The announced success of Deadpool & Wolverine, which marks the return to the big screen of the superheroes played by Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, hides the critical situation in which Marvel finds itself. The studio is losing momentum after the failures of several of its films.
How to stop the inexorable decline of Marvel productions? While the studio had a string of successes in the 2010s, since the start of the pandemic it has been hit hard by the public’s lack of interest in superhero stories. And it is struggling to maintain its status as the “house of ideas”, as the publishing house behind Spider-Man, Hulk and Iron Man has long been called.
The release of Deadpool & Wolverine this Wednesday, July 24, should get the machine going again by giving the studio first place at the global box office. The American specialist press even predicts a record start for him at $165 million, well above the first two Deadpool films which had respectively collected $132.4 million and $125.5 million during their first weekend of operation.
A necessary windfall after the resounding flop of The Marvels ($206.1 million in revenue for a budget of $274.8 million). Especially since The Eternals and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, but also the mini-series Ms. Marvel and Secret Invasion, had a limited echo. For their part, the sequels to Black Panther and Thor disappointed. Only Guardians of the Galaxy 3 managed to gain unanimity.
Maximum anticipation for Deadpool
If Deadpool & Wolverine earns $165 million in its opening weekend in the United States, it will not only be the best opening of the year but also the best opening of all time for an “R-rated” film, or prohibited to unaccompanied minors. A success linked to the popularity of the irreverent Deadpool and his interpreter, Ryan Reynolds, became the king of Hollywood action comedies.
This blockbuster directed by Shawn Levy (Free Guy, Night at the Museum) offers the public the return of Deadpool after a six-year wait and especially that of Wolverine seven years after the twilight Logan, announced however as the swan song of the character. The X-Man will wear for the first time in the cinema his iconic yellow costume, requested for years by his fans.
The excitement around the film continues to grow. The first trailer aired during the SuperBowl broke viewing records with 365 million views in 24 hours. Rumors about the presence of certain characters (like Elektra) kept the film’s aura alive on social networks. Ryan Reynolds participated in this craze by suggesting a cameo by superstar Taylor Swift.
Blade lost in limbo
But this assured success, as impressive as it may be, is deceptive. Because Marvel’s future will be played out in 2025, a high-risk year for the studio. If Marvel has reduced its productions in 2024 to Deadpool & Wolverine and two mini-series (Echo, Agatha All Along), it will return to its past overproduction and will release three films and two series next year. Projects that have experienced eventful developments.
First risk-taking: Captain America: New World Order, the first without Chris Evans, with Anthony Mackie in the lead role. Delayed by seven months, this fourth installment of the adventures of the patriotic superhero comes out in February, just after a presidential election that promises to be particularly tense in the United States. Its script has been reworked many times, forcing Marvel to reshoot entire sections of the film.
After three years of rewriting, supervised in particular by the showrunner of the series The Bear, Thunderbolts, Marvel’s equivalent of Suicide Squad, will be released in May 2025. But its characters, little known to neophytes, could have difficulty seducing the public despite the presence in the credits of stars like Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, David Harbour or Harrison Ford.
Announced in 2019, the Blade reboot, starring two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali as the vampire hunter, has been lost in limbo. The project has already exhausted four writers and two directors, including Michael Green, who is acclaimed for his screenplays for Logan and Blade Runner 2049. According to the Hollywood Reporterthe project, scheduled for November 2025, is the victim of the studio’s countless changes in strategy.
Fantastic pressure
The main challenge of 2025 will be The Fantastic Four, which is scheduled for release in July, ten years after the resounding flop of the previous adaptation of the comic by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. Marvel is banking on this project carried by a cast of trendy actors: sex symbol Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us), Vanessa Kirby (Mission Impossible), Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Bear) and Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things).
This fourth adaptation of the Fantastic Four, one of Marvel’s most popular comics, which has rarely found success on the big screen, is particularly anticipated. Proof of the importance of the stakes: this blockbuster, which will be the first part of Phase 6 of the MCU, has been entrusted to Matt Shakman, who directed the mini-series WandaVision, which became a phenomenon.
Poster of the film “Fantastic Four” © Marvel
The potential commercial failure of these films could have significant repercussions on the rest of the MCU, which is always planned a decade in advance. The next Avengers already seems to be off to a bad start. Initially scheduled for 2025, the film has already been postponed by a year. Added to this was the arrest last year of actor Jonathan Majors, hired to play the big bad Kang, announced as more terrifying than Thanos.
The incident, which ended with his dismissal from the MCU last December, plunged the studio into deep disarray. His character, who appeared in the Loki series, had been introduced as the main antagonist of the next Marvel productions in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. And the post-credits scene of the film announced an epic fight by quoting a memorable panel from the comics.
Superheroes are cheesy?
None of this will happen. Recently named The Kang Dynasty, the fifth Avengers will have to be renamed. And its plot, the culmination of Phases 4 and 5 that began with Black Widow, will have to be completely rewritten. A new big baddie will also have to be found. There is no question of Marvel producing a cheap sequel after Avengers Endgame, the second biggest success in the history of cinema.
The relative failure of The Eternals pushes the studio to refocus on sure values like Spider-Man. Or to turn to sure values like the Russo brothers who signed the best Marvel, Winter soldier, Avengers infinity war and Avengers endgame, to realize Avengers 5 and 6.
Marvel is also adapting by changing its communication. Florence Pugh was able to show on her Instagram account the behind the scenes of Thunderbolt – which would have been unthinkable at the time of Avengers Endgame where the actors played scenes blind to preserve the secrets of the film.
The studio is now counting mainly on the arrival of the X-Men in the MCU, made possible by the purchase of 20th Century Fox (which held the rights) by Disney. Deadpool & Wolverine already sets a first milestone for the return of mutants to the big screen. Kevin Feige, the boss of Marvel Studios, has also confirmed that the rest of the MCU productions will be grouped under the name “the mutant saga”.
Michael Lesslie, writer of the critically acclaimed Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Serpent and the Songbird, is in talks to pen their next adventure.
While the prospect of an Avengers film bringing together the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Deadpool, Spider-Man and the successors of Captain America, Iron Man and Captain Marvel is enticing on paper, the wind has turned in Hollywood. The Mecca of the 7th Art is now banking on toys and video games after the triumph of Barbie and Super Mario Bros. The superheroes of tomorrow will be called Link, Zelda and Polly Pocket.
