By The unified continuity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, once considered one of its biggest strengths, has become more of a burden in recent years.
Once the studio switched from a relatively manageable two films a year to multiple series and films annually, combined with the natural story endpoint with “Avengers: Endgame,” it seems many have just opted out from following the MCU wherever it goes.
This may have led to this past weekend’s announcement of ‘Marvel Spotlight’ – a new branding initiative that promises you can come into a film or series under this banner without having seen anything prior.
DaCosta spoke with Total Film recently about the MCU continuity and how that aspect impacted “The Marvels” which is very much NOT a part of the new branding and relies on knowledge of not just “Captain Marvel” but several series as well.
She says continuity awareness issues were helped by the premise of the film as the rapid body switching allows for some disorientation and confusion to be a natural part of the story for the viewer:
“I definitely wanted, because they’re so disoriented with the switching, for people to be inside of their experience. I wanted it to be very subjective; and each of them is doing very different things when the switching starts so, yeah, I wanted it to feel as jarring for the audience as it is for them.
We have “Ms. Marvel,” ‘Captain Marvel,” “WandaVision” and it was kind of a constant negotiation to figure out, “Okay, how much information do people need?”.
It was a real trial and error. We don’t want people to have to watch anything else but, of course, you also have to be honest and be like, this is the [33rd] project in this universe. It’s sort of a sequel to five different things. So at a certain point, you have to just be like, “Okay, yeah, there are some things that we can’t get in here, but it’ll be fun.””
“The Marvels” will launch in cinemas this Friday, whilst the first Marvel Spotlight title “Echo” will premiere in January on the Disney+ service.
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