What’s right and what’s wrong with Marvel today?
In this A.V. Club roundtable, our staff share their thoughts on the worrisome state of the MCU—and whether they have any hope for the franchise going forward
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It’s not much of a surprise that The Marvels didn’t fare so well at the domestic box office in its first weekend. Sure, it came in at No. 1 with $47 million, but that’s the lowest opening of any film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Factor in the $41.4 million it made internationally, and that’s still less than $90 million total—a far cry from the film’s reported $275 million budget, and light years removed from Captain Marvel’s $456.7 million worldwide opening weekend.
It’s hard to blame The Marvels’ lack of success solely on the quality of the film. Even Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania, which was a lot less fun than The Marvels, earned $106 million domestically and $225 million internationally in its opening weekend. And don’t give us that crap about women-led superhero films not appealing to a wide audience—Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman blew that stupid argument out of the water. Instead, The Marvels’ lackluster debut points to a growing problem with the MCU: call it superhero fatigue, call it a decline in quality, call it whatever you want, but fans just seem less interested in what Marvel has to offer. To understand why that is, we asked A.V. Club staffers to share their thoughts on the current and future state of the MCU in our roundtable.
Where does the MCU stand right now?
Sam Barsanti: I think the MCU is stuck in a weird transitional period … What sports teams call a “rebuilding year,” except it’s been going on for a while. It needs to find (and clearly express) a reason to exist, like Thanos hunting for the Infinity Stones, that is leading to a definite place with a definite purpose. Either that or it needs to completely abandon any big plans and never again build up to one big thing unless it happens organically.
Mary Kate Carr: I do think the MCU is in decline, and that’s based on my own feelings about their recent output rather than viewership or box office numbers (even if those are also declining). There are a lot of reasons we can cite for it, but for me, it’s just that the current “Avengers” lineup, such as it is, isn’t as compelling or exciting as the original roster. I hopped on the MCU bandwagon around Winter Soldier, and the franchise just had momentum at that point; even the less-strong entries felt like solid building blocks for the “Infinity Saga.” But the cracks were already showing by Endgame, which was super satisfying for fans but not a great film on its own, with a too-sprawling scope and an overall muddy CGI mess of a visual landscape.
Saloni Gajjar: Unfortunately, Marvel is a major reason we’re going through superhero franchise fatigue. There’s no denying it. They saw the massive, well-deserved success of everything that led up to Avengers: Endgame and were in a rush to replicate it, resulting in a dwindling of quality for the films and TV shows despite a talented cast and crew. Marvel is in a bit of a bind right now by trying too hard to connect everything, which makes the MCU not addressing some stuff (Eternals, Shang-Chi, Moon Knight) even weirder. Like what’s going on exactly? No one seems to know!
It also didn’t help to announce a ton of highly anticipated projects like X-Men, Blade, and The Fantastic Four without a plan. Whatever ideas they did have got delayed because of the pandemic followed by the strikes. Still, I don’t have much faith in any contingencies. In retrospect, Kevin Feige should’ve taken a longer beat to figure out the next steps. And more crucially, they should’ve spent time developing projects individually instead of making it all about the grand scheme of the MCU. The urgency to put out content (and make money) led to the downfall. As much as I’m invested and will most likely keep watching what they churn out, the MCU stands to lose quite a bit of momentum right now.
William Hughes: I’ve always been an a la carte Marvel viewer, skipping those projects that didn’t have anything overtly appealing to them (or which my wife, a more completionist fan, didn’t want a plus-one for). But the pickings on the cart, so to speak, have certainly gotten more slim over the last few years: Before signing on to review this latest season of Loki, the last Marvel project I approached as a civilian, so to speak, was Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, and that was mostly because I just like giving Sam Raimi my money. (Ignore the shoddy way it treats the excellent WandaVision, another one of my oh-so-picky picks, and Raimi’s flick is just enough of a Sam Raimi movie to be a genuine blast.) On that same note, I consider it a major strength of Loki’s recent finale that it pays almost no lip service to the wider MCU (outside of a brief allusion to Ant-Man 3), freeing itself from an endless web of references and advertisements for other shows and movies I’m never going to watch.
So it’s with very little skin in the game that I put forward the not especially controversial idea that the MCU, as a larger-scale storytelling project, is basically spent. Even as a fair-weather fan, the run from Iron Man to Endgame was a fascinating thing to watch, unprecedented in modern media. But it’s also the sort of trick that maybe only works because it was unprecedented, a sort of multi-billion-dollar novelty act—and only for a brand that has successfully captured so much of the public attention that it can successfully demand millions of people keep track of all its moving parts. That momentum’s not coming back for anybody, I think, Marvel included. The studio will still make good, or at least satisfying, movies from time to time. But the magic trick is over.
What’s the next MCU project you’re actually excited for?
MKC: I’m still excited to see The Marvels, but in the past I’d be rushing to see an MCU film opening weekend, and this one I’m not feeling the rush. Beyond that, I can’t say I’m actively excited for any new Marvel project. The television shows have become too much to keep up with, and the film slate has a lot of issues that I feel personally skeptical of (dubious politics in Captain America: Brave New World, an uninspired heroes lineup for Thunderbolts, the Jonathan Majors of it all in Kang Dynasty). Everything in between has become a shrug.
SG: Now that I’ve seen The Marvels, I will honestly say I’m looking forward to Iman Vellani becoming the next MCU ruler. She has exactly the right kind of on-screen energy, charisma, and talent that they need; a real breath of fresh air. Spoiler alert: Kamala Khan is clearly bringing heroes like Kate Bishop and Cassie Lang to form the Young Avengers, so I wouldn’t mind her becoming the next big unifier here. They’re going to need it.
In terms of actual upcoming projects, I’m a sucker, so I’m excited for Echo based on the trailer alone. And I’m excited for Deadpool 3 because I love X-Men stuff the most, so I’m excited to see Wolverine. We’ll see how both of those go. I was waiting with bated breath for Daredevil: Born Again but it doesn’t seem to be in good shape right now. I hope that changes. And I don’t even want to think about Phase 6 at the moment, to be honest. Mostly, I’m excited to see if and when they figure a way out for all their elements to make sense together.
SB: The next thing I’m excited for would’ve been Daredevil: Born Again, as Hornhead is my favorite comic book character by a wide margin, but knowing that’s having so many issues behind the scenes spoils the fun a bit. I liked Hailee Steinfeld as Kate Bishop, so I guess I’m looking forward to whenever there’s more of her. You’ll notice that that’s not a tangible thing, which seems like a problem.
How has your relationship with the MCU changed?
SG: Folks, we’ve been on quite a rollercoaster with the MCU, huh? For the most part, I’ve loved everything about it, but it’s getting tiresome now to see the same type of story, the same type of CGI fest, the same type of third act. I think what I appreciated the most was seeing how the creators of Marvel projects challenged the genre while adapting the comics. The Winter Soldier, Black Panther, etc. are great examples. At this point, I’m just kind of wandering along with them, hoping to be wowed again.
SB: This year I made a conscious decision to completely skip a Marvel movie for the first time since the launch of the MCU, both because I was bored by the concept and because it had too many problematic elements (I’ll let everyone guess what I’m referring to!). I was someone who figured that The Avengers was the best thing I had ever seen 10 years ago, and now I’m the kind of person who reads spoilers for the stinger and will then watch every movie/show when they’re free on Disney+—well, every movie/show except for a specific recent one.
MKC: I’ve always had a soft spot for superheroes, but Winter Soldier made me really excited about the kind of varied storytelling that Marvel could pull off. It felt like the comic books, how an individual title could be tonally completely different from the team stories but still have the characters come together in fun ways. Between that film and Thor: Ragnarok, it felt like Marvel Studios was genuinely attracting cool new talent and letting filmmakers put their own stamps on the films. These days, I am more in the camp that Marvel is wasting years’ worth of time of some of our brightest new cinematic talents, churning these artists out and making them complacent at best and defeated at worst. The stories themselves have become bloated, and visually less fun to watch. When I think back on the original Avengers movie, despite its faults, it had a campy comic book colorfulness to it that was joyful to watch. I miss that.
Is there anything that’s actually working for Marvel right now? What’s not working?
SG: What’s working: Iman freaking Vellani, as I said. She immediately stood out after Tom Holland as the perfect bit of casting in recent years in Ms. Marvel, and this proves true in The Marvels, too. I do think they’ve got an amazing roundup of actors for their upcoming stuff (Julia Louis Dreyfuss, Steven Yeun, Florence Pugh, Mahershala Ali!). It’s the material that’s the problem.
What’s not working: Well, the material. The pace at which they threw mediocre stuff at us. There’s so much focus on interconnected universes, and how they’ll fold in mutants and F4, that most of the scripts lack heart. Hopefully that changes. Not to mention the Jonathan Majors problem, which so far doesn’t seem to have a solution (he’s replaceable, that’s all I’ll say).
SB: I’ll say that Kang, as a concept, isn’t working for me at all. He Who Remains was a compelling villain in Loki, but nothing since then has really lived up to it (and Victor Timely sucks). I’ve read some good Kang stories in the comics, but he’s always been a third-tier villain to me. I wouldn’t complain if they threw out all of their plans and introduced Dr. Doom or just made the Kingpin the main villain. Speaking of, I’m biased in favor of anything related to Daredevil, but Disney’s decision to bank on Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk is something out of Marvel Studios I’ve consistently enjoyed over the past couple of years.
MKC: I still think Kevin Feige is smart for looking towards interesting indie filmmakers as possible stewards of his tentpole films, but maybe it’s too much to rest on the shoulders of inexperienced directors? Or maybe, the studio needs to back off a bit, worry less about the whole interconnected nature of the universe where every movie is a commercial for the next movie, and get back to making solid, standalone character pieces that draw on great comic book storylines. Then see how those stories can intersect. That worked before, and it can probably work again. But the VFX issue and the lack of an exciting core cast of Avengers really has to be solved. (And maybe it’ll be solved by being X-Men instead.)
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Personally? It is the fatigue. I feel the same with Star Wars, I started watching the last season of Mandalorian and I was confused by a plot point and then a friend told me to watch the Boba Fett and I just decided I was done with all the franchises that so interconnected that it requires me to watch something I don’t want to watch. The same goes for Marvel. I think easter eggs are great for people that invested but for the regular viewer we just want the stories to be much more self contained.And I do not think there has been a major decline inequality in either franchise despite what the bros say.
Meh, I’ve completely checked out of Star Wars by now. Ignoring any side of the politics that have arisen, the sequels were a mess and the TV shows just simply haven’t been good (I liked where they were going with Andor but for very specific reasons I couldn’t finish it). The weight of trying to interconnect everything is starting to bring the entire house down.I’m not a Marvel fan, but as an outsider looking in, I at least understood what people liked about the movies. I can’t imagine who is still excited about all the complex plot points and no-stakes villains in the current iteration. Heck, ten years ago, it seems that Marvel fans were almost prostelyzing non-fans like to me to check out the MCU, now the vibe seems to be “Don’t bother, not worth your time.”
the current vibe seems to sweatily saying ‘no no no, you don’t need to watch everything to understand the new thing. trust me bro.’
Not just insisting this, but then also getting needlessly aggro and personal when someone says otherwise. “If you’re not getting it you’re just too dumb!” or whatever.
In reaction to the vibe of calling people who correct misinformation “sweatily saying”.
My favorite is when people say “they have really simple plots, so they’re always easy to follow.” It’s not exactly a ringing endorsement (and it accidentally underlines the point that the continuity is more enjoyable than the individual movies).
You should finish Andor, this is one of the best show in the last years and the only good thing that came from Disney in a very long time.
This is a controversial opinion but the original movies aren’t actually good movies, they are FUN movies with decent pacing and dialogue rescued by people like Harrison Ford ad-libbing. So I don’t necessarily need Star Wars to be good, just fun (though I will concede the last trilogy were neither good nor fun) but I had fun with The Mandalorian and then they ruined it.
I do think they are generally good movies, but yes, fun is even more important. And of the sequels, I only found the first one sort of fun. I was intrigued by The Mandolorian at first, but it just didn’t really go anywhere interesting.
