Who could have ever guessed audiences would start getting disinterested in these movies? 😱
I don’t know about that I actually really want to see this movie but ever since Covid I’ve stopped going to theaters.
They might just need to reevaluate for this new era.
100% not going to the theater anymore. I said it back when COVID started and it’s still true.
Most theaters I would have considered barely cleaned prior to the pandemic. Management only giving employees a few minutes between shows to clean to maximize shows each day. I will never trust the major theater companies to properly clean or sanitize anything.
@neme I remember the advertising for The Marvels was pretty bad. You had commercials that felt like advertisements for the Marvel Cinematic Universe in general. One ad I got was like “Remember when Tony Stark built his first suit and became Iron Man? The Marvels, in theaters this November”
I think I saw one trailer months ago that I looked up on YouTube. I’m pretty sure I never saw an actual ad for it. The first I heard it was out this weekend is articles like this. Doesn’t that lack of advertising usually mean the studio has already written it off?
Where I live I was inundated with Marvels advertising, it’s been everywhere.
Maybe because they basically keep making the same movie over and over again. Stop beating the horse.
I completely disagree with your take, but it’s not the first time I’ve heard it. I’m interested to understand why do you think these are basically all the same?
I like them, but there is a very defined formula.
- Start off with character we like
- Introduce bad guy, maybe a small fight
- Meet up with another character from the MCU, have a pep talk/other character tells them how serious it actually is
- Go on an adventure, maybe with a cameo
- Fight scene with baddy, our superhero fails
- Sad moment, hero is broken
- Hero picks himself up
- Builds up for big fight
- Big fight
- Celebrate, but someone mentions that it’s not all over
- (Optional, end credits scene showing someone picking up where baddy left off)
I like the MCU movies, but this format becomes incredibly obvious especially in the newer movies. I wish they’d just get a bit more creative.
Most of what you’re describing is a regular 3 act structure with the beats of almost any adventure movie. A lot of their movies are action adventures, so that’ll happen. I like experimental arthouse stuff, too. Why knock Marvel for doing what these genres will likely always do?
It’s a sure sign of over saturation when you’re starting to inadvertently teach film theory to people that don’t care about it!
People don’t actively compare films usually if they are visually or thematically different. Seven samurai and magnificent seven are the same exact film, but most people don’t notice unless they know or watch them back to back.
By making all these films that are visually identical and thematically similar, they make the structure similarities obvious even to the most untrained eye.
Can’t disagree that oversaturating the market is definitely a challenge of theirs to work against or keep up with, but it’s not necessarily a problem. That’s like saying the biggest issue with marvel movies that they’ve been making so much money that we got a GOTG triology. Doesn’t sound like a problem for the Guardian fans. What about getting Spider-Man a decent third movie for a change?
ALL these films are visually identical or thematically similar is just reductionist and when I hear people make that blanket statement, all that sounds like to me is a complaint to the costume department.
ALL these films are visually identical or thematically similar is just reductionist and when I hear people make that blanket statement, all that sounds like to me is a complaint to the costume department.
It’s not a complaint about the costume department. It’s a praise of the costume department. And the props department. And the visual effects department. And the editing and the everything. The franchise is visually recognizable, it has a signature look. It’s glorious and obviously marvel.
People will make comparisons though. And in the process figure out the secret sauce of action movies.
Then I don’t know what your point is then. They made too many movies and they’re all the same? Help me understand that point of view, because the abridged the Hero With A Thousand Faces take kinda boils down to either an issue with aesthetic or an issue with action movies in general regardless of what Marvel’s been doing.
You’re right, but when MCU movies are combined they’re all the same. Like I said, I enjoy them, don’t think I don’t. But after so many I wish they would have branched out a bit.
I’m not with the Marvel police accusing anybody of not being a fan here. We’re just sharing and comparing ideas.
When you say they should’ve branched more, does that look like She Hulk? Dr Strange? GotG? Werewolf by Night? They have and do branch out a ton, some of them unsuccessfully and others are very good. So, like I keep hearing that criticism that they should branch out more or they’re all the same but really I think they’ve just had a few under performing movies this last year. The worst movies that Marvel makes feel like paper dolls of something we’ve seen before, yeah agreed. I just take issue with saying all marvel movies are all the same because it doesn’t really talk about why some don’t work and it undercuts the ones that did work, it’s just reductionist. Thor 2 checked all the bare minimum marvel boxes without any substance and sucked, there’s a lot fair criticisms to be made there. Comparing that to She Hulk which was also subpar and the overlap is almost nonexistent.
