Its just the first movie, we cant pretend to have it all in the first movie.
at the end.... I felt the characters were more "real" and I connected with them the most in Eternals.
This may be unpopular opinion, but I felt ShangChi "formulaic" and "been there done that", whatever the settings/locations/mystical topic were. I felt "Marvel style" and I didnt connect 100%.
I definitely agree with them being more 'real' though I also found that most of them didn't have enough development or screen time for me to really connect with them. I also love the history flashbacks on paper, but the pacing didn't work for me at all.
You mean just like people like leaving out Captain Marvel and Ant Man & The Wasp. If you ask me those were 2 films in a row of Eternals-like mediocrity. For me if they didn't make me think the MCU peaked before Endgame, Eternals isn't going to make me think so quite yet.
You mean just like people like leaving out Captain Marvel and Ant Man & The Wasp. If you ask me those were 2 films in a row of Eternals-like mediocrity. For me if they didn't make me think the MCU peaked before Endgame, Eternals isn't going to make me think so quite yet.
Look, I don't know if you've heard, but Captain Marvel is literally the most important MCU movie ever made, and if you think otherwise, then you just hate powerful female protagonists. And life.
Look, I don't know if you've heard, but Captain Marvel is literally the most important MCU movie ever made, and if you think otherwise, then you just hate powerful female protagonists. And life.
Lol to be fair, the flack on Brie Larson was crazy. Just the movie itself was weak. The effort was there but the execution wasn't. I'm actually really looking forward to Captain Marvel 2 but moreso for Monica and Kamala.
Spiderman shooooo is breaking records now huh................
I think crowds will go to theaters when there is something they want to watch and I'm going to say it again, pushing D list characters is not a way to bring fans to theaters. Call me a hater or whatever but I really think Marvel is going about this wrong.
I completely agree. We’ve had a bunch of duds in the MCU since the last Spider-Man movie to be honest. From what I saw, Venom 2 was more of an event than any of the shows or recent films since Far From Home came out.
Not anticipating some of the upcoming movies and shows. I’m more excited for the big name characters, and don’t think Marvel is so invincible that they can turn any character into a hit.
I completely agree. We’ve had a bunch of duds in the MCU since the last Spider-Man movie to be honest. From what I saw, Venom 2 was more of an event than any of the shows or recent films since Far From Home came out.
Not anticipating some of the upcoming movies and shows. I’m more excited for the big name characters, and don’t think Marvel is so invincible that they can turn any character into a hit.
Someone who finally gets it! It's not hate when you see something and say something about it. Turning some of these characters into legacy characters no one cares about is not the way. Nor is pushing characters(Eternals)that no one has heard of. How are you going to push Akaris when you have freakin Wolverine and Silver Surfer on deck? I was one to never miss a Marvel movie or Disney plus Marvel show but now I can look at the trailers for some and just go meh. Not interested. That seems to be happening a lot lately.
This again.... its not like you just got Eternals movie #5.
They aren't wrong to make a movie for a d lister, when you know No Way Home is technically under Marvel Studios wing as well. And there was also a time when GOTG outgrossed Spider-Man at the boX office.
Spiderman shooooo is breaking records now huh................
I think crowds will go to theaters when there is something they want to watch and I'm going to say it again, pushing D list characters is not a way to bring fans to theaters. Call me a hater or whatever but I really think Marvel is going about this wrong.
I mean, if you can make household names out of C or D-listers like Ant-Man or the Guardians or Shang-Chi (or even Polka Dot-Man, just to bring up DC for a bit) anything's possible. I mean, we're at a point where Ant-Man got two movies before a character who didn't get one until after she died. The film just need a vision that audiences can connect with. Even the Eternals, for better or worse, was still a risky endeavor worth taking because Marvel is so much more than your Spider-Mans or Captain Americas or X-Men.
Those bring people in, sure, but what do you do when you've run out of A-listers? Reboot the whole thing just to do it again, or give lesser known characters a chance?
I mean, if you can make household names out of C or D-listers like Ant-Man or the Guardians or Shang-Chi (or even Polka Dot-Man, just to bring up DC for a bit) anything's possible. I mean, we're at a point where Ant-Man got two movies before a character who didn't get one until after she died. The film just need a vision that audiences can connect with. Even the Eternals, for better or worse, was still a risky endeavor worth taking because Marvel is so much more than your Spider-Mans or Captain Americas or X-Men.
Those bring people in, sure, but what do you do when you've run out of A-listers? Reboot the whole thing just to do it again, or give lesser known characters a chance?
AntMan has always been an Avenger so comic book readers always kind of knew who he was. Guardians of the Galaxy had brilliant marketing as well as a great up and coming director in James Gunn. I'm not sure it would have done great if he did make it because his stamp is all over it. Shang Chi, like BP, was targeted to a certain audience. Eternals.....is just there. I'm going to also go out in a limb and say Dr. Strange will do good as well. Why? Because it is something people want to see. And I wouldn't say reboot but definitely recast. I think not recasting BP is going to come back and bite them.
AntMan has always been an Avenger so comic book readers always kind of knew who he was. Guardians of the Galaxy had brilliant marketing as well as a great up and coming director in James Gunn. I'm not sure it would have done great if he did make it because his stamp is all over it. Shang Chi, like BP, was targeted to a certain audience. Eternals.....is just there. I'm going to also go out in a limb and say Dr. Strange will do good as well. Why? Because it is something people want to see. And I wouldn't say reboot but definitely recast. I think not recasting BP is going to come back and bite them.
Sure, but comic book readers aren't the majority of moviegoers, and chances are the general audience had next to no idea who any of those characters were prior to their films. At least characters like Spider-Man or the X-Men had cartoons that many watched, but that can't be said for any of the aforementioned outside of the audience maybe having a vague idea of who they were.
But yes, not recasting Boseman, coupled with the production hell that Wakanda Forever seems to be having due to Letitia Wright's thoughts on vaccines, won't do that film any favors.
