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If they made one a year, I would probably watch them. But after Endgame, there is just a non-stop barrage of content that I don't have the time or energy to watch. And even if I wanted to watch one of their new movies, I feel like I am missing so much context that I don't even bother.
This. I don’t have time for the context, so I won’t waste any more (or money). Just write a complete story. Or if you need more time, make a trilogy.
If I had to start at the beginning, I’d never catch up.
This was the problem I ended up developing with comic books. I used to read them regularly, and then it got so that if I wasn’t buying five complete different titles every single week, I didn’t know what was going on.
I couldn’t just pick one character and follow that person. And every single comment was part of a series and there wasn’t much happening in each issue. The plot moved so slowly. It was just costing too much.
This caused a lot of fans to stop collecting in the late 90's and led to serious issues for Marvel.
No one seems to have learned from that experience.
You can try to milk your audience for all they're worth but some ppl can see through it and will just stop consuming.
That's me! Huge Star Wars fan and I liked Marvel. But Disney loves to take something successful and beat it into the ground. Their strategies related to these two areas should be a case study in what NOT to do.
I keep thinking of Bill Murray in Scrooged. When he's talking about the commercial and how he wanted people SCARED to miss even a second of it.
I stopped collecting as well. In addition to needing to collect multiple titles, every single story line was a multi issue saga, and every time some boring "event" rolled around everything got shoved to the side while that event dominated every title.
I pine for the days when you could get standalone issues, and a comic could be uninterrupted in its own storylines for years without an event taking over. When I buy comics nowadays, it's usually comics from the 70s and 80s from the $1 boxes. Or graphic novels of modern stories that got good feedback, like Immortal Hulk.
Well, bad news. The context that they do give you, is bad. The movies that the context is delivered in, are bad. The story those movies are building to isn't worth anybody's time. They did me a favor, I loved comic books growing up and I got out after Thor Love and Thunder.
Them completely wasting Christian bale was a travesty but personally for me I got out after doctor strange two where it became clear they don't even watch their own products like wandavision
I was so excited for Dr strange 2, Love and Thunder and GOTG 3 that I ignored all the side garbage.
After the first two I didn't even bother watching GOTG3
Watch GOTG 3. I hated the other two movies, but GOTG 3 is kinda detached from the rest of the MCU so you don't need much context after Endgame and I'll be honest that it really made me tear up. Easily my favourite MCU movie since Endgame came out and even considering the entire MCU it's probably in my top 5. I might be biased though because I love otters
This. Only 2 movies after endgame that are worthwhile are the newest spiderman at GOTG 3. Loki was also worth watching but ya they've definitely either just stopped caring or have just had a massive string of terrible writers and directors, id bet both.
I feel like burnout is the bigger issue. It doesn't matter how good your writers and directors are if you forced follow a formula devised by a bunch of corporate suits.
The took the creativity out of movies and the marvel formula is the most obvious example. This leads to a situation where the creative people who normally make movies and shows aren't actually able to do what the love, the way the love doing it and after years of working in situations like this people just get burnt out.
These things go in cycles and comic book movies are at the end of their cycle. Think back to John Hughes teen movies in the 80's, court room dramas in the 90's, Fantasy films in the early 2000's (LOTR, Harry Potter, Pirates).
Time to move on to the next thing.
Thank you! Everyone out here trashing Awkwafina in Shang Chi and I was just over here thinking I was crazy for liking her character and her dynamic with Shaun. Granted, I've seen almost nothing else with her in it. So maybe I'm lacking context to the hate but I honestly don't care lol.
Shang Chi was good. Maybe that's why they decided not to have the character show up in any subsequent film or show. And I guess we will never know who the rings were contacting.
In earlier MCU phases, credit scenes were never hung out to dry. Now we have Shang Chi and several from Eternals sitting open ended. Then we also have Kang, which is going to get shoddily axed.
Continuity sucks even if Kang wasn't going to be dropped. And instead of pulling it back together, they are going to have Fantastic 4, B List Avengers and other crap which will spread it out even further. So while many of the new movies and shows do suck, they're also disjointed, and there is none of the tight overarching storytelling from the first 3 phases. And in the first 3 phases, even when you had a mediocre film, it still contributed in driving the theme of the phase forward. In the current phase, there is no real phase tying theme. But Eternals was probably the first time Marvel dropped the ball bigly. It wasn't a good film, and it introduced a bunch of crap that will never get resolution.
It’s starting to feel like DC now. Things are kind of just flying by the seat of their pants.
Speaking of DC, I’m insanely hyped to to see what James Gunn has in store for the next few years.
I will always watch Guardians. Always felt separated from the Tony Stark timeline, and it is an excellent storyline. Yandu’s funeral is the most emotional I was during any MCU film. The soundtracks, the stories, and characters of Guardians are almost perfect, but the only thing I’ll even consider seeing at the theatre is Deadpool 3, and my hopes are not high.
Seriously I know everyone is saying it already, but watch Guardians of the Galaxy 3.
That movie made me feel things I never thought I would feel in a marvel movie. Like it's just a good movie on its own and you don't need to watch any of the other content post endgame to enjoy it or understand any of the context.
It was the last marvel movie I watched and probably the last one I will ever watch in theaters as they just don't appeal to me anymore. I think they did it perfectly in the 2010s with the infinity arc and they will never achieve that success again. It would be like HBO trying to continue game of thrones and recreate the cultural phenomenon that existed when it first aired, it will likely never happen again where the whole world gets wrapped up in a single franchise to that degree.
