Has the MCU peaked?

[The Lazarus Pit]

I think Rocket and Star Lord get brought up way too much in support of using D-listers. I wouldn’t even call those two D-listers. They popped up on EMH. But just look at Eternals. It doesn’t always work.

 

[Drizzle]

I think Rocket and Star Lord get brought up way too much in support of using D-listers. I wouldn’t even call those two D-listers. They popped up on EMH. But just look at Eternals. It doesn’t always work.

They were pretty much D-listers, though. C-listers if we're being generous. Their appearance on EMH was most likely done purposely to get the ball rolling on more awareness for the Guardians of the Galaxy because the movie was in development at that point. I was barely familiar with them before the announcement at SDCC 2012 but this concept art was all it took for me to take interest in the property.

 

[The Lazarus Pit]

Again, the other side of this is The Eternals. Marvel ain’t infallible. They need to be careful to not oversaturate the market. Sometimes D-listers can be turned into A-listers, but sometimes they’re D-listers for a reason.

 

[psylockolussus]

I think the Eternals has done okay at the boX office given the circumstances.

I'm always up for D listers getting the spotlight. But that shouldn't be the main motivation why MCU shouldn't be rebooted, after decades of films.

Like I said d listers could get a shot in the MCU reboot, while they are rebooting the a listers. Who knows Two Gun Kid could be a phase 1 film.

 

[SirStrangefolk]

Again, the other side of this is The Eternals. Marvel ain’t infallible. They need to be careful to not oversaturate the market. Sometimes D-listers can be turned into A-listers, but sometimes they’re D-listers for a reason.

Well the nice thing about D-listers is that they're often not as solidified both on the page and in the audience's mind, thus making it more acceptable to chance some things about them.

And I don't think Eternals getting bad reviews has much to do with the characters being inherently worse but rather just the way the story was structured and the slower pace of this specific script didn't speak to people. In fact, if you look at the negative critic ratings many (of the ones that aren't just "superheroes bad") say that while it wasn't very good it had potential to be quite good. And while the critic score is the lowest, audience score is the same as Iron Man 3 and above Thor, Ant-Man & The Wasp, Thor: Dark World, Captain America: The First Avenger, Iron Man 2, Incredible Hulk and Captain Marvel. And despite being in a pandemic the box office is on track with Ant-Man 1 numbers and not too far below Black Widow. So it's not like it's some massive flop. While The Incredible Hulk was one of Marvel's most famous A-list characters and his solo movie is their lowest earning one by far and one of the lowest rated movies across the board.

But that shouldn't be the main motivation why MCU shouldn't be rebooted, after decades of films.

Okay, but why should they reboot after decades of films? If the films are still successful and fun, why end it just to start over from scratch?

Like I said d listers could get a shot in the MCU reboot, while they are rebooting the a listers. Who knows Two Gun Kid could be a phase 1 film.

You know that would never happen because investors/producers will want to frontload it with proven IP rather than take risks on a lesser known IP regardless of how good the ideas from the creatives at the company are.

 

[psylockolussus]

Again the point of a reboot, to give the creatives more freedom, a clean slate. I seriously doubt writers and directors by 2040, want their films to be confined in a continuity that started decades ago.

Also as I mentioned, characters like Tony Stark and Steve Rogers would have to rebooted for the younger generation. Not every kid or teen in 2040s, is going to watch a 2008 movie.

 

[Detective Conan]

Marvel vs Dc, Thats what I don't want to see.

Same. That’s the type of thing you do when you run out of ideas. It’s such a unnecessary thing that I have no interest in seeing play out.

 

[The Lazarus Pit]

They should definitely do it when the MCU is finished

 

[SirStrangefolk]

Also as I mentioned, characters like Tony Stark and Steve Rogers would have to rebooted for the younger generation. Not every kid or teen in 2040s, is going to watch a 2008 movie.

There was 32 years between Return of the Jedi and the Force Awakens in which kids didn't see a new version of Luke, Leia and Han. Do you believe they should have rebooted Star Wars for the younger generation in the early 2000s with all new actors because not every 2000s kid is going to watch a 1977 movie?
Because I don't think that. I was a kid in the early 2000s and me and my friends all watched the original Star Wars movies without issue. Not everything needs constant reboots, that's how you get things like The Amazing Spider-Man.

 

[psylockolussus]

I don't know why you are comparing Star Wars to Marvel or superheroes? Star Wars isn't even based on comics.