Like what kind of branching out would you be excited about, Marvels’ Jesus Christ Superstar?
Because there are superheros probably.
Not really a critique of anything. Storytellers will always tell stories about people with powers; they always have. Marvel at it’s peak was making good movies and it’s not because Captain America’s Shield has cartoon bounce powers. They’ve covered a lot of different genres in interesting ways, successfully. That’s like saying, all stories are they same because there’s characters in them.
At its* peak.
Have you ever noticed that El Barto and Martin Prince are never in the same room at the same time?
I don’t disagree at all, about to watch the Marvels myself. Moreso I’ve seen a lot of people argue that point, not that I was making it myself :p
Edit: I liked the movie, nothing groundbreaking but it was definitely fun
If no pavement was injured in the making of this movie then I think this might be a brave new choice for marvel. I thought Ragnorok was pretty earth shattering until I remembered Asgard is a different planet.
Lmao, now that you mention it, there was a lot of concrete broken.
Not one I’m planning to see at the theater, although I watch it later just to keep up-to-date with the timeline.
The MCU is Guitar Hero. Im sure we all remember what happened to that.
My guitar broke and I couldn’t play anymore
Are these newer movies really that much worse in general or has the audience just finally gotten tired of the entire MCU? I saw every single one up until the second Spider-Man flick and many of them were just sort of lame. Movies like Doctor Strange, Captain Marvel and Black Panther and the Ant-Man movies which all released in the MCU’s most dominant period leading up to and in between the Thanos movies were pretty bad and they still made a lot of bank.
I watched all those mid movies because I was invested in the shared continuity and wanted to see the different branches of the universe collide with each other. When they finally did, that investment just kind of dissipated, but I think the final nail in the coffin for me was when they announced the Disney+ Marvel shows at which point it just became too much of a time commitment to keep up with.
I only watched until iron man 3 but for me personally the military propaganda was always way too strong in these movies to get into them.
They’re bad. Multiverse of Madness was alright. The Spider-Man movies are pretty fun. Everything else since Endgame has been utter shit, though I will say the end of Loki season 2 gave Loki a great “out” as a character, despite being dumb for two seasons, and its a shame they’ll definitely not just let him go.
its a double edged sword, re: shows.
like on the one hand, i think if they had just done spin-offs, people could decide what they were into or not. but on the other hand, they NEED to have everything tied deeply together, or else no one but the actual die-hards would actually watch the shows.
like it was so frustrating watching the third Guardians movie (snuck into the theatre screening, didn’t pay for that shit), and literally was like ‘who the fuck is that?’ ‘i thought that person died’ ‘etc’. and it’s like… oh right, didn’t watch this or that season of this or that show, or special or whatever.
It just depends on the movie. A good superhero movie will still pull more money than anyone can spend in a lifetime.
All of the articles are about a movie that wasn’t promoted at all, and it’s the sequel to a movie that didn’t do good anyways. There’s zero surprise to anyone with a level head. It’s all clickbait rage bs.
I go to A LOT of movies. I have the AMC A List thing so I try to go every week. I have not seen a SINGLE trailer for The Marvels.
Strikes meant that this movie wasn’t going to get promoted well.
I was about to ask why airing trailers was against strikes but then it occurred to me that writers are probably still involved in trailers technically lol.
Record Marvel B.O.
So a couple of points…
Marvel has really felt like it’s lost it’s vision since Endgame. Everything from Iron Man forward had been building to that point and once they hit it, it’s like they forgot what they were doing.
