Marvel Studios is currently in choppy waters. Thor: Love and Thunder, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and now Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania have all disappointed to some degree. The reasons for this dip in quality are many, ranging from the lingering impact of COVID on their production pipeline, a global shortage of VFX artists, and scripts that could have used a few more drafts to get right.
We’re not writing the MCU’s obituary yet, but it’s safe to say that post-Endgame the quality has been much more variable than we previously expected from the studio. As such, many are looking ahead to the upcoming slate of movies with weary resignation rather than excitement. Quantumania writer Jeff Loveness is also writing Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, so can we expect more of the same?
If Kevin Feige is looking for a way to give the MCU a shot in the arm, perhaps he should look to another Disney studio that recently dazzled critics and fans…
A galaxy far, far away
Star Wars has inarguably seen its fair share of duds: the prequel trilogy still doesn’t have a great reputation, and in the Disney era we’ve seen stumbles like The Rise of Skywalker, Solo, The Book of Boba Fett, and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
But with last year’s Andor everyone stood up and took notice. The Rogue One spinoff focused on a character whose ultimate fate we already knew, using it as a springboard for a mature story about resisting fascism, the misery of life under Imperial rule, and building a future you may not be alive to see. But, first and foremost, Andor took Star Wars seriously and fans responded in kind, with many saying this let them finally re-engage with the franchise.
So, could Marvel Studios emulate this? Much of Andor‘s success was down to writer/director Tony Gilroy being given the time, resources, and freedom to tell the story he wanted.
Is it possible for Marvel Studios to make an ‘Andor’?
Andor‘s production is the opposite of how Marvel Studios tends to operate, with directors often arriving on projects to find that action sequences have been pre-vizzed without their input, script alterations are being imposed from above, and, of course, strict boundaries are in place to make the show fit into the complex MCU continuity. On top of that, every MCU movie and TV show teases future projects, meaning the story never truly feels as if it’s ending.
Arguably Marvel Studios has already gotten close to pulling off an Andor. 2022’s Moon Knight had almost no crossover with the wider MCU, with showrunner and director Mohamed Diab able to carve out a unique identity for the show that distinguished it from continuity-heavy efforts like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Hawkeye.
That said, Moon Knight wasn’t a patch on Andor. The secret sauce here may be that Andor was allowed to fully grapple with the political dimension of Star Wars in a way that MCU productions aren’t. For example, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier paid lip service to the social implications of half the world disappearing and returning, though didn’t spend anywhere near enough time on the subject to say anything interesting about it.
The MCU’s ever-evolving nature may also make an Andor equivalent difficult. Star Wars‘ galactic history is well chronicled, meaning the show can place itself in a specific time and place without pressure to push the bigger story forward. The MCU would struggle to do that, though there may be room for a story to be told during the chaotic Snap-era gap between Infinity War and Endgame.
So, c’mon Marvel Studios, let’s see a show with a strong creative vision that’s less concerned with setting up the next Avengers movie or spawning Disney Plus spinoffs but actually has something interesting to say about this world. Making it work would be a gamble, as giving a creative team a big budget, freedom to tell the story they want, and the time they need to finish it properly is the opposite of how they usually work, but Marvel Studios needs a critical darling right now so we say roll those dice.
And, while they’re at it, tone down the quips.