‘Quantumania’ causing unwanted flashbacks to another Disney-backed bust that set a franchise back by a decade

While it might be tied with Eternals for the status of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s weakest entry among critics, the millennia-spanning cosmic epic didn’t come under anywhere near as much fire as Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is currently being barraged with.

Perhaps it’s down to Chloe Zhao’s cosmic epic always been deemed as a risky experiment for the typically-safe franchise, whereas Peyton Reed’s threequel came burdened with massive expectations as not only the biggest and boldest Ant-Man adventure yet, but the introduction to Phase Five, kickoff for the Multiverse Saga, and debut of Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror all at once.

Suffice to say, the ongoing discontent among the fandom underlines that Marvel Studios has missed the mark yet again, and in a fitting turn of events, Redditors have now started comparing Quantumania to another ridiculously expensive Disney-backed fantasy epic that underwhelmed on virtually every level; namely, Joseph Kosinski’s Tron: Legacy.

It’s easy to see why the two are being pitted against one another, seeing as each of them takes place in a richly-detailed but often poorly-rendered dimension ruled by a tyrannical overlord, forcing an intrepid hero to take the fight directly to their adversary in an effort to escape back to their own reality without being followed by a big bad determined to set up shop on Earth.

The bad news is that Legacy proved to be such an under-performer on a critical and commercial level that the Tron saga wasn’t just put on ice for over a decade, but it was determined that Jared Leto of all people was the ideal candidate to resurrect the IP from the depths of development hell. A truly terrifying thought, but let’s hope Morbius doesn’t end up being deemed the savior of Phase Five.