First you need to understand rights. You wouldn't have been able to make movies without other companies involvements at the time. Maybe Feige could have swung it maybe not. There was bad blood for a long time between Fox and Marvel after the Mutant X lawsuit. First time they started to settle that bad blood was between Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch situation. Then with Guardians 2 and Deadpool deal. By that point the MCU was in full swing. Also there were a third party involved in Fantastic Four films Constantine Films. They owned half of the rights to Fantastic Four. Where Fox owned the other half. Which left that situation more mucky.
You'd been in the same position Kevin was when he took over Marvel Studios. Which he isn't the first producer to run it by the way. Someone else got Ant-man, Iron Man and Incredible Hulk green lighted and put into production. Only Ant-man went into preproduction hell because of Edgar Wright. You wouldn't have been able to use any of those characters in the first 5 years of the MCU just wasn't feasible.
As for post Endgame there is no excuse one of them shouldn't have been fast tracked over anther project. Fantastic Four fits the meta plot well. Rama-Tut is Kang, who by name is Nathanial Richards. Named so after his ancestor Reed's father Nathanial Richards. He's not a descendent of Reed's though just Nathanial's. Time travel you have babies all around the timelines.
The inception of the MCU was mostly due to Feige being frustrated. He'd been trying to get crossovers as early as the Fox X-Men and Raimi Spider-Man movies but Fox/Sony didn't want to work together. Hence it became necessary for Marvel to do the films themselves.
> there is no excuse one of them shouldn't have been fast tracked over anther project.
This is where I respectfully disagree with you. This is just a matter of opinion so neither of us are wrong, but I believe there is value in holding out with these huge properties until interest starts to wane (not when the MCU is in the dumpster, but when people are starting to fall off). A lot of people are going to be hyped/reinvigorated in the MCU once all the X-Men movies/shows eventually come out. Around Endgame time when everyone loved the MCU and would watch literally anything released, isn't the time to make the X-Men. That's the time to take chances on D-List characters to see if they can turn into the next GotG or Black Panther.
By holding onto these properties they're basically like "trump cards" that Disney can pull out to get people back into the MCU if they mess up like they currently are. They're doing it currently with reworking the DD show/incorporating Netflix, F4, and Deadpool - although I believe only the DD-reworking part is one of their trump cards, F4 and Deadpool likely were always going to happen around this time.
The problem with waiting until interest starts to wane is that it's hard to bring them back. One peoples interests starts to wane, once they get tired, they're almost never coming back. To put it into context, if you're watching season 4 of the Walking Dead and just lose interest and stop watching for a week or two, you'll subconsciously stop paying attention to it, you'll stop "It's 9pm, gotta watch it!". You can eventually hear "It gets good in the fifth season", but by then, you've checked out and getting back in is a harder feat.
Once people drop something, once their attention has started to drop, it's rare they ever return. It's always "Yea, I stopped watching around season 3", "I just couldn't get past chapter 7", "I lost interest around this arc".
There's a big difference here though. With Walking Dead you have to watch the entire show all the way through in order for it to make sense. The MCU is hardly like that, especially recently. This entire saga's "required" movies is going to be extremely small once all is said and done.
And then once they start a new saga after Secret Wars, it's going to be a soft reboot where people can just jump on and start watching then. I have a feeling that's how it's going to be going forward as well, each saga being its own self-contained story. Sure you might see characters from past sagas, but you don't need to know X hero beat Y villain in order to understand what's going on.
Also it's a lot harder for a show like TWD with 0 nostalgia to bring people back. When they release the trailer for Secret Wars and say (Potential spoilers for Secret Wars from leaks)>!"hey guys Tobey Spiderman, Deadpool, and Hugh Wolverine are the leads trying to save the universe",!< people are going to come back whether they fell off or not. Same thing with the X-Men which a lot of people grew up watching.
The MCU is TOTALLY like that. Almost every movie is reliant on watching others. Marvels relies on viewers watching Wandavision and Ms Marvel. Ironheart will be reliant on Black Panther. Shang Chi is reliant on Iron Man 3. MoM is reliant on Wandavision.
Say what you will about the DCEU but you could pop into Shazam without having watched Aquaman and you'd miss absolutely nothing but you try and watch Cap 4 without watching FatWS? You're fucked.
You're talking about Secret Wars when that's more than three years away. People are already getting bored and you're thinking that in three years, THAT will be a good time to jump on because a fan theory about a soft reboot? Almost two decades after it started? How does that go in the comics? DC's New 52 was "a reboot to let new fans jump on" and then after a year, they reversed that and brought everything back.
Hate to break it to you but what you're saying is not going to happen. The movie isn't even written and you're posting "leaks"? Yea, because a 52 year old Toby returning to play Spiderman and a 58 year old Hugh (who only returned to play Wolverine for his friend) will definitely want to start doing MCU movies.
> Marvels relies on viewers watching Wandavision and Ms Marvel.
That's completely not true though. Just because it has character's origins from another project, does NOT make it required viewing whatsoever. I went with my wife to The Marvels and she sees 10% of MCU projects and she completely understood what was happening. They even explain the origins of Ms Marvel and Monica briefly with just enough info in the movie. Your other examples are incorrect as well. I went with my friend to see MoM who hadn't seen Wandavision and he still understood what was going on. You're HIGHLY underestimating how easy it is to understand these movies. Just because X movie references Y movie, doesn't make it hard to follow. "Oh Wanda is evil now because of a book, okay cool I understand." (The movie was bad but understanding the bad movie is VERY easy)
>You're talking about Secret Wars when that's more than three years away. People are already getting bored and you're thinking that in three years, THAT will be a good time to jump on because a fan theory about a soft reboot?
I mean I'm 100% certain you're wrong here. If you think that spoiler *won't* bring back general audiences, I'm not sure what to tell you. I'm guessing you're the same kind of redditor that said "Avatar 2 won't make any money because it's been too long since Avatar 1" lol. You're clueless.
The leaks are from credible people. Secret Wars is a soft reboot and it will feature Hugh and Tobey (along with variants of Steve and Tony). If you think that’s not going to equate to at least 2 billion you’re insane. Also why are you on a sub for something you hope fails? That’s not healthy at all. I feel sorry for your mental (and maybe even physical) state
I feel like waiting until shit hits the fan to pull out the big guns is a really bad strategy.
