As 2015 has dragged on one thing has become abundantly
clear: Marvel Studio’s future in phase 3 is far less certain than anybody
really expected. More and more the
little studio that could has turned into the big studio that can’t seem to get
out of its own way. Marvel’s phase
2 has had some major financial success certainly but culturally the studio has
only gotten more scattershot and less solid at predicting what, among its many
properties, will be a legitimate smash with audiences or just make a lot of
money. Sure Iron Man 3 was a major financial success but it’s not like anyone
is genuinely interested in diving deeper into the Mandarin, AIM, or Extremis
any time soon. The same way Age of Ultron broke all kinds of records
but spent the summer getting stomped on at the box office and in the popular
consciousness by Jurassic World.
Meanwhile, less studio involved projects like Ant-Man, Daredevil, Agent Carter, Jessica
Jones, and chief of all Captain
America: Winter Soldier have found major traction with audiences. All of this has made Marvel’s upcoming
“phase 3” a much shakier and more uncertain place for the once untouchable
kings of pop culture. That their
films will still gross solid returns is without question but the lingering
issue of “will people still be talking about Marvel in the year 2020” has only
become more and more prevalent.
Turns out you can’t sustain cultural impact through cross
genre-continuity alone but damned if they aren’t going to try because it looks
like Marvel has decided to add another hero to Dr. Strange in the form of Scott
Adkins as Iron Fist.