How many times have Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Batman, and the Hulk have been rebooted in the last 20 years?

 

[Bayne]

I don't know why you are comparing Star Wars to Marvel or superheroes? Star Wars isn't even based on comics.

How many times have Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Batman, and the Hulk have been rebooted in the last 20 years?

I don't know why you think being based on comics or not is at all relevant to the conversation or that it's in any way a convincing argument to list characters who have been rebooted because they were terrible in the first place (Hulk, FF, ASM, 90s Batman, Batfleck), because Sony is an incompetent and reactionary studio (SM) or because the talent refused to come back (TDKT).

I don't even disagree that a reboot will almost certainly happen and will at least have the potential to bring real benefits with it (at the very least from the studio's pov), but this is just a terrible argument.

 

[SirStrangefolk]

I don't know why you are comparing Star Wars to Marvel or superheroes? Star Wars isn't even based on comics.

How many times have Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Batman, and the Hulk have been rebooted in the last 20 years?

Because what they are based on is irrelevant to me. What does that have to do with rebooting? Why would being based on comics warrant more reboots?

And yes, those characters have been rebooted a lot. But should they be? Was it a good thing that Maguire's Spider-Man got rebooted into Amazing Spider-Man?

I think that an important distinction here is also that all the franchises you mention are about specific characters, while both the MCU and Star Wars are about a universe that happens to have some important characters in it. You can't keep a Batman franchise going indefinitely without Batman. But you can kill off Luke, Leia, Han, Obi-Wan, Anakin, Yoda, etc. forever and then just make up some bounty hunter named Din Djarin and make him a new protagonist in the franchise because the franchise is not called "Luke Skywalker", it's called "Star Wars". Same for the MCU. It doesn't have static main characters that the franchise has to rely on. It can pivot to other characters.

And if you really wanted to do something with Iron Man or Captain America you wouldn't have to do it as part of a Cinematic Universe and take the entire established universe down with it. DC has their own cinematic universe and yet they made Joker and now a standalone Batman movie is coming out in a few months. If you're really worried about the next generation of children not growing up with a Tony Stark or Steve Rogers and they're no longer in your cinematic universe, give some director who has a cool idea or vision for one of these characters the opportunity to make a standalone movie about them that doesn't require any other viewing. Make it as stylistic as you want without worrying about it fitting in the established style of the rest of the universe. Take more risks and write more radical stories because you don't have to worry about ripple effects. We've had Spider-Man, Ghost Rider and Fantastic Four standalone movies while the MCU was already ongoing, we can have that again. Or make an awesome animated movie for them like they did with Spiderverse. Be creative, the sky's the limit. No need to take down the entire MCU just to put one or two characters in a movie.

 

[psylockolussus]

I don't know why you think being based on comics or not is at all relevant to the conversation or that it's in any way a convincing argument to list characters who have been rebooted because they were terrible in the first place (Hulk, FF, ASM, 90s Batman, Batfleck), because Sony is an incompetent and reactionary studio (SM) or because the talent refused to come back (TDKT).

I don't even disagree that a reboot will almost certainly happen and will at least have the potential to bring real benefits with it (at the very least from the studio's pov), but this is just a terrible argument.

No because being based on a comics, people would have a handful of characters they want to see in the movies, again and again, even if those characters are already killed off in a previous film or if that character appeared in bad movies. They would want a new version/take on their favorite Marvel character eventually.

I don't think it can be said to Star Wars and the other original ips. No one eXpects (or even clamor) Star Wars movies to be rebooted from scratch, after they killed off the original characters or after a bad movie. Star Wars could go on years just creating new characters and stories. It isn't adapting stories and characters from books/comics.

Marvel Studios would run out of popular characters that they haven't featured yet in the mcu. And they couldn't just count on D listers forever, eXpecting them to breakthrough like Guardians of the GalaXy, Shang-Chi and Eternals. So its just a matter of time before Tony Stark, Steve Rogers are rebooted.

Marvel movies =/= Any movie franchise that isn't based on a book/comics

 

[Bayne]

No because being based on a comics, people would have a handful of characters they want to see in the movies, again and again, even if those characters are already killed off in a previous film or if that character appeared in bad movies. They would want a new version/take on their favorite Marvel character eventually.

I don't think it can be said to Star Wars and the other original ips. No one eXpects (or even clamor) Star Wars movies to be rebooted from scratch, after they killed off the original characters or after a bad movie. Star Wars could go on years just creating new characters and stories. It isn't adapting stories and characters from books/comics.

