…than to learn that the Marvel machine has finally, irretrievably ground to a halt. 14 years of this shit. Alas…

From Richard Rushfield‘s “Who Killed the Marvel Juggernaut?,” an Ankler piece that appeared this afternoon:

“What has been the effect of having new Marvel material — directly tied to the films — rolling out constantly on TV?

“Part of the wonder of Marvel films was their scarcity. As social media grew simultaneously and pushed to show you every nook and cranny of the latest news cycles phenomenon, as stars raced to display ever more of themselves to feed the monster, Marvel was releasing a handful of movies a year. A lot by movie standards but by the standards of the culture, a stately output.

“Now there’s a new Marvel thing every week. There’s always a new Marvel thing. And yes, the Marvel movies are a bigger thing in theory — at least they have a bigger marketing budget behind them — but how much of that gets lost? In people’s minds, is the rollout of Shang-Chi of a different dimension of magnitude from the rollout of Hawkeye?

“There are those, like the folks filling Hall H last week, who can’t get enough. You could give them 27 new series a week and they’d still be camping out in costume for opening day of Thor 15.

“But for the rest of the world, where the trick, now more than ever, is convincing them that this new film is an event worth leaving the house for, how does the constant availability of new Marvel material affect that?”