Let's talk Box Office

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by Matata

Spiderman came from phase 3 MCU, back when it was run by competent film makers and disney was happy to let it run its course. Phase 4 MCU has the mouses dirty finger prints all over it.

I think the problem with Phase 4 & 5 is similar to the Problems with Phase 1 and 2 at times... it's tough to build up the new characters and a new universe while also working towards a single overarching story. Phase 1 and 2 had some films that people didn't really like at the time either (Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor 1 & 2, etc).

Phase 3 benefited from the ground work that phase 1 and 2 did because the ground work was set by that point, and you were past the awkward introducing characters phase.

I think we will see a similar thing with phase 4 and 5 really setting up what will probably be a pretty good Phase 6.

The other big change is Disney+ and all the "TV Shows" that they are trying to tie into the whole MCU now as well. Plus I think the story around the Multiverse is just less satisfying than the infinity ring story was too. Too complex and creates too many weird stories and loopholes overall.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by GGG

There is no evidence to support that Feige in phase 3 has any more or less independence than in phase 4. No Way Home was the biggest movie in phase 4.

No way home was co-produced by Sony, so Disney presumably would have had less involvement. It does say something that the film that Disney was least involved with was also the most successful one.

[Matata]

Originally Posted by GGG

There is no evidence to support that Feige in phase 3 has any more or less independence than in phase 4. No Way Home was the biggest movie in phase 4.

You don't see a marked difference in the design philosophies between phases 3&4 and that phase 4 has been very consistent with how disney is handling it's other properties? Perhaps Feige has shifted his philosophy to give himself a better opportunity to climb the ladder at disney?

[#-3]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

I think the problem with Phase 4 & 5 is similar to the Problems with Phase 1 and 2 at times... it's tough to build up the new characters and a new universe while also working towards a single overarching story. Phase 1 and 2 had some films that people didn't really like at the time either (Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor 1 & 2, etc).

Phase 3 benefited from the ground work that phase 1 and 2 did because the ground work was set by that point, and you were past the awkward introducing characters phase.

I think we will see a similar thing with phase 4 and 5 really setting up what will probably be a pretty good Phase 6.

The other big change is Disney+ and all the "TV Shows" that they are trying to tie into the whole MCU now as well. Plus I think the story around the Multiverse is just less satisfying than the infinity ring story was too. Too complex and creates too many weird stories and loopholes overall.

I think there is certainly a chance they over reached a bit. They were introducing too many characters, putting out too much content, letting quality lag a little bit (especially with VFX). I think the thinner more spread out release schedule is a good thing.

I'm hoping they pull back from every side character getting their own spinoff. If we went 10 years with a Widow movie, and 7 years without Falcon headlining, I don't know why they need to announce an Echo standalone 10 minutes after they burnt her entire origin (and I'm picking on that one a bit, but you can generalize that statement for a lot of them).

I also think there is a sense where you can let some of the characters / brands die for a bit, so you are not diminishing the uniqueness of the originals. Iron-mans dead, don't worry we have Iron-heart. Natashas dead don't worry we have Yelena and 50 other widows. Hawkeye is old don't worry Kate is here, even Moon Knight couldn't get out of his own first season without throwing the Scarab in there to replace him. Even for ph4 not the best the MCU has to offer, but I think Falcon and Winter Soldier took the right approach teasing Joaquin Torres, but not putting him in the suite, there are enough characters and there and there is enough story left to let these things ruminate for a bit.

All of that said, if they can get a handle on all of these stories and start pulling them into focus for Secret Wars, there is no reason to think they have deviated that far from the Infinity Saga, they just need to show us how they laid the ground work as they go.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by #-3

I think there is certainly a chance they over reached a bit. They were introducing too many characters, putting out too much content, letting quality lag a little bit (especially with VFX). I think the thinner more spread out release schedule is a good thing.

I'm hoping they pull back from every side character getting their own spinoff. If we went 10 years with a Widow movie, and 7 years without Falcon headlining, I don't know why they need to announce an Echo standalone 10 minutes after they burnt her entire origin (and I'm picking on that one a bit, but you can generalize that statement for a lot of them).

I also think there is a sense where you can let some of the characters / brands die for a bit, so you are not diminishing the uniqueness of the originals. Iron-mans dead, don't worry we have Iron-heart. Natashas dead don't worry we have Yelena and 50 other widows. Hawkeye is old don't worry Kate is here, even Moon Knight couldn't get out of his own first season without throwing the Scarab in there to replace him. Even for ph4 not the best the MCU has to offer, but I think Falcon and Winter Soldier took the right approach teasing Joaquin Torres, but not putting him in the suite, there are enough characters and there and there is enough story left to let these things ruminate for a bit.