Whether or not the original Star Wars movies were “good” will of course come down to personal taste, but I do feel like there are excellent examples of some “how to make a movie” fundamentals in them, and that a lot of modern blockbusters don’t even bother attempting.Like, I’m obviously no expert so this is just one guy’s opinion. But I feel like Luke’s Death Star trench run at the climax of “A New Hope” is surely got to be used by some film experts, somewhere, as an example of how to film and edit a suspenseful action sequence.But overall, totally agree that films don’t have to be good to be fun, and a lot of recent Star Wars franchise content is neither.
I guess most my issues with the original trilogy is basically dialogue when I think about it. The pacing and plot are pretty spot on. And if you look at the prequels their issue is mostly dialogue and bad acting. I mean there aren’t a lot of movies I can rewatch and the original trilogy is one of them so it has merits.
I still remember the disappointment I had when I watched “The Force Awakens” and realized they were doing yet another Death Star. OK, I was hoping for something along the lines of Heir to Empire, but just rehashing “blow up the big space station the size of a planet?” Ugh.
Yeah, I completely checked out of Star Wars after episode 9. MCU, I’ve been sort of piecemealing it and picking and choosing specific things (Guardians, Spiderman, Black Panther, Black Widow), after the Infinity Stones ended. I can see me easing way back on those as well. Oh yeah, I forgot, I watched Chang Shi too, but that was just because I liked the main character in Kim’s Convenience – and it’s telling that pretty much my only memory of it was that it had the dude from Kim’s Convenience.
Deadpool is probably the only upcoming one that I want to see.
I had a very specific moment where I was watching I think a Taco Bell Star Wars ad and I realized that I was going to have this shit marketed to me for the rest of my life. Star Wars was never going away again. I think that’s part of the fatigue too. You never really get away from it even when you’re not watching it, and with the brand synergy it really is continuous. Even when you don’t pay attention to it, it’s like there’s a Darth Vader or an Iron Man you can see out of the corner of your eye.
It makes me kinda sad because I read all the Star Wars books as kid, Heir to the Empire trilogy was my jam. But I just don’t want to hear about Star Wars anymore.
Everyone’s got their own measure, but you would be one of, if not the literal, first person I’ve ever seen to the quality of the MCU output hasn’t dropped in general since Endgame.
I guess you could make a case that SW hasn’t dropped its quality that far under Disney’s control, but that’s really only because they’ve never put anything that good out in the first place.
I guess I never thought they were great movies? I mean Iron Man 3 is terrible, the first Thor is pretty meh, Winter Soldier is great. It has always been all over the place. This take that there is has been a decrease in quality just isn’t reality. It’s still all over the place like it’s always been. People are raving about Loki season 2, I have heard Marvels is actually a lot of fun though not necessarily the best and Secret Invasion is terrible. I probably should have worded that better in my initial comment but that’s what I meant.
Disney stopped sending out the media kits fulla swag and screeners, eh?
The AV Club overlords also don’t want to pay writers to review every episode, which was the reason I came to the AV Club in the first place.
That’s okay, I don’t want these writers reviewing things anyway. All they’ll do is shit on it with their unfunny snark.
Thanos’ hunt for the Infinity Stones didn’t actually feature in the plots of any movie until Avengers: Infinity War. He was barely glimpsed a couple of times before that, as the force behind Loki’s invasion of NYC and as Gamora and Nebula’s kidnappy father figure.
while not untrue, the fact that it was just a little thing in the background is why it worked.the movies worked on their own and then you got a little ‘oh that’s related to the overall big thing’ and everyone spent the next few months theorizing until the next thing came out, knowing it was building to an eventual payoff. you didn’t necessarily know what that payoff was, but there was a nice balance of dripping info.compare that with now, where i’ve gotta be concerned about whatever julia louis dreyfuss is doing, there’s a white vision walking around somewhere, dr strange has a third eye and needs to save some dimension with charlize theron, apparently martin freeman and don cheadle were skrulls for an undetermined amount of time, multiverses and timelines are folding in on themselves, there’s a giant god’s hand in the ocean, shang-chi’s bands are thousands of years old (i guess that’s important?), i gotta be concerned about what kingpin is up to, and then there’s the kang of it all on top of that.it’s too much to focus on and not enough to grasp onto.
Your third paragraph is dumb and all of the Phase 1-3 movies can be described in a flippant “bad description” way like that.Winter Soldier is all about knowing that 1940s best friend survived falling off a train!Tony’s dad’s business partner’s Russian son has electric whips!
That spear from 3 movies ago gave powers to a bad guy good guy bad guy! Also it’s one of those stones on the inside but also an evil AI
i specifically brought up many of the loose threads we are dealing with right now from the endings of the movies or shows that have come out.you brought up…things that happen in the middle of movies are are explained within those movies.look, if all of that stuff i brought up gets effortlessly dealt with in the next few movies and shows, great, but it doesn’t change the fact that the volume of loose threads we’re dealing with here is way, way more than we’ve ever had to. and that’s my problem.
I would say the Eternals one should be “some giant god dude appeared and promised to return to judge earth.”
Would like to see a hard reset. Instead of the Avengers, build up X-Men or F4. Don’t use legacy actors, start afresh. The beauty of the original X-Men and Iron Man movies was we didn’t know what to expect, what the actors would bring. Using legacy actors or bringing back Thor for a 5th time takes that away.Also, make it more human. Think part the reason The Marvels failed is that they are too powerful. The films that work are the ones that are human – Iron Man, Cap, Guardians, Spidey. They work because we care about the humans, because it’s not about destroying alien worlds or magical rocks. It’s about Tony, Steve, Peter and Peter. The Eternals, The Marvels, Dr Strange – they don’t work because they focus on the superhero first, and the human second.
I’m incredibly bored watching characters shoot energy beams. I miss the early days when Iron Man’s suit had to make power compromises and fired rockets. I get that Marvel feels like they have to keep upping the stakes, but you’re right, all the universe destroying stuff somehow just feels so inconsequential.
Yep. This. Rockets, a shield, a hammer, big green fists. Distinctive powers. Excitement around learning to use them and master them. A grade of power strength and weaknesses. When you remove a reference point (a human, earth) you remove the powers…power.
It’s almost like those are storytelling basics. …Almost.
I was hoping the new Pattinson version of Batman would play more with the idea of Batman as a detective. I’d imagine that approach would bring in a villain whose ambitions aren’t in the world- or universe-domination level. A less powerful villain would also mean a less powerful and maybe more vulnerable, and human, hero. I’d love for DC and Marvel to have some movies that aren’t about annihilation.
Isn’t that exactly what the Pattinson Batman movie was? He spent the whole movie playing detective (who strangely never actually solved anything or thwarted any part of the villain’s plan) and the villain was just trying to flood Gotham. I actually really liked The Batman since it was so much more grounded in reality than any of the Affleck Batman movies.
You’re right. I guess I was still thinking of something even smaller scale, but I wasn’t right in saying it wasn’t a detective movie. I did really like it.
This and I think alternate realties and time travel are always a long term mistake in these sorts of franchises.And yes, before someone comes for me, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was really good. But I just think time travel/alternate universes works better in animated media.
Or just as a novelty, not the basis of your entire massive franchise.
What wears me out is that everyone in a fight seems evenly matched and able to withstand stupid amounts of abuse, including from energy beams or whatever, and then suddenly one’s more powerful than the other and wins. Usually because they care more righteously about their cause or something. The fights are almost pointless yet go on forever.
My wife and I tapped out after Civil War because of that ending fight scene that just wouldn’t end. And also because we couldn’t see Captain America’s side of the argument at all.
I liked Iron Man when his suit wasn’t magic.
The moment Iron Man’s suit is magic you just sit there going ‘the technology of the MCU is so radically far past our own that day-to-day life should be unrecognizable so why does every Marvel film look like it was just set in the year they filmed it.’
Agreed. Once everybody had magic suits that appear and disappear at all, it makes everything less relatable because it’s no longer action. It has become sci-fi.
Are you crazy? Audiences don’t want relatable characters, they want energy beams! MOAR BEAMZ.
Laser beams have feeling too.
Beams Wars: Beams Unite coming 2026.
I’ll watch a Marvel movie when he shows up. Preferably about a Fireworks Factory.
I’d also love to see them reboot it. Maybe actually have a plan this time instead of winging it and getting really lucky. Also the world/universe destroying threats need to be rarer. Not every movie has to be a battle to save humanity. When someone shows up who’s going to eat the world, that should have an impact. But in the current MCU I fear it won’t.
Since Endgame I’d argue the world destroying stakes have been fairly minimum. Far From Home, WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Black Widow, Shang-Chi, Hawkeye, Moon Knight, Love and Thunder, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, Wakanda Forever, Werewolf by Night, and Guardians 3 all had a range of smaller threats or personal stakes, with potential global consequences but not the destruction of Earth or humanity. Only Eternals, Loki, Quantumania, and now The Marvels have villains that directly threaten to either destroy Earth or conquer and/or destroy the entire universe.
Also, make it more human. Think part the reason The Marvels failed is that they are too powerful. They aren’t. Not even close.
Aren’t what? Powerful or Human?
They aren’t ridiculously powerful. Certainly not by the standards of superhero comics or even Reeves Superman.
I mean, she’s been referred to as one of the most powerful beings in the MCU by the Russo Brothers. https://www.marvel.com/articles/movies/russo-brothers-on-captain-marvel-in-avengers-endgame
jesus christ who cares about the mcu anymore
People who use proper punctuation?
I mean, just look at the upcoming offerings. It’s one lackluster offering after another:Agatha: risky gambit building a spin-off centered around a villain. On the other hand, Aubrey Plaza!Blade: production is a mess.Captain America: New World Order: I like Mackie, but his TV series was dull and not a good ad to win audiences over for a new Cap.
Daredevil: Born Again: audiences were prepared for this, but then they mucked up the production.Deadpool 3: the only one anyone’s excited about, and it happens to be the one inherited from another film universe.Echo: a barely there character from a forgotten Hawkeye series? Yeah that’s not going to draw audiences.Fantastic Four: I’d be excited if we literally knew anything about it.Thunderbolts: in name only (so the comic fans are alienated), and the roster is a joke.And then there are all sorts of things which will probably never see the light of day anyway. Ironheart? Wonder Man? Armor Wars?
You forgot to mention the Avengers movies as a whole, especially if Majors winds up getting convicted. That means recasting Kang and explaining why he looks different now which means re-writes to scripts and plots and all that.
They always have the option of just not explaining why he looks different, like Don Cheadle and Mark Ruffalo.
That’s not what I mean or the point I was making. I’m talking more of delays to the production as far as recasting him. Switching Norton to Ruffalo was one of the reasons why there was a year’s delay in production for the first Avengers movie.
They don’t really have to explain much at all. Any fan with half a brain will know the reasons why he was recast. And there really doesn’t have to be an in- universe rain why he looks different. After all, Cheadle’s first line in Iron Man 2 is something along the lines of “it’s me, I’m here, let’s move on.” That’s really all we need
Eh, that’s barely a speedbump. I don’t know why people act like re-casting a character will induce some sort of existential crisis in audiences, but it’s not like they were burning down theaters when Rhodey looked different in Iron Man 2.
The point you all seem to be missing is that it could be a speedbump as far as production delays and issues that they can’t really have at this point.
I can see the process of going out and hiring an actor to take on Kang being a speedbump in itself, but you’re saying that there would also need to be a bunch of re-writes to explain why he looks different, and we’re saying those re-writes aren’t really necessary. Kang’s played by a different actor, that’s it. You could toss in a throwaway line about not all variants in the multiverse looking the same (which Loki already established), but I don’t think audiences would particularly care.
They’re just mad people aren’t understanding that what they really meant is something they didn’t say.
Hah, I’ve done that before. You set out to make a point and then read the post after and realize you failed miserably.
Probably because your comment didn’t say it “could” be a speed bump; it said, “[if Majors winds up getting convicted] That means recasting Kang and explaining why he looks different now which means re-writes to scripts and plots and all that.”
You forgot to mention the Avengers movies as a whole, especially if Majors winds up getting convicted. That means recasting Kang and explaining why he looks different now which means re-writes to scripts and plots and all that.This part actually is the least of their concerns. We’re talking about a character that has a potentially unlimited number of variants. We don’t know which variant will be the primary antagonist(s) in Secret Wars and Kang Dynasty. In the comics, most of them looked fairly different. It couldn’t be easier for them to separate themselves from Majors if necessary. Not to mention, they’ve very successfully recast two characters already who didn’t have the variant aspect to rely upon.
