Main Characters of the next Saga
The Multiverse Saga has been controversial, personally, I like a lot of it, and there's only one project I utterly despise, but one of its biggest issues is that it doesn't have main characters like the Infinity Saga did. For the next saga, I really hope that they have an idea of who their main characters are. I think it should be:
* A member of the X-Men
* A member of the Fantastic Four
* A member of the Avengers
My personal picks for those are Scott Summers, Sue Storm, and either Sam Wilson or Yelena Belova.
* A member of the X-Men
* A member of the Fantastic Four
* A member of the Avengers
My personal picks for those are Scott Summers, Sue Storm, and either Sam Wilson or Yelena Belova.
Commentaires
No shit Sherlock, of course there's gonna be tons of other characters contributing to the narrative. I just think that the X-Men will form a very important part of the next saga's narrative, and it's better to use the team almost as a character than just one of them - which is a truly awful idea. Same thing with the F4, they are far less compelling as individuals and their family bond as a team is what actually makes them tick.
It would have been like a larger Phase One where the crossover happens at the end.
Not every ensemble movie needs a world-ending threat. I think people would have loved a low-stakes comedy with these characters.
It wasn't going to be 5 years, it was going to be 4 years. 3-4 years between Avengers movies was the norm with Age of Ultron being 3 years after Avengers, and Infinity War/Endgame being 3 & 4 years after AoU respectively.
And Phase 4 was explicitly meant to be a "cool down" period between the end of the Infinity Saga & the Multiverse Saga really kicking off.
> Not every ensemble movie needs a world-ending threat.
While you & I may agree with this, it doesn't mean a large percentage of casual viewers do. It wasn't an uncommon complaint after Endgame that there was nowhere left to go to ramp up the stakes in the next Avengers movie after IW/EG threatened the entire universe.
The sentiment that each new installment has to have higher & higher stakes didn't come out of nowhere, and it's largely proven through both financial and critical responses to sequels. When stakes stay the same or go down, people complain about repetition & box office numbers go down (which isn't acceptable in a capitalist economy where perpetual growth is demanded & expected).
There's a reason why the best performing movies since Endgame have all been crossovers - DS2, SP3, Guardians 3 and Deadpool 3.
People like seeing these characters bouncing off each other, it doesn't even have to be in action scenes.
Sure, but that kind of supports the idea that the stakes can never go down. We've had threats that threaten the world, the galaxy, and the universe as a whole, so personal stories often feel like a waste of time.
> and why if they wanted that, they should then be surprised by phase 1/2 box office performance.
Because, like all companies that get big, they thought they got to the point where their brand name alone was going to prove successful.
The whole point of franchises & fostering brand recognition is to create a relationship with consumers that results in people financially supporting your product simply because of name association. That's basically the holy grail of branding & franchises.
> There's a reason why the best performing movies since Endgame have all been crossovers - DS2, SP3, Guardians 3 and Deadpool 3.
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> People like seeing these characters bouncing off each other, it doesn't even have to be in action scenes.
While true, there's also complaints about there being too many crossovers. It's a bit of a no-win situation where you can't please the entire audience no matter what you do.
You're otherwise allowing yourself to be dictated to by a vocal minority with the most engagement-inducing opinions.
And as for stakes, If Hawkeye was a movie and Spider-Man joined the Kingpin fight at the end, I bet it would have made like $800m.
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> You're otherwise allowing yourself to be dictated to by a vocal minority with the most engagement-inducing opinions.
The same thing can be said about lowering the stakes. When they do it, sales go down.
> And as for stakes, If Hawkeye was a movie and Spider-Man joined the Kingpin fight at the end, I bet it would have made like $800m.
Maybe, but how much would that have been because Spider-Man is the single most popular Marvel character? Both of his post-Endgame movies grossed over $1 billion... which would make a Spider-Man crossover movie earning only $800m a major box office disappointment in the eyes of the studio because they expect increasing, not decreasing, revenue.
Obviously Sony would want in but in a world with Chapek and the push for Disney+ content, I'm sure that's exactly what would have happened.
Even if that addition cost $100m, it'd still have enough to justify a sequel and then some (and we know the TV show didn't).
Case in point, Captain America Brave New World is considered a failure, not because it earning $415.1 million on it's reported $180 million budget didn't make a profit, but because it didn't make *as much of profit as Marvel/Disney wanted*.
Let's be 100% real with each other, you pulled the $800m number out of your ass and there's no real reason to think a Hawkeye movie with a single scene featuring Spider-Man would make that much. Thunderbolts & Fantastic Four didn't even come close to $800m despite Bucky being more popular than Hawkeye & both movies being loaded with popular actors/actresses (Florence Pugh, David Harbor, Wyatt Russell, Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn, and Julia Garner).
Out of 37 movies, only 17 entries into the entire MCU made $800m or more worldwide (only 5 of them being post-Phase 3; out of 14 movies in the same time frame)... And while Hawkeye's reviewed well, it's viewership wasn't that great, peaking at 1.1-1.2 million viewers.
I think a film that was essentially just the party scene with Ultron would do better than another origin story with a villain of the week we've all already seen 50 of.
And I don't want an answer that's like "well they build up the multiverse as a concept", because that's not a story. Avengers 1 and 2 built up the importance of the Avengers as a team and their fallibility. It was telling a story of people who have tremendous responsibility but can't see eye-to-eye.