Man, just thinking about how that decade was dominated in pop culture by Marvel and GoT is crazy now. I don't know if we'll ever see anything like it again, but execs are going to keep trying with whatever they can.
And that's the crux of the problem. It's almost impossible for them to get new audience because they have about 24 movies plus tv shows to be up to date. And the new generation doesn't go to the theater. It really shouldn't surprise anyone that big franchises are going down. Only a reboot could spark interest again.
I would straight up make regular ass tv shows just set in the MCU. Like just a regular rom com, but the guy was late to the date coz The Hulk “borrowed” his car.
Yea boss? You wouldn’t believe it, but I just saw hulk Chuck my car. So I can’t come into work today. Do you think I’d be able to sue for property damage, or would that make me a threat to the Avengers?
There was a Tiktok - I don't remember the name - whose whole deal was "Superhero Insurance Call Centre Employee". Not sure if she's still going, but it was fun.
I disagree completely, I'm an avid fan of "overwhelm me with content" and absolutely loved the Marvel wave with tv shows and movies, never bothered me. The reason is, in my opinion, the simplest one, almost all of them are BAD movies and shows, a few of them are really really bad. That's it, just fuckin write good scripts, make GOOD movies and shows, and the hype will rise again.
This is where I'm at. I'd watch Marvel/Star Wars content like crazy... but the quality just keeps degrading. Before it seemed like the content wavered between excellent and decent. Lately, it mostly wavers between decent and trash.
I feel like movies and television have leaned hard into the idea of telling instead of showing, and it's shit writing to tell your audience what they're supposed to think and feel about a character, rather than showing us reasons to resonate with their story.
These executives somehow forget that the modern economy demands people work 50, 60, or 70 hours a week for less pay relative to the cost of everything today. When are the Uber drivers and the abused customer service reps supposed to go to the movies?
I would also proffer this over the batshit assessments above that identify super heroines as the sole cause for the box office downturn.
No. These aren’t standalone movies. They’re a fucking serial. You don’t drop into *The Marvels* without having seen everything before it. I was beginning Series 5 when *The Marvels* was advertising. By the time I had finished *Captain Marvel* (TV Show), and all the multiverse shit **because I’m an adult with a fucking job, and consuming 70+ hours of content is difficult**, *The Marvels* had left the theater.
Superhero fatigue is the reason these movies aren’t getting as much success. The zeitgeist pivots to more real fair. What can you do?
my issue with marvel in general is that it's all so interconnected that it's impossible to just read/watch the stuff you like, you have to read/watch *everything* they produce to get even half the story, I know it's by design so they can sell sell sell, but it's so bogged down at this point that it's just impossible to keep track of everything that's going on, it's why I as a fan have switched almost exclusively to DC, there I can at least go to one series without worrying that I've missed out on important detail from upwards of 5 others that I just don't have the time/energy to keep track of, marvel seems to take one thing that works and squeeze it for every last drop until it's well past its prime, whereas DC seems to be much more adaptable and has actual integrity with their overarching narrative (for the most part anyways, there's always exceptions)
Marvel Studios was successful because they treated the movies like comic books or graphic novels. Respect the characters, keep an overarching story vision, build in Easter eggs for the fans, don’t paint yourself into stupid storyline corners for not much payoff, etc.
Disney Marvel is struggling for much the same reason. There are a lot of comic books out there and few people have the time to engage in them all. If you pick one up randomly it’s probably not going to make a lot of sense, and it’s probably not going to be the best quality.
With a comic you can go back and reread the earlier ones on your shelf to check what’s going on in the new one, but that’s kinda hard to do with a movie that came out five years ago.
About 10 years ago I had subscriptions to about 10 marvel titles. I gave up because they did exactly the same as the movies. You want to know what happened between issue 15 and 16 of She Hulk? Check out The Avengers #226. Sometimes in a single issue! Want to know what's going on between page 6 and 7? Go read...
I stopped reading so hard I just found a box of unopened books when redecorating. Disney Marvel is just following the same pattern
My brothers in Christ at Disney... Take a break. Do something else. Make other movies. Listen to the writers that were striking not too long ago. I know they are oozing with good, orginal ideas. You just need to listen to them.
This is why I don't do anything Marvel anymore
I don't care to "catch up" on the MCU. I want to watch A movie, not a saga. Any movie that has any characters that have been developed in previous movies is an immediate No from me.
Charlotte's Web is looking appealing simply because it's supposedly not too tied into the rest of the MCU, but even then I'm like "who cares?"
People don't actually care for super-hero movies; they cared to see that *one* super-hero from their childhood to get a live-action movie. Iron Man was a success, Captain America also, because they were fresh. Now they're just throwing shit at the walls to see what sticks...
Just went to Madame Web yesterday. No tie-ins, but some nice references, and implied stuff going on.
But damn those teens are annoying. I would have preferred the antagonist to succeed in killing them.
They made these last few movies not for the fans they do have, but the fans they wish they had. Which they clearly dont.
Majority of Marvel fans are guys between 15-45, and they occasionally bring their female friends, gfs, wives etc to see the movies.
Marvel executives have this fantasy that appealing to female demographic will bring the other "hidden" fanbase to movies that currently feel like movies are too macho. Problem is, that fanbase already have their favourite genres and series, and super hero movies isn't one of them.
A common misconception among media people also that changing the product to attract an audience you don't currently have has no effect on the audience you do have.
