Marvel Cinematic Universe: General Discussion

[RedEyedGhost]

:shocked: Why? Just...why?

Sony and Fox are colluding to try and destroy the superhero movie market, so that when they finally do revert their rights back to Marvel they'll be worth absolutely nothing.

[Red Tiger]

The superhero movie business will collapse under it's own weight before 2017

[Jace, Extat]

The superhero movie business will collapse under it's own weight before 2017

Unlikely. Plenty of producers and filmmakers were saying the same thing in 2012, and it's only picked up steam since. People love hero's, and as long as Marvel puts a watchable product out there, they'll get the audience.

[Adara]

Now comes word that Sony is working on a solo Aunt May movie set before she becomes Spiderman's matriarchal figure.

Honestly. You can't make this shit up.

:bang:

Which audience is supposed to fall for that :ack:

[Red Tiger]

Unlikely. Plenty of producers and filmmakers were saying the same thing in 2012, and it's only picked up steam since. People love hero's, and as long as Marvel puts a watchable product out there, they'll get the audience.

There weren't nearly as many in 2012 or in previous years as we'll be getting in the next 2.

[Francis Buck]

I really don't see the business collapsing any time soon, short of a catastrophic drop in quality across the board. The category of "superhero movie" has, at this point, become incredibly broad. There are people that like certain Marvel movies, and not others, entirely due to the content. I mean look at the difference between something like The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy. My parents liked TWS because it was semi-grounded in reality and had Robert Redford. GotG didn't even pop up on their radar. The movies are, for all intents and purposes, different genres, not to mention wildly different in tone and atmosphere.

Keep in mind that these most recent flicks have also been among the most successful in Marvel's output. I just don't see any compelling reason why everyone's going to start hating all these disparate movies in two years.

[polishgenius]

I'm still of the opinion that there's a good chance that the entire blockbuster business will collapse in on itself next year, with the sheer amount of them scheduled (it's not as bad as it initially was because some have been moved to 2016, but it's still pretty mental and there's a chance that even if 2015 doesn't have too many big failures, it just postpones the problem). Obviously they won't go away entirely but I can see a change in the way Hollywood chooses and finances films to make.

Superhero movies are a big part of that trend, but they're not the only one. I can actually see them, or at least Marvel, coming out better than ever because Avengers isn't going to fail whatever happens, obviously, and the only other film they have due is Ant-Man, the failure of which they can obviously take. So they're unlikely to change their schedule after that and if non-superhero films see a reduction in production at that scale, they could dominate the landscape even more.

[Maithanet]

The superhero movie business will collapse under it's own weight before 2017

2017 seems really soon, but I think that the big budget superhero misses are going to get more frequent and more severe pretty soon. The ones that are actually good (or at least well marketed and appealing) will still rake in money, but the bad ones will crash and burn much worse than they have. I mean, Daredevil (2003) still made $180 million worldwide. Green Lantern (2011) made $220 million. Spiderman 3 (2007) made a mind boggling $890 million. All those movies weren't just poor, they were genuinely terrible. But the popularity of superhero movies generally has been able to give even the flops a relatively soft landing. That is not going to be the case much longer - in the next few years I fully expect some of these mega-franchise superheroes to have some truly epic failures. At which point, the pace of superhero movies will begin to slow.

[Shryke]

I really don't see the business collapsing any time soon, short of a catastrophic drop in quality across the board. The category of "superhero movie" has, at this point, become incredibly broad. There are people that like certain Marvel movies, and not others, entirely due to the content. I mean look at the difference between something like The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy. My parents liked TWS because it was semi-grounded in reality and had Robert Redford. GotG didn't even pop up on their radar. The movies are, for all intents and purposes, different genres, not to mention wildly different in tone and atmosphere.

Keep in mind that these most recent flicks have also been among the most successful in Marvel's output. I just don't see any compelling reason why everyone's going to start hating all these disparate movies in two years.

The movies are not at all different in tone or atmosphere. They change the furniture around but the MCU is incredibly consistent in the product it delivers. Which is a big part of why it makes good money. It's a consistently decent action-adventure-comedy product.

[Shryke]

2017 seems really soon, but I think that the big budget superhero misses are going to get more frequent and more severe pretty soon. The ones that are actually good (or at least well marketed and appealing) will still rake in money, but the bad ones will crash and burn much worse than they have. I mean, Daredevil (2003) still made $180 million worldwide. Green Lantern (2011) made $220 million. Spiderman 3 (2007) made a mind boggling $890 million. All those movies weren't just poor, they were genuinely terrible. But the popularity of superhero movies generally has been able to give even the flops a relatively soft landing. That is not going to be the case much longer - in the next few years I fully expect some of these mega-franchise superheroes to have some truly epic failures. At which point, the pace of superhero movies will begin to slow.