The current big bad didn’t get introduced until Loki, a Disney+ show, and if you look at the properties:
Endgame - 4/26/2019
Spider-Man: Far From Home - 7/2/2019
Wandavision - 1/15/21
Falcon and Winter Soldier - 3/19/21
Loki - 6/9/21That’s a full 2 year gap and three properties before anyone gets a sense of where the next phase is going. Then:
Black Widow - 7/9/21 (unrelated flashback)
What If? - 8/11/21 (unrelated)
Shang Chi - 9/3/21 (unrelated)
Eternals - 11/5/21 (unrelated)
Hawkeye - 11/24/21 (unrelated)
Spider-Man: No Way Home - 12/17/21Using Spider-Man to crack open the multiverse first announced in Loki 6 months previously was a good idea, but there was no mention of Kang or what threat he represented. There were also FIVE unrelated properties between Loki and Spider-Man making it easy to forget Kang was even a thing, assuming people even caught the Disney+ show in the first place.
Moon Knight - 3/30/22 (unrelated)
Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness - 5/6/2022A direct follow on what was done with Spider-Man, 5 months later, again, no reference to Kang.
Ms. Marvel - 6/8/22 (unrelated)
Thor: Love and Thunder - 7/8/22 (unrelated)
She-Hulk - 8/18/22 (unrelated)
Werewolf By Night - 10/7/22 (unrelated)
Wakanda Forever - 11/11/22 (unrelated)
Guardians Holiday Special - 11/25/22 (unrelated)Phase 5:
Quantumania - 2/17/23First film in Phase 5 makes it clear (finally) that Kang is the next big bad, almost 2 years after the character was introduced in a TV show, but it’s not the years that were the problem…
It was the hours of unrelated content spread across 11 movies and TV shows, 14 if you count What If, Spider-Man and Doctor Strange hitting the multiverse angle but failing to mention Kang.
Guardians of the Galaxy 3 - 5/5/23 (unrelated)
Secret Invasion - 6/21/23 (unrelated)
Loki Season 2 - 10/5/23
Marvels - 11/10/23 (unrelated)And here we are…
I haven’t actually seen Marvels yet, so I don’t know how it fits in to the overall plot.Alternate universe hole. No Kang. I’ve heard rumors of an X-Men stinger similar to what they did with Xavier and Reed Richards in Doctor Strange.2 and a half years of churning out unrelated properties after having three phases of tightly integrated continuity is NOT how you keep your existing audience.
So all of that being point 1.
Point 2 is this… In the comics nobody really cared about Carol Danvers. She didn’t become interesting until the modern Captain Marvel reboot in 2012. In fact, they replaced her a couple of times. Before that, her major story arc was getting her powers stolen by Rogue who would later join the X-Men using both her own power stealing mutant abilities and Carol’s flight, invulnerability and super strength.
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I think the problem is not that they didn’t have a clear direction for the big bad (look back at the Infinity Saga, Thanos is barely spelled out and there is very little overarching continuity towards leading up to IW/EG) I think the problem is that most of what you listed are just mediocre to not good. Out of all of those, I would probably only count the following as being good to great:
- Spider-Man: Far From Home
- Wandavision
- Loki (both seasons)
- Shang Chi
- Spider-Man: No Way Home
- Werewolf By Night
- Ms. Marvel (on this one, I might even be fudging a little just because I love Iman in the role)
- Guardians of the Galaxy 3
- Marvels*
Out of roughly 22 on the list there, that’s a just impressively bad hit rate. Not everything I left off of my list is “bad” per se, but it’s mostly just mediocre and I have about a zero percent chance of rewatching it (Falcon, Ant-Man 3, MoonKnight, Dr Strange, Wakanda, etc.) compared to the Infinity Saga, where I’ve seen just about everything multiple times. And then there is the problem that quite a lot of it is bad (Eternals, Thor, Secret Invasion…) I think doing this much TV really hurt them as quite a lot of the TV properties were poorly thought out and didn’t have 6 hours worth of good story.
I don’t think that the idea that having all of the tie-ins really hurt them as much as the perception that all of the tie-ins were required watching hurt them. For example, The Marvels you can totally go in without having watched either of the TV properties, or probably even Captain Marvel. The movie guides you through what you need to know, which is very little, but that is a theme on basically any comment page or article when you talk about the film’s box office draw. I mean, we’re not talking about Breaking Bad or the good seasons of Game of Thrones where if you didn’t watch from the beginning you’re going to miss big moments.
and re: your point 2, this is also the case for the MCU Carol. The movie was among the worst in the IS, and while Brie Larsen is a fantastic actress, we’re several outings in before you can even kinda care about Carol in the Marvels. Ironically, I counted this as a plus for the movie when I was telling my buddy if he should go see it. I saw Endgame opening night, and the audience was right there for all of the big moments, which you can tell they intended Carol’s destruction of the ships to be, and while it wasn’t quite crickets, you could tell that didn’t hit the way they wanted it to. Even this movie, I went to see in spite of it being a CM movie if anything.
