Did someone say something about “superhero fatigue”? Over the past half-decade, prevailing logic has insisted that the cultural dominance of comic book films – especially that of the sprawling, multi-billion-dollar franchise known as the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) – was on the wane. Superhero films were no longer the surefire box office catnip they had been throughout the 2010s. Each new entry seemed to plumb fresh depths, Marvel not merely jumping the shark once, but doing it again and again, installing itself at SeaWorld as a special shark-jumping attraction. But if this week has shown anything, it’s that “superhero fatigue” is set to give way to one hell of a second wind.
Yesterday afternoon, Marvel announced the cast list for its forthcoming blockbuster Avengers: Doomsday. A staggering 27 actors were announced – only a few of whom had already been confirmed (Robert Downey Jr as Doctor Doom and the four leads of the forthcoming Fantastic Four reboot); the rest included a nostalgia grab-bag of stars from the Noughties X-Men films (Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, and Alan Cumming among them), and an eclectic heap from recent MCU entries. The announcement was made over a period of hours, with a livestreamed video showing each actor’s name on the back of a chair; every 10 minutes or so, the video feed would pan over to reveal another chair. At one point, there were more than 10 million people watching this video. To repeat: a nearly six-hour-long video of mostly static furniture, watched by more people than this year’s Best Picture Oscar winner. Avengers: Doomsday may well be on course to become the most lucrative film of all time.