All of that said, if they can get a handle on all of these stories and start pulling them into focus for Secret Wars, there is no reason to think they have deviated that far from the Infinity Saga, they just need to show us how they laid the ground work as they go.

The characters and stories we got just weren't that interest and/or original. The MCU seems particularly afraid to step outside their formula when an origin story is involved.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Matata

You don't see a marked difference in the design philosophies between phases 3&4 and that phase 4 has been very consistent with how disney is handling it's other properties? Perhaps Feige has shifted his philosophy to give himself a better opportunity to climb the ladder at disney?

I see the difference. I don’t see why you attribute the success of phase 3 to not Disney and the failure of phase 4 to Disney. You’ve just arbitrarily decided that the corporate overlords and not the guy in charge is at fault.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by GGG

I see the difference. I don’t see why you attribute the success of phase 3 to not Disney and the failure of phase 4 to Disney. You’ve just arbitrarily decided that the corporate overlords and not the guy in charge is at fault.

I think partly the success of Phase 3 is to blame for the failure of phase 4, and both Disney corporately and Feige deserve the credit/blame.

They pumped up Infinity War as the big final battle movie that was the culmination of the entire universe. Then they rug-pulled the ending, setting up an even bigger, more final Endgame.

But the storyline required for that kind of wrote them into a corner where they had to do timetravel/multiverse, which is fundamentally less compelling, imo.

Also, I think some of the movies from the start of Phase 4(eg Eternals, Black Widow) were stuff they knew would be less compelling and they put it out then because they knew there'd be a hangover. Black widow should have had a standalone movie in Phase 2/3, because having an origin story for a character once we've seen her whole arc is too late.

Some of it is just bad luck - Black Panther was likely one of the biggest names coming into this phase, and so having him die unexpectedly cost them some momentum as well

[Cecil Terwilliger]

‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ Surpasses First Film’s Entire Box Office Total After Just 12 Days

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/s...ce-1235639964/

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/s...ce-1235639964/

I did not realize that Phil Lord was one of the principle minds behind this.

[Itse]

To me, the biggest problem for Marvel is that there seems to be like some kind of a Mandela effect where people remember phases 1&2 completely differently to what it was actually like.

No one considered every new Marvel movie a must see. I say this with some confidence as I move in extremely nerdy circles, and I really can't think of anyone who ever said they felt like they want to see every one of those, and it the movies themselves weren't at all made in a way where you really needed to have seen anything else than the direct prequel to that specific movie and not necessarily even that. Sure we went to watch them, we talked about them, but when one of them was bad it was just "meh", and move on. It wasn't considered "an indication" of anything. That one was just a bad movie, whatever.

(I would also easily argue that phase 4 quite easily matches phases 1 and 2 in general quality. Most of those movies just aren't that great. I know because I own them all on Blu-Ray and watch them regularly, because I'm a Marvel fan and it's kind of my comfort food, but I also still recognize when a movie doesn't really work.)

People just feel about Phase 4 differently because now a ton of people seem to be constantly going to see movies they don't really want to see. Basically every MCU "Fan forum" is now filled with people who complain how none of the new movies sound interesting to them, then they go see them and hate them and declare that the fault is in the movies.

Previously people decided which one of those they wanted to watch based on what looked like fun, and I think they also had more reasonable expectations.

Five years ago it was absurd to think that you had to watch every damn MCU movie to keep up with the continuity, because there was so little continuity that it was mostly completely unnecessary, and what you had missed you could easily pick up from context clues if you're above the age of 5 and had seen a movie before.

Back then it was fine. Inifity War and Endgame however somehow changed the narrative to one where the MCU is somehow considered like a TV show, which it just absolutely is not, and if you're trying to watch it like a TV show you're going to have a bad time. Yes the movies happen in the same universe, but really what happens in one movie for the most part has near zero actual story level relevance to what happens in another movie. This is still and has always been the norm for most of MCU.

This of course is partly Disney's own fault, they've quite understandably leaned upon the idea that the new Phase 4 stuff is somehow a continuation of "the story you really loved" and that you need to go back to watch every MCU film for the full experience, but really you don't, and really only Falcon and the Winter Soldier had straight up narrative continuity from Phase 3. (WandaVision to some extent, but mostly it was just Wanda's backstory and you can watch that show just fine as a standalone thing, same as Hawkeye.)

