It's Marvel's World, We Just Live (and Go To the Movies) In It

On Monday, Marvel Studios released a mega-trailer called “Marvel Studios Celebrates The Movies,” which is basically just an announcement for the release dates of their upcoming movies. It was perfectly timed, of course, as more people across the U.S. are getting vaccinated and many are eager to return to movie theaters for the first time in over a year.

The trailer starts off slow, with a compilation of scenes from MCU movies that tug on the heartstrings accompanied by a Stan Lee voiceover, before showing real-life scenes from movie theaters on the opening night of Avengers: Endgame, the audience cheering as the final battle scene begins. It moves on to the really good stuff: clips from upcoming movies Black Widow and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, as well as a couple of brief not-yet-seen scenes from The Eternals, before flashing through the titles of the Marvel movies coming out in 2022 and 2023 (and notably ending on what appears to be the Fantastic Four symbol, despite Marvel remaining decidedly vague about the plans for that movie).

Unfortunately, the trailer is incredibly effective at its goal—making the viewer (or at least me) yearn for the experience of sitting in a movie theater, surrounded by strangers, munching on some popcorn, and staring wide-eyed at the massive screen in front of you. That’s partially because Marvel movies are undoubtedly better when viewed on a big screen in a theater full of other people who are also going to LOSE THEIR FUCKING MINDS watching Captain America catch Thor’s hammer during Avengers: Endgame.

It’s also because there’s an obvious appeal to immersing yourself in a well-fleshed-out world like the MCU at this current moment—even a universe littered with as many flaws (and as much American military propaganda!) like the MCU is still a distraction from our current reality, where over half a million people just in the U.S. have died over the past year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. With 23 MCU films and two television series (so far!), there are literally dozens of hours of footage to lose yourself in.

Frankly, many of the flaws of the world Marvel has built are also present in our real world—but at least in the MCU, there’s a chance that your life could be saved by a being with super-human abilities who is also as hot as Chris Hemsworth or Teyonah Parris! And in my book, that sounds like at least a slight improvement.