Marvel Studios’ projects are becoming a genre itself.
Last weekend’s presence of Marvel Studios at Comic-Con’s Hall H after a long absence was a welcome one, but probably for different reasons.
At the longest panel they’ve ever had, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige unveiled the upcoming projects that are coming to theaters and Disney’s upcoming streaming service Disney+. They included the Black Widow standalone film, a series based on The Falcon and Winter Soldier, as well as new characters like Shang-Chi and a reboot of Blade.
As each one was being described be Feige and the subsequent talent that was on-hand to be introduced, it became apparent that this Phase Four would be different.
For movies like “Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness,” Feige said this would be Marvel’s first “scary/horror” film. For “The Eternals,” Feige called it “full Jack Kirby” (meaning it would be out-of-the-ordinary with the comic book writer’s vivid imagination). Feige described “Black Widow” as an espionage-action film.
In short, it became clear that the angle that Marvel Studios is taking with its new projects is by becoming a genre itself. It’s safe to say that Marvel movies have always been described as ‘superhero films’, which is a film type. But as with over 10 years of superhero movies, some filmgoers have cried out saying that they’re fatigued by films like these.
We haven’t seen any of these new projects yet, so we can’t be entirely sure if how Feige is describing Phase Four will be focusing less on the superheroes and more on the type of films these superheroes will play in. We certainly hope it is the latter.