Sure, but comic book readers aren't the majority of moviegoers, and chances are the general audience had next to no idea who any of those characters were prior to their films. At least characters like Spider-Man or the X-Men had cartoons that many watched, but that can't be said for any of the aforementioned outside of the audience maybe having a vague idea of who they were.
But yes, not recasting Boseman, coupled with the production hell that Wakanda Forever seems to be having due to Letitia Wright's thoughts on vaccines, won't do that film any favors.
Yeah but most of the time if you make comic book fans happy, or fans of a certain franchise happy, most of the time the film will do well. A perfect example of this is Ghostbusters. GB2016 doubled the budget of Afterlife but even during filming, the fans was questioning it all around but Afterlife was given the benefit of the doubt. IDK, I maybe ranting but if you give the fans what they want, it does pay off 9/10. You giving the fans what you think they want is always a gamble. Them releasing an Eternals movie and Ms. Marvel tv show before Blade, X-men of F4 just seems wrong in a lot of ways.
So I brought up the thing about Marvel not having created a new original character that's above "D-level" in 30 years now. And when asked repeatedly the characters people bring up really only got the popularity they have because they were derivative of existing A-listers and B-listers (or at least marketed as such. Case in point:
Laura Kinney as X-23 / Wolverine would be the closest. She did quite well in comics and video games, got a big spotlight in Logan, and was considered for her own movie before the Fox acquisition. Arguably Wiccan and Hulking in the comics and Kamala Khan as well.
X-23 was able to become as popular because she's (literally) a Wolverine clone. And while the other 3 are more original they were still heavily marketed on existing names (Young Avengers, Wiccan is the reincarnation of an older character who is the child of Scarlet Witch and he first went by "Asgardian", Hulkling has "Hulk" in his name and a similar design and is the child of Captain Marvel. Kamala is a legacy character for the Ms. Marvel name who was herself derived from Captain Marvel).
Allow me to explain why I keep highlighting this original characters in 30 years thing:
1. Personally I think that endlessly recycling the already popular silver age characters and neglecting other characters - while more lucrative in the short run - does not make for a robust and future proof Marvel. There needs to be investment to make other characters bigger too.
A. Because there is need for Innovation. At some point everything will have been done with those classic characters. While I expect them to stay around for as long as Marvel is, there is very little breathing room for something truly new with them. And if we only keep doing the same and don't innovate, things will stagnate.
B. Because Marvel wants Diversification. It wants its popular characters to not be all white guys from the 60s. Right now most of the more recent attempts to create popular characters that are women and minorities from a marketing perspective has been to create such characters to take on the mantle of classic heroes (Kate Bishop, Miles Morales, Kamala Khan, Riri Williams) or to give that mantle to supporting characters (Jane-Thor, Sam-Cap, Cho-Hulk). And though I like many of those characters and understand how making more diverse characters the protagonists of the books that sell best on title alone makes sense, I do feel like only ever doing that won't be enough. We all know that they will always be compared to the originals and people still want Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Odinson, etc. so eventually their replacement is only temporary and the diverse characters will start playing second fiddle to the OG again. To compare with DC: a new character will sell more when linked to the Bat-family than when completely original, but at the end of the day Cassandra Cain and Duke Thomas will always stay far in the shadow of Bruce Wayne and creating more and more bat family members just makes that part of the world seem bloated and unoriginal. So new diverse characters that can stand on their own need to be created AND (more importantly) promoted.
C. For the sake of Ownership. The copyrights on Captain America and Namor will start expiring in in less than 15 years from now. The copyrights on Spider-Man, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Hulk, the original X-Men, etc. will start expiring in the 2050s. Do they really want to reach that point without having a solid line-up of characters that they fully own all the rights to for the forseeable future?
2. Another reason I brought up the 30 years thing is because I've seen people make the argument that if a character is a D-lister, they are such for a reason. As if to imply that the popular Marvel A-list characters are popular only on merit of their amazing premise, while all the D-listers are unpopular because their stories and concepts are inherently of lower quality. Would anyone really believe that Marvel's writing and ideas used to be so amazing that they were able to come up with all their biggest properties like Spider-Man, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Hulk, X-Men, Thor, Doctor Strange, etc. all in the span of 3 years (1961-1963)? And also that in the past 30+ years they've not had one single good idea that could have the worth of a C-lister or higher? I know that's not true because I've read more recent Marvel comics with new interesting characters that have premises that are just as interesting as the greats. It's something else. (Also note: how there was 29 years between the start of the Silver Age with Fantastic Four in 1961 and the last time C+-listers were introduced in 1990 with Gambit and Deadpool, and it has now almost been 31 years since 1990. See how huge that gap is?).
Imo it's because in the early 60s there was a comic boom for Marvel and at that time there weren't many A-listers to compete with yet, so many characters that were introduced then (and often in anthology series first) were spun off into their own ongoings and became popular for the time. And since those characters became popular, they were the ones that kept coming back in comics, the ones to get toys, the ones to get cartoons, and eventually the ones that got movies and video games. And through all those repeated appearances across different mediums they cemented themselves as the quintessential Marvel characters that even people that didn't read comics knew about and that children of following generations first got familiar with when watching saturday morning cartoons or going to the toy store or playing a video game. And as a result those characters retained relevance. And it's a feedback loop where those characters are more popular, which makes them more likely to be used, which gives them more exposure, which makes them more popular. It's very hard for new characters just starting out to go up against that.
In fact, due to the comics being less mainstream now than they once were, just growing popular within the comics doesn't seem to be enough anymore. Firstly, it's often the case that characters that are quite good and have a lot of potential and see some popularity just fall into obscurity again because the writers don't know what to do with them after their original run, or because no writers outside of their creator happen to be interested in them. One clear example of this is most of the mutants that are introduced every couple of years to be the "next generation" of mutants/X-Men. There are absolutely characters among those who have potential, but they can't infringe on the status quo of the main X-Men and writers who weren't part of the original run are unlikely to pick up any of the characters for further exploration.
