Are Marvel and DC Both Struggling?

This last weekend we saw the second week run of Fantastic Four: First Steps in theaters and, well, it wasn’t great. The film slipped 66% worldwide (anything over a 60% drop is considered really bad) and a staggering 80% domestically (with the US currently the biggest market for American films), leading many to wonder if the film is even going to be able to break even. Meanwhile, Superman has been running in theaters for four weeks now and has made a healthy, if not stupendous, $553.2 Mil. Warners have said that anything over $500 Mil is a win for the film, and we’ll take them at face value just for the sake of argument, but that is still a long way off from the glory days of the mid-2010s when any superhero film could make upwards of $1 Bil at the Box Office.

Many are ready to say that this is “superhero fatigue” rearing its head once again, but as I have said before, I don’t think superhero fatigue is a thing. What we’re running up against is the long tail of “bad movie fatigue” and both Marvel and DC tarnished their brands over the last few years with truly terrible films. Audiences will show up, time and again, for series they like, but once it’s been proven to them that a studio only makes bad films, it can be hard to recapture the audience afterwards, even if you improve your quality.

For Marvel’s part they had fairly precipitous drop off with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, with follow-ups The Marvels and Captain America: Brave New World also struggling in theaters, and that all came with a string of middling films that were all technically successful, but failed to set the world on fire, during Phase IV of the Marvel Cinematic UniverseWhen it first began in 2008 with a little film called Iron Man no one suspected the empire that would follow. Superhero movies in the past, especially those not featuring either Batman or Superman, were usually terrible. And yet, Iron Man would lead to a long series of successful films, launching the most successful cinema brand in history: the Marvel Cinematic Universe.. And this doesn’t even get into all the middling shows Marvel released as well that no one wanted to watch. The general sentiment that Phases IV and V were just “homework” is well known, but that doesn’t change the fact that all but the most hardcore of fans seem to have tuned out from what Marvel is selling.

Meanwhile, DC’s universe, the DC Extended UniverseStarted as DC Comics' answer to the MCU, the early films in the franchise stumbled out of the gates, often mired in grim-dark storytelling and the rushed need to get this franchise started. Eventually, though, the films began to even out, becoming better as they went along. Still, this franchise has a long way to go before it's true completion for Marvel's universe., stumbled out of the gate hard with a string of financially successful but critically panned films leading up to Justice League, which became a bomb at the Box Office, and then the series struggled for years to try and find its footing before the WB eventually decided the best course of action was to bring in new studio heads, James Gun and Peter Safran, and reboot the whole damn thing. Throw out the baby, the bathwater, the tub, the bathroom, and just about everything else and hope that a new baby in its place will be better received (this analogy got away from me).

Now, yes, Superman is a success, albeit a qualified one, but DC seems perfectly happy to take what they can get. Marvel, though, seems rather displeased that their big franchise isn’t rebounding the way they wanted, this despite big moves and lots of promises. They’re bringing back Robert Downey, Jr. to play some version of Doctor Doom (presumably an Iron ManBillionare Tony Stark has a secret: while he travels the world by day as a playboy philanthropist and head of Stark Industries, he combats the evils of the world as the armored Iron Man. variant that has something akin to Doctor Doom’s backstory). They’ve sworn they’re going to stop flooding the market with so many shows and movies. They’re going to do better and focus on quality, they say…

It is hard to take their promises at face value, mind you. Disney pushes Marvel hard for content, wanting to constantly have stuff that’s new on their streaming network, Disney+Disney's answer in the streaming service game, Disney+ features the studio's (nearly) full back catalog, plus new movies and shows from the likes of the MCU and Star Wars.. Part of the reason why so much Marvel product was crammed out over the last couple of Phases was because the Disney overloads demanded more, more, more Marvel after the success of Avengers: Endgame, and the studio complied. Maybe they will change their ways, but the studio is still releasing a constant stream of shows (with the middling Ironheart and Eyes of Wakanda both released in the last month, along with many more shows over the last year). Maybe the studio is just burning off finished products and they’ll “do better” after this, but it doesn’t stop the current vibe that anything Marvel puts out is just “homework”.

DC certainly has it easier on that front. Their last major film was Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, put out nearly a year and half before Superman, and everyone knows that Superman is part of a new universe free of (most) of the continuity of the previous version. Beyond that there’s only been one other project in the new DC UniverseThe successor to WB's failed cinematic universe, the DCEU. Headed by James Gunn and Peter Safran, this new DC Universe carries over some continuity from the former film and TV series while crafting a new, rebooted universe for the future.: Creature Commandos, which was released earlier this year on HBO Max, and while loosely connected, it’s not the kind of show that you have to see to keep up with the universe. It’s like a fun Easter Egg, a side project for the fans that regular audiences can ignore, no harm and no foul. DC is free to experiment in ways that Marvel isn’t because Marvel made it, in their first three Phases, where you had to watch everything or you’d get lost. DC doesn’t seem to care about that.

Plus, DC’s plans are far more modest. There are two shows coming out between Superman and Supergirl, one being the second season to the much beloved Peacemaker, while the other is Lanterns which will feature Guy Gardner from Superman, and most people have had only good things to say about that character. That’s good will getting built, while the studio takes its time focusing on projects people want. It’s a move in the right direction that, over time, might get audiences to start showing up for films again down the road.

