A Hollywood screenwriter rejected Captain America: Civil War director Joe Russo’s recent analysis on what the main problems affecting the Marvel Cinematic Universe are.
Josh Brolin as Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Marvel Studios
In an interview with GamesRadar+, Russo shared that he believes one of the main problems are due to a generational divide and a shifting way in which films are consumed.
He stated, “I think it’s a reflection of the current state of everything. It’s difficult right now, it’s an interesting time. I think we’re in a transitional period and people don’t know quite yet how they’re going to receive stories moving forward, or what kinds of stories they’re going to want.”
“There’s a big generational divide about how you consume media,” he stated. “There’s a generation that’s used to appointment viewing and going to a theater on a certain date to see something, but it’s ageing out. Meanwhile the new generation are ‘I want it now, I want to process it now’, then moving onto the next thing, which they process whilst doing two other things at the same time. You know, it’s a very different moment in time than it’s ever been. And so I think everyone, including Marvel, is experiencing the same thing, this transition. And I think that really is probably what’s at play more than anything else.”
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 23: Joe Russo attends the Thor: Love and Thunder World Premiere at the El Capitan Theatre in [Hollywood], California on June 23, 2022. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
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Russo elaborated, “We have never collectively, globally, processed our conversation so intimately and quickly as we do now. I think that creates problems, where we over-process and don’t care about context anymore. We communicate through memes and headlines, with nobody reading past two sentences, so everything’s 100 characters or less – or 10-second videos on social media you swipe through.”
“I think that the two-hour format, the structure that goes into making a movie, it’s over a century old now and everything always transitions. So, there is something happening again and that form is repetitive. But it’s hard to reinvent that form and I think this next generation is looking for ways to tell their own stories that service their own sort of collective ADHD,” he added.
Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man in Avengers: Endgame (2019), Marvel Studios
Anthony Russo did share that he does not believe the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s problems have anything to do with superhero fatigue.
He shared, “I think it’s fatigue in general. The superhero fatigue question was around long before the work we were doing. So, it’s sort of an eternal complaint, like we always used to cite this back in our early days with superhero work. People used to complain about westerns in the same way but they lasted for decades and decades and decades. They were continually reinvented and brought to new heights as they went on.”
Chris Evans as Captain America in Captain America: Civil War (2016), Marvel Studios
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Hollywood screenwriter and YouTube personality Script Doctor rejected these theories stating, “Wrong. Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely carried the MCU, and the studio’s judgement was so bad they couldn’t ‘find’ writers of equal talent or better to replace them after 9 years of writing 6 features and a tv series.”
Script Doctor on X
Script Doctor added, “Comic book knowledge or lack thereof is never the issue. They hired writers that lacked understanding of genre, and story fundamentals in favor of agenda.”
Script Doctor on X
Joe Russo’s comments about the lack of attention span and how people are consuming media differently also does not pass the smell test given one of the most popular forms of media is the podcast.
In fact, Joe Rogan, arguably the most popular podcaster does shows that are routinely over 3 hours in length. One of his most recent podcasts with political pundit and commentator Tucker Carlson has nearly 9 million views within less than 2 weeks.
Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man and Don Cheadle as War Machine in Captain America: Civil War (2016), Marvel Studios
Script Doctor’s argument is convincing given J.R.R. Tolkien made it years ago in his essay On Fairy-Stories, where he described that successful story-makers create “a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is ‘true’: it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside.”
However, Tolkien added, “The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed. You are then out in the Primary World again, looking at the little abortive Secondary World from outside. If you are obliged, by kindliness or circumstance, to stay, then disbelief must be suspended (or stifled), otherwise listening and looking would become intolerable. But this suspension of disbelief is a substitute for the genuine thing, a subterfuge we use when condescending to games or make-believe, or when trying (more or less willingly) to find what virtue we can in the work of an art that has for us failed.”
The Marvel Cinematic Universe failed to maintain its sub-creation and staying “true” to the laws of its world. Instead, as Script Doctor notes, it eschewed this fundamental principle of storytelling in favor of injecting a woke agenda.
He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) in Marvel Studios’ LOKI, exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.
What do you make of Script Doctor’s rejection of Joe Russo’s analysis on why the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Hollywood at-large is failing?
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