The Marvels , you know that new superhero movie

[Tyndmyr]

I don't pay attention to the music usually, but it does help set the tone, and having a CONSISTANT motif for each character or group would seem like an obvious thing to do in this kind of movie.

This is a rare DC win. Even though I don't normally care for the DC movies as much, I gotta say, things like Wonder Woman's theme are used consistently.

Well, for WW, at least. Batman is in a million movies, and as such, doesn't have a consistent theme. Still, credit where credit is due.

I find that dubious when so many folks trip over themselves to both announce their so-called apathy as well as victory lap the movie's failure. For me, true apathy is more like the Blue Beetle film, a collective shrug followed by very few headlines or posts at all.

A DC film being meh isn't news. It's the status quo. Blue Beetle wasn't terrible, it was just very, very bland. Watch it, don't hate it, don't feel like rewatching it again or have any real sentiment. That's...kind of a lot of DC movies. So the DCU doesn't get talked about much unless something unusually controversial pops up.

The MCU is bigger than the DCU by a fair bit. It's gonna get talked about more. Same as Star Wars gets talked about. There's a fandom there, or at least there was.

On the discussion of fatigue, I note news that Frozen 4 has been announced ... when Frozen 3 hasn't even gotten to the theaters yet.

I think it's pretty clear that Hollywood, and especially Disney , are churning out Entertainment Product as quickly as they can, with concomitant loss of quality. I don't know what the end state of this is: Milk all the franchises until there's nothing left, then sell the company?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

If it's any comfort, the trailer for Wish looks at least decent. I admit, multiple sequels for Frozen isn't exactly exciting. The first movie was great, second movie was...forgettable. Two more seems a bit much. I'm not sure how many more times we can justify Arendale being almost frozen.

The latter is a clear strawman, and never anything that I said. What I gave as my top three reasons are not incompatible with the former, and all three of them are being echoed by mainstream thinkpieces as well.

"The fanbase is getting old" is not inherently a problem. Older consumers typically have more money, and don't mind introducing their kids to the same things they loved. The Pokemon franchise prints money. Mario made over a billion dollars on a shoestring budget. Sonic the Hedgehog has had multiple films....these are all older properties than the MCU. So, the article is making a really weird, unsubstantiated point there.

It then goes on to a bunch of theorycrafting regarding women and representation. Basically, it attempts to make the case that the viewership didn't watch The Marvels because the viewership is all male. It *is* true that women mostly didn't show up to watch The Marvels, but that hasn't been the case for the MCU at large, at least not to that degree. No previous film had a spread of more than 10%, whereas The Marvels had a spread of 22%. This is strong evidence against the idea that The Marvels is a victim of a male viewership. It wasn't popular with either, and was unusually unpopular with women.

Likewise, I do not buy an argument that movies have to struggle because everyone is streaming. Hit films are still being released. The top three box offices of all time are, in order, Avatar, Avengers: Endgame, and Avatar 2. Those are all pretty recent films, and do not indicate an audience that hates the movie theater. It might indicate that Disney's competing with itself via Disney Plus, and it in particular has a poor streaming/movie strategy, but people do show up at the box office when they like the film.

Its conclusion that The Marvels is an investment that will eventually paid off seems like sheer hopium. No evidence is presented to support this conclusion. DvD sales are not much of a thing these days. It probably won't create tons of residual income. The box office is not looking good. There is no logical reason to see this movie as a financial success.

[Psyren]

There is no logical reason to see this movie as a financial success.

Nobody is calling it that, least of all the article you're responding to. Their actual conclusion states:

"Based on numbers beyond box office totals, it would be foolhardy to write off “The Marvels” entirely a week after its release. While it may not turn a huge profit for Marvel, word of mouth may coax more people into theaters in the coming weeks, and it's sure to find a warmer welcome in the video on demand market.

One day “The Marvels” may be viewed as an early bet on the future whose dividends eventually paid off. But that can only come true if this genre’s keepers have the patience and will to meet the next generation on its turf instead of reheating predictable battles using old tactics."

It's this thing called nuance that's in very short supply around here.

[sktarq]

"Based on numbers beyond box office totals, it would be foolhardy to write off “The Marvels” entirely a week after its release. While it may not turn a huge profit for Marvel, word of mouth may coax more people into theaters in the coming weeks, and it's sure to find a warmer welcome in the video on demand market.

In light of the second weekend I would say the above is an overly optimistic read. That makes the second part

One day “The Marvels” may be viewed as an early bet on the future whose dividends eventually paid off. But that can only come true if this genre’s keepers have the patience and will to meet the next generation on its turf instead of reheating predictable battles using old tactics."

unlikely in the extreme. They would be better off with a reset with new characters incorporating a number of lessons learned from The Marvels. Expensive lessons at that (with a budgets confirmed at $270mm before the last round of reshoots and VFX crunch (July '22 IIRC)). And with wish not doing well with the critics the story of a giant being in trouble is one that people are interested in watching. That of course gets people building up the problem for more clicks/views/attention but the core problem is quite valid.

[Mechalich]

"The fanbase is getting old" is not inherently a problem. Older consumers typically have more money, and don't mind introducing their kids to the same things they loved. The Pokemon franchise prints money. Mario made over a billion dollars on a shoestring budget. Sonic the Hedgehog has had multiple films....these are all older properties than the MCU. So, the article is making a really weird, unsubstantiated point there.

