Iger is hilariously out of touch if he genuinely believes that this is the biggest factor in the movie flopping. This conversation has been done to death already, but "not enough management" is...
Disney’s CEO Bob Iger has addressed the film’s poor theatrical performance, suggesting that pandemic-related production restrictions ended up plaguing the final result. “‘The Marvels’ was shot during COVID,” Iger recently said. “There wasn’t as much supervision on the set, so to speak, where we have executives [that are] really looking over what’s being done day after day after day.”
Iger is hilariously out of touch if he genuinely believes that this is the biggest factor in the movie flopping. This conversation has been done to death already, but "not enough management" is not anywhere close to the top reason that this movie wasn't a hit.
Yeah that's definitely not it, Bob... The movie was always going to be an uphill battle thanks to the main characters, regardless of how well written it was. Carol is likely the least popular...
Yeah that's definitely not it, Bob...
The movie was always going to be an uphill battle thanks to the main characters, regardless of how well written it was.
Carol is likely the least popular Avenger. There's a lot of them that people are "meh" about, but she's probably the one with the most people who specifically don't like her.
Monica is pretty much a tertiary character in a show that's more about TV sitcom callbacks than typical MCU faire.
Kamala is from a show that's for a very different demographic than the overall MCU
Then they went and made the movie itself not good and gave it one of the classic forgettable MCU Villains.
I think even in terms of normal people, there’s resentment towards the character because everyone felt forced to watch the first Captain Marvel because it was sold as being super important to...
Carol is likely the least popular Avenger. There's a lot of them that people are "meh" about, but she's probably the one with the most people who specifically don't like her.
I think even in terms of normal people, there’s resentment towards the character because everyone felt forced to watch the first Captain Marvel because it was sold as being super important to Endgame. And then it just wasn’t. So people sat through one of the more mediocre MCU movies for nothing.
Oh, I didn't realize that. I was firmly in the watch everything camp and didn't understand how others might have felt compelled, had their expectations ramped up, and then let down. I just always...
Oh, I didn't realize that. I was firmly in the watch everything camp and didn't understand how others might have felt compelled, had their expectations ramped up, and then let down.
I just always thought it was a meh movie with a woman in it and people hate at least one of those things.
Yeah it got the tease at the end of Infinity War, and was released like less than two months before Endgame. So not only did people feel the need to watch it, they had no choice but to watch it in...
Yeah it got the tease at the end of Infinity War, and was released like less than two months before Endgame.
So not only did people feel the need to watch it, they had no choice but to watch it in theaters if they wanted to watch Endgame. So people perhaps spent more money than they would have otherwise.
Ironically, Ant Man and the Wasp ended up being more important to Endgame. So if those releases were flipped, along with the Infinity War after credits being for Ant-Man instead, Ant-Man would have been the billion dollar movie while Captain Marvel would have been in the 700-800M dollar range.
Well she hasn’t said why but it’s kind of obvious that the intense online backlash she got was part of it. IMO a lot of her recent press has been a recalibration of her career. She’s stepping away...
Well she hasn’t said why but it’s kind of obvious that the intense online backlash she got was part of it.
IMO a lot of her recent press has been a recalibration of her career. She’s stepping away from the activist persona she was cultivating in the late 2010s, and distancing herself from the Captain Marvel role is part of that. I think she kind of just wants a clean slate from all that. I believe her and her team realized that angle wasn’t working and the final nail in the coffin was Times Up imploding.
I'm not particularly a fan of celebrity activists in general, but I do feel bad about how vitriolic people are in hating on Brie Larson. There are people on YouTube who have made their whole...
I'm not particularly a fan of celebrity activists in general, but I do feel bad about how vitriolic people are in hating on Brie Larson. There are people on YouTube who have made their whole career into finding a new reason to froth at the mouth every day so they can make a new video about it. Like 5 years after they've decided they hate Marvel or Disney and everything it stands for they still watch every new release more religiously than the actual fans just to look for new reasons to be angry at Rachel Ziegler or Brie Larson or Kathleen Kennedy.
It looks exhausting, and that's just from my perspective as someone who doesn't need to have anything to do with it. It has got to suck being permanently a part of that hate whirlpool.
vis a vis her quickly saying YES to reprising her role as Envy for Scott Pilgrim Takes Off. I think there's definitely a very vocal and visible part of the MCU fandom or ex-fandom that blame...
vis a vis her quickly saying YES to reprising her role as Envy for Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.
I think there's definitely a very vocal and visible part of the MCU fandom or ex-fandom that blame "woke-ism" and women for.... everything. She got intense hate for a billion dollar grossing film released during the highest peak of the franchise. Who wants to work on yet another sequel film squeezed in amongst other duds, aired during the clear decline of the empire, when the hate will be dialed up to 13?
He has pretty much said exactly that. Excerpt from this article quoted below: I think the main difference from what you're saying is that he blames the abilities of the team at Marvel for the...
He then went on to point the finger at Marvel Studios in particular as one of those to blame, adding: “Marvel’s a great example of that. They had not been in the TV business at any significant level.
“Not only did they increase their movie output, but they ended up making a number of television series, and frankly, it diluted focus and attention. That is, I think, more of the cause than anything.”
I think the main difference from what you're saying is that he blames the abilities of the team at Marvel for the issues, where as you blame audience fatigue. I don't think fatigue is the answer so much, because we're not tired of good storytelling. And we are not tired of interesting and relatable characters.
