Marvel getting desperate (1 Viewer)

[DaveXA]

Maybe haha! You're always pretty quick to reply, and I was looking forward to your thoughts on the rest of my reply.





Post-Endgame movies in chronological order:
Jul 2, 2019 Spider-Man: Far From Home $1,132,107,522
Jul 9, 2021 Black Widow $379,751,131
Sep 3, 2021 Shang-Chi and the Legend of… $432,224,634
Nov 5, 2021 Eternals $401,731,759
Dec 17, 2021 Spider-Man: No Way Home $1,907,836,254
May 6, 2022 Doctor Strange in the Multi… $952,224,986
Jul 8, 2022 Thor: Love and Thunder $760,928,081
Nov 11, 2022 Black Panther: Wakanda Forever $853,985,546
Feb 17, 2023 Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quant… $463,635,303
May 5, 2023 Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 $845,468,744
Nov 10, 2023 The Marvels $186,927,954

Box office increased for Spider-Man, Dr Strange, and Guardians. Slightly lower for Thor. Markedly lower for Black Panther 2 and Ant Man 3. Not great for Shang Chi, Black Widow, and Eternals. Abysmal for The Marvels. The BO increases were peppered throughout the post-Endgame slate, so I don't think we can just say it's slower post-Endgame in general. But my point is that they have/had a winning formula. Changing SS to a woman is not part of that previous winning formula... I don't think they did anything like that during the Endgame era, other than The Ancient One (who is not particularly a "main character" in the comics. Important, yes... SS-level in a Galactus/FF movie? No).

I think the stronger correlation will be with the more familiar movies. I think in a different time/place, Black Widow would have done double what it did. Why they waited til after Endgame baffles me. But the rest feels like the box office results were more a reflection of fans wanting to see familiar characters. BP2 was probably hurt some by the loss of Chadwick Boseman. The rest of the lesser grossing movies I think were hurt by a double whammy of oversaturation and waning interest in the lesser known characters. I don't think it had anything to do with the characters they chose, or the casting. I mean, there's always been some fan service for comics purists, but overall, the MCU has always been about telling a story to a broader audience.

Can you name a few "important" difference on the level of changing SS to a woman, during the Endgame era? You may be right, but I am having a difficult time thinking of any such differences.

I'm sure there are some, I'm kinda tired lol. But the MCU has long been a movie adaptation of the comics. They aren't movie replays of the comics. They've taken some license with styling, character, suits, etc.

But why only The Marvels? Why didn't GOTG3 get hit by that slump/trend? Does The Marvels get a pass for some reason? It sort of feels like people wanted GOTG, but they didn't want The Marvels.

I think post-strike had a big dampening effect on people going to movies. That hurt the industry overall imo. And The Marvels, while they did get some promotions, it wasn't near as noticeable as previous movies were, but that's my anecdotal observation more than anything else. It's pretty clear though that since the summer (Oppenheimer/Barbie), it's slowed a ton. GOTG was a movie a lot of MCU fans were and are still connected with and there was a lot of interest. Captain Marvel doesn't have that same pull.

Agreed that it was definitely not as prevalent as Opp or Barbie marketing. Was it marketed any less than GOTG3, do you think? Or Ant Man Quantumania?

I don't know.

Correct, they have been doing so for the last 15 years. The majority of Endgame era would fall into that realm of "using the source material". That comment was more directed at SS gender swap. Why not use the source material for SS? Why not stay true to the character?

I don't really have an issue with changing the story up. That said, I don't think it's necessary to change it, but I also don't think it would hurt either. Maybe some purists might have an issue, but they're a fairly small segment of the broader MCU audience.

 

[Arathrael]

Changing SS to a woman is not part of that previous winning formula... I don't think they did anything like that during the Endgame era, other than The Ancient One (who is not particularly a "main character" in the comics. Important, yes... SS-level in a Galactus/FF movie? No).

I don't think it'd necessarily be that significant.

And I say that as someone who has a box full of Silver Surfer comics up in his loft.

It arguably depends on exactly what they're planning to do with the Silver Surfer in the movies. If it's essentially just herald to Galactus, Galactus wants to eat Earth, Surfer rebels, I don't think a gender switch has any real bearing on that.

If they wanted to get more into the Surfer's backstory, you could argue a gender switch does impact that, since it could be argued some of it is tied up with concepts of masculinity, and it would also alter the Surfer's relationships with other characters as portrayed in the comics. But even then, change is not necessarily bad. Potentially it could be more interesting, since, these days, some of that back story is pretty clichéd. They could of course mix that up without changing the gender, but ultimately, if they are changing the gender, I don't see that as necessarily a big issue. I think whether they do whatever they're doing well or not is far more significant.

And as far as the backstory, they also have a problem there, in that they already did some of the main parts of the backstory without him. A lot of that was tied up with Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet. So I'm not sure where they'd be going with the Surfer anyway.

 

[DaveXA]

Ultimately, I think the SS story is still being hashed out, so I wouldn't make too many assumptions until we have a good idea of what their (Marvel) actual plan will be. I think the focus will ultimately be more on X-men than F4.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

Ultimately, I think the SS story is still being hashed out, so I wouldn't make too many assumptions until we have a good idea of what their (Marvel) actual plan will be. I think the focus will ultimately be more on X-men than F4.

