Vanity Fair has a huge editorial with Marvel franchise stars in the January issue

The Beguiled Premiere

It feels like Marvel Studios has been around for a lot longer than a decade, but that just speaks to how dominant the studio has been in the past ten years. The January issue of Vanity Fair is a multiple-cover affair, featuring the current stars of all of the Marvel franchises, from Iron Man to Black Panther to Doctor Strange to Ant-Man. Joanna Robinson wrote the cover story, which you can read here. VF did a huge photoshoot with the stars, as everyone who has ever worked on a Marvel film was encouraged to come to Atlanta for the editorial shoot.

What’s the point of all this? Marvel Studios is a multi-billion-dollar organization and they’re being backed up by Disney (Disney purchased Marvel in 2009 for $4 billion). But the studio is also in a moment of flux – several of their biggest stars are leaving the tentpole films because their contracts are running out, and I guess no one is interested in signing on for more films. After Avengers 4 – which will be released in 2019 – Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth and Jeremy Renner will all be done with their Marvel contracts. I’m sure that Marvel will “reboot” these franchises with new stars, which will lead to many thinkpieces about “when is it too soon to reboot a beloved franchise” and “is Marvel a craven, money-hungry exercise in futility?”

There’s also an interesting – and exceedingly careful – discussion about how Marvel got it so wrong about women, and the untapped female audience for superhero films. They bungled Black Widow and when asked about DC Comics’ Wonder Woman film and its massive success, Kevin Feige admits that he wishes he had gotten there first with a stand-alone Black Widow film, much less Black Widow merch. Now Marvel is going to be seen as blatantly riding WW’s coattails with Captain Marvel, their first stand-alone female superhero.

Anyway, I’m sure the fanboys will enjoy these covers. Blah.

The Beguiled Premiere

The Beguiled Premiere

Photos courtesy of Vanity Fair.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

38 Responses to “Vanity Fair has a huge editorial with Marvel franchise stars in the January issue”

Comments are Closed

We close comments on older posts to fight comment spam.

  1. DavidBowie says:

    Love me some Paul Rudd. 🙂

    • TheBee's says:

      Yep! Chadwick is looking mighty fine as well.

    • V4Real says:

      That first photo though. I love the diversity. They have an Iron Man, a Falcon, a Demi God and a Black Widow on their cover. Marvel showing Hollywood how it’s done.

  2. Nicole says:

    It will be an interesting read for sure. I’m always wondering how they will handle Phase 4 which will transition the original marvel players out and the new ones in. I mean they will still have Pratt, Holland, Larson, Boseman to head up the big movies. If they did a hulk movie with ruffalo that could be a good solo. But it will be interesting to see how long this market holds up

    • Ceire says:

      I’d imagine that the current craze won’t last forever, but I think Marvel have built up enough of a reputation to keep going indefinitely, just not at the same pace. They used to only have one or two films a year so they’ll eventually have to scale back. How far away that is is anyone’s guess. I’d say we’ll be seeing at least annual Star Wars and Marvel films for a decade, and I think I’m being conservative there.

      That’s great for me, I love all the Marvel movies so far, and Star Wars too, ftm. The DCEU doesn’t have much life in it, because the films are sh-te, but they’ll soon recast and reimagine and reinvent that universe, the property is way too valuable to just stop making DC movies.

      • Nicole says:

        I agree. Going off comics I’m a DC girl but I cannot stand their movies. Like someone else said the MCU is built off of superheroes that aren’t even the best in the Marvel arsenal. Its amazing really.
        I think they will scale back. Phase 4 is already lighter than the rest. Mostly sequels and intros for Captain Marvel and Black Panther. What they do beyond what is announced will be interesting.
        Even more interesting if that Fox deal goes through.

  3. third ginger says:

    Before seeing COCO, a delight, my daughter and I marveled [pun intended] at a poster for BLACK PANTHER and the beauty of the cast.

  4. Hh says:

    Why do Scarlett Johansson and Elizabeth Olsen look so “off”?

    Also, I love Marvel and I’m excited for the conclusion of Infinity War, but I’m too fatigued to think about a reboot. I’m actually not excited for Captain Marvel. It’s too far out. The idea that after 10 years, they’re going for a female hero is SHAMEFUL, RIDICULOUS, LUDICROUS, and other all caps words of embarrassment. Like, WTF?!

  5. bread says:

    These look really awkward; the obvious photoshop, the way most of them are just standing around, the blank faces. If this was our first introduction to the MCU, I wouldn’t have high hopes for it.

  6. Bobbymilly says:

    Captain Marvel has been in the works before WW.

    • teacakes says:

      Yeah, they cast Brie Larson + got the directors in place last year.

      Marvel isn’t DC, they may have several issues but ‘struggling to play catch-up to a rival studio with a better-executed movie release plan’ is not one of them.

    • Mia4s says:

      Doesn’t matter. For where they were to where DC was it’s shameful it took them this long. And regardless they will look like they are riding Wonder Woman’s coattails. They could have run the table on female superheroes but they dropped the ball. Girlfriends and sidekicks, bleh.

