Top writer says woke Hollywood's obsession 'smug, mean and reductive' female characters who never show a softer side is ruining movies like The Marvels...as latest movie in superhero franchise tanks

Hollywood's recent obsession with 'smug and mean' characters is ruining movies including the disappointing box-office draw The Marvels, an author claims. 

Penned by Daily Beast contributor Fredrik deBoer, the piece claims the archetype is ruining releases such as The Marvels or Velma from the animated series by the same name. As of Sunday, the film has reportedly raked in less than $40million at the box office - the lowest-ever for a film from Disney's Marvel Cinematic Universe.  

That comes despite a star-studded female cast led by leading lady Brie Larson, as well as a series of full-blown pivots following the domestic violence case involving fellow star Jonathan Majors.

That, in turn, caused Disney to reconsider its plans involving its next 'phase' of inherently - and often loosely - linked sequels, culminating with the current follow-up to 2019's Captain Marvel, which deBoer wrote is indicative of something greater.

'As Hollywood has made progress in representing women in genre films, the industry has also developed a grating tendency to write the same kind of female characters, a series of tired tropes that inevitably leave us with women who insult everyone, never betray the vulnerability that actual human beings possess, and drop tired joke after tired joke in lieu of real dialogue,' he wrote. 

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Titling his piece 'We're Still Stuck with "Strong Female Characters" Who Are Smug, Mean, & Reductive', deBoer - an outspoken Marxist - tore into Disney for pandering in their new release, as well as other studios like Warner Bros for much of the same. 

deBoer stated his main qualm with the new film - the persona of the character that's front and center and being portrayed by Larson. 

'I don’t like how Captain Marvel is portrayed in the original and so I’m not particularly interested in the new film,' he wrote. 'I find the way that they choose to characterize her really aggravating, and it’s not an isolated problem.

'I’m tired of the archetype Larsen’s[sic] character represents, which is a parody of what feminine strength looks like.'

He went on: 'Women-led movies, women characters who are competent and self-assured, women characters who are funny, women characters who aren’t afraid to mix it up with the men, women characters who demonstrate excellence and pride.

'We need more of all of these things in Hollywood,' he concluded.

'What we don’t need is the cliché that Captain Marvel represents and which has become inescapable, the woman who speaks only in insults, who condescends to everyone around them, who’s perpetually unimpressed. 

'That’s not progress. who’s perpetually unimpressed. That’s not progress.' 

The Marvels, which released on Friday, is currently airing in theatres across the country. It's weekend box-office results will be available in full come Monday. 

He also noted the film's financial outlook. 

'Things look grim for The Marvels, the latest Marvel film, in theaters today,' he wrote on Friday, after ticket presales for the almost all-female film surfaced as lower than two recent, well-known bombs, The Flash and Black Adam.

Both came from the competing DC Extended Universe, with the famously embattled Ezra Miller production raking in just $55million over three days, and The Rock's latest superhero flick taking in $67million.

Both films, aside from boasting astronomical budgets, were viewed as box office failures, and The Marvels, after taking in $21.5million on Friday and just $15.3million on Saturday, is poised to supplant them in their status as clunkers.

Moreover, deBoer added on the day of The Marvels release, 'early tracking suggested a box office return less than half of that of Captain Marvel' - a pre-pandemic success the critic not so coyly referred to as 'the film’s (sort of) precursor.'

That jab stemmed from recent comments from Larson - who got her big break as a female version of the historically male Captain Marvel - in which she suggested she’s done with Marvel after this go-around.

Like several other publications, deBoer credited that decision with rumors that the 34-year-old '[had been] angered by the (admittedly weird) choice to turn the sequel to a movie about one superhero into a showcase for three', citing hastily made tie-ins that saw actresses from WandaVision and Ms. Marvel assume plum parts.

'Presales,' the longtime critic continued, 'looked even worse' - honing in on the widely reported 'extensive reshoots' for the new film, first reported by Variety in a feature that shined a light on some of the problems going on behind the scenes. 

According to the report, the series of reshoots were ordered to 'bring coherence to a tangled storyline' - an effort the The Marvels director Nia DaCosta called a  "trial and error" process to plug in other elements from the studio's ever-expanding oeuvre so it became a sequel to 'five different Marvel projects' as opposed to one.

'All of this has happened against a backdrop of serious woes for the “cinematic universe” and for its owner, Disney,' writes deBoer, pointing to the bad press for Majors, who until recently had a series of spinoffs around his villainous Kang the Conqueror planned.

He also mentioned how director DaCosta - who also penned the movie's screenplay - seemed to disapproved to the changes implemented during this tenuous period,   

'They have a whole history before this,' DaCosta said of Marvel Studio's history of upending and changing projects at the 25th hour.

'We have Ms. Marvel, the TV show, Captain Marvel, WandaVision, and it was kind of a constant negotiation to figure out, "Okay, how much information do people need?"' the screenwriter told bleedingcool.com last week.

'It was a real trial and error,' she continued, speaking about the process that only a few days later Larson would talk up on late-night TV.

'We don't want people to have to watch anything else, but, of course, you also have to be honest and be like, "This is the [33rd] project in this universe." It's sort of a sequel to five different things. 

'So at a certain point, you have to just be like, "Okay, yeah, there are some things that we can't get in here, but it'll be fun."'