* This one might be recency bias or maybe just that the MCU has been so disappointing that I’m grading on a curve a bit, but I would give this one a solid 3/5.
I think instead of “bad”, I would just call them “filler”.
Moon Knight was very good, but it does nothing to move forward the overall story of multiverses and Kang.
Yeah, that’s probably fair, or at least close to what I was getting at. Personally, I could give a shit if they do some stuff that has no major bearing on the overall story, but I personally found it to be basically filler material still. It’s fine.
Like I know it’s unlikely, but I would not mind at all if for example the next Spider-Man has almost no connection to the overall MCU given where they’re at in the story, as long as it’s good.
I think if the movies and shows were better, no one would mind the lack of direction. I didn’t see anyone complaining about “the big picture” with WandaVision or even Falcon & The Winter Soldier (which I’m seeing people souring over now but I kinda liked it, despite its ill-advised Israel vs. Palestine analogous plotline). No one complained about it with Black Widow, Shang Chi, or Hawkeye either.
It’s where the movies include Kang or the Multiverse but rules are different or there’s no sense of progress on Kang’s part like we saw with Thanos, where the real Multiverse Saga problem exists.
I’m sure it has nothing at all to do with them being shit movies.
Some of them were worse than others (cough, Eternals, cough). But Shang Chi was fine. Wakanda Forever was in a tough spot since Boseman died, but it was fine.
The plot of Wakanda Forever was pretty sus too, though, African black folks vs indigenous South American folks (sure they live underwater, and except for Namora their skin is not a standard human hue, but like, still)
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Were they trying to keep the movie release a secret for a reason?
Seems like a lot of us had no idea it was coming out this weekend…
Writers strike and actors strike, meant that only minimal promotion was possible
Wrong. It was absolutely possible. Just not possible while sacrificing absolutely everything for their profit-focused timeline. I want movies to be profitable, but most studies won’t accept anything lower than “wildly popular with opportunities for sequels and spinoffs”.
studios should’ve caved faster
True
Where I live there were ads everywhere and on tons on TV.
I haven’t watched broadcast or cable TV in over a decade.
All the MCU marketing I’ve gotten has been through hype, and after dozens of films the hype just isn’t there anymore.
Though I think what really killed it for me was the Disney Plus shows. It started to feel like homework just to watch Marvel stuff.
Yeah, I watch basketball, so I see tons of movie ads still.
And agreed, I’ve given up on MCU shows and Disney+
much less what its even about. pass.
Right?
I have a few Capt Marvel fans in the house and if they’d invested in any kind of pre-release promotion I would probably have gotten release weekend tickets.
I don’t even want to go see a good Marvel movie in the theater. I’m certainly not going to go watch some mid bs.
Last time I did it was for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and honesrly, I’ve seen Everything Everywhere all At Once before that and I was shocked how lame Dr Strange wad in comparison with the idea of the multiverse.
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One of those two is an indie movie, the other one a blockbuster. Really shouldn’t shock people that blockbusters are lazy.
I’m not sure what your point is since the multiverse is based on comics that came out way before Everything.
Being based on something means nothing. They don’t take a comic book to set to film, they write a script.
I’ll be honest, I actually loved Ms. Marvel and will definitely watch The Marvels as soon as it hits streaming, but pretty much the only movie I can think of on the horizon that could get me to physically go to a filthy, disgusting movie theater filled with horrible annoying movie-goers is Dune part 2. The experience of going to see films in theaters lost all of its appeal to me in recent years, and there’s always one motherfucker on their phone the whole time that no one will do anything about.
I don’t mind the sticky carpets. I don’t mind the shitty seats. I don’t mind other people making certain noises, eating etc. And if a person is looking at their phone then I don’t mind as long as that’s it, just looking.
