“Reauired viewing“ seems this quarter‘s most devisive entertainment industry attribute. Followed by assertions of how upcoming films may not deliver at all – and may have been produced on the cheap.
To promote the re-release of the second-most successful film of all time, Avengers: Endgame, directors Anthony and Joseph Russo proclaimed it “required viewing“ for their next epic, Avengers: Doomsday. Four minutes of new footage now posit the 2026’s Doomsday as the direct sequel to Endgame, released seven years ago. The Russos suggested the newly filmed connective tissue would lay the groundwork for the introduction of Marvel Comic’s most recognizable villain, Dr. Doom, in mid-December. The Endgame “encore” earned a massive 90 million Dollars worldwide on its opening weekend, elating cinema owners and, so the YouTube algorithm suggests, disappointing ticket buyers – or did it not?
Sarcasm abounds in an age of socio-political uncertainty, when millions of people joining in a mutual experience of entertainment support jobs, businesses and the economy at large. Now that movie theaters have plenty to celebrate following the draught in the wake of the COVID pandemic, some people make us believe that we are still not entertained, that the Russos exaggerated the meaning of a few minutes of film that, so we are told, we can do without.
On purely objective grounds, Endgame Encore does establish key plot points to discuss feverishly during the lead-up to Doomsday. These were also expected to show up online the moment Encore opened. What neither film piracy nor sarcasm can change is that Russo brothers simply invited people to celebrate with millions of like-minded people their Marvel heroes‘ last horray before their literal doomsday, to celebrate film-going as such. Perhaps that was the very intention of a majority of Encore ticket-buyers not keeping up with YouTube sarcasm. Would it not help, in this day and age, to deflate this artifice of a discussion by reading in-between the not-so-many lines of the Russos’ assertion to let the troubled movie theater business and its employees enjoy this much-needed resurgence?
Said recovery is also predicated on future releases, such as the much-anticipated Dune 3, the conclusion to the Timothée Chalamet-saga by Denis Villeneuve, scheduled to go head-to-head with Doomsday. While the former‘s trailers stunned viewers with incredible – and pristine – images, preview glimpses of Dr. Doom‘s powers at work led some to label them incomplete, low-resolution, and downright cheap-looking. The clairvoyant few on the internet now question whose doom December 18 is going to be, maybe Disney‘s, the owner of all-things Marvel? Would it not also benefit to stop being so adversarial and let the filmmakers finish and release the complete product?
obiwandi looks forward to sharing the experience of both motion picture juggernauts with sold-out audiences.