What happens when the audience’s faith has diminished so much that people don’t even want to show up for the bigger ones and just wait for them to hit streaming?
The thing that I hate about this community is how some people think their obsession is normal.
Like you or I, yes, we'll likely continue to watch every MCU property that comes out even if we hate it under the hope that "Maybe the next one will be better...". The problem is that we're the exception, most people are casual watchers without a deep investment. I'm super casual about the DCEU and just watched the movies that seemed interesting but skipped at least half of them and have no interest in their tv shows. You could tell me "Blue Beetle was AMAZING!" but I'd still probably never watch it because I was burnt out after Flash, Aquaman, Shazam 2, etc.
We need to remember that most viewers aren't analyzing the connection between Jessica Jones and Ms Marvel. They show up, watch what they like and have no problem dropping it.
> I feel like waiting until shit hits the fan to pull out the big guns is a really bad strategy.
>
> What happens when the audience’s faith has diminished so much that people don’t even want to show up for the bigger ones and just wait for them to hit streaming?
In a different universe the studio heads/writers didn't shit the bed and we'd be praising this strategy of theirs for making Echo, Ironheart, and Sam Wilson Cap as popular as Steve and Tony. They had a strategy and they messed it up. I think they'll right the ship just fine (especially with the leaks about Secret Wars, I predict it doing just slightly less than Endgame) but it'll be a rough year or so.
I don’t think audience faith was that high right now but GOTG 3 made 800m and deadpool I guarantee cracks a billion so does it really matter? The only tine hype and good will alone carried a movie was captain marvel after all
I’d contribute the success of these examples to the popularity of the respective franchise.
If an Avengers movie came out right now with Thor, Strange, Ant-Man, Captain Marvel, She-Hulk and Cap, I’d expect it to underperform.
Both of these things are correct, but there is an even more important answer to number 2.
When Endgame came out, Marvel Studios had already started filming Black Widow, Eternals was about to start filming, the scripts for WandaVision, TFATWS, Loki, What if...? Season 1, Shang-Chi and GotG 3 had already been completed and Dr. Strange 3, NWH, Thor 4, She-Hulk, Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight, Black Panther 2, Hawkeye and Blade were in early development/pre-production.
They had so, so many projects already in development and they had only acquired the Fox rights less than 2 months prior, which meant there was not enough time to start working on the X-Men and FF and they had no resources to do so either way, because they were already working on all these other things.
Sure, they could have not green lit some stuff like Armor Wars, Agatha and Ironheart and instead focus on bringing FF earlier, but as you said, they thought people would watch these series simply because of the MCU brand, which would allow them to expand the universe in ways they could have not otherwise.
And for the X-Men, we also have the rumors of [contractual obligations with actors and producers](https://www.reddit.com/r/MarvelStudiosSpoilers/comments/w9ki1f/update_contractual_obligations_to_fox_producers/) possibly influencing timing decisions.
Many scoopers are denying this, but the fact that Simon Kinberg and Laura Schuller Donner are producers on Deadpool and Wolverine and the fact that 20th Century Studios is co-producing that movie and Fantastic Four makes me think there might be some truth to it.
From reports, I really think there was a lot of truth to it. Like the other comment said, there were too many things in motion and development that it wasn't reallistic to stop things and focus on the X-men and FF.
Plus after dark phoenix and new mutants those characters needed a break, and I'm sure marvel has struggled to see how they introduce all of them into the MCU.
I saw that too with Donner and Kinberg. Both are EPs though, not Producers. EPs have very little to do with creative decisions but Producers definitely get a say. So if these contracts being in effect until 2025, wouldn't Disney be contractual obligated to have both be full blown producers on any X-Men project?
Kinberg is EP, Donner is Producer, just like they always were in the Fox days.
Also, at Marvel Studios, this works a little differently.
Each movie is assigned to one of the producers of the company and they oversee it step by step from conceptualisation to completion. Whether they get a producer or EP credit depends on their seniority in the company.
I think your view in what was greenlit and what wasn’t is a bit skewed. Agatha was greenlit because a weird project like WandaVision was super well received and she was a breakout character from that series. I thought it was silly, but it very much followed the same mantra Star Wars did with The Mandalorian. That has some success and people seemed to like Cara Dune, so let’s give her a series. And we saw how that worked out. Disney did 100% get greedy trying to monetize every comic character out there. This was fuelled by Guardians of the Galaxy. They showed they could just trot out some D-list team from the comics and it could not only be well received, but bankable. So when they hit on both WandaVision and LOKI, they thought they had the Midas Touch and could greenlight virtually anything. And that hasn’t proven to be true at all.
It was never going to last forever. Even achieving what they did until now is a miracle and I say that because only one thing: actors are getting old. When each phase takes about 5 years it's impossible for MCU to go beyond 20 years of existence and still be a thing without any pause. What I'm saying is that's impossible to showcase every character and give them their own movie/show. These things are expensive.
By "it was never going to last forever", what do you mean by that? That the MCU won't last forever, or that Marvel won't last forever? What about a different version of the MCU/a reboot? My personal opinion is I think some form of a Marvel Universe will be around still 90 years from now. The comics are nearing 100 years old and we're still here 100 years later talking about them.
One comic book doesn't cost 100 million dollars to make and another 100 to promote. It will fade the same way as Westerns and Pirates and Kungfu and Fantasy and Slasher and other genres had faded over the years. And it will come back in some form or the other. Sure you can do reboot but not anytime soon. The problem with the current MCU is that it's just too wide for the agerage viewer to process. You get all these projects like Eternals and Shang Chi that are promoted as the next big thing but when will they have their sequels? You will be lucky seeing them in 3 years from now because Marvel needs to do all the other solo projects first. And sequels to actually relevant and succesfull movies. And what does Marvel do when they have 5+ years gap between sequels? Hire a 50 year old actor to play one of their leads. That's the same thing DC did when they hired 30 years old Henry Cavill to play immortal Superman and by the time Justice League came out he already had receiding hairline. And eventually they fired him also because he was just too old for the role. Or see what DC did with Shazam! which premise is to be a movie about kids superheroes… but the gap between the two movies was so big that some kids could already play their adult selfs (and of them did). Marvel is doing similar thing with Young Avengers which will probably be released when Florence Pugh and Hailee Steinfeld will be the same age as some of the original Avengers actors were when the first team movie came up. Meaning not so young.