Another example is Echo, who had a good arc on Daredevil, but then fizzled out because nobody really knew what to do with her. Sure, she was an Avenger for a bit, but she really didn't do anything interesting. This was even commented on in New Avengers when she was asked to audition to become a nanny for Luke Cage's daughter along with a bunch of other forgotten superheroes like Firebird, D-Man, Sepulchre and Tsu-Zana. And I won't believe for a second Echo remained D-list because she was less interesting than Daredevil or Iron Fist. That's simply not true. It'll be interesting to see how her MCU appearances will affect popularity. At least she just got her first ever solo comic out of it.
There even seems to be a kind of ceiling that prevents good characters from achieving peak popularity. When a comic character is organically growing in popularity among the core comicbook audience it will enter a zone where they are in whatever the opposite of a sweet spot is. They'll be big enough that doing something dramatic with them will have an impact on the readers. A significant part of the reading audience will be shocked or otherwise affected by it, unlike a total nobody that no one cares about. At the same time, they're not yet so big that they are indisposable to Marvel. So what happens them? These characters almost never grow to be a mainstay. Rather they often suffer one of two fates.
1. They're killed off for cheap shock value to make a story seem more impactful. And because they're not one of the big money makers, they are likely to stay dead unlike A-listers who'll be shortly resurrected. A good example of this are the members of the Avengers Academy. That run had some characters that actually started gaining popularity. Mettle in particular was slowly gaining a cult following among readers. They would be great to keep around and develop into actual standalone superheroes or new Avengers recruits right? And what happens after Academy ends?
The group is dropped in a battle royale format where they have to kill each other and Mettle is exploded in the first issue for cheap shock to show how "serious" the threat is, never to be seen again.
2. They suffer a character assassination intended as a dramatic turn. Even if the character hasn't yet fallen into obscurity and survives, they're still not safe. A recent example that comes to mind is the mutant Nature Girl. She and Eye-boy were among the more promising mutants from the last decade. So what happened to her?
She was turned from a sweet girl who talks to animals and has them assist her like a Disney princess.
Into a vengeful edgy eco-terrorist like Poison Ivy, except way dumber.
So... What then? Are characters that aren't big A-list or B-list heroes doomed to never make it? What about that stuff at the beginning about innovation, diversification and ownership? Is Marvel doomed to fail at some point in the next 40 years? I don't think so. Although making characters popular through comics alone might barely be possible anymore nowadays, the Marvel universe is more mainstream than ever. We've already seen with movies like Guardians of the Galaxy that audiences are willing to give properties they've never heard of a shot as long as it has a decent premise and is presented in an interesting way and what impact this can have on the property. And this is a good way to boost older characters.
I guess in their current incarnations, Captain Marvel and GotG were created latest in the comics. The original names were quite a bit earlier and Carol Danvers had other, earlier, names.
As InCali said, the current GotG characters had mostly been around since 70s and 80s, but their current incarnation was introduced not too long ago. And following that they got their movie which was boosted them from almost total obscurity to being household names.
But allow me to give a somewhat more obscure example to really drive the point home. I know people who have never read a comic in their life and didn't care about Marvel at all before they got into the MCU, who know and like the character Quake. Quake was a fine character in Secret War and Secret Warriors, but not exactly well known. Agents of SHIELD is a cable tv show that had some rough edges, was only tangentially connected to the MCU for the most part and got a pretty limited release in my country. In that show, Quake was only revealed halfway through season 2. And yet, I know people who aren't big Marvel fans who now know Quake because they wanted a show to watch and decided to try AoS because it was Marvel and that's the same label some movies they liked had. And I think that's not nothing. And I think Marvel knows that's not nothing. Because since the character debuted in AoS, there have been two comics based on AOS with Quake as a main character, Secret Warriors got a new volume with Quake as the leader, she has joined the new Force Works comic and she has popped up in a bunch of other books like Winter Soldier and Punisher, way more regularly than before. Quake was a main character in the Marvel Rising tv show and movie series. And she has been in almost every Marvel video game since.
And on the one hand that inclusion shows that Marvel knows that there is some demand for that character. But at the same time that also means that kids watching Marvel Rising get introduced to her and anyone playing any of those Marvel games does too. She's definitely no A-lister, but this type of inclusion is what Marvel needs. That's how you do it. You take some risk by introducing a character that's not as popular in a medium that is, which makes the character more popular and makes it safer to include them in more media, which makes them more popular again. It causes a snowball effect that can launch a character into popularity, which in turn will help them maintain their popularity. If we look at that 30 years I keep talking about, Gambit is one of the last big original characters has ever introduced. And sure, Gambit was a pretty popular standout in the X-Men comics. But I sincerely believe that the fact that only a few short years after his debut he was included in both the iconic X-Men cartoon and the extremely popular Marvel VS Capcom game franchise is what has allowed that character to remain relevance.
And so, that's why we need smaller characters to be included in the MCU. Because Marvel is not just the MCU. Nor is it just the comics. It is also cartoons and video games and a whole bunch of merchandise and toys. And in order to keep all that running in the long term they're gonna want to give smaller characters exposure using the enormous platform that the MCU can offer. And do it now while the MCU is still around to offer it. And yes, that can be some risk. But as I said before, audiences have shown that something entirely new can be extremely popular as long as it looks interesting and is well done like GotG. Or even a newly created character like with the Star Wars spinoffs.
Yeah but most of the time if you make comic book fans happy, or fans of a certain franchise happy, most of the time the film will do well. A perfect example of this is Ghostbusters. GB2016 doubled the budget of Afterlife but even during filming, the fans was questioning it all around but Afterlife was given the benefit of the doubt. IDK, I maybe ranting but if you give the fans what they want, it does pay off 9/10. You giving the fans what you think they want is always a gamble. Them releasing an Eternals movie and Ms. Marvel tv show before Blade, X-men of F4 just seems wrong in a lot of ways.
