Spoilers Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread

[Tosk]

They were disasters. In terms of box office, which was the context of the remark.

Even then though, none of them were disasters on the level that The Marvels was. The Shining doubled its budget. Blade Runner made a tad more than the budget, BR2049 made about 100m-ish over its budget, and The Thing made about 5m more than its budget. All performances were a shame, but they don't come close to the absolute crater of The Marvels. 300+ budget, 200 box office worldwide.

 

[oktay]

Why? It's not important.

If you don't want these movies to have sequels, it's important how much their budget is and how much they make at the box office.


If I had just watched and moved on, I would have been upset if a movie I liked didn't do well at the box office. But why do I care? I watch movies when they come out on iTunes etc. I go to the cinema when I find a movie I'm really curious about.

 

[Anwar]

They were disasters. In terms of box office, which was the context of the remark.

Even then though, none of them were disasters on the level that The Marvels was. The Shining doubled its budget. Blade Runner made a tad more than the budget, BR2049 made about 100m-ish over its budget, and The Thing made about 5m more than its budget. All performances were a shame, but they don't come close to the absolute crater of The Marvels. 300+ budget, 200 box office worldwide.

They all also had bad critical reception and got Razzie Noms and were hated for years, took about a decade for any of them to be reevaluated. Meanwhile The Marvels was quickly reevaluated and did better on streaming in very fast order, meaning anyone who keeps bringing up the Marvels is just jumping on the hater bandwagon for the sake of it rather than having any legitimate points.

 

[Tosk]

They all also had bad critical reception and got Razzie Noms and were hated for years, took about a decade for any of them to be reevaluated. Meanwhile The Marvels was quickly reevaluated and did better on streaming in very fast order, meaning anyone who keeps bringing up the Marvels is just jumping on the hater bandwagon for the sake of it rather than having any legitimate points.

Again, the topic was the box office.

meaning anyone who keeps bringing up the Marvels is just jumping on the hater bandwagon for the sake of it rather than having any legitimate points

What are you talking about? Their comment was literally just that they hope that Cap 4 does better at the box office than what happened to The Marvels. They didn't jump on a hater bandwagon, and they weren't trying to make any point beyond "I hope Cap 4 does well".

 

[Set Harth]

They all also had bad critical reception and got Razzie Noms and were hated for years, took about a decade for any of them to be reevaluated.

"Hated for years" isn't remotely true outside of a few high society critics. Also, the BR movies didn't get Razzie noms, and it hasn't even been a decade since BR 2049!

 

[Anwar]

Again, the topic was the box office.

Yes I'm bringing up that despite the Box Office, The Marvels didn't get the critical backlash that those movies did which showed how those films, despite being seen as Classics now, were more hated than the Marvels was.

What are you talking about? Their comment was literally just that they hope that Cap 4 does better at the box office than what happened to The Marvels. They didn't jump on a hater bandwagon, and they weren't trying to make any point beyond "I hope Cap 4 does well".

The Marvels has been singled out for abuse for being "proof" that the MCU is "dying" or "needs course correction" or "this proves women leads suck", instead of just being seen as a minor speedbump.

"Hated for years" isn't remotely true outside of a few high society critics.

"The Thing" got named as "Is this the most hated film of all time?" in magazines back in the 80s.

 

[Set Harth]

Looks like urban legend at this point, but even if true, who are the alleged haters in question? Cinefantastique staff? The Pauline Kael set?

Surely you're not trying to pass that off as the opinion of the general public?

 

[Tosk]

The Marvels has been singled out for abuse for being "proof" that the MCU is "dying" or "needs course correction" or "this proves women leads suck", instead of just being seen as a minor speedbump.

Not by the comment you were replying to it wasn't.

The comment didn't "hate" on The Marvels. It didn't posit that the MCU was dying. It didn't say anything about course corrections or female leads. It literally just was about how The Marvels did very badly at the box office (which is a fact) and that they hope Cap 4 does better.

I'm pretty sure you know this and are intentionally trying to pretend otherwise, so I won't harp on about it again. See you on the flip-flop.

 

[Christopher]

It literally just was about how The Marvels did very badly at the box office (which is a fact)

Although a misleading one out of context, because its performance was hurt by the strike along with every other movie released that weekend. It was actually #1 that weekend, so whether it "did very badly" depends on what standard you choose to judge it by. Facts without context are not always truths.

 

[Tosk]

The context is that it cost 300 to make and made 200 at the box office.

 

[Christopher]

The context is that it cost 300 to make and made 200 at the box office.

That's one part of the context. Understanding is not achieved by dumbing things down to a single easily digestible sound bite, but by making the honest effort to acknowledge every relevant factor. Yes, the movie lost money, but it's unwise to ignore the context for that.

There are many cases of movies that were theatrical flops but then went on to become successful in syndication or on home video -- Citizen Kane, The Wizard of Oz, Vertigo, Blade Runner, The Thing, The Big Lebowski, Fight Club, etc. So just stating the "fact" that a film flopped at the box office is meaningless in isolation. I gather that The Marvels has done well on streaming, and it's currently got 81% audience approval on Rotten Tomatoes, so there's still hope for it.