Super Mario Bros had a budget of 100 million dollars. That's 20 million more than 2022's Minions: The Rise of Gru, which is it's closest comp, and the same budget as Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse. It was not made on a shoestring. Super Mario Bros was a candy-colored kids movie that hit. This is normal, there seems to be around one each year or so. Mario hit harder than the recent entries in the Minions franchise, possibly due to nostalgia, but that's all.

Likewise, I do not buy an argument that movies have to struggle because everyone is streaming. Hit films are still being released. The top three box offices of all time are, in order, Avatar, Avengers: Endgame, and Avatar 2. Those are all pretty recent films, and do not indicate an audience that hates the movie theater. It might indicate that Disney's competing with itself via Disney Plus, and it in particular has a poor streaming/movie strategy, but people do show up at the box office when they like the film.

Avengers: Endgame released in 2019, which was the year made the most money in history. All subsequent years have made massively less money. In 2022 movies, collectively, worldwide, made about as much money as they made in 2007. For reference, there are about 1.3 billion more people on the planet now than there were in 2007. In 2023, movies will probably match the totals from 2008 or 2009. The post-covid box office environment is nothing like that of the 2010s. We don't know exactly why that's the case, but the difference is there.

Signs point to a broad, generalized decline in typical movie-going. Almost all large post-covid successes have been somehow unconventional: Avatar 2 relied on technology to both bring people to the theater and goose its overall gross (that extra IMAX money goes a long way); Top Gun: Maverick managed to stay in theaters forever, taking advantage of a truly epic long tail because of weak competition, and Barbieheimer was a thing that the internet somehow made happen. Even at lower levels, successes have often been gimmicky: Sound of Freedom - which probably has the highest budget multiplier of any film this year - relied on a unique ticket sales strategy and courted a lot of political controversy to find an audience; Five Nights at Freddy's turned itself into the Halloween thing to do this year, banking a fortune in an incredibly narrow window before vanishing.

But these successes are anomalous and often come at the expense of other films. Barbieheimer, for example, devastated Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One.

[Psyren]

In light of the second weekend I would say the above is an overly optimistic read. That makes the second part


unlikely in the extreme. They would be better off with a reset with new characters incorporating a number of lessons learned from The Marvels. Expensive lessons at that (with a budgets confirmed at $270mm before the last round of reshoots and VFX crunch (July '22 IIRC)). And with wish not doing well with the critics the story of a giant being in trouble is one that people are interested in watching. That of course gets people building up the problem for more clicks/views/attention but the core problem is quite valid.

"I think the article's conclusion is overly optimistic/unlikely to occur" is valid. "The article says the film was a financial success" is not.

As for "a giant being in trouble" - time will tell on that front.

[Wintermoot]

Avengers: Endgame released in 2019, which was the year made the most money in history. All subsequent years have made massively less money. In 2022 movies, collectively, worldwide, made about as much money as they made in 2007. For reference, there are about 1.3 billion more people on the planet now than there were in 2007. In 2023, movies will probably match the totals from 2008 or 2009. The post-covid box office environment is nothing like that of the 2010s. We don't know exactly why that's the case, but the difference is there.

Hey, we don't let actual logic or statistics into these marvel movie arguments!

[sktarq]

I would say "giant in trouble" is valid.
Which is not the same as a "giant is doomed and we are just watching it fail and flail it's way to bankruptcy" the difference being that pesky ever elusive nuance
Disney has been in trouble before and recovered. People talk about the "Disney Renaissance" for a reason, and there is nothing stopping Disney from doing it again. Comic book lines have rose faded been bought out or "capital infused" and still continued on while others in similar situations have been lost to the sands of time.

One of the things that jumps out to me is stark split in the types of movies that are in theatres. The death of the midbudget movie was a talking point in the early-mid 2010's as movies like the MCU and the general rise of the all-tentpoles-all-the-time system. And I must wonder if it worked for a time but was just unsustainable. Some low budget stuff can be made (horror films especially) but taking risks on the bigger stuff seems likely to give the bean counters angina and over time that translates into less interest over time.

[Psyren]

Disney has been in trouble before and recovered. People talk about the "Disney Renaissance" for a reason, and there is nothing stopping Disney from doing it again.

That's exactly my point though, Disney's straits are nowhere near as dire as they were in the pre-Renaissance period where they had a single hit in 18 years and over 15% of their animation staff suddenly quit to start a rival company under Don Bluth. If that's what counts as "trouble", they're very far from that. Encanto's awards were less than a year ago for example.

[VampiricLongbow]

Likewise, I do not buy an argument that movies have to struggle because everyone is streaming. Hit films are still being released. The top three box offices of all time are, in order, Avatar, Avengers: Endgame, and Avatar 2. Those are all pretty recent films, and do not indicate an audience that hates the movie theater. It might indicate that Disney's competing with itself via Disney Plus, and it in particular has a poor streaming/movie strategy, but people do show up at the box office when they like the film.

Avatar 2 was a movie people wanted to see in theaters because it was going to be a visual treat, one that is hard to replicate watching at home. Endgame is pre-pandemic, so it cannot be counted, IMO. Movie going habits changed during the pandemic.