For the superhero film zeitgeist to fail, you'll need either a string of real stinkers from the MCU that kill viewer faith in the product (which is what lets you ride out the occasional flop) or people and film-makers just getting tired of the genre.

The second is possible if Marvel lets success go to their head and starts really making the MCU too complicated or too silly or something like that for the public to tolerate. Right now though the whole idea of the MCU, the connected universe thing, is still new and exciting and fresh. I'd say it's the rest of the superhero genre that the public is starting to lose some faith in. Well have to see how Batman vs Superman does.

[Shryke]

I'm still of the opinion that there's a good chance that the entire blockbuster business will collapse in on itself next year, with the sheer amount of them scheduled (it's not as bad as it initially was because some have been moved to 2016, but it's still pretty mental and there's a chance that even if 2015 doesn't have too many big failures, it just postpones the problem). Obviously they won't go away entirely but I can see a change in the way Hollywood chooses and finances films to make.

Superhero movies are a big part of that trend, but they're not the only one. I can actually see them, or at least Marvel, coming out better than ever because Avengers isn't going to fail whatever happens, obviously, and the only other film they have due is Ant-Man, the failure of which they can obviously take. So they're unlikely to change their schedule after that and if non-superhero films see a reduction in production at that scale, they could dominate the landscape even more.

There's no reason for the model to collapse. Superhero movies basically are the new blockbuster model. That's part of where they came from. Safe broad PG-13 fare. It's all you can get made at that budget level unless you are a Big Name.

I expect Sony and Fox and WB all those guys to scale back their plans some in the future, but that's only because they are trying to swing their illusory dicks around to steal some spotlight from the MCU.

[Rhom]

There's no reason for the model to collapse. Superhero movies basically are the new blockbuster model. That's part of where they came from. Safe broad PG-13 fare. It's all you can get made at that budget level unless you are a Big Name.

I expect Sony and Fox and WB all those guys to scale back their plans some in the future, but that's only because they are trying to swing their illusory dicks around to steal some spotlight from the MCU.

Agreed. It will take quite a few Cutthroat Islands or Waterworlds to derail this train.

To borrow a bit of discussion from the Fantastic Four thread. (And what a mess they have going on there... :stunned: )

I'm guessing that would be hard. It's not necessarily a bad strategy though I suspect at this point Marvel might as well just wait for the the property to be well associated with failure before trying to buy it back. Same with Spiderman. They already have the next 4-5 years planned out so they have time to watch these properties be dragged through the mud before rescuing them.

That's actually not a bad idea. They have everything mapped out for the next decade and are honestly scraping the bottom of the barrel with some of the properties, what an awesome shot in the arm that would be for their franchise if they could launch their own Spiderman/X-men/F4 films as part of Phase 4.

[Myrddin]

(snipped and pasted from the FF thread since it makes more sense here)

Agreed. It will take quite a few Cutthroat Islands or Waterworlds to derail this train.

To borrow a bit of discussion from the Fantastic Four thread. (And what a mess they have going on there... :stunned: )

That's actually not a bad idea. They have everything mapped out for the next decade and are honestly scraping the bottom of the barrel with some of the properties, what an awesome shot in the arm that would be for their franchise if they could launch their own Spiderman/X-men/F4 films as part of Phase 4.

Which makes perfect sense if you look at how the MCU has developed. Ironman's costume is explained functionally. Thor's is just Asgard wear. Cap's is a uniform from a by-gone era. Hulk.... just has pants. It all makes sense.

After 10-15 years of that, costumed heroes will be accepted within everyday culture. Peter Parker will have spent his whole life looking up to the Avengers. He could've been the kid wearing the Ironman mask at the end of Avengers, so of course he'd put on a colorful costume once he gets his own powers. FF being celebrity costume heroes completely fits in the post-Tony Stark world, who we can assume will be retired by then.

Maybe it's a good thing Marvel can't cram in Spidey, FF or the X-Men right now. It gives them tons of story to use for phases 4-6.

My grandkids will be happy.... (which is saying something since my boys are 8 and 6...)

[Rhom]

(snipped and pasted from the FF thread since it makes more sense here)

Which makes perfect sense if you look at how the MCU has developed. Ironman's costume is explained functionally. Thor's is just Asgard wear. Cap's is a uniform from a by-gone era. Hulk.... just has pants. It all makes sense.

After 10-15 years of that, costumed heroes will be accepted within everyday culture. Peter Parker will have spent his whole life looking up to the Avengers. He could've been the kid wearing the Ironman mask at the end of Avengers, so of course he'd put on a colorful costume once he gets his own powers. FF being celebrity costume heroes completely fits in the post-Tony Stark world, who we can assume will be retired by then.

