While 2020 was one of the dullest years for MCU since its inception, 2021 is going to be stuffed with superheroes, and this worries Marvel president Kevin Feige.
2020 has been the most absent year for Marvel Studio since it released its first film ‘Iron Man’ starring Robert Downey Jr. in May 2008. Tom Holland’s ‘Spider-man: Far from Home’ was the last MCU movie to be released in July 2019, following the biggest saga to date ‘Avengers: Endgame’ in April 2019. While Marvel had ‘Black Widow’ slated for mid-2020 release, and also ‘WandaVision’, the pandemic outbreak forced all the studios to shut the production and postponed the release of all their projects. Hence, Marvel’s already jam-packed 2021 calendar will now have to accommodate the pending releases of 2020 as well. This means a total of over 10 theater and Disney+ upcoming superhero releases – this has got Kevin Feige worrying about too much MCU content for fans.
Highlights —
- Kevin Feige worries about too much MCU superhero content for fans in 2021
- ‘WandaVision’ explains how Marvel is going to handle over saturation.
Kevin Feige worries about too much MCU superhero content for fans in 2021
MCU phase 4, which was initially planned to kick off with Scarlett Johansson’s ‘Black Widow’, has, at last, begun with Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany’s ‘WandaVision’. However, this is just the beginning of it. MCU, in this year alone, has 4 movies, and 6 Disney+ shows slated for release.
The 2021 MCU release calendar includes ‘Black Widow’ (May 7), ‘Shang-chi and …’ (July 9), ‘Eternals’ (Nov 5), untitled Spiderman-3 (Dec 17), and on Disney+ ‘The Falcon and The Winter Soldier’ (March 19), ‘Loki’ (May), ‘What If…?’ (Summer), ‘Hawkeye’, and ‘Ms. Marvel’.
This is the superhero content from Marvel alone. If you consider the upcoming superhero movies by other studios including DC, then the fans are going to suffer rather than enjoy.
Kevin Feige, the head of Marvel Studios, and the one who leads all these projects admits to “Deadline” that he has the same kind of worries regarding too much MCU superhero content this year.
“Well, it’s not free. And, it is not dissimilar to the worries I’ve had in my first few years at Marvel. Because the Marvel rights were separated among multiple studios, there would be multiple Marvel movies a year. There was one year when there were three in one summer. The question was ‘Whoa, how is this going to last? How is this going to survive?’ And my answer then, when I had no control over anything, was – As long as they’re different, as long as they’re unique and some of the characters might crossover and the Marvel logo is at the front.”
‘WandaVision’ explains how Marvel is going to handle over saturation
As per Kevin Feige, though MCU is overstuffed with superhero content this year, keeping them different and fresh will serve best for the studio and fans. We can witness that with ‘WandaVision’. Jac Schaeffer created the first of its kind superhero show has surprised the fans with its creative approach.
“A black-and-white half-hour sitcom is very different from anything we’ve done before. It happens to star two Avengers and has the Marvel logo on it but is wholly unique and that is what we had been working on for Disney+ and phase 4 features until we finalized Endgame.”
Feige said
Apparently, even though Marvel has 10+ projects awaiting release this year, they all stand out. Marvel has long been criticized for following a set formula structure for all its movies. However, that changed with the later half of phase 3.
Now, with Disney+ shows like ‘WandaVision’, ‘Loki’, and ‘What if…?’ being poles apart from each other and also from MCU movies, it will certainly ensure a better experience for the fans.
What do you think about Kevin Feige’s take on so many MCU superhero releases in one year? Do you think Marvel should have eased the release schedule a bit?