Hmm. Dismissing the comments that disagreed with you. Real incel move, Jox.
Fuck off you dickhead. Stop harassing me and get a life.
And yes, i’m gonna dismiss this and all your replies as soon as you read it you harassing asshat.
“and explaining why he looks different”
There are multiple precedents within Marvel for recasting without batting an eye. So no. They do not have to to explain that.
So you nailed every one of my own thoughts on these. As you state, the only one of these I am excited for is the only one that people don’t really think of as a “Marvel movie”. To be fair, after 23 movies over 10 years culminating in a two part Avengers finale, of COURSE there would be a letdown or “fatigue factor”. But to add to it, the stuff that followed was pretty shoddy with a couple of exceptions, so plenty of opportunity to say “eh, not what it used to be”.
I’m looking forward to Thunderbolts, Captain America, and Deadpool, but the rest of the slate is a bit nothing for me. I’m looking forward to hearing what some of those untitled projects are, but they are scheduled so far away.They have to really hit Fantastic Four out of the park after the last two adaptations, and I’m dubious they can do it. Those are very tricky characters to make work, and I’m not sure if the MCU has it anymore.I would love proper follow-ups on Shang Chi, Vision, Kate Bishop, Moon Knight, Hercules, Namor, and Rocket’s Guardians. I grant that some of this is recent, but it all just feels like it’s in limbo and lost amongst all the other stuff that has been announced. They were more deft in earlier phases of setting up some kind of expectation on when you’d see a favorite character again.I want another Avengers movie, for pete’s sake. They are out of their minds for not realizing how useful those movies were to give shape to their phases.
I’m looking forward to ThunderboltsYou mean, the Thunderbolts with… Ghost(?), Black Widow 2.0, Bucky, Discount Captain America, Russian Captain America, and… Taskmaster? That Thunderbolts? Power to you then 🙂
I love superhero teams. I liked Yelena, Red Guardian, and US Agent. I like Julia Louis Dreyfuss’s character. I’m hopeful they haven’t announced some potential members yet to keep back some surprises (like Zemo and characters from the comics team like Songbird or Moonstone). If they handle it right (a big “if”, I know) it should be a dark, almost satirical version of an Avengers film. I’m looking forward to that until I get more info that would turn me off.
Taskmaster better be played by Greg Davies, the lunatic giant.
“You mean the Guardians of the Galaxy, with… Starlord(?), a talking tree, a talking raccoon, a former wrestler playing a guy nobody has ever heard of, and the adopted daughter of a villain we’ve barely introduced? That Guardians?”
it’s been 10 years the guardians argument doesn’t work anymore.
What a stunning rebuttal, thank you for your valuable contribution. You’ve given me a lot to think about.
if you think the media landscape is the same as it was back then, i dunno what to tell you other than i completely disagree.
the difference being that the Thunderbolts are all characters we have seen on-screen already, and none of them have made much of an impression. I’d have much more faith in a comics-accurate Thunderbolts which introduces new MCU characters the way GotG introduced Groot etc.
I think you’re mistaking you’re own impressions for the larger opinions. If nothing else, there is a fanbase out there who is crazy about Bucky and Yelena. (Individually, not “Bucky and Yelena”, but honestly there’s probably a niche out there already writing the fanfic.)
I think you could make an argument that Bucky at the least is very popular as a side character, given that easily the most well-regarded CA movie heavily featured him, and he’s been a consistent presence since. And I don’t see any reason the others couldn’t also get to that level in a fashion similar to the Guardians, depending on what they do with the film. I’ve been reading comics for decades and I had absolutely zero notion of who they were prior to the first film.
Cracks me up that it’s 6 characters with basically the same power set.
Therein lies the problem with the film; I’d be first in line if the heroes turned out to be Baron Zemo, Hawkeye, and a bunch of d-list characters most people haven’t heard of.(Does Marvel have the rights to Mach IV…or is he tied up at Sony, because Beetle was a Spider-Man villain?)Trying to make the Thunderbolts something other than the Busiek & Niceieza runs is almost as common as the iconic team.
“and… Taskmaster?”
I for one am thrilled to have Greg Davies in the MCU.
i’m curious how many ‘normal people’ care about fantastic four. from what i hear about on here a comics-accurate reed richards is gonna be an insufferable, self-absorbed prick, which doesn’t exactly scream boffo box office and plushies.the books weren’t cool when i was a kid (in the 90s) and that period’s animated series never felt like it connected on the same level as batman/spider-man or x-men. like i know they’re obviously very famous and important, and maybe younger people have nostalgia for the early 00’s movies, so while i think it’ll be a curio for comics fans and lapsed mcu fans…i just wonder if they have the juice to draw back in a wider audience. really depends on whomever they cast, i guess.i also just have no idea what they could be investigating in-universe that would be exciting. we’ve already got alternate dimensions, nick fury lives in a space station and we’ve been all over the galaxy with the guardians.
Thank you.I’ve always thought the Fantastic Four looked cheesy as hell. The Tim Story movies did nothing to dissuade me. The Josh Trank version was the first time I sat up and thought, “Okay, this might appeal to me.” Unfortunately, that movie had other issues…Anyway, in spite of that, the first Tim Story FF made enough money to warrant a second one, and they’ve been popping up in media outside of comics books for a really long time. Maybe they do appeal to normal people. I’ll say this though: they sure as hell aren’t the X-Men.When are we gonna’ get to the X-Men factory?
No, the Fantastic Four has never been cool, but they can be made cool. I used to read some Marvel, but I’d never heard of Guardians of the Galaxy and I’d be surprised if much of the MCU audience had known about them either before the movies. Right up until Endgame, at least, people were really into GotG. Maybe the same can be done for the Fantastic Four.The thing about them is that I don’t find Reed Richards or Sue Storm very interesting, and the team spends a lot of time in space, which is the setting I hate most in these MCU movies. Odds are stacked against this bunch, but I’m not really the key audience.
They cannot make them a generic superteam like the 00’s movies. They cannot make it dark like the most recent adaptation. I think the MCU will have more trouble with the F4 because they are going to have to overcome the memories of these two previous adaptations. They need to get the exact right tone that sets it apart from the previous adaptations that still connects with modern audiences. In the best possible world’s, it would have an Incredibles vibe- a bright optimistic adventure vibe, with a dysfunctional but loving family at the heart of it. The F4 should be the most wholesome, family orientated Marvel property- there is space for that in the MCU. I really hope they gloss over the origin (like they did with Spider-Man) and open the movie with them ready to go. Their origin and them getting used to their powers is not where they excel as characters. They cannot make Reed the modern comics iteration, or he will be a prick like you say. He needs to be closer to his original characterization, which was still focused but not as manipulative. The thing with the F4 is that their explorations in the comics led us to Wakanda, the Inhumans, Atlantis, etc. They mapped out the boundaries of the Marvel Universe in the 60s -but that stuff has already been discovered in the MCU. The big things left for them would be stuff like the Negative Zone or Monster Island. Actually, if they somehow decide to tie in Galactus to the Celestials, they could pick up and explore some of the threads from Eternals. Plus, they have the Doctor Doom connections as well to play with.
well, that sounds like a winning strategy to me. hope they’re aiming for that.
insufferable, self-absorbed prick
This kind of character can work just fine as long as they’re properly cast. Robert Downey Jr. and Benedict Cumberbatch did pretty well for themselves in the MCU.
i’m curious how many ‘normal people’ care about fantastic four.About the same number of people who cared about Blade, Iron Man, Captain America, the Guardians of the Galaxy and just about any Marvel character that wasn’t Spider-Man or the X-Men.from what i hear about on here a comics-accurate reed richards is gonna be an insufferable, self-absorbed prick, which doesn’t exactly scream boffo box office and plushies.I once again refer you to Iron Man.
You say that but the Echo trailer was excellent
You hit on one of my major points. I think they’re doing a fantastic job casting these roles by and large (Kathryn Hahn, Aubrey Plaza, Iman Vellani, Florence Pugh, Hailee Steinfeld, Tatiana Maslany, Mahershala Ali, even Jonathan Majors from an acting-only standpoint). The problem is making us care about these characters. The performer’s name and visual presence alone can’t do that. The story has to work.
I’m only going to argue that Hawkeye was one of the best Disney+ shows. I would say easily the best if they stuck the landing in the final episode a little better
The MCU has been in decline since Kathleen Kenndy started using the Pander Stone. It was incredibly reckless and arrogant of her to think she could wield forces beyond her control, and when she accidentally opened a portal to the Panderverse, the MCU was pretty much done.
Funny how ya’ll just skip over GOTG3 like it didn’t happen.
Funny enough that when that movie came out, the show at the time was awful.
And now Loki did amazing TV.
Just seems to me that if you’re going actually talk about the state of the MCU, talk about the whole damn state.
If you only focus on Florida, of course you’ll never see the positives.
As a life long comic reader, this trend just mirrors what happens regularly in the comic industry. They build up to a major event and in the fallout of that event, is a soft-reboot. Some times it works(most notably with the X-Men titles, and a few of the solo superhero titles), some times it doesn’t and sales drop off, and titles get cancelled.
Also, just like it the comics, the audience/sales dictate what stays and what goes. Unfortunately, unlike comics, you can’t have 5 regular Spider-Man movies constantly. But what Marvel can do, is actually cater their output to the audience a little more closely. Maybe get the X-men in sooner rather than drip feed teases here and there. Instead of killing off and retiring characters, recast instead. Or stop telling serialized stories. Just do self contained stories outside of continuity.
It’s not just major events and soft reboots readers are rejecting. It’s the constant LGBT pandering too. The recent gay Superman and Green Lantern comics were dismal failures, sales-wise.https://boundingintocomics.com/2023/11/08/comic-book-readers-reject-sodomy-filled-alan-scott-green-lantern-book-by-tim-sheridan/https://boundingintocomics.com/2022/01/24/new-december-comic-book-sales-data-appears-to-show-readers-are-rejecting-dc-comics-woke-changes-to-superman/But instead of learning from their failures, the superhero industry just keep doubling down on their pandering, hemmoraghing money with each failed title.
Good take. This pain was bound to happen after Endgame. The MCU was the first serious and successful attempt to replicate comics as a medium, vast disparate stories leading to one massive event.Heck a lot of people said the MCU should have ended right then once Endgame concluded. Of course that was never going to happen.I also agree a lot with Hughes take that the first decade of the MCU was lightning in a bottle. Never happened before, during other studios tried and failed (WB/DC, Universal etc) and prob won’t happen again (good luck James Gunn).Multiverse saga has too many moving parts, has a premise and plot far more complex and esoteric than the Infinity Saga and casuals aren’t following as closely or as interested. They have a good canvas. They need to just make solid one offs and focus on a limited core group of characters and forget or downplay world/universe ending shenanigans.
I remember when I stopped reading X-Men comics when Jean Grey died the…12th time? I think she has died 16. I am not sure but I just couldn’t anymore.
I stopped reading comics, month-to-month in the mid 2000’s. I still do read some here and there, but wait until stories are done and collected in TPB form. It’s a headache keeping up with characters across multiple books and even universes.I fear that’s what they are driving the MCU into and much like comics, will face massive drop-offs as they are seeing now.
once they inevitably do ‘the clone saga’ as a movie i’ll be walking off into the sunset.
Knowing Sony, it’s only a matter of time.
i mean, if i was in the executive level i’d have no problem making a ‘2x Tom Holland = 2x Box Office’ google sheets slide and then taking the rest of the afternoon off.
In a way, Sony is doing just that, probably to the extent that they can: Morbius, Venom, Kraven, and Madame Web. The x-factor is Holland himself. Sounds like his agent is holding out for more money. Can’t be too picky though, Holland isn’t making that much of a dent with his other projects.
i would say holland straight up wasted his best years playing spider-man haha.they reported that he’s signed on for as many as 6 (!) more movies, but nothing is official yet obviously. i’m sure they want his ass in those avengers movies, too.
Knowing Sony, their Clone Saga would have nothing to do with Spider-Man.
I’m so done with Phoenix as a plot device. I haven’t read the books regularly in a while, but every time I see a news article about X-Men, it seems the Phoenix Force is showing up again. I’m pretty sure every major character has been “Phoenix” at some point in time. Make something new!
