Not having seen a movie since Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, I haven't really had much to write about. I may go to see Joker eventually, but given all that's been written about it, even if I do see it I probably won't weigh in beyond a paragraph or two. Overall, then, I've been content to let this blog go quiet, though I briefly had contemplated writing a piece about how I could, theoretically, just walk away from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (with the possible exception of the Spider-Man series) given how satisfyingly Avengers: Endgame tied up just about everything. It was a silly post, with even more fanboygasming than usual, and I eventually abandoned it.
But then, THEN, legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese, while promoting his new Netflix movie The Irishman makes an off-the-cuff comment about Marvel films not being "cinema" and THEN, after a brief surge of outrage from Marvel fandom which dies down in almost no time at all, doubles down and says that theaters should resist the urge to put Marvel movies in theaters and put "narrative" films in there instead. This is the stuff of blogger gold, but maybe not for the reasons one would think.
I have no interest in defending Marvel movies against "attacks" by anyone, even someone as esteemed as Scorsese. They've kept me thoroughly entertained over the last ten years and have taken plenty of my money in the bargain. I don't really owe them anything.
What interests me, though, is the notion of Marvel being such a force in the film industry that, even with its latest movie still seven months away, even without a single trailer for any of its films scheduled to drop in the near future, even without Disney lifting any of the considerable marketing muscle it can bring to bear, it can still manage to remain a dominant part of the pop culture conversation. This, to me, is astonishing and, I will argue, unprecedented. We never saw this happen to franchises like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars or even James Bond.
It's even more amazing when one considers where Marvel were as a company a little over twenty years ago; teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, they sold off their characters to two-bit filmmakers like Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus (among others) and were just happy to keep their doors open. Now, if one is to believe Scorsese, they're like some kind of all-conquering overlords that theater owners need to "resist." Who'd have thought they'd come this far in so short a time?
All that said, while I do sympathize with Scorsese, who had a hard time finding funding for The Irishman, and whose last theatrical release, Silence was ignored at both the box office and the Oscars, I have to say his doom and gloom scenario is basically wrong. Setting any discussion of artistic merit aside, Marvel movies only come out at specific times in the year, make most of their money in their first two weeks or so (with very few exceptions), after which they leave, leaving plenty of room for the "narrative films" Scorsese is championing to breathe. Look at the success of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Movies in general are going to be just fine, even with Marvel all over the landscape. Heck, Downton Abbey opened at number one at the U.S. box office just a few weeks ago, so clearly there's enough moviegoers' money to go around.
Secondly, even before Marvel movies started dominating the scene, there were plenty of other populist films making "all" the money, whether it was Jerry Bruckheimer films, or any number of movies from the "movie star era" like franchise entries starring Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Harrison Ford, Eddie Murphy or Will Smith. If and when the "Marvel era" comes to an end, someone else is simply going to step in and fill the vacuum and I honestly would hate for it to be overpaid movie stars again. I can pretty much guarantee that even if Marvel stopped releasing movies tomorrow, the likes of the aforementioned Downton Abbey, or any of Scorsese's movies for that matter, would not suddenly start making a billion dollars around the world.
Still, my net takeaway from all of this is a positive one. I'm old enough to remember a time when I could never have imagined that movies based on Marvel Comics would have achieved anything even approaching the level of success they have enjoyed. There's nothing that declares one has arrived quite like taking a few snipes from the titans of the industry. Heck, when I was growing up, had an interviewer asked one of the important directors of the time (except maybe for pulp lovers like Steven Spielberg) about Marvel products, the most likely response would have been "what's Marvel?" To go from not even being in the conversation, to dominating the conversation without even trying, is really something.
Sure, the "Marvel era" will come an end one day, just as Pixar's hegemonic stranglehold on the animated feature-film genre eventually came to an end, but in my humble opinion, that day isn't coming any time soon.
