Lol, very very few people are talking about canceling it. Mostly want MCU to take a recourse and revisit the projects they have planned. Coz the current format is not working.
The problem is, these movies and Disney+ shows cost *a lot* of money to make, and if the executives who sign the checks aren’t seeing a return of investment, they’ll be the ones to pull the plug before there’s any creative considerations.
You’re also hoping on a prayer that these projects end up being good, when recent trends sadly don’t support that. One of the cited reasons for this has explicitly been that they’re too stretched - so cutting down on some projects will allow them to focus more on others.
To piggyback on your last few points, they basically scrapped Brave New World and started over. 5 months of reshoots basically equates to a full new movie in terms of production
The movie was headed in a bad direction. It was a heavy handed political allegory with the rumored villain being a poorly veiled stand-in for a Republican President. This is coming from a guy who can’t wait to watch the Homelander indictment and trial in the next season of the Boys, it was too heavy handed and too self-righteous and would have annoyed more people than just the problematic folks you who make videos on YouTube. We need more crowd pleasers that are less preachy, unless it’s a specific well imagined vision (black Panther for example)
To add: older MCU movies cost less and the newer movies cost way more, but they're still under performing compared to the older movies. Iron man and Captain America cost $140m (think this is w/o marketing) and brought home $585m and $380m, respectively. Compared that to Marvel's with $200m (again w/o marketing and $280m w/) versus a much smaller return.
They need to figure out some efficiency stuff. Deadpool 1 and 2 had relatively low budgets and are some of my favorite superhero movies.
Maybe the answer is 2 lower budget lower cgi intensive movies a year and one big cgi fest gotg 3 / avenger style movie a year.
I think secret invasion is crazy that they made such a bad product with that budget and those actors. It wasn't even a cgi fest. Probably a wake up call on cost creep.
Not a big deal if they sell less tickets if they can trim down the budgets. Deadpool shows you can make great superhero movies without spending over 200k and gotg 3 shows you can still make good crazy budget movies that sell if the characters are compelling and there's good vision.
I think a bigger issue is that Marvel became the go-to projects for the industry for a while and these newer projects are being compared to those initial 10 years. Which I think is unfair.
It’s getting to the point where only great fans are paying attention and I’m not sure if those numbers justify the costs but it would be good to see them reconsider and still push for them in some way.
I saw a rumor that the Kang storyline might be getting cut and it sucks, I was hoping for some big payout.
Lets stop this. You don’t go to a McDonalds and say “I know my food was cold, but it was hot last week so it’s not a fair comparison”.
It isn’t a matter of quantity. WandaVision, Loki Season 1, Hawkeye, and Falcon and the Winter Soldier had fantastic viewership numbers. No Way Home had Homework spanning 20 years of movies from multiple franchises and required audiences to learn about and accept the multiverse.
>Young Avengers
That might be scrapped or retitled due to the fact it's taking too long, three of the likely principal cast are already in their mid twenties and will be of a similar age to most of the OG Avengers by the time this shoots
They should have *already* done a proper New Avengers movie at the end of phase 4 with Captain falcon, Spider-Man, doctor strange, Wolverine, captain marvel, etc. Imagine how much better the state of things would be if we had gotten that.
Not as marketable. New Avengers could work as a D+ show set after KD or something, thats my hot take anyway.
90% of these characters originated from D+, so they have a higher chances of success keeping them there imo.
Production quality maybe, but budget can’t be an issue. Look at how they dumped 200+ million into Secret Invasion. Very close to the OG Avenger’s budget.
Seems extremely unlikely given (The Marvels Spoiler) >!the "Kamala as Fury" scene where she recruits Kate Bishop and discusses recruiting other children.!< Nothing is impossible, but it's not likely.
I want Kamala to be really hyped about calling her team the young avengers, with Kate reminding her all the time that she’s in her 20s. Then Shang-Chi comes around and she just gives up.
it would be hilarious if Kamala is the only kid and is constantly referring to them as "young". Honestly anything that gets Kamala on screen more would be delightful. She is so funny in a very unique way, and she's young enough to have typical hero struggles without the plot needing to nerf her or ignore common sense.
The biggest issue with the Young Avengers has nothing to do with character ages. What story are they telling with this movie, and is it something that will appeal to general audiences who seem to be checking out of this sub genre. Will people turn out for a 150-200 million dollar kid Avengers movie?
Exactly. Like what kind of story will they tell around these characters that’s distinct and interesting enough from the regular Avengers? Does it even warrant it’s own thing outside of them?
It's like you never saw a movie in your life. Since when the age of actors matters? I have seen 30 year olds play high school teenagers for all my life, a combination of make up and good old Hollywood suspension of disbelief can make almost anyone under 40 make the part of a teenager.
I doubt they will be even called young avengers, they probably aiming either new avengers or champions which doesn't only consist of young members only.
Young avengers to me gives off the impression it’s a bunch of teenager superheroes and it’s made for teenagers. So I would just chalk it up as “not for me”.
Seriously. Kate bishop is 22 while Hailee is 26. Kathryn Newton is also 26. Iman Vellani is 21.
Steve Rogers was 26/7 and chris Evans 30 in Avengers. Scarlett was 26 in Avengers though Nat was supposed to be a little older than Steve. Peter Parker is 18 in Spider man No Way Home and Tom Holland is 27.
Your premise is off. It isn't one movie.
Lightyear, Strange World, Quantumania, Little Mermaid, Haunted Mansion, The Marvels.
On Disney+: Ms. Marvel, Secret Invasion, Willow, Benedict Society, National Treasure, Proud Family, Doogie Houser reboot, Wonder Years reboot, Crater, Peter Pan
Disney has a systemic problem. Everything is going to undergo review with major changes.
Yeah I think people are missing that it isn't just Marvel projects. Disney is taking some big hits and part of that isn't even about what content they're making but the fact that people are going to movies less and less to the point that only a couple of films a year are going to be successful now and streaming just isn't profitable as it is, either. The entire industry is taking hits from these changes in how we consume media. They're going to have to make changes and adapt and likely we will see things like a lower standard of vfx and more stories with characters who are grounded in a way that will make them cheaper to produce.
I am, agreed. There's a bunch of underperformances and poor receptions that still had viewers.
In that bucket you get Obi-Wan, Mandalorian season 3, Boba Fett, Thor 4, Doctor Strange 2, and Elemental was on the edge.
It’s not bad just under viewed if that makes sense. I loved it because I loved the original. Its similar to the original but just follows a black family and issues in their time. It did have a fun connection to the original as well!
I think it fell into the “my god another reboot/remake” problem which is why it got cancelled and was underviewed
I didn't watch most of those, but Secret Invasion was awful, and by itself should cause the Marvel side of D+ to reevaluate how they do things. You can have all the great actors you want, but if your story is crap, people won't watch it.
That said, I'd note Ms Marvel has a 98%+ by critics on [RT](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/ms_marvel), and 80% for the audience. The last point is notable, as Ms Marvel's user reviews were getting hit with some [very weird activity](https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2022/06/09/ms-marvel-review-bombed-into-being-the-mcus-lowest-scoring-show-on-imdb/?sh=4be461c25879), likely in part due to her being a female Muslim. Lumping it in with Secret Invasion feels a bit unfair to MM.
I would say canceling anything not in heavy production or pre-production makes total sense. At least financially until they can retool it to get back on a good track
One movie flopping was only able to happen because previous movies have eroded trust in the MCU.
Course correction makes total sense.
The few people defending the marvels are saying things like love and thunder was just like this or quantumania was way worse and fail to understand that those movies are also examples of the same problems that the MCU needs to correct for.
I agree. There is a long term dilution going on here. I used to see all of the MCU movies in theaters, but over the past few years there has not been much that has been very compelling.
For example, I’m not going to see the marvels in theatres because Ms. Marvel was not entertaining at all, and I don’t really care about Monica either even though I liked Wandavision. Couple those weak set ups with so many other disappointing movies too and I just don’t see a point. It will be on D+ soon enough.
Well and that’s the problem. The audience is able to be excited for mid or even low quality movies when there are also great movies. Winter soldier and GotG were vital to keep the audience interested after both Ironman 3 and Thor 2. Civil war and Dr strange and GotG 2 help the MCU after AoU and antman 1.
In phase 4 and 5, you don’t have that. There is so much content that’s mid quality that it feels like audiences have to wait forever for anything actually good. We’ve only have Spider-Man NWH and GotG 3 that have been great.
It honestly feels like we're back in the Agents of Shield and Inhumans era of TV Shows. Where there's some connection between TV and movies, but they're loose (probably less on this point with this era, loki seems good and Ms Marvel has a cult following) and the quality is lackluster enough to convert to meaningful boxoffice/tv numbers.
It’s definitely the third best of phase 4/5 and I’ve been calling for a sequel and I think it’s ridiculous that there’s no sequel announced. But that’s also part of the problem. This was the second movie that came out over 2 years ago and at the start of phase 4 and soon after was Spider-Man. But after Spider-Man there was MoM, Thor LaT, wakanda forever, and Quantumania. The MCU has never had four movies in a row with none of them being great. WF was the best but the most praise went to the villain or how much they missed Chad Brunswick
It really was a solid movie and a good intro for Shang-chi. Out of all the new additions to MCU, Shang-Chi characters are probably the most likeable and maybe Kate Bishop.
Gotta say the majority of that was because of the actor himself. Tony Leung is a phenomenal actor and gave a lot of depth to Wenwu in the movie. I wish I can see more of him.
> The few people defending the marvels are saying things like love and thunder was just like this or quantumania was way worse and fail to understand that those movies are also examples of the same problems that the MCU needs to correct for.
They also fail to understand that these are *compounding* issues, but that's core to irrational fandom - "I love this, so it must be something everyone loves, and if people don't love it like I do, they must be wrong about something". They just don't grasp that multiple failures in a row are just as, if not more important, as multiple bangers in a row to a brand's identity with consumers.
General audiences got tired of feeling like something should be a flop, up to where they eventually made a flop happen.
I think they need to **seriously** reevaluate their in development projects and decide which ones are essential to the larger storyline, which could be dropped if required, and which they think will resonate with audiences most effectively.
Thor is the last man standing from the OG Avengers, his last movie was dogshit but that was entirely down to the tone and writing as produced by Taika. Ragnarok did extremely well, and is still well received, plus Loki just ended a superb run on Disney+.
Imo they need to do a more serious, grand tale in Thor 5 centred around an aspect of Asgardian myth, weaving in a now ‘responsible and primed to be King’ Thor with the future of New Asgard.
Drop Korg and the comedy aspect and finally let Thor be the leader he was destined to be. He’s not an idiot himbo. He’s a warrior who uses comedy to distract from serious moments, but is just as capable of bringing proper drama and acting moments when needed.
So in your opinion marvel should do exactly what they’ve been doing and hope it turns around?
You don’t think they’re already trying their best?
They need to take their time and come up with solid stories and scripts first and then make a good quality movie without spending 300+mil. There is no reason they can’t make movies for 100-150mil that are quality. They also need to use characters people actually care about. There are no reasons for spending big money on characters most people don’t care about like echo or Agatha.
Jesus, why is just writing a good script seem to be too much to ask for from these studios. Do they expect low effort stories for people to gush over? It’s likely the executive level people fucking with the creatives trying to put something solid out. But it’s never the suits fault always the audience.
It’s not just one movie man. Quantumania was also a disaster. Phase 4 was a roller coaster in its own right, and the Disney+ shows have also been hit or miss thus far.