It’s not hard. Audiences are bored with seeing the samw movie over and over again. We know how these movies will go. Lots of CGI punching and energy blasts, some quips, green screen sets, boring villains who want the same old boring villain things, reluctant heroes who either are weary of the responsibility of being a hero or are learning how to become a hero (so they can then become weary of it). It’s the formula, yall. It’s tired. And it doesn’t matter if it MCU, Star Wars, or Harry Potter, we’re tired of it.
Are they really? The Phase 4 movies have more variety than the Infinity Saga. Good or bad, the range from Black Widow to Eternals, to Shang Chi, to No Way Home is pretty large. Maybe they just need to be better movies.
Am I alone in just not finding the villains in the Captain Marvel stories all that interesting? After the thrill of the bus scene where anyone could be a threat, I just didn’t really get all that worked up for them. Tried to watch Secret Invasion but just couldn’t get interested. Could that account for the lack of interest in the Marvels? I refuse to believe a bunch of incels could make that much of a dent.
It’s not incels, it’s the general public. I just don’t think women in general are that interested in watching female led superhero movies. I do think they will go out to see a movie with muscular men though and there’s nothing wrong with that.I think the problem is that Marvel fundamentally doesn’t understand their audience anymore. Initially they were taking a core male power fantasy that exists in comics and expanding it to include other demographics. Now they seem to be singularly focused on what they think a female audience will want to watch without understanding what that demographic actually wants to watch and alienating their core male audience at the same time. That doesn’t need to be the case, there are plenty of films with female leads that brought in male audiences, but that’s because they featured strong female characters without shitting on the male characters around them. It also doesn’t help that the movies are poorly written, have poor effects, have cheap looking costumes, and that there are just too many movies and shows coming out in the genre. They can and should do female led movies. They just need to take notes from movies like Aliens and Terminator to get a better understanding of how to write those characters well.
I’m sure a bunch of misinformation made a dent (like Variety’s recent hit piece, for example, which was full of “insider” info that has largely been debunked already because apparently they didn’t vet their source).
There was juice around the idea of finally seeing all your fav marvel heroes on the big screen. Now we’ve seen it and so there’s no more juice. That’s it. I have a very low opinion of the hoglets that consume this slop but even I don’t think they’d stay interested in it forever!
Personally, I am just at a different place in my life than I was in 2008. I am now married with kids and just do not have time to invest in multiple movies and TV series in a shared universe, especially after the payoff from the previous 10 years was pretty satisfying.I also think Marvel did themselves a bit of a disservice with the “everything sets up something else” model they sort of established in the Infinity Stones saga. Anecdotally, a lot of news I see has less to do with the movie/show itself (though it seems like the quality on those has dropped) and more about what those things portend. X-Men! F4! Young Avengers! Squirrel Girl! Ghost Rider! Mephisto! It just seems like everyone is just waiting for the thing they want to see come to life on the screen and the current movies are the bullshit they need to wade through to get there. I know this is not *actually* true, but a lot of the time it feels that way.
The “the television shows have become too much to keep up with” argument is kind of BS though isn’t it? Marvel puts out like 20 total TV episodes a year. If you’re interested then watch. If you don’t watch then you’ll maybe miss a few Easter eggs in whatever MCU movie you see next. The real problem is that most everything post-Endgame just isn’t very good. I was a casual fan up until Winter Soldier and then a big fan through Endgame and now I can’t honestly say I care about anything MCU since. I still watch it all, but none of it excites me and a lot of it is just downright bad. Marvel struck gold with the original Avengers team but I don’t think they’ll ever be able to replicate that again.
If you don’t watch then you’ll maybe miss a few Easter eggs in whatever MCU movie you see next.The problem I see with that argument is, if you’re an Average Joe (as opposed to a Massive Comic Book Fan or Extremely Online), how are you supposed to know that’s all you’ll miss? Marvel has (arguably unsuccessfully) been championing the whole “It’s All Connected” narrative since Agents of SHIELD premiered on ABC. Then when that kind of fizzled out and the Netflix Marvel shows lost popularity, Marvel made a huge deal about how, “No seriously, this time, we mean it. The Disney+ shows star your favorite actors from the movies. It’s ALL Connected!”If you saw that Wanda from the Avengers movies starred in her own show and is now the antagonist in the new Doctor Strange movies, wouldn’t you assume that you had to watch the show? At the very least, isn’t there a risk that a casual viewer would assume that?
I agree with everything you said, but how much does a casual viewer actually even care about missing something? If a casual viewer wants to go see Multiverse of Madness because of all the CGI multiverse weirdness and standard MCU quips and Benedict Cumberbatch are they perfectly happy just accepting that Wanda is a bad guy now without having the Wandavision backstory? I don’t have the answer to that question. But as an “Extremely Online” person (by your classifications) I often have to look up who someone is (Adam Warlock) after watching an MCU movie to have any real idea who they’re supposed to be or what their significance is. Am I missing something while watching the movie? Maybe. But is it really impacting my enjoyment (or lack thereof) for the movie? No. A sort of funny, not MCU related, example of this is that when my wife and I watched Everything Everywhere last year she apparently had no idea “Raccacoonie” was a reference to Ratatouille. She still thought it was funny and weird but had no reference point for it until I turned on Ratatouille for our son a few weeks ago.
I think that’s a fair question. And maybe the answer is that they’re increasingly okay with missing things. Maybe now they’re okay with missing entire movies. IMO it depends on how you frame it. The interconnectedness is a feature for fans, but the success of the film franchise has always relied on appealing to a mass audience, not just die-hard fans. I think Doctor Strange 2 made plenty of money, so maybe that was a bad example. But maybe the problem with The Marvels is less whether or not you *had* to watch Ms. Marvel or Secret Invasion and more to do with people just not wanting to see what the trailers showed. I don’t have an answer either.I’ll say this: I didn’t read a lot of Marvel Comics growing up. Just Spider-Man and some X-Men here and there. So I would have to look up who a lot of people were, like you, and that was just part of the fun for a while. But eventually I realized the explainers weren’t necessary, because Marvel Studios would inevitably put their own spin on whatever character they were introducing, or worse, they would never use that character again. And that did sort of impact my enjoyment of the MCU movies, because my brain is subconsciously filtering out details it thinks aren’t relevant and then getting confused when, actually, that detail from a movie released five years ago turned out to be very important. That’s just me though, and I can understand how if everything else works for them, it won’t impact the enjoyment for someone else.
Exactly, the interconnectedness is a feature for fans. Just like with anything else, the more you put into something the more you’ll get out of it. I still get goosebumps when I see a video on Instagram from inside the theater during Endgame when Cap grabs Thor’s hammer and the audience goes nuts and I get to remember that feeling again. I think the poor performance of The Marvels is relatively easy to diagnose:1. Marvel TV shows and movies have been mostly disappointing lately and the MCU hasn’t been building up a lot of goodwill. Why would people want to spend money on a ticket for a movie that they probably don’t expect to be that good? If I had paid to see Quantumania in theaters I sure wouldn’t be spending more money on a ticket to the next MCU movie.2. Piggybacking off of point 1, movies are coming to streaming much more quickly now. Is it worth it for a family of five to pay $60+ to go see a movie when you can watch it at home for free next month? You had to see Endgame opening weekend or else you risked having everything spoiled but Endgame was billed an an event, The Marvels not so much. 3. The lack of star power. I like Brie Larson from what interviews and whatever I’ve seen from her, and her Oscar win for Room was well deserved, but she hasn’t really done anything aside from her stint as Captain Marvel. And Captain Marvel, to me at least, is really kind of a boring character. Aside from her, and probably a brief appearance from Sam Jackson, there are no household names in the movie.4. The movie doesn’t look good. The trailers tease some multidimensional hijinks that should be fun, but that’s all sandwiched between tons and tons of CGI and probably the typical, predictable Marvel third act.
I think there are definitely casual viewers who don’t care and will just go see stuff, but I think the problem is that pool is getting smaller for a variety of reasons, some within Marvel’s control and some not.
The number of people willing to go to a movie has decreased because of the myriad other options available for entertainment now, and even the ones who are willing are choosier because its so damn expensive.
But I think there are casual moviegoers who do get the impression there’s too much to follow with the MCU, or they just aren’t interested any more at all. A few here for one reason, a few here for another reason, but it adds up.
This. I would also add that part of the appeal of the MCU to execs is that audiences will still show up for mediocre (and cheaper) content if it is related to the MCU at large. Iron Man 2, Thor 2 and Ant-Man 2 were pretty weak movies that did solid box office numbers in part because they were MCU films connected to the broader universe and theoretically brought in viewers who might not have cared otherwise.
timing thing, too! iron man 2 benefitted from knowing it was right before avengers, thor 2 befitted from coming out right after avengers, ditto ant man 2. one of the major draws for ant man 2 was how the hell it was gonna work post-blip.
Good points.
Disagree on Ant-Man 2. The first film was, at least to my recollection, the first MCU movie that had analysts questioning whether the money train that was the MCU was finally losing steam. imo AM2 was much, much better and more enjoyable than the first. Don’t really agree that it was a weak movie at all; if anything, it redeemed that particular franchise for me.
Ant-Man 2’s biggest flaw was not giving Walton Goggins more to do.
Also, those movies were sequels to popular movies – a lot of people saw Iron Man, and a lot of those same people saw Iron Man 2 (and then fewer of them saw Iron Man 3). Marvel didn’t invent sequels, or market saturation, but they took both of those things to a remarkable extreme.
it’s also only ever the people who have seen everything saying you don’t have to see everything to understand.
**This.** I don’t think they’re valuing the emotional connection that comes from having seen characters experience something versus the movie itself stopping to deliver exposition to catch everyone up. It’s supposed to be one of the advantages of a sequel: you can presume that audiences have seen the first movie and thus care about the characters, so you can jump right into the story. It’s one of the reasons the MCU has been praised for giving characters origin films before teaming them up later: to give general audiences a chance to get invested in characters they otherwise aren’t familiar with.I read somewhere recently that an earlier version of the The Marvels script outright assumed that audiences had watched all of the relevant shows, and I can’t help but wonder if that would have been a better movie (at the very least, it probably would have been better paced).
i haven’t seen the marvels yet (and probably won’t for a while) so i can’t speak to it, but yeah everything is supposed to piggyback off of everything else. the marvels feels like it was positioned as much as ‘the first marvels movie’ as it was ‘a sequel to 5 things’, which is confusing to say the least, and obviously confused/didn’t interest audiences.
Touché. But I still think there’s a difference between having to see everything to understand and just thinking you have to see everything to understand.
sure, but i also think when someone says ‘ah that looks too complicated i won’t understand it’ what they’re politely saying is ‘that looks stupid and i don’t care’like, i don’t think there’s a person out there who really, really wants to see the marvels but just can’t bring themselves to watch the other materials. they’re working backwards from ‘i don’t want to see this and i don’t care’
Exactly, and that brings me back to my original point from my first post in this thread that “the television shows have become too much to keep up with” is a poor argument. If you’re an MCU fan, then watching a total of twelve episodes of Loki and Secret Invasion, the only MCU shows to come out this year, is pretty easy. If you’re not a fan, and you just casually check out some of the MCU movies when you think they look fun, then are you even aware these shows exist? And do you need to be? Is the argument that people think they need to be watching all the shows to understand the movies?
ah okay, i get you.well i would describe it as more of a feeling than an argument, and that feeling has been a part of the mcu since at least the avengers. it’s just that more = more. more content means more people feel that way. i remember even 10 years my friends being like ‘yeah, i haven’t seen the last 2 movies so i don’t think i’ll understand it.’ and obviously i would be like ‘no no, it should make sense on its own’ but in hindsight that was them just…being done with it. i think the tv shows have accelerated that and given people even more of an offramp, which was obviously the opposite of the intent.but yes, sure, it’s ‘bullshit’ in the sense that it’s not literally true, but it’s hard to argue with feelings and many many people feel that way.