What I do mind, what I absolutely cannot abide, what I find completely unacceptable is the person behind knocking my chair. Once or twice when first sitting down, or when getting up to go to toilet etc is fine. But that’s it.
There is no acceptable reason to keep on doing it. NO REASON.“But I get numb and need to fidget.” Then sit behind an empty fucking chair.
“But I’m freakishly tall.” That’s your problem, but when you continually knock other people’s seats it is now their problem as well. Move to an aisle seat, or sit behind a seat that’s empty.“But I’m oblivious to other people, also I selfishly don’t care if I’m an annoying twat.” Exactly. Don’t be like that.
"But I (insert any fucking bullshit you want to try to bullshit about here). SIT BEHIND A FUCKING EMPTY SEAT. It’s that fucking simple.
Dune 2 is definitely going to be my next keto break. I’ll be having a large popcorn and twizzlers while watching my favourite story come to life.
Fortunately my local theater has recliner chairs and reasonable cleanliness for a movie theater.
Bro why is everything in US so shit? Theaters here even the cheap ones are clean, fine seats and pretty ok screens and most people will stfu except for maybe kids sometimes
Because production companies found out that we don’t need any new IP anymore. America will pay large sums of money to be fed remakes, reboots, and rehashed bullshit from the past.
a filthy, disgusting movie theater
Maybe it’s because I live in a nice area, or maybe it’s because you haven’t been to the movies in a long time, but your description doesn’t match my recent experiences at all. Even AMC here has a really nice theater now, with big plush reclining chairs, great sound, and nice screens.
Yeah that didn’t ring true at all for me, I definitely don’t live in a nice area but the cinema is always extremely clean?
AMC’s are usually good, but yeah, mileage may vary and I’m in a rural market.
I’ll take that $47M if they don’t want it
Adding TV shows into the mix that were average made it too much to bother keeping up, and I haven’t watched MCU since then.
Right? Like I’m not against going to the movies for a MCU show. But it just feels like I have to do homework to catch up before I can do so.
They did the same shit with their comic books. All of these overarching/crossover story lines made it so you had to do research before picking up a new title.
Compared to Hellboy where there’s cliff notes that reference to real world myths and obscure early seeded canon. The homework isn’t necessarily; it’s interesting and fun. It hints at more going on behind the scenes that you can discover and imagine for yourself. Marvel killed too many interesting villains off the bat, replaced wonder with cliffhangers, and exposition dumped anything worth wondering about to show off how completely connected their whole universe is.
Isn’t $47 million dollars for one weekend pretty good? What did they spend to make the movie?
Everything costs over 100M these days and usually much, much more. I heard someone say The Marvels was $250M
274.8 million. the 4th highest marvel budget LOL
Fucking, wow.
Apparently it cost $274 million.
How did they manage to spend that much lol. The whole LOTR trilogy cost $300m and even adjusting for 25 years of inflation I don’t think that price makes any sense.
Adjusted for inflation, the budget for the trilogy would be around $450 million, which still doesn’t seem to bad considering the scale of it.
450 million dollar spread over 10,5 hours of film. That’s about 64 million dollar per regular film length (90 mins), which is a very tight budget for a filmof that size in a complex universe like that.
M$/film is a weird metric, but it works.
Way more than 10.5 hours. The full extended edition is 12 hours long, and in the commentary PJ kept hinting at an even longer 25th anniversary edition where they’ll add in even more deleted scenes.
I think it helped that none of the cast were huge stars at the time.
Cgi I’m guessing.
The irony being that it’s somewhat common for VFX companies to go bankrupt
Yep it’s largely the increased amounts of cutting edge visual effects which require a LOT of man hours and the unnecessary amounts of pixel-fucking that producers and directors are allowed to get away with all the way up to (and sometimes after!) release.
Trying to mask boring characters and stories with expensive CGI, compensating for lack of fan enthusiasm and word of mouth with big marketing campaigns.
The $274 million are only production cost including reshoots, which happen because Marvel keeps rewriting the script once filming and sometimes even pospro has begun. It’s closer to $550 million, once you add marketing cost, so it needs to make half a billion to break even.
That’s insane.
Brie Larson shouldn’t have gotten that nose job.
