Word of the Day
Debonair (adj., deb-oh-NAIR)
Sophisticated, urbane, and charming. Think James Bond, but the Sean Connery version, not the ones that came later.
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Marvel: Casting
If you wanted to point to one thing that has kept the Marvel machine running longer than anything else, casting is probably the best place to start. I’m playing a bit with this word. Marvel’s had some misfires with their casting (one of which they um, fixed a sequel later), but they’ve been amazingly consistent picking their stars and directors, often with surprising choices.
As always, Iron Man is the template. (That film got a lot right.) Robert Downey Jr. always had talent, but nearly torpedoed his career due to substance abuse issues. Marvel signed him at the exact right moment, when he was just starting to work back to prominence. They also got him for the exact right role. In Tony Stark, Downey could play himself, the prodigal son learning to be faithful and not squander his talents. To direct him, they picked Jon Favreau, a comedy director most famous for directing Will Ferrell’s Elf. There was next to nothing in Favreau’s filmography that suggested he’d be the right choice for this kind of movie, let alone the foundation of Marvel’s movie strategy. It was an offbeat choice that paid dividends.*
* The first dividend was practical. Iron Man was filmed during the writer’s strike of 2007. They did not have a script at the beginning of filming. However, as part of the strike terms, the star and the director were permitted to discuss the dialogue for a scene. Favreau and Downey (also with a comedy background) would huddle, review the story outline they were about to shoot, and workshop the scene. This was the Iron Man screenwriting process. It is questionable if a more technically focused director would’ve been able to create the script in this way with Downey.
The interesting thing is that Marvel’s next movie went the exact opposite way. The Incredible Hulk starred acclaimed actor and longtime Hulk enthusiast Edward Norton and was directed by French Luc Besson disciple Louis Letterier. Despite the prestige, The Incredible Hulk was inferior and is universally considered one of Marvel’s two or three worst movies.
Marvel learned their lesson quickly. Norton was fired. Letterier hasn’t been back. Favreau and Downey got to make a sequel. To fill out their roster, Marvel kept making picks that were interesting and smart. For the kingship arc of Thor, they hired Shakespearean legend Kenneth Branagh to direct. Joe Johnston, who made a terrific action flick set in the 1940s but hadn’t had a high-profile job in a while, was hired to direct Captain America’s origin story, starring B-level leading man/teen heartthrob Chris Evans. And to direct The Avengers, the franchise’s culmination and flagship, they turned to Joss Whedon, who had directed cult favorite TV shows but hadn’t had a truly popular success in over a decade.
Because of course, all of these worked out well. This is the superhero genre we’re talking about, after all. But Marvel’s approach was solid. Rather than burn their budget chasing high-cost, high-acclaim talent, they picked lower-profile talent who fit the character or story and would sign up for a few movies. By doing this, they avoided the creative fights of The Incredible Hulk, where Ed Norton demanded certain things in the movie. Hire too big a name and that is what happens. Marvel needed control—they had a roadmap—and needed people who could play inside it.
But for all the corporate-ness of Marvel’s movies—and they are a capital-p product—they have given a lot of room for talented people to color outside the lines. James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy could only have come from James Gunn and remains an irreverent, delightful romp through the adventures of a bunch of kinda-jerks. Thor: Ragnarok, filmed by offbeat New Zealand comedian Taika Waititi, managed to not just be the best Thor movie or the funniest movie in Marvel’s history but also a really good movie. Ant-Man doesn’t exist without Edgar Wright starting it (even if Marvel’s since-dismantled “Creative Committee” didn’t give him enough room to fulfill his vision). Iron Man 3 is much a Shane Black movie as a Marvel movie. Black Panther bears the marks of Ryan Cooler hand-picking nearly everyone and giving them relative freedom.
The interesting thing about Marvel is that they often seem to put people in spots where they uniquely excel. Marvel’s leading men, outside of Chris Hemsworth, all do best with their Marvel roles. Chris Pratt is especially noteworthy here. Pratt plays the same kind of character in other movies, but the other films fail to tweak the character’s unsavoriness, revealing the uncomfortableness of it. Even Robert Downey Jr. has had trouble starting things that aren’t Iron Man or Avengers movies. Inside the Marvel script, though, he’s terrific.
All this works because it’s variations on a theme. It’s similarity and contrast. The structure of Marvel’s movies are fairly consistent, which let them color inside the lines. This isn’t all that different from what Tom Cruise has done with the Mission: Impossible series. Each movie has a clear start, a clear objective, a handful of well-staged action sequences with a couple showstoppers, and actions that cause reactions elsewhere. But each movie’s director—and there have been five directors for the six Mission: Impossible movies—gives it his or her own flair. That’s kept Cruise’s series chugging along twenty years after it started. Marvel’s got move movies in fewer years under their belt, but they’ve done something similar.
Marvel’s style has been imitated often, to mixed results. Their willingness to take chances in their casting is starting to be copied by others, to better results. Deadpool is the easiest example. Ryan Reynolds and his quippy mouth inhabited the character completely, then made a movie that followed superhero structure while calling it out and showing a middle finger to it. The John Wick series took Keanu Reeves and leaned into Reeves’ world-weary loner persona and physical acting—and did so with two stuntmen turned directors. Marvel’s influence is clear.
I don’t know how much longer Marvel can keep this up. Let me rephrase that: I’m not sure how much longer I can keep being on board for this. It gets tiring to watch the same movie over and over. I didn’t like Deadpool, but I found it more intriguing than, say, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. It has its own distinct personality. As much as Marvel has grown at handing the reins to talented people, it’s still run like a TV show with a house style. They discover new talent, yes, but it still has to fit into the planned areas. It’s easy to like but hard to love. It’s the difference between picking something you enjoy or being surprised by discovering a new favorite. But given Marvel’s ability to cast the perfect people to become our new favorites, it’s probably fair to say they’ll be around for a while.
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