I consider myself a pretty big fan of the MCU (but not a comic reader). After Endgame I’ve fallen off and watched maybe 50% of shows and movies they’ve put out since. I liked Captain Marvel enough and I planned on watching the Marvels. But I haven’t seen Secret Invasion or Ms. Marvel. Because of this, I will NOT be buying a ticket to go see it. But it’s not because I think I won’t understand what’s going on and will be confused; it’s because I think it would be more enjoyable if I knew these characters and saw all their previous outings. In a perfect world, that means I’d go on Disney+ and watch the shows, then buy my movie ticket. But in reality I won’t because I don’t have any interest in those shows themselves and won’t be dedicating my time to them when there are plenty of other shows out there that interest me more.
By that same token, if people aren’t aware the shows exist, why would they go see a movie that ties into those shows? At the the very least, it makes a movie like The Marvels very hard to market, since the hook is a team-up between Captain Marvel and two Disney+ characters the audience may not have seen before.
To be fair though, aren’t the people who have seen everything the only ones with the knowledge to say that? If I hadn’t suffered through Secret Invasion, how would I be qualified to tell someone they didn’t need to see Secret Invasion to understand the new movie?
it’s easy to look at it like ‘i’ve seen it all so i’m in the best position to assess what’s essential and what isn’t’ but i look at it as more ‘i’ve seen everything, so i have no idea what a newcomer would connect to or care about’secret invasion might be awesome if it’s one of the first mcu things you’ve ever seen, how could we ever know? we can assume it wouldn’t be because we hated it, but we don’t know. i just think we need to entertain the notion that we don’t actually really know what it’s like to see a current mcu project fresh, because we never can.
I’ve been thinking along these lines for a while. The connected universe was the secret sauce in the first decade of the MCU, but now it’s become an inescapable burden on every new property Marvel cranks out.Every new release is immediately accompanied by a question of “Okay, but do I have to see this one?” and if the answer is anything other than yes, it’s disregarded. And if it is required viewing, it comes with its own set of homework. With The Marvels, there are at least two separate Disney+ series serving as prerequisites for a sequel to a fine but largely forgettable movie.In theory, the post-Endgame strategy was supposed to keep fans locked inside the neverending content mine. In practice, it’s only created points of failure that invite existing fans to throw up their hands and move on, while any new viewers looking to jump on board are faced with the challenge of scaling a mountain that just keeps getting taller and taller.
I think Multiverse of Madness completely rinses WandaVision, that show was bloated and cringey, Id have been happy if it was entirely a dream sequence or just ignored
I think the fundamental aspect I disagree with here is the last point about indie filmmakers, at least to a degree. This has actually turned out to be a pet peeve for me over the past few years where it has felt there has been the blame casting on the directors in defense of MCU and especially Feige.The thing for me isn’t that all those directors are good or that they shouldn’t be criticized. Rather that at this point I don’t even see how they could succeed because Disney seems to be hiring these people who are praised for having unique visions to do movies which are so constrained that there is little vision to enact. This is to me a fundamentally MCU/Disney issue.This is something I really pondered after watching Matt Reeves’s The Batman movie. I’m not making a comment about quality, as that is a subjective discussion, but you just know that MCU would never have allowed Reeves to do a film like that. And that to me is the core problem here.
The director thing confuses me too. It’s like the MCU wants the recognition of the director, but without any of the vision that director brings that makes it their own. The closest the MCU has come lately was Thor 3 (which was Waititi’s refreshing take on Thor, though with arguably diminishing returns) and Dr Strange 2 (a Raimi movie, but also kind of a mess). I would love to see the alternate universe where Edgar Wright made Ant-Man, because I am sure it is pretty good and looks different from the other MCU stuff.It the MCU was bold (and they are not, at this point), I would love to see them reach out to Scorsese and let him do whatever kind of Marvel superhero movie he wants to do. It would probably never even come to anything (Scorsese probably doesn’t care to get involved) but it would be a fun show of goodwill.
“Scorsese probably doesn’t care to get involved”That’s one hell of an understatement.
If Scorsesce made a movie for the MCU, every film student in the country would go on a rampage. That would serve no one.
funniest thing about scorsese/marvel is he was already in his 20s when spider-man was invented.also the comic books he would have read as a kid would have been like ‘sensational true tales of murder’ so in many ways he IS making comic book movies he just grew up before the comics code.
but riled up nerds are what the MCU thrives on!!!!
IDK – knowing how uniformly non-conformist film students are in a very narrow band of non-conformity – they would all line up for tickets.
The weird thing is that I almost feel the movies would be better if they just got a standard director. Like not a hack, but one of those steady hands, because at that point at least the movies would feel consistent. Hell, that’s pretty much the road to the final Avengers films.In the current iteration, for me at least there is this odd push and pull in the movies where you can almost feel where the film maker wanted to impose their vision and where the studio forced to make a Marvel movie. Like no one is winning here.I actually think the Raimi Strange movie is an excellent example of this as there was this huge build for it as being more of a horror movie. Yet when it came out, while it did have those situations where it leaned on the horror visuals and storytelling, it would then shift back to traditional superhero blam and punch stuff. Not even between scenes, but within the same scene with the Illuminati fight being a central example of that. Like it couldn’t figure out what kind of a movie it actually wanted to be.
or what kind of movie it was allowed to be.
I might be remembering wrong, but I think with Doctor Strange 2 the original pitch was for it to be horror-y. Marvel didn’t want that and it’s one of the reasons Derrickson left and Rami was brought on. So if that’s true Rami was never really trying to make an MCU horror movie.
Jonathan Frakes comes to mind here.
Yeah, I think Frakes could direct a completely fine Marvel movie.
Agreed. The MCU is turning into Star Wars at this point – it’s so big that there is an appetite to keep going to the well that works, but also a desire to let new creative visions in and bring in new audience members (and perhaps keep some who are finding the whole thing a bit stale after 15 years). They think they are getting the best of both worlds, but instead it turns into half-assing both.Personally, I would love to see them relinquish some control and let filmmakers play in the sandbox. As a poster below notes, DS2 was supposed to be a horror film until Disney got skittish and wanted to make it a sort of dark-looking MCU film. I have no problem with a stable of directors who make the “main” MCU films leading up to the Avengers, but why not give directors with their own visions some lesser properties and let them run with it? It worked for GotG.
The olde fashioned term is a “journeyman director” – someone who knows how to manage of production and make an elegant product but doesn’t have a particular stamp. MCU arguably hit the sweet spot with the Russo Brothers, but making two of the most lucrative movies ever opens doors.
I mean yeah, you’re probably right, should have let safe ol’ Mandolorian director helm them all honestly. Branagh was wasted and (like most of the bigger name directors) says he’ll never do another. Whedon truly seems to be the only one given freedom and Avengers was amazing for it….though he ‘over-Whedoned’ AoA, unfortunately (still, Hulk vs Hulkbuster is a highlight of any of the films). Too bad Whedon’s an asshat, apparently.
I’d love for Scorsese to take the piss on both MCU and himself simultaneously by casting Robert De Niro as OLD MAN, the superhero whose superpower is that he’s fucking old, and so completely done with this shit. But then also sometimes he gets digitally de-aged… but still acts and moves like he’s eighty-five.“That’s my secret, Kate,” he says, as he de-ages in the sloppiest and most non-credible way possible. “I’m always old!”
The MCU doesn’t even need someone as idiosyncratic as Matt Reeves or Martin Scorsese. They just need to trust the directors and screenwriters they hire. Quantumania boasted a writer who’s a Rick and Morty alum, and the only thing Rick and Morty-ish in the movie was a few jokes from William Jackson Harper’s character. Everything else was either extremely formulaic or setting up future movies, which they don’t actually need a director or screenwriter for.Heck, The Marvels was directed by Nia DaCosta and written by DaCosta and 2 other women. I’d bet money that they were the ones who thought of the Aladna scenes, the training montage, and the cat-herding sequence (spoilers kept minimal), to name 3 of the best things in the movie. Problem is, The Marvels isn’t the movie they wrote; it’s the one Disney cut to pieces.
Oh, wasn’t suggesting that Marvel needs to something as fundamentally different as Reeves did with Batman, just meant it as an example. And completely agreed with everything you wrote.Somehow making things worse is that Marvel does lean on who are making their films during their marketing. For example, I do remember that Rick and Morty aspect being a part of the discussion leading to Quantamania, which made the end result even more disappointing.
They hire indie directors because they’re cheap and don’t have much clout. Take someone who’s made a movie with a couple million dollar budget, pay them scale, but put them “in charge” of a $200M movie with huge movie star.Hard for anyone to say no to, but they also realize that it’s much more of a TV directing job than a movie one, in the end. You’re not making “your” movie, you’re steering the boat on an “episode” of someone else’s.
The point I really agree with is that they are sucking up talent and not putting them to good use. I love Benson and Moorehead’s movies, for example, and I’m glad they’re presumably getting good paydays doing Loki episodes, but we’d all be better off with another Spring or The Endless.
It’s not just that they hire independent directors and then don’t let them put personal stamps on the movies – it’s also that you’re putting a novice driver in the charge of a Formula 1 race team. Asking someone who’s only worked on smaller productions to manage something of that scale and scope is begging for a sloppy outcome.
Having seen and loved Nomadland, The Eternals continues to baffle me as project that was just completely bungled by giving it to Chloé Zhao. It misfires on every level: from actors to director to writer to executive oversight, not one person seem to have a solid handle on the material or real sense of what they were trying to achieve with the movie, and the fact that every movie since has essentially decided to ignore it doesn’t shock me.
I think there’s a great superhero movie to be made with Zhao’s sensibilities and talent. And a massive ensemble-piece introducing an audience to one of Marvel’s most outre and unknown franchises wasn’t it.
for me, personally, the disney+ stuff just ruined the whole operation.it flattened everything out. on one hand, loki season 2 almost felt like a movie, whereas black panther 2 felt like a condensed season of tv and ant man 3 felt like a stretched out pilot episode. secret invasion felt like a sustained head injury.and most importantly i just no longer feel the urgency. i don’t really care about spoilers because i don’t feel like the overall story is going anywhere, and i don’t feel like the individual stories being told are particularly interesting. i don’t care about theorizing ‘what’s gonna happen next’ (which was always the fun part of this whole thing!) because…i don’t really care what happens next. you can see it in the fandom too – the mcu comment sections used to be blast arguing about what was gonna happen next. now it’s all amateur box office reporting.on top of that, because there’s just SO much content coming out constantly, i’m never compelled to rewatch anything. i don’t think i’ve revisited an mcu property since endgame.
secret invasion felt like a sustained head injury.I don’t agree, but I love the imagery.
Exactly. Said it before and will continue saying it. Forcing the MCU to seriously expand its scope beyond the silver screen was and is a disastrous decision. Before D+ there was Netflix Marvel and even the ABC shows which had MCU cast was all handled by different people. Feige and most of the movie people didn’t give a shit about TV and vice versa. It all worked pretty great, even when TV side shit the bed or the MCU slipped everyone could easily recover and the brand never suffered. Now Feige has to be involved in everything and is spread too thin and now the MCU is beginning to shit the bed and the brand is in trouble. They have to make a choice or choose to emphasize what’s important. This “it’s all important” and all made by the same people approach is all wrong.
i’m never compelled to rewatch anythingI have been thinking about this a lot and how there is just too much content everywhere so I am not compelled to watch anything. For while it was okay and I would go to movie/tv reviewers I trusted to figure out if I should watch something but now it’s just overwhelming. I actually miss having things scheduled, if I wanted to watch Buffy I gotta be home on Tuesday at 8:00pm. But now I can watch whatever I want, whenever I want so I just…don’t watch anything. So it isn’t just Marvel, it’s everything. I really wanted to watch Fall of the House of Usher but I have been able to get myself to even press play.
it’s not even the volume of content it’s just that i feel no urgency.i feel this way about music, too. with spotify, i already have the ‘album’ in my ‘collection’ when i wake up, what does it matter?
Sure— a fair amount of “urgency” is driven by the zeitgeist. You have to see it now because spoilers are going to be everywhere in 12-24 hours. But if there is so much stuff any given week that almost nothing becomes The Thing Everyone Is Talking About, then, hey, you can catch that next week or next month or whenever, and, whoosh— urgency evaporates. (That said, I find in general I am enjoying things SO MUCH MORE when I watch them well after they’ve come out and no one is talking about them, and with that no prevailing opinion is in the zeitgeist trying to tell me that I Should Love This or I Should Hate This. It’s very freeing.)