Marvel Studios would run out of popular characters that they haven't featured yet in the mcu. And they couldn't just count on D listers forever, eXpecting them to breakthrough like Guardians of the GalaXy, Shang-Chi and Eternals. So its just a matter of time before Tony Stark, Steve Rogers are rebooted.

Marvel movies =/= Any movie franchise that isn't based on a book/comics

I don't think that's even remotely true. Just as many SW fans are going to want to keep seeing Luke as MCU fans will Steve or Tony. Which also does not say a thing about how that number compares to the number who are less concerned about which characters are on screen. Nor does it say many would actually stop watching if their favorites weren't there.

 

[SirStrangefolk]

No because being based on a comics, people would have a handful of characters they want to see in the movies, again and again, even if those characters are already killed off in a previous film or if that character appeared in bad movies. They would want a new version/take on their favorite Marvel character eventually.

I don't think it can be said to Star Wars and the other original ips. No one eXpects (or even clamor) Star Wars movies to be rebooted from scratch, after they killed off the original characters or after a bad movie. Star Wars could go on years just creating new characters and stories. It isn't adapting stories and characters from books/comics.

Marvel Studios would run out of popular characters that they haven't featured yet in the mcu. And they couldn't just count on D listers forever, eXpecting them to breakthrough like Guardians of the GalaXy, Shang-Chi and Eternals. So its just a matter of time before Tony Stark, Steve Rogers are rebooted.

Marvel movies =/= Any movie franchise that isn't based on a book/comics

Yeah, I don't see this at all. The reality is that the majority of MCU viewers have never read an Iron Man or Captain America comic in their life.
They may have been aware of their existence before or they might have only heard of them from the movies. In the former case that's no different from someone who starts watching Star Wars later because they never got around to it or they were just too young to watch the originals growing up. In the latter case that means Tony Stark was as new to them as Luke Skywalker was to someone who watched Star Wars for the first time. And to them Shang-Chi breaking through is no different from The Mandalorian doing so.
(Not to mention that there is also a part of the Star Wars fandom that wants to keep the focus on Luke just as much as there are Marvel fans who want to keep seeing Tony or Steve)
Plus even among comic readers (like myself) there are still plenty of people who are willing to get to know characters they weren't as familiar with, or in the more extreme case even actively desire more characters getting the spotlight rather than always returning to the same few of them since it has gotten a bit stale.

 

[Docker2.0]

Again, the other side of this is The Eternals. Marvel ain’t infallible. They need to be careful to not oversaturate the market. Sometimes D-listers can be turned into A-listers, but sometimes they’re D-listers for a reason.

Thank you!! Them keep scraping the bottom of the barrel is not good. Especially for this phase. People are using covid as an excuse for Eternals' box office performance but what will they say when Spiderman breaks records? They should have rebooted the MCU and recast a few of the stars instead of what they are doing now.

 

[NHawk19]

It's just different right now. I mean even the world is different. Both the MCU's world and ours.

People aren't going to theaters as much right now so streaming shows are the pop culture items out there. Disney+ has more than provided content via the Marvel shows and Star Wars, a good bit of which is top tier Marvel content. Were the 3 movies to date this year top tier Marvel films? No, and part of that is Marvel hasn't indicated where they're headed yet. (Another part is Black Widow should've been better but hey that's what we got so . . . ) Essentially we're back where we were in the first round of Phase 1 releases.

The first round Phase 1 films were similar, but once connections were established and the cross-over in Avengers happened with the post credits Thanos things started taking off. They're still doing some world building and establishing what is going on. I have no doubt though once they start moving we'll see another ramp up from this temporary plateau. Hopefully Spiderman's embrace of the multi-verse is the first step in that.

 

[Dr. Evil]

I don't plan on watching everything in the MCU. For example, I probably won't watch What If? Season Two and the only animated show I will be watching is X-Men 97. As of right now, I will not be watching Secret Invasion and I might wait and not watch She Hulk until after all ten episodes air because I have a concerns that they will introduce too many characters with the exact same enhanced abilities as Bruce Banner with no differences in how they look. At least Abomination looks different than the Hulk. I don't want Betty Ross to come back and then all of a sudden become Red She Hulk. Red Harpy? Absolutely. Betty in human form only? I wouldn't mind that. You can introduce Rick Jones or Amadeus Cho, but don't turn them to Hulks in She Hulk. Also why turn Thunderbolt Ross into Red Hulk when you already have Abomination? It's the one thing I didn't enjoy about Falcon and the Winter Soldier (I give the series a pass for it's writing as COVID likely messed up the flow of the show, especially the finale. There were restrictions Marvel had to follow, nothing they could have done about it) it was too many super soldiers with nothing that sets them a part from Steve Rogers. With Bucky, at least he has a bionic arm. With Isaiah Bradley, at least he's old. I might choose to skip She Hulk altogether if they introduce Skaar, Betty becomes Red She Hulk, Ross becomes Red Hulk and both Jones and Cho also become Hulks but nothing sets them a part from Bruce Banner aside from different color or gender.

