Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread

Venom made 850 million dollars world wide. That puts it above Guardians of the Galaxy vol 1, All 3 Thor movies, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Cap. America: Winter Soldier, both Ant-Man movies and Doctor Strange. Looking at the chart on Box Office Mojo, (You have to click on the individual movies to see world wide box office), Venom sits just a little above the middle, right behind Homecoming.

You can make an argument, it did better than more than half of the MCU. So. MCU good, actually.

 

Almost as much as Batman v. Superman.

 

Wow, I knew it did well, but I did that well.

 

Yep. It was the little engine that did.

 

For the record, while Venom was financially successful it was also very much in Suicide Squad critical failure territory. Not necessarily a kiss of death, but the sequels are hardly 'sure things', either.

And given Sony's abysmal track record in recent years (with Spider-man and other franchises), they'd frankly still be insane to give up their connection to the MCU based only on a single live action success (Into the Spider Verse is nice, but that kind of animation will never compete with successful live action, which is what Sony wants a piece of). Maybe if they get another couple successes, perhaps even some unequivocal ones, before its time to decide, then it would make sense. Otherwise, no.

Having said that, of course, there's - judging by recent history - some actual cause to believe at least a few of the executives at Sony might honestly be batshit crazy anyway, so who knows what they'll actually do.

 

Makes sense. I guess any potential future depends if Netflix is giving up their rights to the characters or just planning to hold onto the rights and not produce any shows. If Netflix is truly done with them, it might be a possibility that Disney decides to do something with the characters on their own streaming service. I doubt many fans would say no to a Heroes for Hire or Daughters of the Dragon series, even if there's no plans for further individual shows. And it's likely that the fact that these characters have an existing audience would probably be a boost for the Disney streaming service. I can live in hope, even if the likelihood isn't high.

 

I don't know why anyone should care about the "critical success or failure" of movies. Movie critics are not and should not be the last word on how good a movie is, considering that the quality of art and entertainment is solely based upon an individual's taste. I think it's just useless to look toward film critics or the Rotten Tomato site as the last word on a film's quality. Sure, it's okay to express how one feels about a movie. I do it all of the time. But to depend upon a film critic's review on how good and bad a movie is simply strikes me as irrelevant.

 

I think they can still be useful, if you see pretty much every critic complain about the exact same issues, then that's probably an issue for everyone.
Critical acclaim can also impact a movies box office, if it doesn't have to draw of something like Star Wars, Marvel, or Tranformers bad reviews can doom a movie.

 

No one said they were or should be. The point is simply that box office alone does not guarantee continued future success for Sony's spider-projects. If the box office was backed up by real hype and tangible excitement (perhaps partially measurable, though not exclusively measureable through critical reception), then the future for a Venom franchise would likely seem very bright - cause for confidence. The lack of these things muddies the water and makes the future of the franchise less predictable - cause for caution.

 

What the hell for? I've seen movies that nearly all critics have bashed and I ended up enjoying them. And I've seen movies that critics have praised to the sky and I ended up disliking them.

Film critics are irrelevant, as far as I'm concerned.

 

They can give you an idea of the kind of things people like or dislike about a movie. Even if you choose to ignore them it can still give you an idea of what to expect. For instance if you have specific things you don't like, and you see the critics complain about those things being in the movie, then you can take that as a warning before you decide if you want to see the movie.

 

I agree with both of you.

 

OK, I saw this while Christmas shopping and decided to pick it up. I knew going in that the book was aimed at much younger readers, so I can't complain on that score. And it did tell an original story with a minimum of recap, much to my surprise.

Post-Decimation, Darcy Lewis responds to a mysterious message from Erik Selvig, and Darcy is afraid that he's gone "banana-balls" again. She finds him at a motel in New Mexico in full pants-less research mode, which fuels Darcy's fears.

However, Selvig is less nuts and more obsessed with figuring out the cause of "The Decimation", and is sure that his previous experiences with powerful cosmic object is the key. Selvig is determined to find the missing Jane Foster due to her experience with the Aether. Darcy fears the Jane is among the dead, but Selvig won't hear of it.

So the two of them go on quest in Darcy's little car. Luckily, through the power of the Plot Contrivance Stone, all of the people that Selvig and Darcy are looking for, including the not-dusted Jane and oddly enough, Darcy's ex Ian, are found in the US Southwest and provide pieces of the puzzle.

In the end, Selvig, Darcy, Jane and the crew that they picked up on the way make their way to Tonsberg, Norway, site of Odin's battle with the Frost Giants, former hiding place of the Tesseract and home of the Water of Sight (I don't recall Age of Ultron connecting the site to Tonsberg, but it makes sense) where they find a way to manipulate the water and learn the history of the stones, Thanos, his quest and how it all turned out. (Darcy: "We just witnessed a lot of crazy stuff in that cosmic cloud thingy, but did you see a tree person and a raccoon with a gun at one point?" "Yes", replied the group in unison.)

In the end, Selvig rededicates his work to learning more about the stones and the secrets that they carry.

Like I said up top, it is a book for young readers so I didn't expect it to go into great about the Decimation and the chaos that would result but was disappointed that such was actually almost entirely avoided in the narrative. Earth is depicted as surprisingly business as usual in this book. As I mentioned, all of the people that Selvig sought out were still alive and all of the motels and dollar stores and such were operating as if nothing unusual had happened. One new character (who reminded me of Amadeus Cho, although it wasn't) lost both of his parents and there is a bit of macabre humor when the book's bad guy mentions having to drain his hot tub after his "assistants" dissolved, but otherwise Earth is depicted as unrealistically normal under the circumstances.

A fun quick read (I got through it in a single sitting), and as mentioned upthread, more Darcy is always a good thing and she serves as our POV character throughout.

 

Ant-Man writer Adam McKay wants to direct a Silver Surfer movie.
If we don't get movies with Galactus and/or Doctor Doom after Marvel gets control of the FF and X-Men I'm gonna be pissed.

 

Galactus needs to be a MCU wide threat like Thanos - I hope they do the same as with Thanos and spend 10 years setting him up. Hopefully Doctor Doom will make his debut in a Fantastic Four movie, but after that he needs to be a crossover villain appearing in multiple different movies. More importantly if we don't get a Fantastic Four movie in phase 4 I'm gonna be pissed. Is there any definitive timeline for when Disney actually gets control over these characters?

 

I believe that they gain control of the characters on the first of the year. However, I wouldn't expect them to go rushing things into production. Marvel already has several movies in production and they're not going to move any of those in the schedule to make way for the Fantastic Four.

 

Yeah, at this point I'm guessing we probably won't see any of the formerly Fox characters until 2021 or 2022 at the earliest.

 

I agree we're not going to see any of them in the immediate future, but I'd be surprised if Marvel didn't already have a tentative schedule for characters/movies from Fox. I imagine they're not allowed to formally contract anyone to even begin pitching stories but once the deal takes effect there will an effort to begin getting story ideas in place and then begin targeting writers/directors to start working on them. But from story idea to movie release means at least a couple of years wait before the first one could be released. I wouldn't think there's even much likelihood of starting filming on anything from Fox beginning for about 18 months. If they stick to the basic 3-4 years per phase it's entirely possible we won't see a formerly Fox movie until phase 5. But that doesn't preclude individual characters appearing in one of the existing movie franchises.

 

Eh. Galactus is a huge threat, but an incredibly simple villain. Spending 10 years setting him up would be a complete waste of time. A little bit of a setup is fine, too much will just inevitably leave people disappointed when they realize he's really just pure raw power on a ridiculous scale.