Personally, I blame the style of writing rooms and content creation that they relied on for these series. They seem to be focusing there efforts there for future series on Disney+, but I think they're still misguided and don't really know how to fix it. Instead of looking to worldwide networks and production houses that have been hugely successful in creating fulfilling miniseries in the past (BBC One, ITV, HBO, Stars), Disney+ seems to be looking to Netflix and their ilk. These steaming companies have even worse issues with over-saturation, and lowest-common-denominator characters and storytelling. I personally think having a pre-conceived and complete overarching story arc is hugely important for these mini-series style 10 episode seasons. The executives are trying to set everyone up to be writing season 4 of Cheers while ignoring how they got there.
Or they could at least look at which series have been successful and model their changes based on those (Jessica Jones Season 1, The Mandalorian Season 1 & Loki Season 1 & 2 for example).
They look to Netflix because they are competing with Netflix for subscribers. If they follow the prestige television channels you mention, their content output drops substantially and people stop...
They look to Netflix because they are competing with Netflix for subscribers. If they follow the prestige television channels you mention, their content output drops substantially and people stop subscribing to Disney+ until the next series releases.
Their incentive is for more content, not better quality content.
Without this getting into a philosophical thing about how capitalism in genera works, it was pretty damn obvious that this was going to happen. As much as apologists for Disney’s marvel/Star Wars...
Without this getting into a philosophical thing about how capitalism in genera works, it was pretty damn obvious that this was going to happen.
As much as apologists for Disney’s marvel/Star Wars focused strategies like to say that if they just made good movies, they’d continue to be successful, that misses the entire point of how this thing works.
If they kept just releasing one or two good or even decent movies per year, yes, they would continue to make money. That’s not good enough for Disney though. They don’t just want to make money, they want to make more money, and they don’t just want to make more money, they want to increase the rate at which they make more money.
They’re already the largest media company in the world. There’s a ceiling on these things. When you get to the point that it’s gotten to now where you’re releasing 5-6 projects per year per franchise, where do you even go?
Was the long term strategy to eventually get to the point where they’re releasing a new marvel movie every week? Who was supposed to even watch these movies?
Even if they were undisputedly the best films ever made, they’d still bomb, because people like to do things other than watch movies. There are almost no people that are willing to go to the theater 6 times a year to see a new marvel movie. I don’t think most people even go out to the movies that many times per year period.
So how else was this exponential growth strategy going to end? What was the long term plan here?
I kind of see this as an endemic problem in a lot of large companies, but there are few as egregiously greedy as Disney. I can’t see how any of these ends except in spectacular failure for their biggest franchises.
It’s really pretty pathetic that either apparently none of their executives have realized this, or are unwilling to change their directives if they do.
I find it sort of fascinating with how we in recent years have seen these mega corporations hit the market ceiling and they get desperate for more growth. Facebook, Google and Netflix basically...
I find it sort of fascinating with how we in recent years have seen these mega corporations hit the market ceiling and they get desperate for more growth. Facebook, Google and Netflix basically had the entire world population as customers in some fashion, but as you say - where do you go from there? There are only so many hours available in people's lives and now all they can do is steal time consumption from each other. At some point some company will try to make a pill that remove the need for humans to sleep, so we can extract 8 more hours of consumption from everyone.
It lacked any real spark. It was a painting-by-numbers affair - it moved from setpiece to setpiece, with a few requisite "exposition", "character development" and "humour" scenes thrown in. The...
It lacked any real spark. It was a painting-by-numbers affair - it moved from setpiece to setpiece, with a few requisite "exposition", "character development" and "humour" scenes thrown in. The humour was okay, the exposition uninteresting, and the character development was poor.
All in all, it was just really flat, and nothing really ever stood out. There were a handful of points where there was interesting character conflict - Kamala wants to save more people, but the other characters think they don't have time, Carol and Monica haven't seen each other in years and have a complicated relationship, etc - but it never feels meaningful, and just gets resolved with a half-hearted dialogue scene.
There's a handful of arguably more technical points. For example, a big part of the premise of this film is the characters switching places with each other when they use their powers. This is one of those ideas that is only important when the writers want it to be important, and it often gets ignored. They explain the rules at some point, but then also ignore them whenever they want. I wasn't expecting otherwise, if I'm honest, but it's still slightly disappointing because of how much they could have done with that - the need for trust and teamwork with a new team of people, the decision of whether to use your powers or not, the detailed fight choreography you can play around with, etc.
It's not bad, per se, and it has some funny moments with Kamala's family, and with the cat alien thing. There's a level that you can just laugh and enjoy the pretty lights. I've not been to the movies in ages, and it was fun - there were good trailers, the popcorn was nice, and I was with a friend I'd not seen in a while. But there's also no bite to it, nothing to keep it in your memory or make you come back for more.
I find this to be the biggest problem with poor writing these days, whether Star Trek/Wars Game of Thrones/MCU/DC whatever: the powers aren't properly bounded, and everything happens at the...
This is one of those ideas that is only important when the writers want it to be important, and it often gets ignored.
I find this to be the biggest problem with poor writing these days, whether Star Trek/Wars Game of Thrones/MCU/DC whatever: the powers aren't properly bounded, and everything happens at the convenience of "Move-Along-Plot" rather than utilizing these bounds to create real tension and stakes.
You have dragons when it's convenient, and no dragons when it isn't convenient.
Your ship flies at this speed when it's convenient, and that speed when it isn't.
Limitations of powers are really really interesting when written well. See first part of Death Note, The Martian, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind.