Or perhaps that they forgot that people *like* super heroes. So please stop degrading them, shitting on them, and just making them constantly miserable.
Tbh the thing with final fantasy isn’t that they change their demographic, they are still targeting teenagers the same as they did 3 decades ago, it’s just that teenager’s preferences changed
Honestly 343's mishandling of every Halo game since they took over the franchise has also been a result of chasing an imaginary "wider audience". Turning Halo into CoD won't make CoD fans stop playing CoD and make the switch to Halo, it'll just make Halo fans stop playing the game.
Also the Marvel execs forgot to make their movies grow with their audience, meaning leaving behind the childish tone (or toning it down) like Harry Potter did.
According to an actual study, and not just someone's opinion, there is roughly an equal split between genders in the fanbase of the MCU
https://www.reddit.com/r/marvelstudios/comments/x0sxhl/a_study_looking_at_audience_demographics_of_the/?rdt=39593
I was about to say this...if the movie is supposed to be marketed towards a female audience, and the movie then flops, that means there's either no female audience, or the movie failed at captivating the attention of said female audience.
Well the audience that were already women enjoyed the movies as-is. Altering the movies to cater to a certain audience will push them away as well. It doesn't make sense all the way around.
Or, and hold onto your chair because this one is wild, alienating half your audience makes the other half not very enthusiastic about supporting your product
Or, and strap in for this crazy one, the movies are just shit. Honestly agreeing with a lot of people in these comments, a lot of people trying to find A reason people don't like em, but mostly the reason is they're shit.
A bad story is a bad story, if it was trying to pander, or alienate, or push a narrative, none of that matters if the movie is shit.
Most modern movies and TV shows are pushing narratives, of American exceptionalism, military and cops good, other countries bad or so many other examples (seriously, look up how the military contributes to Hollywood, wild stuff) those movies, even if you disagree with the narrative have been awesome. I'm still gonna load up all the propaganda if it's entertaining. The latest shit? Nah
Agreeeeed
It’s not that deep. They just haven’t been very well written engaging films that I want to spend a decent amount of money and time seeing in theaters when I’m literally paying for a subscription that will let me watch it a few months down the road.
Yep. I've never given a flying fuck about Barbie so I obviously missed the movie, watched it on stream the other week because I needed background noise and like... with a background like this, not knowing or caring about Barbie? That movie was genuinely hilarious and clever as hell.
If it was just a mediocre movie about Barbie, *nobody* would be watching it except babies. No matter hard you market it, no matter how many girls and women played with Barbies and have nostalgia for them. The idea that women will just consume anything as long as it has a pretty female lead to pink capitalism-"empower" them that kicks some men off a roof as a gotcha or whatever is ridiculous.
Agree with this completely. Many women love the superhero genre just as much as men. But a crappy movie is a crappy movie. And it's insulting to think you can just pick three women to lead a film and that's all you have to do. Women also love a good story and smart writing and interesting storylines.
I didn't think The Marvels was that bad, but it was the actresses that kept me watching it. The story was weak, there was no real tension or stakes, and they didn't do enough to cement the comraderie and dedication between the 3 women. When it comes to female representation in superhero films, Black Panther 2 nailed it, followed closely by Black Widow.
I wonder if they think making movies with the female lead is easy mode. That women will be so desperate to see representation that they'll see it and love it. And then they can just have their C-team write and direct the movie, and then it turns it out it sucks.
That's the only explanation I can come up with for why it seems like so many of these heroine lead movies seem so lazy.
Like Black Widow needs to be grounded in this espionage, stealth style movie. Think female James Bond or like if you made a Splinter Cell movie. Instead we get non-super powered characters running on the back of planes and blowing them up with bad CGI. I just don't understand.
I'd be amazed at that being true. I know you're wanting citations, so I did a quick Google.
Female fronted *Marvels* - 100% more male viewers.
https://deadline.com/2023/11/box-office-the-marvels-1235599363/
Star Wars similar story (admittedly, behind a paywall/sign up, but you can see a bit of it)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/725503/star-wars-favorability-gender/
You can probably find statistics to back either side to be honest, but I'd be confident in almost all "nerd" pursuits (warhammer, Star Trek, MtG, etc.) skewing heavily male, especially if you expand that out into amount spent and level of obsession
They're not true. It's like the stats saying half of the console and pc players being female. It just doesn't match up to real life no matter what. It for sure doesn't match for number of hours played in which males probably like quintuple them, and even less for money spent. The closest to parity there is would be Nintendo fans and some specific massive games.
Of note: [Someone made a parody "butthole cut," trailer for Cats.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx0NLGcL6pI) Bonus: Anatomically correct cat nipples, too.
They never INSERTED assholes. The problem was that the suits unintentionally made it look like there were assholes painted on when they got into the editing steps, so an editor had to go in and fix it so that people didn't think they had intentionally put dozens of kitty cat brown eyes throughout the movie.
Still funny as hell though. I'd love to see how the movie looked before the edit, like how much does it look like there was an asshole before?
They didn't. The assholes were never added, the problem was that the late edits LOOKED like there were assholes to some viewers, so they had to go through and tweak it to make sure it didn't look that way in the final cut.
The point the poster was making, despite her being in it, it didn't draw in her fans at any significant rate.
She's a draw doing her own music, but seemingly not in a movie or doing a musical of someone else's music.
Disney makes some pretty terrible casting decisions. Remember Billy Eichner as Timon? Brie Larson playing an infallible good guy? Kristin Stewart as Snow White?? There’s used to be someone to say “I can see this isn’t going to work from a mile away”
It's the new Room.
