“Watchmen” showrunner Damon Lindelof has an easy solution to the abundance of movies in the MCU: less is more. Variety reports that when Lindelof dropped in on Vulture’s “Into It” podcast, he offered his antidote as to why moviegoers and Disney+ subscribers feel like Marvel movies have grown stale. And it’s the antithesis of Kevin Feige‘s current model. In short, the spate of Marvel properties works against the brand.
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“It’s always going to be hard because once you’ve got someone’s attention, you want to keep it,” Lindelof said on the podcast. “And so the idea of letting it go and not knowing if you’re ever going to get it back again is sort of like, it’s antithetical to the way that we’re wired.” Lindelof appeared to liken the MCU’s current output to a kind of addiction on both sides: Marvel wants to keep the audience’s attention, so they make more and more movies and shows, but that’s because audiences like Marvel content and want more of it to screen. The result has been a bellyache for Marvel stuff on both movie theaters and home video screens.
But Lindelof’s comments didn’t end there. “From a slightly sort of more cynical standpoint, this is a business,” he continued. “It’s an industry. And if you make a couple of great Marvel movies, the instinct is, ‘We need to make more Marvel movies, and we need to expand this.’ And I have this sort of interior feeling of like, ‘Wow, I wish they made less because it would make each one that came out a little bit more special. But I watch all of them. … People don’t want things to end. I do.” Lindelof’s perspective doesn’t sound cynical so much as gently realistic. He recognizes that since the advent of Marvel’s Disney+ shows and Phase 4, there’s been an overdose of sorts of MCU fare in movies and TV. His criticism is a sound solution to the generally tepid response to Marvel’s output this year. Everything has been fine, sure, but not met with the same enthusiasm that made “Iron Man” and “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” such big hits.
Unfortunately, it looks like the Marvel train won’t slow down any time soon to heed Lindelof’s advice. Marvel already released “Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness” and “Thor: Love And Thunder” as films this year, with “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” on the way in November. There’s also three Marvel series debuting on Disney+ this year, the latest being “She-Hulk” on August 18. And Marvel branches out in their exclusive Disney+ content later this year with “The Guardians Of The Galaxy Holiday Special.” In total, that’s seven Marvel properites releasing this year, with an additional four movies and potentially six series set for theatrical release next year.
Does that make Lindelof’s comments a moot point? No, but Lindelof also recognizes that this is the current state of the entertainment industry. “I don’t begrudge them the right to keep it going,” Lindelof said in a final statement on the podcast. “I’ve made prequels and sequels and reboots, so I can’t be a hypocrite and say, ‘God, come up with an original idea.’ Meanwhile, I’m making two ‘Star Trek’ movies and ‘Prometheus.’” Yup, endless sequels and franchise properties is Hollywood’s game right now, but Lindelof does have some good points. Perhaps less of all of that would make what remains that much richer and a little easier for everyone to stomach.