Without proper definition of ideas and powers, it's basically just playing action figures with my 5 year old nephew: everything is going his way without consistency or coherency just because it can go POW and he gets to win.
It's more like Calvinball: the rules really aren't important, it's about who you're sharing the experience with. If you find the rest of the experience engaging, with enjoyable characters and a...
Without proper definition of ideas and powers, it's basically just playing action figures with my 5 year old nephew:
It's more like Calvinball: the rules really aren't important, it's about who you're sharing the experience with. If you find the rest of the experience engaging, with enjoyable characters and a pleasant environment (good special effects, good pacing, good music/set design/locations), then it's fine. If not, then your conclusion comes right back to the fore: what's the point of it all?
In other visual media, sitcoms and soap operas work this way, where consistent limitations aren't really the point. Homer Simpson's dramatic shifts of competence from episode to episode don't detract from the overall series, and the show's generally-regarded decline has more to do with it becoming formulaic.
On the other hand, if rules aren't the point, then this needs to be a self-aware point. The movie can't make a Big Deal of "but we can't!" in one scene, only to have the same rule casually flaunted an act later. Contradictions can still be okay, but they have to support the surrounding tone and plot, rather than drive it.
Counterpoint: Kenny from SouthPark dying and coming back every episode was formulaic to the extreme. He died for ten years, or six seasons. But it was a gag, and not as a way to cheap out on...
Counterpoint: Kenny from SouthPark dying and coming back every episode was formulaic to the extreme. He died for ten years, or six seasons. But it was a gag, and not as a way to cheap out on writing. No one would watch thirty years of SouthPark if it was just a collection of gags. The show still exists because the writing tells audiences about something we care about, such as satire of our crazy world.
MCU movies are story oriented narratives. Things can be done and rules can be broken for the service of plot, but we feel angry when they are used as a way to cheap out on plot. It makes us feel like we invested our mental energies in vain, like a riddle that has no answer or a test question that was written incorrectly.
MCU movies are dramas: they need a plot. If they are nonsensical sit coms we play along very nicely -- see first few episodes of Wandavision and Loki: many things are changed and audiences for the most part are happy to see where it goes and even mentally bridge many gaps, and any of them will be forgiven when the story concludes and all is explained.
But they stopped doing that. Now the movies exist to firm up buy in on tie ins. They exist to entice you to spend more time and money. They throw in stars and gags and jokes and whatnot because previous movies with good stories had them and were popular. It's like selling lobster meals without any lobster but with even more butter and more biscuits and gravy.
Also see the second season of Loki - the rules fall apart if you think about them too hard, but the way they're bent creates an interesting and creative narrative with a satisfying character arc.
Also see the second season of Loki - the rules fall apart if you think about them too hard, but the way they're bent creates an interesting and creative narrative with a satisfying character arc.
I fully agree with everything you wrote here. For me, alongside all of the above is the fact that the stakes are just non-existent in terms of character fragility. I like my heroes mortal, if...
I fully agree with everything you wrote here. For me, alongside all of the above is the fact that the stakes are just non-existent in terms of character fragility. I like my heroes mortal, if possible. Game of Thrones was great in the beginning because the plot armour was light, or just absent, and you really felt that your favourite character could end up on the chopping block. I can always be pretty sure that MCU characters will not fully die, or they might die but come back from another timeline, or die, but be rescued some other contrived way. So it's back to your playing with figurines analogy, your nephew can huck the damn things out of the window on the freeway, but his parents can just chuck a uey and pick them up again - no harm, no foul.
Exactly. There's no stakes not because they don't suffer and die....it's because they can suffer and die from nonsensical randomness, and then they can cancel the death. They're happy to wring our...
Exactly. There's no stakes not because they don't suffer and die....it's because they can suffer and die from nonsensical randomness, and then they can cancel the death. They're happy to wring our hearts because we pay to do so, and they'll do it over and over again because we pay them to do so.
This is why I like small stake films. Recent favourite: Polite Society -- does my beloved big sister marry this guy that I'm convinced is evil, or am I just having a hard time growing apart.
Even Everything Everywhere All At Once is extremely low stake: does Evelyn go through with her divorce, and does she repair her relationship with her daughter?
Properly power limiting is hard. Power limiting when the source material barely does it is even harder. The MCU in general has this issue because even as is, most of the heroes and Villians are...
Properly power limiting is hard. Power limiting when the source material barely does it is even harder. The MCU in general has this issue because even as is, most of the heroes and Villians are "nerfed" compared the comics.
All that aside, there's just so many moving parts with a movie this size that it can be hard to fit all ideas in. Or maybe it does happen and then inevitable cuts happen for whichever reason. Even with very detailed source material from books, this issue can ruin an adaptation.
Re: source material When Iron Man came out that was one of the most refreshing things about it: they could start fresh and lay down their own reality and limitations. Tony bleeds, he gets lonely,...
Re: source material
When Iron Man came out that was one of the most refreshing things about it: they could start fresh and lay down their own reality and limitations. Tony bleeds, he gets lonely, he misses Pepper, but he can make a suit with a box full of scraps in a cave. He doesn't just bend reality and break laws of physics while he eats PB&J with his kid.
One of the selling features of MCU originally, was that the source material was too complicated to get into anymore, and everything was a fresh start.
They've never been shy about breaking canon (there isn't, it's a huge landscape to pick and choose from). They chose not to have limits because it's easier to write.
