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Marvel Just Confirmed Its Screwing Up The MCU’s Chance To Beat Superhero Fatigue
While superhero films have essentially become their own genre over the past twenty years, the past decade has seen Marvel films playing with mixing their standard action-adventure flair with elements of comedy and thriller. Yet the MCU’s latest show, Marvel Zombies, has shown that the franchise is missing a major opportunity to incorporate horror into their programming slate. Not only have their past horror-esque projects been embraced, but the genre itself has gone through a recent renaissance and proven itself box office gold. Given that Marvel has failed to meet theatrical expectations this year, with both Thunderbolts* and Fantastic Four: First Steps underperforming, we say it’s time for the MCU to give its fans what they want and embrace horror.
Marvel Zombies Is the Latest Horror MCU Show Embraced by Fans
Marvel Zombies, a four-part series which premiered last month, Kamala Khan (voiced by Iman Vellani) leads an ensemble of Marvel heroes on an odyssey through a world that’s fallen to a zombie virus. The series is an intricately woven, terrifying ride as Khan and her fellow heroes desperately search for refuge from a zombie horde that includes many of their former allies. Unlike most MCU projects, Marvel Zombies ends on grim, ambiguous note, insinuating that the good guys don’t win in the end. Even with the uncharacteristically bleak conclusion, the series has been embraced by fans as a sharp, sophisticated horror epic that has us scratching our heads as to why there isn’t more programming like it in the genre.
Yes, Marvel has dabbled in horror before, yet the number of horror projects doesn’t proportionally reflect how much fans have clamored for more thrilling and chilling programming. In 2022, Michael Giacchino’s Werewolf by Night special, an ode to both comics character Jack Russell and the monster movies of yore, was a hit with Marvel fans. When the MCU reboot of Blade was announced, starring Oscar winner Mahersala Ali no less, fans could barely contain their excitement. However, we have no firm idea when Jack Russell may be making a return to the MCU, and Blade has been officially taken off Marvel’s release calendar.
Is Marvel Causing its Own Franchise Fatigue?
The problem seems to be that Marvel Studios’ leadership still wants to maintain a “broad appeal”, especially with younger audiences, for their projects. That’s why, despite having two masters of horror sit in the director’s chair for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Scott Derrickson and Sam Raimi, the film felt more like an overcomplicated action blockbuster rather than a satisfying psychedelic horror. The Marvel/Disney+ series Moon Knight also likely could’ve made more of a splash if it had been able to lean more into the genre rather than a fantastical Egyptian-themed scavenger hunt. As delightful as Agatha All Along was, it skewed more fantasy than proper horror. However, the past few years have shown that the effect of putting tonal guardrails on their projects isn’t maintaining their appeal; it instead leads to every single piece of MCU media feeling largely the same.
On the other hand, one of the very first projects on the newly rebooted DCU’s slate will be a horror adaptation of the comic anti-hero Clayface. James Gunn, now the co-chairman of DC Studios, seems to be learning from Marvel’s mistakes, embracing a variety of tones and genres in the DCU to tell the franchise’s overarching narrative. He’s wise to do so, especially since horror has been dominating with both audiences and critics lately. Jordan Peele won the Academy Award for Original Screenplay for his low-budget horror sensation Get Out. Just this year, Sinners, Weapons, and The Conjuring: Last Rites have all grossed north of $250 million at the global box office, with budgets much lower than a typical superhero film.
Not to mention, there’s tons of scary stories to draw from in the comics themselves. Marvel Zombies began as a limited series in the comics, and there’s plenty of Blade, Moon Knight, and Werewolf by Knight issues for the MCU to have had their own horror sub-universe by now. One that, when looking at the recent box office numbers, would likely be incredibly profitable and critically acclaimed. But alas, Marvel’s, and therefore Disney’s, risk aversion and commitment to the lowest common denominator in programming has seemingly prevented the MCU from trying anything remotely thrilling or frightening in any major way.
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