The Multiverse Saga doesn't have that. There's no character growth, no themes, no long-form arcs; its a bunch of movies gesturing vaguely at the fact that a multiverse exists.
That's not a saga, that's just fortnite.
That's a *theme* (*maybe* but if I'm being honest I really think that only comes through in Loki S2 and MoM), that's not a story. It really feels like you're reaching. Whose the main character? What are the key moments? What's the rising action and climax?
Anything "isn't super complicated" if you just make it up lol
Who had a character arc that started at the beginning of the saga and is still consistently being updated? Don't say Wanda and Strange, they haven't shown up in three years.
Key moments in Infinity Saga would include: The Avengers forming, the Avengers undergoing conflict, the Avengers splitting apart, the Avengers losing against a foe, the Avengers coming back together.
But yeah, I wish there were more. The lack of multiple movie characters in the Multiverse Saga when the Infinity Saga had three standalone trilogies makes it so that no character really gets enough development.
They legit just thought "nah, just make forty movies and tv shows and then make another Infinity War, same thing"
The problem was that they needed to tell a new story and they never did.
would you even want them to? I don't.
Black Panther and Kang were meant to be the center of the franchise.
The Multiverse Saga clearly was going to have the new big three be: Black Panther, Doctor Strange and Captain Marvel. Spider-Man is obviously the biggest most popular character but considering that is technically sony, not really including him. Problem was that Chadwick unfortunately passed away and I don't think Shuri is on the level of T'Challa for most people. Doctor Strange ended up only really having one divisive film in the saga and Captain Marvel ended up not resonating with many people with a mediocre film. Didn't help that there was a lack of Crossover films at the end of each Phase.
Rumour is that the new Saga is going to be the "Mutant Saga". So X-men will definitely be a pivotal group in the saga and considering they already have a director working on it before Avengers.
I think the new big Three will be not individuals but teams. They will push X-Men, Fantastic Four and Midnight Suns. X-Men is very obvious why and Fantastic Four is another iconic team. They will also no doubt start exploring Supernatural elements more often so Midnight Suns will the 3rd team
There was an interview with Feige about why doctor strange ultimately never showed up in wandavision and he literally said it was bc they didn’t want a white guy to come and save the day lol
"That seems like a dumb idea"
"Lol ok, shill. Like the ideas they came up with were so good right?"
Swear to god the worst thing about Multiverse Saga sucking is how many people unironically post shit like this.
that may be what he *said*, but it would have cost an assload to have Cumberbatch show up in a D+ show
They should have done the original solo cap movie (still do Falcon and the Winter Soldier show but then release this movie) keep Ross asking Sam to make a new team but have the Serpent Society as the main villain (Antman Qauntumania could’ve had a post credits where Sam recruits him) and following that with Brave New World except Brave New World is now an Avengers movie with whoever else is on Sam’s team showing up (even in small roles)
Then youd of had two team up movies Brave New World and Thunderbolts and the rivalry between the teams would feel better you could even have Bucky refusing to join Sam’s team because of his campaign for senator only to later join the Thuderbolts/New Avengers which would set up why Sam’s so pissed
Also i feel like they did have main characters Thor, Wanda, Peter and Dr Strange were all leading the story but feel like they’ve all been shelved and Sam, Yelena and Sue are being set up as the new leads now if they’d done as I suggested Sam would’ve had more of an arc since Endgame
Steve only had one solo film, all his sequels were ensemble casts. They should have done the same for Sam, considering the plot's villains were Hulk's anyway, it would have been no brainer to make it the unofficial first Avengers team outing since Endgame. It doesn't have to be officially Avengers titled, the focus could still be largely on developing Sam as a leader, with Hulk as the secondary protagonist. Let the movie build the bones for the new Avengers team, so Doomsday doesn't have to do the heavy lifting, they can just tag on the rest of the Avengers members without needing much explanation.
Ill keep saying it.
Shes the closest weve got to the original 3 for the charisma to carry a franchise.
No offence to Pedro Pascal & Vanessa Kirby, but Blunt is far more commanding and charismatic while Krasinski has proven himself to be the best on screen Reed during his short tenure in Multiverse of Madness.
I hereby demand that this sub stop fan-casting, for tactical reasons, so that Marvel studios don't do their contrarian thing of deliberately not casting popular fan choices, even if they would nail it.
Doctor Strange and Wong have been very influential in many projects related to the multiverse. Sam, as Cap, will ofcourse be around, as will Ant-Man. And Spidey is having his character development into a grown matured hero. Maybe even Shang-Chi. And one of these will have to step up when the other worlds of X-Men, F4, and maybe the vampire world of Blade, collide in Doomsday.
But nooooooooooo.
Then, in chonological order, there was a huge unfounded hate campaign against Brie Larson, Sony tried to cut Marvel out of the process entirely for No Way Home, Chadwick Boseman died, and MoM and L&T were polarizing. Also, Covid hit, the WGA/SAG strikes hit, and the actor playing the arc villain got convicted of a violent crime.
People keep forgetting (or in some cases, intentionally ignoring) that a heap of IRL disasters have been happening.
Leader of New Avengers: Yelena
Leader of Fantastic Four: Mr. Fantastic
However, we never really get to see this in action honestly outside of a bit of a teaser in the beginning of Civil War, and Rhodes and Vision aren't there.
It kind of feels like a bit of a setup that was wasted if you ask me. Then again, perhaps they planned it this way for the Civil War scenario. I mean, having only six avengers to fight amongst themselves really wouldn't have made for much of a movie.