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

You know you're sufficiently old when 200 million bucks still qualifies as a flop (in proportion to cost).

They were disasters. In terms of box office, which was the context of the remark.

Even then though, none of them were disasters on the level that The Marvels was. The Shining doubled its budget. Blade Runner made a tad more than the budget, BR2049 made about 100m-ish over its budget, and The Thing made about 5m more than its budget. All performances were a shame, but they don't come close to the absolute crater of The Marvels. 300+ budget, 200 box office worldwide.

Looks like urban legend at this point, but even if true, who are the alleged haters in question? Cinefantastique staff? The Pauline Kael set?

Surely you're not trying to pass that off as the opinion of the general public?

The public certainly loved E.T., TREK 2 and POLTERGEIST, while TRON was, ah, probably tolerated in comparison. THE THING and BLADE RUNNER had R-ratings against them which was not always a plus in the '80s. Most reviews of THE THING maintained the violence was over the top. BLADE RUNNER's violence is still exceptionally brutal to endure. It never was an enjoyable film compared with its 1982 ilk.

Pauline Kael never reviewed THE THING, but she too loved E.T. and while not a TREK fan, enjoyed KHAN.
CINEFANTASTIQUE gave 40 advances pages or so to THE THING, spoiling the plot all over the place, yet still trashed the overall film in a short review the following month.

At any rate, the general public voted with their '82 dollars, but time heals many injustices.

 

[Set Harth]

BLADE RUNNER's violence is still exceptionally brutal to endure.

Really? Not by today's standards.

 

[Jayson1]

I think The Marvels actually did get lots of bad views. It didn't help that Captain Marvel isn't that liked as a character and it was following the disaster that was Secret Invasion. It was also seen as a example of both MCU and comic book fatigue. Heck even Disney has acknowledged this. They literally have Deadpool say to Wolverine 'Your coming in at a low point." The New Captain America movie is clearly trying to recreate a high point in the past which is to make a movie as good as Winter Solider. They are also bringing back Downey Jr and Chris Evans. Everything they are doing shows they are trying to course correct and if 'The Marvels" was this big hit then maybe they don't do that.

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

Really? Not by today's standards.

Do you jest?

So much blood on Pris. Tyrell's horryifying screams. His eye sockets in the alternate edits. Zhora, shot to smithereens. Leon's head-shot and resulting sounds. The nail in Roy's hand. Decker's broken pair of fingers. None of this could ever go down well in any cinematic time, nor are they are meant to. I'm relieved Sebastian got to die off-screen. So much ugliness....

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Do you jest?

So much blood on Pris. Tyrell's horryifying screams. His eye sockets in the alternate edits. Zhora, shot to smithereens. Leon's head-shot and resulting sounds. The nail in Roy's hand. Decker's broken pair of fingers. None of this could ever go down well in any cinematic time, nor are they are meant to. I'm relieved Sebastian got to die off-screen. So much ugliness....

Honestly, I don't remember Blade Runner all that specifically, but when I watched it a few years ago I really didn't feel like it was anywhere near peak level violence for modern hollywood. And what you're describing here certainly doesn't sound comparable at all to something like Game of Thrones, despite you adding on alternate edits on top of the actual film people saw in theaters.

 

[Anwar]

I think The Marvels actually did get lots of bad views. It didn't help that Captain Marvel isn't that liked as a character and it was following the disaster that was Secret Invasion. It was also seen as a example of both MCU and comic book fatigue. Heck even Disney has acknowledged this. They literally have Deadpool say to Wolverine 'Your coming in at a low point." The New Captain America movie is clearly trying to recreate a high point in the past which is to make a movie as good as Winter Solider. They are also bringing back Downey Jr and Chris Evans. Everything they are doing shows they are trying to course correct and if 'The Marvels" was this big hit then maybe they don't do that.

Funny, they said the MCU was at a "Low Point" in 2013 after "Dark World" and in 2015 after "Age of Ultron" as well.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I watched The Thing and Blade Runner as a young teen never knowing their tarnished histories or poor box office. I thought of both as classics with my friends. My cousin loved The Thing in particular and I was fascinated with the atmosphere of Blade Runner at first blush. Maybe it wasn't so bad not having access to outside opinions and naysaying.

 

[Caretaker]

Funny, they said the MCU was at a "Low Point" in 2013 after "Dark World" and in 2015 after "Age of Ultron" as well.

This has all happened before and it will happen again.

 

[Jayson1]

Funny, they said the MCU was at a "Low Point" in 2013 after "Dark World" and in 2015 after "Age of Ultron" as well.

Dark World was a terrible movie so it was a kind of low point at the time. "Age of Ultron" had the issue of having to live up to the first Avengers movie, but I don't think people were talking about MCU fatigue. I know some point people started having projections where they would predict that someday their will be MCU fatigue but movie after movie kept things going. The shit really hit the fan though with Quantumania and Marvels was basically the moment when it could no longer be denied.

I give them credit. They seem to be taken a solid approach in fixing things. 2025 I think will be a pretty good rebound year. I know my faith has been renewed.