Yahoo Movies The Marvels' X-Men teasers are letting the MCU movie down
The Marvels is almost here, but it no longer feels like the movie itself is actually the main talking point ahead of its release.
Whether it's the reveal of Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie in the final trailer or the fairly blatant X-Men tease in a recent TV spot, there has been a distinct shift away from the movie and into its implications for the wider MCU.
Alongside that Valkyrie cameo, the final trailer also comes with a portentous declaration that we need to "be there for the moment that changes everything". That's been widely expected to be the long-awaited arrival of the X-Men, with fans speculating that we also see Storm walk past Monica Rambeau in front of a screen with the X-Men logo.
If you still didn't get that The Marvels was going to be extremely linked to the wider MCU, the final trailer even opens with 20 seconds of archival Avengers footage, including Iron Man and Captain America, and ending on Thanos.
But hang on, wasn't this supposed to be about Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau and Kamala Khan?
When the first trailer for The Marvels arrived in April 2023, it felt like a breath of fresh air for the MCU, which was reeling from the underperformance of Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania.
The trailer was a fun and energetic tease for the power-swapping shenanigans of the Captain Marvel sequel, backed by an excellent use of 'Intergalactic' by Beastie Boys. (Note when the line "don't you tell me to smile" kicks in, if you haven't already.)
'Intergalactic' would remain a major part of marketing for The Marvels, as would the central trio with Nick Fury as the sole element involved from the wider MCU. And then it all changed with the final trailer.
If you watch the first trailer and the final trailer one after the other, they feel like totally different movies. Where the first trailer might have inspired excitement in something new for the MCU, the final trailer – complete with its ominous score replacing 'Intergalactic' – couldn't be more MCU.
It's all different universes colliding, Nick Fury talking about "one last fight" and warnings about what it could mean for the future. There's not even a single beat of the power-swapping that has been a large hook of the previous marketing. It all just suddenly looks very... ordinary.
It's entirely possible that this was always the marketing strategy for The Marvels. However, you can't help feeling that it's a direct response to the reports that pre-release tracking has the movie debuting to only $75 million to $80 million.
That would be around half of Captain Marvel's $153.4 million US debut and among the lower openings for the MCU. If that turns out to be the case, it would be a disappointment, which is possibly the reason for this marketing switch to labour the point that The Marvels is a must-see for the future of the MCU.
It speaks to a lack of trust in The Marvels, much like when the Mandarin's appearance in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was revealed ahead of its release. We've no doubt that it was always the case that The Marvels would set the stage for future movies, but it's hard to believe that Marvel wouldn't have wanted it to be a surprise.
The Marvels, as it is, should have been enough to sell without the cheap final trailer ties to Avengers: Endgame.
Nia DaCosta is the first Black female director for an MCU movie, and it also contains three female leads of diverse backgrounds at a time when having a female-led superhero movie is still too rare. Marvel could have been championing that, even if the inability to do press with the leads would have made it more difficult.
Instead, The Marvels no longer feels like it's about the director or its stars, while the marketing switch has probably come too late in the day to salvage its box-office prospects because comic book movies, even Marvel ones, are no longer guaranteed hits.
It's telling that the biggest comic book movie of the year is Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, a movie that relied only on seeing the first two movies and was unconnected (and unbothered) by the wider MCU. There's so much #content in the MCU now that a movie that doesn't require homework feels like a treat, and often is more satisfying as a whole.
Had The Marvels kept its marketing on its original route, perhaps it could have attracted an untypical audience for a comic book movie. This could have then morphed into a more typical MCU audience when its big surprises were inevitably revealed post-release.
We'll never know now, of course, and it will just remain a shame that The Marvels wasn't allowed to stand on its own intergalactic feet.
The Marvels is released in cinemas on November 10.
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