The Marvels?
Marvel is bracing for impact as The Marvels is shaping up to be one of the MCU’s biggest box office bombs, really no matter what the quality of the film ends up being. It’s the wrong film at the wrong time for the MCU, and early pre-sales have it tracking below DC’s disastrous The Flash.
So, Marvel and Disney are now pulling out all the stops. And by that I mean releasing a “final” trailer for the film that is so transparently desperate it actually hurts to watch. And I say that not as some weird Brie Larson-hater but as someone who is genuinely looking forward to the film (more Iman Vellani as Kamala!).
The trailer sheds the lighthearted tone of the older spots and appears to be trying to make this a direct continuation of Avengers Endgame. It opens with multiple scenes of Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, both of whom have both left the MCU at this point, flashing back to their final battle against Thanos, while reminding us that yes, Captain Marvel was also there.
But it’s not just awkward nostalgia bait, The Marvels is now content to spoil some of its own plot points and cameos in order to try to sell more tickets. Namely the trailer outright teases multiverse integration when that wasn’t seen before. It also shows off a cameo from Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie which was not previously known. And to top it all off, we have The Avengers theme playing over the title card at the end. Embarassing.
All of this serves the narrative that this is going to go badly, and Marvel knows it’s going to go badly. It feels like the last stop on the train where the MCU has been so die-hard about integrating its movies and Disney Plus shows, with Captain Marvel 1, WandaVision, Ms. Marvel and Secret Invasion all serving as “backstory” for this.
Once upon a time there was a grand plan that the “successors” to the MCU’s Tony/Steve/Thor central trio would be Black Panther, Captain Marvel and Spider-Man. That was unraveled by Chadwick Boseman’s tragic death, then the insane online hate campaign against Brie Larson which disillusioned her from the role, and the only real thriving member for a time was Tom Holland’s Peter, but even he’s now sort of in limbo.
Plans are already changing after The Marvels on the assumption it will not do well. Disney Plus shows are being scaled back or are turning into more standalone projects that don’t require years of MCU backstory to enjoy. Marvel’s current biggest problem is figuring out what to do with Kang and Jonathan Majors, but past that, the future looks somewhat brighter with the Fantastic Four and X-Men on the way soon enough.
This isn’t going to be good, box office wise, but I do hope at least the movie itself is good, and it’s a shame they had a cut a trailer this cringe-inducing before release. Reviews should be in soon.
Follow me on Twitter, Threads, YouTube, and Instagram.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