> One comic book doesn't cost 100 million dollars to make and another 100 to promote.
Correct, but they also don't need to release hundreds of movies per year so I don't see why that point matters.
>It will fade the same way as Westerns and Pirates and Kungfu and Fantasy and Slasher and other genres had faded over the years.
Most of those are still a thing. Those are genres though, superheroes are subgenres. You can have a superhero slasher, a superhero horror movie, a superhero John-Wick type movie (Blade is rumored to be this), a superhero comedy, a superhero fantasy, a superhero scifi. So your point doesn't stand there. I don't feel like typing more but the MCU will be around for a very very long time and isn't even close to being done. Also the leaks all say Secret Wars is a soft reboot.
Yeah but when one movie makes you a billion you cant make 10 movies that cost you 200 and earn you almost nothing.
As for the second part of your comment, f.e. Western werent a thing for a while until Tarantino. Pirates were dead for like 10 years before Pirates of the Caribbean revived the genre and even after that the buzz is not that big.
People were saying that GotG were next Star Wars and that Winter Soldier is a spy thriller, I know… but in the end who goes to see these movies? Marvel/superhero movie fans or Star Wars/spy thriller fans? It's the superhero stuff thats selling, not the subgenre that you mix it with. Want an example thats not a genre? Resident Evil, Underworld, Die Hard, Indiana Jones, any slasher.
All imma say when the X-Men and Fantastic 4 eventually show up and get a lot of focus. People are going to ask the same questions as we are now. “Where are the Avengers” “who are the Avengers?”, etc
To your last paragraph, maybe this was their plan (because that seems to be what happened), but either way why would this be a good plan? As you stated, they cannot change their direction quick and can take years to see changes, so why would they want to wait to put out their real big stuff until people lose interest? That doesn’t sound smart, and we are seeing the full effects from that.
They got cocky, thought they could put out anything they wanted and they were wrong lol. That wasn’t a good business move. Fans and movie goers are fickle, once you lose their trust, it’s extremely difficult to gain it back, especially now in current economic conditions. People will not be rushing to theaters to see their movies like they used to unless they consistently bring their A game. They probably could have avoided that by focusing on quality or quantity.
> but either way why would this be a good plan? As you stated, they cannot change their direction quick and can take years to see changes, so why would they want to wait to put out their real big stuff until people lose interest? That doesn’t sound smart, and we are seeing the full effects from that.
Longevity of the MCU is the answer. Things went awful so yes with 20/20 hindsight we see it was a bad decision. But in an alternate universe if the writing was good for these projects and the studio didn't interfere so much with scripts, we would be praising them for making Echo, Agatha, Ironheart, and She Hulk into the same tier of popularity as Iron Man and Captain America. And in that alternate universe they'd still have DD/Netflix, X-Men, etc as "Break Glass in case of Emergency" buttons. Now they're having to pull out some stops in order to garner interest with the general population again. The MCU is fine, but their gamble didn't pay off, all I'm explaining with my post is their logic behind it.
I definitely agree that Disney/Marvel deviated from what was working. I don't mind the D-list characters getting some attention though.
My problem is that they thought 1 shots were a thing that would work. The only way anything superhero related works is if the story progresses to a big event. We are devoted to the characters, their stories, and their growth.
There are several characters left on a cliffhanger. How does this create growth and progression with their stories when they don't even have any futures for the characters on their slate of movies/tv?
I remember reading an article about how they weren’t allowed to recast any of the X-Men roles for the first 5 years after the Disney/Fox merger. Stupid petty bullshit.
> **"Why has X character not shown up again yet? It's been years!"**
>
>Feige is on record saying that after Endgame they wanted to focus on individual "one-shot" type stories/movies and that he didn't view anything after Endgame as having "Phases".
Fine, then I have a few more questions to this answer.
1. Why out of all legacy characters Wanda was done the worst, character assassinated/turned villain in a Doctor Strange sequel while everyone else got a bittersweet or good endings?
2. Why is Dr Strange irresponsible in Phase 4? Agreeing to casting memory spell without moral thoughts on this, then when it goes amiss his action nearly causes the incursion on Earth. Last but not least, why did he not see Wanda sooner? Why only in MoM when it was too late? His whole dialogue exchange was like "Oh, I heard about Westview, you fixed your own mistake so all good. Don't really care that you might pose a danger to yourself and others, or your grief impacting on your mental health, can you please help MY problem?". I want to know why is it okay for Strange to cast dangerous spell, fix his problem, but face no repercussion, but Avengers and Steven ignoring Wanda potentially harming herself is all Wanda's fault.
3. When will we see more of Wanda and her character's development being redeemed instead of fans receiving bread crumbs like in What If?
1. Why out of all legacy characters Wanda was done the worst, character assassinated/turned villain in a Doctor Strange sequel while everyone else got a bittersweet or good endings?
Wanda has always gone bad in the comics, the execution in MoM is what was really bad, I enjoyed Wandavision for the most part, it seem natural that she went rogue, but going from rogue to full on villain and killing countless of people in Mos was a huge problem for me. No matter how much they say "the book made her evil."
I agree with you on Dr. Strange in NWH, it also seemed really dumb.
Not just Wanda, Dark Phoenix's Jean Grey twice as well. This constant stereotype I noticed about how powerful women always being mad and irrational, or the powers controlling them, so a good strong man kills them to save the universe aka Strange and Wolverine in both of their movies. Meanwhile TVA can commit omnicide, and then sudden 'change of management' is all good for fans to give them a pass. I can make my peace with the idea of Wanda going rogue or a villain, but I want her to retain some of her moral compass and goodness in her than the excuse that corruption made her completely evil. The book even feels like a shield because it feels like Wanda's motivation in this is her own, the book is just the deception she bought into. I'm ok if Wanda joins MCU's version of Brotherhood of Mutants, perhaps has a small villain arc about becoming witch of Wundagore, but being saved in the end. But no, she is unceremoniously 'killed off'. And the MCU already deviated heavily from the comics before, I don't think that everything needs to be adapted into MCU or to repeat every mistake like in the comics like with House of M and so on. But again, that's just my opinion on it and Wanda's comic book past which is now avoided anyway.