Proper power limiting is very hard. Early seasons of Dragonball and Naruto compared to the end, for example. But they're extremely satisfying when done right.
I mentioned the canon because writers tend to have to justify whenever they add new mechanics to an existing character. It's relatively easy to add new powers if you can make it sound cool or...
They chose not to have limits because it's easier to write.
I mentioned the canon because writers tend to have to justify whenever they add new mechanics to an existing character. It's relatively easy to add new powers if you can make it sound cool or sellable. It's extremely hard to say "well, what if Captain Marvel was weak to [McGuffin mechanic here]?" when the comics portray her as an all powerful universal entity who's only susceptible to magic (in one of the forms of comics).
Most of the weaknesses "added" tend to come from the human element more than rock-paper-scissors powers. And unfortunately, Carol probably had the least amount of time to flesh that part of her life out compared to the other heroes.
Be aware The Gunslinger is very different from the rest of the series. Think of it more of an extended prologue to The Drawing of the Three, which is when the story really comes into its own. Do...
Be aware The Gunslinger is very different from the rest of the series. Think of it more of an extended prologue to The Drawing of the Three, which is when the story really comes into its own.
Do bump it to the front of the line....I'd love to experience it again with fresh eyes.
I'd say hold off on the wiki then. I'd read it in the published order. While Gunslinger can be quite off-putting, it contains critical plot and character development that skipping can give a...
I'd say hold off on the wiki then.
I'd read it in the published order. While Gunslinger can be quite off-putting, it contains critical plot and character development that skipping can give a misunderstanding of the nature and character arc of The Gunslinger. If reading, go with the revised editions. If listening to audiobooks, go with Frank Muller's editions.
There's a later novel, The Wind Through the Keyhole, which fits in chronologically between books 4 and 5, but since it was published after the main novels, just contains additional world-building, and by that point you're going to be more pre-occupied with the main plot.
Also for full effect, wait at least 6 months after finishing The Wastelands before starting Wizard & Glass...if you can. It's a small penance to honor those whom waited 6 years. :)
Very briefly distilled: One of the major themes of Stephen King's Dark Tower is the nature of storytelling. The core is Ka, which is somewhat like fate. Ka is a wheel. The beams are like the...
Very briefly distilled:
One of the major themes of Stephen King's Dark Tower is the nature of storytelling. The core is Ka, which is somewhat like fate. Ka is a wheel. The beams are like the spokes connecting all universes, with the Tower at the center.
The most central-to-plot characters often form a ka-tet. Think the Fellowship of the Ring. The various Avengers. The Losers in IT. Harry Potter and friends. Bound by fate to resolve the plot to its conclusion.
And one thing that often comes up, is the need for a deus-ex-machina to push the plot forward. The Marvel movies definitely over-leverage breaking their own rules to do so. But you got me thinking about the nature of it...and they're not wrong, just lazy.
It's been said before a million times but I'll say it again. There are three main problems with these movies: They're generic There are far too many of them, far too frequently They rely on you to...
It's been said before a million times but I'll say it again.
There are three main problems with these movies:
They're generic
There are far too many of them, far too frequently
They rely on you to see 10 other Marvel shows or movies to understand everything.
Marvel can solve all 3 of these issues with a straightforward fix in my opinion.
Release movies less frequently, take the time and money saved to ensure each Marvel movie is a genuine work of art.
Batman (not marvel, I know) has been done correctly two separate times now. Once with the Nolan trilogy and once with the newest, "The Batman" film.
Avengers was done more or less correctly three times. Iron man was done correctly. Spiderman has been done well several times. Guardians of the Galaxy was done right at least once.
Thor, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, and Deadpool have had movies ranging from good to great.
Honestly, Spiderman and Batman are pretty much the only superheros I like, but I've seen the Marvel movies my friends have suggested as well as the ones that got stellar reviews - and I really enjoyed them!
My point is that superhero movies and cinematic universes can be done well. Marvel could still be making the most anticipated films of every year if they chose to. They chose not to. Instead they're doing a kind of pump and dump because they jumped the shark. It's a race now to see how many of these films they can shit out before the public truly loses all interest.
Honestly you don't even need to solve all issues. 3 is not such a problem if the movies are less frequent and better. It was not a big deal for like 20 movies.
Honestly you don't even need to solve all issues. 3 is not such a problem if the movies are less frequent and better. It was not a big deal for like 20 movies.
I think that point #3 (dependency chains) is a problem even if the movies are less frequent. Movie series take place over time, so each new movie might be someone's first (in the franchise)....
3 is not such a problem if the movies are less frequent and better.
I think that point #3 (dependency chains) is a problem even if the movies are less frequent.
Movie series take place over time, so each new movie might be someone's first (in the franchise). Saying "to understand this movie, you first need to watch these movies from X years ago" is a hurdle, even if the raw number of movies is low.
Disney got this right with Star Wars 7-9. For all the flaws of that trilogy, the movies didn't depend on knowing any details of movies 4-6 or 1-3.
For very long-running series, the whole dependency chain becomes a problem even more than the dependencies for any particular movie. If a proper understanding of this movie depends on the single prior movie, but understanding that movie depends on the one before it, and so on back to the series-originator, jumping into the franchise – essentially the only way that the studio can build its audience over time – would require new patrons to complete a daunting amount of homework.
before disney+, all you had to do to keep up with the mcu was watch 2-3 movies per year. once they started pumping out d+ shows, you had to keep up with 2-3 movies per year plus 2-3 8-13 episode...
before disney+, all you had to do to keep up with the mcu was watch 2-3 movies per year.
once they started pumping out d+ shows, you had to keep up with 2-3 movies per year plus 2-3 8-13 episode seasons of television per year.