I think the issue with Disney is that so much of their content is mediocre. People will come out in droves for something good or something unique/novel but they are not showing up for the middle of the road products. If you want to put butts in seats, you need to give them a reason to want to leave their house and see the film in theaters. Sadly, most Marvel films since Endgame have been middle of the road in terms of story, visual effects and overall quality. It is anecdotal but I can look at myself and my extended friend group and they all pretty much went from watching every Marvel movie in theaters the weekend the films released to only seeing the ones that interest them or look fun. It is not a recipe for ever-growing profitability the way Disney wants.

[Zalabim]

Also they need to cut down on the homework. It’s okay to expect the average viewer to have seen Captain America 1 to understand Captain America 2, but not half the MCU.


Dunno if there’s enough goodwill towards the brand at this point for that to help, but that seems like a solid plan otherwise. They never should have made the TV shows required homework for the movies. The extra paywall and larger time sink are both hurdles, too.

I do agree they should slow down and rethink the whole "phases" thing. Big overarching narratives and "the next Thanos" don't seem to be panning out in quite the same way, especially since the modern MCU is more dependent on streaming homework than the first three.

The same as ever, you don't have to watch anything outside these movies to understand these movies. There is no required homework so far. If you really like the characters, you can watch more on streaming. That's all. You don't have to watch any of the streaming shows, or other movies, to understand any other movie. That's been a continuing complaint about the streaming shows. They don't change anything in the world in any way that effects the upcoming movies.

[Saph]

It is anecdotal but I can look at myself and my extended friend group and they all pretty much went from watching every Marvel movie in theaters the weekend the films released to only seeing the ones that interest them or look fun.

Same with my friend group. Can't pinpoint exactly when it happened, but I think it was sometime soon after Infinity War. Marvel movies went from "cultural event" to "oh, yeah, that came out".

Same thing happened with Star Wars for that matter. And Disney movies as a whole, come to think of it.

Which I think is one of the reasons people are paying more attention than usual to The Marvels being such a flop. It really does feel like it represents Disney as a whole.

[Eldan]

Yeah, there was stuff before I didn't watch, mainly TV series loosely connected to the rest of the universe (Agents of Shield, and I don't actually know anyone who's seen Inhumans). But later, I made some pretty definite decisions on what I did and did not like. I won't watch Antman stuff, I don't care about the more grounded stuff mainly on Earth (Hawkeye, Falcon), I'll watch other movies if reviewers I trust say that it's decent, and it features characters who look interesting, and I'm really bored on that weekend. And I have regretted that, with Thor 4, so I'm even more careful now. The TV series have overall been so mediocre that I don't really regret watching Wandavision or Loki, but I don't really want to see more of it, either.

[GloatingSwine]

The same as ever, you don't have to watch anything outside these movies to understand these movies. There is no required homework so far. If you really like the characters, you can watch more on streaming. That's all. You don't have to watch any of the streaming shows, or other movies, to understand any other movie. That's been a continuing complaint about the streaming shows. They don't change anything in the world in any way that effects the upcoming movies.

Yeah. The TV series don't actually tell you anything you need to know to understand the movies. But people think they do because Disney have marketed it all as a big connected continuity.

Which has backfired because instead of approaching a movie on its own terms and paying attention to the information it's giving them; they're assuming there's some homework they haven't done.

[Mechalich]

Which I think is one of the reasons people are paying more attention than usual to The Marvels being such a flop. It really does feel like it represents Disney as a whole.

The reason people are paying more attention to The Marvels is mostly some rather nasty politics, I think that's fairly clear without getting into it. Disney, for a variety of reasons, is much more closely identified with that scrum than any of the other studios - many of which have not had great 2023's either. Barbie, for all that it's a smash hit, is the only movie from Warner Bros in the top 20 this year, and they had some huge superhero flops of their own, ex. Blue Beetle, the Flash, and Shazam 2. Universal, which has Mario, Oppenheimer, and some big horror hits (Freddy's, M3GAN) is probably the only major studio looking at this year as a real success - and even they had some huge flops, like Renfield.

2023 has really been a year of failure for all movies with truly huge budgets. Out of the many films in the 150+ million range, which includes a number of Disney films but also the likes of Fast X, Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning, Transformers Rise of the Beasts, Killers of the Flower Moon, and even Dungeons & Dragons Honor Among Thieves (yes, that film had a 150 million dollar budget) only Barbie and Guardians 3 made money. Instead, this was a year of movies made at around 100 million that saw huge success: Mario, Oppenheimer, John Wick 4, Across the Spiderverse, Puss in Boots (yes really, that film made almost half a billion on a 90 mil budget).

Because of the way the strikes this year cut a six month hole in Hollywood production, what I think we're seeing now is something like the last gasp of a series of films made at unbelievable budgets based on accounting as if everything was going to go back to the way it was pre-Covid. It's pretty clear that's not going to happen, at least not for a while, especially not globally, and Hollywood is going to have to adjust budgets downward. It simply is no longer reasonable to make films at a budget where you'd need 750 million or more to turn a profit at the box office (with the possible exception of Avatar, which is somehow playing by different rules than everyone else). However, there's a problem of past expectations here. Audiences were given several years, especially on Disney+, of series that were unreasonably expensive, and cutting the budget is going to result in shows, and to a lesser but probably very real extent films, that look worse. That is a tough road to hoe.