But Ghost Busters doesn't have comic book fans in the way that Marvel does. Those fans are fans of the Ghost Busters movies. In the same way, the MCU should give Marvel movie fans what they want. Because those are the core audience. And sure, popular characters from the comics are more likely to draw people in because those are the same characters that people have heard of outside of comics, but I think even ignoring the long term effects for the Marvel brand as a whole keeping back a couple of big IPs is actually smart. By keeping some big names back they can keep this going longer, as there will be a longer period of time where there's characters people care about in the MCU to keep interest for the MCU as a whole up. Introduce them all at once and after that you're left with only more risky unknown IP. Investors don't like that and there is indeed some risk. Spread them out and you can keep people come back to the MCU to check out a familiar name while building up lesser known characters that share the screen with them at the same time. Heck, if Marvel had had all movie rights in 2008 we probably would've started with Spider-Man and X-Men again and never even gotten Iron Man and such. The MCU probably wouldn't have existed or continued for as long had they been able to start with their most popular characters.
Also you name Blade as one of the big names. Which is funny because Blade is definitely mostly popular from his movies, from a time when most people who went to see those movies probably didn't even know it was a Marvel comic, thus proving again that comic popularity is not what makes these movies work and that a good movie can turn a D-lister into a B-lister.
So I brought up the thing about Marvel not having created a new original character that's above "D-level" in 30 years now. And when asked repeatedly the characters people bring up really only got the popularity they have because they were derivative of existing A-listers and B-listers (or at least marketed as such. Case in point:
X-23 was able to become as popular because she's (literally) a Wolverine clone. And while the other 3 are more original they were still heavily marketed on existing names (Young Avengers, Wiccan is the reincarnation of an older character who is the child of Scarlet Witch and he first went by "Asgardian", Hulkling has "Hulk" in his name and a similar design and is the child of Captain Marvel. Kamala is a legacy character for the Ms. Marvel name who was herself derived from Captain Marvel).
Allow me to explain why I keep highlighting this original characters in 30 years thing:
1. Personally I think that endlessly recycling the already popular silver age characters and neglecting other characters - while more lucrative in the short run - does not make for a robust and future proof Marvel. There needs to be investment to make other characters bigger too.
A. Because there is need for Innovation. At some point everything will have been done with those classic characters. While I expect them to stay around for as long as Marvel is, there is very little breathing room for something truly new with them. And if we only keep doing the same and don't innovate, things will stagnate.
B. Because Marvel wants Diversification. It wants its popular characters to not be all white guys from the 60s. Right now most of the more recent attempts to create popular characters that are women and minorities from a marketing perspective has been to create such characters to take on the mantle of classic heroes (Kate Bishop, Miles Morales, Kamala Khan, Riri Williams) or to give that mantle to supporting characters (Jane-Thor, Sam-Cap, Cho-Hulk). And though I like many of those characters and understand how making more diverse characters the protagonists of the books that sell best on title alone makes sense, I do feel like only ever doing that won't be enough. We all know that they will always be compared to the originals and people still want Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Odinson, etc. so eventually their replacement is only temporary and the diverse characters will start playing second fiddle to the OG again. To compare with DC: a new character will sell more when linked to the Bat-family than when completely original, but at the end of the day Cassandra Cain and Duke Thomas will always stay far in the shadow of Bruce Wayne and creating more and more bat family members just makes that part of the world seem bloated and unoriginal. So new diverse characters that can stand on their own need to be created AND (more importantly) promoted.
C. For the sake of Ownership. The copyrights on Captain America and Namor will start expiring in in less than 15 years from now. The copyrights on Spider-Man, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Hulk, the original X-Men, etc. will start expiring in the 2050s. Do they really want to reach that point without having a solid line-up of characters that they fully own all the rights to for the forseeable future?
2. Another reason I brought up the 30 years thing is because I've seen people make the argument that if a character is a D-lister, they are such for a reason. As if to imply that the popular Marvel A-list characters are popular only on merit of their amazing premise, while all the D-listers are unpopular because their stories and concepts are inherently of lower quality. Would anyone really believe that Marvel's writing and ideas used to be so amazing that they were able to come up with all their biggest properties like Spider-Man, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Hulk, X-Men, Thor, Doctor Strange, etc. all in the span of 3 years (1961-1963)? And also that in the past 30+ years they've not had one single good idea that could have the worth of a C-lister or higher? I know that's not true because I've read more recent Marvel comics with new interesting characters that have premises that are just as interesting as the greats. It's something else. (Also note: how there was 29 years between the start of the Silver Age with Fantastic Four in 1961 and the last time C+-listers were introduced in 1990 with Gambit and Deadpool, and it has now almost been 31 years since 1990. See how huge that gap is?).
Imo it's because in the early 60s there was a comic boom for Marvel and at that time there weren't many A-listers to compete with yet, so many characters that were introduced then (and often in anthology series first) were spun off into their own ongoings and became popular for the time. And since those characters became popular, they were the ones that kept coming back in comics, the ones to get toys, the ones to get cartoons, and eventually the ones that got movies and video games. And through all those repeated appearances across different mediums they cemented themselves as the quintessential Marvel characters that even people that didn't read comics knew about and that children of following generations first got familiar with when watching saturday morning cartoons or going to the toy store or playing a video game. And as a result those characters retained relevance. And it's a feedback loop where those characters are more popular, which makes them more likely to be used, which gives them more exposure, which makes them more popular. It's very hard for new characters just starting out to go up against that.
In fact, due to the comics being less mainstream now than they once were, just growing popular within the comics doesn't seem to be enough anymore. Firstly, it's often the case that characters that are quite good and have a lot of potential and see some popularity just fall into obscurity again because the writers don't know what to do with them after their original run, or because no writers outside of their creator happen to be interested in them. One clear example of this is most of the mutants that are introduced every couple of years to be the "next generation" of mutants/X-Men. There are absolutely characters among those who have potential, but they can't infringe on the status quo of the main X-Men and writers who weren't part of the original run are unlikely to pick up any of the characters for further exploration.
