Deadpool & Wolverine bids farewell to the experimental superhero film era

Deadpool and Wolverine serves as the official, final nail in the coffin of 20th Century Fox’s Marvel films, and the welcoming party that brings Deadpool and the X-Men into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But the film is more than Deadpool mocking the MCU and declaring himself “Marvel Jesus” coming to save the Avengers. And there’s more than transgressive humor and over-the-top violence here. It’s also a moderately moving farewell letter to an entire era of superhero movie experimentation that is now dead and gone.

(Editorial note: Minor spoilers for some of Deadpool and Wolverine(‘s guest appearances.)

As Hugh Jackman returns to Wolverine in Deadpool and Wolverine wisely advertised and anticipated, the various 20th Century Fox Marvel cameos are surprising because they celebrate characters who weren’t celebrated in their time. The return of Jennifer Garner as Elektra or Chris Evans as the Human Torch aren’t triumphant returns for iconic movie characters. Except for Wesley Snipes’ Blade, from the film that proved that Marvel superheroes could launch successful moviesand X-23 of LoganThe film that attempted to give Fox’s X-Men franchise a poignant ending mostly features cameos from characters from huge flops and one from a film that was never made.

The cameos are a reminder of an era when superhero movies weren’t concerned with building grand universes or supporting sprawling multimedia empires. Filmmakers were forced to experiment with each new superhero film, trying to find a believable look, a winning story formula, and an approach unique enough to stand out and be memorable.

In 2024, it looks like that experimentation is over, at least for Marvel films. Disney and Marvel Studios have been scaling back their annual output of Marvel films and TV shows after a recent ratings slump. News that Robert Downey Jr. is returning to Marvel to play Doctor Doom and that the Russo brothers will direct the next two films Avengers movies, it seems like Marvel is falling back on its old successes, rather than looking for something new that works.

For DC Entertainment, too, the priorities have shifted. James Gunn’s new DC Universe is all about synergy – getting the same actors to play their characters across films, TV, animation, and even video games, since these stories all take place in the same continuity. This means we’re no longer reliant on hiring veteran voice actors to play roles in animation and video games: instead, DC is thrusting on-screen actors into formats they aren’t necessarily familiar with, and which aren’t the same as acting on set. This effectively kills any chance of DC projects discovering the next Kevin Conroy or the next Phil LaMarr.

But the damage that conformity and homogeneity have done and will continue to do to the superhero field runs deeper. In Marvel’s case, Phase 5 of the MCU felt disjointed, leading to a lot of meta gags in Deadpool and Wolverineit undoubtedly included some experimentation. During this phase we got Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Ringsand Disney Plus shows let smaller characters like Ms. Marvel and Moon Knight take the spotlight. And let’s not forget how weird and wonderful Loki is. These titles are very different from each other, and different from anything Marvel has done before. Just look at Ms Marvelthe Marvel equivalent of a 2000s Disney Channel TV series, but with a much bigger budget.

But as Marvel cuts back on TV shows, it seems less and less likely that smaller characters will get that kind of spotlight. It would be more in line with Disney’s current strategy of going back to the days of Agents of SHIELD and other minor, low-budget shows that barely connect to the films. In the past, that disconnect has been because the timelines of TV production and film development don’t line up well, but it feels like we’re entering an era where the TV and film aspects of the MCU are having to be separated because the shows don’t have the scale or budget to share talent with the films.

As bad as Secret Invasion was, Marvel gave us an entire six-episode TV series starring Samuel L. Jackson, who has rarely worked on TV in the past 20 years. There may be the occasional movie or TV series that deviates a little from the formula, but how long will we have to wait for those crumbs when Marvel sets the table again?

When it comes to the DC Universe, we’re already seeing how the mandate for synergy in the DC Universe influences new titles before the first one is even released. a presentation for Gunn’s Being Commands At the Annecy Animation Festival, the producers spoke openly about the limitations of synergy in their work, and how they were forced to soften some of the show’s character and location designs, either to look more like their live-action counterparts or to work better in live action. They showed off concept art for Belle Reve Prison as a gothic, expressive location high on a hill and lit by an eerie green light – but that image was replaced with a drab building that matched what we’ve seen in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad And Peacemaker.

James Gunn has promised that his DCU will still allow films like Matt Reeves’ The Batman to exist in their own bubble universes, but it’s unclear whether Warner Bros. Discovery CEO/president David Zaslav feels the same way. With Zaslav overseeing the many cost-cutting efforts at Warner Bros.The question that has plagued DC for decades returns: Is it worth having two versions of Batman on screen at the same time, even if they’re aimed at different audiences?

Aside from the cross-universe shenanigans in the best-forgotten The FlashDC has never allowed more than one Batman in live action at a time. Once we The brave and the bold and the new DC Universe Batman, what happens to Batman: Masked Crusader? Of Young Justice seemingly dead and gone, the only animated DC TV projects still alive seem to be those based on the Harley Quinn universe, the only DC property to survive two streamers and a merger.

The cinematic superhero landscape hasn’t always been about streamlined stories and increasingly intricate continuities. Marvel experimented extensively in the 2000s, as it had to license its characters to multiple studios, which competed with each other by delivering wildly different and unique films and TV shows. DC has continued to allow for experimentation within its own brand until recently: after the failure of the Snyderverse, DC moved away from continuity and allowed for lighter films like Shazam! And Blue Beetle live together with The Suicide Squad And jokerBut now that Gunn is clamping down on the visual and character cohesion in his version of the DC universe, that kind of exploration seems a lot less likely.

Deadpool and Wolverine is full of lame jokes about Marvel Jesus and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige banning cocaine humor. But it’s also a striking celebration of an era when mainstream and blockbuster superhero movies weren’t all built so tightly around a formula, when they were allowed to be (and often had to be) weird. Some of those weirder projects succeeded; others failed spectacularly, which is also memorable. This is a movie that takes Channing Tatum’s questionable Cajun costume and accent center stage and asks, “Isn’t it cool that this was ever considered for a big superhero movie?”

The future of superhero movies looks uniform and dull at the moment, with the majors going back to basics. But hey, we’ve been there before. The MCU has hit rock bottom, as Deadpool and Wolverine points out several times. But perhaps the enormous success of that film — even as an R-rated, endlessly referential, above all pretty weird project — can be a wake-up call for Marvel, a reminder that standing out among a bunch of samey, similar products is a good thing for any movie.

When it comes to DC, there’s always hope – after all, James Gunn is still the man who turned a movie about a one-word CG tree man and his talking raccoon buddy into a thriving franchise. So there’s always some hope that he’ll bring some weirdness and color back to DC. And if not, at least we’ve got Channing Tatum’s brief but awesome cameo as Gambit – and whatever bits and pieces from previous experimental eras of the Deadpool franchise pop up again now.