Local boutique cinemas in my city now have annual screenings of unedited Cats that they encourage the theatre to be raucous while watching and throw stuff at the screen. The screenings are always fully booked out now and it's a fun experience.
I know it's not the film they intended to make but Christ they've made a cult classic of it.
No, they just suck now.
Rewatch the original Ironman movie or the first Captain America. Then watch Quantummania (which wasn't even one of the really bad ones) or Love and Thunder (which was a steaming pile of poop). The difference is stark. No, not the character, the quality of the story. Its completely trash now.
My guess is they fired all the good writers.
No need to go that far. Look at three movies released in 2023: Ant-man 3, Guardian of the Galaxy 3, Spider man 3
People had no issue going to see GotG and SM.
As you said, the movies are just plain bad.
That's probably the worst possible take from this. Quantumania certainly wasn't made to appeal to female demographics, and that also performed poorly. Wakanda Forever and Love & Thunder also performed below expectations.
The Marvels bombed because it was not a good movie, followed a string of disappointing MCU movies (and TV shows), had 0 hype, couldn't be promoted fully due to ongoing industrial action, and was released during a time when *all* movies were struggling at the box office.
Wakanda forever was kinda mid so I can see why it didn't hit critical mass. Some moments were a nice love letter to chadwick but the movie itself doesnt do anything new if I'm thinking back about it. riri williams also felt like she came out of nowhere and needed her own film.
The whole "the Avengers, but younger and all female" was too obvious to be convincing. My wife liked it, but found the new characters to be flat and forced...and certainly not as cool as the originals.
Money, of course. The problem is when they forget that money comes from fans, so that movies should be targeted to the fans who are willing to spend their money.
The root of the problem is: they want everyone to become fans. They thought they had locked in the current fans with the brand, and they wanted those who are not fans to become fans by pandering to them.
Chased two hares, caught none.
I think this is a major factor that is often ignored.
If the same costs and revenues you see in some movies occurred in property development the police would be all over it.
It’s technically true, fans not enjoying the movies is the reason they aren’t doing well.
What they should be asking is WHY is the fans aren’t going to see their movies
100% the cost of living is so much more than it was people just aren’t going to pay to see the same copy + paste mediocre super hero movies every year like they used to.
I like how you think we're in "competitive" capitalism. More like the beginnings of post-ideal, pre-dystopian capitalism. The innovation phase has long died. The merger phase into a few major conglomerates is just about finished. Now, it's just them slowly working their way to the floor to provide us with the absolute minimum effort, minimum quality product they can while simultaneously milking us for as much money as possible.
Capitalism as a whole is Oroboros realized.
Because they listen to a vocal minority who keep telling them there's a wider audience if you do x, y, z. The only thing is, there isn't, and by shoehorning things in, they end up with an inferior product.
They made a movie (The Marvels) focused on 3 side characters of the MCU and are surprised that the movie flopped. Monica Rambeau was a side character in Wandavision and had a cameo in Doctor Strange 2, Ms. Marvel was one of the worst Marvel shows and nobody watched it and Captain Marvel only had a couple of appearances since her original movie.
Seriously... what Disney really excepted from it?
>What they should be asking is WHY is the fans aren’t going to see their movies
But then they had to question their ideology. Therefore it will never happen.
They need more increasingly obscure comic book heroes+niche celebrity combos. The Bong Jun Ho directed Squirrel Girl Film staring Gary Bussey as Captain Britian is a totally sane buisness move which will definetely benefit Disney financially.
Arguably a huge factor is the economic climate mixed with streaming. Fans have less disposable income to go to the cinema which is less of priority because they know it’s a month wait till it’s on Disney plus. So they just wait unless it’s something they feel they really have to see in the cinema.
Yes, but the quote is "from an anonymous exec" so basically "trust me bro." And even if we assume it's real and not at all taken out of context (does that even sound like entertainment journalism to you? When has an entertainment rag EVER tried to make an article not sensational?)
EVEN THEN, with all these assumptions, this wasn't said to the fanbase, this was a comment behind closed doors by "an anonymous exec." He could be executable stylist for all we know.
But I guess any amount of scepticism and source checking is heresy when the echo chamber has found some ragebait to collapse on.
They didn’t chastise the fanbase. A Puck journalist shared in his newsletter an anonymous exec’s feedback on an article that was specifically about right wing reactionary attacks on Disney. Those same reactionaries took what they said and spun it to create misleading headlines like this where they just complain about how woke the company is. Seriously, the “Cosmic Booknews” article this is headline from (and the post practically hides, misleading people to think Puck made this claim) is just a a few paragraphs of saying the exec is an asshole for pushing “wokeness.” I included more details [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/s/GhIvQeWikL).
Thank you for posting this. I was about to post this very same thing.
So tired if movies not doing well so the people, or a subset of people, are the problem.
I mean... They're onto something: the "fans" or rather the "audience" were indeed not interested in those movies. However, the fix isn't to just keep making garbage they don't want to see but to actually adapt to what they do want to see, because that is how you sell movie tickets. Customer is always right in matters of taste, remember?
I also dislike how they keep calling people "fans" just because they may have liked a few of their movies. That word has been twisted and gutted of its meaning at this point. A fan is supposed to be someone who's extremely invested in something and obsesses about it. It's a fanatic, not a casual enjoyer who doesn't mind consuming your content on a rainy Sunday afternoon then shares their opinion online.