[Saph]

Because of the way the strikes this year cut a six month hole in Hollywood production, what I think we're seeing now is something like the last gasp of a series of films made at unbelievable budgets based on accounting as if everything was going to go back to the way it was pre-Covid. It's pretty clear that's not going to happen, at least not for a while, especially not globally, and Hollywood is going to have to adjust budgets downward. It simply is no longer reasonable to make films at a budget where you'd need 750 million or more to turn a profit at the box office (with the possible exception of Avatar, which is somehow playing by different rules than everyone else). However, there's a problem of past expectations here. Audiences were given several years, especially on Disney+, of series that were unreasonably expensive, and cutting the budget is going to result in shows, and to a lesser but probably very real extent films, that look worse. That is a tough road to hoe.

You're looking at it from an accounting perspective – which is valid – but I'm more interested in the quality of what they're putting out. So what I notice the most isn't that Disney's spending vast unsustainable amounts of money on these films and TV shows, it's that they're spending vast unsustainable amounts of money on these films and TV shows while putting out a really crappy product at the end of it. It's been years now since I've seen any piece of media with the Disney label on it that was actually good (as opposed to 'watchable' or 'fine') and I'm kind of curious as to what happened to them. Presumably they had a bunch of capable people at some point, so where did they all go?

[Infernally Clay]

Same with my friend group. Can't pinpoint exactly when it happened, but I think it was sometime soon after Infinity War. Marvel movies went from "cultural event" to "oh, yeah, that came out".

Same thing happened with Star Wars for that matter. And Disney movies as a whole, come to think of it.

Which I think is one of the reasons people are paying more attention than usual to The Marvels being such a flop. It really does feel like it represents Disney as a whole.

It was Endgame, really. The MCU began with Tony Stark and it ended with his death. In hindsight Endgame couldn't have come out at a better time since it wasn't that long after that when COVID hit and priorities changed for a lot of people, but even before then there was that real sense that Infinity War and Endgame was the end. They had that sense of finality and they carried themselves as the conclusion to the story. People came out of Endgame satisfied.

People were invested in the MCU for a good eleven years. That should have been enough. I'm not saying they should have stopped making Marvel movies but it's no surprise that standalone movies like Guardians of the Galaxy 3, a movie you only needed to have watched Guardians 1 and Guardians 2 to fully enjoy, are the most well received of the post-Endgame MCU.

The MCU really should have ended there and then, after Endgame, but since when has Hollywood ever sat down and said "maybe we don't need more sequels"? Did we really need a Thor 4 or an Ant-Man 3 or, to be blunt, even a Black Widow movie? The MCU that has existed since Endgame has been a mess, too many chefs in too small a kitchen, with no clear direction and no real focus on a specific group of superheroes. It's the exact opposite to how the MCU began, which suggests they learned all the wrong lessons. Instead of introducing a new audience to a new roster of would-be Avengers, all we're getting is a constant stream of noise like we're toddlers a parent is giving an iPad to because it's easier than giving us what we actually want.

You mention Star Wars too but that has the same problem. It used to be a cultural event. You'd get one movie every few years for six years and then nothing for another fifteen and that got everyone so damn excited. Then Disney did what Disney does and overdid it. We went from three movies in six years to five movies in four years. Is it really surprising that The Force Awakens was one of the biggest cinematic events in history in 2015 but by 2019 the enthusiasm evaporated? Sure that Mandalorian show helped a lot in rekindling interest in Star Wars as a franchise, but that's because it opted to tell a strong, self-contained and accessible story about a stoic and emotionless mercenary becoming a father figure and protector to a cute mascot character. Even that didn't last very long, though, did it? Now it's all about the cameos and continuity nods and threats to the galaxy.

It's like Disney is allergic to allowing stories to end organically, to the detriment of the audience.

[Mechalich]

You're looking at it from an accounting perspective – which is valid – but I'm more interested in the quality of what they're putting out. So what I notice the most isn't that Disney's spending vast unsustainable amounts of money on these films and TV shows, it's that they're spending vast unsustainable amounts of money on these films and TV shows while putting out a really crappy product at the end of it. It's been years now since I've seen any piece of media with the Disney label on it that was actually good (as opposed to 'watchable' or 'fine') and I'm kind of curious as to what happened to them. Presumably they had a bunch of capable people at some point, so where did they all go?

Quality is subjective, and also, if you haven't seen anything good from Disney in years you're being at least somewhat selective. Guardians 3 was broadly considered good. Andor, which is only one year old right now, is considered by many to be the best Star Wars outside of the Original Trilogy. Loki has been very well received (I haven't watched season two yet, but season one was very good). Has there been an overall downward trend in quality of major Disney productions since Covid, probably, but how much of one is somewhat hard to say, and it's also hard to say that such a thing is isolated to Disney.

In general, the industry seems to be suffering most acutely in large scale VFX-dependent sectors, especially as contrasted to franchises and/or directors with a hankering for the practical something that impacts products as varied as Oppenheimer and John Wick. It has been bandied about the industry that at the present time there is simply more work than the limited number of VFX personnel can possibly handle, resulting in both products that end up being subpar at release such as Quantumania, or odd influences of the production process due to VFX demands. For example, the technology called The Volume used in the Star Wars Disney+ shows involves putting up giant screens that display the background in lieu of or supplement too traditional sets. However, that means the backgrounds have to be finished digitally before any scenes are shot, which has an influence on the production since it effectively fixes all scenes in place at a very early point in the process, something that may be partly to blame for the dodging writing and pacing of several of the shows.