The Marvels is great. The problem is that it’s the first genuinely fun MCU movie in a while with a run time that didn’t require bathroom breaks. (OK, I’m also partial to Multiverse because I love Raimi but I still hated what they did to Wanda.)
My issue is that every movie now promises a tease of what’s really going on and then there are no answers. I thought Kang was going to escape in Quantumania, but no, it was just a standalone with no repercussions for the rest of the MCU. Also, they have introduced so many damn characters via the movies and TV shows, and there’s no sense of whether we’ll ever see them again. Moon Knight and Werewolf by Night were cool, but is that it for those characters?
But yes, more Ms. Marvel. And bring on frickin’ Squirrel Girl while we’re at it. If Marvel is going to circle the drain, go weird!
I didn’t care for any of the scenes that were not Kamala-based. Fortunately I think the director realized that and squeezed her family in there as much as they could.
I don’t like women or PoC
Or maybe, the studio needs to back off a bit, worry less about the whole interconnected nature of the universe where every movie is a commercial for the next movie, and get back to making solid, standalone character pieces that draw on great comic book storylines.100% this.
There’s a YouTube video out there that I can’t recall the name of right now, but it was about why the 3rd movie in superhero trilogies usually suck. IIRC, it goes thusly:- The 1st movie is a gamble, the studio doesn’t really get the IP but hopes it’ll make money, they hire a director who’s an avowed fan but keep him on a short leash, especially in regards to the budget.- When it’s a hit, the director gets all the credit, the studio throws a lot more money his way for the sequel, he also gets a lot more creative control, and that’s usually why the 2nd movie tends to be the best.- By the time of the 3rd movie, things go south. The studio now knows they have a huge cash cow and every young and hungry studio exec wants a piece of it. The director now finds himself with a lot less creative control, having to take notes from lots of people who weren’t involved in the first 2 movies. And the budget is bigger than ever, which is what the studio uses to justify even greater creative interference.
I think something like this is happening with Marvel, and it’s probably a miracle it didn’t happen sooner. Bob Iger’s directive to make lots of TV shows on Disney+ probably necessitated a flood of those young and hungry studio execs to “oversee” all these new projects, and most of them probably had no prior experience in the MCU. And studio execs tend to be business school graduates and not creatives, which means their supervision tends to be of a very mercenary “let’s extend the IP” nature rather than decisions that actually make good movies.Again, the surprising thing is why something like this is only happening now and not 10 movies ago. I think something like the “honeymoon phase” that usually occurs during 2nd movies stretched all the way to Phase 3 and Endgame (in my opinion, the last really good MCU movie). They had filmmakers like the Russo brothers, James Gunn, and also screenwriters like Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (The Winter Soldier, Civil War, Infinity War and Endgame) enjoying unprecedented amounts of creative freedom for several movies. So part of the current post-Endgame MCU malaise is because most of them have retired, apparently by choice. And no other director/screenwriter they hire is getting the kind of freedom they got.I mean, I can’t be the only one who thinks most of the recent MCU stuff have have suffered from very heavy-handed studio interference, am I? Shallow and watered-down political issues were in everything from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier to Secret Invasion, The Marvels clearly had a great deal of nuance and ambiguity chopped out of it, and more than ever things happen in movies that serve no purpose than to set up future movies (an accusation often hurled at the MCU, but I never really agreed with it until now). I think the real question is, if Kevin Feige’s hand on the wheel had prevented these things all this time, why are things so shaky now? Maybe it was never his hand on the wheel; maybe it was just pure luck that the creative alchemy was so good in Phases 1-3, and that luck has just run out.
yeah i think feige has always gotten way too much praise and very little criticism.the successes were always because of him, the failures were always other people.
Why do people always retroactively ignore the fact that there was a pandemic and multiple strikes in between this phase. And they can hardly be blamed for Jonathan Majors being a p.o.s.!
Who’s ignoring the pandemic? In 2021, 4 of the 6 highest grossing films of the year were MCU movies, and #3 is Venom 2. #1 is Spider-Man: No Way Home, which made so much money that it’s also the 9th highest grossing film for 2022, because it came out near the end of 2021. Jump ahead to 2023, and the highest grossing MCU film is Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3 at #4 (Quantumania is #8). Other than The Marvels, no MCU movies have come out during the strikes, so I’m not sure what they have to do with “this phase.”
The pandemic didn’t affect the ability of writers to write good scripts or require Disney to greenlight them when they weren’t ready. The pandemic explains some of the lower box office, but the drop in quality is an unforced error.
That doesn’t make any sense. You don’t think a bunch of people dying and depressing changes to how people lived for a long time affected writers, who are also human beings living in the world? It definitely also impacted how special effects teams were working
Even if I grant that writers may have been slowed in their ability to write because of psychological issues (an iffy argument at best among the writers I know), it still doesn’t mean Disney was forced to greenlight series and films before they were ready. They’d been doing that shit before the pandemic (*cough* Star Wars) and only got worse about it afterwards.
yeah, that’s true. Agreed
I dunno people like to dump all over the current phase but I would say a lot of it has been good to great. I personally enjoy Black Widow, Ms. Marvel, She Hulk, and Th4r , but I would also highlight Shang-Chi, NWH, MoM, Black Panther 2, GotG 3, Wandavision, Loki, and Hawkeye.And people also like to ignore all the stuff Marvel got wrong in the prior eras (Incredible Hulk, Thor 2, Iron Man 2, Ultron, Inhumans, Ant Man 2). I honestly think people are wearing rose-tinted glasses and also their target audience is becoming older and surlier about what they used to like.
It’s rather telling that the one “anti-gay” grey troll posting in the thread is also the one that posted all of that excrement porn over on Jezebel.
I guess he’s full of excrement in several ways.
I think it’s difficult to ignore the fatigue argument when you look at the sheer amount of material being released now as opposed to back in 2008. I’m admittedly a die-hard sucker for this stuff, but I’m also a 45 year old adult and between the volume and concerns that don’t involve grown adults in spandex punching each other, it’s difficult to keep up. I haven’t watched Moon Knight or Ms Marvel in their entirety, not because I’m with the herp-derp “omg woke Marvel” crowd, but because I just… haven’t gotten to them. There’s that, there’s Star Wars stuff (haven’t watched Andor yet either), there’s trying to watch Succession at the whopping pace of one whole episode a week (and not even always accomplishing that; hell, we skipped a couple weeks just for our annual Over the Garden Wall watch)… hell, these days inbetween all that, adulting, and my ADHD, I barely keep up with reading the entirety of my bimonthly comic pull list.For the most part, I’ve enjoyed the MCU output to greater or lesser degrees, except for Secret Invasion, which was just an awful dumpster fire of a show. I very much enjoyed the first Captain Marvel, and ditto for the Marvels (Iman Vellani was an absolute delight, and I loved the source material), but… man. The thing is, I think the really hardcore MCU/cape film fans seem to react badly to any suggestion of ‘fatigue’ because they see it as an automatic dig at the quality of the product, but it isn’t necessarily. There are only so many hours in the day.
Out of all that, I’d focus on Succession and Andor.
We just got done with the 6th episode of S3 of Succession this last Sunday, so slowly but surely we’re getting through it.
They should have never killed off Tony Stark/Iron Man in this matter and they killed off Captain America way too soon. The decline started right there.
The told a nice, satisfying, complete story with a bunch of characters people love…and then, instead of doing the smart thing and giving all of us a fucking break, they just kept powering on with more movies and a bunch of new TV series because Disney had just launched a new streaming service and they needed to juice subscriptions. So now the audience for superhero movies are back to around where they were pre-MCU—they’ll watch individual installments with the characters they like, but I don’t think anyone feels obligated anymore to watch every single thing Marvel puts out.
this is the other thing too – there isn’t an infinite, forever audience of this stuff! even the biggest comic book fans usually stop reading at some point. and there are way more varied movie-types out there than comic books. the other thing is noone i know who stopped watching marvel movies ever came back.
I keep saying they should’ve taken a five-year break after Endgame and recalibrated. In retrospect, with the pandemic about to strike, it would have been perfect timing.
I like how they introduced a bunch of minor characters, and then they tried to be like, “Hey, these minor characters are the main characters now! But don’t worry, it’s just as good!” Nope, sorry dude. A TV show about Hawkeye would have been a solid punchline to a joke 15 years ago, and things haven’t changed that much.
There’s another common thread with the MCU’s best films that is now missing: the Russo Brothers. I don’t think it’s coincidence that the whole MCU got a huge boost in quality starting with Winter Soldier (a movie that single-handedly put Captain America in the running for everyone’s favorite superhero for the first time in history) and continuing through Endgame. They introduced a number of new characters (Falcon, Black Panther, Spider-Man) that quickly became fan favorites (seems obvious now, but not a guarantee then), while also fleshing out several previously introduced heroes (Black Widow, Bucky, Scarlet Witch, Vision) for the first time in any real way. The Guardians were just as good in the Russos’ movies as in their own; Thanos, Doctor Strange and Nick Fury were all improved. Endgame even gave payoffs to Frigga, The Ancient One and The Red Skull in ways that weren’t just fanservice, but built to bigger story moments for current characters. I’ve always said that the MCU’s success was largely by improvising, rather than some elaborate plan. But you need to have good improvisers to pull that off – to take Shang-Chi or She-Hulk from where they left off, pay off previous appearances, and build towards future ones. And instead, the post-Endgame content feels very much like content, pushed purely to keep people subscribed to Disney Plus and meet quarterly earnings goals – and tellingly, without any showrunners to maintain those important character/thematic elements. I don’t think the Russo Brothers are irreplaceable, but I do think someone should try and replace them.
I agree with all of this, but I feel we may need to change “Russo Brothers” to “Markus and McFeely.” They wrote all those great entries and that’s not to diminish the Russo Brothers’ work on them, but everything they’ve touched since Endgame has been kind of crap, (Yes, I know they also collaborated on the screenplay for Gray Man with Joe Russo, but it’s tough to see who’s totally to blame for that one). Markus and McFeely just seemed to “get” the Marvel characters and they made those huge casts work beautifully.
To be fair, Spider-Man was always going to be a fan favorite. He’s been a fan favorite for half a century (ditto Black Panther). But I mention this in another thread – the Russos were a great example of a journeyman directing team. They had some panache, they clearly worked well with the studio brass, and their directorial “signature” was getting out of the material’s way. (The guy from American Psycho would love their appealing sheen of professionalism.) That’s all to say that TV directors are probably better suited to this kind of thing than movie directors. Give the next one to Ernest Dickerson, he’ll make hay with it.
I might buy that Black Panther was a “fan favorite” for some comic book readers, especially since the 2000s (or whenever it was Marvel tried pushing him harder by linking him to Storm romantically), but he was far from a guaranteed success for any live-action adaptation. He never had any kind of widespread name recognition until after his Civil War appearance. Like, even less so than with Iron Man, who at least had a cartoon in the ‘90s on Fox.But you might be on to something with the TV director idea – being used to a more long-form storytelling can’t hurt with these serialized franchises. And I also think that the fact that there were two Russos to split directing responsibilities, plus their collabs with Markus and McFeely on the screenplays as Doug pointed out? Teamwork makes the dream work!
You’re telling me Disney took something fun and overdid it? also see: “live-action” remakes, Star Wars, any story in the public domain et. al.
I disagree. The live-action remakes were never fun.
I don’t want to put words in their mouth, but I think they mean that the “live action” remakes ruined the fun animated originals. So, in that case, we are all in agreement. 🙂
worry less about the whole interconnected nature of the universe where every movie is a commercial for the next movie, and get back to making solid, standalone character pieces that draw on great comic book storylines.When has the MCU ever been about this, lol…I get so irritated with this particular talking point, the interconnected nature was basically the biggest selling point of the MCU… My personal opinion is that there are just too many ideas and not enough talent(i.e. writers/VFX artists) behind the scenes to do it right, add to that, you can’t please everyone, especially when everyone has a different agenda or idea as to what they think they want to see and if they don’t get exactly what they want, then the product is terrible and of no value…
I think it’s more about the quickly waning desire of people to go to a theater than the quality of the offering(s).With a decent sound system and 65 inch TV costing about, what, $1,500 why bother with going to theaters?