Alright, I'll meet you halfway. I'll mention that Tim Burton made some Batman films. They're certainly expressive pieces of art. But I won't say I like them myself! Haha.
Alright, I'll meet you halfway.
I'll mention that Tim Burton made some Batman films. They're certainly expressive pieces of art. But I won't say I like them myself! Haha.
I saw it, because it's basically free when I already pay a monthly subscription for the theater, and lighter fare seemed appropriate after Killers of the Flower Moon. It's entertaining, but...
I saw it, because it's basically free when I already pay a monthly subscription for the theater, and lighter fare seemed appropriate after Killers of the Flower Moon.
It's entertaining, but generic and mired in the "Marvel prerequisite classes" problem. It's not the travesty people are making it out to be, but it's also not really better or worse than the typical Marvel film. The biggest barrier to ticket sales was that it has dependencies on Captain Marvel, Ms Marvel and Wandavision (none of which I've seen, except the first episode of Ms Marvel). If people get that impression watching the trailer, it'll deter all but the hardcore Marvel fans.
Disney just has to face the fact that the Avengers hype is done and without a radical change to their formula, it's just overstaying its welcome. They're really not doing anything different here (far from it: the problem is it's too similar and indistinct).
It's a bit distasteful of them to fob the box office failure off onto the actors and production, when they did just fine. The issues are all with writing, and the executive committees that control it.
I didn't even know it was coming out until I saw a last-minute ad for it on TV, and ever since Endgame, I haven't really kept up so I had no idea who these characters were or what was at stake. I...
I didn't even know it was coming out until I saw a last-minute ad for it on TV, and ever since Endgame, I haven't really kept up so I had no idea who these characters were or what was at stake. I think Marvel/Disney need to lean into the X-Men next, as the Avengers are pretty much played out at this point.
I really think this was a big part of the reason for the low numbers that I don't see a lot of people talking about - the other complaints in this thread are pretty common to almost every Marvel...
I didn't even know it was coming out until I saw a last-minute ad for it on TV
I really think this was a big part of the reason for the low numbers that I don't see a lot of people talking about - the other complaints in this thread are pretty common to almost every Marvel movie since Iron Man 3.
For several months during the important advertising lead-up to the movie, the actors were forbidden from promoting it due to the strike. You or I may not get our info on upcoming films from that sort of thing, but HUGE parts of the demographics do, be it by watching entertainment news or by just seeing clips online from talk shows.
Also, in case you're worried about spoilers
> "I think Marvel/Disney need to lean into the X-Men next"
That, at least, was the subject of this one's post-credits scene. So we're probably going there soon, especially with Deadpool 3 on the way. And speaking of Deadpool 3, the article says that's the ONLY Marvel movie next year, so it's almost certainly going to do great in the box office.
Iger is hilariously out of touch if he genuinely believes that this is the biggest factor in the movie flopping. This conversation has been done to death already, but "not enough management" is not anywhere close to the top reason that this movie wasn't a hit.
Yeah that's definitely not it, Bob...
The movie was always going to be an uphill battle thanks to the main characters, regardless of how well written it was.
Then they went and made the movie itself not good and gave it one of the classic forgettable MCU Villains.
I think even in terms of normal people, there’s resentment towards the character because everyone felt forced to watch the first Captain Marvel because it was sold as being super important to Endgame. And then it just wasn’t. So people sat through one of the more mediocre MCU movies for nothing.
Oh, I didn't realize that. I was firmly in the watch everything camp and didn't understand how others might have felt compelled, had their expectations ramped up, and then let down.
I just always thought it was a meh movie with a woman in it and people hate at least one of those things.
Yeah it got the tease at the end of Infinity War, and was released like less than two months before Endgame.
So not only did people feel the need to watch it, they had no choice but to watch it in theaters if they wanted to watch Endgame. So people perhaps spent more money than they would have otherwise.
Ironically, Ant Man and the Wasp ended up being more important to Endgame. So if those releases were flipped, along with the Infinity War after credits being for Ant-Man instead, Ant-Man would have been the billion dollar movie while Captain Marvel would have been in the 700-800M dollar range.
Well she hasn’t said why but it’s kind of obvious that the intense online backlash she got was part of it.
IMO a lot of her recent press has been a recalibration of her career. She’s stepping away from the activist persona she was cultivating in the late 2010s, and distancing herself from the Captain Marvel role is part of that. I think she kind of just wants a clean slate from all that. I believe her and her team realized that angle wasn’t working and the final nail in the coffin was Times Up imploding.
I'm not particularly a fan of celebrity activists in general, but I do feel bad about how vitriolic people are in hating on Brie Larson. There are people on YouTube who have made their whole career into finding a new reason to froth at the mouth every day so they can make a new video about it. Like 5 years after they've decided they hate Marvel or Disney and everything it stands for they still watch every new release more religiously than the actual fans just to look for new reasons to be angry at Rachel Ziegler or Brie Larson or Kathleen Kennedy.
It looks exhausting, and that's just from my perspective as someone who doesn't need to have anything to do with it. It has got to suck being permanently a part of that hate whirlpool.
vis a vis her quickly saying YES to reprising her role as Envy for Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.