There's also a mass market pressure invoked by the high price tag. At the massive budgets attached to these giant movies and shows no single demographic is sufficient to support them. In order to make money they have to appeal to multiple age groups, nationalities, genders, etc. Disney Star Wars is notable in this regard because Dave Filoni really seems to ping-pong back and forth between 'kids show' and 'serious fantasy adventure' sometimes between individual scenes, but it's all over the industry. A show about Hawkeye can't just be about Hawkeye, because there aren't enough people interested in a show about Hawkeye to make that show profitable at the minimum price point it would take to make a Hawkeye show, so other stuff inevitably gets shoved in the hopes of expanding the audience, and this has a downward pressure on quality. The Avatar films are perhaps the ultimate exemplars of this, since James Cameron has chose to go all in one visuals - which are in some sense universal - at the expense of basically everything else, resulting in movies that make all the money but that no one ever talks about.

It's like Disney is allergic to allowing stories to end organically, to the detriment of the audience.

Hollywood's recent record of successfully launching new IP is really, really bad. Everyone is running franchises into the ground right now. Fast X and Saw X both came out this year, as did the seventh Mission Impossible movie, the eighth? Transformers film, multiple DC movies, and a freaking new Hunger Games spinoff. The rare original tentpole movie - meaning not a shoestring horror film or proper indie - that does get made usually fails. Consider The Creator: original story, respectable 80 million dollar budget, massive loss.

And look, this is absolutely a problem for Hollywood, a huge problem, no argument there. It's just questionable whether it's a Disney specific problem or if it's a problem for everyone. Personally, I lean more towards the latter.

[Psyren]

The same as ever, you don't have to watch anything outside these movies to understand these movies. There is no required homework so far. If you really like the characters, you can watch more on streaming. That's all. You don't have to watch any of the streaming shows, or other movies, to understand any other movie. That's been a continuing complaint about the streaming shows. They don't change anything in the world in any way that effects the upcoming movies.

You know that and I know that, but what you and I think is totally irrelevant if that is the perception being held by general audiences. It's Marvel's job to combat that perception so they can get butts in seats, and they're not doing the best job of it lately.

More to the point - if the shared universe thing no longer matters, why bother with continuing to cram every movie and show into it? The whole point behind it was a justification for "wouldn't it be cool if Character/Actor X and Character/Actor Y were on screen together, let's explain how that's possible!" and they blew that up in Loki and MoM and Secret Invasion anyway, so now they can accompish the same objective via things like incursions or variants or Skrull copies or what have you anyway, without having to constantly answer questions like "if this is a global threat, where are the Avengers? Where's Doctor Strange? Where's Nick Fury?" etc.

Which I think is one of the reasons people are paying more attention than usual to The Marvels being such a flop. It really does feel like it represents Disney as a whole.

If Disney gets downgraded from "cultural phenomenon" to merely "relatively strong movie studio" that's still not a bad place to be - their movie budgets and release schedule simply need to come down to match. They can't afford to keep blowing a billion+ on making a full slate of releases every year.

Also, what Mechalich said - there's still more to the schadenfreude over The Marvels in particular, than detached clinical interest in a Goliath corporation stumbling.

[Lemmy]

The latter is a clear strawman, and never anything that I said. What I gave as my top three reasons are not incompatible with the former, and all three of them are being echoed by mainstream thinkpieces as well.

Mainstream "thinkpieces" making excuses for giant studios?!
I'm shocked! SHOCKED!!!

It's not that the MCU latest movies range from awful to meh, therefore killing the enthusiasm of existing audiences and failing to connect to new ones... No, no. It's just that everyone is getting old! Yup... That's definitely the main reason. (Ignore the multiple old franchises that had successful films this very year... Including Spider-man, a Marvel character).

As usual, it's the fault of anything and everything... Except the product or the giant corporation who made it. Don't think. Buy product then get excited for next product.

So movies are... a speculative investment being pushed to retail investors?

Don't miss the forest for the tree. It was just an example. I'm sure you understood what I meant.

[Saph]

Also, what Mechalich said - there's still more to the schadenfreude over The Marvels in particular, than detached clinical interest in a Goliath corporation stumbling.

Oh, it's not particularly detached on my part. Disney has been notorious for decades in my industry for its awful business practices, so I'm personally quite happy to see them fail. Amoral greed combined with sanctimonious moralising isn't an attractive combination.

[Tyndmyr]

Super Mario Bros had a budget of 100 million dollars. That's 20 million more than 2022's Minions: The Rise of Gru, which is it's closest comp, and the same budget as Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse. It was not made on a shoestring. Super Mario Bros was a candy-colored kids movie that hit. This is normal, there seems to be around one each year or so. Mario hit harder than the recent entries in the Minions franchise, possibly due to nostalgia, but that's all.

Relative to MCU budgets, it's very modest indeed.