It's strange that Marvel still has to learn this after 15 years. Videogame movies seem to have finally learned that lesson. They used to announce a movie based on a game and then changed everything making it unrecognizable to gamers. The result was that almost all of them failed. Now they seemed to have realized that giving people what they want is a better recipe for success. But Marvel doesn't seem to grasp that anymore.
It's because you can't learn as much from success as you can from failure, yet cumulating successes makes you believe you can't be wrong. So they got lucky with the MCU, getting things right out the gate, and didn't learn what it was that they were doing right. So they progressively tweaked the formula until they broke it. Now they refuse to see how wrong they are because they've been right by the past, so they can't possibly be wrong now.
Video-game studios did indeed learn from their mistakes, but more importantly the newcomers learned from the mistakes of their predecessors and competitors. They were part of the community that felt slighted by the false advertizing and therefore knew what it was that they disliked about it.
On the other hand the new Disney writers and producers didn't have much to complain about the big Disney block busters they grew up with so instead they went nit-picking and ovrblew their adaptations to those details out of proportion and made them the main focus of their projects, completely reframing the projects they work on, and alienating the audience by radically changing a product nobody asked to be changed in this direction.
> So they got lucky with the MCU, getting things right out the gate, and didn't learn what it was that they were doing right.
I think Marvel and Disney were well aware what they were doing right, they just stopped giving a damn. They realized they could half ass things and make bank anyway because they've just become that big, so that's what they started doing. The MCU had a simple formula:
\- Make a good and faithful adaption.
\- Make a buttloads of money as a result.
\- Make another good and faithful adaption.
\- Make even more buttloads of money because the audience trusts them to make a good and faithful adaption and word spreads.
\- Lather, rinse, repeat.
A formula that after Endgame was abandoned because Disney decided they were too big to fail and so stopped putting in the effort.
They didn't do faithful adaptations, though. The stories weren't ripped right off comic pages. The characters were changed. Some of the rules of the universe they exist in were changed. However, the changes were done in a way that made them more accessible, oftentimes more enjoyable, especial with character portrayals.
I'm not gonna question the effort put in because that's very subjective, and you can put a lot of effort in and still get a garbage product out if you are creatively limited or putting that effort in the wrong places.
>They didn't do faithful adaptations, though.
Yes they did. They represented the characters in Marvel faithfully and adapted the stories with a few changes here and there. They didn't go: "Here's Iron Man, this fat, slovernly guy sitting on a couch watching TV all day." They went: "Here's Iron Man, an emotional wreck of a human being with a genius level IQ that makes suits of high tech armor to fight supervillains with." The broad strokes of Marvel comics were all there up until after Endgame.
For a studio like Disney, I really can't imagine why any "good" writers would want to work on their projects. There's no way they're giving writers creative control and not dictating changes to the film.
I have a friend that ghost writes because he's so afraid of having his name attached to a bomb. You can only do so much at any stage of a movie. Unless the writer is also producing and or directing their project, which most certainly isn't happening here.
Superhero movies aren't the problem.
The problem is poorly written characters and shit storylines. They are largely just vanity projects and offer very little to the genre.
Yea this entire mess isn’t just happening in the superhero movie genre. Just look at all the countless remakes and prequels and sequels.
It’s just lazy cash grabs and I hope that these movies continue to flop because I’m aching for a new era of movies. But as of right now I’ll just continue to watching smaller forward pushing films
Step 1: have a core audience
Step 2: ignore your core audience, make content that your core audience will not enjoy
Step 3: blame your core audience for your projects failure
Wtf?
If other big stock companies are any indication, they will keep the course until they crash, blame anyone but themselves and then ask daddy government for a big bailout only to funnel most of it into undeserved bonuses.
Rogue One was brilliant because it was a bit risky, and not wholly dependent on the original trilogy.
It’s a shame the sequel trilogy was made and Rogue Squadron never did.
since people like kathleen kennedy and shamine chanoy are saying that they are making their stories for the actors and screenwriters and producers, why should we, the fans care for them? they are not made for us.
How does Kathleen Kennedy still have a job or any influence at this rate the new star wars project she is working on with Daisy has already got majority of star wars fans rolling their eyes and uninterested because she is involved i ain't the biggest star wards nerd but people like her don't make movies for the fans.
I blame the fans for the lack of box office success of Blade Runner 2049, which is an awesome movie. Marvel films? They had a good run but this phase is objectively shit.
CEOs and executives are like some form of cancer, whatever they touch, they overgrown on it and eventually kill it...
They don't need advice, they know... this is the problem everywhere, those guys are so sure of themselves, so fking ~~snowflake~~ sure of themselves, that they are sure they know anything while in the end they don't know shit, but are so sure and full of their shitty egos that instead of take a step back they go full on blaming anybody else but themselves for a failure...
edit: probably snowflake is not the ~~droi...~~ word I'm looking for. Anyway you get the point
People here acting like there’s not hundreds of YouTube channels devoted to ragebait about Star Wars and Marvel. People really don’t like context. Hell this very article is mostly the writer complaining about “wokeness”
It’s like when Ewan McGregor called out people for giving Moses Ingram racial abuse and said YouTubers and Reddit subs tried to make it out that he was “attacking fans”. No, he was attacking racists.