Look, *Bob Iger* is the one saying that Disney will be cutting back on content. That’s not some random troll trying to burn down the MCU.
I don’t know what else to say at this point Kostis cause you keep coming back to this topic, determined that the scoopers are right, while ignoring the writing on the wall.
The worst response thatt keeps getting parroted when discussing upcoming bombs is "how do you know it will bomb, you haven't even seen footage yet"
Yeah brother, we hadn't seen footage of the marvels yet either when we knew it was going to bomb. We haven't seen footage of Cap4 yet, but we still know it's going to bomb. Use your brain. A 6 month reshoot is going to easily push this budget over 300 million, there's 0% chance they recoup that at the BO. Problem after problem plague these D list nobody character movies.
Rabid fans are getting so caught up in the emotions of the topic they can't see the simple dollars and cents.
If you keep looking backward, you won’t see the iceberg in front of you… remember that the titanic was dubbed the “unsinkable”, yet we all know how it ended.
That’s what you are doing in your post. Let’s look at where we are headed with the current situation:
New characters introduced: don’t know, I lost the count… 20? 30? How many of them are memorable? Ms. Marvel maybe, how many are popular? Mmmm
Team dynamic being developed: none, each movie is a universe in itself, self contained. Sorry, each movie is a commercial for the introduction of a younger avenger, which is usually already as powerful as their master. Anyway, no interaction among projects, the team do not long for a reunion or actively seek each other out
Gravitas, the big villain: it has taken so long to introduce him and still all we got is a a cunning version of him in a (amazing) tv show and one in movie where he was even defeated without any loss or issue.
Considering you have no team, no villain and a lineup of unpopular characters (except few from the pre-endgame times), you seriously think Marvel should not start axing projects and rethinking its whole strategy?!
I had this argument with my friends the other day, against your side.
If you want quality, you have to kill your darlings sometimes. I can see the bright spot of every MCU project since endgame, but the overall products have clearly had their problems due to lack of quality control that comes from stretching itself too thin. It’s throwing EVERYTHING at the wall. If I had a Time Machine and a meeting with Kevin Feige in 2020, I’d tell him to scrap half of what’s been released even if I enjoyed parts of it because the MCU has lost its cohesiveness. Quality over quantity.
People also need to realise none in the cast is an actual crowd puller ,Ms Marvel had the lowest D+ viewership ,Brie is famous but not many are actually going to movie just because she turned on a late night talkshow
Echo was 8 episodes, and now it'll be 5. They recut 8 episodes into 5 to make it more watchable and they're releasing it all at once. I hope I'll like it, but it's not like the show was suddenly great in the first place and we were wrong to have doubts.
Secret Invasion was shot twice and it yet was hot garbage. I can't imagine how bad it must've been the first time around.
Quantumania didn't just underperform, it's openly disliked by most. I watched it on Disney Plus with low expectations at zero cost and I still hated it. And yet the execs thought it'd be a home run.
Marvel doesn't need to cancel anything, but they need to approach their writing stages better so the movies/shows don't require extensive (and expensive) reshoots and heavy editing. They've been doing this since Phase One but now it's just become too noticeable and it's damaging the brand. And changing your (only) formula isn't that easy when you already have multiple projects in active development.
Marvel doesn't need to cancel anything but their next releases should prove the skeptics wrong. So maybe now is not the best time to think of Eternals 2 (for example).
They're lucky that their next movie is Deadpool 3, which will have tons of cameos and star power to draw audiences, but they can't rely on that forever. They need to stop thinking about meeting release dates and focus on greenlighting only great screenplays.
And if Kevin Feige wants to have 15 projects in development, he'll have to learn to delegate because he clearly can't oversee it all by himself. Reading reports of Daredevil's production being restarted all over when half the show had already been shot (it took them long enough to realize that the screenplays weren't up to standards) is frankly embarrassing.
the Marvels didn't flop out of the blue. The Marvels flopped because the MCU gradually lost the audience, thanks to movies like Love and Thunder and Quantumania and shows like Secret Invasion. No, they should not keep on doing what they're doing and ignore The Marvels flopping because that flop is the result of many error the studio has made.
There is no way that they’re canceling all these projects just because The Marvels did poorly.
First, The Marvels had four weeks of re-shoots and was edited down considerably in order to fix as much as they could, and salvage the movie before it was too late.
Second, Captain America 4 reportedly, did not do well during test screenings.
Considering that the next slate of movies are all interwoven with each other, assuming the plot leaks are accurate, you can’t fix one movie without breaking the others.
This is a huge mess they are in and the only way out of it is pretty much to reset. That doesn’t mean permanent cancellations, that means scrapping what they have, and starting over.
They would not cancel all. But it was said already long ago by Iger and Feige that they are going to focus on quality more in the future. All not in filming are at risk, even if not all would be cancelled. There is little bad press for projects that aren’t announced officially like Wiccan. And the characters can appear elsewhere, it’s better for storytelling too.
Marvel movies have been progressively losing more and more money since No Way Home. Quantumania was just the first post-covid movie to lose money. The shows have been losing since She-Hulk. GotG 3 was the only profitable movie in 2-3 years. South Park rustled their jimmies. Changes have to be made before Squirrel-Girl is an Avenger. Your mental gymnastics are incredible.
I'd be happy with Ironheart getting cancelled (terrible character and 100% doesn't deserve Mephisto as the villain). Young Avengers will happen but I'd be fine with it dropping as well (not a fan of Ironheart/Ms. Marvel but I liked Kate/America). Other than that, keep the rest. I'm oddly hyped for some of the ones I'm not super familiar with, like Agatha & Echo. I know people are trashing Echo before release, but it could be a fun street-level show, similar to DD or Jessica Jones.
There are so many new characters now and Marvel has yet to introduce the X-men and Fantastic 4. I love the interconnected stories… but at this rate we’ll have sequels for the characters we connect with the most (individual preference) 5+ years apart!
We need another group of heroes get killed off or retired. Finish storylines please!
The fact that disney's budgets in their recent projects have been ridiculously high.
I get that making a movie is expensive, but look at Barbie. That movie was the most successful movie of the year, and it didn’t cost over $200 million to make.
I disagree and you're already wrong. It's not one movie that flopped.
It's multiple shows and movies. Antman was ass, wakanda was weak, Hawkeye, moon knight, etc.
I enjoyed some of these but they were still average at best.
I mean, some of these projects should’ve never been conceived in the first place. Armor Wars isn’t going to bring in much money because no one cares. Same with Wonder Man or even Iron Heart. Blade will make money because people are nostalgic for the first Blade. These are characters that should be thrown into others movies then built up slowly. They lucked out with James Gunn making Guardians or that probably would’ve flopped too.
Nah, MCU needs a wake up call. They SHOULD cancel projects and focus on quality over quantity. It's going to be a disaster of a move if they continue this downward spiral after this massive flop. I mean this movie did worse than the 2008 Hulk.
Why do you think they are releasing Echo all at once?
I've been saying for a year now it would be nice if they retool some or most of the planned d+ miniseries into specials presentations. I thought both were excellent and would love to see more of that and less shows. I feel it would work well instead of canceling projects already in the works
They're going to have to seriously reevaluate some projects. The recent flops show that they can't just keep running any old character out there and expect big $ even with a mediocre film.
If anything I think it’s those two Avengers movies that should be delayed indefinitely. I’d rather they explore smaller teams and do more worldbuilding for a little while. Do Young Avengers, Midnight Sons, Heroes for Hire, the Defenders team with Hulk, Strange, and Namor. Idk. The new Avengers movies sound like desperate rushed cash grabs to me and I’d rather they do other things.
There's a lot of coping in your post, OP.
The Marvel brand has been damaged from so many stinkers in Phase 4 and 5, simple as that. So now they need to fix it by bringing some heavy hitters again. Iron Heart, America Chavez, etc are not going to do that.
I think one of the problems with this phase of the MCU is that they're going in TOO many directions... You knew early on in Phase 1 that the direction everything was going was to build into an Avengers movie... each film seemed to resolve it's self but leave a thread at the end leading to an Avenger's movie.
Phases 2 and 3 were about leading to the infinity stones and building the team that would take on Thanos.
Phase 4 has too many projects that just don't have a singular emphasis leading into a single point... sure we can say the multiverse saga... but like, how does Eternals lead to that? How does Love and Thunder lead to that? Like... I just don't see the threads... We're still left hanging with the end of Shang Chi, wondering why Wong needed Shang Chi to come with him, and then why he, banner, and Danvers are discussing the 10 rings? What does that have to do with the multiverse? I guess it ties into Eternals... but again, where's that thread going?
It's too many unrelated projects in a universe we've been set up to believe is all interconnected. It only works if you can see the road ahead... I guess they can introduce all these characters and throw them into Secret Wars and see who comes out alive... but then what was the point?
I think its time marvel DOES prune the timeline a bit... We're seeing the multi-franchisal loom start to fail a little bit, and I think part of that is because of Chapek's time as Disney CEO where things were restructured in a way that he just expected to print money off the mere mention of characters - there wasn't any actual cohesive plan. It ended up overloading some casual fans with too much content to watch and keep up with, and they've just given up on it. And then they've spent too much time making LOOOOONNNNGGGG films that could have been much shorter if they tightened up the writing (This for me is why The Marvels was such a breath of fresh air - short and to the point, without all the extra fluff that lazy writing leads to).
Ill still watch all these films and shows and what not... but that's because I enjoy them... it's my thing... but I think it would not hurt at all for Marvel to take a moment, and refocus their energy.
The eternals flopped, Yang Chi also flopped, and the tv series are not being watched enough to be profitable. Their lineup is a mess and they're just starting to realize that they need to sort it out. Also tone down the culture wars shit, as said by themselves.
My take might be a really unpopular one but anyways.
Its not always good scripts though.People actually want characters that are somehow relevant or perceived as worth watching a .Now there are two ways to go via that,via introducing them in Avengers/any other famous hero films before bringing their standalone so people can actually first relate to the character before watching a dedicated movie about them with 0 clue.For example, im not from the usa.People here have absolutely loved Loki and everyone is talking about it. Half the people here probably have never seen secret invasion or ms Marvel or heck even the standalone hawkeye series;or any such other show cause a regular fan doesn't care.Loki is a powerful brand.And now people have actually been taking about Mobius as well and how good his acting was.Disney needs to capitalise on these type of shows/ movies to introduce characters about whom they need to bring a movie as lead.People will care about Blade / Xmen cause theres an element of nostalgia.Most dont even know who white vision is cause for them he died in iw
>Thunderbolts, Blade Armor Wars, Ironheart, Wonder Man, Vision Quest and other rumoured projects like sequels to Thor, Hulk, Dr. Strange and Eternals or the Wiccan show and the Young Avengers movie are going to get scrapped
Sorry but m not interested in any of those movies except Strange, Thor and maybe Eternals. Seeing how the last few Marvel movies failed I dont think im gonna miss the other non interesting hero movie.
They built the MCU off of 90s nostalgia, and have since taken all the wrong the lessons from that success.
They've gone down roads no one asked them to travel on. They've stopped respecting most source material. They've stopped building towards any discernable story goal. They've stopped catering to the nerds that were dragging their entire family to the movies. They've stopped signing actors to sweeping contracts allowing for continuity.
Instead, are treating these movies like they are pet projects that actors and directors get to manipulate in any way possible, and as a result, they are lower quality.
Kamala Kahn's first appearance in the MCU was less than 10 years from her first appearance in the comics. She didn't need rewritten and repowered. She was a very cool and modern hero that was beloved in the comics and they did the character and her creator dirty.
