I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the reports that Disney+ will only be streaming two Marvel shows this year and the decision to move The Marvels out of summer and into November, it’s interesting to contemplate whether we’re already past “Peak Marvel.”
“Peak Marvel” is a reference to “peak oil”, referring to the point at which production reaches its apotheosis, where there is so much content being produced that it is unsustainable for any number of reasons. The Marvel Cinematic Universe remains one of the most successful multimedia franchises ever, but it has been flooding the market for the better part of two years. There are signs, both in the wider industry and within the brand itself, that this model is not sustainable. The question is what comes next.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
I’m thrilled to be launching movie and television reviews on The Escapist. Over the coming weeks and months, I will be joining a set of contributors in adding these reviews to the channel. For the moment, I’m honoured to contribute a five-minute film review of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which was released in cinemas this weekend.
I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the upcoming release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp, and the way in which these films – for better and worse – feel like the statistical mean of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Part of what in interesting about the Ant-Man movies is how little they actually adapt from the source comics, largely marginalising characters like Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne in favour of porting over out-of-continuity characters like Hope van Dyne. They deliberately structure themselves to avoid key character and plot beats from the comic book franchise, and so offer the purest distillation of the adaptation storytelling of the comic book film franchise. The Ant-Man franchise is the Marvel Studios franchise that feels most generic, most cribbed together using the studio’s narrative shorthand.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. This week saw the release of the final trailer for the upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. What was most interesting about the trailer was the extent to which it contained no surprises or teases. It was a very matter-of-fact “this is what the movie is” trailer.
It’s an interesting approach, particularly for a studio that takes pride in keeping secrets and teasing the audience. The trailer for Quantumania looks very much like a blueprint for the movie, mapping a lot of its character and narrative arcs very clearly, including a third act twist. It’s an approach that feels a little desperate, very much in keeping with the general sense of how Marvel Studios has been packaging and selling Phase Five. The past two years have seen some small erosion in the studio’s cachet, and the trailer for Quantumania feels like the studio trying to convince audiences that it still adheres to the old template.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
I published a new piece at The Escapist this week. Because it’s that gap between Christmas and New Year, there’s been a bit of editorial leeway. And so, I got to write a little bit about Eternals, one of the more interesting and complicated recent Marvel Studios blockbusters.
Eternals doesn’t quite work. It’s important to acknowledge that upfront. However, the movie is interesting because of how it engages with superheroes. Eternals is not so much a superhero movie as it is a movie about superheroes. It’s about these stories that dominate the popular consciousness, this web of corporate-controlled mythology in which so much modern culture is tangled. It asks what the function of these characters and these stories should be.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
I published a new piece at The Escapist earlier this week. With the release of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and the end of Phase 4, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at one of the more interesting trends within the modern Marvel Cinematic Universe: the way that it has grown up with its audience.
The audience that went to see Iron Man fourteen years ago are no longer teenagers, or even young adults. They are now adults, many of whom will have settled down and started families. It is entirely possible that a couple who went to see The Incredible Hulk on their first date ended up taking their child to Thor: Love and Thunder. One of the more interesting aspects of the modern MCU has been the way that its plotting and themes have evolved to reflect that, with many of its once roguish heroes becoming biological or surrogate parents.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
We’re thrilled to be launching a fortnightly video companion piece to In the Frame at The Escapist. The video will typically launch every second Monday, and be released on the magazine’s YouTube channel. And the video will typically be separate from the written content. This is kinda cool, because we’re helping relaunch the magazine’s film content – so if you can throw a subscription our way, it would mean a lot.
This week, we took a look at the debate over superheroes killing, which is a major thematic point in the recent blockbuster Black Adam. It’s an interesting point of discussion, but one that often overlooks and misses the larger trend within the superhero genre. That sort of debate doesn’t happen over other pulp heroes, like cowboys or gangsters or pirates, so what is it that makes superheroes a special case?
I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist yesterday. With the show wrapping up its first season this week, it seemed like a good opportunity to talk about She-Hulk, and the show’s interesting and provocative relationship with its audience.
Setting aside the fact that big villains of She-Hulk are arguably a bunch of internet trolls, She-Hulk is engaged in a literal and constant ongoing conversation with its audience. However, what’s fascinating about that dynamic is the tone of it. Jen often seems to feel trapped by the expectations of the audience for fan service and continuity references, and the need to shape her show in such a way as to hit all of the beats expected of a Marvel Studios project.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
We’re thrilled to be launching a fortnightly video companion piece to In the Frame at The Escapist. The video will typically launch every second Monday, and be released on the magazine’s YouTube channel. And the video will typically be separate from the written content. This is kinda cool, because we’re helping relaunch the magazine’s film content – so if you can throw a subscription our way, it would mean a lot.
This week, we took a look at one of the more under-explored and unspoken issues facing the so-called “streaming age.” In an era where there is so much content, and so much content derived from intellectual property that major corporations protect so severely, where are these studios going to find the writers and storytellers to guide these series? One of the more interesting shifts in television over the past decade has been a slow creep away from the idea of it as a writers’ medium, but that shift comes with a surprisingly high cost.
I published a new piece at The Escapist this evening. We’re doing a series of recaps and reviews of She-Hulk, which is streaming weekly on Disney+. The first episode of the show released this week, and it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the series.
Like a lot of these streaming shows, She-Hulk suffers from an identity crisis. It is caught between the show that it clearly wants to be and its obligations to the familiar formula of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In particular, She-Hulk begins with an extended and unnecessary origin story, which the show itself doesn’t seem particularly enthused about. It’s strictly formula. Giving the first thirty-odd minutes of the show over to this generic and paint-by-numbers exercise undermines a lot of the show’s potential appeal.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
Very sad to lose A.O. Scott as a film critic at The New York Times.
This paragraph from his piece on his departure… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…...around... 1 hour ago
I think a couple of our listeners figured out that we were doing this, so fair play to you all.
In a fortnight,… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…...around... 3 hours ago
the m0vie blog 