Is there a downside to having a unified MCU?

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Apparently these past years I have been supportive of a Unified MCU meaning Marvel Studios having all the film/tv rights to all its characters. But I for the the last year/past few months came to a realization that there is downsides to Marvel having all the film rights to it characters, and wishing that at least a couple more Marvel Characters should be having edginess to it. For example Deadpool and Logan would never been rated R or even made if Marvel Studios had the film rights. That is my feelings about it. I want to see your take.
 
Good thread topic, and I do think there are downsides to having everything under one roof. While I admire the relative consistency of Marvel Studios I still feel they’re not as diverse tonally as I would like with their films, and I would not mind seeing them branch out and do some elseworlds movies that don’t connect to anything which is why as much as I like that the F4 are back home at Marvel, I’m a little bummed that Noah Hawley’s Doom film will never happen as I think that could’ve been really special and kind of wish the Fox deal happened after that movie came out.

That being said, I’m relatively fine with everything back under one roof but there are undeniable drawbacks to it that I don’t see discussed very often.
 
Its going to be interesting to see how things that have been done by others in the past measure up against the MCU's version of things. Blade, X-Men, Deadpool the Daredevil tv series, F4. Can see there being plenty of discussion/argument/hate over who handled it "better" once the MCU's versions of all these are eventually out in the daylight, Im sure some will be for the better but others maybe not so much.
 
The downside is instead of featuring other supporting character and real villains of Captain America, Spider-Man, Dr. Strange.... you get Wanda as a Dr. Strange villain, Iron Man and Happy Hogan as Spider-Man supporting characters and Captain America 3 as essentially an Avengers 3. There's always a cross over or team up, which doesn't leave room for lesser known supporting characters. Nightmare was supposed to be a villain in Dr. Strange 2.

I would cringe if Thor takes screentime in a X-Men movie.
 
The downside is instead of featuring other supporting character and real villains of Captain America, Spider-Man, Dr. Strange.... you get Wanda as a Dr. Strange villain, Iron Man and Happy Hogan as Spider-Man supporting characters and Captain America 3 as essentially an Avengers 3. There's always a cross over or team up, which doesn't leave room for lesser known supporting characters. Nightmare was supposed to be a villain in Dr. Strange 2.

I would cringe if Thor takes screentime in a X-Men movie.
Another big eXample is how Agent 13 was only in the first half of Captain America 3, and Crossbones was killed off early. I liked Civil War but they should have called it as Avengers 3, rather market it as a Captain America movie.

I also felt like the Hulk was shoehorned in Thor 3, because he couldn't headline his own movie set in Skaar without Universal Pictures distributing it. The more I think about it, Thor 3 should have been called as The Incredible Hulk and the Mighty Thor (similar to The Falcon and the Winter Soldier).
 
as much as I like the MCU (or the idea of an unified universe where all these characters can interact)
there is a downside to how overly congested the MCU has become

you can't really watch any one movie without having seen 3 other movies an a show to fully understand the plot... which is fine for us fans who watch it all anyway... but for causal viewers who what to pick and choose which movies to watch or only like one certain character or another, the MCU just doesn't work that way it's an all or nothing package deal

it also doesn't allow different takes on characters, told form from other perspectives (some of the Fox or Universal Pictures movies may have been hit or miss, but at least they were confined to they own worlds and events or failures of those stories didn't effect the other movies, they were free to just do reboots/soft reboots/ retelling/ recast anytime something didn't really work without worrying about the bigger picture of a unified universe

an it effects the frequency of how offend we get solo films of each character (even if we still see some of them in cross over events)
 
I think there are definitely downsides to how things are done now, but I also think those downsides don't necessarily need to be there or are an inevitable consequence of Marvel owning all their characters and having an MCU.

They haven't done any mature content. But they definitely could. At the time they came out, the Netflix shows were basically considered MCU, and a casual audience didn't even know the difference between Marvel Studios and Marvel Television). And we know Deadpool 3 will be rated R. So I don't think having an MCU must prevent more mature content, there is definitely room to expand on that.