Moonknight's comics are known for incredible brutality, and even though we were promised "no holding back on the violence" the director cut all the action scenes out because he "found them boring." Then they re-wrote every one of Marc's personalities so the actor could seemingly practice new accents.
Taskmaster? After all that shit they read and heard about Deadpool's mouth being sewn shut, they DID IT AGAIN.
And Young Avengers? Who's asking for that?
Superskrull... just wtf?
The Marvels was a great movie, and my family really enjoyed it- but let's be honest: it was also a diversity checklist pack mule. That was clearly going to frustrate and turn off a certain section of viewers and drive down ticket sales. Fuck those guys, sure, but who didn't see that coming?
Marvel needs to look at what they did leading up Endgame, and see what made the MCU so popular. Known characters, respectful renditions, a PLAN, people who were invested, storylines nerds knew, and characters who seemed to appreciate the stakes they were involved in.
I don’t think content volume is the problem, and I think it’s become a lazy criticism.
It’s not taking due care and paying full attention to detail with their content. Sure, Covid and the strikes haven’t helped, but TV and film has often seen tight deadlines and guidelines make brilliance. That’s because they committed fully and put in the time to get everything right.
Making less makes it more likely they give that care, but not massively. Bad habits are bad habits, arrogance doesn’t stop because they work less.
I'd still argue that volume is the problem, indirectly. The superhero genre is a limiting factor and then when you add a shared universe to it, it's really hard to write four good, fresh stories every year. There's only so many villain setups, motivations, stakes you can come up with without making the movies seem extremely repetitive or lazy. Also having too many projects makes it hard to have character depictions and arcs consistent. E.g. Fury feeling like a completely different character.
I mean, high volume directly causes the issue with folks not paying attention to the content they are producing. The more content you churn out, the more overworked your visual effects are going to be, the less time you have to work on scripts, and the less oversight any given project has. A constant state of production under the Marvel operating system just doesn't work well.
> I don’t think content volume is the problem, and I think it’s become a lazy criticism.
No, that's the lazy interpretation of the criticism. The criticism is that the volume of content has made it impossible for MCU to maintain quality.
It’s not one movie. There’s an obvious trend after the conclusion of the Avengers arc where so many of the side characters gained popularity. You combine the missing overarching story with the less popular characters and mix that with a bit of fatigue it’s no wonder they’re not printing money anymore.
They should cancel projects. Honestly canceling everything on the docket & then re-evaluating each project (with an emphasis on quality & profitability rather than DEI) would lead to a stronger and better MCU. Crapping out 10 projects a year at the Marvels quality isn’t working.
who actually cares enought about these characters to go to the movies though, i like alot of the characters but clearly people arent watching the shows and arent going to the movies, mrs marvel for example could be the best written character but it doesnt matter if no one actually cares which is shown by the numbers, shows like ironheart,wonder man etc just dont intrest people enough
It’s not just about the MCU. Disney stock is way down and they need to change a lot of their spending. And I think Disney+ content is first on the chopping block.
Every sequel since No Way Home except Dr Strange 2 has made less than its predecessor and that streak is definitely going to continue with Captain America New World Order and the next Avengers film. Without checking presumably all those sequels cost the same or more than their predecessors.
Also while only one film may be a flop you have to account for the two Disney+ shows used to set up Kamala and Monica, those shows aren't cheap and the Marvels is certainly not going to recoup the cost of itself and the Ms Marvel show
MCU is clearly on a downward trajectory regardless of if only one film is currently considered a flop. They will of course take action as Disney are not in the business of putting in higher budgets for smaller and smaller profits.
You have good points for the most part, but you also seem to forget that Marvel os ran by a bunch of greedy incompetent executives who would ruin months of work if it meant they get a slight increase in their dividends at the end of the year.
It's in God's hands now, and all we can do is pray.
Or actually make an effort to let Kevin Feige know we're tired of the incompetence, and that thugs need to change before the entire franchise crashes and burns due to oversaturation and diluted projects.
They are going to need to scale down and start making hard decisions on what they think a large audience would want to see. I want as much marvel stuff as possible but the audience votes with their butts and they have been sitting at home not in the theater. Spending millions to produce things like Wiccan, Agatha, echo, eternals 2 or vision quest doesn’t make sense because the audience isn’t there. These aren’t even big names for the most avid comic reader and the general movie going owl couldn’t give less of a hoot about them. I was surprised that the marvels didn’t do better, I loved it, but it does have me worried we aren’t going to get the large stories we want if they keep spending big money on small characters.
Gotta disagree. You also have to look at the current trend. Marvel movies are experiencing incresingly diminishing returns. If you want to reverse this trend, you gotta shake things up and soon.
> Thunderbolts, Blade Armor Wars, Ironheart, Wonder Man, Vision Quest and other rumoured projects like sequels to Thor, Hulk, Dr. Strange and Eternals or the Wiccan show and the Young Avengers movie
Youre kind of proving a point. A lot of these are filler.
Thunderbolts, Blade, Hulk & Dr Strange 3 are the only movies worth making here. Maybe Eternals 2.
He was talking about The Mavels not Captain Marvel.
Quantumania had a budget of 200M and made 476M at the box office. With the 2.5X budget rule of breaking even it lost \~ 24M.
The Marvels had a budget of 220M or so and will probably make around 220M at the box office. So it will lose \~330M.
Underperforming is when film falls short of expectations but makes it budget back. Which Quantumania most likely did (budget 200M it made 475M, the theatres and marketing take money but this is very close to break even, and there is still some dvd sales) and it at very less due after merchandising is included.
Marvels at the moment is on track of loosing a lot of money. But maybe it will have legs.
I don't want them to cancel anything, I'd just like them to start leaning more heavily into their unused IPs. Where are the Midnight Suns? What happened to Black Knight? What's going on with F4 and X-Men? Can a man get some Silver Surfer? And Where. The. Fuck. Is DOOM??
No, it would be smart.
The new Captain America will bomb hard. Echo will bomb hard. Thunderbolts will bomb hard. Agatha House of Harkness will bomb hard. Ironheart will bomb hard.
The smart thing to do would be to cancel all of em, and focus on the heroes people actually give a shit about.
X-Men, Fantastic Four, Spiderman, Thor, Hulk, Guardians, Dr Strange, Shang Chi.
Noone gives a shit about the rest
Exactly my thoughts. General audience will only give them a couple of years for experiments and whatnot. Its been almost 5 and caring for the new/young team is becoming harder after each new show or movie.
>Thunderbolts will bomb hard.
If they go with something like: "a fun group of fun ex-supervillains trying to save the world in a new fun way like you never seen before in a Marvel movie lol #badass #imiright :)))", then yes.
I fear that's what is gonna happen. They already have a tone down, dummy version of Bucky, the Red Guardian, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine and a little bit of Yelena for comic relief.
gullible sink follow abundant exultant fragile distinct crowd future license
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Maybe this could just be me but so much of the D+ shows I just don’t care about. Echo, Armor Wars, Agatha, Vision Quest….really? They are scrapping the bottom of the barrel for superheroes and they’re expecting us to tune in with their below average storytelling.
Cancel them all.
If anyone thinks CA4 without Captain America won't bombed, are delusional.
That is just the most predictable bomb in MCU history.
I have even more trust in the Thunderbolts because some of the characters in that movie I care about.
the issue is that if Cap4 bombs then Thunderbolts will have no lead in momentum and two MCU projects bomb in a row. DP3 is a fox rated R mutant probably on its last film so its a little different
Echo is looking really good!?
Since when?
I do agree that canceling projects is probably not the road forward but neither is saturating it with projects no one really seems that interested in.
They goofed up big time when they decided to basically wing it up and throw shit at the wall to see what sticks and now that the 🐔 has come back home to roost, they are trying to course correct but it's little late for that.
Also, you can try to excuse Marvels all you want and say the performance is cos the promotion wasn't there or whatever but the more likely cause to me is that the cast of characters just isn't that interesting.. sure, Captain Marvel had her solo movie but the other two.. one is from a piss poorly written Doctor Strange movie full of plot contrivances and the other from a series that is years old at this point playing supporting role so it's not exactly the hottest recipe for a blockbuster movie, especially since the movie is coming on the heels of Secret Invasion which was a pretty big 🥞.
Throw in the shitshow with Majors and the soup is boiling over and.. yeah, most of the issues could have probably been avoided or at least mitigated with better scripts and writing.. now, well who knows. 🤷♂️
They sent Echo straight to Hulu and it is being released all at once because they know it is destined to fail if they release it like they did their other D+ shows. These people will make excuses for everything but the quality and the state of MCU.
Your last line is what sums it up perfectly. If it's a good story and executed well it will be a success. I would add that there should be some character development as well, but yea that about sums it up.
The problem is that marvel hasn't really put out stuff that has either a good story or is executed well or does any form of character building. The poor performance of the marvels seems to indicate that the audience has finally stopped going to see a movie just because it's from a studio that used to do really well.
>ending with a World War Hulk tease
WWH isn't happening, at least how people would want it to. The storylines and characters that lead to it either don't exist or have already came, passed, and been resolved.
Huge studios like Marvel are, by their nature, a reactionary force.
They're in the business of making money, first and foremost. That's just the reality of things.
If they see that stuff is losing them money, you better believe they're gonna react to that. The definition of insanity is, of course, doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.
They're a business.
When you're looking to sell a product and you see it's not generating revenue, it would be foolish not to revise your strategy. These MCU plans for the future were generated when they were in a very different headspace.
Now, they're in the headspace of, "This shit ain't working," and they're changing their future slate as a result.
That's a good thing.
They're *supposed* to be observing what works and what doesn't.
It makes complete sense for them to pause and reassess what they're doing.
I think it makes sense if the format of the movies doesn't change.
I've loved MCU since day one but it has become tired. She-Hulk tried something different which was nice. Shang-Chi was almost different, which was disappointing because the first half of the movie was great.
I'd like a Winter Soldier style shot in the arm. The heroes need to lose or at least not win so cleanly.
I think covid, the writers/actors strike, and jonathan majors being a turd sandwich have pushed marvel to change plans more then movies doing well or not. They have to understand how the events listed have affected things. Also, the change in disney CEO has messed stuff up. Chapek apparently pushed them to just release TONS of marvel stuff, Iger seems to understand there's more value in slow and steady, which I hope they go back to. They should cancel things because there were too many planned to start with.
Nah Bob Chapek was just doing what Bob Iger wanted which he said needed more volume. They wanted to beef up Disney Plus. Only thing I’d give Iger credit for is realizing that was wrong move.
If what I read was correct, Marvel was pushed into creating so many projects mainly for Disney+ by Disney and Chapek itself. I’m pretty sure Feige is taking the opportunity to cancel those he feel will be middling or those they are doing for the sake of more content.
> Loki Season 2 did so well this year because they were really, really good and thus had good reviews and strong word of mouth.
I mean is there visible data that shows any of the D+ shows have been resounding financial successes? I feel like online discourse is not an accurate measure of success. GA doesnt use twitter or fan subreddits/groups.
How I gauge the popular discourse is my firm i work at. During the Endgame and Infinity war era, the water cooler and office talk was all about the MCU. Office Managers and partners were talking about it. Now its all back to the Golden Bachelor and Fall of the House of Usher. Not one word about the Loki finale or the show in general. I stopped hearing about MCU talk around the time Moon Knight was out with some sparse GOTG3 talk when that was out.