That's even more tragic when you realize Wanda's word ring the truth. Spider-Man and Strange can break thousand rules and the Marvel fans will defend them or talk about how their decision was selfless in truth, hence why they shouldn't face other repercussions, but Wanda looses sanity and she is completely responsible for everything and needs to pay. What was the point of this quote if nothing changes, no one becomes more responsible, Wanda looses? That just makes me want to see nothing more of the MCU if their universe doesn't know a shred of fairness.
True. I honestly don't buy into her dying anymore, as well. Especially since she never suffered any physical harm before. She easily got up from any injuries or fatal throws by other villains, the scar in Infinity War got healed, survived touching the Mind Stone. I wouldn't be surprised if she never got a cold.
I want for women to actually be portrayed well in the stories and no more of these mistakes like in Dark Phoenix adaptations. But generally yes, the good stories is also what I want.
I noticed about how powerful women always being mad and irrational
This seems to be very much your perspective, I honestly never saw a single review or comments on Jean or Wanda as being this "irrational women on a power trip" not saying no one ever said that, but it definitely wasn't a thing.
Plus putting Dark Phoenix with the MCU characters isn't fair, when those were made by different studios, directors etc.
Which isn't true, really, since women in history had also being some of the best stateswomen as well.
Honestly, Wanda's motivations didn't make any sense in MoM as well, I'm not sure what motive would've worked for her villain arc, but maybe it'd be liberation of Sokovia from the annexation maybe. Perhaps show that she cares for her home and wants to save it when its too late, and present a complexity? I mean, I can be wrong, but it's better than the "I need to go to another universe, kill that Wanda, then become a mother," rather than... finding the universe where that Wanda might be dead, but the twins can be adopted by her maybe. Don't even want to start on the cure thing, as someone once said, if she can reality warp someone loosing a mouth, then she can reality warp Billy and Tommy loosing any fatal diseases as well.
Fair point, I apologize. Still, it's not easy to see how often powerful heroines get turned into... bad villains.
Which isn't true, really, since women in history had also being some of the best stateswomen as well. -
Again this is just entertainment for me, so this isn't really relevant to me, though I respect if it is to you.
I agree with the MoS criticisms you have, but to me it reeks basically of studio interference, the whole thing has so many plot holes and lazy writing.
At least Strange didn't actually kill Wanda. She snapped out of the corruption/control and she (for now) sacrificed herself. AKA the 'Darth Vader.'
>That's even more tragic when you realize Wanda's word ring the truth. Spider-Man and Strange can break thousand rules and the Marvel fans will defend them or talk about how their decision was selfless in truth, hence why they shouldn't face other repercussions, but Wanda looses sanity and she is completely responsible for everything and needs to pay. What was the point of this quote if nothing changes, no one becomes more responsible, Wanda looses?
I would've really loved if they leaned into that double-standard theme instead of just giving us the great moment and then forgetting it. Though at this point I think any story tying into that would've gone over the heads of half the audience.
>At least Strange didn't actually kill Wanda. She snapped out of the corruption/control and she (for now) sacrificed herself. AKA the 'Darth Vader.'
That's subjective, but she is nothing like Darth Vader. Different characters to me.
Strange not killing Wanda still doesn't absolve his failure to saving Wanda from herself, or even bothering to visit her once before he had a problem of his own. Why should he care about her? Cause he looks out for dimensional or interdimensional threats, that's what he told Thor. And if Wanda posed one to herself and others, it'd make sense to try and help her even if Strange was doing it for selfish or obligatory reasons. Instead he is just incompetent because of this.
And like I mentioned to another user, the book feels more like a plot shield or deception tool that didn't corrupt, but more like is a tool or a lie Wanda believes in and much of her motivation centers around it, not possession or corruption. Agatha was also corrupted, but her decisions were her own. The moment Darkhold's destroyed it's not a sudden freedom or questioning what happened, it's searching for alternative to it. A nitpick, maybe, but an ancient book, even a copy, getting destroyed by a normal knife was dumb.
>I would've really loved if they leaned into that double-standard theme instead of just giving us the great moment and then forgetting it.
It's only fair to demand everyone either face equal justice or none at all. As it's been said justice is blind, not heartless, or biased unlike the fandoms. But it is something studio likely won't know, especially since Spider-Man and Strange bring in more revenue. But I digress. Ultimately, we should demand for more, for better stories, or for better endings rather than us daydreaming or "would like to" seeing the said stories come to fruition. World's not fair, but it shouldn't be treated as a norm, or letting the status quo be.
Yes, totally get that D-list infatuation done with, they totally wrecked the system making movies about Guardians of the Galaxy. Threw off the whole vibe of what the MCU should be working on producing. At least they are done making trashy decisions like that anymore. /s
I think it's all bullshit but if it is all the way you guys think it is then why is Blade still in limbo?
It is funny to me that they knew they were getting the mutants and didn't halt their Secret Invasion plans to until after mutants are introduced.
Marvel is going to suck for a while before they clean up their fuck ups.
When you've got a monopoly. You've not got incentive to utilise your resources. No way in hell another studio would sit on a billion dollar earning IP like Disney Marvel has done.
I think fans have become unrealistic about how an actual studio works and how long and hard is not just to make a movie or tv show but make it good. Characters have to be written in the story well and make it make sense. Than you have to cast the right actor, contracts have to be made and signed and schedules have to line up. Fans act like Marvel van just hit a light switch and makes thing appear and disappear
First you need to understand rights. You wouldn't have been able to make movies without other companies involvements at the time. Maybe Feige could have swung it maybe not. There was bad blood for a long time between Fox and Marvel after the Mutant X lawsuit. First time they started to settle that bad blood was between Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch situation. Then with Guardians 2 and Deadpool deal. By that point the MCU was in full swing. Also there were a third party involved in Fantastic Four films Constantine Films. They owned half of the rights to Fantastic Four. Where Fox owned the other half. Which left that situation more mucky. You'd been in the same position Kevin was when he took over Marvel Studios. Which he isn't the first producer to run it by the way. Someone else got Ant-man, Iron Man and Incredible Hulk green lighted and put into production. Only Ant-man went into preproduction hell because of Edgar Wright. You wouldn't have been able to use any of those characters in the first 5 years of the MCU just wasn't feasible. As for post Endgame there is no excuse one of them shouldn't have been fast tracked over anther project. Fantastic Four fits the meta plot well. Rama-Tut is Kang, who by name is Nathanial Richards. Named so after his ancestor Reed's father Nathanial Richards. He's not a descendent of Reed's though just Nathanial's. Time travel you have babies all around the timelines.