So far we have only seen content that ties into the main MCU, but I definitely think it's possible to have non-MCU movies in the future. I think they could make some kind of designation for standalone non-MCU movies. Something like DC did with Joker and The Batman, but for characters that are already gone from the MCU for a while. In a few years, do a movie with a fully reimagined version of Iron Man or Captain America or Black Widow or Quicksilver & Scarlet Witch or Black Panther. Make it intentionally different from the MCU version. Give it to a director with a unique vision for it that may not be a good fit for the MCU but works when it's standalone without expectation for sequels or crossovers. We could still get something like what Edgar Wright's Ant-Man or Noah Hawley's Doom were once supposed to be at some point.
 
you can't really watch any one movie without having seen 3 other movies an a show to fully understand the plot... which is fine for us fans who watch it all anyway... but for causal viewers who what to pick and choose which movies to watch or only like one certain character or another, the MCU just doesn't work that way it's an all or nothing package deal

That's not really true. You can watch quite a few phase iv projects without needing to have seen other things first.
 
I'll chime in and say that I love the inter-connected concept of the MCU, and it's done moderately well for Disney also :cwink:

And while I do agree that much of Marvel's output does feel a bit samey, it really doesn't have to be an inevitable byproduct of the share universe concept. Just look at the comics. Punisher, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Blade, Elektra, Spider-Man, Ghost Rider, Avengers, Daredevil, Nova, and so on all lived in the same universe but their books (generally) had different themes, textures, and tones...

I also don't believe that the Marvel 'house' style and the DC 'director' approach have to be mutually exclusive. Marvel has already proven that their characters live in a connected universe, and I think even the most general audience viewer understands that now. Disney just needs to keep picking interesting directors like Sam Raimi who have distinct voices, allow them to make movies true to their unique sensibilities, while staying true to the share universe concept.


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I'll chime in and say that I love the inter-connected concept of the MCU, and it's done moderately well for Disney also :cwink:

And while I do agree that much of Marvel's output does feel a bit samey, it really doesn't have to be an inevitable byproduct of the share universe concept. Just look at the comics. Punisher, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Blade, Elektra, Spider-Man, Ghost Rider, Avengers, Daredevil, Nova, and so on all lived in the same universe but their books (generally) had different themes, textures, and tones...

I also don't believe that the Marvel 'house' style and the DC 'director' approach have to be mutually exclusive. Marvel has already proven that their characters live in a connected universe, and I think even the most general audience viewer understands that now. Disney just needs to keep picking interesting directors like Sam Raimi who have distinct voices, allow them to make movies true to their unique sensibilities, while staying true to the share universe concept.


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Problem not solved.........
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Marvel's formula is becoming kind of repetitive. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that what happened in Dr. Strange will happen EXACTLY in the Thor film. The movie won't be about him but Jane Thor, she will save the day along with King Valkeria. Thor, like Loki and Dr. Strange, will be sidelined in his own movie. And I hate to sound like these extreme fans on some of these websites but sometimes these directors need to be allowed to have their voice and some say and at the same time be true to the comics.
 
Problem not solved.........
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Marvel's formula is becoming kind of repetitive. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that what happened in Dr. Strange will happen EXACTLY in the Thor film. The movie won't be about him but Jane Thor, she will save the day along with King Valkeria. Thor, like Loki and Dr. Strange, will be sidelined in his own movie. And I hate to sound like these extreme fans on some of these websites but sometimes these directors need to be allowed to have their voice and some say and at the same time be true to the comics.

MOM was about Strange. Anyone saying otherwise is bull****ting.
 
The biggest downside is that when the portals opened in Endgame the X-Men and Fantastic Four and the solo vigilantes weren't coming out of it.
 
The biggest downside is that when the portals opened in Endgame the X-Men and Fantastic Four and the solo vigilantes weren't coming out of it.
How is that a downside of the MCU being unified? It's not like they would've been in Endgame if there was no MCU and all the characters had their own standalone movies with Marvel Studios or other studios.
 
as much as I like the MCU (or the idea of an unified universe where all these characters can interact)
there is a downside to how overly congested the MCU has become

you can't really watch any one movie without having seen 3 other movies an a show to fully understand the plot... which is fine for us fans who watch it all anyway... but for causal viewers who what to pick and choose which movies to watch or only like one certain character or another, the MCU just doesn't work that way it's an all or nothing package deal

it also doesn't allow different takes on characters, told form from other perspectives (some of the Fox or Universal Pictures movies may have been hit or miss, but at least they were confined to they own worlds and events or failures of those stories didn't effect the other movies, they were free to just do reboots/soft reboots/ retelling/ recast anytime something didn't really work without worrying about the bigger picture of a unified universe

an it effects the frequency of how offend we get solo films of each character (even if we still see some of them in cross over events)
The casual viewers I know just don't care so much about missed references or elements of the plot that require watching other material. As in they will watch that other material later if sufficient interest and otherwise are happy with the more surface level understanding, and they enjoy the references they do get but don't worry about the ones they miss. It's kind of borne out by how popular the MCU still is while pumping out many more films a year on top of shows about 8 years after the talk of MCU fatigue started being seriously argued.
 