Budgets in general have been kind of inflating, and that's a fair point, I suppose. A 100 million dollar film was quite expensive not all that long ago. Many of the MCU films would have been a financial success if made with a reasonable budget, but The Marvels is actually the cheapest film in the MCU, and it's looking to be a failure, so cost cutting isn't showing strong results. Perhaps one can quibble over what needs money spent on it, perhaps. Story generally receives very little of the budget, and yet it often results in complaints. Perhaps it ought to be prioritized higher than extra CGI.

Avengers: Endgame released in 2019, which was the year made the most money in history.

Chicken, egg there. Releasing a massive success makes it a larger year. It isn't just a movie happening to find a good market...movies were released in 2019 that still bombed, it's that really huge blockbusters make for record breaking years.

The post-covid box office environment is nothing like that of the 2010s. We don't know exactly why that's the case, but the difference is there.

Lack of quality content. People do show up to popular movies. Avatar 2 was in the post covid timeframe, and makes the top three box offices of all time. Obviously, people didn't mind that.

However, production of quality content is down. During covid, production got interrupted on all sorts of projects, and the strikes since probably added additional production delays. So, that's just a lack of content out of the gate, and that's not super controversial. There have been gaps in release schedules, and that's going to decrease viewership.

Furthermore, the trend of sequels, prequels, re-releases, and other forms of increasingly derivative storytelling have continued. A sequel can be good, and can make money, but there are so very many entries in this market now that one more isn't all that exciting. Terminator 2 was an event(and the highest grossing film of '91). Frozen 4 isn't.

Five Nights at Freddy's turned itself into the Halloween thing to do this year, banking a fortune in an incredibly narrow window before vanishing.

That's not unusual, though. Halloween is an extremely traditional time for spooky films that pop into the theater then and vanish after the holiday. That's been going on for decades. That's like being surprised at Lifetime releasing a direct to TV Christmas Romance film.

An incredibly traditional strategy being successful in exactly the normal way is evidence against the theater landscape being fundamentally different.

Yeah, there was stuff before I didn't watch, mainly TV series loosely connected to the rest of the universe (Agents of Shield, and I don't actually know anyone who's seen Inhumans). But later, I made some pretty definite decisions on what I did and did not like. I won't watch Antman stuff, I don't care about the more grounded stuff mainly on Earth (Hawkeye, Falcon), I'll watch other movies if reviewers I trust say that it's decent, and it features characters who look interesting, and I'm really bored on that weekend. And I have regretted that, with Thor 4, so I'm even more careful now. The TV series have overall been so mediocre that I don't really regret watching Wandavision or Loki, but I don't really want to see more of it, either.

Yeah, I feel this. I didn't finish Loki season two, even though I enjoyed the first one. It wasn't bad, but it started feeling like new rules would be just made up whenever to justify whatever was happening at present, and while the cast was good, I found myself caring less. The TV shows feel particularly forgettable now, and I don't feel a need to watch them.

I'd have skipped The Marvels entirely if not for my partner's desire to see it, and there is certainly a great deal less anticipation. I've still seen pretty much all the movies, I just stopped watching the shows. And also mostly stopped rewatching movies. I hit the theater a lot, so sometimes a different friend group would want to see the same MCU film, and it used to be worthwhile. Seeing Infinity War again? Sure, why not? This doesn't happen anymore.

Let's see, what's on the docket for coming out next:
Ironheart (series)
Agatha: Darkhold Diaries (series)
Daredevil: Born Again (series)
Deadpool 3 (2024)
Captain America: Brave New World (2025)
Thunderbolts (2025)
Blade (2025)

Of that list, uhhh, well, I'll watch Deadpool. I enjoyed the last two Deadpool films, so this'll probably be a decent romp. I might see Cap if I am bored and with friends that want to see it. I can't imagine anyone I know cares about Thunderbolts. None of the series matter. Blade is apparently plagued with deep problems, and honestly, he doesn't fit the MCU super well anyways.

So, it looks like it's getting worse from here out.

The reason people are paying more attention to The Marvels is mostly some rather nasty politics,

I don't think so. People are paying attention to the MCU because it used to be the 11 ton gorilla in the movie industry, and now it isn't. It's inherently newsworthy as a change.

Audiences were given several years, especially on Disney+, of series that were unreasonably expensive, and cutting the budget is going to result in shows, and to a lesser but probably very real extent films, that look worse. That is a tough road to hoe.

Every one of the cheaper films you cited, Mario, Oppenheimer, John Wick 4, Across the Spiderverse, Puss in Boots, were beautiful on the screen. The same is true for the bigger budget hits you cite, Avatar 2 and GotG 3. I think it's quite possible to make a good looking film for 100 mil.

If it's not possible for Disney to do that, well, that's a problem with Disney, isn't it?

Sure that Mandalorian show helped a lot in rekindling interest in Star Wars as a franchise, but that's because it opted to tell a strong, self-contained and accessible story about a stoic and emotionless mercenary becoming a father figure and protector to a cute mascot character. Even that didn't last very long, though, did it? Now it's all about the cameos and continuity nods and threats to the galaxy.

Yeah. Shame, really, I quite liked The Mandalorian early on, but the luster has faded. Boba Fett was downright bad, and with Pedro Pascal moving on, it seems the heart of the show has kind of been lost. Of all the other shows, only Andor seems to offer a similarly self contained tale, limiting itself to what it can properly execute without getting distracted in a million random directions.