I think there's definitely a very vocal and visible part of the MCU fandom or ex-fandom that blame "woke-ism" and women for.... everything. She got intense hate for a billion dollar grossing film released during the highest peak of the franchise. Who wants to work on yet another sequel film squeezed in amongst other duds, aired during the clear decline of the empire, when the hate will be dialed up to 13?
Can he even say out loud that their movies are bad because of oversaturation? I don't think they'll ever outright say that.
He has pretty much said exactly that.
Excerpt from this article quoted below:
I think the main difference from what you're saying is that he blames the abilities of the team at Marvel for the issues, where as you blame audience fatigue. I don't think fatigue is the answer so much, because we're not tired of good storytelling. And we are not tired of interesting and relatable characters.
Personally, I blame the style of writing rooms and content creation that they relied on for these series. They seem to be focusing there efforts there for future series on Disney+, but I think they're still misguided and don't really know how to fix it. Instead of looking to worldwide networks and production houses that have been hugely successful in creating fulfilling miniseries in the past (BBC One, ITV, HBO, Stars), Disney+ seems to be looking to Netflix and their ilk. These steaming companies have even worse issues with over-saturation, and lowest-common-denominator characters and storytelling. I personally think having a pre-conceived and complete overarching story arc is hugely important for these mini-series style 10 episode seasons. The executives are trying to set everyone up to be writing season 4 of Cheers while ignoring how they got there.
Or they could at least look at which series have been successful and model their changes based on those (Jessica Jones Season 1, The Mandalorian Season 1 & Loki Season 1 & 2 for example).
They look to Netflix because they are competing with Netflix for subscribers. If they follow the prestige television channels you mention, their content output drops substantially and people stop subscribing to Disney+ until the next series releases.
Their incentive is for more content, not better quality content.
Without this getting into a philosophical thing about how capitalism in genera works, it was pretty damn obvious that this was going to happen.
As much as apologists for Disney’s marvel/Star Wars focused strategies like to say that if they just made good movies, they’d continue to be successful, that misses the entire point of how this thing works.
If they kept just releasing one or two good or even decent movies per year, yes, they would continue to make money. That’s not good enough for Disney though. They don’t just want to make money, they want to make more money, and they don’t just want to make more money, they want to increase the rate at which they make more money.
They’re already the largest media company in the world. There’s a ceiling on these things. When you get to the point that it’s gotten to now where you’re releasing 5-6 projects per year per franchise, where do you even go?
Was the long term strategy to eventually get to the point where they’re releasing a new marvel movie every week? Who was supposed to even watch these movies?
Even if they were undisputedly the best films ever made, they’d still bomb, because people like to do things other than watch movies. There are almost no people that are willing to go to the theater 6 times a year to see a new marvel movie. I don’t think most people even go out to the movies that many times per year period.
So how else was this exponential growth strategy going to end? What was the long term plan here?
I kind of see this as an endemic problem in a lot of large companies, but there are few as egregiously greedy as Disney. I can’t see how any of these ends except in spectacular failure for their biggest franchises.
It’s really pretty pathetic that either apparently none of their executives have realized this, or are unwilling to change their directives if they do.
I find it sort of fascinating with how we in recent years have seen these mega corporations hit the market ceiling and they get desperate for more growth. Facebook, Google and Netflix basically had the entire world population as customers in some fashion, but as you say - where do you go from there? There are only so many hours available in people's lives and now all they can do is steal time consumption from each other. At some point some company will try to make a pill that remove the need for humans to sleep, so we can extract 8 more hours of consumption from everyone.
I've not seen it yet, what were its issues please?
It lacked any real spark. It was a painting-by-numbers affair - it moved from setpiece to setpiece, with a few requisite "exposition", "character development" and "humour" scenes thrown in. The humour was okay, the exposition uninteresting, and the character development was poor.
All in all, it was just really flat, and nothing really ever stood out. There were a handful of points where there was interesting character conflict - Kamala wants to save more people, but the other characters think they don't have time, Carol and Monica haven't seen each other in years and have a complicated relationship, etc - but it never feels meaningful, and just gets resolved with a half-hearted dialogue scene.
There's a handful of arguably more technical points. For example, a big part of the premise of this film is the characters switching places with each other when they use their powers. This is one of those ideas that is only important when the writers want it to be important, and it often gets ignored. They explain the rules at some point, but then also ignore them whenever they want. I wasn't expecting otherwise, if I'm honest, but it's still slightly disappointing because of how much they could have done with that - the need for trust and teamwork with a new team of people, the decision of whether to use your powers or not, the detailed fight choreography you can play around with, etc.
It's not bad, per se, and it has some funny moments with Kamala's family, and with the cat alien thing. There's a level that you can just laugh and enjoy the pretty lights. I've not been to the movies in ages, and it was fun - there were good trailers, the popcorn was nice, and I was with a friend I'd not seen in a while. But there's also no bite to it, nothing to keep it in your memory or make you come back for more.
I find this to be the biggest problem with poor writing these days, whether Star Trek/Wars Game of Thrones/MCU/DC whatever: the powers aren't properly bounded, and everything happens at the convenience of "Move-Along-Plot" rather than utilizing these bounds to create real tension and stakes.
You have dragons when it's convenient, and no dragons when it isn't convenient.
Your ship flies at this speed when it's convenient, and that speed when it isn't.
Limitations of powers are really really interesting when written well. See first part of Death Note, The Martian, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind.
