Marvel Studios went through a gradual shift from character arcs to spectacle. What started as tongue-in-cheek jokes about secrets became a legitimate obsession. Their focus became wanting to surprise audiences.
Sure, that seems fun, but the fear of spoilers eventually affected how they film their movies. A great example is actor Alan Cumming talking about reprising his role as Nightcrawler in Avengers: Doomsday.
Cumming explained how the movie uses a lot of green screen and digital effects, and how he filmed his scenes alone. So, not only was he not interacting with other actors, but he was given fake names; he had no idea who his character was talking to. If anything, it sounds like a high budget screen test.
The irony is that filmmaking is highly collaborative, but Marvel Studios opts to keep secrets from the literal cast and crew. The creative process is being butchered to have surprises for audiences that will ultimately not matter. The joke “We’ll fix it in post” became “We’ll do everything in post” with Marvel, and I feel bad for the effects artists who will have tight deadlines and inevitably be told to change things at the last second with even tighter deadlines.
“Actually, swap out Doctor Doom, we want Nightcrawler to fight Mister Sinister instead.” -Some studio suit, probably.
My interest in Marvel films waned when Robert Downey Jr was cast as Doctor Doom; it felt like a desperate play to get the numbers they got before COVID, choosing spectacle over a good story. The interview with Alan Cumming put the nail in the coffin for any interest I had in Marvel Studios. With the way they run things now, Avengers: Doomsday will just be glorified cut scenes cobbled together.
Are you surprised?! Did we get you?
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