Hollywood scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis expressed regret after she incurred the wrath of the MCU fandom after she publicly threw shade at Marvel superhero movies.
During an MTV interview at the 2024 San Diego Comic-Con last weekend, JLC remarked that the Marvel Cinematic Universe was in a "bad" phase in response to a question asking which phase the MCU was currently in.
The Academy Award winner's cynical response elicited laughter from MTV host Josh Horowitz. She immediately afterward mugged for the camera with a "There, I said it," expression.
You can watch the moment here.
Thanks for playing, Jamie, but the technically correct answer was Phase Five.
MCU Phase 5 started with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania in 2023 and will continue through to the MCU's 36th film, Thunderbolts, planned for a May 2, 2025 release.
While some moviegoers find it hard to keep up with the MCU assembly line of films, many fans thought JLC's response was rather harsh.
She mitigated the backlash by taking to her socials to pen a formal apology.
On August 1, she wrote on X (formerly Twitter):
"My comments about Marvel were stupid and I will do better."
"I've reached out to Kevin Feige and will no longer play in that mud slinging sandbox of competition we call the internet nor will I engage in the toilet paper promotion or game play that is designed for clicks not content or conversation. JLC"
She doubled down on her apology when she shared a promo clip of her upcoming action film Borderlands based on the titular video game.
In the video clip appearing with co-star Kevin Hart, she said she enjoyed working on the film with the star-driven cast and that the positive experience was what she called, a "collaborative art form."
Hart praised JLC as a leader and as "someone who knows how to get the group together".
"She was very much a tone-setter, a mood-setter, and an overall vibe," said Hart.
However, after the ensuing drama from bad-mouthing Marvel films, JLC invoked Hart's "leadership" to call out her regretful hypocrisy.
She wrote:
"If I'm a leader, then a leader shouldn't talk sh*t about other collaborative art form creators."
Some fans thought her apology was noble and befitting a leader.
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However, it turned out that many also agreed with the Halloween star's initial criticism of MCU films.
Since Phase Three concluded with 2019's Avengers: Endgame, many fans grew weary of the numerous steady releases of MCU films and Disney+ series featuring tangential storylines. Many of them were deemed mediocre or failed to live up to expectations after the bar had been set impossibly high.
One MCU star sought mental health therapy after an anticipated Marvel movie in 2021 that he was thrilled to be a part of bombed at the box office in comparison to the other MCU blockbuster behemoths that came before it.
Other indications of Marvel fatigue led critics and even some MCU fans to suggest Disney needed to slow their roll and focus more on production quality over quantity, which may have been the sentiment JLC alluded to in the MTV interview.
Meanwhile, MCU movie dominance is more evident than ever with Deadpool & Wolverine, which broke all the box office records after scoring the sixth biggest domestic opening of all time with a $298.4 million gross in the United States and Canada as of August 2, 2024, an impressive feat given its R-rating, especially for a Disney film.
But even the star of Deadpool & Wolverine weighed in on the silliness of JLC facing scrutiny for having an opinion.
Ryan Reynolds, the star of the Deadpool franchise, wrote:
"Wait, is everyone expected to apologize for slamming Marvel post-Endgame?"
The studio is aware of the barrage of MCU films' oversaturating the movie industry and even pokes fun at the situation in Deadpool & Wolverine.
In one scene, Deadpool quips to Hugh Jackman's Wolverine character after finding themselves inhabiting the same space in the multiverse:
“Welcome to the MCU, by the way. You’re joining at a bit of a low point.”
Disney and Marvel Studios are already on a healing trajectory from that low point, especially after Deadpool & Wolverine had so far grossed $658.9 million worldwide as of August 2.
The studio hopes to remain on a winning streak into Phase Six, beginning with the long-anticipated reboot of The Fantastic Four franchise, The Fantastic Four: First Steps–on July 25, 2025.
Phase Six will also include Avengers: Doomsday, which will reintroduce Robert Downey Jr. into the MCU as the villainous Doctor Doom, which caused mixed reactions following news of its announcement at Comic-Con.
Despite Marvel's historical box office stronghold in Hollywood, JLC, who was named a Disney Legend by The Walt Disney Company but has never done a Marvel film, has already mocked Marvel once before for their unoriginality.
She compared the movie poster of Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness to the film poster for her critically acclaimed Everything Everywhere All at Once. The films, which deal with the multiverse, were released months apart in 2022.
In the spirit of competition, JLC accused Marvel Studios of copying the overall aesthetic of the A24 movie's poster (which was debatable) and observed:
"Is it JUST me?"
"Does it seem STRANGE that our tiny movie that could and did and continues to do ##1movieinamerica and is TRULY MARVELOUS, out marvels any Marvel movie they put out there @everythingeverywheremovie has a Marvel movie coming out with a copycat poster?"
She added:
"Is this one of those Internet feuds?"
"All I'll say is we would SLAY in a family feud contest @familyfeud with the Doctor Strange strangers."
She later told People magazine in July 2022:
“I have nothing against Marvel as an entity. I’ve seen a lot of Marvel movies."
"What I was talking about is that ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ was a little movie that could … and [we] were able to tell a multiverse story that really touched people.”
She clarified:
“What I was trying to talk about was it doesn’t have to be a Marvel movie in order to be a spectacle and to really move you."
JLC returned to Disney to reunite with her Freaky Friday co-star Lindsay Lohan to film the sequel Freaky Friday 2 following the first film's 20th anniversary last year.
Borderlands, in which she plays Dr. Patricia Tannis in an ensemble cast featuring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Edgar Ramírez, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, and Gina Gershon, will debut on Friday, August 9 in theaters.
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