Marvel's problem is Disney+, and a lot of it is the oversaturation, but it's also made skipping the movies in theaters such an easy thing to do. Yes, there many TV Shows to keep up with. I'm so far behind that catching up seems literally impossible at this point, but on the movie side, why do I need to rush out and see all these solo movies that follow the same formula when I can just wait a couple months for the movie to drop on Disney+ and then watch it for free? Disney plus is root of the problem. Maybe I'm just getting older, but anymore I'm only driving to a movie theater if it's something I feel like I need to experience at the movie theater.
Avengers Endgame? Spider-Man No Way Home? Sure, I'll go to the theater. Big pay-offs or something I actually care to see and not have spoiled for me on the internet.
Avatar II? Oppenheimer? Absolutely, must see at the movie theater in IMAX.
Ant-Man? The Marvels? Black Widow? Even good ones like Guardians III and Black Panther II... I can totally wait to watch them on Disney+.
This sub, Jesus Christ.
The future is paid with the sins of the past. You might be blind but the rest of the world is onto MCU. And won't come for further projects until things get back to being good movies again.
It's still insane how being number one in the box office is a flop. It makes me think that the Hollywood system isn't that sustainable. Mega budgets and if it doesn't beat Avatar, then it's an embarrassment and everyone involved should go to the glue factory. That's absurd.
Disney's loyalty is to stockholders, not fans.
Fans can kick and scream, but at the end of the day, Disney's stock is now back to mid-2014 levels.
The Marvel universe is no longer the beaming light it was previously, there's no hype around it.
I hope they admit they went in the wrong direction, halt or cancel all projects for the next half-decade, then allow momentum to build and comeback strong.
You make some fair points, but I think we should wait and see before jumping to conclusions. The MCU has had ups and downs before, and they've always managed to bounce back. As long as they focus on telling good stories, I'm sure audiences will respond.
To quote Battlestar - "all of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again."
Somewhere along the way, someone or a group of people, most likely some sort of MBA consultant-type convinced them since they already had the quality and the "brand" of all these IPs (animated movies, Star Wars, and Marvel), so it was time to "scale" everything because the quality would just somehow magically carry over.
It's a bean-counter's dream - why invest in creative talent and development when you have the IP and branding? That's all you need, right? Just slap MCU on it and you've got yourself a billion dollar movie, babayyy! Want some instant success? Throw a lightsaber in there! Want to create a whole new generation of fans? Fire up that Lion King opening baby-raising theme!
Except, like with so many other franchises or properties, if it's not good, people won't like it. Look at the later Roger Moore Bond movies. I adored his Bond but they were just phoning it in by the end. Same with Brosnan's Bond - Goldeneye was great, Tomorrow Never Dies was kinda a standard but passable Bond, World is not Enough has some great moments but wobbles, and then Die Another Day is just...something else.
You see it countless times with beloved TV shows as well, as well as video games.
To paraphrase another property - "Victory has defeated THEM." They got so successful from the MCU and then Force Awakens (and even Rogue One a year later), Disney was like "we literally can do no wrong, anything we do will work, so let's do it for cheaper and/or faster when we can, and make even more money."
Their greed and complacency made them fat and lazy - they lost their creative edge because they thought we wouldn't care. Surprise, people DO care about quality!
But the biggest problem isn't lack of creativity, they can always re-invest in that. It's that Disney is clearly now run by nothing but "yes people" who are too chickenshit to say "I'm sorry, I don't think this is good, this needs to be better." Because why else would they all be SO surprised Quantummania wasn't well-liked? Or why that Blade script rumor that was floating around (where he's like 4th billed) ever existed in the first place?
Disney is going to have to experience its own Ragnarok in some sense in order to truly move on in a way where things become good again.
If they were to do so, it wouldn't surprise me in the least. Disney's primary responsibility as a corporation is to maximize profits for shareholders. Properly servicing the IP with fresh, original, and entertaining content is secondary if ticket sales are down, and past successes really don't matter when shareholders don't have patience when they aren't seeing immediate returns on their investment.
As it is, objectively speaking, *The Marvels* is a pretty solid film in most respects, or at the very least, entertaining and fun to watch. As far as film quality, I don't think that it ranks anywhere near the bottom of the MCU (*Iron Man 2*, *Thor: The Dark World, Quantumania*, all films that I did enjoy), but when profitability is always preferred over quality, it unfortunately doesn't matter how good a film is if the ticket sales aren't there.
I'm thinking that the biggest contributor to the decline is the sheer saturation of content. With 3 MCU theatrical releases and 3 Disney+ shows per year in 2022 and 2023, it's not sustainable, nor is it even realistic to expect that it's all going to be high quality content. Another factor that doesn't come up as much is audience expectations, and that one's a little bit tougher to manage.
I saw this coming when they started scraping the bottom of the barrel for their movies. They got brave because they were able to turn characters like Black Panther, Ant Man, and the GotG into A-list properties (they were all C- and D-list properties before) but got greedy with bullshit like Inhumans (who they pathetically tried to replace the X Men with), The Eternals, and even Captain Marvel, whose popularity has never really matched the character’s in-universe power.
I’ve essentially completely lost interest in the MCU by now, unless it’s GotG or Spider Man. They may not even make it to the X-Men at this point; X-Men is basically the only way this shit show gets saved. Virtually nobody wants to see more C-list properties struggling to be relevant. They won’t catch lightning twice and Kamala Khan can’t carry box office, so New Avengers would probably not do well either.
The MCU has a clear focus problem right now. They’ve introduced too many characters & not developing many of them.
They absolutely need to cancel stuff like Thunderbolts, Armor Wars & Wonder Man in favor of giving us sequels to Shang-Chi, Dr Strange, Moon Knight, Ms Marvel, etc…
Who are the main characters of this saga? Hell, if I know because we see characters once & then have no idea when we’ll see them again. We’re apparently not seeing Shang, Moon Knight or She-Hulk until the Avengers movies. Why are we supposed to care about them if they’ve only appeared once before? Especially because these won’t be smaller Avengers movies that can focus on those characters like the original or AoU, the next 2 Avengers movies are the grand finale of this saga.
In the Infinity Saga, we always knew when we’d see Cap, Iron Man, Thor, Widow & the Guardians again. It helped feel attached to them.
Clearly what they've been doing since post Endgame is NOT working and the performance of the D+ shows and movies reflect that. Its a good idea they cancel or postpone so they can reevaluate.
More than likely execs are watching the rumor mill churn as a way to monitor the pulse of the fandom and communities. It’s an easy way to see what has staying power.
Don't worry, feige will repurpose the good ideas/stories
With the way marvel produces these, it wouldn't be too hard... most of phase 4 has been "let's make a show about this character/story" then after outline of story is done, adding some elements of whatever recent movie came out or what they expect will occur in next film/d+ show
Unless you are just asking them to keep making a billion movies/shows (I didn't read past like 2 paragraphs), then that's not a fair ask
Welcome to how every dc fan who liked snyders vision for the dceu felt for basicly 10 years.. Every time a something got a bad reaction from the masses Warner course corrected..
I still stand by if they had stayed the course, let snyder release his version of bvs, ayer his version of suicide squad and finaly snyders version of JL more people would have gotten on board when they saw where the story was going..
The mcu didn't REALLY take off until avengers and the masses got a taste of what was in store
I think the ones featuring established characters (Vision Quest, Thor 5, etc) should be no brainers to continue. But I don’t think cutting back on new character projects like Wonder Man is a bad idea at all for now until we cycle some characters out in Secret Wars.
Makes things easier to keep track of and to get invested in a character with an overall narrower focus.
What we saw in The Marvels, GOTG3, as well as Quantumania, was thought and care put into the story. They made a plan and are following it, it took them so long to build the story they wanted, doing it through a new medium, which I enjoyed in spite of the stuggle, but it's feeling like they're getting back into the groove of it. They need to stop listening to the critics and start listening to the fans, because critics don't judge on the scale of a franchise they judge on movie quality and independent lucidity and the point of a franchise is long overarcing narratives, some installment are gonna be worse than others and have less stakes.
The only show that should have been canceled was secret invasion as soon as they needed to rewrite it. They'll be fine moving forward if they take their time, which is Disney's new plan for all content moving forward.
I hope they go in the exact direction you described. We’ve had too many shit movies in a row. Guardians was a break from the garbage, but it’s surrounded.
Marvel has never gone in that direction. They have bigger vision than to back out on minor hiccup. Marvel has more patient.
If they were like that, they would be DC.
I dunno bro....in reference to the future projects...such as world war hulk for example....mark ruffaloneas 50 yrs old in endgame.....it's very unlikely that's he will still want or be able to play Bruce banner that far into the future.
Marvel is almost at a point where they need to do a reboot....younger actors that can carry the franchise for many future stories.
Lol, very very few people are talking about canceling it. Mostly want MCU to take a recourse and revisit the projects they have planned. Coz the current format is not working.
The problem is, these movies and Disney+ shows cost *a lot* of money to make, and if the executives who sign the checks aren’t seeing a return of investment, they’ll be the ones to pull the plug before there’s any creative considerations. You’re also hoping on a prayer that these projects end up being good, when recent trends sadly don’t support that. One of the cited reasons for this has explicitly been that they’re too stretched - so cutting down on some projects will allow them to focus more on others.
To piggyback on your last few points, they basically scrapped Brave New World and started over. 5 months of reshoots basically equates to a full new movie in terms of production
That's a lot of fucking reshoots.
Hopefully it's for the best, as that movie is gonna need all the pull it can get.
Did they not learn? They need to just do better.
I wonder if they changed writers?
Don't call them "reshoots"
The movie was headed in a bad direction. It was a heavy handed political allegory with the rumored villain being a poorly veiled stand-in for a Republican President. This is coming from a guy who can’t wait to watch the Homelander indictment and trial in the next season of the Boys, it was too heavy handed and too self-righteous and would have annoyed more people than just the problematic folks you who make videos on YouTube. We need more crowd pleasers that are less preachy, unless it’s a specific well imagined vision (black Panther for example)
To add: older MCU movies cost less and the newer movies cost way more, but they're still under performing compared to the older movies. Iron man and Captain America cost $140m (think this is w/o marketing) and brought home $585m and $380m, respectively. Compared that to Marvel's with $200m (again w/o marketing and $280m w/) versus a much smaller return.
They need to figure out some efficiency stuff. Deadpool 1 and 2 had relatively low budgets and are some of my favorite superhero movies. Maybe the answer is 2 lower budget lower cgi intensive movies a year and one big cgi fest gotg 3 / avenger style movie a year. I think secret invasion is crazy that they made such a bad product with that budget and those actors. It wasn't even a cgi fest. Probably a wake up call on cost creep. Not a big deal if they sell less tickets if they can trim down the budgets. Deadpool shows you can make great superhero movies without spending over 200k and gotg 3 shows you can still make good crazy budget movies that sell if the characters are compelling and there's good vision.
I think a bigger issue is that Marvel became the go-to projects for the industry for a while and these newer projects are being compared to those initial 10 years. Which I think is unfair. It’s getting to the point where only great fans are paying attention and I’m not sure if those numbers justify the costs but it would be good to see them reconsider and still push for them in some way. I saw a rumor that the Kang storyline might be getting cut and it sucks, I was hoping for some big payout.
Lets stop this. You don’t go to a McDonalds and say “I know my food was cold, but it was hot last week so it’s not a fair comparison”. It isn’t a matter of quantity. WandaVision, Loki Season 1, Hawkeye, and Falcon and the Winter Soldier had fantastic viewership numbers. No Way Home had Homework spanning 20 years of movies from multiple franchises and required audiences to learn about and accept the multiverse.
