Can we stick this one in the Dr. Strange sub-forum? Also...
I fear that Strange will fail and be the least successful MCU film
Disagree! So there.
The more I think about it the more I'm having a hard time coming up with positives. Most if not all Marvel films were fairly lighthearted in tone, maybe except Cap. Most were FUN films that were fairly grounded except Thor but even Thor was adventurous, fun. GOTG opened up to the cosmic side but in tone it wasn't really far-fetched from the rest. In the end it was a FUN, lighthearted film. All of the MCU films may have slightly varied in genre but they all had the key base ingredient of FUN.
To look at an upcoming Marvel film as a weighted average of every other Marvel film up to that point is simplistic and quite limiting. The folks at Marvel Studios are adept filmmakers, and I highly doubt their thought process is akin to "Ok, let's take a little Thor, some GOTG, sprinkle in a little Iron Man. And voila!"
Now Strange doesn't really fit into that blend well. He's arrogant, or was, and turns out incredibly stoic, humble. In tone it is fairly darker, a lot darker and isn't really fun in tone like the rest of the films. So how will it attract those type of viewers ? A 7 year old will watch and love GOTG but he most likely won't with Dr Strange.
And for every 7 year old that was attracted to the vibrant colors of GOTG, might there not have been the odd serious minded older person who went "Meh. A talking raccoon? I'll pass." I'm not saying that the numbers exactly offset. But there's a reason why all entertainment isn't children's programming. (Look, I'm not saying GOTG was
only a children's movie. I absolutely adore it!)
My point is that variety is a good thing. Tonal differences across franchises, when handled intelligently, is a good thing. We are privy to an MCU where Stark can quip about everything and anything under the sun while being put in extremely dire situations involving terrorists. An MCU were Daredevil can go on with his "PG-16" badassery while Cap's goofily, endearingly pantomiming to "Star-Spangled Man With A Plan".
While the MCU movies have maintained a certain level of light-hearted humor, they've shown that they are more than willing to adjust that level based on the material in hand and characters involved.
I just don't see how they can make Strange accessible to a large audience without shying away from his roots. People will bring up Harry Potter but even though it was a magical/fantastical film it wasn't really dark. It was aimed towards the youngsters mostly.
Harry Potter was "young people" fare for the most part, but the best entry in that franchise was pretty dark. I, for the most part, avoid the horror genre... but I remember watching The Conjuring recently. I liked it well enough, but guess who was going wild for that film? Young people. They ****ing loved the **** out of that thing. Films chasing demographics... even four quadrant films... are never an "all in/all out" proposition. Your "bright/funny = 7 year olds and dark/magic = no 7 year olds" logic might be correct on its face, but for every seven year old that watched GOTG but will not watch Dr. Strange, there may be a seventeen year old that will watch Dr. Strange but didn't watch GOTG. Like I said, that obviously won't be an exact 1:1 correlation, but the example illustrates your fallacy, which basically equates bright/funny to box office gold and dooms everything else to failure.
Genre. Magic. Its one genre Marvel really has the most trouble with as evident with Thor. Neither 1 and 2 were what they could have been. Cap, Iron Man and GOTG hit that high level with at least 1 film but Thor, albeit still enjoyable, didn't achieve that. Now they'll go full blown magical. How will they able to handle that ?
This is confusing. They'll handle it like anything else. They'll take some inspiration from what has worked in cinema historically, some inspiration from the comics, and throw in some original ideas for good measure. What this has to do with Thor (or more accurately) what this so
overwhelmingly has to do with Thor escapes me.
Feige said visually it will be something we've never seen before.
These type of comments usually worry me because I've rarely seen those big talks come true. It's usually the opposite. I can't remember anything in the history of cinema that achieved that type of visuals. It's probably their toughest task.
Feige said they'll take inspiration from Cosmos (the Neil deGrasse Tyson version, I believe) with multiple dimensions, grand cosmic forces and the works. I'm fully on board. I'm really looking forward to what Feige and his Marvel chefs have cooked up for us. More often than not...
much more often than not... they've delivered on their promises. I'll continue to trust them and their vision for the time being, thank you.
What is the alternative? For him to say that Dr. Strange will be visually bland? "We're going for the tone and visual palette of The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford." Of course he's going to talk about the wonderful, out-there visuals, which have long been a staple of the Dr. Strange comics. Remember that this is Feige's pet project. This is something he's had in mind for quite sometime now. I'm pretty sure they'll put out something that will floor us.
People often say that about Ant-Man but with all its trouble in its roots is what Marvel does and does so well in their sleep.
I think Dr Strange is by far Marvels toughest task.
In the end, either could "fail"... relatively speaking, of course. Depends on the execution. However, I think Dr. Strange has a much higher ceiling than Ant-Man.
Please tell me i'm wrong and why.
Done!