Oh, it's not particularly detached on my part. Disney has been notorious for decades in my industry for its awful business practices, so I'm personally quite happy to see them fail. Amoral greed combined with sanctimonious moralising isn't an attractive combination.

That's fair. I don't consider myself to be either a Disney fan or hater, particularly. I did quite like the MCU early on, but I also do enjoy poking at flaws in things, so I'll cheerfully chat about problems even in the things I like. I just notice that there's a lot more of the flaws and less of the joy in the films these days.

If the end product of the business was glorious, perhaps there'd be a fun conversation over if the ends justify the means...hell, we could do that with Across the Spiderverse, which was a great movie, but by all accounts a really rough trek for the VFX folks...but with Disney, it's largely a moot point. The results are lackluster, so it's not as interesting a debate.

But if someone wants to make the case that ethically, we maybe shouldn't be supporting studios that rely on twelve hour workdays from their VFX teams, that's kind of fair. All else being equal, I'd like the people who create things I enjoy to have a good life.

[warty goblin]

Personally I'm all for both the reduction of Disney as the recipient of most box office revenue, and the diminution of the MCU/ superheroes/ CGI spectacle as the main driver of the box office.

I'm not saying I want any of these to go away. Big cool FX movies are fun and I like them, and superheroes are fine too. But I think film would be more interesting, more appealing to more people, and overall a more stable and healthy industry if most of the money didn't come from a single genre, and a single corporation didn't have a stranglehold on that genre. That would probably result in an industry that's more durable to shifting tastes and a reduced total pool of money as fewer people go to the movies.

Blade is apparently plagued with deep problems, and honestly, he doesn't fit the MCU super well anyways.

I really cannot get over how awful sounding an MCU-ified Blade is. In light of the schlocky hard R masterpiece of gore and nineties cool that we already have, quips and 2020s weightless cartoon action just hurts me. Some things just should not be made nice and, ugh, relatable.

[Psyren]

Oh, it's not particularly detached on my part. Disney has been notorious for decades in my industry for its awful business practices, so I'm personally quite happy to see them fail. Amoral greed combined with sanctimonious moralising isn't an attractive combination.

Great, at least one of you is honest about it. I appreciate that much.

On the corporate greed front, frankly, I can deal with that (I mean, living in modern society, I pretty much have to.) When I compare Disney to the likes of, say, Silicon Valley or Big Pharma or the Prison Industrial Complex I don't see nearly as much to get up in arms about, there are bigger fish to fry.

On the "sanctimonious moralizing" front, I truly don't know what you mean by that. The most I've seen them do is take the stance that women, POC and LGBT individuals should be at the forefront of more media projects, and all I can do is hope that's not the kind of "moralizing" you're objecting to.

[Tyndmyr]

On the "sanctimonious moralizing" front, I truly don't know what you mean by that. The most I've seen them do is take the stance that women, POC and LGBT individuals should be at the forefront of more media projects, and all I can do is hope that's not the kind of "moralizing" you're objecting to.

Well, given their history of attempting to erase these same people from their foreign releases, that's...a very shallow kind of moralizing. One that probably just amounts to "say whatever will make the most money in a given market." I'm not sure I'd ascribe a single scrap of moral virtue to that.

I don't think most people actually object to this. Remember, Black Panther was very successful, both financially and in critical and audience reception. They just raise an eyebrow when it seems to lack authenticity, or when it seems false.

[Psyren]

Well, given their history of attempting to erase these same people from their foreign releases, that's...a very shallow kind of moralizing. One that probably just amounts to "say whatever will make the most money in a given market." I'm not sure I'd ascribe a single scrap of moral virtue to that.

So because the version in {insert distant country} is different than the version released locally, the version released locally loses all value? Sorry, I don't buy that. I'll take some representation over no representation, even if the latter is more consistent; consistently bad/exclusionary is still bad/exclusionary.

[Dragonus45]

It was Endgame, really. The MCU began with Tony Stark and it ended with his death.

People say this a lot but I don't think it had to be true. If anything, I would say it died with Chadwick Boseman. He was the only person in the second wave of MCU stars who had the charisma and writing to carry the story as a new tent pole star. That also could have been managed, before Jonotham Majors turned out to be potentially radioactive from a press perspective. Neither of those could have helped with the problems from too many series that should have just been movies, or not written at all, or the continuity lockout issues, or Antman, but the foundation would be more solid.

[Tyndmyr]

So because the version in {insert distant country} is different than the version released locally, the version released locally loses all value? Sorry, I don't buy that. I'll take some representation over no representation, even if the latter is more consistent; consistently bad/exclusionary is still bad/exclusionary.

It merely means that the company is not in any way championing that. They're simply releasing what the local market wants. It's a financial calculus, not a moral one. If a company supports erasing people of color in one area, but loudly includes them in another, in both cases because it makes them money to do so, then no, that company isn't much of an ally. They're just out for money, as is pretty typical for large corporations.

This is largely unconnected to if the movies are good or not. A movie can be good or bad with pretty much any sort of cast, there's a ton of factors that go into what makes a film work. Casting decisions can matter, but that's about if the actor fits the character/story. There's no magical "cast this demographic" button to make a film good.

And a company's PR spending to make themselves look great doesn't mean we ought to give them a pass for making bad movies or treat their self interest as some kind of moral obligation to support them.

