and interest high and funnels more and more people to theaters to see the latest story. superhero.
Just think of the post-credits scenes that crop up at the end of most MCU movies, teasing future movies or spin-offs. The popularity of these bites seems to show that for many Marvel fans, thinking about the next movie is just as much fun as enjoying the current one. The business that Marvel has done depends on people wanting to see “the next one”, almost like a television model imported to the big screen. With such a long gap between movies, can you break that habit of watching it?
At the end of Marvel’s Phase Three, part of the reason Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame had been hyped to the skies was backlog, with 11 movies released from 2016-2019 bringing the story to its epic conclusion. But now that conclusion has come and gone, and the unintentionally long rift that follows it (well, technically following Spider-Man: Far From Home) might prove difficult to get back to.
A great moment of catharsis and finality came with Avengers: Endgame, and Marvel’s next most complicated move would have always been how to tackle what comes next. Every Marvel movie so far, more or less, had been part of the Infinity Saga; now that it’s over, how can you keep things running without looking like you’re dragging everything away?
Marvel’s initial response was to take a little break, not releasing any movies on the fall or winter slots and planning a Black Widow release in spring 2020, but now that movie and its sequels (like Eternals and Shang-Chi) they have all been pushed one more year. Suddenly that pause feels more like an end point.
An unforeseen positive from this could be that the events of Endgame will be allowed to pause for a bit before the Marvel machine is up and running again. One downside for Marvel could be that this extended wait breaks audience habits, with viewers less inclined to desperately seek out massive Marvel movies when they’ve survived perfectly without them for nearly two years.
On the other hand, it could be that people all over the world flock to theaters gratefully once we (hopefully) return to some kind of normal society. Perhaps the absence will make the heart grow bigger, while upcoming Disney + shows (which will also include Falcon and Winter Soldier and Loki delayed now that filming has resumed on both) will keep fans from forgetting the MCU for full.
Still, I can’t help but wonder if people’s film interests will be forever changed by this pandemic, and if Marvel’s momentum will be so easy to kick-start when superheroes emerge again.
Black Widow will launch in May 2021. Want to see something on the smaller screen? Look at our TV guide.
