Movies Marvel Studios in Crisis - A Variety Article

[Anung Un Rama]

It's also new characters or replacement characters nobody gives a shit about.

True to a point, but Jessica Jones was really good and she's like a G tier character. That Echo, which is a Q-tier level character, that trailer looks really good. But I agree with you. Rather than take a breathe they feel they have to push anything and everything. WTF was asking for an Agatha Harkness show?

 

[SaiWa]

So you're suggesting a Firestar movie would have killed because she was one of Spiderman's amazing friends? Ghost Rider is pretty well known (not MCU, but point stands) - terrible movies. IM was a great movie that used great source material. The comics are full of them. Its not just that they lacked FF, mutants, Namor, and Hulk and Spider-Man to a degree, its that they shitty movies and launched crappy products with the characters they did have. Both FF movies sucked and most of the X-Men movies sucked. Just now I saw a trailer for Echo, a side character from the Hawkeye tv show.... Thor Ragnarok was kinda great, but 2/4 were garbage and the other one wasn't great either. 2nd Dr Strange: bad. IM 2 and 3: Bad. BP1 and CM 1 were box office smashes; they were bad movies. Iron Fist, The Defenders, Vision & Scarlet Witch: Bad (they have an Agatha Harkness tv show coming out!).

Edit: and yes they def need to focus on the FF and Xmen, but its not going to be easy if they don't invest in them. I don't want to see an X-Men movie and then a tv show about Kitty Pryde's parents.

You pointed out that IronMan was a great movie and then pointed out that Ghost Rider, both FF, and the X-Men movies sucked. Well no shit those movies weren't MCU and were produced by Fox. Now that the IP is back with Marvel and will be incorporated into the MCU then let's see how they do with them. I've been on records stating X-Men sucked ass (although I did like First Class). Why make a Firelord movie when you can make X-Men or even Silver Surfer (although I consider SS a boring character and not a good movie material)? i could see them making a Firelord/SS series though. But again it would depend on how the rest of the main IPs do.

As for the Marvel movies since Endgame they've been solid or misses - mostly misses. Again I am not disagreeing with the quality going down but even if they have solid writing I am barely interested. I personally need known IPs to rope me back in. Hell i can't even bring myself to watch the tv series at all. The only one I've seen is WandaVision (which I actually enjoyed) and the first few episodes of Captain Falcon (meh). Didn't even see Loki so I have no idea what is really going on in the tv series ~ nor do I really care...

 

[Thepaintbucket]

For comparison the final season of Game of thrones was costing HBO 15 million per episode. For now Disney still has big enough pockets but for how long. Sooner or later it's going to backfire

Legal issues aside it's going to be a tragedy if they replace Jonathan majors with another villain

 

[KnightTemplar]

It was a terrible movie. Thor's milkshake brought us to the yard.

That was back in the Good Old Days when the fans would line up to watch even the shit-tier MCU films. Hell, I even watched Captain Marvel

 

[melvinj0]

Seems like they blew their load with all the popular super heroes, and have since been desperately grasping for another unknown group/heir to garner interest like Guardians of the galaxy.

Imo super hero movies were more fun when it was an occasional thing instead of something constantly being pushed practically every month.

 

[KnightTemplar]

For comparison the final season of Game of thrones was costing HBO 15 million per episode. For now Disney still has big enough pockets but for how long. Sooner or later it's going to backfire

Legal issues aside it's going to be a tragedy if they replace Jonathan majors with another villain

Not if they replace him with Doom. And do it right.

Kang was always a B-List Big Bad. Hell, I'd take Red Skull with That Look in his eye over Can the Conqueror

 

[KnightTemplar]

So you're suggesting a Firestar movie would have killed because she was one of Spiderman's amazing friends? Ghost Rider is pretty well known (not MCU, but point stands) - terrible movies. IM was a great movie that used great source material. The comics are full of them. Its not just that they lacked FF, mutants, Namor, and Hulk and Spider-Man to a degree, its that they shitty movies and launched crappy products with the characters they did have. Both FF movies sucked and most of the X-Men movies sucked. Just now I saw a trailer for Echo, a side character from the Hawkeye tv show.... Thor Ragnarok was kinda great, but 2/4 were garbage and the other one wasn't great either. 2nd Dr Strange: bad. IM 2 and 3: Bad. BP1 and CM 1 were box office smashes; they were bad movies. Iron Fist, The Defenders, Vision & Scarlet Witch: Bad (they have an Agatha Harkness tv show coming out!).

