“Marvel had some misses”: Deadpool & Wolverine Director Shawn Levy Won’t Accept a Cold Hard Truth about MCU’s Current State after Brie Larson’s The Marvels Created History

Marvel has not been coping very well with the sudden loss of direction after Phase Three and Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman are ready to fix that with the launch of Deadpool & Wolverine. But with the premiere of the superhero movie also comes a baggage full of hard truths and shocking revelations.

While Kevin Feige and essentially all of Hollywood look on in the hopes of seeing the duo pulling Marvel out of the trenches of failure and deprivation, one cannot also ignore the fact that the film’s success will only be one plug in a ship littered with bullet holes.

Agreed, Feige played a big part in causing the disaster himself, but now that two of the biggest and most beloved superheroes arrive to secure the scene and hold down the fort, some old memories have started coming to light that partially relieve Feige of the blame of causing Marvel’s downfall.

Shawn Levy Takes the Weight Off of Kevin Feige’s Shoulders

Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy has some big hopes for the future. Between bringing Marvel Jesus into the picture, reshaping Netflix with Stranger Things, and being potentially considered for helming Avengers 5, the director is juggling a lot for a pretty laid-back guy.

However, that has barely stopped Levy from sitting back and looking at the bigger picture – the past, the present, and the future included – and where Deadpool & Wolverine fits into the narrative arc of MCU’s overarching plan. For now, Levy insists on giving the audience what they want in theaters. In an interview with EW, the director revealed:

With a movie like this, where people seem to be letting us know they intend to show up, I want to make sure that we build the most joyous, rollicking good time in the theaters that we possibly could.

However, the reality check settles in fairly quickly when one realizes that a “rollicking good time” may not be the cure-all for superhero fatigue. Commenting on Marvel’s hits and misses in the recent past (more misses than hits), the director claims:

Marvel had some misses but people are way too quick to declare the last rites of the superhero genre. I don’t buy into that fatigue narrative.

Such an optimistic outlook does little to resolve the problem at hand for the studio although it helps to shift some of the blame away from Kevin Feige whose entire career now depends on the reception of Deadpool & Wolverine. Levy’s comments still do not erase the fact that the MCU has been going downhill since Endgame, with projects like Black Widow, Thor: Love & Thunder, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and Eternals.

However, it was Brie Larson‘s The Marvels that officially sank Marvel’s reputation to hit rock bottom by becoming the first MCU bomb in the history of the CBM juggernaut. Levy’s comments can neither erase the cold hard facts of the case nor repair the damage caused to the franchise that held all our hopes and dreams in its vaults before deciding to blow it all up for fun.

Deadpool & Wolverine: Here to Save the Day!

Once upon a time, the Marvel-crazed audience lived and breathed in the shadow of Hugh Jackman‘s Wolverine. After 18 years of embodying the iconic character, a part of our souls died along with his on-screen death in James Mangold’s Logan. Now, 7 years later, the actor makes an earnest attempt at reparations with Deadpool & Wolverine.

Although MCU caused some unforgivable damage in the last few years, nothing says redemption like the big-screen comeback of the Adamantium-clawed superhero whose on-screen better half, Deadpool, had been screaming for this team-up ever since his solo debut.

After Logan, however, such a dream seemed impossible at first but luckily for the fans, regret started seeping in fairly early for Hugh Jackman. In his words:

From the moment I saw Deadpool 2… I had literally announced maybe a couple of weeks before that Logan was going to be my last, and I remember watching it and I’m 15 minutes in going, ‘F–k!’ I could feel it.

After the relentless nagging, online discourses, countless Easter Eggs, and one mid-life crisis later, Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman – the iconic duo who redefined the term ‘friend from work’ – are back to reclaim their crown as Marvel’s best and oddest on-screen couple.

Deadpool & Wolverine is set to premiere on 26 July 2024.