Maybe it's a good thing Marvel can't cram in Spidey, FF or the X-Men right now. It gives them tons of story to use for phases 4-6.

My grandkids will be happy.... (which is saying something since my boys are 8 and 6...)

Yeah, I saw your post there and almost moved it too. :lol:

I think you're right. My son is four, he has yet to see any of the MCU (with the exception of Hulk which he loves for some reason) and as they currently have things planned; he will be graduating high school when they finish things up! :lmao:

[Fez]

There's no reason for the model to collapse. Superhero movies basically are the new blockbuster model. That's part of where they came from. Safe broad PG-13 fare. It's all you can get made at that budget level unless you are a Big Name.

I expect Sony and Fox and WB all those guys to scale back their plans some in the future, but that's only because they are trying to swing their illusory dicks around to steal some spotlight from the MCU.

Have you looked at the upcoming slate of blockbusters in 2015 and 2016? The list is just getting absurd; far longer than its ever been. There's no time for movies to have any sort of tail, and as important as opening weekend numbers are, if blockbusters start having 80-90% drop-offs rather 50-60%, a lot of them aren't going to end up making their money back. Also, if you look at actual movie attendance, its been going down for a while now; increased ticket prices (particularly IMAX) are the reason box office takes haven't sunk like a stone yet. Eventually that piece of the population that still regularly goes to the movies is going to get tapped out, and we end up with larger and larger movies competing for a smaller and smaller pie.

The current Hollywood model just isn't sustainable longterm. And while superhero movies are hardly the only blockbusters, they are certainly the dominant one right now, and will probably shoulder the blame from studio execs whenever it is that things come crashing done. I don't know if that will be in the next few years, but it will happen at some point. Some franchises are probably immune, like the Avengers (at least as long as Robert Downey Jr. shows up in them), but I suspect once we start getting some high profile bombs first we'll see even more superhero movies (since they'll be considered 'safe') and then once there's even more bombs we'll see a major cutback.

[Myrddin]

I think you're right. My son is four, he has yet to see any of the MCU (with the exception of Hulk which he loves for some reason) and as they currently have things planned; he will be graduating high school when they finish things up! :lmao:

So, basically, we'll be old men in our rocking chairs telling anyone who will listen about the old days of Marvel movies, back before holographic movies transitioned into ocular implanted experiences, when REAL movies were made.

"Back then, it made SENSE how a man could create an iron suit or used alien tech. They didn't rely on some stupid DNA enhanced spider bite to get powers. Come back here, you little chicken shit. I wasn't done talkin'!"

[Shryke]

That's actually not a bad idea. They have everything mapped out for the next decade and are honestly scraping the bottom of the barrel with some of the properties, what an awesome shot in the arm that would be for their franchise if they could launch their own Spiderman/X-men/F4 films as part of Phase 4.

They don't seem to be scrapping the bottom of the barrel at all. Frankly, I don't think they need any of those properties. They've got more then enough stuff on their plate right now.

[protar]

For the superhero film zeitgeist to fail, you'll need either a string of real stinkers from the MCU that kill viewer faith in the product (which is what lets you ride out the occasional flop) or people and film-makers just getting tired of the genre.

The second is possible if Marvel lets success go to their head and starts really making the MCU too complicated or too silly or something like that for the public to tolerate. Right now though the whole idea of the MCU, the connected universe thing, is still new and exciting and fresh. I'd say it's the rest of the superhero genre that the public is starting to lose some faith in. Well have to see how Batman vs Superman does.

There's is a risk of making the MCU too complicated for the general public to handle. But I think that after Phase 3 and Infinity War finishes they'll start off on a pretty clean slate, with only a few threads continued over from previous films into phase 4. The original Avengers will be dead, retired, and replaced, leaving the newbies from Phase 3 to truly come into their own.

[Shryke]

There's is a risk of making the MCU too complicated for the general public to handle. But I think that after Phase 3 and Infinity War finishes they'll start off on a pretty clean slate, with only a few threads continued over from previous films into phase 4. The original Avengers will be dead, retired, and replaced, leaving the newbies from Phase 3 to truly come into their own.

Which is another transition that could cause the bubble to deflate somewhat. They haven't yet had to retire a franchise (and thus a star). That's gonna be a risky proposition. Their stars are probably their biggest asset.

[Sci-2]

They don't seem to be scrapping the bottom of the barrel at all. Frankly, I don't think they need any of those properties. They've got more then enough stuff on their plate right now.

Plus they made GoG work, which has made me start to turn around on the idea of people getting tired of the MCU. So they have space opera covered.

The Nine Worlds in Thor, combined with whatever Dr. Strange has in terms of setting, gives them an inroad into fantasy.

That said, getting their own X-men and Spiderman could only help.