“This indie, A24-feeling assassin movie”: Is Florence Pugh setting Marvel up for another failure?
In recent years, the reputation of conglomerate entertainment studio Marvel has been put through the wringer. Everyone from Martin Scorsese to Kristen Stewart has criticised their brand of filmmaking and claimed they don’t qualify as true art. It’s a topic that has sparked many debates over the years, with beloved faces from the studio chiming in to defend their artistry and the creative value of the work.
However, as much as they have tried to resurrect their legacy and respect, the studio has had to resort to strange and increasingly desperate lengths to convince people of their so-called integrity. This includes trying to market their films while highlighting their similarities to art-house and independent films despite the fact that they have multi-million dollar budgets. But no one has been more insistent on these similarities than the stars of these films, with Florence Pugh comparing her recent project with Marvel to the work of an (in)famous independent production company.
Pugh’s career has only continued to soar since her stellar debut in The Falling, with the actor later appearing in titular roles in Little Women, Midsommar and Don’t Worry Darling. Her performance in Midsommar instantly became renowned on the internet and entered the Hollywood Hall of Fame, with people praising the trippy horror and work of A24, who continue to produce unique and strange films that challenge the limited rhetoric of the film industry.
However, many other studios have attempted to replicate the unprecedented success of the independent production company, such as Marvel trying to capitalise on A24’s distinctive indie style and manipulate its image to match its much cooler independent counterpart.
This is something that Pugh herself has described when discussing her upcoming film with them, Thunderbolts. In the trailer for the film, it is not apparent that it is a Marvel picture besides the appearance of the superheroes. Instead, they market it by describing the crew members who have worked on the film and their previous A24 projects, attempting to sell it as a film adjacent to the production house’s output.
When discussing the film herself, Pugh said, “It ended up becoming this quite badass indie, A24-feeling assassin movie with Marvel superheroes.” This is perhaps not the right or ethical way to sell a Marvel film, with the mega studio capitalising on the success of a smaller company and attempting to steal their unique branding, thereby catfishing audiences by describing the film as something it isn’t.
It is completely wrong to sell a multi-million studio film as an independent project while hiding behind another’s more honest model of filmmaking. Marvel is desperately trying to restore its reputation as a studio that cares about art, but the way to do this is not by exploiting the success of an infinitely better art form without experiencing the challenges of producing it under the limitations that make it.
Perhaps Pugh is only complying with the studio’s promotional demands to describe the film as such, but I cannot help but think that people will inevitably be disappointed when they watch the final cut and realise it is nothing like an A24 film and could not be further from an independent project.