Without proper definition of ideas and powers, it's basically just playing action figures with my 5 year old nephew: everything is going his way without consistency or coherency just because it can go POW and he gets to win.
It's more like Calvinball: the rules really aren't important, it's about who you're sharing the experience with. If you find the rest of the experience engaging, with enjoyable characters and a pleasant environment (good special effects, good pacing, good music/set design/locations), then it's fine. If not, then your conclusion comes right back to the fore: what's the point of it all?
In other visual media, sitcoms and soap operas work this way, where consistent limitations aren't really the point. Homer Simpson's dramatic shifts of competence from episode to episode don't detract from the overall series, and the show's generally-regarded decline has more to do with it becoming formulaic.
On the other hand, if rules aren't the point, then this needs to be a self-aware point. The movie can't make a Big Deal of "but we can't!" in one scene, only to have the same rule casually flaunted an act later. Contradictions can still be okay, but they have to support the surrounding tone and plot, rather than drive it.
Counterpoint: Kenny from SouthPark dying and coming back every episode was formulaic to the extreme. He died for ten years, or six seasons. But it was a gag, and not as a way to cheap out on writing. No one would watch thirty years of SouthPark if it was just a collection of gags. The show still exists because the writing tells audiences about something we care about, such as satire of our crazy world.
MCU movies are story oriented narratives. Things can be done and rules can be broken for the service of plot, but we feel angry when they are used as a way to cheap out on plot. It makes us feel like we invested our mental energies in vain, like a riddle that has no answer or a test question that was written incorrectly.
MCU movies are dramas: they need a plot. If they are nonsensical sit coms we play along very nicely -- see first few episodes of Wandavision and Loki: many things are changed and audiences for the most part are happy to see where it goes and even mentally bridge many gaps, and any of them will be forgiven when the story concludes and all is explained.
But they stopped doing that. Now the movies exist to firm up buy in on tie ins. They exist to entice you to spend more time and money. They throw in stars and gags and jokes and whatnot because previous movies with good stories had them and were popular. It's like selling lobster meals without any lobster but with even more butter and more biscuits and gravy.
Also see the second season of Loki - the rules fall apart if you think about them too hard, but the way they're bent creates an interesting and creative narrative with a satisfying character arc.
I fully agree with everything you wrote here. For me, alongside all of the above is the fact that the stakes are just non-existent in terms of character fragility. I like my heroes mortal, if possible. Game of Thrones was great in the beginning because the plot armour was light, or just absent, and you really felt that your favourite character could end up on the chopping block. I can always be pretty sure that MCU characters will not fully die, or they might die but come back from another timeline, or die, but be rescued some other contrived way. So it's back to your playing with figurines analogy, your nephew can huck the damn things out of the window on the freeway, but his parents can just chuck a uey and pick them up again - no harm, no foul.
Exactly. There's no stakes not because they don't suffer and die....it's because they can suffer and die from nonsensical randomness, and then they can cancel the death. They're happy to wring our hearts because we pay to do so, and they'll do it over and over again because we pay them to do so.
This is why I like small stake films. Recent favourite: Polite Society -- does my beloved big sister marry this guy that I'm convinced is evil, or am I just having a hard time growing apart.
Even Everything Everywhere All At Once is extremely low stake: does Evelyn go through with her divorce, and does she repair her relationship with her daughter?
Properly power limiting is hard. Power limiting when the source material barely does it is even harder. The MCU in general has this issue because even as is, most of the heroes and Villians are "nerfed" compared the comics.
All that aside, there's just so many moving parts with a movie this size that it can be hard to fit all ideas in. Or maybe it does happen and then inevitable cuts happen for whichever reason. Even with very detailed source material from books, this issue can ruin an adaptation.
Re: source material
When Iron Man came out that was one of the most refreshing things about it: they could start fresh and lay down their own reality and limitations. Tony bleeds, he gets lonely, he misses Pepper, but he can make a suit with a box full of scraps in a cave. He doesn't just bend reality and break laws of physics while he eats PB&J with his kid.
One of the selling features of MCU originally, was that the source material was too complicated to get into anymore, and everything was a fresh start.
They've never been shy about breaking canon (there isn't, it's a huge landscape to pick and choose from). They chose not to have limits because it's easier to write.
Proper power limiting is very hard. Early seasons of Dragonball and Naruto compared to the end, for example. But they're extremely satisfying when done right.
I mentioned the canon because writers tend to have to justify whenever they add new mechanics to an existing character. It's relatively easy to add new powers if you can make it sound cool or sellable. It's extremely hard to say "well, what if Captain Marvel was weak to [McGuffin mechanic here]?" when the comics portray her as an all powerful universal entity who's only susceptible to magic (in one of the forms of comics).
Most of the weaknesses "added" tend to come from the human element more than rock-paper-scissors powers. And unfortunately, Carol probably had the least amount of time to flesh that part of her life out compared to the other heroes.
All things serve the beam.
:) is there a wonderful reference here I am missing?
The Dark Tower series by Stephen King.
Ohhhh.....it's in my shameful tower of unread books ;_;
Be aware The Gunslinger is very different from the rest of the series. Think of it more of an extended prologue to The Drawing of the Three, which is when the story really comes into its own.
Do bump it to the front of the line....I'd love to experience it again with fresh eyes.
Is the wiki article spoiler safe? I just want a quick read order if possible :) much obliged
I'd say hold off on the wiki then.
I'd read it in the published order. While Gunslinger can be quite off-putting, it contains critical plot and character development that skipping can give a misunderstanding of the nature and character arc of The Gunslinger. If reading, go with the revised editions. If listening to audiobooks, go with Frank Muller's editions.