Five Night’s at Freddy’s was available to stream the same day that it was released in theaters, and a lot of people still chose to leave the house. Annual box office revenue is down from its peak in 2018, but in spite of that, it’s inching its way back up post-pandemic.People have been saying for a while that people only go out to movie theaters for “events” (see: Barbenheimer, Taylor Swift, etc), and I think there’s a lot of truth to that. But those events also demonstrate that people are willing to turn out in droves to watch a movie in a theater, for lots of reasons (the social aspect probably being the biggest). I think what you’re seeing with Marvel is that the quality of their offerings has declined, and people are decreasingly likely to feel like an MCU movie is an event anymore. They’ll catch it on D+.
Got it. Thanks.My three sons and I went to the theater for Freddy’s and GOTG3, so you’re probably right.And as others have said already in these comments maybe it’s the paucity of creative talent holding it back too. The Russos and Gunn are apparently out of the running now. Maybe Marvel needs to grab the Daniels and Lord&Miller and let them do their thing.I can see the greatness that Solo would have been had Lord&Miller been permitted to finish doing their thing without interference.Also see the writer of Going Red and the writer of The Mitchells vs the Machines.
While FNAF did have same day streaming, it was A. on Peacock, which is definitely not as popular a platform and B. that fact wasn’t widely advertised. So folks who were Very Excited about FNAF probably went to the theater anyway because they didn’t know it would be streaming or didn’t have Peacock. And, certainly, I know my bar for seeing in the theater has gotten very high, where it has to be: A. Is some element worth seeing on a Very Big Screen, B. Is it something I’m very excited to see sooner rather than later and usually also C. Same as B but for my wife. In 2023 that pretty much only meant Mission Impossible. I would imagine for a lot of folks, there’s similar calculus going on, especially if they’re paying for several streaming platforms.
It seems odd to me that someone would be excited for FNAF but unaware that it’s going to be available on Peacock the same day as it’s released in theaters, but I agree that it’s likely that a lot of people who were excited for FNAF probably weren’t existing Peacock subscribers. However, the price of one month of Peacock Premium is more than likely still less than the price of one movie ticket in their area. Grab a buddy and it unquestionably makes more economic sense to watch it at home. I only mention all of this because the OP asked why people would bother with going to theaters. I don’t know the answer, but they’re doing it.But I digress. I do a similar calculus as you, and I think you’re absolutely right that a lot of folks do too.
Someone in another comment suggested that “people want to see a horror movie in a theater on Halloween weekend” was probably something of a factor, and there is merit to that concept. And it was the only significant horror movie that opened that weekend. Frankly, looking at the box office weekend numbers for the past weeks, it’s been pretty anemic in general— with The Marvels having the third strongest opening since Barbenheimer weekend. (After FNAF and the Taylor Swift concert movie. I’ve been saying that Box Office has become even more of a broken metric for measuring “success” (or “failure”) of a movie, especially in the latest pearl-clutching conversations about MCU.
it’s been a strike, man. the studios have held back tons of releases that were planned. it’s not a particularly helpful timeline to be looking at.
Oh, absolutely true. I was just surprised at how anemic it actually was.
I don’t think the box office is a broken metric, or at least no more now than ever. Movies are considered successes or failures based on whether they make more money than the studio spent on production and marketing. People tend to not take long tail revenue into account, like licensing, merchandising, rentals, etc., because that information isn’t generally provided to the public (nor are accurate production budgets, for that matter; they only release estimates). So people focus on box office numbers a lot because they are the biggest, most publicly available numbers available, and they wouldn’t be able to discuss measuring the success or failure of movies otherwise.The past few weeks have undoubtedly been anemic, but annual theatrical box office revenue has already surpassed last year’s, and there’s still a month and a half of 2023 left. Every month this year except May has outgrossed the previous year. I would also point out that historically, the box office numbers drop sharply from July to August, and then again in September before picking back up in October. This year was no different, and again, still higher than last year.I think this shows that the box office has taken a huge hit from COVID, and it’s still not back up to the level it was before the pandemic shut everything down, but it is trending in the right direction. The problem that has plagued movies this year is the same, exact problem that has been plaguing the industry for the past decade, which is studios spending way too much money on production. If The Marvels had cost $50 million to make, no one would have batted an eye at it opening at $47 million. Instead it cost $220 million without including marketing costs (which in its defense may have been lower than normal depending on who you ask), and it’s going to struggle to break even. They spent way too much.https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/?ref_=bo_nb_my_secondarytab
Absolutely right on all points. The problem that has plagued movies this year is the same, exact problem that has been plaguing the industry for the past decade, which is studios spending way too much money on production.Not to veer into tin-hat territory, but I wonder how much of those public production budgets are truly the costs of the film, and how much are “extras” hidden within the budgets, and thus the perception of a “flop” can be sold regardless of how much money it makes. For example, Superman Returns made a little of $200 million, but because it’s “budget” was based on a bunch of stuff that had nothing to do with the production of that actual movie, it was a “flop”. (This, despite the fact that to not be a flop, it would have had to been the most successful superhero movie to date.)
Amen on budgets. Bob Iger even talked about that as far back as February. The confounding issue is right now we’re still working through projects that were in production before those budget reductions could begin, & with the extra delays from the strikes (& now reshoots on Brave New World that are almost certainly intended to remove a controversial character from the film in reaction to current events), Marvel is still gonna be releasing those high budget films for the next year+ as well.Unfortunately, that means we’ll be dealing with the same conversation being repeated probably 4 more times, from people who either didn’t know the problem is already being addressed or who are just pretending not to know, when Deadpool 3, Brave New World, Thunderbolts, and Blade all come out.
Very good point. Another article pointed out that, even with its horrible opening weekend, The Marvels still out-grossed the next *9* films combined.
I would add that there are people who love to see horror movies in a theater with an audience. Especially around Halloween.
I mean, Echo looks pretty neat, but I’m otherwise pretty done with Marvel, or at least the obligation of needing to see these movies to blend in with pop culture. I think those days are over for a lot of people, and no amount of promising Dr. Doom or X men will bring them back.
And yeah, not to overstate the obvious, but like … a lot of their Phase 4 stuff just wasn’t any good. Some of it was quite good! (GotG 3, Spider Man FFH, and even Wakanda Forever despite a massive void left by Boseman’s sudden death) Some of it was shockingly bad (Secret War, Quantumania, Love and Thunder). But most of it has been middling: a bunch of meandering, messy and uneven stories with squandered potential (perpetual loner Black Widow suddenly having a family, Love & Thunder’s examination of what mortality means to an immortal god who keeps losing loved ones), abrupt character redirections (Loki as a time cop, Scarlet Witch and Sharon Carter’s heel turns), and blatantly neutered or deeply unconsidered political takes (some of Wakanda Forever, all of Falcon & Winter Soldier, parts of Ms. Marvel, and yikes Secret Invasion). So not only was there just sooooo much content to follow, most of it wasn’t worth following. And you’d only find out by watching about half of any given show or movie if it was worthwhile – for example, Moon Knight’s setup as a Legion-like series, where the main character’s sanity was perpetually in question, rapidly devolved into a straightforward punch-up by episode 3 or 4.So no, I’m not rushing out to see the next one in theaters. Especially when I’m already paying for Disney Plus and it’s gonna be on there in a few months.
Love and Thunder was such a disappointment, which was surprising, because Waititi juggled tone so well in Jojo Rabbit, but it’s kind of hard to do a cancer/godkiller story combined with “Russell Crowe’s silly accents and screaming goats.” Those things just did not mesh well at all.
What’s working: They still have a treasure trove of material to work with. Some would argue that Infinity Saga aside, they really have only touched one 1 or 2 of the best storylines in Marvel canon. The X-Men and Fantastic Four have a disproportionate number of the best storylines and haven’t been explored at all in the MCU. Generally speaking, they also have casted the roles extremely well. With a few exceptions, I’m very happy with how they’ve casted the roles, and even the exceptions, I don’t believe the problem is the performer, but rather they just may not be a fit for the specific role (i.e. Brie Larson as Carol Danvers. Love Brie, but she and the character just seem too incompatible). What’s not working: Basically everything else. You need people to turn those great storylines into great screenplays for those great actors to perform. You have to create stakes and a reason for us to invest all this time into these characters. They have been falling so remarkably short in that goal.Obviously, they were dealt a very unfortunate blow with Chadwick’s death, which really screwed up their future plans. I believe he and Tom Holland were going to take up the RDJ/Chris Evans positions and the leaders of the franchise. I don’t think they’ve reformulated that plan and are basically still a rudderless ship floating adrift until they find *that* person in the form of a character. Maybe it will be Reed Richards, but that makes the casting of that role all the more important.Add to that the over-saturation of material. They were far to aggressive with their content roll out. I welcome the delays and schedule changes as long as it’s occurring because Marvel realize they needed a course correction.Is it too much to ask to get decent looking visual effects? The over-reliance on greenscreen has resulted in the entire environment feeling completely washed out and empty. Go back to actual sets and work in more practical effects.
As a relatively casual comics fan, how many of those major Marvel storylines from X-Men and FF would be new to the screen in general though? The previous X-Men movies have mined a lot of them that I can think of, and FF has already done Silver Surfer and Galactus, which is the biggest one I can think of. I’m sure there are big ones left, and the MCU could redo some of them (but PLEASE, not Dark Phoenix), but how many huge ones are left completely untouched?
There are quite a few, but your point is well taken. I could definitely see Marvel wanting to redo Silver Surfer/Galactus, Days of Future Past, and Dark Phoenix (3rd time’s a charm, right?). Whether or not fans would want to see them again is another question. I’d definitely want to see Galactus done properly, of course.Otherwise, there’s:Kang Dynasty is obviously something they’re into and is a F4 storylineDays of Future *Present* which is a direct F4/X-Men crossoverHouse of M (very easy to transition into that if Wanda is recognized as a mutant, we somewhat got a preview of it with WandaVision)Contest of Chaos (could be very likely we get this one since it involves Agatha Harkness)Age of Apocalypse OnslaughtYou’d be surprised how many major storylines/crossover events there are that can’t be told without the X-Men and F4.
The answer is so evident but everyone is far too afraid to say it, clearly. God forbid we be honest with each other.
My least favourite Marvel film/TV show of late has been Multiverse of Madness but even that had some great scenes. The quality is still head and shoulders above every action franchise and if you want to see how rough they could be check out the non-Batman DC movies. The “It’s all about to collapse” story has been going on since before the first Guardians.
I love that there are 118 comments as I’m typing this, and no one bothered to guess what MCU property Barsanti is boycotting. Ha!
I could not care less about him and his inane snark, and I certainly don’t care about his cause du jour.
Yeah, he can keep his passive-aggressive BS.
My guess would be Ant-man, he specified it was a movie, and there’s only been 3 this year (unless he’s including the Sonyverse, it’s Barsanti, so maybe he is). Between Jonathan Majors and Bill Murray being in it, I’m thinking that’s it.
I don’t think it’s the material but too much material? The CV: old time lapsed comic reader, MCU follower if not fan (not watching everything anymore), just saw Marvels today (liked it!).In general, the MCU is small c conservative—to me meaning a pretty good floor in quality, but also a ceiling in ambition. While the ceiling definitely chafes, they’ve been stretching (and failing), a lot of what’s going on is choice fatigue that’s honestly familiar as a comic reader. As the amount of material has expanded, it’s started diversifying in tone as it tries to give creators some room to play, but for me, GoG3 was slightly horrory, and the Marvels was more like a YA/kids movie, and that was fine, but Captain Marvel wasn’t, and most MCU products aren’t. If there were comics, I’d pick up that Esad Ribic Loki series with completely different expectations than the modern Loki comics, or even Loki appearing in The Mighty Thor.
The movie studio is actually named Marvel. What do people expect? Romantic comedies?
Here’s my hot take: It’s not that the latest phase of the Marvel universe is too connected, it’s that it’s not connected ENOUGH. Only Ant-Man and Loki seem connected to Kang in the slightest. Black Widow was a prequel to the former phases. Shang-Chi? Briefly in She-Hulk, right? Eternals? Not a word (somewhat thankfully). No Way Home has a tangential relation to MoM, but nowhere near what it was originally going to be. It’s still not connected to Kang, really, other than the idea of a multi-verse. Love and Thunder has nothing to do with it and was completely mishandled unless you think of it as the story from Korg’s viewpoint. Wakanda Forever is a stand-alone sequel to Black Panther. Quantumania is the setup for Kang and a poor one at that. Guardians is the final chapter in its own standalone series.
