Last edited by Endus; 2021-09-13 at 02:34 PM.
I'm regularly baffled by the long-scale success of the MCU overall. This project shouldn't have worked. But it's the single most successful film franchise in history. Two of the other competitors (Star Wars, James Bond) had to spread their outings out over 40 or more years, where it's been 13 for the MCU in total. It's completely out of scale with anything that has ever been attempted with film ever before.
Even if the whole thing fell apart literally today and we never got any of the planned future properties, the MCU as it stands will be studied by film students for decades, at a minimum, and likely centuries. Not because of any inherent exceptionality in any particular film, on its own, but for their collective success and what that combination means in terms of filmmaking, what separates the MCU from any other attempts to build a franchise.
They made Guardians of the Galaxy into a thing. Just to show they could. And early enough on that it was a bit of a statement, at that.
I'm pretty sure MCU has more films in it's 13 than SW+Bond over their decades, even. I've mostly burned out on them at this point, but I think that just puts me on a level with the non-Marvel fan that will still watch the movies as a good solid experience, even without the level of investment that the real fans maintain. I think the MCU formula does well, sure, but I think it's also that they're just well crafted experiences even when mediocre movies (like Thor2 or such) in most other ways. MCU may run into some issues across movies, but rarely is there something within the movie that makes that movie dumb, which I think StarWars or FoxMarvel can't claim.
"I only feel two things Gary, nothing, and nothingness."
Now now, don't get carried away. MCU has made $23 billion over 25 movies. Harry Potter made $7.8 over 8.
The only thing that seems remarkable is their ability to churn out at least a couple solid movies a year for 13 years. And I think that has more to do with being funded/managed by a juggernaut like Disney than any special creative power.
So, not "more profitable per film", which I never argued.
They haven't had a single failure in those 25 films. Not one. That's nuts. The closest they get to a "flop" are films like Thor 2, which still did okay, both critically and financially. And which they used to rework the sub-franchise, leading to Thor: Ragnarok, which was a smash hit both ways.
And yet, nobody else in the business has ever pulled that off, ever. And Disney's acquisition of Marvel came after this all started, and didn't trip anything up.The only thing that seems remarkable is their ability to churn out at least a couple solid movies a year for 13 years. And I think that has more to do with being funded/managed by a juggernaut like Disney than any special creative power.
While studios have definitely put out a couple good films a year, they've also always had films which didn't fly with audiences, simultaneously. The MCU doesn't have that. Every film is a hit.
Like, we literally just don't have examples of anything similar we can point to. I'm racking my brain to try and think of equivalents in the music industry or literature, and drawing blanks.
Well the sucess of the MCU is mindblowing indeed but I'm actually more surprised about the number of Marvel films ( not MCU, movies depicting marvel characters).
More than 50 in 2 decades. More....than.... 50. That's 2.5 movies a year.
If I traveled back in time to meet myself at the "X-men" premiere back in 2000 and I tell me: "There's 50 more coming in the next 20 years" my eyes would have roll.
There was no way to predict this explosion. We, fans, understood X-Men or Spiderman or Hulk could work ( because they worked at comics) but....freaking "Ant man"? Really ? Well...Yahhh Really.
Disney also announced no more streaming releases this year. Means I'm probably not seeing any movies legally until 2022 because FL theaters ain't wear its at right now.
Resident Cosplay Progressive
What has so much material/characters/etc to match Marvel outside of DC? Star Wars, Trek, Potter, LoTR…. Running through big franchises nothing else has anything close to the foundation to even build upon except maybe Star Wars, and Disney is already going that route as well.
I do believe people will get fatigued over time, but this could go another 20 years with the material they have. Frankly their biggest issue is going to be aging actors (as I don’t think a true reboot will fly).
Generally not, because audiences mostly rejected it when you tried to put out too many sequels too soon, without a couple years of breathing room between outings, or failed to follow up in a way that audiences supported. That's sort of the point; the number of film franchises that can even pull off a trilogy successfully, maintaining audience and critical claim for all three films, is fairly small. Even Star Wars hasn't pulled that off since the Original Trilogy. Star Trek films have the unofficial rule that only the even-numbered ones are any good (at least, for the TOS films).