There's a later novel, The Wind Through the Keyhole, which fits in chronologically between books 4 and 5, but since it was published after the main novels, just contains additional world-building, and by that point you're going to be more pre-occupied with the main plot.
Also for full effect, wait at least 6 months after finishing The Wastelands before starting Wizard & Glass...if you can. It's a small penance to honor those whom waited 6 years. :)
Awesome, thanks :D I've got your comment bookmarked already
Very briefly distilled:
One of the major themes of Stephen King's Dark Tower is the nature of storytelling. The core is Ka, which is somewhat like fate. Ka is a wheel. The beams are like the spokes connecting all universes, with the Tower at the center.
The most central-to-plot characters often form a ka-tet. Think the Fellowship of the Ring. The various Avengers. The Losers in IT. Harry Potter and friends. Bound by fate to resolve the plot to its conclusion.
And one thing that often comes up, is the need for a deus-ex-machina to push the plot forward. The Marvel movies definitely over-leverage breaking their own rules to do so. But you got me thinking about the nature of it...and they're not wrong, just lazy.
It's been said before a million times but I'll say it again.
There are three main problems with these movies:
Marvel can solve all 3 of these issues with a straightforward fix in my opinion.
Release movies less frequently, take the time and money saved to ensure each Marvel movie is a genuine work of art.
Batman (not marvel, I know) has been done correctly two separate times now. Once with the Nolan trilogy and once with the newest, "The Batman" film.
Avengers was done more or less correctly three times. Iron man was done correctly. Spiderman has been done well several times. Guardians of the Galaxy was done right at least once.
Thor, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, and Deadpool have had movies ranging from good to great.
Honestly, Spiderman and Batman are pretty much the only superheros I like, but I've seen the Marvel movies my friends have suggested as well as the ones that got stellar reviews - and I really enjoyed them!
My point is that superhero movies and cinematic universes can be done well. Marvel could still be making the most anticipated films of every year if they chose to. They chose not to. Instead they're doing a kind of pump and dump because they jumped the shark. It's a race now to see how many of these films they can shit out before the public truly loses all interest.
Honestly you don't even need to solve all issues. 3 is not such a problem if the movies are less frequent and better. It was not a big deal for like 20 movies.
I think that point #3 (dependency chains) is a problem even if the movies are less frequent.
Movie series take place over time, so each new movie might be someone's first (in the franchise). Saying "to understand this movie, you first need to watch these movies from X years ago" is a hurdle, even if the raw number of movies is low.
Disney got this right with Star Wars 7-9. For all the flaws of that trilogy, the movies didn't depend on knowing any details of movies 4-6 or 1-3.
For very long-running series, the whole dependency chain becomes a problem even more than the dependencies for any particular movie. If a proper understanding of this movie depends on the single prior movie, but understanding that movie depends on the one before it, and so on back to the series-originator, jumping into the franchise – essentially the only way that the studio can build its audience over time – would require new patrons to complete a daunting amount of homework.
before disney+, all you had to do to keep up with the mcu was watch 2-3 movies per year.
once they started pumping out d+ shows, you had to keep up with 2-3 movies per year plus 2-3 8-13 episode seasons of television per year.
i will not stand for the erasure of the two Tim Burton movies
Alright, I'll meet you halfway.
I'll mention that Tim Burton made some Batman films. They're certainly expressive pieces of art. But I won't say I like them myself! Haha.
I saw it, because it's basically free when I already pay a monthly subscription for the theater, and lighter fare seemed appropriate after Killers of the Flower Moon.
It's entertaining, but generic and mired in the "Marvel prerequisite classes" problem. It's not the travesty people are making it out to be, but it's also not really better or worse than the typical Marvel film. The biggest barrier to ticket sales was that it has dependencies on Captain Marvel, Ms Marvel and Wandavision (none of which I've seen, except the first episode of Ms Marvel). If people get that impression watching the trailer, it'll deter all but the hardcore Marvel fans.
Disney just has to face the fact that the Avengers hype is done and without a radical change to their formula, it's just overstaying its welcome. They're really not doing anything different here (far from it: the problem is it's too similar and indistinct).
It's a bit distasteful of them to fob the box office failure off onto the actors and production, when they did just fine. The issues are all with writing, and the executive committees that control it.
Wandavision was solid, I quite enjoyed it more than the movies that lead up to it.
I didn't even know it was coming out until I saw a last-minute ad for it on TV, and ever since Endgame, I haven't really kept up so I had no idea who these characters were or what was at stake. I think Marvel/Disney need to lean into the X-Men next, as the Avengers are pretty much played out at this point.
I really think this was a big part of the reason for the low numbers that I don't see a lot of people talking about - the other complaints in this thread are pretty common to almost every Marvel movie since Iron Man 3.
For several months during the important advertising lead-up to the movie, the actors were forbidden from promoting it due to the strike. You or I may not get our info on upcoming films from that sort of thing, but HUGE parts of the demographics do, be it by watching entertainment news or by just seeing clips online from talk shows.
Also, in case you're worried about spoilers
> "I think Marvel/Disney need to lean into the X-Men next"That, at least, was the subject of this one's post-credits scene. So we're probably going there soon, especially with Deadpool 3 on the way. And speaking of Deadpool 3, the article says that's the ONLY Marvel movie next year, so it's almost certainly going to do great in the box office.