Edit: and yes they def need to focus on the FF and Xmen, but its not going to be easy if they don't invest in them. I don't want to see an X-Men movie and then a tv show about Kitty Pryde's parents.

X-Men films are about 50/50. When they're good - X Men, X2, First Class, Days of Future Past - they're fucking awesome. But the bad ones - Last Stand, Apocalypse, Dark Phoenix - feel like someone took a shit on your soul. There's no middle ground.

 

[KnightTemplar]

Just give us a 90 minute Punisher movie with Jon Bernthal going HAM as Frank.

Never going to happen. Marvel already killed off Frank in the comics because of his, ahem, "problematic fanbase". If they do give us a Punisher movie, the violence will be toned down to PG-13 levels and Castle will exclusively kill racist cops and Far Right Militia-types. And he'll have a Strong, Diverse, Brave Female Sidekick

 

[HenryFlower]

thank goodness we still have the Spider-Verse movies rocking the shit being awesome & having insane rewatchability.

 

[HenryFlower]

No, I'm not mad about anything, I'm just pointing out that people are sick of the agenda driven film making.

yeah, so sick of it

the echo chamber you’ve locked yourself in literally sounds like a prison for the loneliest people on the internet

 

[HereticBD]

yeah, so sick of it

the echo chamber you’ve locked yourself in literally sounds like a prison for the loneliest people on the internet

In fairness, I don't think many went to go see a "Barbie" movie for it's political messaging.

I think that movie is a case of giving women a movie that actually appeals to them, so they went out in droves to see it, and they didn't mess around with the overall image of the iconic characters. And even if there was a "message" to it, it was a message that resonated with it's core audience. They weren't trying to put a square peg in a round hole, by having some feminist agenda lazily shoehorned into an action movie geared towards men. That's really where they run into problems. It's not necessarily the message itself that's a problem. It's knowing where to place it, as to not turn your your audience off. A feminist agenda in Barbie movie, ain't exactly going against the grain, so it's not gonna be an issue.

 

[HenryFlower]

In fairness, I don't think many went to go see a "Barbie" movie for it's political messaging.

I think that movie is a case of giving women a movie that actually appeals to them, so they went out in droves to see it, and they didn't mess around with the overall image of the iconic characters. And even if there was a "message" to it, it was a message that resonated with it's core audience. They weren't trying to put a square peg in a round hole, by having some feminist agenda lazily shoehorned into an action movie geared towards men. That's really where they run into problems. It's not necessarily the message itself that's a problem. It's knowing where to place it, as to not turn your your audience off. A feminist agenda in Barbie movie, ain't exactly going against the grain, so it's not gonna be an issue.

pretty sure the core audience for a billion dollar movie is everybody.

 

[HereticBD]

pretty sure the core audience for a billion dollar movie is everybody.

Not even remotely true...for anything, really. The NFL makes billions and billions of dollars every year. Their core audience is decidedly male. Taylor Swift(and other female pop stars) rake in hundreds of millions of dollars. Their core audience is female.

The demo for the Barbie movie is something like 65% female, and the male demo were either on dates/taking their kids/gay. It's a case of successfully appealing to your core audience.

 

[HenryFlower]

Not even remotely true...for anything, really. The NFL makes billions and billions of dollars every year. Their core audience is decidedly male. Taylor Swift(and other female pop stars) rake in hundreds of millions of dollars. Their core audience is female.

The demo for the Barbie movie is something like 65% female, and the male demo were either on dates/taking their kids/gay. It's a case of successfully appealing to your core audience.

talk about reductive. but regardless of your blending stats w/ conjecture, i did not expect 66% female demo. so point taken there.

that said, most mcu movies, especially the big tentpole Avengers flicks, have a near 50/50 demo split. so it’s fair to say the notion that disney & the mcu is alienating their target audience is being completely overblown. the phase 4 & phase 5 (so far) movies aren’t really pandering to certain audiences anymore than phases 1-3 were. it’s a complete fallacy.

 

[eddymotto]

It was a terrible movie. Thor's milkshake brought us to the yard.

