Most Anticipated?

Culturally, I think we spend a lot of time anticipating movies. Gone, at least for the most part, are the days when a fan would be surprised when they saw a trailer (in the theatre!) adapting a book or other property for the silver screen. Word leaks out now the moment a movie enters pre-production, and sometimes even earlier.

For instance, I've been waiting for Shane Black's movie version of pulp hero Doc Savage since before 2013 (stalled now despite signing Dwayne Johnson as the lead). Should the movie ever actually come to pass, I'm not sure it can live up to a decade or more of anticipation.

Even before the frenzy of ticket purchases, virtual line-ups and server crashes that heralded the pre-sales for Avengers: Endgame, I had described it as the most anticipated movie of my lifetime. And that's coming from someone who cut school with his mates to go and see Return of the Jedi at a matinee the day that it opened!

That third Star Wars movie was wrapping up the most successful movie franchise in history at that point, a trilogy that had begun six years earlier. The first in the series had redefined the term "blockbuster," and I remember newspaper ads proclaiming it had been "Held over - 27th Hit Week!"

The movie business has changed a lot since that day - hell, so has the way we consume movies for that matter - but somehow anticipation remains, despite the fact that we can watch the movie at home within six months of it opening in the theatre. In fact, in light of all the furor, it might even be accurate to say that anticipation has even increased. And why not?

Endgame will be wrapping up the Marvel Cinematic Universe's much less cohesive but no less interconnected set of films spanning 11 years and an astonishing 22 movies. The closest analogy is probably the EON company's James Bond series. I mean, until you consider that when Bond 25 is released in April of 2020, there will be more MCU movies out by the end of that summer.

I've been a big fan of the MCU since the first Iron Man back in 2008, and although some of the movies have been better than others, I have never come away disappointed. That and my, uh, passing familiarity with the source material, coupled with my meta-knowledge that these actors aren't getting any younger and many of them are at the end of their contracts and possibly hankering for a juicy death scene to cement themselves in the role, means that yes, I have never anticipated a movie more than Endgame. Ever.

Worse still, I will be at the Calgary Comic Expo on the opening weekend, making it imperative to see it on Thursday night, lest I be walking around Spoilerpalooza with my hands pressed against my ears. It's hard enough to maintain reasonable expectations while avoiding spoilers; the latter has been pretty difficult, given the fanosphere's tendency to scour every bit of leaked footage, set report and toy advertisement like theologians poring over the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Luckily I had set a reminder on my phone to purchase tickets last Tuesday. When I blearily perceived it shortly after waking up, I thought I should take a look in case ticket sales had begun. A few minutes later, I saw that the theatre was already half sold out, but still managed to get four tickets on the left aisle despite the terrifying sluggishness of the process. By the time I got to work, news outlets on both sides of the Atlantic were reporting on the crashes, delays, and massive fan dissatisfaction.

None of which has dissipated the anticipation. Projections for the opening weekend are in excess of $200 million, and tickets are reportedly being scalped for thousands of dollars on eBay.

But I wouldn't sell mine for less than five figures, and my anticipation continues to build, despite my best efforts to restrain it!