10 Things I Hate About The Marvel Cinematic Universe
7. The Cast Have Overpowered The Characters They Play
Of course, on case by case basis it’s expensive and impractical to have constant crossovers… because they’re hiring actual movie stars to be in these tentpole extravaganzas, actors who are now inextricably intertwined with the success of the franchise.
Robert Downey Jr. is the most significant issue. It's impossible to make an Iron Man movie without him, and he’s ridiculously expensive - his salary is roughly the entire production budget of this year’s Deadpool movie. By the time his next appearance in Avengers: Infinity War rolls around, it’ll be twelve MCU movies since Iron Man 3, but only Iron Man’s fourth appearance since then… if you include what’s likely to be a glorified cameo in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
So what, you may be asking? Well, this is the MCU’s most popular character, and it’s not like things aren’t happening to him in between movies. In between Iron Man 3 and Avengers: Age Of Ultron, Stark changed his mind about retiring the Iron Man armour and became a superdude again. In between Avengers: Age Of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War, Stark and Pepper Potts ended their relationship and Marvel wrote Gwyneth Paltrow out of the franchise.
There’s plenty of Stark’s story kicking around, plenty of loose ends that need tying up, especially with the Mandarin and especially after the game changing events of Captain America: Civil War… but we’re going to have to wait for the next Avengers movie for any of that, if it gets addressed at all.
In the meantime, Marvel’s fictional world keeps turning. In that world, Tony Stark is still out there doing stuff, his manscaping bristling with sardonic quips. It’s just that Marvel aren’t telling those stories, because they don’t have Downey down to be in them.
To a lesser extent, it will now prove extraordinarily difficult to deliver a Captain America story without Chris Evans or Thor without Chris Hemsworth, or cast anyone but Mark Ruffalo as Banner, Paul Rudd as Ant-Man, or Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange. Out of all of those men, only Hemsworth was an unknown prior to Thor in 2011.
Since that’s the case, we simply won’t see those characters on-screen for anything except special occasions - and the bigger the star, the less ‘special occasions’ we’ll get.
Marvel's biggest on-screen successes are entirely at the mercy of a few incredibly wealthy actors who, if they choose to, don't ever have to work again - never mind sign up for more popcorn superhero flicks.