So yeah, especially the more hardcore fans are disappointed because they want something they're not getting: an overarching story.

In the meantime, phase 4 is not doing that bad in the box office. Marvel movies are still a pretty guaranteed decent entertainment, rarely more than that, but also rarely less than that. Casual fans, aka most of the movie going audience, still go see them despite the absolutely non-stop whining of much of the Marvel "fandom".

The reason I personally actually quite like Phase 4 is that they've improved on stuff I enjoy about these types of movies. Villains have gotten significantly better (except for Kang), soundtracks are better, fight scenes have I think improved, and the styles of the movies are a lot more different now. Shang-Chi leaned heavily into Hong Kong style pathos, Eternals is... actually a pretty weird movie when you think about it, Thor 4 was a very late-eighties early-nineties comedy/adventure etc. They're just all pretty different movies from each other tonally now, which I like, because I go see these things as individual movies and I'm happy that I don't always know where each one is going.

And yes the CGI is kind of shoddy at times, but to me that's less important than just the sheer visual imagination on screen that really wasn't there in the early MCU stuff. Although I guess that might be one reason why some people are put off by them. The MCU has gotten a lot weirder during Phase 4.

[blankall]

^^^^

I would say that Winter Soldier/GotG is where things started to pick up, in terms of consistency and quality, for the MCU. That was in the middle phase 2. Age of Ultron was a bit of a stumble, but things were relatively stable between the Winter Soldier up to Ant-Man and the Wasp. After that, it's pretty much just been the Spiderman movies that aren't forgettable.

[Matata]

The funny thing about the failure of phase 4 is that it mirrors the failure of Marvel comics a few years ago. Marvel was desperate for a more diverse collection of heroes and they saw their comics division as a place to develop and test those characters. They pretty much all followed the format of "remember this hero you love? well here's a female replacement, except she's smarterer and betterer in every way. Also, these characters care a lot about modern social issues now, isn't that fun?" Sales collapsed and marvel comics was in danger of going under while the MCU was on top of the world. Now they're using a nearly identical approach to the MCU and getting similar results.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Matata

The funny thing about the failure of phase 4 is that it mirrors the failure of Marvel comics a few years ago. Marvel was desperate for a more diverse collection of heroes and they saw their comics division as a place to develop and test those characters. They pretty much all followed the format of "remember this hero you love? well here's a female replacement, except she's smarterer and betterer in every way. Also, these characters care a lot about modern social issues now, isn't that fun?" Sales collapsed and marvel comics was in danger of going under while the MCU was on top of the world. Now they're using a nearly identical approach to the MCU and getting similar results.

Was watching some YouTube videos on this, and the initial MCU plan was to lean into the Eternals and the Celestials for the next phase, but they pivoted away from that once they got the X-men license and instead dove deeper into the multiverse stuff to usher in the X-men. Just as well, as the Eternals was wildly uninteresting.

As for your main point, to add, it wasn't just the strengths of the characters that made them interesting but also their flaws. Tony Stark is a great example of a very flawed person, and casting RDJ, with his past, was great casting for that. I don't know why we need a younger version of Iron Man who not only has no character flaws, but is capable of upgrading Stark's work...in her bedroom, during her spare time....even though she's still in high school....and doesn't have access to Stark Industries and all of its factories, resources, employees, tech, etc...

I don't know why they can't just write it better. I'm all for the diversity aspect, but just write better.

And why does every new hero have to be a child? When the characters were all initially introduced in the 30s-60s, many were already middle aged and most were adults. Personally, after I turned about 10 I stopped needing characters my age to live vicariously through and quickly realized how silly those action/hero kids were.

At the end of the day, I blame the Marvel Fanboys. They supported the MCU, and attempted to suppress all criticism, when Marvel started to turn in their current path...now here we are.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by blankall

Was watching some YouTube videos on this, and the initial MCU plan was to lean into the Eternals and the Celestials for the next phase, but they pivoted away from that once they got the X-men license and instead dove deeper into the multiverse stuff to usher in the X-men. Just as well, as the Eternals was wildly uninteresting.

As for your main point, to add, it wasn't just the strengths of the characters that made them interesting but also their flaws. Tony Stark is a great example of a very flawed person, and casting RDJ, with his past, was great casting for that. I don't know why we need a younger version of Iron Man who not only has no character flaws, but is capable of upgrading Stark's work...in her bedroom, during her spare time....even though she's still in high school....and doesn't have access to Stark Industries and all of its factories, resources, employees, tech, etc...

