The trailer and title release forAvengers: Endgamewas certainly enough to get Marvel fans around the world excited for the next installment in theAvengersfranchise, but not everyone seems to be pleased with what they’ve seen so far. Simply due to the over-hyping of the movie and the negative backlashAvengers: Endgamehas received, it is quite possible that theInfinity Warfollow-up could end up going down the same dark path as last year’sThe Last Jedi.
As a quick recap forStar Wars: The Last Jedi, following the cliffhanger ending ofThe Force Awakens,Star Warsfans went rampant with theories on what they wanted to see in the next movie. While the marketing ofThe Last Jediwas met with mostly positive attitudes, much likeAvengers: Endgameso far, the release ofThe Last Jedichanged everything. Simply put,Star Wars: The Last Jediwas unable to satisfy the needs of everyone in the audience, as nearly everyStar Warsfan wanted to see something different on screen, but were quite disappointed. The fact thatThe Last Jedidiverged from the typicalStar Warshero’s journey certainly had something to do with the backlash as well, but regardless of the reason,The Last Jedihas seemed to permanently tarnish theStar Warsbrand for fans, even though from a filmmaking perspective, the movie was rather brilliant.
While it is too early to tell, it seems quite possible thatAvengers: Endgameis heading down the same path. SinceAvengers: Infinity Warfirst released back in April, Marvel fans have also run rampant online with theories of how they think the “snap” will be undone, be it with time travel or by rescuing the souls of the fallen heroes from the Soul Stone. Many fans have also gone online to describe scenes that they “need” to see in the movie, fromSteve Rogers seeing Peggy Carter in the afterlife, to Tony Stark facing the wrath of Aunt May. There are many characters that Marvel fans want to keep alive, in addition to characters they want to see sacrifice themselves in a noble way. Unfortunately, many of these character “needs” conflict with one another.
Whileall of these theoriesare fun and actually sound like they can make a great movie, the fact of the matter is, there will only be one movie that we see on screen, and that will be whatever story Marvel Studios came up with years ago. Marvel is remaining incredibly secretive about what will actually happen inAvengers: Endgame, not even confirming or denying the time travel theories yet (which would presumably be a huge part of the movie if true). Chances are, like withThe Last Jedi, many Marvel fans may end up being angry withAvengers: Endgameif their theories or needs are not met. For example, if Captain America is kept alive, there will be a number of fans rejoicing at his survival, but also a number of fans furious that they didn’t get to see Cap make a grand sacrifice.
Even though the movie is still several months away from its release,Avengers: Endgamehas already faced some negative backlash in this regard with its title release. Since Marvel waited so long to announce the title for the movie, many Marvel fans have been theorizing what the movie will be called, with titles like “Avengers: Annihilation” and “Avengers: Reassembled” being some of the frontrunners. In fact, thisbacklash was even predicted by Kevin Feige, the President of Marvel Studios, back in April. This is what he had to say on the secretiveAvengers 4title at the time.
“I’ve said before, it’s gotten entirely out of hand. And now will have no chance to living up to any expectations of what it’s gonna be. And it sort of backfired, if I’m honest with you, because the notion was to not talk about it so the focus was to be on [Infinity War].”
If the past few years with big franchises has told us anything, it’s that keeping details about a movie may help to keep out spoilers, but it can ultimately hurt the final project. The marketing forStar Wars: The Last Jedirevealed practically nothing about the movie except what characters we would see in it. When the movie released andStar Warsfans figured out that it was aboutLuke Skywalkerbeing a grumpy old hermit and that it was all one super slow chase scene, they were upset because many of those fans had expected the movie to be the great comeback of Luke Skywalker. They were expecting an epic, not a “passing on the baton” story. Though the “baton” story was well told, it was evidently not what fans wanted.
Right now, it appears as thoughAvengers: Endgameis going down the same path. We know the roster of heroes who will be in it, and that the Avengers will somehow try to reverse the decimation from the last movie, but that’s about it. We don’t know how they are going to do this, be it with time travel or by some other method. We don’t know where they are going to do this, as they could spend the entire movie on Earth or they could travel across the galaxy to track Thanos down, making the movie essentially a space opera. We also don’t know when it will all happen, as many fans are predicting the main plot of the movie will take place years after the events ofInfinity War. While all of these factors do help to keep the movie secretive in order to make the first viewing more exciting, as history has shown, it does have its consequences.
WhileAvengers: Endgamewill still surely make a lot of money, as the cliffhanger ending ofAvengers: Infinity Warhas already made it a box office draw. However, if the movie does end up being a disappointment to many fans likeStar Wars: The Last Jedi, it could prove to be dire for future installments to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel Studios seemingly has plans to keep the MCU going for at least another decade, but this could end up being halted ifAvengers: Endgameis met with the same backlash asThe Last Jedi. HopefullyAvengers: Endgamewill manage to live up to everyone’s expectations, but based on what we’ve seen so far, there’s a good chance it could inevitably disappoint many of its fans simply because, as Kevin Feige put it, all of the hype is getting out of hand.