Another example is Echo, who had a good arc on Daredevil, but then fizzled out because nobody really knew what to do with her. Sure, she was an Avenger for a bit, but she really didn't do anything interesting. This was even commented on in New Avengers when she was asked to audition to become a nanny for Luke Cage's daughter along with a bunch of other forgotten superheroes like Firebird, D-Man, Sepulchre and Tsu-Zana. And I won't believe for a second Echo remained D-list because she was less interesting than Daredevil or Iron Fist. That's simply not true. It'll be interesting to see how her MCU appearances will affect popularity. At least she just got her first ever solo comic out of it.
There even seems to be a kind of ceiling that prevents good characters from achieving peak popularity. When a comic character is organically growing in popularity among the core comicbook audience it will enter a zone where they are in whatever the opposite of a sweet spot is. They'll be big enough that doing something dramatic with them will have an impact on the readers. A significant part of the reading audience will be shocked or otherwise affected by it, unlike a total nobody that no one cares about. At the same time, they're not yet so big that they are indisposable to Marvel. So what happens them? These characters almost never grow to be a mainstay. Rather they often suffer one of two fates.
1. They're killed off for cheap shock value to make a story seem more impactful. And because they're not one of the big money makers, they are likely to stay dead unlike A-listers who'll be shortly resurrected. A good example of this are the members of the Avengers Academy. That run had some characters that actually started gaining popularity. Mettle in particular was slowly gaining a cult following among readers. They would be great to keep around and develop into actual standalone superheroes or new Avengers recruits right? And what happens after Academy ends?
The group is dropped in a battle royale format where they have to kill each other and Mettle is exploded in the first issue for cheap shock to show how "serious" the threat is, never to be seen again.
2. They suffer a character assassination intended as a dramatic turn. Even if the character hasn't yet fallen into obscurity and survives, they're still not safe. A recent example that comes to mind is the mutant Nature Girl. She and Eye-boy were among the more promising mutants from the last decade. So what happened to her?
She was turned from a sweet girl who talks to animals and has them assist her like a Disney princess.
Into a vengeful edgy eco-terrorist like Poison Ivy, except way dumber.
So... What then? Are characters that aren't big A-list or B-list heroes doomed to never make it? What about that stuff at the beginning about innovation, diversification and ownership? Is Marvel doomed to fail at some point in the next 40 years? I don't think so. Although making characters popular through comics alone might barely be possible anymore nowadays, the Marvel universe is more mainstream than ever. We've already seen with movies like Guardians of the Galaxy that audiences are willing to give properties they've never heard of a shot as long as it has a decent premise and is presented in an interesting way and what impact this can have on the property. And this is a good way to boost older characters.
As InCali said, the current GotG characters had mostly been around since 70s and 80s, but their current incarnation was introduced not too long ago. And following that they got their movie which was boosted them from almost total obscurity to being household names.
But allow me to give a somewhat more obscure example to really drive the point home. I know people who have never read a comic in their life and didn't care about Marvel at all before they got into the MCU, who know and like the character Quake. Quake was a fine character in Secret War and Secret Warriors, but not exactly well known. Agents of SHIELD is a cable tv show that had some rough edges, was only tangentially connected to the MCU for the most part and got a pretty limited release in my country. In that show, Quake was only revealed halfway through season 2. And yet, I know people who aren't big Marvel fans who now know Quake because they wanted a show to watch and decided to try AoS because it was Marvel and that's the same label some movies they liked had. And I think that's not nothing. And I think Marvel knows that's not nothing. Because since the character debuted in AoS, there have been two comics based on AOS with Quake as a main character, Secret Warriors got a new volume with Quake as the leader, she has joined the new Force Works comic and she has popped up in a bunch of other books like Winter Soldier and Punisher, way more regularly than before. Quake was a main character in the Marvel Rising tv show and movie series. And she has been in almost every Marvel video game since.
And on the one hand that inclusion shows that Marvel knows that there is some demand for that character. But at the same time that also means that kids watching Marvel Rising get introduced to her and anyone playing any of those Marvel games does too. She's definitely no A-lister, but this type of inclusion is what Marvel needs. That's how you do it. You take some risk by introducing a character that's not as popular in a medium that is, which makes the character more popular and makes it safer to include them in more media, which makes them more popular again. It causes a snowball effect that can launch a character into popularity, which in turn will help them maintain their popularity. If we look at that 30 years I keep talking about, Gambit is one of the last big original characters has ever introduced. And sure, Gambit was a pretty popular standout in the X-Men comics. But I sincerely believe that the fact that only a few short years after his debut he was included in both the iconic X-Men cartoon and the extremely popular Marvel VS Capcom game franchise is what has allowed that character to remain relevance.
And so, that's why we need smaller characters to be included in the MCU. Because Marvel is not just the MCU. Nor is it just the comics. It is also cartoons and video games and a whole bunch of merchandise and toys. And in order to keep all that running in the long term they're gonna want to give smaller characters exposure using the enormous platform that the MCU can offer. And do it now while the MCU is still around to offer it. And yes, that can be some risk. But as I said before, audiences have shown that something entirely new can be extremely popular as long as it looks interesting and is well done like GotG. Or even a newly created character like with the Star Wars spinoffs.
But Ghost Busters doesn't have comic book fans in the way that Marvel does. Those fans are fans of the Ghost Busters movies. In the same way, the MCU should give Marvel movie fans what they want. Because those are the core audience. And sure, popular characters from the comics are more likely to draw people in because those are the same characters that people have heard of outside of comics, but I think even ignoring the long term effects for the Marvel brand as a whole keeping back a couple of big IPs is actually smart. By keeping some big names back they can keep this going longer, as there will be a longer period of time where there's characters people care about in the MCU to keep interest for the MCU as a whole up. Introduce them all at once and after that you're left with only more risky unknown IP. Investors don't like that and there is indeed some risk. Spread them out and you can keep people come back to the MCU to check out a familiar name while building up lesser known characters that share the screen with them at the same time. Heck, if Marvel had had all movie rights in 2008 we probably would've started with Spider-Man and X-Men again and never even gotten Iron Man and such. The MCU probably wouldn't have existed or continued for as long had they been able to start with their most popular characters.