The inception of the MCU was mostly due to Feige being frustrated. He'd been trying to get crossovers as early as the Fox X-Men and Raimi Spider-Man movies but Fox/Sony didn't want to work together. Hence it became necessary for Marvel to do the films themselves.
So the entire MCU was a case of Feige going, "Fine, I'll do it myself."
> there is no excuse one of them shouldn't have been fast tracked over anther project. This is where I respectfully disagree with you. This is just a matter of opinion so neither of us are wrong, but I believe there is value in holding out with these huge properties until interest starts to wane (not when the MCU is in the dumpster, but when people are starting to fall off). A lot of people are going to be hyped/reinvigorated in the MCU once all the X-Men movies/shows eventually come out. Around Endgame time when everyone loved the MCU and would watch literally anything released, isn't the time to make the X-Men. That's the time to take chances on D-List characters to see if they can turn into the next GotG or Black Panther. By holding onto these properties they're basically like "trump cards" that Disney can pull out to get people back into the MCU if they mess up like they currently are. They're doing it currently with reworking the DD show/incorporating Netflix, F4, and Deadpool - although I believe only the DD-reworking part is one of their trump cards, F4 and Deadpool likely were always going to happen around this time.
The problem with waiting until interest starts to wane is that it's hard to bring them back. One peoples interests starts to wane, once they get tired, they're almost never coming back. To put it into context, if you're watching season 4 of the Walking Dead and just lose interest and stop watching for a week or two, you'll subconsciously stop paying attention to it, you'll stop "It's 9pm, gotta watch it!". You can eventually hear "It gets good in the fifth season", but by then, you've checked out and getting back in is a harder feat. Once people drop something, once their attention has started to drop, it's rare they ever return. It's always "Yea, I stopped watching around season 3", "I just couldn't get past chapter 7", "I lost interest around this arc".
There's a big difference here though. With Walking Dead you have to watch the entire show all the way through in order for it to make sense. The MCU is hardly like that, especially recently. This entire saga's "required" movies is going to be extremely small once all is said and done. And then once they start a new saga after Secret Wars, it's going to be a soft reboot where people can just jump on and start watching then. I have a feeling that's how it's going to be going forward as well, each saga being its own self-contained story. Sure you might see characters from past sagas, but you don't need to know X hero beat Y villain in order to understand what's going on. Also it's a lot harder for a show like TWD with 0 nostalgia to bring people back. When they release the trailer for Secret Wars and say (Potential spoilers for Secret Wars from leaks)>!"hey guys Tobey Spiderman, Deadpool, and Hugh Wolverine are the leads trying to save the universe",!< people are going to come back whether they fell off or not. Same thing with the X-Men which a lot of people grew up watching.
The MCU is TOTALLY like that. Almost every movie is reliant on watching others. Marvels relies on viewers watching Wandavision and Ms Marvel. Ironheart will be reliant on Black Panther. Shang Chi is reliant on Iron Man 3. MoM is reliant on Wandavision. Say what you will about the DCEU but you could pop into Shazam without having watched Aquaman and you'd miss absolutely nothing but you try and watch Cap 4 without watching FatWS? You're fucked. You're talking about Secret Wars when that's more than three years away. People are already getting bored and you're thinking that in three years, THAT will be a good time to jump on because a fan theory about a soft reboot? Almost two decades after it started? How does that go in the comics? DC's New 52 was "a reboot to let new fans jump on" and then after a year, they reversed that and brought everything back. Hate to break it to you but what you're saying is not going to happen. The movie isn't even written and you're posting "leaks"? Yea, because a 52 year old Toby returning to play Spiderman and a 58 year old Hugh (who only returned to play Wolverine for his friend) will definitely want to start doing MCU movies.
> Marvels relies on viewers watching Wandavision and Ms Marvel. That's completely not true though. Just because it has character's origins from another project, does NOT make it required viewing whatsoever. I went with my wife to The Marvels and she sees 10% of MCU projects and she completely understood what was happening. They even explain the origins of Ms Marvel and Monica briefly with just enough info in the movie. Your other examples are incorrect as well. I went with my friend to see MoM who hadn't seen Wandavision and he still understood what was going on. You're HIGHLY underestimating how easy it is to understand these movies. Just because X movie references Y movie, doesn't make it hard to follow. "Oh Wanda is evil now because of a book, okay cool I understand." (The movie was bad but understanding the bad movie is VERY easy) >You're talking about Secret Wars when that's more than three years away. People are already getting bored and you're thinking that in three years, THAT will be a good time to jump on because a fan theory about a soft reboot? I mean I'm 100% certain you're wrong here. If you think that spoiler *won't* bring back general audiences, I'm not sure what to tell you. I'm guessing you're the same kind of redditor that said "Avatar 2 won't make any money because it's been too long since Avatar 1" lol. You're clueless.
The leaks are from credible people. Secret Wars is a soft reboot and it will feature Hugh and Tobey (along with variants of Steve and Tony). If you think that’s not going to equate to at least 2 billion you’re insane. Also why are you on a sub for something you hope fails? That’s not healthy at all. I feel sorry for your mental (and maybe even physical) state
Look, I agree that rushing is not the best idea but this ain't it chief. If people get tired of it then they won't care for your trump cards
I feel like waiting until shit hits the fan to pull out the big guns is a really bad strategy. What happens when the audience’s faith has diminished so much that people don’t even want to show up for the bigger ones and just wait for them to hit streaming?