If anything, I would say it died with Chadwick Boseman. He was the only person in the second wave of MCU stars who had the charisma and writing to carry the story as a new tent pole star.

Editing this in because it's a good point. Yeah. Probably. His character actually had a really solid plot that had a fair amount left in its arc. Sure, they tried their best to carry it on with the supporting cast, but there's obviously a Boseman shaped hole in the second movie. I can see his arc of trying to advance and share with the world running into all sorts of interesting complications, and him being the glue that holds it all together, sort of like Iron Man did.

I don't know if Disney would have taken this route, but if they had, it probably would have worked better. His premature death was just deeply unfortunate here. Not much to really be done about it, some people are hard to replace.

[Infernally Clay]

People say this a lot but I don't think it had to be true. If anything, I would say it died with Chadwick Boseman. He was the only person in the second wave of MCU stars who had the charisma and writing to carry the story as a new tent pole star. That also could have been managed, before Jonotham Majors turned out to be potentially radioactive from a press perspective. Neither of those could have helped with the problems from too many series that should have just been movies, or not written at all, or the continuity lockout issues, or Antman, but the foundation would be more solid.

Oh it didn't have to be true, it just is.

Like, all Marvel really had to do was release a movie called Hawkeye and Black Widow starring Haylee Steinfeld and Florence Pugh assuming the mantles of Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff respectively as they contend with a situation created by those two in years gone by, perhaps during the Budapest job they mentioned previously. You could have even had Taskmaster as the villain of the movie, using the combat skills of Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff themselves. At the end of the movie one Thunderbolt Ross recruits Taskmaster, mirroring the scene at the end of The Incredible Hulk where Tony Stark and General Ross talk about putting a team together, except this time it's because there are no Avengers any more and that's an opportunity for someone else to step in.

Boom, you've got two future Avengers already and you're setting up a future conflict.

Then you have the Spider-Man movie. Peter is all SHIELD really has with the other Avengers all but gone but he has his own problems to deal with. Three future Avengers. Then you bring in Kamala Khan and give her a movie. In this scenario she's basically the Nick Fury. She lived through the Snap, she knows how bad it got and how desperately people need superheroes to look up to so she's the one recruiting Peter, Yelena and Kate to her New Avengers but Peter jokes that they're more like the Young Avengers and the name sticks. Nick Fury knows what's going on but he's letting the kids prove themselves.

While Kamala is doing this, however, the Thunderbolts and the Squadron Supreme are two superhero teams vying for the top spot now the Avengers are gone. The Thunderbolts are headed by General Ross and it's a team of heavy hitting supersoldiers like Abomination, John Walker (calling himself Captain America), Taskmaster, etc etc, while the Squadron Supreme are aliens who are grateful to the Avengers for bringing back half the universe and wish to honour their sacrifices by living up to their example.

Then we get a movie about the Thunderbolts from the perspective of one Sam Wilson, who thinks they're dodgy because Steve wanted him to be Captain America and is proven correct around the same time we get a movie about the Squadron Supreme from the perspective of one Carol Danvers who doesn't like all these superhero teams showing up and doing wherever they want.

This all leads into the first new Avengers movie called, unsurprisingly, "The New Avengers". The Thunderbolts and the Squadron Supreme clash over who gets to be the New Avengers and the Young Avengers are basically cleaning up after them, saving lives and stuff, but they can't take on either team and stop the fighting. Backup arrives in the form of Carol Danvers, Sam Wilson, Bruce Banner and Shuri, the Thunderbolts betray General Ross and go full villain, the Squadron Supreme reveal they're from a thousand years in the future and they're actually running from a terrible conquerer and the movie ends with the New Avengers that is made up of Captain Marvel, Black Panther, the Hulk, Captain America, Ms. Marvel, Spider-Man, Hawkeye and Black Widow.

The post credits teaser is the Time Variance Authority showing up and pruning the Squadron Supreme but before they can reset the timeline and erase everything they get a call from the "boss upstairs" that they've got a problem with a Loki variant and they have to get back.

At least that's how I would've done it.

[Psyren]

I completely agree that the MCU would have been in a very different place if Chadwick were alive, or at the very least had they known in advance that he was actively grappling with a terminal illness.

It's a financial calculus, not a moral one.

If it benefits anyone in any market, that's what I care about. Representation in some places but not others benefits some, no representation anywhere benefits no one.

Would I prefer representation everywhere, absolutely, but refusing to settle for anything less than that is Perfect Fallacy. Results matter to me far more than intentions or motivations.

This is largely unconnected to if the movies are good or not.
...
And a company's PR spending to make themselves look great doesn't mean we ought to give them a pass for making bad movies or treat their self interest as some kind of moral obligation to support them.

The consensus is that the movie is good, or at least decent, and that its box office failure is not due to it being devoid of quality. I don't see how recognizing that is "giving them a pass."

[Dragonus45]

So because the version in {insert distant country} is different than the version released locally, the version released locally loses all value?

Yes... I would leave it there but the board requires me to type more then 3 words so I may as well elaborate. If they are willing to erase me at the when it's not convenient for the bottom line than no amount of including me when it is is going to make me give a **** about it. They can kindly take that condescending illusion of care and shove it in the gulf of Mexico.