Bear in mind that Marvel didn’t build their cinematic universe in a day. It took a number of movies from Iron Man leading up to a big crossover event, The Avengers, and audience good will was developed slowly and over time. That was four years of work and, arguably years later, it took about the same amount of time for Marvel to ruin all their residual good will. That’s the kind of massive mistake that takes even longer to recover from. Marvel seems eager to get back on track now and, even making some changes to how they do things, they aren’t taking enough time away for fans to get a beat and become nostalgic for what they used to love.

There’s an easy example to show how this can be done well and it comes from DC. 1989’s Batman was a huge success, but a series of bad decisions over the course of the following movies led to the film series hitting its absolute nadir with Batman & Robin. After that, audiences thought the Caped Crusader was a joke and there was little goodwill felt towards a sequel. It took eight years for a new film to come out, Batman Begins, and even then audiences weren’t completely on board. That film had to sit and slowly build its following, finding a long tail in theaters before it became a modest hit. But because DC took the time, and let it brew, when the sequel, The Dark Knight, came out, it was a billion dollar smash. That’s the lesson to be learned: let a property sit, let people become nostalgic, then give them something good and they’ll eventually return.

You can see that in the works with DC. Sure, it was only a year and a half since a DCEU film came out, but as far as SupermanThe first big superhero from DC Comics, Superman has survived any number of pretenders to the throne, besting not only other comic titans but even Wolrd War II to remain one of only three comics to continue publishing since the 1940s. specifically is concerned, we haven’t seen him featured in a film on the big screen since 2017’s Justice League. And, oh, look at that, eight years. That’s just coincidence, I’m sure, but it does also show that time has passed and, with Superman’s good (but not stellar) returns, there’s a good chance that we could see the following movies (Supergirl maybe, but then a Superman sequel probably) do even better once audiences realize, “wait, these films are good again…”

Of course, Marvel has it harder than DC did. Where DC’s films were loosely connected and, over time, basically sputtered out to the point where no one was watching so they could all treat it like the film series disappeared for years, Marvel has continued cranking out works constantly, both on the big screen and on streaming. Plus, all of Marvel’s films are connected, and there is still an expectation that you watch everything or you watch nothing. What we’re seeing here is a large portion of the audience choosing the “watch nothing” option. Die hard fans show up for the film the first weekend, which is what helped drive solid returns for Fantastic Four: First Steps during that time. Word of mouth isn’t there, and most people are tired of Marvel, so the drop off in the second week is huge… but expected when you really think about it.

I doubt Marvel has eight years to hang up their capes and cowls and wait for people to get nostalgic. That might be what’s needed, but it’s unlikely Marvel can sit it out that long. Corporate parents are going to demand they keep making money, and fast. If I were in charge of Marvel, though, my recommendation would be to release the final few films in the queue and then take a beat. Spider-man: Brand New Day is next and will likely be successful because people have generally loved all the SpidermanSure, DC Comics has Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, but among the most popular superheroes stands a guy from Marvel Comics, a younger hero dressed in red and blue who shoots webs and sticks to walls. Introduced in the 1960s, Spider-Man has been a constant presence in comics and more, featured in movies regularly since his big screen debut in 2002. films. Then we get Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars and both of those will potentially be decently sized hits. More importantly, though, they can also mark a conclusion for the MCU. Marvel has already said they’re going to do a soft reboot of the universe after those films, but I think they should go harder.

I think the studio should take a full two years off. No film, no shows, just work on planning and preproduction. Then, when new stuff does come back (bearing the Marvel logo) it shouldn’t be for any heroes we’ve seen in the universe before. It should be the X-MenLaunched in 1963 and written by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the X-Men featured heroes distinctly different from those featured in the pages of DC Comics. Mutants who didn't ask for their powers (and very often didn't want them), these heroes, who constantly fought against humans who didn't want "muties" around, served as metaphors for oppression and racism. Their powerful stories would form this group into one of the most recognizable superhero teams in comics (and a successful series of movies as well)., but not DeadpoolCreated by Rob Liefeld, the profilic 1990s and 2000s comic book auther, Deadpool was means as a homage to DC's Slade Wilson, just one that was immortal, talked constantly, and got into fourth wall-breaking adventures. or WolverineAlthough not one of the original X-Men, Wolverine is certainly the most popular, even before he was played, to much acclaim, by Hugh Jackman in the Fox film series., and no nostalgia actors we’ve seen before. Use that team up to then introduce new versions of one or two characters we know. Maybe a post credit sequence where the new Nightcrawler gets in trouble lurking around the Baxter Building and he (or she, maybe) runs into Mr. Fantastic. Then you can do a film with heroes we’re familiar with, like Fantastic Four, leading into something a little more obscure, like a version of the Young Avengers (perhaps without the name just yet). Then you can swing back (pun intended) to Spider-man, and then maybe a sequel to X-Men all before having some crossover event that requires a few of these heroes to come together to battle some larger foe.

Note, I do not think the big crossovers should be Avengers films anymore. I think large events should stand on their own, like maybe Chaos War or House of M. Do something different that can target the heroes better and then move the other films out and around after. The Avengers should just be one team of many, and then you can get the various smaller teams – Young Avengers, East Coast Avengers, West Coast Avengers – all doing their thing in their own movies (or shows), and you can let heroes move back and forth for the proper interconnected world without it having to be a big “crossover”.

Both studios needed to take time away and reinvent. DC was forced to do so, and Marvel has reached that point where they need to as well. Hopefully it works out for DC (and by all accounts it slowly is, although we have to wait and see for the full picture there). Marvel needs to do the same now, and if they can maybe, sometime a few years from now, they’ll be back on top once more.