Spoilers Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread
- Thread starter bbjeg
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Whoah, I didn't realize the Madame Web movie filmed last year; it's scheduled for a release this February, but there's been pretty much zero publicity yet?
I forgot about Rogers: The Musical! Good point.
It may be time to seriously consider the idea that, despite the stellar box-office success of Captain Marvel, the general public has reached their appetite limit for superheroes, and Carol Danvers didn't make the cut for a character they want to see more of. Maybe Ms. Marvel found the extent of its natural audience on Disney+, or maybe it got lost in the deluge of streaming content, but either way, Khan/Vellani doesn't seem to be able to make The Marvels a hit, possibly due to the Danvers of it all. Maybe general audiences just haven't been properly introduced to Khan yet... perhaps she should be a prominent part of the next Spider-Man outing. I'd be up for that.
Question, though: do we/The Avengers really need another Hawkeye? Clint and Natasha were experienced SHIELD agents who seemingly became Avengers in large part because Fury wanted a few members he particularly trusted to balance out the wild cards of Tony, Thor, and Bruce. Kate may show promise as a potential field agent type with exceptional archery skills, but is that a compelling reason for her to stand alongside enhanced persons like Khan, Cassie Lang, etc.? I'm not yet convinced.
At least it will lose less money proportionately speaking than "The Marvels" will since Sony are cheapskates.
People like to reduce things to categories because they want pat and simple explanations for things, but I don't buy it. History shows that in many alleged cases of "franchise fatigue," when the conventional wisdom was that the audience is tired of some generic category and it won't be viable again for a generation, all it took was one fresh, well-done entry in that category to excite them again. People were saying in 2005 that audiences were tired of Star Trek and it would be 20 or 30 years before it would be safe for anyone to try reviving it. But look how much new Trek we've gotten in the 18 years since.
I just saw it pointed out elsewhere that a major factor in Hollywood's reduced box office returns is the loss of the Chinese and Russian markets in recent years. It was those massive overseas audiences that supported the massively expensive blockbusters studios have gotten into the habit of making. And now those audiences are largely gone due to factors that have nothing to do with individual movies' quality or subject matter. What studios probably need to do is stop making mega-expensive movies all the time, dial budgets and ambitions back to a more reasonable level that allows films to be profitable in the current, diminished market. They don't need to abandon any given genre, they just need to abandon excessive spending and overly bloated action/VFX sequences that are five times longer and bigger than the story needs them to be.
I suspect that's less about the character and more about the fact that Marvel hasn't used her enough. She was less of a character than a plot device in Endgame, and the only other thing she's had in the past 4 years was the Shang-Chi post-credits cameo. So they haven't really given the audience enough of a chance to connect with her as a franchise lead. It might've helped if The Marvels had come out in July of 2022 as originally planned.
Now, that's a cool idea. Kamala/Spidey team-ups have happened repeatedly in the comics and animation, so they'd be a good match.
Stories aren't about power stats, they're about characters. Kate is a fun character well-played by Hailee Steinfeld. Let's see more of her, in whatever context.
If we just pumped out more movies with these characters I'm sure they'd take off eventually...
With Sydney Sweeney, no less.^ Well, we'll see. I just learned Madame Web has a Spider-Woman in it, and he haven't had a single live-action female webslinger in our 20+ years of Spider-films so far. Maybe that'll prove to be a box office gold mine.
Sony's probably thinking right now "One trailer shot of Sydney Sweeney in black-and-white (red?) head-to-foot vinyl, and this movie's as good as already broke-even on its opening weekend."
The Sony/Disney MCU has cornered the market on up and coming IT girls. Sweeney, Newton, Steinfeld, Zendaya....
At the time of Captain Marvel's release (2/27/19) and earnings, I recall talking to some Larson haters who theorized that Captain Marvel's success had been the result of being released shortly before Avengers: Endgame (4/22/19), so the core of their theory was that the former was not an organic success because audiences were led to believe they needed to see something in Captain Marvel that would have some bearing on Endgame's plot. In other words, their argument was CM was not a film anyone wanted to see, benefiting from an artificial boost seemingly connected to a highly anticipated "final chapter" of that phase. Jumping to today, I can imagine some of the same people will return to that argument, using The Marvels' predicted poor earnings to conclude CM--without some bigger franchise film to hitch its wagon to--was never an A or B-list character deserving of a film series, etc.
Non-enhanced characters in a group of super-beings has been part of the group formula for decades; for some comic readers, it presented a sense of balance--that a regular person had skills so valuable / dangerous that he or she was an asset to a group of super-powered characters. I've known some comic readers who felt having the Robins, Hawkeyes and Green Arrows of the world on a team made it relatable. YMMV.
I do think the post-Infinity War excitement likely contributed significantly to CM1's box office - to what extent is of course unknowable, and it certainly wasn't the only reason, but it just as certainly wasn't not a factor.
I don't think I've heard of Sweeney before. *Browses Google Image Search* ... Well, Hypothetical Sony Executive, I've heard studio bosses proffer much crazier ideas than that.
She's on the HBO series "Euphoria" which encompasses how teenagers act nowadays
And she'll be starring with Glen Powell(Top Gun Maverick) in a romantic comedy
And she'll be starring with Glen Powell(Top Gun Maverick) in a romantic comedy
Pass. I work with teens daily.
One thing Carol could have benefited from was a loving relationship to the other Avengers.
Especially Steve.
After playing Marvel’s Midnight Suns for a while I got the impression they are really good friends and complement each other.
They connect over being team leaders and have quite a bit in common.
Especially Steve.
After playing Marvel’s Midnight Suns for a while I got the impression they are really good friends and complement each other.
They connect over being team leaders and have quite a bit in common.
Which one? Were talking about an animated version teaming up with Miles because of their relationship in the comics, or teaming Iman Vellani's version with Tom Hollander?
The original Avengers had Hawkeye and the whole idea behind most YA teams seems to be to find younger counterparts to the adult Avengers.
Not that it really matters since The Marvels establishes her as Kamala's first recruit for the team.
I have the reverse opinion of Loki (or I should say had), because I thought the first season was a great character study and I really got caught up in the dynamics of the characters, especially Loki essentially interacting with himself. Syvie was a great "what if" scenario for Loki and a fantastic foil. Season 2 on the other hand was all story with little in the way of character development or character arcs.
Now, I am looking at it as essentially Act 1 and Act 2 of a story where Act 1 was the set up and Act 2 was the action--and, in the coming months I plan to watch both seasons together because I feel the story will hold up when taken as a whole, rather than two seasons of a television show.
The Marvels is shaping up to be the lowest domestic opening ever for a Disney Marvel Cinematic Universe title, with a 3-day swing of $47M-$55M. That’s lower than Marvel/Universal’s The Incredible Hulk ($55.4M in 2008) and lower than Ant-Man ($57.2M, 2015).
https://deadline.com/2023/11/box-office-the-marvels-1235599363/
https://deadline.com/2023/11/box-office-the-marvels-1235599363/
Hulk and Ant-Man must have really done poorly then, as they opened in the much safer and more predictable pre-pandemic world!