How is that a downside of the MCU being unified? It's not like they would've been in Endgame if there was no MCU and all the characters had their own standalone movies with Marvel Studios or other studios.
I mean the only downside of having a unified MCU now versus then.
 
It's been pretty cool for me to finally see all of these characters under one cinematic roof .

When I was growing, I was just hoping they would at least make a Spiderman film, an X Men film, a Blade film, or a Fantastic Four film, in general , and I didn't even imagine a scenario where all these characters could potentially interact on film.

The closet thing we got in the 80s was something like Ferrigno's Hulk meeting Daredevil and Thor in TV movies.
I've heard that there was a desire to have a Ferrigno's Hulk appear with Hammond's Spiderman in a movie, it doesn't sound like the project even got to the script phase.
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Back then I was reading Starlog, Hero magazine, etc, just hoping that one day people would take these properties seriously, and make films.

So while there may be some drawbacks to a Unified MCU, I still grateful for what we've had from the MCU up to this point and i'm grateful that all the characters can now interact with each other.
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For Fans- No downside
For casuals- bit of a downside
For the Directors/Writers/Producers- giant f**king headache
 
I don't think there's an immediate downside. The downside is that even though they have a good track record right now, eventually they'll have more misses and then they'll get more skittish about taking chances and the movies will become even more formulaic. Right now they're formulaic, but still fun.
 
The downside is instead of featuring other supporting character and real villains of Captain America, Spider-Man, Dr. Strange.... you get Wanda as a Dr. Strange villain, Iron Man and Happy Hogan as Spider-Man supporting characters and Captain America 3 as essentially an Avengers 3. There's always a cross over or team up, which doesn't leave room for lesser known supporting characters. Nightmare was supposed to be a villain in Dr. Strange 2.

I would cringe if Thor takes screentime in a X-Men movie.

That's really more of a downside of not having enough screentime. The comics have all those kinds of crossovers as well, they just also have hundreds of regular adventures in between. The MCU has less real estate to go around, so most of the heroes' more routine adventures occur off screen.

In a perfect world we would have an ongoing Disney Plus series for every major hero and movies for the big events. Whereas now the major characters get big event movies with a bigger budget and less screen time while more minor characters get Disney Plus shows with smaller budgets and more screen time.
 
Damn right there's a downside. I was never for all the properties being all under one roof.

I'm not talking about the continualy expanding continuity, I'm talking about the movies themselves and how undaring they are on average. The first MCU film I left feeling unsatisfied was AOU, and then Civil War, and then GOTG2, SMH, CM, and I wasn't totally satisfied, like a giddy little kid again, until Venom came out, and that's not MCU. Venom took me back to seeing Spider-Man 1, or 2, or seeing X-Men when I was about 10 years old. an MCU movie hadn't touched the same territory for me until Endgame, then Far from Home.
 
Damn right there's a downside. I was never for all the properties being all under one roof.

I'm not talking about the continualy expanding continuity, I'm talking about the movies themselves and how undaring they are on average. The first MCU film I left feeling unsatisfied was AOU, and then Civil War, and then GOTG2, SMH, CM, and I wasn't totally satisfied, like a giddy little kid again, until Venom came out, and that's not MCU. Venom took me back to seeing Spider-Man 1, or 2, or seeing X-Men when I was about 10 years old. an MCU movie hadn't touched the same territory for me until Endgame, then Far from Home.

So you found Venom more satisfying than Civil War?

Thanks for letting us know you exist!
 
I’m all for unity!! But I will say that the upside of split characters is that marvel did have to concentrate on characters they controlled at the time!! Sorry as a whole every other studio having marvel characters had something missing!! Could never put my finger on it!! Glad that marvel has almost all their characters back!! Need to give it some time and see where they go with these”newer properties”
 
Tbh I found Venom 1 and 2 more fun than any of the D+ shows and a lot of the movies. But Civil War was far more satisfying than Venom 1 or 2. The quality of the MCU varies even though the films generally maintain the same tone.
 
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I dont think more serious characters like Daredevil or Punisher fit well with the tone of the MCU when they are more serious things in Daredevil world like mafia gangs or kidnappings the Avengers fights instead against Aliens or Gods we will see how the Disney plus versions of Daredevil and Punisher goes and then we will see if these characters fits with the tone of the MCU
 

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