It’s Marvel’s homecoming weekend with Deadpool & Wolverine and San Diego Comic-Con

There was a time when every Marvel movie was a success. A billion dollars here, two billion dollars there. It seemed like it could just print money and it didn’t matter if anything was actually good.

In 2019, it released Avengers: Endgame, the culmination of the studio’s 22-movie Infinity Saga, which broke box office records. It made $US2.79 billion and dethroned Avatar, at least for a while. Marvel could do no wrong.

Then, the pandemic hit. What momentum it had was halted and by the time the next tranche of its projects had come out (Black Widow, Shang-Chi, Eternals), not only were audiences still reticent to return to cinemas, they’d also been spoilt with supercharged streaming options.

The most recent MCU movie to be released, The Marvels in November, closed out at $US206 million, not even making back its production budget.

Superhero fatigue was real and that was bad news for Marvel.

Deadpool & Wolverine opens this weekend, the only MCU movie slated for 2024, and it’s projected to take a billion dollars, which would make it the first superhero flick to do so since 2021 when Spider-Man: No Way Home grossed $US1.91 billion.

It’s the turnaround Marvel and its boss Kevin Feige is looking (nay, praying) for.

It’s also the first film the MCU has released centred on a character from the former 20th Century Fox stable of comic book characters, whose onscreen rights returned to Marvel when Disney bought Fox in 2019 in a $US71 billion deal.

The anticipated team-up of Deadpool and Wolverine might just “save” the superhero movie but it’s an outlier. It’s snarkier than it is earnest, a traditional hallmark of the genre, and it breaks every fourth wall with its barrage of self-aware references and meta jokes.

Even so, it is designed to build momentum for a studio that was doing too much, across both cinemas and streaming.

Feige and Disney boss Bob Iger have pursued a deliberate strategy of slowing down the release pipeline, which had been jam-packed in part because of the back-up from pandemic cinema closures and former Disney head Bob Chapek’s mandate to throw everything at the company’s streaming platform.

That increased output led to a system heaving under pressure. There was criticism that its CGI work was sloppy, that the writing had sagged and that the homework of watching all the shows and movies to understand just one was too onerous. Its releases lacked consequence.

Give fans a little space and time to miss what they have been taking for granted. Deadpool & Wolverine is the only theatrical release this year. Echo and Agatha All Along are the only live-action streaming shows.

You have to go back to 2018 to find the most recent year in which Marvel Studios only unleashed three projects (Marvel Television was at the time run separately from its movies business and the shows did not directly tie into the films).

This weekend is a big one, and not just because of Deadpool. It’s Marvel’s re-entry into the pop culture world it was so influential in shaping.

This Sunday at nerdvana San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel will grace Hall H, the con’s biggest platform, after skipping it last year.

Feige has previously used SDCC to announce the studios’ future plans and roll out casting announcements or reveal exclusive footage that’s often not shared online. It builds up excitement for what’s coming, which includes the next Captain America movie (out in February) and Thunderbolts (May) on the film side and Daredevil: Born Again in streaming.

This homecoming has been a co-ordinated campaign.

It’s no coincidence that Feige, whose MCU movies have made $US29 billion, received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this week, and Deadpool & Wolverine leads Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman were on hand to flank their chief, along with Marvel personalities Chris Evans, Chris Pratt, Brie Larson, David Harbour, Kathryn Hahn, Ke Huy Quan and Simu Liu.

Nor is there anything casual about the timing of Pedro Pascal posting the first image of himself with his Fantastic Four castmates, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Vanessa Kirby and Joe Quinn.

Expect there to be something F4-related at SDCC, whether it’s just a panel or maybe the reveal of the costumes or something else. Shrieks will ring through Hall H.

And if Deadpool & Wolverine really does hit $US1 billion within those first two weeks, Marvel can take a victory lap at D23, Disney’s bi-annual fan convention in which there will be a Marvel presence.

After taking a breather, the Marvel machine is back up and running, and in the words of Deadpool, it’s “Let’s f**king go” time.