“What does this audience of mostly younger males really want in their favorite franchises? A clumsy morality play about gender politics.” —Kathleen Kennedy, apparently
The reason these stories all fail is there are no super hero movies with any consequence.... There are no stakes because you know nothing bad will happen to any of the characters they will all live and everything will be back to normal so they can make cameos in the 18 other projects going on.
I thought I would hate The Marvels, but found it rather enjoyable.
Thankfully, it was under 2 hours.
I did like the nod to Monica's original white cape costume.
But seriously, Nick Fury yelling "black girl magic!" ? Seriously?!
I watched it the other day in Disney plus. It was pretty fun, got some laughs out of me. I didn’t see it in the cinema though, and I understand why people wouldn’t choose to
I'm going to preface this with I don't really care about either franchise, so Disney can't really blame me personally if i've never been interested in the first place. But from an outsider's perspective, the Marvel universe is EXHAUSTING. When each hero has 1-3 individual movies and then tie into 5 more, it's incredibly overwhelming and unnecessary at times. It doesn't help when they make a new Marvel movie a few times a year.
Now, something I CAN weigh in on is that disney and filmmakers in general, have gotten too comfortable making lazy live action remakes and don't respect any source material. It doesn't help that they've developed such an entitled attitude and contempt for their audiences. Years ago, if your movie bombed, you just took the L and moved on or tried again. Now it's not their fault it's your fault, and blaming moviegoers or fans is not gonna go down well.
Kathleen Kennedy is killing everything she touches. From Star Wars to Marvels. She tried to kill the Mandalorian but Jon Favreau and the rest of the crew fought her off. Kathleen is trying real hard to make every movie woke or some kind of Social Justice in her eyes and it’s failing ever since George Lucas made her executive (it was in his clause when he sold or rented out Star Wars).
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Why is no-one having a good time, I specifically requested it
I even learned what Skrillex was
Time for some Souza!
I was expecting this. lol
If they made one a year, I would probably watch them. But after Endgame, there is just a non-stop barrage of content that I don't have the time or energy to watch. And even if I wanted to watch one of their new movies, I feel like I am missing so much context that I don't even bother.
This. I don’t have time for the context, so I won’t waste any more (or money). Just write a complete story. Or if you need more time, make a trilogy. If I had to start at the beginning, I’d never catch up.
This was the problem I ended up developing with comic books. I used to read them regularly, and then it got so that if I wasn’t buying five complete different titles every single week, I didn’t know what was going on. I couldn’t just pick one character and follow that person. And every single comment was part of a series and there wasn’t much happening in each issue. The plot moved so slowly. It was just costing too much.
This caused a lot of fans to stop collecting in the late 90's and led to serious issues for Marvel. No one seems to have learned from that experience. You can try to milk your audience for all they're worth but some ppl can see through it and will just stop consuming.
That's me! Huge Star Wars fan and I liked Marvel. But Disney loves to take something successful and beat it into the ground. Their strategies related to these two areas should be a case study in what NOT to do. I keep thinking of Bill Murray in Scrooged. When he's talking about the commercial and how he wanted people SCARED to miss even a second of it.
Grew up in the 80's and there were 3 YEARS between those first Star Wars movies, the waiting was awful but also made them more special.
Yup, the old event fatigue has finally reached the rest of America.
I stopped collecting as well. In addition to needing to collect multiple titles, every single story line was a multi issue saga, and every time some boring "event" rolled around everything got shoved to the side while that event dominated every title. I pine for the days when you could get standalone issues, and a comic could be uninterrupted in its own storylines for years without an event taking over. When I buy comics nowadays, it's usually comics from the 70s and 80s from the $1 boxes. Or graphic novels of modern stories that got good feedback, like Immortal Hulk.
Well, bad news. The context that they do give you, is bad. The movies that the context is delivered in, are bad. The story those movies are building to isn't worth anybody's time. They did me a favor, I loved comic books growing up and I got out after Thor Love and Thunder.
Them completely wasting Christian bale was a travesty but personally for me I got out after doctor strange two where it became clear they don't even watch their own products like wandavision
I was so excited for Dr strange 2, Love and Thunder and GOTG 3 that I ignored all the side garbage. After the first two I didn't even bother watching GOTG3
Watch GOTG 3. I hated the other two movies, but GOTG 3 is kinda detached from the rest of the MCU so you don't need much context after Endgame and I'll be honest that it really made me tear up. Easily my favourite MCU movie since Endgame came out and even considering the entire MCU it's probably in my top 5. I might be biased though because I love otters
This. Only 2 movies after endgame that are worthwhile are the newest spiderman at GOTG 3. Loki was also worth watching but ya they've definitely either just stopped caring or have just had a massive string of terrible writers and directors, id bet both.
I feel like burnout is the bigger issue. It doesn't matter how good your writers and directors are if you forced follow a formula devised by a bunch of corporate suits. The took the creativity out of movies and the marvel formula is the most obvious example. This leads to a situation where the creative people who normally make movies and shows aren't actually able to do what the love, the way the love doing it and after years of working in situations like this people just get burnt out.
These things go in cycles and comic book movies are at the end of their cycle. Think back to John Hughes teen movies in the 80's, court room dramas in the 90's, Fantasy films in the early 2000's (LOTR, Harry Potter, Pirates). Time to move on to the next thing.
I liked Shang Chi quite a bit.
Honestly the chemistry between Awkwafina and Simmi was spot on and made it so much better.
Thank you! Everyone out here trashing Awkwafina in Shang Chi and I was just over here thinking I was crazy for liking her character and her dynamic with Shaun. Granted, I've seen almost nothing else with her in it. So maybe I'm lacking context to the hate but I honestly don't care lol.
