Recently, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been experiencing instability — last year’s «Marvels» with Brie Larson becoming the movie with the lowest box office receipts in the history of the franchise, while the series «Secret Invasion» was given low scores by both critics and audiences.
Reviews often attribute this unfavorable trend for the MCU to the fashionable Hollywood expression — «superhero fatigue». Instead, the directors, the Russo brothers, who worked on «Avengers», believe that the problems are related to the change in the audience.
«We’re in an interesting transition period, and it’s not clear how people will perceive the continuation of the story, or what stories they want to get», — said Joe Russo GamesRadar+ website at the Sands International Film Festival last weekend. «There is a big difference in how generations consume media. There are those who are used to going to the cinema and those who want to watch something right now».
Joe Russo said that this problem affects not only the film and television industry, but the world as a whole, but it is extremely difficult to solve.
«We communicate through memes and headlines, no one reads more than two sentences. Everything consists of 100 characters or 10-second videos on social media. I think that the two-hour format, a structure that has been used for films for more than a century, is difficult to accept. The new generation is looking for new ways of storytelling».
The directing duo also stated that they do not believe in superhero fatigue
«I think it’s general fatigue. The question of superhero fatigue arose long before we started working. It’s kind of an eternal complaint because we’ve been quoted as saying it since our early days of working on movies. People used to complain about westerns in a similar way, but they’ve been out for decades, constantly being remade and reaching new heights,» Anthony Russo said.
Marvel in view of the crisis, changed its production strategyand wonders whether not to return her to the work of the original «Avengers». Robert Downey Jr. in a recent interview said he was not opposed to further cooperation.
This year, the studio will release only one full-length movie — «Deadpool 3» with Ryan Reynolds and «Wolverine» Hugh Jackman. Earlier, the director of the movie «X-Men: First Class» Matthew Vaughn said that the third «Deadpool» — is«push» that can save the Marvel universe