I don't know why they can't just write it better. I'm all for the diversity aspect, but just write better.

And why does every new hero have to be a child? When the characters were all initially introduced in the 30s-60s, many were already middle aged and most were adults. Personally, after I turned about 10 I stopped needing characters my age to live vicariously through and quickly realized how silly those action/hero kids were.

At the end of the day, I blame the Marvel Fanboys. They supported the MCU, and attempted to suppress all criticism, when Marvel started to turn in their current path...now here we are.

Thats a great way to put it. It is otherwise an okay film, but you just dont care about any of it. Nobody is terrible and nobody is excellent.

I watched it. I could not tell you what it was about. It was essentially 'white noise.'

It was a thing. And it happened. And thats about all I can say about that.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Matata

The funny thing about the failure of phase 4...

Despite a false narrative by people like you Phase 4 is not a failure. Shang-Chi, Eternals and Black Widow all made decent money considering they were covid releases. All of them did better than Tenet for example.

Thor 4 made good money for a Thor movie, 750M. Black Panther did good considering they lost the main actor and the main character isn't in the movie, 850M. Dr Strange 2 did better than the first one, 950M. No Way Home was absolute smash hit, 7th biggest box office of any movie in history and the biggest non-Avenger superhero movie, 1,9bn. If you only count the non-covid releases, phase 4 is pretty on par with phase 3 in box office success snd has been much more successful than phases 1 or 2.

Disney+ is losing money though, the TV stuff clearly isn't as successful as they hoped.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

In the least surprising news of the year, those people that said the flash is the best cbm ever were full of ####. Shocking I know.

Not only is it getting mediocre reviews but it’s gonna flop at the box office. Will be lucky to outperform black Adam.

Sounds like Indy is next. With equally mediocre reviews but a slightly less underwhelming box office predicted.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

In the least surprising news of the year, those people that said the flash is the best cbm ever were full of ####. Shocking I know.

Not only is it getting mediocre reviews but it’s gonna flop at the box office. Will be lucky to outperform black Adam.

Sounds like Indy is next. With equally mediocre reviews but a slightly less underwhelming box office predicted.

Haven't seen it myself, but some very trusted reviews are giving it praise. A couple of these guys have really hated DC and E. Miller in the past and they aren't big enough to be bought off by the studios, so I'd be shocked if the movie wasn't at least okay.

I've heard the cgi is awful though.

[Matata]

Originally Posted by Itse

Despite a false narrative by people like you Phase 4 is not a failure. Shang-Chi, Eternals and Black Widow all made decent money considering they were covid releases. All of them did better than Tenet for example.

Thor 4 made good money for a Thor movie, 750M. Black Panther did good considering they lost the main actor and the main character isn't in the movie, 850M. Dr Strange 2 did better than the first one, 950M. No Way Home was absolute smash hit, 7th biggest box office of any movie in history and the biggest non-Avenger superhero movie, 1,9bn. If you only count the non-covid releases, phase 4 is pretty on par with phase 3 in box office success snd has been much more successful than phases 1 or 2.

Disney+ is losing money though, the TV stuff clearly isn't as successful as they hoped.

Those movies also succeeded in burning off much of the goodwill of the fans, they are all regarded as sub-par MCU films. They couldn't beg fans to show up for Quantunmania which was supposed to be the next big thing. GOTG3 started like Quantunmania, but picked up once audiences started hearing that it was actually good. Their audience has shifted from loyal to cynical.


Phase 4 was a lot like the new Star Wars trilogy, sure they made money, but now the brands are so badly damaged that profitable films are no longer a sure-thing and they have to rebuild that loyalty. Not a good place to be in when the product is a minimum $500M investment.

[OutOfTheCube]

Yeah, $9.7M in Thursday previews for The Flash isn't inspiring -- probably looking at $70-80M for the weekend. I don't see it having any sort of legs.

Disney / Pixar Elemental is looking like an omega-bomb too, $200M budget and projecting under $40M for the weekend. Pixar used to be bullet proof, this will be two bombs in a row for them (not to mention Disney's own Strange World, which was a huge miss in between these last Pixar films). Clearly there's a big audience out there for animated movies (Mario, Spider-Man), people are just not interested in what Disney is selling right now.

[Nadal Fan]

I have a feeling Flash will have good legs, it's a real crowd pleaser, audiences will love it