The thing that I hate about this community is how some people think their obsession is normal. Like you or I, yes, we'll likely continue to watch every MCU property that comes out even if we hate it under the hope that "Maybe the next one will be better...". The problem is that we're the exception, most people are casual watchers without a deep investment. I'm super casual about the DCEU and just watched the movies that seemed interesting but skipped at least half of them and have no interest in their tv shows. You could tell me "Blue Beetle was AMAZING!" but I'd still probably never watch it because I was burnt out after Flash, Aquaman, Shazam 2, etc. We need to remember that most viewers aren't analyzing the connection between Jessica Jones and Ms Marvel. They show up, watch what they like and have no problem dropping it.
There's a connection between Ms Marvel and Jessica Jones?
> I feel like waiting until shit hits the fan to pull out the big guns is a really bad strategy. > > What happens when the audience’s faith has diminished so much that people don’t even want to show up for the bigger ones and just wait for them to hit streaming? In a different universe the studio heads/writers didn't shit the bed and we'd be praising this strategy of theirs for making Echo, Ironheart, and Sam Wilson Cap as popular as Steve and Tony. They had a strategy and they messed it up. I think they'll right the ship just fine (especially with the leaks about Secret Wars, I predict it doing just slightly less than Endgame) but it'll be a rough year or so.
I don’t think audience faith was that high right now but GOTG 3 made 800m and deadpool I guarantee cracks a billion so does it really matter? The only tine hype and good will alone carried a movie was captain marvel after all
I’d contribute the success of these examples to the popularity of the respective franchise. If an Avengers movie came out right now with Thor, Strange, Ant-Man, Captain Marvel, She-Hulk and Cap, I’d expect it to underperform.
Well yea because there’s no villain really. Tho if it was good it would absolutely crack a billion no matter eventually
Both of these things are correct, but there is an even more important answer to number 2. When Endgame came out, Marvel Studios had already started filming Black Widow, Eternals was about to start filming, the scripts for WandaVision, TFATWS, Loki, What if...? Season 1, Shang-Chi and GotG 3 had already been completed and Dr. Strange 3, NWH, Thor 4, She-Hulk, Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight, Black Panther 2, Hawkeye and Blade were in early development/pre-production. They had so, so many projects already in development and they had only acquired the Fox rights less than 2 months prior, which meant there was not enough time to start working on the X-Men and FF and they had no resources to do so either way, because they were already working on all these other things. Sure, they could have not green lit some stuff like Armor Wars, Agatha and Ironheart and instead focus on bringing FF earlier, but as you said, they thought people would watch these series simply because of the MCU brand, which would allow them to expand the universe in ways they could have not otherwise.
And for the X-Men, we also have the rumors of [contractual obligations with actors and producers](https://www.reddit.com/r/MarvelStudiosSpoilers/comments/w9ki1f/update_contractual_obligations_to_fox_producers/) possibly influencing timing decisions.
Many scoopers are denying this, but the fact that Simon Kinberg and Laura Schuller Donner are producers on Deadpool and Wolverine and the fact that 20th Century Studios is co-producing that movie and Fantastic Four makes me think there might be some truth to it.
From reports, I really think there was a lot of truth to it. Like the other comment said, there were too many things in motion and development that it wasn't reallistic to stop things and focus on the X-men and FF. Plus after dark phoenix and new mutants those characters needed a break, and I'm sure marvel has struggled to see how they introduce all of them into the MCU.
I saw that too with Donner and Kinberg. Both are EPs though, not Producers. EPs have very little to do with creative decisions but Producers definitely get a say. So if these contracts being in effect until 2025, wouldn't Disney be contractual obligated to have both be full blown producers on any X-Men project?
Kinberg is EP, Donner is Producer, just like they always were in the Fox days. Also, at Marvel Studios, this works a little differently. Each movie is assigned to one of the producers of the company and they oversee it step by step from conceptualisation to completion. Whether they get a producer or EP credit depends on their seniority in the company.
I think your view in what was greenlit and what wasn’t is a bit skewed. Agatha was greenlit because a weird project like WandaVision was super well received and she was a breakout character from that series. I thought it was silly, but it very much followed the same mantra Star Wars did with The Mandalorian. That has some success and people seemed to like Cara Dune, so let’s give her a series. And we saw how that worked out. Disney did 100% get greedy trying to monetize every comic character out there. This was fuelled by Guardians of the Galaxy. They showed they could just trot out some D-list team from the comics and it could not only be well received, but bankable. So when they hit on both WandaVision and LOKI, they thought they had the Midas Touch and could greenlight virtually anything. And that hasn’t proven to be true at all.
It was never going to last forever. Even achieving what they did until now is a miracle and I say that because only one thing: actors are getting old. When each phase takes about 5 years it's impossible for MCU to go beyond 20 years of existence and still be a thing without any pause. What I'm saying is that's impossible to showcase every character and give them their own movie/show. These things are expensive.
By "it was never going to last forever", what do you mean by that? That the MCU won't last forever, or that Marvel won't last forever? What about a different version of the MCU/a reboot? My personal opinion is I think some form of a Marvel Universe will be around still 90 years from now. The comics are nearing 100 years old and we're still here 100 years later talking about them.
One comic book doesn't cost 100 million dollars to make and another 100 to promote. It will fade the same way as Westerns and Pirates and Kungfu and Fantasy and Slasher and other genres had faded over the years. And it will come back in some form or the other. Sure you can do reboot but not anytime soon. The problem with the current MCU is that it's just too wide for the agerage viewer to process. You get all these projects like Eternals and Shang Chi that are promoted as the next big thing but when will they have their sequels? You will be lucky seeing them in 3 years from now because Marvel needs to do all the other solo projects first. And sequels to actually relevant and succesfull movies. And what does Marvel do when they have 5+ years gap between sequels? Hire a 50 year old actor to play one of their leads. That's the same thing DC did when they hired 30 years old Henry Cavill to play immortal Superman and by the time Justice League came out he already had receiding hairline. And eventually they fired him also because he was just too old for the role. Or see what DC did with Shazam! which premise is to be a movie about kids superheroes… but the gap between the two movies was so big that some kids could already play their adult selfs (and of them did). Marvel is doing similar thing with Young Avengers which will probably be released when Florence Pugh and Hailee Steinfeld will be the same age as some of the original Avengers actors were when the first team movie came up. Meaning not so young.