Ultimately I think what we’re seeing is that Marvel’s success was based largely on Feige having a winning strategy of working with directors and deftly adapting to circumstances- and a LOT of luck
It’s too big for Feige to do by himself anymore- and now Iger is feeling the need to be seen as more hands on

[where he was content to stay behind the curtain in his first iteration- and he’s smarting from losing the strike battles- his missteps seem to be increasing
Which is not good news for Filoni/SW either]

Marvel is trying to be expansive (which makes sense for both content and business), but feeling the need to have central narrative as important as individual story - that seems to be the thing complicating their storytelling as much as anything but it’s probably unavoidable as well

 

[boutte]

the beauty of this country is you get to be as wrong as you can be
And I see you’re testing the limits of your freedom here
Good for you

OhNO! An opposing point of view! We can't have that! Stamp it STAMP IT OUT!!

And do you set the limits of my freedom? Who do you think you are? I think maybe you're a little full of yourself.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

OhNO! An opposing point of view! We can't have that! Stamp it STAMP IT OUT!!

And do you set the limits of my freedom? Who do you think you are? I think maybe you're a little full of yourself.

Please tell me you’re joking about my obvious (hyperbolic) joke

 

[sammymvpknight]

The problem is that male superheros have been the best most beloved Marvel characters. There is a lot of lore and history that goes into this. Just just can’t force people to suddenly love a woman equivalent to Black Panthers or any number of Miss Marvels. They are secondary characters that not many people actually love. You can’t force cannon and lore on everyone. Perhaps a generation from now people could care about those characters…but right now they don’t. Ironman is no Spiderman when it comes to lore…but that was overcome by casting Robert frickin Downey Jr. I think that the Spiderverse stuff was creative and Miles Morales was really solid. But the sequel just wasn’t near as good, mainly because it’s no longer novel. Trying to move everything over to Miles Morales is predictable but it’d be a mistake…but one that will inevitably happen.

 

[boutte]

Please tell me you’re joking about my obvious (hyperbolic) joke

It didn't come across that way.

Glad to know that's how you meant it.

 

[Eeyore]

Does it have to be silver surfer?

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

The problem is that male superheros have been the best most beloved Marvel characters. There is a lot of lore and history that goes into this. Just just can’t force people to suddenly love a woman equivalent to Black Panthers or any number of Miss Marvels. They are secondary characters that not many people actually love. You can’t force cannon and lore on everyone. Perhaps a generation from now people could care about those characters…but right now they don’t. Ironman is no Spiderman when it comes to lore…but that was overcome by casting Robert frickin Downey Jr. I think that the Spiderverse stuff was creative and Miles Morales was really solid. But the sequel just wasn’t near as good, mainly because it’s no longer novel. Trying to move everything over to Miles Morales is predictable but it’d be a mistake…but one that will inevitably happen.

Cmon this is a cart before the horse argument- ‘a black qb won’t work bc all the best QBs are white’

60s & 70s saw a proliferation of straight white make heroes bc that’s who was telling the stories and the made heroes in their demo for an audience they assumed looked like them (but later found that the audience was broader than they assumed)
So the overwhelming storylines to pull from are from this era
Had that era been more diverse and inclusive there’d be more diverse and inclusive heroes- it wasn’t
We are now in a (theoretically) more diverse and inclusive era - the heroes should reflect that
And i categorically rebuff a ‘what about squirrel girl?’ argument as non-serious

 

[sammymvpknight]

Cmon this is a cart before the horse argument- ‘a black qb won’t work bc all the best QBs are white’

60s & 70s saw a proliferation of straight white make heroes bc that’s who was telling the stories and the made heroes in their demo for an audience they assumed looked like them (but later found that the audience was broader than they assumed)
So the overwhelming storylines to pull from are from this era
Had that era been more diverse and inclusive there’d be more diverse and inclusive heroes- it wasn’t
We are now in a (theoretically) more diverse and inclusive era - the heroes should reflect that
And i categorically rebuff a ‘what about squirrel girl?’ argument as non-serious

I agree. Which is exactly my point. The best superheroes are white males as of this time. Maybe in the future there will be more options in the future…but as of right now they are trying to build strong characters of other groups and that’s going to take time. But that time isn’t today

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

I agree. Which is exactly my point. The best superheroes are white males as of this time. Maybe in the future there will be more options in the future…but as of right now they are trying to build strong characters of other groups and that’s going to take time. But that time isn’t today

and my retort is that the time was 4 decades ago so this change is long passed due

 

[sammymvpknight]

and my retort is that the time was 4 decades ago so this change is long passed due

Not disagreeing. Future Marvel fans may be rewarded. But current marvel fans are not getting as good content this generation. The lead up to Endgame was pretty amazing. The bar was set is set really high, and they’ve had lots of time to develop the lore of each story. It seems like there are just a bunch of Hawkeyes right now. As good as Loki is…he’s literally a side character of last gen Marvel. Lots of Robins instead of Batman.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

But current marvel fans are not getting as good content this generation. .

while this point can be argued- it’s much harder to make the case that it’s because of more inclusive and diverse representation

 

[Eeyore]