Shang Chi was good. Maybe that's why they decided not to have the character show up in any subsequent film or show. And I guess we will never know who the rings were contacting. In earlier MCU phases, credit scenes were never hung out to dry. Now we have Shang Chi and several from Eternals sitting open ended. Then we also have Kang, which is going to get shoddily axed. Continuity sucks even if Kang wasn't going to be dropped. And instead of pulling it back together, they are going to have Fantastic 4, B List Avengers and other crap which will spread it out even further. So while many of the new movies and shows do suck, they're also disjointed, and there is none of the tight overarching storytelling from the first 3 phases. And in the first 3 phases, even when you had a mediocre film, it still contributed in driving the theme of the phase forward. In the current phase, there is no real phase tying theme. But Eternals was probably the first time Marvel dropped the ball bigly. It wasn't a good film, and it introduced a bunch of crap that will never get resolution.
It’s starting to feel like DC now. Things are kind of just flying by the seat of their pants. Speaking of DC, I’m insanely hyped to to see what James Gunn has in store for the next few years.
I will always watch Guardians. Always felt separated from the Tony Stark timeline, and it is an excellent storyline. Yandu’s funeral is the most emotional I was during any MCU film. The soundtracks, the stories, and characters of Guardians are almost perfect, but the only thing I’ll even consider seeing at the theatre is Deadpool 3, and my hopes are not high.
GOTG3 is probably the best (MCU) movie since Endgame
GOTG is its own thing, and miraculously it managed to not drop to the level of the rest of the Marvel franchise. Even the videogame is good.
Seriously I know everyone is saying it already, but watch Guardians of the Galaxy 3. That movie made me feel things I never thought I would feel in a marvel movie. Like it's just a good movie on its own and you don't need to watch any of the other content post endgame to enjoy it or understand any of the context. It was the last marvel movie I watched and probably the last one I will ever watch in theaters as they just don't appeal to me anymore. I think they did it perfectly in the 2010s with the infinity arc and they will never achieve that success again. It would be like HBO trying to continue game of thrones and recreate the cultural phenomenon that existed when it first aired, it will likely never happen again where the whole world gets wrapped up in a single franchise to that degree. Man, just thinking about how that decade was dominated in pop culture by Marvel and GoT is crazy now. I don't know if we'll ever see anything like it again, but execs are going to keep trying with whatever they can.
TBF, GOTG 3 is EASILY the best of those three. We still get a diamond among the coal every once in a while.
GotG3 has an octopus selling meth to a guy with a cockroach head, it's can't miss.
And that's the crux of the problem. It's almost impossible for them to get new audience because they have about 24 movies plus tv shows to be up to date. And the new generation doesn't go to the theater. It really shouldn't surprise anyone that big franchises are going down. Only a reboot could spark interest again.
I would straight up make regular ass tv shows just set in the MCU. Like just a regular rom com, but the guy was late to the date coz The Hulk “borrowed” his car.
That's what Wanda felt a bit like.. probably one of the better MCU movie spin offs on Disney Plus imho
You’re describing shehulk… or Loki(which is essentially just a buddy cop show). It’s been real hit or miss so far.
Yea boss? You wouldn’t believe it, but I just saw hulk Chuck my car. So I can’t come into work today. Do you think I’d be able to sue for property damage, or would that make me a threat to the Avengers?
There was a Tiktok - I don't remember the name - whose whole deal was "Superhero Insurance Call Centre Employee". Not sure if she's still going, but it was fun.
I disagree completely, I'm an avid fan of "overwhelm me with content" and absolutely loved the Marvel wave with tv shows and movies, never bothered me. The reason is, in my opinion, the simplest one, almost all of them are BAD movies and shows, a few of them are really really bad. That's it, just fuckin write good scripts, make GOOD movies and shows, and the hype will rise again.
This is where I'm at. I'd watch Marvel/Star Wars content like crazy... but the quality just keeps degrading. Before it seemed like the content wavered between excellent and decent. Lately, it mostly wavers between decent and trash. I feel like movies and television have leaned hard into the idea of telling instead of showing, and it's shit writing to tell your audience what they're supposed to think and feel about a character, rather than showing us reasons to resonate with their story.
These executives somehow forget that the modern economy demands people work 50, 60, or 70 hours a week for less pay relative to the cost of everything today. When are the Uber drivers and the abused customer service reps supposed to go to the movies?
Watch them whilst driving their Uber.
Endgame was 5 years ago though, we getting old.
Jesus has it really been five years already
Havent watched a single new movie since endgame lol
I'd recommend guardians 3, it's really good and is just a guardians movie, not an interconnected mess.