Headline:

In Hollywood corporate offices, an A- CinemaScore and a $650m box office makes a movie a hit, but on this obscure karate forum, JOEROGANFAN69 isn't so sure

 

[eddymotto]

talk about reductive. but regardless of your blending stats w/ conjecture, i did not expect 66% female demo. so point taken there.

that said, most mcu movies, especially the big tentpole Avengers flicks, have a near 50/50 demo split. so it’s fair to say the notion that disney & the mcu is alienating their target audience is being completely overblown. the phase 4 & phase 5 (so far) movies aren’t really pandering to certain audiences anymore than phases 1-3 were. it’s a complete fallacy.

it is the old adage "when all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail"

I hope that Marvel scales back volume and improves quality. I re-watched The Winter Soldier a few months ago and I was struck by just how well made the film was. It is a good movie that happens to include superheroes.

 

[ufcfan4]

X-Men films are about 50/50. When they're good - X Men, X2, First Class, Days of Future Past - they're fucking awesome. But the bad ones - Last Stand, Apocalypse, Dark Phoenix - feel like someone took a shit on your soul. There's no middle ground.

For sure. The disparity is weird. Though I actually kind of like the Last Stand as mediocre as it is. Thought Grammer was a great choice for Beast and that the big battle delivered for the most part. Most other things fell flat. But I still liked it better than Apocalypse which I disliked to the extent that I didn’t even bother with the most recent one.

If you count The Wolverine movies as X-Men films there’s still that discrepancy. I think Origins is pretty bad and I know people like the one set in Japan (and I’m a fan of Mangold as a director) but I thought that one was dull as dish water.

But Logan delivered.

First Class, X2, and DOFP seem like the gold standard of the franchise.

 

[KnightTemplar]

talk about reductive. but regardless of your blending stats w/ conjecture, i did not expect 66% female demo. so point taken there.

that said, most mcu movies, especially the big tentpole Avengers flicks, have a near 50/50 demo split. so it’s fair to say the notion that disney & the mcu is alienating their target audience is being completely overblown. the phase 4 & phase 5 (so far) movies aren’t really pandering to certain audiences anymore than phases 1-3 were. it’s a complete fallacy.

Pandering to diversity is part of the problem - come on, who was asking for She Hulk, or The Marvels? - but it's not the whole story. Rushed VFX that look shoddy, too much content causing fans to burn-out and, unlike Phases 1 - 3, Marvel seem to have lost the ability to create a compelling, over-arching narrative. Kang was supposed to be the next Thanos, but he was pale imitation of the Mad Titan even before Jonathon Majors' legal problems left Disney with a massive headache.

When your multi-film Big Bad gets his ass handed to him by fucking Ant Man, you done fucked up, son.

 

[ufcfan4]

it is the old adage "when all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail"

I hope that Marvel scales back volume and improves quality. I re-watched The Winter Soldier a few months ago and I was struck by just how well made the film was. It is a good movie that happens to include superheroes.

At some point in time they probably went to more cookie cutter formula. I also think it hurts that there was such a vision for what they were building to in those first few phases and once End Game came out it was as though they’d achieved their mission but then had no real sense of where to go from there.

it’s tough to culminate with something as big as Infinity War (my favorite MCU film) and Endgame and then be like well let’s scale back again and then build up to something else in a few years.

DCEU tried to fast track to Marvel results and it went badly. The best DC films of recent years are ones like Joker and The Batman that have nothing to do with the other stuff. Scary thought but it seems at this point that MCU would be better off focusing on making good/interesting one offs rather than trying to tie all these series and movies together in an Avengers film that seems unlikely to recapture the original enthusiasm.

 

[KnightTemplar]

For sure. The disparity is weird. Though I actually kind of like the Last Stand as mediocre as it is. Thought Grammer was a great choice for Beast and that the big battle delivered for the most part. Most other things fell flat. But I still liked it better than Apocalypse which I disliked to the extent that I didn’t even bother with the most recent one.

If you count The Wolverine movies as X-Men films there’s still that discrepancy. I think Origins is pretty bad and I know people like the one set in Japan (and I’m a fan of Mangold as a director) but I thought that one was dull as dish water.

But Logan delivered.

First Class, X2, and DOFP seem like the gold standard of the franchise.

I tend to separate Wolverine's solo movies from the X Men films, but I agree with your assessment. The only saving grace of Origins was the War Montage and Schrieber's performance as Sabretooth. He absolutely nailed Creed's sadism and twisted big brother relationship with Logan,

"No one kills you but me!"

The Wolverine was boring and a waste of the source material. Logan was Jackman's best performance in the role, and delivered shot after shot to The Feels. Although I'd still love to see a comic-accurate adaption of Old Man Logan.