The Alien films? 1 and 2 are classics. The rest? Ehhhh . . .
Terminator? Same deal.
Kevin Smith's View Askew universe, if it counts? More flops than successes.
Even Indiana Jones, at only 4 films, only really had 2 solid entries.
There are some standouts, like the LOTR films, and Harry Potter. I'd even toss Fast and Furious in here, even if it's not really my jam. But LotR showed it couldn't replicate that success with the Hobbit trilogy. Harry Potter's been trying to branch out with the Newt Scamander films, but they've been starting to flag.
So yeah; when studios struggle to get past 5 successful films in a franchise, when the MCU hits 25 without a single real mis-step, that's way out of the scale of normality. No individual film may be setting new critical standards, but the collective whole is completely, staggeringly unique. So much so it's been provoking attempts to copy that success, like the Dark Universe and the DC Snyderverse, each of which is stumbling right out of the gate, even with a template to work off of.
I don't know. i think something like the mcu was inevitable.
superheroes have permeated pop culture for generations now, even longer if you consider them to just be analogues to mythology.
in every other medium besides film they usually coexist, even with the comics themselves being somewhat niche we've also got the cartoons
how many people grew up with the super friends, the 90s marvel shows, the dc animated universe, video games like marvel ultimate alliance
the main issue was that they were selling these characters for live actions ala carte
if anything the superhero movies before the mcu are the anomaly because in every other medium these characters are shown cohabitating and interacting together
marvel has the characters and the unified vision to make it cohesive. another big issue with comics and why they remain niche is the constant changing of hands
writers come in and out, one persons idea of a character gets replaced with someone else.
you end up with a huge catalog of widely different and sometimes contradictory storylines
as the mcu changes hands whenever fiege leaves i think will be the true testing moment now that theyve gotten people to keep watching after losing a lot of their big names.
i feel like the same thing is going to happen to video games as they continue to permeate pop culture
i feel like the mcu is kind of like uncle ben dying or bruce waynes parents. you don't need to show how they all coexist just let them, people have been exposed to that concept enough times now that it works.
"I was a normal baby for 30 seconds, then ninjas stole my mamma" - Deadpool
"so what do we do?" "well jack, you stand there and say 'gee rocket raccoon I'm so glad you brought that Unfeasibly large cannon with you..' and i go like this BRAKKA BRAKKA BRAKKA" - Rocket Raccoon
FC: 3437-3046-3552
I'm one of those who see superheroes as essentially the same thing as myths, historically, FWIW.
But I'll also point to prior attempts to make longer superhero franchises that predated the MCU; Superman in the '80s, Batman in the early '90s before falling apart with the Schumaker films, the X-men in the late '90s. I'll actually give a pass to Sony's repeated Spider-Man attempts, because it appears they've gone fully mad in possibly the best way and are going to make all of that chicanery retroactively canon to the overarching Spider-Man universe they're building around Tom Holland; we don't really know if it's meant to be MCU-canon or tangential at this point, but the spider nonsense in the comics was SUPER weird so maybe it doesn't matter.
The point is the MCU wasn't a first attempt at a new idea. It was a wild success at something people had been actively pursuing, and failing at, for decades.
Fun fact; one of my favorite things about the Tom Hollands Spider-Man films is that Uncle Ben doesn't factor in. People think Spider-Man can't exist without Uncle Ben as the constant nagging ghostly conscience, and those people really should go back and read the original run, where Ben is a barely-mentioned character. He isn't named at all until issue #15, and certainly isn't the motivating factor behind Parker becoming Spider-Man. He also didn't come up with "with great power comes great responsibility"; that was originally just narration from the authors, not voiced by any character.i feel like the mcu is kind of like uncle ben dying or bruce waynes parents. you don't need to show how they all coexist just let them, people have been exposed to that concept enough times now that it works.
Spider-Man works just fine without Ben, even if he's become a major part of the mythos over time.
Isnt Heritage Auctions under fire recently for artifically inflating the value of video games and having a corrupt partnership with the grading company ?
Mario 64 selling for 1.56 million was ludicrious then not long after Mario Bros selling for 2 million when the most a game had gone for a few years prior was 30 grand.
Fishy as fuck!