Also you name Blade as one of the big names. Which is funny because Blade is definitely mostly popular from his movies, from a time when most people who went to see those movies probably didn't even know it was a Marvel comic, thus proving again that comic popularity is not what makes these movies work and that a good movie can turn a D-lister into a B-lister.
I would encourage you to read it sometime when you have time. I think it's worth it for the discussion. Maybe I should've split it in multiple posts to make it more digestible, but you can read it in parts. A lot of it is specific examples for clarification but you can skip over those if you wish.
With regards to Ghostbusters you gave the example that Afterlife is what the fans want and GB2016 wasn't, and that movies are generally successful when you make fans happy. This I agree with. However, you then used that to argue that this means making specifically the fans of the comics happy is what makes the Marvel movies successful. However, I think that's a false equivalence. The Marvel movies and Marvel comics are two different things with different audiences. What will make the MCU successful is making MCU fans happy, not making Marvel comic fans happy.
I would encourage you to read it sometime when you have time. I think it's worth it for the discussion. Maybe I should've split it in multiple posts to make it more digestible, but you can read it in parts. A lot of it is specific examples for clarification but you can skip over those if you wish.
With regards to Ghostbusters you gave the example that Afterlife is what the fans want and GB2016 wasn't, and that movies are generally successful when you make fans happy. This I agree with. However, you then used that to argue that this means making specifically the fans of the comics happy is what makes the Marvel movies successful. However, I think that's a false equivalence. The Marvel movies and Marvel comics are two different things with different audiences. What will make the MCU successful is making MCU fans happy, not making Marvel comic fans happy.
Relax, I read your post. I'm a joker. But I disagree. I think if you make MCU fans AND Marvel comics fans happy, you will have success. If you look at MCU in the beginning, they did both. Recently, they have not. I just don't have a good feeling about what Marvel has down the pipeline because they feel they are to big to fail but like Star Wars, that is not true.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife - 117m domestic, 174m total
Ghostbusters (2016) - 128m domestic, 229m total
The Eternals - 164m domestic, 400m total
Yeah, Afterlife is 'clearly' way more successful than Eternals. And it totally isn't making significantly less money than its way less popular predecessor because of the pandemic.
And yes I know Afterlife is still in theaters but its already so out of steam it only made 5m domestic in all of last week. And since its about to get clobbered by both Spider-man and the Matrix, I doubt it ever pulls even with GB16. Matching Eternals' global take would be a total fantasy.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife - 117m domestic, 174m total
Ghostbusters (2016) - 128m domestic, 229m total
The Eternals - 164m domestic, 400m total
Yeah, Afterlife is 'clearly' way more successful than Eternals. And it totally isn't making significantly less money than its way less popular predecessor because of the pandemic.
And yes I know Afterlife is still in theaters but its already so out of steam it only made 5m domestic in all of last week. And since its about to get clobbered by both Spider-man and the Matrix, I doubt it ever pulls even with GB16. Matching Eternals' global take would be a total fantasy.
You are totally missing the point but ok...... The point is when you give the fans something they want, they will come out. Afterlife had HALF the budget of Ghostbusters 2016 and outgrossed. Spider NWH has already outgrossed every single Marvel phase 4 movie during it's opening weekend..........with a new variant of covid out. That speaks volumes of if people WANT to see something, they will! Eternals, Shang Chi, and even Black Widow(done to late IMO)are movies people were not clamoring for. But watch how Blade, even though is arguably C/D list does in his intro to the MCU or even X-men. Dr. Strange will do well as well. But let's just pretend like covid is really what is stopping people from going to theaters........
I am not at the point yet where I am ready to leave the MCU. I won't watch everything in the MCU (probably not any animated shows except X Men 97 and maybe not Secret Invasion) but I will continue to watch them as long as the stories and characters are (at least for me anyways) still gaining my interest. I watched What If? Season One all the way through about a few weeks after the first season ended, but I doubt I will be back for season two.
Now whether or not canoncity of the Marvel shows before WandaVision is up for debate remains to be seen. I have watched all of the Netflix shows and all seven seasons of Agents of SHIELD and all 2 seasons of Agent Carter. I never did watch any episodes of Helstrom, The Inhumans, Runaways or Cloak and Dagger, so I can't judge the quality of those shows compared to the ones I have seen.
You are totally missing the point but ok...... The point is when you give the fans something they want, they will come out. Afterlife had HALF the budget of Ghostbusters 2016 and outgrossed. Spider NWH has already outgrossed every single Marvel phase 4 movie during it's opening weekend..........with a new variant of covid out. That speaks volumes of if people WANT to see something, they will! Eternals, Shang Chi, and even Black Widow(done to late IMO)are movies people were not clamoring for. But watch how Blade, even though is arguably C/D list does in his intro to the MCU or even X-men. Dr. Strange will do well as well. But let's just pretend like covid is really what is stopping people from going to theaters........
Afterlife did NOT outgross 2016. I literally just posted the numbers. It will maybe just barely pull even with 2016 in the end in domestic gross, but most likely will still fall short of it worldwide. The fact that it had a smaller budget is great for the bottom line and has nothing whatsoever to do with 'giving the fans what they want'. Endgame was built on fan service, too, for a *hell* of a budget.
And covid indisputably *is* stopping people from going to theaters. You crowed about Venom 2's opening weekend under the exact same logic as NWH's, but Venom 2 made *350 million less* than Venom 1. Fast9 made almost half a billion less than the last FF movie. Literally the only example I can think of that seemingly wasn't hurt by the pandemic was Godzilla vs. Kong, which mostly resulted from the fact that the Monsterverse wasn't actually very popular in pre-pandemic times but by being the first big movie to come back to theaters it was able to operate with no real competition and also draw in people who didn't care about Godzilla but just wanted the opportunity to go back to a theater again. And also possibly a reevaluation of the series' fun factor because of the heavy bleakness in the world. But even then, I doubt it would've made half as much if it had real competition.