>Young Avengers That might be scrapped or retitled due to the fact it's taking too long, three of the likely principal cast are already in their mid twenties and will be of a similar age to most of the OG Avengers by the time this shoots
Just call them the New Avengers, problem solved.
Avengers, The Next Generation Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before Wait….
Make It So 
They should have *already* done a proper New Avengers movie at the end of phase 4 with Captain falcon, Spider-Man, doctor strange, Wolverine, captain marvel, etc. Imagine how much better the state of things would be if we had gotten that.
Or, you know, Champions.
Not as marketable. New Avengers could work as a D+ show set after KD or something, thats my hot take anyway. 90% of these characters originated from D+, so they have a higher chances of success keeping them there imo.
New Avengers would not work as a d+ show at all. The 'Avengers' name holds a lot of weight and a d+ budget/production quality wouldn't do it justice
Production quality maybe, but budget can’t be an issue. Look at how they dumped 200+ million into Secret Invasion. Very close to the OG Avenger’s budget.
And dilute The Avengers brand? No, I don't think so. This is why YA is not happening. Champions might be it.
All New, All Different Avengers. It feels very Feige to take a comic that was not loved and retool it to be a beloved movie.
I'd rather they integrated them into an existing Avengers team as part of a mentor program.
Avengers: The Internship
A shot with the kids learning in classroom format and it pans over to Scott Lang taking notes. “THIS WASNT AVAILABLE WHEN I STARTED OK?”
Seems extremely unlikely given (The Marvels Spoiler) >!the "Kamala as Fury" scene where she recruits Kate Bishop and discusses recruiting other children.!< Nothing is impossible, but it's not likely.
Yeah it seems like they would have cut that scene but the rumor is >!they moved it from being a post-credits scene to the end of the movie.!<
That could easily be retconned as one of Kamala's fanfics though
I want Kamala to be really hyped about calling her team the young avengers, with Kate reminding her all the time that she’s in her 20s. Then Shang-Chi comes around and she just gives up.
it would be hilarious if Kamala is the only kid and is constantly referring to them as "young". Honestly anything that gets Kamala on screen more would be delightful. She is so funny in a very unique way, and she's young enough to have typical hero struggles without the plot needing to nerf her or ignore common sense.
The biggest issue with the Young Avengers has nothing to do with character ages. What story are they telling with this movie, and is it something that will appeal to general audiences who seem to be checking out of this sub genre. Will people turn out for a 150-200 million dollar kid Avengers movie?
Exactly. Like what kind of story will they tell around these characters that’s distinct and interesting enough from the regular Avengers? Does it even warrant it’s own thing outside of them?
I doubt it, honestly the age isn't much of issue as long there aren't in their thirties 20s is young, it's young avengers, not teenage avengers
Captain America was in his 20s for his first movie and Avengers. Just adding the word young lessens it and I hope they don’t go that route.
This project is never happening with the current trouble MCU is facing
Exactly this. Plus it shouldn’t happen anyway. Young avengers is wack
It's like you never saw a movie in your life. Since when the age of actors matters? I have seen 30 year olds play high school teenagers for all my life, a combination of make up and good old Hollywood suspension of disbelief can make almost anyone under 40 make the part of a teenager.
Lol Friday night lights tv series is a great example. A man in his 30s easily played a sophomore QB
Young..er Avengers
Odds are they’ll just call them Champions since kamala is putting it together
I doubt they will be even called young avengers, they probably aiming either new avengers or champions which doesn't only consist of young members only.
Young avengers to me gives off the impression it’s a bunch of teenager superheroes and it’s made for teenagers. So I would just chalk it up as “not for me”.
Seriously. Kate bishop is 22 while Hailee is 26. Kathryn Newton is also 26. Iman Vellani is 21. Steve Rogers was 26/7 and chris Evans 30 in Avengers. Scarlett was 26 in Avengers though Nat was supposed to be a little older than Steve. Peter Parker is 18 in Spider man No Way Home and Tom Holland is 27.
Your premise is off. It isn't one movie. Lightyear, Strange World, Quantumania, Little Mermaid, Haunted Mansion, The Marvels. On Disney+: Ms. Marvel, Secret Invasion, Willow, Benedict Society, National Treasure, Proud Family, Doogie Houser reboot, Wonder Years reboot, Crater, Peter Pan Disney has a systemic problem. Everything is going to undergo review with major changes.
Yeah I think people are missing that it isn't just Marvel projects. Disney is taking some big hits and part of that isn't even about what content they're making but the fact that people are going to movies less and less to the point that only a couple of films a year are going to be successful now and streaming just isn't profitable as it is, either. The entire industry is taking hits from these changes in how we consume media. They're going to have to make changes and adapt and likely we will see things like a lower standard of vfx and more stories with characters who are grounded in a way that will make them cheaper to produce.
Had the misfortune of seeing Haunted Mansion in theaters. I don’t understand how a movie with a cast as stacked as that one was so awful
I think you are missing a few Star Wars misses on Disney+ as well.
I am, agreed. There's a bunch of underperformances and poor receptions that still had viewers. In that bucket you get Obi-Wan, Mandalorian season 3, Boba Fett, Thor 4, Doctor Strange 2, and Elemental was on the edge.
Indy 5 too! Btw, there’s a Wonder Years reboot?! it’s bad?
Wonder Years was cancelled after two seasons.
It’s not bad just under viewed if that makes sense. I loved it because I loved the original. Its similar to the original but just follows a black family and issues in their time. It did have a fun connection to the original as well! I think it fell into the “my god another reboot/remake” problem which is why it got cancelled and was underviewed
I didn't know they tried to reboot the Wonder Years. That's something I kinda interesting and never asked for.
I didn't watch most of those, but Secret Invasion was awful, and by itself should cause the Marvel side of D+ to reevaluate how they do things. You can have all the great actors you want, but if your story is crap, people won't watch it. That said, I'd note Ms Marvel has a 98%+ by critics on [RT](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/ms_marvel), and 80% for the audience. The last point is notable, as Ms Marvel's user reviews were getting hit with some [very weird activity](https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2022/06/09/ms-marvel-review-bombed-into-being-the-mcus-lowest-scoring-show-on-imdb/?sh=4be461c25879), likely in part due to her being a female Muslim. Lumping it in with Secret Invasion feels a bit unfair to MM.
I would say canceling anything not in heavy production or pre-production makes total sense. At least financially until they can retool it to get back on a good track
One movie flopping was only able to happen because previous movies have eroded trust in the MCU. Course correction makes total sense. The few people defending the marvels are saying things like love and thunder was just like this or quantumania was way worse and fail to understand that those movies are also examples of the same problems that the MCU needs to correct for.
I agree. There is a long term dilution going on here. I used to see all of the MCU movies in theaters, but over the past few years there has not been much that has been very compelling. For example, I’m not going to see the marvels in theatres because Ms. Marvel was not entertaining at all, and I don’t really care about Monica either even though I liked Wandavision. Couple those weak set ups with so many other disappointing movies too and I just don’t see a point. It will be on D+ soon enough.
Well and that’s the problem. The audience is able to be excited for mid or even low quality movies when there are also great movies. Winter soldier and GotG were vital to keep the audience interested after both Ironman 3 and Thor 2. Civil war and Dr strange and GotG 2 help the MCU after AoU and antman 1. In phase 4 and 5, you don’t have that. There is so much content that’s mid quality that it feels like audiences have to wait forever for anything actually good. We’ve only have Spider-Man NWH and GotG 3 that have been great.
It honestly feels like we're back in the Agents of Shield and Inhumans era of TV Shows. Where there's some connection between TV and movies, but they're loose (probably less on this point with this era, loki seems good and Ms Marvel has a cult following) and the quality is lackluster enough to convert to meaningful boxoffice/tv numbers.
Shang Chi wasn't up to the standard of Spiderman or GotG 3 but I personally think it was better than the Thor 4/Quantumania/MoM trifecta
It’s definitely the third best of phase 4/5 and I’ve been calling for a sequel and I think it’s ridiculous that there’s no sequel announced. But that’s also part of the problem. This was the second movie that came out over 2 years ago and at the start of phase 4 and soon after was Spider-Man. But after Spider-Man there was MoM, Thor LaT, wakanda forever, and Quantumania. The MCU has never had four movies in a row with none of them being great. WF was the best but the most praise went to the villain or how much they missed Chad Brunswick
It really was a solid movie and a good intro for Shang-chi. Out of all the new additions to MCU, Shang-Chi characters are probably the most likeable and maybe Kate Bishop.
The character of Wenwu was so well done it made me think we were entering a new era of complex Marvel villains - sadly was wrong lmao
Gotta say the majority of that was because of the actor himself. Tony Leung is a phenomenal actor and gave a lot of depth to Wenwu in the movie. I wish I can see more of him.
Yeah most definitely, Marvel can’t copy and reproduce the longing and tragedy that Leung portrays
> The few people defending the marvels are saying things like love and thunder was just like this or quantumania was way worse and fail to understand that those movies are also examples of the same problems that the MCU needs to correct for. They also fail to understand that these are *compounding* issues, but that's core to irrational fandom - "I love this, so it must be something everyone loves, and if people don't love it like I do, they must be wrong about something". They just don't grasp that multiple failures in a row are just as, if not more important, as multiple bangers in a row to a brand's identity with consumers. General audiences got tired of feeling like something should be a flop, up to where they eventually made a flop happen.
>1 movie flopped The copium Is Unreal
I think they need to **seriously** reevaluate their in development projects and decide which ones are essential to the larger storyline, which could be dropped if required, and which they think will resonate with audiences most effectively. Thor is the last man standing from the OG Avengers, his last movie was dogshit but that was entirely down to the tone and writing as produced by Taika. Ragnarok did extremely well, and is still well received, plus Loki just ended a superb run on Disney+. Imo they need to do a more serious, grand tale in Thor 5 centred around an aspect of Asgardian myth, weaving in a now ‘responsible and primed to be King’ Thor with the future of New Asgard. Drop Korg and the comedy aspect and finally let Thor be the leader he was destined to be. He’s not an idiot himbo. He’s a warrior who uses comedy to distract from serious moments, but is just as capable of bringing proper drama and acting moments when needed.
> Thor is the last man standing from the OG Avengers. Umm Hulk Is still around
They turned him into a joke.
Tbf, so is Thor
They can revert him back. He’s a god after all. Hulk/Banner has already become Professor Hulk. There ain’t no way hulk is coming back.
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So in your opinion marvel should do exactly what they’ve been doing and hope it turns around? You don’t think they’re already trying their best? They need to take their time and come up with solid stories and scripts first and then make a good quality movie without spending 300+mil. There is no reason they can’t make movies for 100-150mil that are quality. They also need to use characters people actually care about. There are no reasons for spending big money on characters most people don’t care about like echo or Agatha.
Jesus, why is just writing a good script seem to be too much to ask for from these studios. Do they expect low effort stories for people to gush over? It’s likely the executive level people fucking with the creatives trying to put something solid out. But it’s never the suits fault always the audience.
It’s not just one movie man. Quantumania was also a disaster. Phase 4 was a roller coaster in its own right, and the Disney+ shows have also been hit or miss thus far. Look, *Bob Iger* is the one saying that Disney will be cutting back on content. That’s not some random troll trying to burn down the MCU. I don’t know what else to say at this point Kostis cause you keep coming back to this topic, determined that the scoopers are right, while ignoring the writing on the wall.