      While we are at it, Black Panther is great but Marvel Latino representation is AWFUL. Zoe Saldana as a green alien if I push it and Michael Pena as a fast-talking, humourous Latino criminal sidekick (gee…never seen that before 🙄).

      The movies are fun, but on the whole they are also generic, unoriginal, and very very status quo. I’m impressed with their market share…but in the same way I’m impressed with McDonald’s market share.

      • jammypants says:

        They’re not much better with Asians. Benedict Wong as a monk and Pom as an alien? Ugh

      • Cranberry says:

        +1
        Although I estimate Marvel chose to play it safe as they always do aside from the marginal risk of casting RDJ. To put a lot of $ out on a lesser known female character is far more risky than investing big $ on stand alone Wonder Woman movies. WW is long known to mainstream audiences. All the groundbreaking work is done. All is needed is to update and dazzle with a well written and executed movie. It would have been nice if Marvel would have really gone for it with a female superhero franchise and live up to their initial rep as risk takers. To me Marvel has never been a risk taker. They got RDJ for pretty cheap, and that’s what made him worth any perceived “risks”.

  7. teacakes says:

    No Evans? I see Anthony Mackie but where’s Cap?

    As for how these movies will do…. all I know is that people have been predicting the end of Marvel’s run/”superheroes are over!” every time a DC movie is shitty or some awards bait maker gets salty, but every single movie starring Marvel characters this year made $$$$$ and got good reviews to boot, so clearly something is working.

  8. Char says:

    Those covers are a total shot at DC, right? After their big Justice League failure.

    • lightpurple says:

      Monthly magazines like Vanity Fair plan their content months in advance so they would have no idea how Justice League fared when they greenlit this article and those covers. It is the “January” issue so more likely planned to coincide with Thor: Ragnarok being in theaters still, the 10th anniversary of the MCU and to push Black Panther’s February release.

  9. Squiggisbig says:

    I just find it so interesting that Marvel has been so much more consistently successful than D.C.

    Additionally, I would love a woman focused movie from Marvel. However, not black widow because Scarlett Johansson cannot act and has lead too many action films that were awful/flopped (ghost in the shell, Lucy, etc). I heard good things about Elizabeth Olsen in Wind River so maybe they could make something with her character, Scarlet Witch.

    • Hh says:

      Yeah, DC has the most world-renowned super heroes, but is owned by a studio that gets in the way. And Marvel’s most well known heroes are owned by Fox and Sony (X-Men and Spiderman). Marvel made a juggernaut out of this their background heroes.

    • Layla Beans says:

      Elizabeth Olsen was great in Wind River. It’s a great movie all around.

    • Millenial says:

      Lucy was really good, and I think Scarlett could pull off a Black Widow movie, but the time to do that was five years ago. Marvel missed their chance there. Scarlett as Black Widow post-Ghost in the Shell and post-Rough Night seems like a gamble.

      I also feel like it’s super obvious that they had to pull their small-role female characters for the covers to balance out all the white dudes.

    • Coccinellidae says:

      On one hand, I want to support female superheroes, but I also really hate white-washing. Scarlet Witch is supposed to be Romani.

    • Cranberry says:

      I think Marvel decided on a game plan of casting well known, famous actors into their lesser known characters and then hyping the sh*t out of them especially to the comic book world that would relish blockbusters of lesser known superheroes. Whereas DC had the luxury of scouting until they found the right actress to fit the part and not having to rely on using famous HW actors to sell their movie.

  10. Moxie Remon says:

    One of the most unfortunate looking wigs I’ve ever seen.

  11. Valiantly Varnished says:

    Welp. I guess I’m a fanboy because I love these covers, and I love Marvel films. I just saw Thor Ragnarok for the second time over the holiday. They do bring out the 14 year-old nerd that lives in this 30-something woman lol. My only gripe? Wth is Black Widow’s hair blonde? She is a redhead. ScarJo has managed to wear a bad red wig for every film, why change it now to a just as bad blonde one??

    • Ceire says:

      The blonde hair (and Cap’s beard) are because they’re on the run after Civil War, I reckon.

      I’m also really starting to resent the word fanboy. It’s really condescending. Plus, I’m a woman. It’s not just men who like comic book films, or comic books for that matter.

  12. SM says:

    Aren’t DC crying in the corner by now?

  13. Penfold says:

    Chadwick Boseman looks incredible here. But he’s just about the only one…

    Cumby- man, he just doesn’t work for me as Strange. Maybe his face is too narrow, but the horrid facial hair and two tone hair he has going on looks bad. The costume is ridiculous, but it’d look dumb on most anyone. Whenever I see him as Strange all I see is a cosplayer. Not a mighty sorcerer supreme.

    Too bad Jon Hamm or Joquin Phoenix didn’t take the role.

  14. The Yes Girl says:

    I miss Tom Hiddleston’s Loki. But as “everyone who has ever worked on a Marvel film was encouraged to come to Atlanta for the editorial shoot” he probably didn’t had the time to do so.

  15. Anastasia says:

    Joanna Robinson! The author! I know her! 🙂