As for NWH, you are firstly counting chickens before they've hatched since we do not actually know people will continue to come out and see the movie for the next month/s with everything going on around Omicron, and secondly you act like it being a big hit is somehow 'proof' that it isn't also being hurt by the pandemic even if it does make 1b. With the level of hype around this movie and how positive the reviews are, it could probably have been a 1.5-2billion movie in normal times. Will it actually make even close to that much now? We really don't know yet. Whether it has been hurt by the pandemic or not cannot be determined by opening weekend alone.
This isn't about 'no one will go watch movies because of covid'. Clearly people are willing to go. But *not as many as there used to be*. The audience is smaller. The competition is fiercer than normal. NWH doesn't prove everyone just threw caution to the wind and went to see the movie because it's Spider-man - it proves that a super hyped celebration of 20 years of Spider-man in film trumps pretty much everything else in a tough competition. And it's not even about the fact that its Spider-man to begin with, it's about the nostalgia factor of this particular film. Using NWH as proof that giving people a popular character is a surefire recipe for success is like using Endgame as proof that time travel stories are a surefire recipe for success. One could just as easily look at Wolverine Origins as a different example of an A-list character getting their own movie.
And regardless of all of that, your obsessive characterization of every phase iv movie as a financial disaster isn't even accurate. Eternals and Shang-Chi clearly made a profit, just not as big of one as Marvel would have liked. Black Widow may not have made a profit (through cinema tickets, at least), though if so it was at least close so it didn't lose tons of money either. But the idea that it was the main character that was the central problem and not the simultaneous release or the fact that the character had literally already been killed off two movies earlier is utterly unprovable and pretty obviously biased.
On a broader level, the concept that giving the fans what they want is a) a guaranteed or even just kind of, sort of reliable recipe for success and b) the only possible recipe for success, is idiotic and already disproven over and over again by history. Firstly because there's no guarantee that a studio attempting to give the fans what they want actually understands what the fans want. Secondly because the audience isn't the same thing as the fans, especially in regards to niche fandoms like comics. Thirdly because the audience isn't a monolithic entity that all wants the same thing. Fourthly because the audience isn't a static thing that only ever wants the same thing over and over. And finally because the audience can and sometimes does respond to things that aren't what they originally thought they wanted.
Nolan's trilogy flat out rejected the comic bookiness of the source material and audiences ate it up. Avengers went the opposite direction and audiences ate it up. Fans wanted Star Trek Beyond. The movie going audience didn't. Battlestar Galactica literally flipped the bird to the original BG series and its fans, but it established itself as one of the most important and influential sci-fi series in the 21st century anyway. Margot Robbie fans loved Birds of Prey. Audiences didn't. Comics fans largely hated Snyder's movies, but audiences went to see them anyway (except JL). Godzilla King of the Monsters gave the audience everything they claimed they had wanted and didn't get from Godzilla 2014. Audiences hated it. Godzilla vs Kong gave the audience all the exact same things that were in King of the Monsters, but now with a giant monkey and a giant robot, and audiences suddenly loved it.
Audiences are fickle and multifaceted and nearly impossible to pin down.
You *cannot* predict success on the basis of *any* single rule of thumb or general universal principle of any kind, no matter how much it makes sense to you.
I agree to some extent if only because I believe most Marvel comic fans are included in "MCU fans" and as such making MCU fans happy includes making many comic fans happy. That said, comic fans are a relatively small fraction of MCU fans, and as such have only a fraction of importance when it comes to making them happy.
Having said that, I also don't understand your reasoning as to which characters should get used from your own logic. You say that characters like Spider-Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four, etc. should be used because it's what makes comic fans happy, but obviously not all comic fans want the same thing. As evidenced by the fact that you and I have opposite stances despite us both being comic fans. Thus doing the thing you want them to do is not "giving comic fans what they want", as I'm a comic fan and it's not what I want. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see the mutants in the MCU and see what they do with it, but if given the choice between getting Wolverine in the MCU and getting Darkhawk I'd absolutely pick Darkhawk, because I've already gotten Wolverine in a movie like 8 times over.
I disagree. I do not feel like anything they've done recently has specifically excluded comic fans.
If anything, it'd make more sense the other way around. Before I even knew of the comics I knew Spider-Man and X-Men because he had cartoons on television, toys and merchandise in stores, etc. And since the early 2000s they have been more in the public consciousness than ever because of their movies. On the other hand, a comic fan would benefit more than the general audience from seeing an underrated comic character like Star-Lord or Echo getting more exposure and gaining popularity through a movie, because this will also lead to those characters getting more comic appearances and their own video games and such.
I just don't have a good feeling about what Marvel has down the pipeline because they feel they are to big to fail but like Star Wars, that is not true.
I don't think they're too big to fail. They're not. But I do also think that they're big enough to take a risk. They can afford to risk having a movie underperform by MCU standards (which atm probably still has it performing higher than most non-MCU movies and still increases overall popularity of that IP among a general audience) because that same risk could also pay off by having a new franchise blow up in popularity which can pave the way for sales of sequels movies, toys, video games, cartoons, comics, etc. for decades to come (see GotG again).
And unlike something like the Star Wars sequel trilogy where the success of each part is crucial for the overall reception of the franchise because they all tell one continuous story and there was increasing amounts of annual disappointment, the MCU can have a situation where even if a fan is underwhelmed by a movie like Eternals they can then have their mind blown from incredible hype only a month later by Spider-Man without Eternals affecting that hype. Which is also why it makes sense to keep some big characters back. They know they're going to get to them. If the MCU's momentum starts to slow down too much they know they can inject renewed interest and hype from the general audience by announcing X-Men is coming to the MCU.
