Anghus Houvouras on whether Ant-Man will end the Marvel success streak….
The Marvel movies are beyond successful both with fans and financially. It’s a giant machine of perpetual motion that cranks out money-making, audience pleasing hits. However, at some point, the streak is going to die. One of their films will buck the trend and underperform causing a schism in the online film community. Some will see it as a temporary setback. A product of inevitability. Streaks can’t last forever. Eventually there will be a character or franchise that fail on the launch pad. This is the natural part of a film franchise rolling out two (or three) films per year.
Others will take it as a sign that the sky is falling. The overreaction reminds me of a scene from Iron Man 2. “If you could make God bleed, people would cease to believe in Him.” says Ivan Vanko to Tony Stark who is still looking for answers after an attempt has been made on his life. “There will be blood in the water, the sharks will come. All I have to do is sit back and watch as the world consumes you.” The first Marvel film that isn’t an unmitigated success will be pounced upon by a significant chunk of the media who lacks the complexity to deal in anything other than growth or loss. To some, it won’t matter that every other film they’ve made has raked in the cash and helped build the strongest brand in cinema today. A failure (or perceived failure) gives the media several months of speculation about whether the Marvel Movie Machine needs to be re-calibrated. Marvel has had troubled productions before. Films that had creative struggles behind the scenes and forced to deal with negative press. The Incredible Hulk springs to mind. But it wasn’t until recently that Marvel had it’s first very public and very ugly break-up.
Ant-Man. It was the movie the most hardcore film geeks were excited about, ever since we first got wind that Edgar Wright was circling the property and looking to bring his unique brand of kinetic comedy to the Marvel Movie Machine. Then there was the comic-con footage that proved what we already knew: that this was the perfect blend of creator and character. Marvel Studios had always made interesting choices when it came to directors, more interested in picking filmmakers capable of towing the shared vision of a connected cinematic universe than putting their own individual stamp on the material.
There was genuine excitement when Phase Two was being engineered and we heard names like James Gunn and Edgar Wright being discussed. These were fresh filmmakers with their own personal style and substance. Perhaps Marvel was going to start loosening the reigns and crafting some more unique comic book movies that would break the mold and stand on their own as opposed to a piece of a larger puzzle. Things felt like they were going to be different.
Then a week or two back, our expectations came crashing back to earth.
Edgar Wright walks away from the project due to ‘creative differences’. Adam McKay is in. Then he’s out. Then every comedy director with any marginal degree of success is brought into the discussion. Finally, Peyton Reed is brought in to get a production into high gear with a release date looming 13 months away.
This, my friends, is what you call a mess.
Ant-Man started as the hippest Marvel film with a geek-God director and within the span of two weeks is beginning to sound like the textbook definition of ‘run of the mill’. No disrespect intended towards Peyton Reed. He’s obviously a competent director, but it feels like an eternity since he’s done anything remotely inspiring like Down with Love. The Break-Up… Yes Man… these aren’t the kind of films that scream ‘superhero action director’. Reed has flirted with Marvel before, tapped to bring Fantastic Four to the big screen until he and Fox experiences ‘creative differences’ and they handed it over to Tim Story. We all know how that turned out. If your answer is anything other than ‘poorly’, you may have to consider the possibility that you’re a comic book movie apologist. If you’re on the fence, answer the following question:
“I think the Daredevil movie is…”
A) Misguided but admirable
B) A great adaptation of the character
C) An incompetent mess
D) The Director’s Cut isn’t nearly as bad
The correct answer is “C”. Daredevil is a train wreck. I mean, it gets so many things wrong at such a fundamental level and people still give it a pass because Colin Farrell is humorous as the WWE version of Bullseye? Sorry, I got off track. Where were we?
Ant-Man is quickly positioning itself as the potential loss leader for Marvel’s Phase Three. You have a respected writer and director walking away from a movie due to reported problems with the script. A revolving door of directors who immediately tell us that Ant-Man is going to be more reliant on comedy than previous Marvel movies. They’re looking for someone who knows how to craft a comedy. Ant-Man looks to be the most comedic of the franchise, even more comedy-centric than the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy. The fact that Adam McKay has been brought in to tinker with the script probably means there’s problems with the humor. I mean, do you bring in someone like McKay because you need a better third act action sequence to close out the film? Or have they brought him in because they want to ratchet up the funny?
Creative tensions. A short turnaround time. More humor than previous Marvel films. A script still being worked over. If ever there was a Marvel movie that seemed imperiled, it’s Ant-Man. At this point, I’m morbidly curious about how things are going to turn out. Marvel has spun gold from straw before, but if ever there was a film that seemed to have the potential to end their epic streak, it’s Ant-Man.
Anghus Houvouras is a North Carolina based writer and filmmaker. His latest work, the novel My Career Suicide Note, is available from Amazon. Follow him on Twitter.
Originally published June 8, 2014. Updated April 12, 2018.
