Jamie Lee Curtis Apologizes for Correctly Saying Marvel is in its “Bad” Phase

Movies

If you don’t like the MCU, you’d better keep it to yourself, or you might find a horse’s head in your bed. Jamie Lee Curtis found this out the hard way. The star of classics like A Fish Called Wanda, Halloween, True Lies, and Trading Places attended the Sand Diego Comic-Con to promote her upcoming movie Borderlands, based on the video game franchise. She was one of many celebrities interviewed by Josh Horowitz for MTV, and Horowitz asked his guests, “What phase is Marvel in right now?” Curstis’ succinct response was, “Bad.” You can see the clip below, along with several other answers from Horowitz’s interviewees:

Accepting both right & wrong answers on any Marvel trivia questions @JoshuaHorowitz or I ask

#SDCC pic.twitter.com/Xb6JCHWloj

— MTV (@MTV) July 30, 2024

Can you honestly say you didn’t think that was funny? Jamie Lee Curtis’ response may have been the harshest, but a few of them were dancing around saying something negative. And let’s be real: she’s right. I don’t think anyone would deny that the post-Endgame MCU has been decidedly worse than it had been during The Infinity Saga, when it was a cultural phenomenon that seemed almost universally loved. But apparently, someone got to her, and I don’t know if she got a phone call from Disney or Marvel or she was harassed by social media weirdos who, for some strange reason, vehemently defend every piece of garbage entertainment, but she felt compelled to make a public apology:

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…

— Jamie Lee Curtis (@jamieleecurtis) August 1, 2024

That Jamie Lee Curtis felt she had to do this is ridiculous. Not only is she allowed to have any opinion she pleases, but she said something that isn’t even controversial. There’s a reason words like “desperation” and phrases like “save the MCU” are swirling around Deadpool & Wolverine and the reveal that Robert Downey Jr. will return to play Doctor Doom. (Every time the latter is spoken out loud, birds fall dead off telephone lines – if you catch that reference, we can be friends.) The MCU mostly sucks right now, and Jamie Lee Curtis is far from the only person who thinks so. She says she reached out to Kevin Feige, but it feels like someone from Marvel or Disney called her first, and if that’s what happened, they’re not making the situation better. Now, it just looks like they’re so fragile and insecure that they’re trying to shut people up when they insult their lousy movies, which isn’t exactly an alien concept for Marvel:

A good indication of how many people feel the same way Jamie Lee Curtis does is in the other responses in that video. There were a bunch of honest guesses, most of which were wrong – Christian Slater guessed right but admitted that he cheated. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is at least partly because the MCU’s “Phases” seem much more arbitrary now, like instead of a series of films leading up to a big event involving Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, they just kind of end whenever Kevin Feige declares one over, with very little linking them or making them seem cohesive. Phase 1 saw each of the main heroes introduced and developed, SHIELD established, and the introductions of Loki and the Tesseract, which culminated in The Avengers. Phase 2 had Tony Stark dabbling in AI, Captain America taking down SHIELD, and Thor recommitting himself to defending Earth, all of which led to Age of Ultron. Phase 3 featured the Avengers fracturing, Asgard being destroyed, and the introduction of Spider-Man, Black Panther, and Wakanda, which paved the way for Thanos’ invasion, conquest, and ultimate defeat in Infinity War and Endgame. Since then, it’s just kind of been throwing shit at the wall (and I do mean shit in almost every case) and seeing what stuck, most of which didn’t. As Jamie Lee Curtis said, it’s bad, and even people trying to be nice can’t muster up much of a defense.

The best response to this came from Ryan Reynolds:

Wait, is everyone expected to apologize for slamming Marvel post-Endgame? https://t.co/kRxPmILfXl

— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) August 1, 2024

Yep. The jokes about the MCU’s massive drop in quality in Deadpool & Wolverine are terrific, and the theater roared with laughter at them when I saw the movie. And Ryan Reynolds saying this publicly in defense of Jamie Lee Curtis is important because it means he agrees with her, and he’s trying to let people know it’s okay for them to feel the same way. I mean, it’s that or pretend The Marvels was good, and nobody needs to suffer through that indignity.