Marvel Studios’ Most Lazy Promo Ever

You wouldn’t think there would even be an article in this. It’s just a line of movie set chairs with all the actors set to appear in Avengers: Doomsday, the post-Kang pivot of Marvel Studio’s latest phase after Jonathan Majors got in trouble so serious even they couldn’t ignore it. It’s lame, we can see that, move on, right?

This is the short version. When Marvel Studios dropped a livestream version of this, it looked more like this:

You can’t tell until you click on the video when embedded on a site like this, but that’s a nearly five and a half hour video. What’s different? Paul Rudd gets a smaller chair as a joke to his role as Ant-Man, and Robert Downey, Jr redid his bit at the end, though there isn’t a major change. Otherwise it’s the same chairs, the same pan, just a longer waste of time.

Five and half hours. Every ten or so minutes a new chair was revealed. Every ten minutes or so the fans in the chat complaining this was taking too long got something resembling relief from the stupidity, and that’s if they didn’t move on by then. So what did I think of the actual cast list?

First off, who thought the reveal was a good idea? I was watching through the Nerdrotic Nooner podcast on YouTube, and the reveal wasn’t done when they were, co-host Chris Gore having to finish on his own Film Threat podcast just after. (Both links lead to playing videos. The Nerdrotic one is a highlight reel and the Film Threat one the full podcast.) They stopped discussing the cast reveals, after having to look up some names, to discuss other things, so if the goal was to fuel speculation and hold interest they did the exact opposite. It’s also demonstrative of Marvel Studio’s recent failings that two guys who discuss these movies for a living had to look up names because they weren’t interested in who was playing not-Namor in Black Panther: T’Challa For Never. They just knew he wasn’t the Sub Mariner under the excuse that they didn’t want him confused as an Aquaman ripoff, funnily enough the same reason DC set Wonder Woman in World War I instead of World War II after Captain America: The First Avenger. They really think people are that stupid, folks.

And what about the revealed casts? Apparently they’re bringing back Fox’s X-Men along with the handful of Avengers that weren’t killed off, their half-hearted (or half Ironhearted) replacements, and none of them impressive. Robert Downey is playing Doctor Doom instead of Tony Stark because they didn’t want to bring Tony back but are under the impression that bringing old actors back, even in new roles, will give them the same positive buzz as Spider-Man: No Way Home, Deadpool & Wolverine, and that one scene in Doctor Strange: Multiverse Of Madness where Wanda killed off a bunch of alternate universe Marvel characters, including Patrick Stewart’s Professor Charles Xavier. Wait, if he’s dead, is the one in Doomsday yet another universe version despite the other movies using different actors for different dimensions or are they forgetting why they move Namor to Latino Atlantis? Be consistent in how stupid you think we are, guys.

Apparently they also think you have nothing better to do than watch and discuss their cast announcement to drag it on that long. I stopped watching so I could make yesterday’s article and tomorrow’s, which would have been todays but I had nothing else to discuss so why drag that on? I don’t want to be part of the problem. I was just going to do a Jake & Leon comic (which I’m still doing–spoilers) and call it a discussion. The cast list is already not exciting me because Marvel Studios have killed the excitement for the Marvel Cinematic Universe with their recent movies, decisions like screwing up Jim Rhodes by making him a Skrull this whole time and Falcon by making him Captain Blackmerica because they don’t think it’s representing without the top brand name despite everyone liking Sam Wilson just fine as Falcon.

Then you have the Fox X-Men, not giving new people a chance to do a new take on the characters despite potentially being new versions of the mutant heroes and villains, so they drag Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellar, and Rebecca Romijn out of mothballs along with the other Fox-Xs to get that multiverse buzz. “Hey, remember these actors you liked so much in the previous movies? We’re bringing them back. Please love us now.” Meanwhile, to get Downey back as a new character they bowed to his demands of the Russo brothers returning. Yes, the Infinity War two-part finale, which some fans claim as the proper ending to the MCU and the point where everything went downhill (Chris Hemsworth is back as Thor because Taika Waititi isn’t doing Thor this time and he hated playing that version of Thor by a man who admitted he hated the comics), was well received outside of a few epilogue missteps and the “girl power” scene that would have been fine if not for the current Hollywood treatment of female characters. Plus they haven’t put out a good movie since and their last one bombed. Not inspiring confidence.

So this did nothing to get me excited and I’m not alone. Gore and both his co-hosts were only excited for names when they were good actors, like McKellen. The reveal was boring. The push by Disney to use gimmicks of actors people still liked in the past (when they aren’t shills for one political side, although Gore and Nerdrodic main host Gary Buchler noticed the absence of Jeremy Rimmer, with Gary sure Mark Ruffalo will be added later) will only take them thus far as filmgoers and fans are starting to wise up to the scam. The story is what matters and so far we know nothing.

Does Avengers: Doomsday have a chance? Not if the movie is as lazy, drawn out, and boring as this reveal. I still say superheroes don’t need a break. They need people without large egos who care about what they’re making. I’m not seeing that here just yet.