Kevin Feige's recent defense of the Avengers: Endgame at the end of Phase 3. Despite the success of Phase 3, the Marvel hype didn't transfer as smoothly to Phase 4.
Black Widow which many believe came too late in the MCU to hold any meaningful weight. Others criticize Marvel shows for being disted from the main MCU, both in of its interconnectivity and its tone. Those who complain of superhero fatigue believe the amount of content is too much to keep up with. Mostly, it seems big-budget spectacle superhero movies are beginning to lose their original allure.
Kevin Feige's "Novel Adaptation" Analogy Just Doesn't Work
When asked about MCU superhero fatigue on The Movie Business Podcast, Kevin Feige explains:
I've been at Marvel Studios for 22 years now, over 22 years, and most of us here at Marvel Studios have been around a decade or longer together. And from probably my 2nd year at Marvel people were asking, 'Well, how long is this going to last? Is this fad of comic book movies going to end? And I didn't really understand the question. Because to me it was akin to saying after 'Gone With The Wind', 'Well how many more movies can be made off of novels? Do you think the audience will sour on movies being adapted from books?
The problem, though, is that, so broad of a comparison doesn't work. A better question would be, "Will people get tired of one particular form of comic book adaptation?"
There is more to comic books than superheroes, more than even Marvel and DC. In his response to Feige's comments, Darren Mooney offers a list of comic book adaptations that are different from the typical superhero spectacle, such as A History of Violence and Constantine. Like novels, comic books can cater to many different genres and have an unlimited library of subjects that are prime for a film adaptation. Unfortunately, changing the public's view of comic books as more than superhero stories is a challenge, one that Feige doesn't exactly make easy when he compares superhero comic adaptations to novel adaptations.
Marvel Does Face A Real Challenge: Adapting To Changes In Popular Culture
Kevin Feige's MCU comments also come across as out of touch with his use of Gone With The Wind as an example of a successful film based on a novel. His sentiment may make sense, but Gone With The Wind is a particularly dated and problematic example. Hollywood has moved on from Confederate apologia and has chosen more contemporary novels to adapt. It seems superhero fatigue may come from a particular kind of superhero story: an origin story with an attractive white man at the center. While this type of superhero film may have proved successful in the late 2000s and 2010s, audiences are beginning to ask more from their entertainment.
Although Joseph Campbell's hero journey is still a formidable formula to follow, there are other compelling stories that embrace diversity and real-world problems. The success of Invincible, illustrates that people are willing to watch stories that step out of the norm. While Disney, as of late, is not known for taking risks, the popularity of the aforementioned shows proves that risks are what audiences are hungry for. Kevin Feige may be right that people will never tire of novel adaptations, but people eventually will get tired of the same kind of MCU superhero film, and perhaps they already are.