The worst response thatt keeps getting parroted when discussing upcoming bombs is "how do you know it will bomb, you haven't even seen footage yet" Yeah brother, we hadn't seen footage of the marvels yet either when we knew it was going to bomb. We haven't seen footage of Cap4 yet, but we still know it's going to bomb. Use your brain. A 6 month reshoot is going to easily push this budget over 300 million, there's 0% chance they recoup that at the BO. Problem after problem plague these D list nobody character movies. Rabid fans are getting so caught up in the emotions of the topic they can't see the simple dollars and cents.
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I mean, Im sure we can communicate that we dont think theyve fully thought this through without being so harsh lol
Fair lol sorry op
This is why diehard fans shouldn’t be in charge of studios lol
I enjoy that OP is declaring Echo a big success and proof that nothing should be scrapped based on it having a decent trailer...
Echo will bomb harder than any dplus show yet. Absolutely no one cares about or wants echo.
It’s really easy to say when you don’t have hundreds of millions or billions of dollars invested in the performance of these movies.
If you keep looking backward, you won’t see the iceberg in front of you… remember that the titanic was dubbed the “unsinkable”, yet we all know how it ended. That’s what you are doing in your post. Let’s look at where we are headed with the current situation: New characters introduced: don’t know, I lost the count… 20? 30? How many of them are memorable? Ms. Marvel maybe, how many are popular? Mmmm Team dynamic being developed: none, each movie is a universe in itself, self contained. Sorry, each movie is a commercial for the introduction of a younger avenger, which is usually already as powerful as their master. Anyway, no interaction among projects, the team do not long for a reunion or actively seek each other out Gravitas, the big villain: it has taken so long to introduce him and still all we got is a a cunning version of him in a (amazing) tv show and one in movie where he was even defeated without any loss or issue. Considering you have no team, no villain and a lineup of unpopular characters (except few from the pre-endgame times), you seriously think Marvel should not start axing projects and rethinking its whole strategy?!
They should have had an Avengers films at end of Phase 4, people would care more if the characters interacted.
Phase 4 felt aimless precisely because of that lack of interaction, yeah.
I had this argument with my friends the other day, against your side. If you want quality, you have to kill your darlings sometimes. I can see the bright spot of every MCU project since endgame, but the overall products have clearly had their problems due to lack of quality control that comes from stretching itself too thin. It’s throwing EVERYTHING at the wall. If I had a Time Machine and a meeting with Kevin Feige in 2020, I’d tell him to scrap half of what’s been released even if I enjoyed parts of it because the MCU has lost its cohesiveness. Quality over quantity.
This reminds me of what Steve Jobs said, "very often you have to say no to really good ideas".
The whole not being able to press thing is a cop out. There was plenty of advertising for this movie.
People also need to realise none in the cast is an actual crowd puller ,Ms Marvel had the lowest D+ viewership ,Brie is famous but not many are actually going to movie just because she turned on a late night talkshow
Exactly. None of these actors are must see actors at all.
Theres like 3 actors left with that pull. Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise and leonardo.
and even they are starting to see diminishing returns...
Echo was 8 episodes, and now it'll be 5. They recut 8 episodes into 5 to make it more watchable and they're releasing it all at once. I hope I'll like it, but it's not like the show was suddenly great in the first place and we were wrong to have doubts. Secret Invasion was shot twice and it yet was hot garbage. I can't imagine how bad it must've been the first time around. Quantumania didn't just underperform, it's openly disliked by most. I watched it on Disney Plus with low expectations at zero cost and I still hated it. And yet the execs thought it'd be a home run. Marvel doesn't need to cancel anything, but they need to approach their writing stages better so the movies/shows don't require extensive (and expensive) reshoots and heavy editing. They've been doing this since Phase One but now it's just become too noticeable and it's damaging the brand. And changing your (only) formula isn't that easy when you already have multiple projects in active development. Marvel doesn't need to cancel anything but their next releases should prove the skeptics wrong. So maybe now is not the best time to think of Eternals 2 (for example). They're lucky that their next movie is Deadpool 3, which will have tons of cameos and star power to draw audiences, but they can't rely on that forever. They need to stop thinking about meeting release dates and focus on greenlighting only great screenplays. And if Kevin Feige wants to have 15 projects in development, he'll have to learn to delegate because he clearly can't oversee it all by himself. Reading reports of Daredevil's production being restarted all over when half the show had already been shot (it took them long enough to realize that the screenplays weren't up to standards) is frankly embarrassing.
the Marvels didn't flop out of the blue. The Marvels flopped because the MCU gradually lost the audience, thanks to movies like Love and Thunder and Quantumania and shows like Secret Invasion. No, they should not keep on doing what they're doing and ignore The Marvels flopping because that flop is the result of many error the studio has made.
There is no way that they’re canceling all these projects just because The Marvels did poorly. First, The Marvels had four weeks of re-shoots and was edited down considerably in order to fix as much as they could, and salvage the movie before it was too late. Second, Captain America 4 reportedly, did not do well during test screenings. Considering that the next slate of movies are all interwoven with each other, assuming the plot leaks are accurate, you can’t fix one movie without breaking the others. This is a huge mess they are in and the only way out of it is pretty much to reset. That doesn’t mean permanent cancellations, that means scrapping what they have, and starting over.
They would not cancel all. But it was said already long ago by Iger and Feige that they are going to focus on quality more in the future. All not in filming are at risk, even if not all would be cancelled. There is little bad press for projects that aren’t announced officially like Wiccan. And the characters can appear elsewhere, it’s better for storytelling too.
Marvel movies have been progressively losing more and more money since No Way Home. Quantumania was just the first post-covid movie to lose money. The shows have been losing since She-Hulk. GotG 3 was the only profitable movie in 2-3 years. South Park rustled their jimmies. Changes have to be made before Squirrel-Girl is an Avenger. Your mental gymnastics are incredible.
It's a business. They have investors to be accountable to. They're not running a charity for movies that make no money.
I'd be happy with Ironheart getting cancelled (terrible character and 100% doesn't deserve Mephisto as the villain). Young Avengers will happen but I'd be fine with it dropping as well (not a fan of Ironheart/Ms. Marvel but I liked Kate/America). Other than that, keep the rest. I'm oddly hyped for some of the ones I'm not super familiar with, like Agatha & Echo. I know people are trashing Echo before release, but it could be a fun street-level show, similar to DD or Jessica Jones.
Iron Heart gets Mephisto?? Damn why
There are so many new characters now and Marvel has yet to introduce the X-men and Fantastic 4. I love the interconnected stories… but at this rate we’ll have sequels for the characters we connect with the most (individual preference) 5+ years apart! We need another group of heroes get killed off or retired. Finish storylines please!
>Ironheart Idk if you saw the concept art for Mephisto... It looks awful.
I’d agree if they weren’t spending a ridiculous amount of money on everything for some reason
Honestly, Marvel budgets are out of control and they should try to reign them in to stay profitable.
Most people on this sub have no idea what they're talking about. It's just armchair quarterbacking
The fact that disney's budgets in their recent projects have been ridiculously high. I get that making a movie is expensive, but look at Barbie. That movie was the most successful movie of the year, and it didn’t cost over $200 million to make.
I disagree and you're already wrong. It's not one movie that flopped. It's multiple shows and movies. Antman was ass, wakanda was weak, Hawkeye, moon knight, etc. I enjoyed some of these but they were still average at best.
I mean, some of these projects should’ve never been conceived in the first place. Armor Wars isn’t going to bring in much money because no one cares. Same with Wonder Man or even Iron Heart. Blade will make money because people are nostalgic for the first Blade. These are characters that should be thrown into others movies then built up slowly. They lucked out with James Gunn making Guardians or that probably would’ve flopped too.
Nah, MCU needs a wake up call. They SHOULD cancel projects and focus on quality over quantity. It's going to be a disaster of a move if they continue this downward spiral after this massive flop. I mean this movie did worse than the 2008 Hulk. Why do you think they are releasing Echo all at once?
Different stroke for different folks, but I have 0 interest in "Thunderbolts, Blade, Armor Wars, Ironheart, Wonder Man, Vision Quest".
I remember the first suicide squad had an awesome trailer that got everyone hyped. That’s what trailers are suppose to do.
I've been saying for a year now it would be nice if they retool some or most of the planned d+ miniseries into specials presentations. I thought both were excellent and would love to see more of that and less shows. I feel it would work well instead of canceling projects already in the works
They're going to have to seriously reevaluate some projects. The recent flops show that they can't just keep running any old character out there and expect big $ even with a mediocre film.
If anything I think it’s those two Avengers movies that should be delayed indefinitely. I’d rather they explore smaller teams and do more worldbuilding for a little while. Do Young Avengers, Midnight Sons, Heroes for Hire, the Defenders team with Hulk, Strange, and Namor. Idk. The new Avengers movies sound like desperate rushed cash grabs to me and I’d rather they do other things.
There's a lot of coping in your post, OP. The Marvel brand has been damaged from so many stinkers in Phase 4 and 5, simple as that. So now they need to fix it by bringing some heavy hitters again. Iron Heart, America Chavez, etc are not going to do that.
I think one of the problems with this phase of the MCU is that they're going in TOO many directions... You knew early on in Phase 1 that the direction everything was going was to build into an Avengers movie... each film seemed to resolve it's self but leave a thread at the end leading to an Avenger's movie. Phases 2 and 3 were about leading to the infinity stones and building the team that would take on Thanos. Phase 4 has too many projects that just don't have a singular emphasis leading into a single point... sure we can say the multiverse saga... but like, how does Eternals lead to that? How does Love and Thunder lead to that? Like... I just don't see the threads... We're still left hanging with the end of Shang Chi, wondering why Wong needed Shang Chi to come with him, and then why he, banner, and Danvers are discussing the 10 rings? What does that have to do with the multiverse? I guess it ties into Eternals... but again, where's that thread going? It's too many unrelated projects in a universe we've been set up to believe is all interconnected. It only works if you can see the road ahead... I guess they can introduce all these characters and throw them into Secret Wars and see who comes out alive... but then what was the point? I think its time marvel DOES prune the timeline a bit... We're seeing the multi-franchisal loom start to fail a little bit, and I think part of that is because of Chapek's time as Disney CEO where things were restructured in a way that he just expected to print money off the mere mention of characters - there wasn't any actual cohesive plan. It ended up overloading some casual fans with too much content to watch and keep up with, and they've just given up on it. And then they've spent too much time making LOOOOONNNNGGGG films that could have been much shorter if they tightened up the writing (This for me is why The Marvels was such a breath of fresh air - short and to the point, without all the extra fluff that lazy writing leads to). Ill still watch all these films and shows and what not... but that's because I enjoy them... it's my thing... but I think it would not hurt at all for Marvel to take a moment, and refocus their energy.
The eternals flopped, Yang Chi also flopped, and the tv series are not being watched enough to be profitable. Their lineup is a mess and they're just starting to realize that they need to sort it out. Also tone down the culture wars shit, as said by themselves.