Sure, but fans alone are not enough. If only comic fans came to see these movies they'd all flop. That's why you need to give the general movie going audiences what they want (sometimes). But also, audiences can only express things they want that they already know. You have to also give audiences new things that they didn't know yet they wanted in order to innovate. Otherwise you'd really get into a situation where every movie can only be a sequel or reboot of something that has already been highly popular and successful. And that to me sounds very bleak.
You keep bringing up Blade. You don't really believe Blade having a more popular introduction into the MCU will be because of all the hardcore comic readers from the 70s and 80s, right? We both know that the reason Blade will do well is because New Line and David S. Goyer decided to take a D-list character unknown to general audiences and give him a very cool movie which made him instantly more recognizable and popular. You know, the entire thing I've been arguing Marvel Studios should keep doing with their D-list characters? Blade is like the prime example along with GotG as for why this is a good thing to be doing.
I agree to some extent if only because I believe most Marvel comic fans are included in "MCU fans" and as such making MCU fans happy includes making many comic fans happy. That said, comic fans are a relatively small fraction of MCU fans, and as such have only a fraction of importance when it comes to making them happy.
Having said that, I also don't understand your reasoning as to which characters should get used from your own logic. You say that characters like Spider-Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four, etc. should be used because it's what makes comic fans happy, but obviously not all comic fans want the same thing. As evidenced by the fact that you and I have opposite stances despite us both being comic fans. Thus doing the thing you want them to do is not "giving comic fans what they want", as I'm a comic fan and it's not what I want. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see the mutants in the MCU and see what they do with it, but if given the choice between getting Wolverine in the MCU and getting Darkhawk I'd absolutely pick Darkhawk, because I've already gotten Wolverine in a movie like 8 times over.
I disagree. I do not feel like anything they've done recently has specifically excluded comic fans.
If anything, it'd make more sense the other way around. Before I even knew of the comics I knew Spider-Man and X-Men because he had cartoons on television, toys and merchandise in stores, etc. And since the early 2000s they have been more in the public consciousness than ever because of their movies. On the other hand, a comic fan would benefit more than the general audience from seeing an underrated comic character like Star-Lord or Echo getting more exposure and gaining popularity through a movie, because this will also lead to those characters getting more comic appearances and their own video games and such.
I don't think they're too big to fail. They're not. But I do also think that they're big enough to take a risk. They can afford to risk having a movie underperform by MCU standards (which atm probably still has it performing higher than most non-MCU movies and still increases overall popularity of that IP among a general audience) because that same risk could also pay off by having a new franchise blow up in popularity which can pave the way for sales of sequels movies, toys, video games, cartoons, comics, etc. for decades to come (see GotG again).
And unlike something like the Star Wars sequel trilogy where the success of each part is crucial for the overall reception of the franchise because they all tell one continuous story and there was increasing amounts of annual disappointment, the MCU can have a situation where even if a fan is underwhelmed by a movie like Eternals they can then have their mind blown from incredible hype only a month later by Spider-Man without Eternals affecting that hype. Which is also why it makes sense to keep some big characters back. They know they're going to get to them. If the MCU's momentum starts to slow down too much they know they can inject renewed interest and hype from the general audience by announcing X-Men is coming to the MCU.
Sure, but fans alone are not enough. If only comic fans came to see these movies they'd all flop. That's why you need to give the general movie going audiences what they want (sometimes). But also, audiences can only express things they want that they already know. You have to also give audiences new things that they didn't know yet they wanted in order to innovate. Otherwise you'd really get into a situation where every movie can only be a sequel or reboot of something that has already been highly popular and successful. And that to me sounds very bleak.
You keep bringing up Blade. You don't really believe Blade having a more popular introduction into the MCU will be because of all the hardcore comic readers from the 70s and 80s, right? We both know that the reason Blade will do well is because New Line and David S. Goyer decided to take a D-list character unknown to general audiences and give him a very cool movie which made him instantly more recognizable and popular. You know, the entire thing I've been arguing Marvel Studios should keep doing with their D-list characters? Blade is like the prime example along with GotG as for why this is a good thing to be doing.
Ah man you guys write such long posts! I bring up Blade because I do think with the actor they have and the movies AND tv show that he had(I know it sucked but still)he is a lot more popular than people realize. And as far as Marvel not giving comic fans what they want, they have been able to tweek characters but not take away from them completely earlier on. These new changes, I don't know about. But time will tell. I'm just replying to the threads and some people are getting in their feelings but it is what it is. I can see the next batch of films underperforming and I stick to that. Hawkeye's Disney plus numbers are way down from Loki and Wandavision and I think Ms Marvel's will be the same. And with covid going on, a Marvel show shouldn't lose viewers, it should actually gain since people are home way more.
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The point is when you give the fans something they want, they will come out. Afterlife had HALF the budget of Ghostbusters 2016 and outgrossed. Spider NWH has already outgrossed every single Marvel phase 4 movie during it's opening weekend..........with a new variant of covid out. That speaks volumes of if people WANT to see something, they will! Eternals, Shang Chi, and even Black Widow(done to late IMO)are movies people were not clamoring for. But watch how Blade, even though is arguably C/D list does in his intro to the MCU or even X-men. Dr. Strange will do well as well. But let's just pretend like covid is really what is stopping people from going to theaters........
I bring up Blade because I do think with the actor they have and the movies AND tv show that he had(I know it sucked but still)he is a lot more popular than people realize. And as far as Marvel not giving comic fans what they want, they have been able to tweek characters but not take away from them completely earlier on. These new changes, I don't know about. But time will tell. I'm just replying to the threads and some people are getting in their feelings but it is what it is. I can see the next batch of films underperforming and I stick to that. Hawkeye's Disney plus numbers are way down from Loki and Wandavision and I think Ms Marvel's will be the same. And with covid going on, a Marvel show shouldn't lose viewers, it should actually gain since people are home way more.
