It is difficult to build a shared cinematographic universe, but that did not prevent Hollywood from trying, trying and trying again. After Marvel proved that interconnected intrigue spread over several films were a recipe to dominate the box office, everyone started trying to try it. But few have succeeded, and none managed to match the Marvel cinematographic universe, which remains the greatest franchise at the box office of all time.

For a while, it looked like The “John Wick” franchise had one or two things to teach industry on the construction of a connected universeBut the terrible television program “continental” confirmed what most of us surely knew: that Keanu Reeves was the real appeal all the time. Universal’s “Dark Universe” project has also groaned by moaning before you really have the chance to start, while Warner Bros. The unfortunate DC Extended Universe ended in an ignominious way in 2023 with a series of failures at the box office.

But none of this has reprimanded the industry. James Gunn and his DC studios are preparing to try to reintroduce the public in a new shared DC chronology, with The trailer for “Superman” reveals not only a film, but a brand new universe. Elsewhere, the man who transformed Winnie the pooh into a nightmare perversion of the original vision of AA Milne also threatened to make a series of films in “The twisted universe of childhood” This will deform in the same way other beloved figures of innocence. There are also several others Horror films quietly build their own shared universes.

But why? Is it all the pursuit of a kind of superior artistic vision that can only be facilitated by stuffing Easter egg films for other films? Well, according to the director of “Logan” James Mangold, who also produced the new biopic of Bob Dylan “A Complete Unknown”, the shared universes are not only too widespread, but they also represent the total death of the narration.

“Logan” by James Mangold is always presented as the kind of brain superhero film that Marvel Studios could never hope to recreate. The 2017 film, which belonged to the 20th Century Fox (now 20th Century Studios after The acquisition of Fox by Disney in 2019) A list of Marvel films, portrayed the hero of Hugh Jackman as a tortured and jaded pariah, with Mangold Borrow from classic films to ensure “Logan” has become a real exception among superhero films. To his outsider status was added that the film had an emphatic ending which was not only designed to set up future outings based in the same universe-which, it seems, was highest importance for Mangold.

The director has spoken of the importance of autonomous stories for Rolling stone While promoting “A Complete Unknown” – its second musical biopic after “Walk the Line” from 2005, in which Joaquin Phoenix interpreted Johnny Cash. When he was asked if he had already considered bringing Phoenix back to Dylan’s biopic, the filmmaker immediately rejected the idea in raw terms.

After hearing that “people hoped in one way or another [‘A Complete Unknown’] would become a situation of return of Joaquin Phoenix in a cinematographic universe and a multiverse “(which hoped exactly it remains uncertain), Mangold reacted by firmly condemning the concept of cinematographic universe. “I don’t like the cinematographic multi-universe. The construction of a cinematographic universe, “he said.” I think it is the enemy of narration. The death of the story. It is more interesting for people to see how the legos connect than the way the story takes place in front of us. “

“A Complete Unknown” could be a safe but pleasant biopic on Bob DylanBut it is not quite typical of the genre either. On the one hand, the film is not a story of Dylan’s life from its cradle to the Never Ending tour, but rather focused on the period between 1961 and 1965. Second, the film is aptly named ( Himself drawn from the “Like a Rolling Stone” by Dylan. The thematic center of the feature film by James Mangold. Some time.

Whatever you thought of “a complete unknown”, this is something. It is the reinvention, delicate and nebula of the past of the past and the way in which we are telling ourselves of stories to ourselves and others to try to define our existence. Whether or not we manage to question these ideas depends, of course, on the spectator. But more importantly, that’s what Mangold means when he talks about the death of the story. When a film exists to sell other films in a shared universe, it ceases to be something other than that. It is not a story. As the director then declared it to Rolling Stone:

“For me, the objective always becomes: ‘What’s unique in this film and these characters?’ Do not make you think of another film, an Easter egg or something else, which is an intellectual and non -emotional act.

Of course, shared universes should not necessarily be as meaningless as Mangold claims. The “Spider-Verse” films are proof that the concept of multi-versets and shared chronologies can directly light up an innovative narration. By keeping this in mind, it is quite tragic to think about how the concept of shared universe was so quickly included by the Hollywood machine, deprived of its narrative potential and transformed into a marketing tool. Hope The latest film “Spider-Verse” and its new directors Remind us to all that the shared universes should not necessarily be such a burden.