Anyone else seriously worried that the MCU will turn into 'prisoner of the box office' forcing them too just focus on box office numbers instead of making good movies and character ?
Let’s say Secret Wars and Doomsday “flop” by grossing less than a billion dollars, or even less than 600 million dollars (for reference, Doctor Strange made 667 million dollars). What if this leads the studio to jusy drop well developed, genuinely good characters say, the Thunderbolts and either sideline them or kill them off just to make way for “the next big thing”? What if they go into overdrive with the X-Men and focus almost exclusively on them simply because they’re already well known to mainstream audiences, all in an effort to push box-office numbers back up?
Or what if the studio decides to do a real hard reset rather than merging universes (the main MCU universe with the X-men and Fantastic four universe) by starting completely fresh with almost entirely new characters, (that's including 'recasting', Characters like iron man or cap) just to make it easier for new audiences to follow or “walk into the MCU world as newbies”? That would just be wiping out almost two decades of a beloved world, that would feel like spitting in the face of their established audience. At that point, it wouldn’t even feel like the MCU anymore.
I know it’s a studio and they need to make money at the end of the day, but I’m worried this could lead to weaker characters, worse stories, random character deaths, or simply the end.
Or what if the studio decides to do a real hard reset rather than merging universes (the main MCU universe with the X-men and Fantastic four universe) by starting completely fresh with almost entirely new characters, (that's including 'recasting', Characters like iron man or cap) just to make it easier for new audiences to follow or “walk into the MCU world as newbies”? That would just be wiping out almost two decades of a beloved world, that would feel like spitting in the face of their established audience. At that point, it wouldn’t even feel like the MCU anymore.
I know it’s a studio and they need to make money at the end of the day, but I’m worried this could lead to weaker characters, worse stories, random character deaths, or simply the end.
Commentaires
Obviously, in the future, we'll only have films about well-known characters (Iron Man, Captain America, Black Panther, etc.) and the most important groups, while experimentation will be completely forgotten. This is the problem with all of cinema today, because people don't go to the movies anymore.
Because the movies are frigging expensive.
If that were true than Days of Future Past wouldn’t have made much more money at Box Office than all the Wolverine solo films.
But yeah, outside of Storm and Wolverine, no other X-Men has a chance for a solo franchise. But non-X-Men mutants like Deadpool solo or Cable (with X-Foce) can do well. A Magneto solo film has potential.
..Or they would make some nonsense point up like "The Dudes aren't being treated with respected in the Scarlet Witch film" like what they did with Black Widow.
I think regardless of Secret Wars or Doomsday, the Thunderbolts are sidelined. They aren't getting a trilogy. I'm not really sure what they are doing with the X-Men. Doesn't look good IMO. Post SW, things are getting reset. Probably a soft reboot approach like DC just did. It's the best option.
Marvel's always been a prisoner of the box office, it's an important factor in these movies. No studios is going to invest a lot of money into something that doesn't make a lot of money in return.
No studio sets out to make a bad movie. I'm sure they will continue to try and make good movies. And I think/hope they learned their lesson that they need to utilize popular IP better. You can't kill off your most popular hero and think that audiences are still gonna stick around.
Hopefully it's a mix. Popular franchise, less popular franchise, and switch back and forth. Probably need to use a 2 to 1 ratio of popualr to unpopular franchises. Popular franchises are gonna be X-Men, Avengers, Strange, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, GotG, etc. Unpopular are gonna be Fantastic Four, Midnight Sons, etc.
as we’ve seen from the MCU’s box office this year, the brand is genuinely damaged. regardless of quality, the numbers are almost embarrassingly low across the board. they’ll have to either get them up or lower budgets if we want actual risks to be taken by the MCU.
But I wouldn't expect Captain Marvel 3, Thunderbolts 2 or Ant-Man 4. CA5 has a shot if Rogers is back, otherwise, no.
A thing isn't beautiful because it lasts. If Marvel is spinning their wheels, it's okay if the MCU ends.
I worry about Disney messing up a decade of movies, swallowing some AI snake oil.
But if you're expecting a big budget film with E-Listers to happen in Phase 7, yeah, adjust your expectations. GOTG was lightning in a bottle that came out at one of the highest points of the MCU.
We'll see X-Men films, Avengers film, Spidey films, FF films, etc...
Does Disney fall into this category? No, it's a multinational that spends money (over $200 million per film) and does so because it wants to get its profits back. Whether those films are good or not is irrelevant to them.
1. Marvel as a studio isn't what's important. Disney is the owner, they are what decides the future.
2. Disney answers to shareholders.
3. Shareholders get very unhappy when tens or hundreds of millions of dollars are lost, and they get very happy when hundreds of millions of dollars are made.
4. If someone keeps losing tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, Shareholders pressure the board to have them fired. If the board doesn't do it, Shareholders fire the board, and then put in people who will fire the person who is losing tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.
5. Feige is on the block at this point. His only chance at continued employment is to make things that don't lose tens to hundreds of millions of dollars.
6. Which is why X-men will be all they're focused on after Secret War and most of the post-endgame characters will be dropped quietly like Eternals were.