Once upon a time, the Good Ship MCU was considered unsinkable. Rigid adherence to a crowd-pleasing formula, an insanely charismatic cast, and slowly building to periodic crossover events resulted in a steady stream of billion-dollar blockbusters.
But now, as per a bombshell article by Variety, the MCU is taking on water fast and beginning to list to one side. Problems range from the continued legal drama and bad press surrounding Jonathan Majors, a run of mediocre and outrageously expensive Disney Plus shows, and rushed movies that simply don’t cut the mustard.
The Good Ship MCU needs to right itself, so here are the ballast projects that should immediately be tossed overboard.
Blade
How hard can be to make a Blade movie? In 2019 Kevin Feige unveiled Oscar winner Mahershala Ali as the Daywalker, with fans responding positively to the casting. Since then it’s been an unfolding series of embarrassing calamities and repeated delays. The Variety piece claims Ali threatened to walk after a bizarre rewrite turned Blade into “a narrative led by women and filled with life lessons“, which would have seen Blade himself downgraded to a supporting character.
Blade is still to shoot a single second of footage and as of Nov. 1 work has apparently begun “from scratch” on a new script, meaning we may not see it go before the cameras until late 2024 for a 2026 release. By this time Ali will be 53 and, as much as I’d like to have seen him as Blade, he may now simply be too old for the part.
The revelation its budget has been cut to a relatively scanty $100 million is just a rancid cherry on top. Cancel this obviously cursed production.
Echo
Hawkeye spinoff Echo is due to premiere in January 2024 on Disney Plus, meaning it’s now practically complete. As painful as this would be for the cast and crew, Marvel Studios should keep it on the shelf. One of the reasons the entire franchise is sinking is that the brand is being diluted, and a zero-hype spinoff about a supporting character from a two-year-old show will only exacerbate that.
The signs are also present that Marvel Studios don’t have a lot of faith in what they’ve seen. The run has already been shrunk from six episodes to five and, unlike every other Marvel Studios TV show, the entire season will be dumped on Disney Plus at once rather than released weekly, which to me indicates a total lack of confidence.
In addition, Echo is intended to lead into Daredevil: Born Again, which has just gone through a huge creative shake-up that will dramatically alter its story. Will Echo even make sense if the show it’s building up to no longer has the same plot? Pull a Batgirl and make Echo a tax write-off.
Agatha: Darkhold Diaries
We all enjoyed Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha Harkness in WandaVision, especially her toe-tappin theme song. Even so, do we seriously need a spinoff show about her, especially one that will now arrive in “late 2024” almost four years after WandaVision concluded?
If the Agatha Harkness series had come out a year on from WandaVision it could have ridden a wave of hype, perhaps even tying loosely into Wanda’s story in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in May 2022. Now, with Agatha’s antagonist Wanda apparently very definitely dead, there’s little narrative point in this vestigial story being told.
Darkhold Diaries was greenlit on a wave of memetic hype for Agatha, and that has now broken and long receded. Can it.
Spider-Man: Freshman Year
After three solo movies, Civil War, Infinity War and Endgame we’ve seen a lot of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, but there’s still much of his story left untold. For example, we haven’t seen Holland’s Spider-Man’s origin, the death of Uncle Ben, or his earliest days figuring out his powers. As such, an animated show covering that unseen ground makes sense.
Spider-Man: Freshman Year isn’t that. It is set in MCU canon and takes place after the events of Civil War, but, in the multiversal twist, will then diverge into its own story. So, for example, it will feature Charlie Cox as the MCU Daredevil, but not the MCU Daredevil that will be in Daredevil: Born Again. Confused? We don’t blame you.
Despite all this, it is officially going to be part of Phase Five and is currently set to premiere on Nov 2, 2024. It’s a headscratcher why Freshman Year isn’t a part of Holland’s Spider-Man story and, with Sony’s excellent Spider-Verse movies covering similar multiversal Spidey grounds, it’s time to cut the losses (and the webs) on this ill-conceived show.
Avengers: The Kang Dynasty / Secret Wars
By all rights The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars should be the equal of the beloved Infinity War and Endgame; an all-out team-up two-parter that will see every Phase Four-Six story come to a satisfying conclusion. Both of these movies are set to heavily feature Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conquerer as the villain but, as succinctly put in the Variety article, “Marvel is truly f**ked with the whole Kang angle.”
Let’s pretend for a moment we don’t live in a world where Majors is about to go on trial for domestic abuse. So far Kang has appeared in the awful Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and both seasons of Loki. In Quantumania he was killed by Ant-Man. In Loki season 1 he was impaled by Sylvie. In Loki season 2 he was spaghettified.
Kang dying every time he appears is, to say the least, not a good way to build up an imposing villain. Lest we forget, Infinity War introduced Thanos by showing him beating the crap out of the Hulk — now that’s how you show someone is a force to be reckoned with! Meanwhile Kang is out there pratfalling over every banana peel B-list heroes leave in his path.
All that and Kang is played by an actor who may well be facing a year behind bars in the near future? C’mon!
The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars are still three and four years away and there’s more than enough time to change course. Hey, Kevin Feige! Crack open the emergency box that says “Galactus”! Fast-track an X-Men movie! Make something happen with the Fantastic Four! Just literally anything but Kang!
Published: Nov 3, 2023 09:45 am