Now I see why Chris Evans bowed out

[Thage]

Evans has wanted to get out of acting to direct for years now; he phased himself out to the point his MCU work has largely been the only projects he's taken lately and he apparently opted not to renew his contract, instead working on a per-film basis after it ran out. It's got nothing to do with [insert agenda here] unless/until we hear it from his own mouth.

As far as Hulk, the Hulk's movie rights are in a messy spot right now. Solo films headlined by the Hulk have to split profits with Universal, at least until Marvel can resecure full movie rights, and furthermore, Marvel seems unwilling to give the Hulk another outing on his own after The Incredible Hulk didn't meet expectations. Banner just seems to work better in the MCU as a deuteragonist/supporting role.

[Skizzit]

I can't believe you lot and how you think. My favorite character in any hero scenario is Spawn. A black man. I'd be just as outraged if they replaced him with a hispanic social just pushing character that calls himself also spawn. No, that's bad and dumb writing. If you see this specifically as a race only issue, you're a fucking racist.

Has this ever actually happened? I keep seeing people say that this kind of thing is happening, along with things like "how would you feel if they made a Malcolm X movie and cast Tom Hanks in the lead role?" that also has never happened. What movie did they take a previously white hero and cast a non-white actor to play them? The only example I can think of is Nick Fury but the only reason they cast Sam Jackson in that role is because they literally modeled the Ultimates universe version of the character after him in the comics. And I am not talking things like having Kamala Khan become the new Ms. Marvel or Riri Williams take up the mantle of Iron Man for awhile before becoming Ironheart because they have been doing that kinda thing in the comics for eons. I am talking something like having a black actor or a female actress play Steve Rogers or something.

**EDIT**

But funny, if this was reverse, and they were making Black Panther be played by Jim Carry, I'm sure you'd be shitting your pants, bigot.

Lol! Yep. Shoulda known that was coming.

That is also not what I was talking about at all. I was talking about people who get upset over things like the Black Widow movie or the She Hulk TV series and claim they only exist because Disney is trying to be "woke" and appeal to the SJWs.

Also the storylines they're going to be using now are from the comics that tanked marvel comics so low that disney could just outright buy them out.

What storylines are you talking about exactly? I really have not heard anything at all about what they are planning for the next phase of the MCU.

[Zandalariprelate]

At the time when the movies came out Iron Man comic sales were pretty garbage averaging around 50 books sold per month which is significantly less than the 150K-180K average the previous decade before the movie. Even after the movie they didn't help out sales.

Stark's importance is huge in the comics universe, it just never translated well to sales. He was never a popular character.

Compared to many characters in the marvel house, his comic was sold by a lot and could keep a long run in his individual serie but he never was capable of comparing against Spider-Man or Batman. Now after the 2000 the sales of comics went down and also the iron man in the comics was different from the Robert Down Jr one which didn't attract new readers either

Yeah wrong. First of all Iron man didn't even break the top 10 of sales (overall and looking year by year sales).

Second it was sold out because they were generally low volume prints compared to batman, superman, and all the far more popular heroes.

Those 2 were present in the media even before their first movie, so an unfair comparision there

Agreed.
As for Evans...well, he's doing some solid movies so far, and with "Knives Out" this week, still staying relevant.

Likely he got burn out of the character as well and probably wanted to try new things now that he's relevant and not fall into the Mark Hamill curse

[Egomaniac]

It's different when it's a title like robin or ghostrider, but yeah I've always hated it every time that it's an established character where they're not taking the mantel briefly (like war machine taking over for iron man was done briefly) to try to convince the rest of the world the person isn't dead. The MCU is modeling their newer stories after the rebooted comics that plunged marvel comics into near bankruptcy.

They are always taking the mantle briefly. It always reverts back to the original within a few years. You want to pretend its different now because it justifies your outrage...but it's always the same thing. Dick Grayson was Batman...until Bruce Wayne returned. James Rhodes was Iron Man...Until Tony Stark returned. John Walker, Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson...all temporarily Captain America until Steve Rogers returned.

Marvel Comics bankruptcy period came a lot earlier than you think it did. It was in the 90's with them finally filing for bankruptcy in 1997. That's why they had to start selling off film rights to their biggest IP's. After the successful release of Iron Man...they were making real money. Disney didn't buy Marvel because it was a failing company...they bought it because they wanted in on that action.

You got anything else I can prove you wrong about?

[Jotaux]

While C lister might be a bit of a stretch, Ironman was never more than a B lister. When you ask people about marvel comics pre Ironman 1 what do they talk about? Spider-man and the X-men. No one talks about the animated Ironman series in the 90s nor the Hulk one which was really good.

[Shadowferal]

Shame that the Hulk is seen as comedy...

[JDL49]

I think it is closer to double production costs to break even. Triple to be considered a success.

Double to cover production costs. But triple+ to also cover distribution costs. On bigger budget projects (175 million+) it actually gets to be about 3.5x. Otoh if you drop below 100 million the percentage will go down a fair amount from 3x.

[Kyphael]

Shame that the Hulk is seen as comedy...

That's some deep stuff.

[RobertoCarlos]

Evans has wanted to get out of acting to direct for years now; he phased himself out to the point his MCU work has largely been the only projects he's taken lately and he apparently opted not to renew his contract, instead working on a per-film basis after it ran out. It's got nothing to do with [insert agenda here] unless/until we hear it from his own mouth.

