By Daniel Schiffman ‘23 On April 1, 2022, “Morbius,” Sony’s newest Marvel movie, was released and immediately met with horrible reviews lampooning the film’s nonsensical story, terrible dialogue and sub-par special effects. Although expectations for the film were low to begin with given Sony’s abysmal track record with similarly awful movies, many fans were still tantalized by the promise of a post-credit scene featuring Michael Keaton reprising his role as the Vulture from “Spider-Man: Homecoming.” This scene would theoretically imply a connection to a larger, Andrew Garfield-centered Spider-Man universe, and a potential reboot of the “Amazing Spider-Man” films. However, shared universes are not exactly uncommon. Many fans watched the mini-series “Loki” and “Wandavision” solely to catch the way they connected to the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The “Avengers” movies and “Captain America: Civil War,” both center around the combination of many characters in one movie. “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” the MCU’s most recent blockbuster, proudly featured three different incarnations of the main character: Tom Holland’s, Andrew Garfield’s and Tobey Maguire’s Spiderman. Post-credit scenes featuring connections to other films are now such a staple in Marvel movies that it is rare for someone to leave the theater once the credits start to roll.
As the popularity of superhero movies has continued to rise, studios like Disney and Sony have begun to rely too heavily upon guest stars and shared universes to draw audiences to their content. Marvel’s writers and directors deliberately stoke anticipation for their films with special guest stars and easter eggs, all designed to excite fans of superhero material. Yet, in order to do so, filmmakers end up throwing different characters and references into one film, sacrificing comprehensible plots and fully developed characters. The point of these films has become not to tell a compelling story, but to delight fans with a myriad of references and cross-film connections. The most apparent method with which Disney and Sony draw people to their content is through the interconnection of different movies and shows, strung together by shared characters and plot lines. Therefore, for fans to keep up with the ever-expanding cinematic universe, they have to watch every previous movie and show. Without watching “Avengers Endgame,” and all its preceding films, the plots of “Spiderman: Far From Home'' and all of the Disney+ Marvel Shows would be practically incomprehensible. Disney’s and Sony’s products also gain attention through social media. Deliberate marketing strategies cause Marvel fans to ignore the product or movie at hand and look evermore to the next film, perpetuating their interest in the ongoing series and creating loyal customers. Social media platforms are spaces where like-minded individuals with similar interests can gather and gain a sense of community and support. These communities’ members feed into each other’s excitement, creating a mob mentality in Marvel fandoms. On a large scale, the result becomes a group of social media accounts, each with massive followings, riling each other up over every leak, piece of news and bit of information about any new Marvel content. One such account is “CinemaBlend,” with over 60,000 followers, and which focuses primarily on Marvel content. Six days before “Morbius’” release, “CinemaBlend” posted a link to an interview with the director of “Morbius” answering, “Questions you have about Spider-Man, Venom, Vulture and all the #Marvel Easter Eggs in the upcoming movie.” Before the film had even come out, CinemaBlend’s followers were already laser-focused on what connections it could hold to later movies, ignoring “Morbius” itself. The fast-paced nature of social media also ignites a need for immediate gratification, which in turn, causes a shorter attention span. This hunger for fulfillment leads fans only to hyperfixate on the next piece of news or sneak peek instead of the media they are absorbing at the moment, just as a typical social media user would want to scroll to the next post, and the next post, and the next post, ad infinitum. In this way, social media creates a distraction from the present moment, the movie that is about to or has just been released. Thus, a large share of Marvel’s consumers are in huge fan communities on Twitter, with hyperactive brains eagerly awaiting the next scrap of a post-credit scene. These fanbases thirst for miniscule details which connect to the next movie coming out, or the easter egg in a trailer that implies a sequel to another movie… and so on. The major wave of anticipation and the ensuing hilaria on Twitter fan pages created by each easter egg, teaser or post-credit scene, causes considerable damage to Marvel productions through studios’ efforts to pander to these potential customers. Marvel creators either rely so heavily on this excitement to draw audiences, that they put little effort into plot and character, or they try too hard to satisfy these desires and form convoluted plots with the express purpose of creating jaw-dropping moments and surprise cameos. The Morbius movie suffers from the former issue: reliance on fan anticipation for a post-credit scene to sell tickets leading to the careless creation of a disconcerting plot and an underdeveloped main character. Movie reviewer, Katie Rife, called Jared Leto’s performance as the titular main character a “bland hero,” and ridiculed the movie’s creators for taking, “any intriguing elements of its title character’s story and flattening them.” She called the details of the movie’s plot “messy and contradictory.” Another film review show, the “Cosmonaut Variety Hour” youtube channel, attributed “Morbius’” issues to its “existing solely to set up other projects.” “Spider-Man: No Way Home” demonstrates the latter issue. Instead of the filmmakers relying on fan anticipation for box office success, and so not putting in any effort into the film, that movie suffers from its creators desperately trying to please prospective fans on Twitter, leading to a chaotic plot driven by a desire to fulfill fans’ wishes for what the film will be. Driven by nostalgia, these fans wanted to see both former “Spider-Man” actors Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire, and so that is what they received. While “Spider-Man: No Way Home” does not struggle from “Morbius’” issues of a lack of character development or thematic depth, its plot contains notable illogical holes caused by the story gymnastics the writers had to work in order to get the other Spider-Men into this movie. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” was written with a clear endpoint in mind, and the story was simply a device to get to that end. As a result, the film suffered from logical leaps and rushed pacing, and had the creators not forced Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield into the film, the story would have been far clearer. Marvel’s current web-of-movies style, worsened by social media, allows them to sit back and string movies together, harming their artistic quality while generating more and more excitement and making millions with unremarkable products in the process. This clearly stems from corporate greed, in choosing the money-making ability of their movies over artistic merit. If Marvel wished to make better films, they should return to more self-contained movies like “Iron Man,” “Ant Man” and “Doctor Strange” that each stand on their own and do not have to connect to some grand, overarching plot. If more people were excited about individual projects like these, then perhaps Marvel would cease to weave different movies together, and end their audiences’ eternal over-excitement. Only then can Sony and Disney return to making the type of superhero movies the world first fell in love with.
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