 

[The Lazarus Pit]

Before, nothing was missable. I can’t say the same now. I wasn’t overly impressed by any of the D+ shows and the recent string of movies have bored me.

 

[Docker2.0]

Before, nothing was missable. I can’t say the same now. I wasn’t overly impressed by any of the D+ shows and the recent string of movies have bored me.

Facts! Now they are coming out with an Echo, Agatha Harkness and Riri show...........for what?! None of that sounds interesting. The only show that interest me now is Moon Knight. And some people may consider it hating but it's not. It's frustration with the plans they have in place. But I really want to see the people who excuse Eternals box office because of covid when Spiderman comes out.

 

[InCali]

People have different expectations for MCU movies and it colors their perception of whether a movie is a success or a failure. Just about every person out there would see a 70M+ OW and call it a success.....unless it's an MCU movie.

Of course Marvel is willing to spend more money on their movies than most others, so people think they should make more (which is sorta true). Movies that had 25M+ less in their OW are considered a success.

 

[InCali]

Facts! Now they are coming out with an Echo, Agatha Harkness and Riri show...........for what?! None of that sounds interesting. The only show that interest me now is Moon Knight. And some people may consider it hating but it's not. It's frustration with the plans they have in place. But I really want to see the people who excuse Eternals box office because of covid when Spiderman comes out.

SM was ALWAYS going to make a LOT more than Eternals, Shang-Chi, GotG, etc. It's a platinum CB property. Not a good comparison, but there's no doubt in my mind that COVID will hold back the BO. How much will never be determined.

 

[NotNickFury]

SM was ALWAYS going to make a LOT more than Eternals, Shang-Chi, GotG, etc. It's a platinum CB property. Not a good comparison, but there's no doubt in my mind that COVID will hold back the BO. How much will never be determined.

Especially if Omicron is potentially a factor in theaters or nations shutting things down again. But yeah, because of their string of success, Marvel Studios is the benchmark. Even the most diehard anti-MCU fan can't really argue with that, given how well their films do consistently, even if some aren't received as well as others. Though now the box office conversation has to change when talking pandemic-era numbers, if the conversation hasn't already.

Like No Way Home will absolutely make money and I wouldn't be surprised if it's the best grossing film this year...but I don't see it being the first pandemic-era film to make a billion.

 

[InCali]

Especially if Omicron is potentially a factor in theaters or nations shutting things down again. But yeah, because of their string of success, Marvel Studios is the benchmark. Even the most diehard anti-MCU fan can't really argue with that, given how well their films do consistently, even if some aren't received as well as others. Though now the box office conversation has to change when talking pandemic-era numbers, if the conversation hasn't already.

Like No Way Home will absolutely make money and I wouldn't be surprised if it's the best grossing film this year...but I don't see it being the first pandemic-era film to make a billion.

Pre-COVID, it would have been a billion dollar movie in its sleep. Now, it may get near there, but I tend to agree. I don't think it crosses 1B. I think it's the best grossing movie of the year in a walk. Nothing else is really going to be in the same area code IMO. That's why it's not fair to compare it to anything with a release date anytime in the next couple of months or earlier this year.

I saw the new Batman preview at the movies and it looked pretty good. If it catches on and gets good WOM, it could be up there too, but Batman, like Spiderman, is a top of the heap CB character.

 

[Mandon Knight]

Pre-COVID, it would have been a billion dollar movie in its sleep. Now, it may get near there, but I tend to agree. I don't think it crosses 1B. I think it's the best grossing movie of the year in a walk. Nothing else is really going to be in the same area code IMO. That's why it's not fair to compare it to anything with a release date anytime in the next couple of months or earlier this year.

I saw the new Batman preview at the movies and it looked pretty good. If it catches on and gets good WOM, it could be up there too, but Batman, like Spiderman, is a top of the heap CB character.

Wait, What ? You've seen THE BATMAN....