Falcon, Winter Soldier, Yelena, and Kate Bishop will have been on the sideline for four years by the time their movies show up. Nobody knows if we’ll see She-Hulk or Moon Knight again. None of these properties feel connected to the Multiverse Saga, either. I’m guessing Fantastic Four will lean more into the Multiverse than the Power Cosmic, at least for their first film, but who really knows? It’s supposed to be out in two years and there’s not even a cast yet. Is there a script?So, yeah, I feel like it’s too discombobulated, too incohensive. Whereas Infinity Saga seemed to have a plan, a well-thought-out roadmap that needed a course correction here and there, the content we’ve gotten 2021 feels like a bunch of people driving to different places on the map.
Maybe its not that people are getting tired of superheo movies. Maybe they (like me) just would rather wait a few months and stream it at home.Rotten Tomatoes has the Marvels at 60+ percent. So, people seem to think it’s decent. I am willing to bet The Marvels streaming numbers will be high.
In response to Sam’s comment about Kang as third-tier, I agree, he’s a big bad guy, but he’s easily pushed to the side, recycled, or recast (this is true in the comics a lot also). The easy transition I think is to build up Kang (ultimately as the red herring), with Doom as the final reveal kicking off Secret Wars, similar to the comics version of the most recent iteration of Secret Wars. “It was never Kang, it was always Doom.”
Which will feel cheap and shitty, because without laying the groundwork through the previous movies for that… it will be cheap and shitty.
Maybe, depends on how much they use the FF movie to prep, obviously Doom will figure prominently there.
I post it every time a “what’s wrong with MCU” article comes up – they got away from a winning formula. They had a good thing going when they had actual phases that culminated in a team-up movie that paid off at least some of the hanging threads. There has been little to no big payoffs in their latest phases and so they’re not building the hype / excitement that they used to have.Factor in that Marvel also tried to double their output and spread themselves thin in the process and it really isn’t surprising they’re struggling.
I don’t think there’s superhero fatigue when The Boys, Gen V, and Invincible are still going strong. There might be fatigue for the MCU specifically, and all the homework needed to keep up is pretty annoying, but when audiences really want to see something, they still generally turn up. The issue here is one of satisfaction with what’s being delivered, and that’s where things have been a mixed bag. At this point, a “good” MCU project now is only good comparatively speaking.
Some are saying these new characters aren’t as interesting, and there’s no reason that should be the case… Unless the work isn’t being put in to make them interesting. The characterizations and journeys are lazier than they used to be. We have an entirely new slate of heroes who are either gifted their greatness or are automatically great, with little put in to earning it. And Disney basically dared audiences to tell them that doesn’t matter.
But there’s hope. There’s always hope. Despite the vitriol, fandoms are surprisingly optimistic by nature, always willing to give their favorite stuff another chance. And continued interest for what’s down the line proves that. But how many times have we been excited for something only for it to wane, after we’ve seen what they did with it? People want to like Marvel’s movies and shows. Marvel isn’t giving them a reason to. The problems are entirely creative, and to say otherwise is to stick your head in the sand, and why things haven’t changed.
In a roundabout defense of MCU, I honestly cannot see anybody getting sick of The Boys because they got sick of the MCU, or vice-versa. The Boys is a giant helping of gross-out scenes, excessive violence, cussing, nudity, fucking, and straight-up gross weirdness. It’s unapologetically dystopian, and just flat-out fucked. I’d love for Deadpool 3 to try to beat it at its own game, but it doesn’t seem bloody likely.
Invincible is walking a tightrope. It’s much more obviously a commentary on DC than Marvel (“What if Superman were actually a secret invader in a world where superheroes and supernaturals are literally everywhere?”) and, even though it does have a collection of somewhat-ground-level stories and concerns woven through it, I still think it’s different enough from the MCU to avoid cross-fatigue.
Whoever wrote the introduction: When this article went up, The Marvels was already at $110 million worldwide. The truth is already bad; you don’t need to get facts wrong to make it look worse.I’m also really tired of seeing “Like what’s going on exactly? No one seems to know!” repeated verbatim in discussions like this. It isn’t true, & the number of people who keep repeating it is really suspicious.
They pandered to wrong demographics in an attempt to “be with it.” But, as we know, we constantly change what “it” is. Should’ve stuck to remaining loyal to your primary fanbase (see: white men), since that’s the one that really helped put the MCU on the map in the first place.
The idea that X-Men is going to save anything in the MCU is a pipe dream. We’ve already had 20+ years of X-Men movies, some some them even pretty good. They’ve already mined some of the biggest story arcs of the comics, at least that someone that isn’t a major comics fan might recognize. They might get a bump from the curiosity of seeing a new cast, but people are acting like its this rich, untapped vein that’s going to completely turn things around and I just don’t see it.
ditto fantastic four. i also, frankly, do not want to see an additional 30 characters with superpowers in this universe.
It is kind of funny. People want X-Men in the MCU. But if you ask “doing what?” the answer is probably just, “Being X-Men.” That said, they have the advantage of a deep roster that tends to rotate over time. If they made a movie about the 80s Claremont team with Colossus, Kitty Pride, and Nightcrawler I’d probably buy a ticket just out of nostalgia.
I don’t know if I ever actually bought an X-men book even in my comic buying days, but it always seemed to me like Marvel comics could be divided into two things: X-Men stuff and everything else. There’s just so damn many of them.So yeah, maybe you could get away with a movie or two that didn’t feature Wolverine, Cyclops,etc, but I also don’t think that fires up the public interest the same way the usual gang does. Marvel is kind of stuck either way with the X-men.
They need to slow it down and rethink. Doing this much content per year can’t be good for quality control. Before Endgame, a project could be lesser but it was OK as it was a part of the puzzle. Now, a lesser entry is a huge disappointment. Kang is not as cool as Thanos, the big guns of the Avengers seem to be done with the roles. Maybe they should reboot it all. Not sure Young Avengers vs. Kang is going to bring the audience back in. I think there’s a general franchise fatigue: Mission Impossible, Fast & Furious, Indiana Jones all fell this year. One $300 mil film can be a hit, having more than of dozen oif those per year can’t happen.
They went downhill the moment they changed the release cadence from 1-2 movies a year to 3-4 movies a year.They burned people out and it became clear that it was about shoveling out the next blockbuster rather than telling an interesting story.
Here’s an idea. How about a TV series about life for *ordinary people* in the MCU? No superheroes at all on screen – just regular people dealing with the consequences and fallout. Maybe there’s a church talking about sending missionaries to convert the aliens. Schools having to revise their curricula to include all the new stuff (new maps showing Wakanda, for one). All the new alien tech working its way into the everyday. Fer cryin’ out loud, ALIENS EXIST and FASTER THAN LIGHT TRAVEL IS POSSIBLE. There’s GOT to be stories in there somewhere!
If we’re factoring in external forces like general superhero fatigue to explain low box office, we need to do that everywhere else, because context matters in both directions. There’s obviously no way of knowing how much a Marvel movie’s box office is the character/movie, and how much is other stuff, but especially in the case of Captain Marvel, you could not dream of a better time to hit the theater, a month and a half before Endgame, teased at the end of Infinity War. Endgame made $1.2 billion in its first weekend; people were very, very interested in the MCU.
Why should viewers care about what happens next when the MCU creative teams don’t have a cohesive plan? Absent some major schedule shifts, there’s no chance that another Eternals or Shang Chi movie happens before the completion of the next major Avengers films, the last of which may not release until 2028. So why the hell are they using their theatrical releases to tease Starfox/Pip the Troll and another archeology mystery in Shang Chi spearheaded by Captain Marvel that was completely ignored in the Captain Marvel film that released two years after the tease? These narratives aren’t going to get addressed for 6-8 years (if ever) from their introduction. In comparison, there were 6 years total between the Avengers 1 Thanos tease and Infinity War, but only two years between the brief tease and his substantive appearance in Guardians of the Galaxy. As another example from the most recent film, there’s no Young Avengers project announced, so when is this teased concept actually going to pay off? In one of the 2026 or 2027 Avengers film? In some Disney+ show that’s not announced and won’t come out for another 3+ years? I want to see more of Kate Bishop and Kamala in media dedicated to their characters which has an actual release date, not have them sidelined until 2027 while Marvel focus groups how to launch a Young Avengers franchise. The Young Avengers will be collecting Social Security checks by the time Marvel slots a spot on the calendar for them. So why should I get hyped in 2023 at the idea of Kamala talking to Kate Bishop about forming a team?
They struck gold with the original Avengers plot line. After Thanos, people just don’t care any more.
My main gripe is that do we need yet another Marvel superhero movie. The rubbery CGI violence has been already seen, the plots are pretty much the same and there’s no real sense of exitement.I mean world is full of great scifi books that would be awesome to see on bigger or smaller screen. How many Expanses could be made with the budget of one Marvels movie?
Marvel’s biggest problem is the people insisting that absolutely must have superhero fatigue and if I don’t admit it then I am in denial. This is especially true of those complaining that the TV side is fatiguing since the rate that Marvel produces TV material is roughly the same as a single broadcast network show.
We were sort of discussing this same thing in the Marvels review (and I’m super annoyed I missed this when it was first posted a week ago….somehow getting relevant content alerts is almost as impossible as getting the comments to work reliably…sigh). They don’t trust filmmakers they are inspired by and it’s frustrating and makes no sense. Edgar Wright is an early example, and good on him for turning down such a huge thing (though admittedly he’s got a bit more of a movie base to fall back on than most of these young directors…which is likely part of the strategy) but even Branagh complained about Thor and the limits placed on him, and he’s got a pretty fucking solid track record. Seems weird to not let him loose on a project damn near written for his Shakesperean style.Bad writing and the absolute fear of taking risks anymore is what’s dooming the MCU for me, ultimately (and I am a hardcore fanboy—grew up reading too many of these stories not to be invested, and it was all Marvel with few others I was interested in). Ant-Man 3 should have been a great follow-up to Loki, but the decision to play it safe rather than have Kang win and either kill or strand the Ant-Men in the quantum realm (though the latter would have still been a partial cop out) was just monumentally boring, and—along with the middling writing and effects—just made it dumb. The big bad got taken down by Ant-Man? That’s the opposite of a Big Bad. Not to mention the other really, really weird choices…looking at you M.O.D.O.K….then looking away as quickly as possible because, ew.For what should have been a wild ride through the multi-verse it’s mostly been meh, and almost seems forgotten. No real risks when they could have taken HUGE risks, since all comic fans know it’s just gonna reset (or, more likely with movies, replace) the status quo by the time it’s all said and done. That’s the comics way. Raimi mostly felt wasted, as did a lot of the script that should have been a huge, crazy, affair…but we ended up with Red means Go. So boring. Even the added scenes of the council were obviously added and an afterthought clearly due to Spider-Man, but still closer to what the entire movie should have been like.Lame writing and bad effects will doom any comic movie, and it sure seems to be the pattern the MCU has fallen into the past several years. The shows have been slightly better. I dug She-Hulk, but am apparently one of the few, and Ms Marvel was terrific. Loki is still the king and season 2 was almost as entertaining, and it gets bonus points for having He Who Remains be the only scary version of Kang to this day. Like most TV shows aside from The Wire, they aren’t perfect, but for weekly superhero shows they’ve mostly been better than I’d have expected—particularly after bringing my expectations down to Earth after Endgame. I still think Infinity War was the pinnacle of the MCU—every character got their moment, great battles, and the gut-punch of an ending still resonate. My favorite of all MCU films as far as a straight movie goes is still Winter Soldier (and the first Avengers, mostly from fanboy awe that it was made and made so well) but I’ve enjoyed many others. I’m mostly just depressed that the MCU continues to keep falling when it should be the most exciting it’s ever been. They should have re-grouped when COVID was clearly going to affect things, and either scrapped a lot of it or gone back to the drawing board then—when it would have made sense and not reeked of desperation like most of the weird articles about Marvel’s possible plans that are everywhere right now. If they do follow up with this asinine Dr Doom instead of Kang and bring back the originals plan it will likely be over for me….or I’ll at least begrudgingly wait for the films to hit streaming.