For a while, Marvel movies got universal acclaim. By studying the highest rated Marvel movies, you can learn the importance of story. By studying the latest Marvel movies, you can see what they’re doing wrong.
There are several reasons why the latest Marvel movies are slipping in quality but the number one reason is the larger number of characters they keep cramming into each movie. Watch the original Spider-Man trilogy and the first movie focuses on Spider-Man’s origin, the second (generally considered the best) focuses on Spider-Man fighting Doctor Octopus, but the third crams in Sandman, Venom, and the New Goblin. With so many characters, there’s not enough time to care or understand about any of them.
“The Avengers” movies avoided this problem by creating characters who had solo movies first and then adding interesting additional characters to support these major characters like Captain America and Ironman.
Now look at “The Eternals,” which is one of the lowest rated Marvel movies for a good reason. Here’s a bunch of unknown characters thrown into a movie so there isn’t enough time to care about any of them. Besides too many characters, a second flaw of the latest Marvel movies is their over-dependence on knowledge of previous movies and TV shows.
“Dr. Strange 2” relied on audiences watching the TV show “WandaVision” and understanding the Scarlet Witch’s motivation in the movie. By failing to tell a complete story, “Dr. Strange 2” is a much weaker film as a result.
“Thor: Love and Thunder” includes a bunch of old characters, Valkyrie and Dr. Jane Foster, who audiences must know from previous movies. That means their motivation and character is basically left undeveloped within “Thor: Love and Thunder,” creating a weaker movie.
The basic flaw of the latest Marvel movies is that they’re cramming in too many characters and leaving their motivation dependent on previous movies and TV shows. Even if you’re familiar with these characters’ background, it still tells an incomplete story.
So the two lessons to remember when writing your own screenplay are:
- Don’t have too many characters
- Make sure you devote enough time to develop the motivation of each character