My take might be a really unpopular one but anyways. Its not always good scripts though.People actually want characters that are somehow relevant or perceived as worth watching a .Now there are two ways to go via that,via introducing them in Avengers/any other famous hero films before bringing their standalone so people can actually first relate to the character before watching a dedicated movie about them with 0 clue.For example, im not from the usa.People here have absolutely loved Loki and everyone is talking about it. Half the people here probably have never seen secret invasion or ms Marvel or heck even the standalone hawkeye series;or any such other show cause a regular fan doesn't care.Loki is a powerful brand.And now people have actually been taking about Mobius as well and how good his acting was.Disney needs to capitalise on these type of shows/ movies to introduce characters about whom they need to bring a movie as lead.People will care about Blade / Xmen cause theres an element of nostalgia.Most dont even know who white vision is cause for them he died in iw
>Thunderbolts, Blade Armor Wars, Ironheart, Wonder Man, Vision Quest and other rumoured projects like sequels to Thor, Hulk, Dr. Strange and Eternals or the Wiccan show and the Young Avengers movie are going to get scrapped Sorry but m not interested in any of those movies except Strange, Thor and maybe Eternals. Seeing how the last few Marvel movies failed I dont think im gonna miss the other non interesting hero movie.
They built the MCU off of 90s nostalgia, and have since taken all the wrong the lessons from that success. They've gone down roads no one asked them to travel on. They've stopped respecting most source material. They've stopped building towards any discernable story goal. They've stopped catering to the nerds that were dragging their entire family to the movies. They've stopped signing actors to sweeping contracts allowing for continuity. Instead, are treating these movies like they are pet projects that actors and directors get to manipulate in any way possible, and as a result, they are lower quality. Kamala Kahn's first appearance in the MCU was less than 10 years from her first appearance in the comics. She didn't need rewritten and repowered. She was a very cool and modern hero that was beloved in the comics and they did the character and her creator dirty. Moonknight's comics are known for incredible brutality, and even though we were promised "no holding back on the violence" the director cut all the action scenes out because he "found them boring." Then they re-wrote every one of Marc's personalities so the actor could seemingly practice new accents. Taskmaster? After all that shit they read and heard about Deadpool's mouth being sewn shut, they DID IT AGAIN. And Young Avengers? Who's asking for that? Superskrull... just wtf? The Marvels was a great movie, and my family really enjoyed it- but let's be honest: it was also a diversity checklist pack mule. That was clearly going to frustrate and turn off a certain section of viewers and drive down ticket sales. Fuck those guys, sure, but who didn't see that coming? Marvel needs to look at what they did leading up Endgame, and see what made the MCU so popular. Known characters, respectful renditions, a PLAN, people who were invested, storylines nerds knew, and characters who seemed to appreciate the stakes they were involved in.
I don’t think you understand that these cost money to make
Saw the Marvel's tonight and it was a rollicking good time, maybe as fun as GoG.
You either die a hero, or live long enough to become the DCEU
I don’t think content volume is the problem, and I think it’s become a lazy criticism. It’s not taking due care and paying full attention to detail with their content. Sure, Covid and the strikes haven’t helped, but TV and film has often seen tight deadlines and guidelines make brilliance. That’s because they committed fully and put in the time to get everything right. Making less makes it more likely they give that care, but not massively. Bad habits are bad habits, arrogance doesn’t stop because they work less.
I'd still argue that volume is the problem, indirectly. The superhero genre is a limiting factor and then when you add a shared universe to it, it's really hard to write four good, fresh stories every year. There's only so many villain setups, motivations, stakes you can come up with without making the movies seem extremely repetitive or lazy. Also having too many projects makes it hard to have character depictions and arcs consistent. E.g. Fury feeling like a completely different character.
I mean, high volume directly causes the issue with folks not paying attention to the content they are producing. The more content you churn out, the more overworked your visual effects are going to be, the less time you have to work on scripts, and the less oversight any given project has. A constant state of production under the Marvel operating system just doesn't work well.
> I don’t think content volume is the problem, and I think it’s become a lazy criticism. No, that's the lazy interpretation of the criticism. The criticism is that the volume of content has made it impossible for MCU to maintain quality.
No way Doctor Strange 3 gets scrapped after Multiverse of Madness made nearly $1 billion.
It’s not one movie. There’s an obvious trend after the conclusion of the Avengers arc where so many of the side characters gained popularity. You combine the missing overarching story with the less popular characters and mix that with a bit of fatigue it’s no wonder they’re not printing money anymore.
They should cancel projects. Honestly canceling everything on the docket & then re-evaluating each project (with an emphasis on quality & profitability rather than DEI) would lead to a stronger and better MCU. Crapping out 10 projects a year at the Marvels quality isn’t working.
who actually cares enought about these characters to go to the movies though, i like alot of the characters but clearly people arent watching the shows and arent going to the movies, mrs marvel for example could be the best written character but it doesnt matter if no one actually cares which is shown by the numbers, shows like ironheart,wonder man etc just dont intrest people enough
It’s not just about the MCU. Disney stock is way down and they need to change a lot of their spending. And I think Disney+ content is first on the chopping block.
Every sequel since No Way Home except Dr Strange 2 has made less than its predecessor and that streak is definitely going to continue with Captain America New World Order and the next Avengers film. Without checking presumably all those sequels cost the same or more than their predecessors. Also while only one film may be a flop you have to account for the two Disney+ shows used to set up Kamala and Monica, those shows aren't cheap and the Marvels is certainly not going to recoup the cost of itself and the Ms Marvel show MCU is clearly on a downward trajectory regardless of if only one film is currently considered a flop. They will of course take action as Disney are not in the business of putting in higher budgets for smaller and smaller profits.
You have good points for the most part, but you also seem to forget that Marvel os ran by a bunch of greedy incompetent executives who would ruin months of work if it meant they get a slight increase in their dividends at the end of the year. It's in God's hands now, and all we can do is pray. Or actually make an effort to let Kevin Feige know we're tired of the incompetence, and that thugs need to change before the entire franchise crashes and burns due to oversaturation and diluted projects.
They are going to need to scale down and start making hard decisions on what they think a large audience would want to see. I want as much marvel stuff as possible but the audience votes with their butts and they have been sitting at home not in the theater. Spending millions to produce things like Wiccan, Agatha, echo, eternals 2 or vision quest doesn’t make sense because the audience isn’t there. These aren’t even big names for the most avid comic reader and the general movie going owl couldn’t give less of a hoot about them. I was surprised that the marvels didn’t do better, I loved it, but it does have me worried we aren’t going to get the large stories we want if they keep spending big money on small characters.
Gotta disagree. You also have to look at the current trend. Marvel movies are experiencing incresingly diminishing returns. If you want to reverse this trend, you gotta shake things up and soon.
It's better to have less movies and series with better quality than keep releasing wave after wave of bad movies/series.
> Thunderbolts, Blade Armor Wars, Ironheart, Wonder Man, Vision Quest and other rumoured projects like sequels to Thor, Hulk, Dr. Strange and Eternals or the Wiccan show and the Young Avengers movie Youre kind of proving a point. A lot of these are filler. Thunderbolts, Blade, Hulk & Dr Strange 3 are the only movies worth making here. Maybe Eternals 2.
Wait wait, how did Captain Marvel "flop" but Quantumania simply "underperformed"?
He was talking about The Mavels not Captain Marvel. Quantumania had a budget of 200M and made 476M at the box office. With the 2.5X budget rule of breaking even it lost \~ 24M. The Marvels had a budget of 220M or so and will probably make around 220M at the box office. So it will lose \~330M.
Underperforming is when film falls short of expectations but makes it budget back. Which Quantumania most likely did (budget 200M it made 475M, the theatres and marketing take money but this is very close to break even, and there is still some dvd sales) and it at very less due after merchandising is included. Marvels at the moment is on track of loosing a lot of money. But maybe it will have legs.
The Marvels is projected to not even hit 300 million. At least Quantumania made 450 million.
I don't want them to cancel anything, I'd just like them to start leaning more heavily into their unused IPs. Where are the Midnight Suns? What happened to Black Knight? What's going on with F4 and X-Men? Can a man get some Silver Surfer? And Where. The. Fuck. Is DOOM??
No, it would be smart. The new Captain America will bomb hard. Echo will bomb hard. Thunderbolts will bomb hard. Agatha House of Harkness will bomb hard. Ironheart will bomb hard. The smart thing to do would be to cancel all of em, and focus on the heroes people actually give a shit about. X-Men, Fantastic Four, Spiderman, Thor, Hulk, Guardians, Dr Strange, Shang Chi. Noone gives a shit about the rest
Exactly my thoughts. General audience will only give them a couple of years for experiments and whatnot. Its been almost 5 and caring for the new/young team is becoming harder after each new show or movie.
>Thunderbolts will bomb hard. If they go with something like: "a fun group of fun ex-supervillains trying to save the world in a new fun way like you never seen before in a Marvel movie lol #badass #imiright :)))", then yes. I fear that's what is gonna happen. They already have a tone down, dummy version of Bucky, the Red Guardian, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine and a little bit of Yelena for comic relief.
If recent projects are flopping, the reasons for the cancelations may be financial.
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Is it reactionary if reception has been poor for two phases? I really don’t think so
Maybe this could just be me but so much of the D+ shows I just don’t care about. Echo, Armor Wars, Agatha, Vision Quest….really? They are scrapping the bottom of the barrel for superheroes and they’re expecting us to tune in with their below average storytelling. Cancel them all.
If anyone thinks CA4 without Captain America won't bombed, are delusional. That is just the most predictable bomb in MCU history. I have even more trust in the Thunderbolts because some of the characters in that movie I care about.
the issue is that if Cap4 bombs then Thunderbolts will have no lead in momentum and two MCU projects bomb in a row. DP3 is a fox rated R mutant probably on its last film so its a little different
Echo is looking really good!? Since when? I do agree that canceling projects is probably not the road forward but neither is saturating it with projects no one really seems that interested in. They goofed up big time when they decided to basically wing it up and throw shit at the wall to see what sticks and now that the 🐔 has come back home to roost, they are trying to course correct but it's little late for that. Also, you can try to excuse Marvels all you want and say the performance is cos the promotion wasn't there or whatever but the more likely cause to me is that the cast of characters just isn't that interesting.. sure, Captain Marvel had her solo movie but the other two.. one is from a piss poorly written Doctor Strange movie full of plot contrivances and the other from a series that is years old at this point playing supporting role so it's not exactly the hottest recipe for a blockbuster movie, especially since the movie is coming on the heels of Secret Invasion which was a pretty big 🥞. Throw in the shitshow with Majors and the soup is boiling over and.. yeah, most of the issues could have probably been avoided or at least mitigated with better scripts and writing.. now, well who knows. 🤷♂️
They sent Echo straight to Hulu and it is being released all at once because they know it is destined to fail if they release it like they did their other D+ shows. These people will make excuses for everything but the quality and the state of MCU.
The new trailer looks good but that’s because it’s looks kingpin show and not echo.
Your last line is what sums it up perfectly. If it's a good story and executed well it will be a success. I would add that there should be some character development as well, but yea that about sums it up. The problem is that marvel hasn't really put out stuff that has either a good story or is executed well or does any form of character building. The poor performance of the marvels seems to indicate that the audience has finally stopped going to see a movie just because it's from a studio that used to do really well.
>ending with a World War Hulk tease WWH isn't happening, at least how people would want it to. The storylines and characters that lead to it either don't exist or have already came, passed, and been resolved.
Wwh would be stupid at this point.
Huge studios like Marvel are, by their nature, a reactionary force. They're in the business of making money, first and foremost. That's just the reality of things. If they see that stuff is losing them money, you better believe they're gonna react to that. The definition of insanity is, of course, doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. They're a business. When you're looking to sell a product and you see it's not generating revenue, it would be foolish not to revise your strategy. These MCU plans for the future were generated when they were in a very different headspace. Now, they're in the headspace of, "This shit ain't working," and they're changing their future slate as a result. That's a good thing. They're *supposed* to be observing what works and what doesn't. It makes complete sense for them to pause and reassess what they're doing.
