ChrisBaleBatman
Legendary Hero
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2005
- Messages
- 19,677
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 56
And that's literally why Marvel need to do Ghost Rider and Moon Knight series. Marvel proved that they can do Ghost Rider on a TV budget, although if he headlines his own series, he needs a shorter season to spend more money on each episode.
Right now Marvel are in a situation where they're running out of white male leads and need to take more risks with leads of different backgrounds.
When it comes to the film side, Black Widow and War Machine are the only characters who I feel have enough source material to sustain multiple films. Venom over at Sony is a white guy but he's not one whom Marvel own the distribution rights to. There's also talk of Silver Sable who's a Jewish woman but again, over at Sony. Even among supporting characters, the next most obvious choices for additions to the Guardians of the Galaxy are Martyr and Moondragon who are both lesbians and Moondragon is butch enough to shave her head with a straight razor.
Then when it comes to characters more suited to TV, we see a similar pattern where Marvel have simply run out of white men.
Moon Knight - Jewish
Ghost Rider - 2 out of 4 are Hispanic, one of which is also female
She-Hulk - female
Blade - Black and an immigrant
Shang-Chi - Asian
Elektra - Asian and female
And with the New Warriors series, it'll likely focus on teen heroes who aren't part of the Runaways since Squirrel Girl is said to be involved so in addition to characters like Night Thrasher and Sillhouette, it's highly likely that America Chavez and Kamala Khan will show up in the cast. Darkhawk and Speedball will presumably be part of the cast so it's not like people can say that Marvel Studios have given up on white guys. Even with New Warriors, I'd rather Justice and Nova move on to Guardians, not because I want New Warriors to be more diverse but because I feel like Nova and Justice fit the Guardians better and because Nova's powers need a film budget.
The sole exception that I can see is Power Pack which would feature an all-white main cast and that's one that I still feel is better off on TV since I'm not sure how well a PG superhero film would fare and on film, the cast would age to fast + Julie won't wind up in a relationship with Karolina Dean if it were a film. Even then, it would be aimed at so much of a younger audience that it would be mostly stand alone. It's the only option for Marvel on TV that doesn't make the MCU more diverse and even then it wouldn't relate to anything until whoever plays Julie ages up enough that the show gets canceled and she gets added to the cast of Runaways. And half the cast is female anyway.
So it looks like when it comes to future properties, Marvel are literally running out of white guys. Like there's Venom, half the Power Pack and a small fraction of the New Warriors cast. Phase 4 is going to look a whole lot different from what came before simply due to necessity.
Yeah, it's getting to a point where Marvel has gone deep. They've made it to a point where they're in a position to make movies and shows obscure characters and widen the range. Like you said, they're just running out of white male lead characters at this point. And if they keep being successful, it might get to a point where the second generation characters that replaced the known characters, ie: a Captain America that isn't Rogers, or an Iron Man that isn't Stark, could actually happen.
It's a little shocking that a Black Widow movie hasn't happened yet. Especially with ScarJo, who's proven to be an action movie lead who can bank money.
I would give anything for a Moon Knight series. And there's been a rumor that Blade's rights are back in the hands of Marvel. A series, a movie, anything with Blade is something I'm down for. Hell, I watched the Spike TV series because of down I am for anything Blade. A Ghost Rider series...oh man. Oh man, that would be something.
Outside of Daredevil's Catholicism, religion isn't addressed a lot in mainstream superhero comics, or the live action properties based on them.
Speaking as a Catholic, I've found it refreshing. I mean, so many characters are never clear about political or religion ideologies. Having one who makes the sign of the cross right before suiting up felt new. It's Daredevil, I know. But, there's always stuff that I'm sure could get changed to try and not piss people off. It's why I love that Tony Stark is clearly, like his comic counterpart, a Republican. I mean, he doesn't say it...but we all know.
Whereas, for example, Oliver Queen on Arrow doesn't clearly have any political leanings. I think we're now at a point with how much Superhero/comic book adaptations we're getting that even something like showing one's religion, or politics, or being a non-white male could be enough to change things up and keep things interesting.
I forgot who mentioned in here, maybe it was dasher, but the idea of Marc being confronted by his father over him turning his back on Judaism to worship Khonshu could be storytelling gold on a Netflix series. Yeah, it's true that him being a white man who wears white will draw criticism. I'm sure there will be tons of morons who will make Klan comments on social media because they don't know who he is. But, making it clear what Moon Knight's background is, and wearing that fact like a badge, would counter all that. Him worshiping Khonshu is important, so religion would have to about as major a theme as it is with Daredevil.