The writer Jessica Ritchey returns to the pod for a show about the continuing collapse of the superhero movie as the dominant American film genre with the latest MCU entry, Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels, which cost $270 million dollars and after 4 release date changes finally opened last week and bombed as hard as a Marvel movie has ever bombed, especially considering it’s the sequel to a movie that made well over a billion dollars in 2019. 

We discuss what went wrong with The Marvels and the troubles now plaguing the MCU but we also (perhaps unfairly) compare this film to an excellent cinematic female superhero team up, Johnnie To’s 1993 Hong Kong action extravaganza The Heroic Trio starring Anita Mui, Michelle Yeoh and Maggie Cheung.

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Anita Mui performing "Bad Girl", a Cantonese cover of Sheena Easton's "Strut" on the Hong Kong variety show Enjoy Yourself Tonight, 1986

Final trailer for The Marvels (Nia DaCosta, 2023)

Trailer for The Heroic Trio (Johnnie To, 1993)

Trailer for Anita (Longman Leung, 2021)