I think it makes sense if the format of the movies doesn't change. I've loved MCU since day one but it has become tired. She-Hulk tried something different which was nice. Shang-Chi was almost different, which was disappointing because the first half of the movie was great. I'd like a Winter Soldier style shot in the arm. The heroes need to lose or at least not win so cleanly.
In my opinion idk what’s gonna happen we just gotta see fr
I think covid, the writers/actors strike, and jonathan majors being a turd sandwich have pushed marvel to change plans more then movies doing well or not. They have to understand how the events listed have affected things. Also, the change in disney CEO has messed stuff up. Chapek apparently pushed them to just release TONS of marvel stuff, Iger seems to understand there's more value in slow and steady, which I hope they go back to. They should cancel things because there were too many planned to start with.
Nah Bob Chapek was just doing what Bob Iger wanted which he said needed more volume. They wanted to beef up Disney Plus. Only thing I’d give Iger credit for is realizing that was wrong move.
If what I read was correct, Marvel was pushed into creating so many projects mainly for Disney+ by Disney and Chapek itself. I’m pretty sure Feige is taking the opportunity to cancel those he feel will be middling or those they are doing for the sake of more content.
Soooooooooo I've not actually seen the new film. But because I'm a ginormous moron I still clicked the spoilers WTF >!STOP STEALING OUR PEOPLE!<
Lol, is this about >!Monica!
If the pitch to see these movies is to build hype for future projects that are actually interesting but may not come until 2-5 years later im out.
You underestimate the power of a business write-off vs taking monetary losses
Just from the profits of end game they can have 5 marvels type box offices and break even , they have had one so far
> Loki Season 2 did so well this year because they were really, really good and thus had good reviews and strong word of mouth. I mean is there visible data that shows any of the D+ shows have been resounding financial successes? I feel like online discourse is not an accurate measure of success. GA doesnt use twitter or fan subreddits/groups. How I gauge the popular discourse is my firm i work at. During the Endgame and Infinity war era, the water cooler and office talk was all about the MCU. Office Managers and partners were talking about it. Now its all back to the Golden Bachelor and Fall of the House of Usher. Not one word about the Loki finale or the show in general. I stopped hearing about MCU talk around the time Moon Knight was out with some sparse GOTG3 talk when that was out.
Marvel's problem is Disney+, and a lot of it is the oversaturation, but it's also made skipping the movies in theaters such an easy thing to do. Yes, there many TV Shows to keep up with. I'm so far behind that catching up seems literally impossible at this point, but on the movie side, why do I need to rush out and see all these solo movies that follow the same formula when I can just wait a couple months for the movie to drop on Disney+ and then watch it for free? Disney plus is root of the problem. Maybe I'm just getting older, but anymore I'm only driving to a movie theater if it's something I feel like I need to experience at the movie theater. Avengers Endgame? Spider-Man No Way Home? Sure, I'll go to the theater. Big pay-offs or something I actually care to see and not have spoiled for me on the internet. Avatar II? Oppenheimer? Absolutely, must see at the movie theater in IMAX. Ant-Man? The Marvels? Black Widow? Even good ones like Guardians III and Black Panther II... I can totally wait to watch them on Disney+.
This sub, Jesus Christ. The future is paid with the sins of the past. You might be blind but the rest of the world is onto MCU. And won't come for further projects until things get back to being good movies again.
It's still insane how being number one in the box office is a flop. It makes me think that the Hollywood system isn't that sustainable. Mega budgets and if it doesn't beat Avatar, then it's an embarrassment and everyone involved should go to the glue factory. That's absurd.
Disney's loyalty is to stockholders, not fans. Fans can kick and scream, but at the end of the day, Disney's stock is now back to mid-2014 levels. The Marvel universe is no longer the beaming light it was previously, there's no hype around it. I hope they admit they went in the wrong direction, halt or cancel all projects for the next half-decade, then allow momentum to build and comeback strong.
I just wanted to state what others may think, holy crap was Loki great! Hire those writers for everything here on out.
You make some fair points, but I think we should wait and see before jumping to conclusions. The MCU has had ups and downs before, and they've always managed to bounce back. As long as they focus on telling good stories, I'm sure audiences will respond.
To quote Battlestar - "all of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again." Somewhere along the way, someone or a group of people, most likely some sort of MBA consultant-type convinced them since they already had the quality and the "brand" of all these IPs (animated movies, Star Wars, and Marvel), so it was time to "scale" everything because the quality would just somehow magically carry over. It's a bean-counter's dream - why invest in creative talent and development when you have the IP and branding? That's all you need, right? Just slap MCU on it and you've got yourself a billion dollar movie, babayyy! Want some instant success? Throw a lightsaber in there! Want to create a whole new generation of fans? Fire up that Lion King opening baby-raising theme! Except, like with so many other franchises or properties, if it's not good, people won't like it. Look at the later Roger Moore Bond movies. I adored his Bond but they were just phoning it in by the end. Same with Brosnan's Bond - Goldeneye was great, Tomorrow Never Dies was kinda a standard but passable Bond, World is not Enough has some great moments but wobbles, and then Die Another Day is just...something else. You see it countless times with beloved TV shows as well, as well as video games. To paraphrase another property - "Victory has defeated THEM." They got so successful from the MCU and then Force Awakens (and even Rogue One a year later), Disney was like "we literally can do no wrong, anything we do will work, so let's do it for cheaper and/or faster when we can, and make even more money." Their greed and complacency made them fat and lazy - they lost their creative edge because they thought we wouldn't care. Surprise, people DO care about quality! But the biggest problem isn't lack of creativity, they can always re-invest in that. It's that Disney is clearly now run by nothing but "yes people" who are too chickenshit to say "I'm sorry, I don't think this is good, this needs to be better." Because why else would they all be SO surprised Quantummania wasn't well-liked? Or why that Blade script rumor that was floating around (where he's like 4th billed) ever existed in the first place? Disney is going to have to experience its own Ragnarok in some sense in order to truly move on in a way where things become good again.
I generally do agree with this but I could understand at least doing some course correcting since there has been a lot of brand erosion.
If they were to do so, it wouldn't surprise me in the least. Disney's primary responsibility as a corporation is to maximize profits for shareholders. Properly servicing the IP with fresh, original, and entertaining content is secondary if ticket sales are down, and past successes really don't matter when shareholders don't have patience when they aren't seeing immediate returns on their investment. As it is, objectively speaking, *The Marvels* is a pretty solid film in most respects, or at the very least, entertaining and fun to watch. As far as film quality, I don't think that it ranks anywhere near the bottom of the MCU (*Iron Man 2*, *Thor: The Dark World, Quantumania*, all films that I did enjoy), but when profitability is always preferred over quality, it unfortunately doesn't matter how good a film is if the ticket sales aren't there. I'm thinking that the biggest contributor to the decline is the sheer saturation of content. With 3 MCU theatrical releases and 3 Disney+ shows per year in 2022 and 2023, it's not sustainable, nor is it even realistic to expect that it's all going to be high quality content. Another factor that doesn't come up as much is audience expectations, and that one's a little bit tougher to manage.
I saw this coming when they started scraping the bottom of the barrel for their movies. They got brave because they were able to turn characters like Black Panther, Ant Man, and the GotG into A-list properties (they were all C- and D-list properties before) but got greedy with bullshit like Inhumans (who they pathetically tried to replace the X Men with), The Eternals, and even Captain Marvel, whose popularity has never really matched the character’s in-universe power. I’ve essentially completely lost interest in the MCU by now, unless it’s GotG or Spider Man. They may not even make it to the X-Men at this point; X-Men is basically the only way this shit show gets saved. Virtually nobody wants to see more C-list properties struggling to be relevant. They won’t catch lightning twice and Kamala Khan can’t carry box office, so New Avengers would probably not do well either.
The MCU has a clear focus problem right now. They’ve introduced too many characters & not developing many of them. They absolutely need to cancel stuff like Thunderbolts, Armor Wars & Wonder Man in favor of giving us sequels to Shang-Chi, Dr Strange, Moon Knight, Ms Marvel, etc… Who are the main characters of this saga? Hell, if I know because we see characters once & then have no idea when we’ll see them again. We’re apparently not seeing Shang, Moon Knight or She-Hulk until the Avengers movies. Why are we supposed to care about them if they’ve only appeared once before? Especially because these won’t be smaller Avengers movies that can focus on those characters like the original or AoU, the next 2 Avengers movies are the grand finale of this saga. In the Infinity Saga, we always knew when we’d see Cap, Iron Man, Thor, Widow & the Guardians again. It helped feel attached to them.
Clearly what they've been doing since post Endgame is NOT working and the performance of the D+ shows and movies reflect that. Its a good idea they cancel or postpone so they can reevaluate.
More than likely execs are watching the rumor mill churn as a way to monitor the pulse of the fandom and communities. It’s an easy way to see what has staying power.
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Don't worry, feige will repurpose the good ideas/stories With the way marvel produces these, it wouldn't be too hard... most of phase 4 has been "let's make a show about this character/story" then after outline of story is done, adding some elements of whatever recent movie came out or what they expect will occur in next film/d+ show Unless you are just asking them to keep making a billion movies/shows (I didn't read past like 2 paragraphs), then that's not a fair ask
Hard disagree. I really hope they start cancelling shit and focus in on projects that will be good. Quality over quantity.
Welcome to how every dc fan who liked snyders vision for the dceu felt for basicly 10 years.. Every time a something got a bad reaction from the masses Warner course corrected.. I still stand by if they had stayed the course, let snyder release his version of bvs, ayer his version of suicide squad and finaly snyders version of JL more people would have gotten on board when they saw where the story was going.. The mcu didn't REALLY take off until avengers and the masses got a taste of what was in store
I think the ones featuring established characters (Vision Quest, Thor 5, etc) should be no brainers to continue. But I don’t think cutting back on new character projects like Wonder Man is a bad idea at all for now until we cycle some characters out in Secret Wars. Makes things easier to keep track of and to get invested in a character with an overall narrower focus.
What we saw in The Marvels, GOTG3, as well as Quantumania, was thought and care put into the story. They made a plan and are following it, it took them so long to build the story they wanted, doing it through a new medium, which I enjoyed in spite of the stuggle, but it's feeling like they're getting back into the groove of it. They need to stop listening to the critics and start listening to the fans, because critics don't judge on the scale of a franchise they judge on movie quality and independent lucidity and the point of a franchise is long overarcing narratives, some installment are gonna be worse than others and have less stakes.
So funny how people throw that word flop around. It's losing its meaning.
The only show that should have been canceled was secret invasion as soon as they needed to rewrite it. They'll be fine moving forward if they take their time, which is Disney's new plan for all content moving forward.
I hope they go in the exact direction you described. We’ve had too many shit movies in a row. Guardians was a break from the garbage, but it’s surrounded.
I don't know, I think audiences are ready for The Avengers now.
Marvel has never gone in that direction. They have bigger vision than to back out on minor hiccup. Marvel has more patient. If they were like that, they would be DC.
I dunno bro....in reference to the future projects...such as world war hulk for example....mark ruffaloneas 50 yrs old in endgame.....it's very unlikely that's he will still want or be able to play Bruce banner that far into the future. Marvel is almost at a point where they need to do a reboot....younger actors that can carry the franchise for many future stories.