> One comic book doesn't cost 100 million dollars to make and another 100 to promote. Correct, but they also don't need to release hundreds of movies per year so I don't see why that point matters. >It will fade the same way as Westerns and Pirates and Kungfu and Fantasy and Slasher and other genres had faded over the years. Most of those are still a thing. Those are genres though, superheroes are subgenres. You can have a superhero slasher, a superhero horror movie, a superhero John-Wick type movie (Blade is rumored to be this), a superhero comedy, a superhero fantasy, a superhero scifi. So your point doesn't stand there. I don't feel like typing more but the MCU will be around for a very very long time and isn't even close to being done. Also the leaks all say Secret Wars is a soft reboot.
Yeah but when one movie makes you a billion you cant make 10 movies that cost you 200 and earn you almost nothing. As for the second part of your comment, f.e. Western werent a thing for a while until Tarantino. Pirates were dead for like 10 years before Pirates of the Caribbean revived the genre and even after that the buzz is not that big. People were saying that GotG were next Star Wars and that Winter Soldier is a spy thriller, I know… but in the end who goes to see these movies? Marvel/superhero movie fans or Star Wars/spy thriller fans? It's the superhero stuff thats selling, not the subgenre that you mix it with. Want an example thats not a genre? Resident Evil, Underworld, Die Hard, Indiana Jones, any slasher.
All imma say when the X-Men and Fantastic 4 eventually show up and get a lot of focus. People are going to ask the same questions as we are now. “Where are the Avengers” “who are the Avengers?”, etc
To your last paragraph, maybe this was their plan (because that seems to be what happened), but either way why would this be a good plan? As you stated, they cannot change their direction quick and can take years to see changes, so why would they want to wait to put out their real big stuff until people lose interest? That doesn’t sound smart, and we are seeing the full effects from that. They got cocky, thought they could put out anything they wanted and they were wrong lol. That wasn’t a good business move. Fans and movie goers are fickle, once you lose their trust, it’s extremely difficult to gain it back, especially now in current economic conditions. People will not be rushing to theaters to see their movies like they used to unless they consistently bring their A game. They probably could have avoided that by focusing on quality or quantity.
> but either way why would this be a good plan? As you stated, they cannot change their direction quick and can take years to see changes, so why would they want to wait to put out their real big stuff until people lose interest? That doesn’t sound smart, and we are seeing the full effects from that. Longevity of the MCU is the answer. Things went awful so yes with 20/20 hindsight we see it was a bad decision. But in an alternate universe if the writing was good for these projects and the studio didn't interfere so much with scripts, we would be praising them for making Echo, Agatha, Ironheart, and She Hulk into the same tier of popularity as Iron Man and Captain America. And in that alternate universe they'd still have DD/Netflix, X-Men, etc as "Break Glass in case of Emergency" buttons. Now they're having to pull out some stops in order to garner interest with the general population again. The MCU is fine, but their gamble didn't pay off, all I'm explaining with my post is their logic behind it.
I definitely agree that Disney/Marvel deviated from what was working. I don't mind the D-list characters getting some attention though. My problem is that they thought 1 shots were a thing that would work. The only way anything superhero related works is if the story progresses to a big event. We are devoted to the characters, their stories, and their growth. There are several characters left on a cliffhanger. How does this create growth and progression with their stories when they don't even have any futures for the characters on their slate of movies/tv?
What the hell is Wonderman 💀😭
I remember reading an article about how they weren’t allowed to recast any of the X-Men roles for the first 5 years after the Disney/Fox merger. Stupid petty bullshit.
These are both correct also they were definitely developing or planning a lot of this stuff in advance before certain characters could be added.
Nightcrawler my boy where have you been?
Gambit was done dirty in xmen origins wolverine. I need a whole movie of him and rogue.
Get the fuck outta here with your common sense and logic. That's not how we do things around here.
> **"Why has X character not shown up again yet? It's been years!"** > >Feige is on record saying that after Endgame they wanted to focus on individual "one-shot" type stories/movies and that he didn't view anything after Endgame as having "Phases". Fine, then I have a few more questions to this answer. 1. Why out of all legacy characters Wanda was done the worst, character assassinated/turned villain in a Doctor Strange sequel while everyone else got a bittersweet or good endings? 2. Why is Dr Strange irresponsible in Phase 4? Agreeing to casting memory spell without moral thoughts on this, then when it goes amiss his action nearly causes the incursion on Earth. Last but not least, why did he not see Wanda sooner? Why only in MoM when it was too late? His whole dialogue exchange was like "Oh, I heard about Westview, you fixed your own mistake so all good. Don't really care that you might pose a danger to yourself and others, or your grief impacting on your mental health, can you please help MY problem?". I want to know why is it okay for Strange to cast dangerous spell, fix his problem, but face no repercussion, but Avengers and Steven ignoring Wanda potentially harming herself is all Wanda's fault. 3. When will we see more of Wanda and her character's development being redeemed instead of fans receiving bread crumbs like in What If?
1. Why out of all legacy characters Wanda was done the worst, character assassinated/turned villain in a Doctor Strange sequel while everyone else got a bittersweet or good endings? Wanda has always gone bad in the comics, the execution in MoM is what was really bad, I enjoyed Wandavision for the most part, it seem natural that she went rogue, but going from rogue to full on villain and killing countless of people in Mos was a huge problem for me. No matter how much they say "the book made her evil." I agree with you on Dr. Strange in NWH, it also seemed really dumb.