As far as Hulk, the Hulk's movie rights are in a messy spot right now. Solo films headlined by the Hulk have to split profits with Universal, at least until Marvel can resecure full movie rights, and furthermore, Marvel seems unwilling to give the Hulk another outing on his own after The Incredible Hulk didn't meet expectations. Banner just seems to work better in the MCU as a deuteragonist/supporting role.

You know so much about Chris Evans.... Except the fact he's in a movie that just released. So he's not done with acting. Movie is knives out btw

[Martymark]

Hulk was treated poorly in infinity war because he's stronger than Thanos, and they weren't good enough writers to deal with it.

[RobertoCarlos]

Hulk was treated poorly in infinity war because he's stronger than Thanos, and they weren't good enough writers to deal with it.

I dunno Thanos vs hulk was made out to be the Smart strong guy vs angry strong guy and it was cool when Thanos was more targeted and disabled him in a hand to hand fight. But the rest of the film he's comedic relief and he fixes his problems off screen for end game and was again just comedic relief. They didn't do anything with it other than make a taco meme

[MrKnubbles]

Their main focus right now is developing new characters.

[Shadowferal]

Thanos should have dealt with the Hulk the same way he dealt with Champion and simply teleport him away:

[Medievaldragon]

Technically, Hulk could be in the Marvel Seasonal DisneyPlus series without using the term "HULK" in the title. For example, we know Fantastic Four and the Xmen are coming to the MCU. There is nothing impeding Silver Surfer or Namor to show up in DisneyPlus series before they make their debut in the MCU in films (post-Fox licenses acquisition).

Hulk could very well show up in a DisneyPlus THE DEFENDERS title. The original 1971 comics incarnation of The Defenders included: Dr. Strange, The Hulk, Silver Surfer, and Namor.

There was a roster rotation over the years including: Angel, Beast, Daimon Hellstrom, Gargoyle, Hawkeye, Hellcat, Luke Cage, Nighthawk, Valkyrie; and others.

DisneyPlus' What If offers the opportunity to have Hulk every now and then. Old Man Logan's universe. Maestro.

Wolverine could be introduced in a Wolverine vs Hulk film.

Ruffalo could also show up as Doc Green in someone else's show as a regular support character that cross-visits different shows as a guest. As a matter of fact, if Ruffalo showed up in one of the DisneyPlus shows, he could introduce Jennifer. Later, she gets the accident that forces Bruce to share his blood to save her. Then from DisneyPlus, she jumps into her She-Hulk film.

[ConstantinetheGreat]

The reason he got the first MCU movie was because they sold the film rights to their A-listers. Nobody was knocking down the door to make an Iron Man film. You think they would have started the MCU with Iron Man if they had access to Spider-Man, the X-men, or even the Fantastic Four?

Have you ever considered the possibility that all those things could be popular at the same time? I'd also argue Fantastic Four is less popular than Iron Man. I don't have any hard numbers to back it up, but I read comics heavily as a child, and my friends and I were way more into Hulk/Thor/Iron Man than we were Fantastic Four. We were also really into X-Men and Spidey, but they already had their own movies. The MCU was designed from the ground up around the Avengers. Iron Man was a great way to kick that off.

[Shadowferal]

Fantastic Four used to be their top selling comic book. They even put it on the cover during the 70s-80s "World's Greatest Comic Magazine."

[Egomaniac]

Have you ever considered the possibility that all those things could be popular at the same time? I'd also argue Fantastic Four is less popular than Iron Man. I don't have any hard numbers to back it up, but I read comics heavily as a child, and my friends and I were way more into Hulk/Thor/Iron Man than we were Fantastic Four. We were also really into X-Men and Spidey, but they already had their own movies. The MCU was designed from the ground up around the Avengers. Iron Man was a great way to kick that off.

The MCU was designed from the ground up with the Avengers because that's what they had left. If they could have started with Spider-Man or the X-Men...they would have done that...but they didn't own the film rights.

- - - Updated - - -

Except for the fact that they're now using the reboot, not covering a mantel briefly. Anything else I can prove you wrong about?

Exactly which characters are taking up the mantle of old ones then? I'd really like to see you prove me wrong on anything...because so far you've been whiffing pretty hard.


- - - Updated - - -

Thanos should have dealt with the Hulk the same way he dealt with Champion and simply teleport him away:

In their first battle Thanos just beat him down. Thanos likes to get a bit of rough and Tumble every now and then.

[JDL49]

He had a pretty big role in thor:ragnarok thou. If they can get away with a movie with that much screen time of the hulk i don't see it as a huge limitation.

If the Hulk is the lead then Universal has the right to distribute the movie. If he's not then they don't. Since the studio and the distributor split what's left after the theaters take their cut its in the studios interest to not give up half of that money to the distributor. It's that simple. As for how much they used the Hulk in Ragnarok they were nowhere near the point where that would have been an issue.

[Shadowferal]

In their first battle Thanos just beat him down. Thanos likes to get a bit of rough and Tumble every now and then.

Yeah!
I have to say though that it didn't gel well with me that Champion, supposedly a master martial artist/fighter for centuries if not millennia, couldn't have taken him hand-to-hand.

I prefer Thanos' 2nd encounter which seemed to me more fitting.

[JDL49]

That is the same thing. Marvel still owns the character.

Publishing rights apply to printed media. That's not even close to the same thing.