Marvel’s recent problems aren’t due to superhero fatigue, but, instead, a “big generational divide about how you consume media,” or, more specifically, ADHD, suggests Joe Russo, one of the directors behind some of Marvel’s biggest box office hits, including Avengers: Endgame and Infinity War. The comments come after The Marvels, Disney and Marvel Studios’ latest superhero film, flopped by earning only $84.5 million domestically, making the worst-performing movie in the franchise’s history, lower than 2008’s The Incredible Hulk.
Russo said:
- “There’s a big generational divide about how you consume media. There’s a generation that’s used to appointment viewing and going to a theater on a certain date to see something, but it’s aging out.”
- “Meanwhile the new generation are ‘I want it now, I want to process it now’, then moving onto the next thing, which they process whilst doing two other things at the same time.”
- “…I think everyone, including Marvel, is experiencing the same thing, this transition. And I think that really is probably what’s at play more than anything else.”
- “I think that the two-hour format, the structure that goes into making a movie, it’s over a century old now and everything always transitions.”
- “…there is something happening again and that form is repetitive. But it’s hard to reinvent that form and I think this next generation is looking for ways to tell their own stories that service their own sort of collective ADHD.”
A trailer for Marvel’s next film, which Disney hopes will restore the success of the MCU:
Wolverine is recovering from his injuries when he crosses paths with the loudmouth, Deadpool. They team up to defeat a common enemy.