It’s easy to create a narrative based on nothing but a couple of factual accuracies and then spin it any way you see fit, with The Marvels handing a blank check to its most ardent of detractors after its reported budget was revealed.
Not only is it significantly cheaper than its predecessor – which is itself the most widely-detested installment in Marvel Cinematic Universe in terms of both Rotten Tomatoes audience scores and a genuine poll that asked that very question – but Vanity Fair listing the production at a cost of $130 million ties it with the first Ant-Man as the franchise’s most inexpensive effort yet.
Couple that with the reputed 98-minute running time, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that The Marvels existing simultaneously as both the MCU’s cheapest and shortest feature – in addition to its existence making so many people irrationally angry – is only going to see those knives of discontent sharpened even more.
Conversely, it’s stating the obvious to say that the $212 million and 223-minute Secret Invasion was a flaming dumpster fire piled high with garbage that was already rotten to the core, but it’s not as if those with a burning disdain for either Brie Larson or her ongoing antics as Carol Danvers were beholden to such things as common sense and logic.
Sure, The Marvels may very well be over quicker than the previous 32 installments and cost the same as Paul Rudd’s maiden meddling with the Quantum Realm that was deliberately designed to be smaller in scale, but we can only hope it arrives to bumper box office and rave reviews to silence at least some of the doubters.