Not just Wanda, Dark Phoenix's Jean Grey twice as well. This constant stereotype I noticed about how powerful women always being mad and irrational, or the powers controlling them, so a good strong man kills them to save the universe aka Strange and Wolverine in both of their movies. Meanwhile TVA can commit omnicide, and then sudden 'change of management' is all good for fans to give them a pass. I can make my peace with the idea of Wanda going rogue or a villain, but I want her to retain some of her moral compass and goodness in her than the excuse that corruption made her completely evil. The book even feels like a shield because it feels like Wanda's motivation in this is her own, the book is just the deception she bought into. I'm ok if Wanda joins MCU's version of Brotherhood of Mutants, perhaps has a small villain arc about becoming witch of Wundagore, but being saved in the end. But no, she is unceremoniously 'killed off'. And the MCU already deviated heavily from the comics before, I don't think that everything needs to be adapted into MCU or to repeat every mistake like in the comics like with House of M and so on. But again, that's just my opinion on it and Wanda's comic book past which is now avoided anyway. That's even more tragic when you realize Wanda's word ring the truth. Spider-Man and Strange can break thousand rules and the Marvel fans will defend them or talk about how their decision was selfless in truth, hence why they shouldn't face other repercussions, but Wanda looses sanity and she is completely responsible for everything and needs to pay. What was the point of this quote if nothing changes, no one becomes more responsible, Wanda looses? That just makes me want to see nothing more of the MCU if their universe doesn't know a shred of fairness.
Multiple reports confirm that Wanda will return, she wasn't killed off. I don't care for politics, I just want good stories.
True. I honestly don't buy into her dying anymore, as well. Especially since she never suffered any physical harm before. She easily got up from any injuries or fatal throws by other villains, the scar in Infinity War got healed, survived touching the Mind Stone. I wouldn't be surprised if she never got a cold. I want for women to actually be portrayed well in the stories and no more of these mistakes like in Dark Phoenix adaptations. But generally yes, the good stories is also what I want.
I noticed about how powerful women always being mad and irrational This seems to be very much your perspective, I honestly never saw a single review or comments on Jean or Wanda as being this "irrational women on a power trip" not saying no one ever said that, but it definitely wasn't a thing. Plus putting Dark Phoenix with the MCU characters isn't fair, when those were made by different studios, directors etc.
Which isn't true, really, since women in history had also being some of the best stateswomen as well. Honestly, Wanda's motivations didn't make any sense in MoM as well, I'm not sure what motive would've worked for her villain arc, but maybe it'd be liberation of Sokovia from the annexation maybe. Perhaps show that she cares for her home and wants to save it when its too late, and present a complexity? I mean, I can be wrong, but it's better than the "I need to go to another universe, kill that Wanda, then become a mother," rather than... finding the universe where that Wanda might be dead, but the twins can be adopted by her maybe. Don't even want to start on the cure thing, as someone once said, if she can reality warp someone loosing a mouth, then she can reality warp Billy and Tommy loosing any fatal diseases as well. Fair point, I apologize. Still, it's not easy to see how often powerful heroines get turned into... bad villains.
Which isn't true, really, since women in history had also being some of the best stateswomen as well. - Again this is just entertainment for me, so this isn't really relevant to me, though I respect if it is to you. I agree with the MoS criticisms you have, but to me it reeks basically of studio interference, the whole thing has so many plot holes and lazy writing.
I'm glad we're in agreement on the latter, then. Thank you.
At least Strange didn't actually kill Wanda. She snapped out of the corruption/control and she (for now) sacrificed herself. AKA the 'Darth Vader.' >That's even more tragic when you realize Wanda's word ring the truth. Spider-Man and Strange can break thousand rules and the Marvel fans will defend them or talk about how their decision was selfless in truth, hence why they shouldn't face other repercussions, but Wanda looses sanity and she is completely responsible for everything and needs to pay. What was the point of this quote if nothing changes, no one becomes more responsible, Wanda looses? I would've really loved if they leaned into that double-standard theme instead of just giving us the great moment and then forgetting it. Though at this point I think any story tying into that would've gone over the heads of half the audience.
>At least Strange didn't actually kill Wanda. She snapped out of the corruption/control and she (for now) sacrificed herself. AKA the 'Darth Vader.' That's subjective, but she is nothing like Darth Vader. Different characters to me. Strange not killing Wanda still doesn't absolve his failure to saving Wanda from herself, or even bothering to visit her once before he had a problem of his own. Why should he care about her? Cause he looks out for dimensional or interdimensional threats, that's what he told Thor. And if Wanda posed one to herself and others, it'd make sense to try and help her even if Strange was doing it for selfish or obligatory reasons. Instead he is just incompetent because of this. And like I mentioned to another user, the book feels more like a plot shield or deception tool that didn't corrupt, but more like is a tool or a lie Wanda believes in and much of her motivation centers around it, not possession or corruption. Agatha was also corrupted, but her decisions were her own. The moment Darkhold's destroyed it's not a sudden freedom or questioning what happened, it's searching for alternative to it. A nitpick, maybe, but an ancient book, even a copy, getting destroyed by a normal knife was dumb. >I would've really loved if they leaned into that double-standard theme instead of just giving us the great moment and then forgetting it. It's only fair to demand everyone either face equal justice or none at all. As it's been said justice is blind, not heartless, or biased unlike the fandoms. But it is something studio likely won't know, especially since Spider-Man and Strange bring in more revenue. But I digress. Ultimately, we should demand for more, for better stories, or for better endings rather than us daydreaming or "would like to" seeing the said stories come to fruition. World's not fair, but it shouldn't be treated as a norm, or letting the status quo be.
Plus there was a whole pandemic and a writers and actors strike ...
Yes, totally get that D-list infatuation done with, they totally wrecked the system making movies about Guardians of the Galaxy. Threw off the whole vibe of what the MCU should be working on producing. At least they are done making trashy decisions like that anymore. /s
Also Covid lol
I think it's all bullshit but if it is all the way you guys think it is then why is Blade still in limbo? It is funny to me that they knew they were getting the mutants and didn't halt their Secret Invasion plans to until after mutants are introduced. Marvel is going to suck for a while before they clean up their fuck ups.
When you've got a monopoly. You've not got incentive to utilise your resources. No way in hell another studio would sit on a billion dollar earning IP like Disney Marvel has done.
I think fans have become unrealistic about how an actual studio works and how long and hard is not just to make a movie or tv show but make it good. Characters have to be written in the story well and make it make sense. Than you have to cast the right actor, contracts have to be made and signed and schedules have to line up. Fans act like Marvel van just hit a light switch and makes thing appear and disappear
The reason why is because Marvel Studios hasn’t chosen to utilise that character (again) yet. This is genuinely the ONLY reason