A lot of the issue comes down to the writing and the presentation. With respect to the comparison of LotR and The Hobbit, it's really no surprise that The Hobbit did miserably considering that it was stretched out over three films. Furthermore, it got really lazy with the script and overused CGI, much of which was inferior to LotR CGI. The Hobbit movie tried to be LotR in terms of presentation and writing, but even the source materials are fairly different in comparison.
I wouldn't go so far to say that the MCU hasn't had a 'single real misstep'... it's all relative considering the nature of the beast that is the MCU. If anything, there's a few great entries, a bunch of mediocre entries, and some really bad entries. The writing quality is all over the place in Phase 1 through Phase 3 (not going to get into Phase 4, but it's bottom of the barrel so far), but as with any series that starts out well you tend to have a harder time leaving. In fact, much of the current content being put out for Marvel is banking on people remembering the good times and having an attachment to keep consuming despite the much less effort that seems to be put into their content.
The other aspect to the success of the MCU in general, despite its missteps, is due to them hitting the relative formula that resonates with audiences and sticking to it roughly with some deviations here and there. However, there's a combination of the formula wearing down on people and the alterations to the formula not resonating well with their established audience that's lead to hit-or-miss performance. Ultimately, the reason the MCU took off was because the first Iron Man movie was really strong as an entry movie, and the follow-up movies were all solid. If they lead off with the quality of content we get now, the MCU would've never been established nor reached the success it had.
The current MCU content is heavily riding off the coattails of the first couple phases, and that will not last unless they get a really good film out there. Shangi-Chi leading off Phase 4 movies is a very weak start (especially internationally). If you just got off of puff-piece headlines, they're almost all apples-to-oranges comparisons and using evasive language and arguments to make their case... but I like actual numbers! Shang-Chi is doing just about as well as Black Widow did in theaters domestically... but Black Widow also had streaming sales on Disney+, had less theater screens, and didn't have the benefit of a 4-day weekend. We'll never know the exact numbers of the Disney+ revenue of Black Widow, as there's no reason for them to release them as those who exclusively control the numbers can control the narrative. However, Disney+ sales of Black Widow viewings wouldn't have to be much to exceed Shang-Chi sales at this point in time. Internationally, Shang-Chi does anywhere between 30-50% less than Black Widow in most countries despite a few outliers from both movies. I wouldn't be surprised that Black Widow box office + streaming earnings will be the same as Shang-Chi's box office totals in the end. The main point is that Shang-Chi is supposed to be the lead-off hitter for Phase 4 movies, and it's performing like the bottom of the lineup.
Regardless, Shang-Chi isn't really generating buzz or moving the mass like the old movies could (even if you factor in Covid-19), and I imagine The Eternals will probably have similar performance or worse if their current writing and narrative trend continues. As it stands, their best hope is the new Spiderman movie as I think it's the only film that even retains some semblance of excitement from across the fan base (even people that are severely disappointed with Shang-Chi and are highly skeptical of The Eternal and the current MCU content in general actually have high hopes for Spiderman). Personally, I was hoping Shang-Chi was going to be amazing, but it ended up being a boring hodge-podge of several movies with little focus and an overuse of CGI to the point of detraction... and even I still have hopes for the next Spiderman movie. Even if the Spiderman movie isn't that great, I feel the current excitement would still generate more sales than Shang-Chi... but that's only a short term goal and still riding on the success of pre-Phase 4 content. Long-term, the MCU needs to hit one out of the park at Iron Man levels of interest in order to come close to its old glory.
While some people will write off people who absolutely abhor the current MCU content, it's likely not made up of people who were constantly hating the MCU in general... but rather it's people who know what Marvel is capable of and reverence for the previous content. Backlash is actually a good sign in some respects, as that means you still have people out there who want to enjoy and care about the content expressing their dismay of the quality of said content. The day where the general response is apathy to the MCU is the day where Marvel should be really worried.
“Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.”
“It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the 'right' to education, the 'right' to health care, the 'right' to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville
Something someone pointed out to me - we saw a lot of Hawkeye with his kids in this trailer - but not with his wife.
Is it possible Hawkeye is now divorced, and has the kids for Christmas, and is literally sending them back to the farm once danger arises, so he can have more of a bachelor-esque series in NYC as seen in the Fraction run of Hawkeye?