Avatar 2 Can Save Us From Marvel Movie Mediocrity

thegamer.com:

I say this with nothing but love and respect for the Mr. Feige Movie Machine: the Marvel Cinematic Universe has rotted our brains. Former lovers of cinematic adventures now treat franchises like team sports, rooting for and against IP as though affirmation can be derived from box office results. Our concept of what makes a movie ‘good’ and ‘marketable’ has been corrupted by years of team-ups and crossover events. I’m begging all of you to just take a second, forget about the MCU, and think back to where you were in the summer of 2009: the Summer of Avatar.

Avatar was an international phenomenon. It grossed its first billion in just 19 days in a time when figures like that were virtually unheard of. By spring, it had surpassed $2.5 billion, becoming the highest-grossing movie of all time until Avengers: Endgame surpassed it almost ten years later. A re-release of Avatar in certain territories saw it claw back the top spot. People didn’t just go see Avatar once and forget about it, they saw it over and over again. They couldn’t get enough of it. And by ‘they’, of course, I mean you.

I know, it’s hard to remember what your life was like 13 years ago. The world has changed so much, and we’ve seen a lot of serious shit. In that time we saw Occupy Wall Street, #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, and the Arab Spring. We lived through the Boston Bombing, the London Bridge attack, and over 70 mass shootings in the US. We’ve had three different presidents and two impeachments (same guy). The two years we’ve been in a pandemic have somehow lasted ten years. The Chicago Cubs won the world series. There’s been three World Cups, six Olympic Games, and 13 Super Bowls. Elon Musk launched a Tesla Roadster into space, and we still don’t know why.