2 weeks Ago By Garth Franklin
A decade ago they were the unchallenged kings of the box-office, riding high on the critical acclaim of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” and the first “Guardians of the Galaxy”. Sure Marvel Studios had its share of duds over the years, from “Thor: The Dark World” to “Iron Man 2,” but they were merely blips – nothing seemed to be able to challenge their dominance. In 2024 though, the Marvel brand is in rougher shape.
Despite the recent success of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” there’s still the perception the brand has issues following a number of failures like “The Marvels,” “Secret Invasion,” “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and others. Questions still remain over their 2025 titles like the next “Captain America” and the “Thunderbolts*” film. One of the latter film’s stars, Sebastian Stan, recently stood up for the studio whilst out promoting the release of the young Donald Trump biopic “The Apprentice”.
Speaking with , the Winter Solider star says it is fashionable to blame Marvel for the overall woes of the industry and just big studio movies in general: “It’s become really convenient to pick on [Marvel films]. And that’s fine. Everyone’s got an opinion.
But they’re a big part of what contributes to this business and allows us to have smaller movies as well. This is an artery traveling through the system of this entire machinery that’s Hollywood. It feeds in so many more ways than people acknowledge.
Sometimes I get protective of it because the intention is really f—— good. It’s just f—– hard to make a good movie over and over again.” The comments follow on from his co-star David Harbour earlier this week telling that the “Thunderbolts*” film is very “comic book true” but adds he’s more cautious with reading fan theories and reviews on comic book fan and film sites because “I feel like I just run into AI articles.
I’m like, who wrote this? This isn’t even English”..
