It's a sad state of affairs when people aren't willing to reject clearly bad decisions that are purely business-driven and have no other justification.
Spoilers Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread
- Thread starter bbjeg
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It also seems worth mentioning that the most watched/most beloved Disney+ show is Loki, which completely eschewed the big dumb combat scene in the finale of both seasons.
I think the MCU has really suffered because they've not been willing to go "out there" as much in tone and style as possible. It's made gestures at some series being more family friendly (like Ms. Marvel) darker (Moon Knight, and more recently Daredevil: Born Again), or comedy (She-Hulk). That said, I think it could've done a lot more. The MCU is starting to feel like it has a "house style" when it comes to cinematography, scripting, etc. Something that breaks the mold a bit more would be great.
Hollywood has literally always worked this way, other than maybe a brief period in the 1970s where the old studio system broke down and before the rise of the modern blockbuster.
Bad decisions might not affect the immediate box office, but they affect later ones.
If I go and see 3 films in a row and they're all bad movies, I might decide to skip the 4th.
At it turns out the 4th is great, but the box office result shows the 3 bad films as being rewarded and the 4th as not.
If I go and see 3 films in a row and they're all bad movies, I might decide to skip the 4th.
At it turns out the 4th is great, but the box office result shows the 3 bad films as being rewarded and the 4th as not.
Um. It's a business. They're in it to make surprise. Money. Theaters are suffering and streaming is the boogie man.
Whatever they can do to make money they'll do regardless of principals or "We shouldn't have to pander to nostalgia"
I think this is the problem that the MCU dealt with.
The beginning of Phase 4 had mediocre box offices, but this was 2021, with fans not coming back into seats until NWH. Concern started building a bit with Multiverse of Madness, because despite excellent direction, the script was rough (and not really integrated well with Wandavision). Then Love and Thunder was Taika Watiti doing whatever the heck he wanted. Wakanda Forever did well enough, but then we come to Quantumania, which I think broke a ton of the fandom.
After GOTG 3, The Marvels bombed. And even when there were genuinely good movies in 2025, like Thunderbolts (and First Steps), a lot of the 2022/2023 audience just wasn't coming back.
Trust was broken for a good deal of fans. The "Mid-CU" meme started. Winning them back is gonna be hard.
Normalcy does not equal 'good'.
The MCU is sliding back into being a shitpile because nobody seems willing to stand up and say that pandering and making decisions out of desperation is bad from both a business and creative perspective.
The MCU is sliding back into being a shitpile because nobody seems willing to stand up and say that pandering and making decisions out of desperation is bad from both a business and creative perspective.
Actually, some reports are saying DP & W cost a lot more than people realized so it wasn't as profitable as people think it is.
NWH did have the appeal of getting the older Spider-Man fans who never had any interest in the MCU and never saw the other MCU movies to come so there's that.
BNW didn't have heavy reshoots either, that was just sensationalism.
Even if one did want to classify the Brave New World reshoots as 'heavy', it's nonsensical thinking to act like that's a negative thing.
That was my biggest complaint about Shangi-Chi, which I otherwise thought was an amazing movie.
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I'm in the middle of Quantumania, so far it's enjoyable.
L&T and The Marvels were solid A- movies for me, I honestly don't get the hate. Not every movie can be an Iron Man or Endgame in terms of success. And Black Widow was fantastic.
Just wish we were getting a second season of Moon Knight, that was a fantastic show.
L&T and The Marvels were solid A- movies for me, I honestly don't get the hate. Not every movie can be an Iron Man or Endgame in terms of success. And Black Widow was fantastic.
Just wish we were getting a second season of Moon Knight, that was a fantastic show.
Thunderbolts was a more enjoyable movie for me than Brave New World. Started off kinda clunky but by the end was my favorite of the two.
If you reshoot half of a movie, it ups the production cost by 50%, dude.
From a business perspective, that is bad. It might be considered needed in order to stop a box-office bomb, but it adds cost to a production.
The ideal is you go into production with a clear story and no need to do reshoots, as it keeps costs low. TBH this is one of the things Kurtzman is well-regarded for in the industry - he keeps things cheap by getting it right the first time. Whereas production under Marvel has been notorious for being fast and loose (Iron Man filmed without a solid script, and many movies are only pieced together from a bunch of scenes in post).
They didn't reshoot half the movie, they started production and then shut things down due to Covid and during Covid things were rewritten so they decided to scrap what will they had done and start over due to time passage.
And that shouldn't be treated as a negative thing.
They cut out the whole Serpent Society subplot, eliminating Rosa Salazar's role entirely, and added Sidewinder. They also changed the ending so Ross survived. Those are pretty heavy edits.
What's odd about that is she was in the reshoots as a different version of Diamondback and was still cut. Amadeus Cho was added in the reshoots and then also removed.
If Marvel ever follows up on Hercules, I don't want it to be in a Thor sequel, I wanted to be based on the Hercules and Amadeus Cho comics.
Most reshoots involve pickup shots and minor alterations to a couple scenes. While the reshoots to Cap 4 may have been necessary and improve the movie, they were far more extensive and therefore far more expensive than your average reshoots. Context.