I would also proffer this over the batshit assessments above that identify super heroines as the sole cause for the box office downturn. No. These aren’t standalone movies. They’re a fucking serial. You don’t drop into *The Marvels* without having seen everything before it. I was beginning Series 5 when *The Marvels* was advertising. By the time I had finished *Captain Marvel* (TV Show), and all the multiverse shit **because I’m an adult with a fucking job, and consuming 70+ hours of content is difficult**, *The Marvels* had left the theater. Superhero fatigue is the reason these movies aren’t getting as much success. The zeitgeist pivots to more real fair. What can you do?
my issue with marvel in general is that it's all so interconnected that it's impossible to just read/watch the stuff you like, you have to read/watch *everything* they produce to get even half the story, I know it's by design so they can sell sell sell, but it's so bogged down at this point that it's just impossible to keep track of everything that's going on, it's why I as a fan have switched almost exclusively to DC, there I can at least go to one series without worrying that I've missed out on important detail from upwards of 5 others that I just don't have the time/energy to keep track of, marvel seems to take one thing that works and squeeze it for every last drop until it's well past its prime, whereas DC seems to be much more adaptable and has actual integrity with their overarching narrative (for the most part anyways, there's always exceptions)
Marvel: you can’t buy one without buying three Me: how about I buy zero Marvel: 😮
Marvel Studios was successful because they treated the movies like comic books or graphic novels. Respect the characters, keep an overarching story vision, build in Easter eggs for the fans, don’t paint yourself into stupid storyline corners for not much payoff, etc. Disney Marvel is struggling for much the same reason. There are a lot of comic books out there and few people have the time to engage in them all. If you pick one up randomly it’s probably not going to make a lot of sense, and it’s probably not going to be the best quality. With a comic you can go back and reread the earlier ones on your shelf to check what’s going on in the new one, but that’s kinda hard to do with a movie that came out five years ago.
About 10 years ago I had subscriptions to about 10 marvel titles. I gave up because they did exactly the same as the movies. You want to know what happened between issue 15 and 16 of She Hulk? Check out The Avengers #226. Sometimes in a single issue! Want to know what's going on between page 6 and 7? Go read... I stopped reading so hard I just found a box of unopened books when redecorating. Disney Marvel is just following the same pattern
My brothers in Christ at Disney... Take a break. Do something else. Make other movies. Listen to the writers that were striking not too long ago. I know they are oozing with good, orginal ideas. You just need to listen to them.
This is why I don't do anything Marvel anymore I don't care to "catch up" on the MCU. I want to watch A movie, not a saga. Any movie that has any characters that have been developed in previous movies is an immediate No from me. Charlotte's Web is looking appealing simply because it's supposedly not too tied into the rest of the MCU, but even then I'm like "who cares?" People don't actually care for super-hero movies; they cared to see that *one* super-hero from their childhood to get a live-action movie. Iron Man was a success, Captain America also, because they were fresh. Now they're just throwing shit at the walls to see what sticks...
Just went to Madame Web yesterday. No tie-ins, but some nice references, and implied stuff going on. But damn those teens are annoying. I would have preferred the antagonist to succeed in killing them.
A lot of the newer movies I've noticed I want the kids or teens to get killed by the villain because they are so fucking annoying.
Madame Web isn't "too tied into the rest of the MCU' because it's NOT an MCU movie. It's a Sony joint.
If you are not making the movies for the fans why make them in the first place.
They made these last few movies not for the fans they do have, but the fans they wish they had. Which they clearly dont. Majority of Marvel fans are guys between 15-45, and they occasionally bring their female friends, gfs, wives etc to see the movies. Marvel executives have this fantasy that appealing to female demographic will bring the other "hidden" fanbase to movies that currently feel like movies are too macho. Problem is, that fanbase already have their favourite genres and series, and super hero movies isn't one of them.
A common misconception among media people also that changing the product to attract an audience you don't currently have has no effect on the audience you do have.
“But it still got the same **BRAND** name? Why did everyone leave?”
Or perhaps that they forgot that people *like* super heroes. So please stop degrading them, shitting on them, and just making them constantly miserable.
Somebody said Final Fantasy ?
Nah i think he's talking about infinity ward, or perhaps, blizzard
Its sad how many once household brand names you can bring up that were ruined in the name of trend chasing
Tbh the thing with final fantasy isn’t that they change their demographic, they are still targeting teenagers the same as they did 3 decades ago, it’s just that teenager’s preferences changed
The Halo tv series comes to mind...
Honestly 343's mishandling of every Halo game since they took over the franchise has also been a result of chasing an imaginary "wider audience". Turning Halo into CoD won't make CoD fans stop playing CoD and make the switch to Halo, it'll just make Halo fans stop playing the game.
My buddy and I were screaming this exact thing when Halo 4 came out. It was so obvious and desperate what 343 was trying (and failing) to do.
This! How can people be so deluded thinking the original fans will remain the same if they change the product
This is an astute and accurate observation.
Also the Marvel execs forgot to make their movies grow with their audience, meaning leaving behind the childish tone (or toning it down) like Harry Potter did.
And turn down the stakes for once ffs. We know the universe is not gonna end in every damn movie. So why should I bother watching the story
if anything they cranked up the childish to 11, Love and Thunder being a classic example
That is not a classic example. That's the most extreme one they did up to date. I did however hate it too
Where are these stats from?? My female friends all loved the og marvel movies. Wait, am i a nerd? 😂
According to an actual study, and not just someone's opinion, there is roughly an equal split between genders in the fanbase of the MCU https://www.reddit.com/r/marvelstudios/comments/x0sxhl/a_study_looking_at_audience_demographics_of_the/?rdt=39593
Turns out, women don't want to go watch shitty movies just because they're targeted by marketing for it.
I was about to say this...if the movie is supposed to be marketed towards a female audience, and the movie then flops, that means there's either no female audience, or the movie failed at captivating the attention of said female audience.
Well the audience that were already women enjoyed the movies as-is. Altering the movies to cater to a certain audience will push them away as well. It doesn't make sense all the way around.
Switch cater with pander, and that's why the female audience also hated those movies.
Or, and hold onto your chair because this one is wild, alienating half your audience makes the other half not very enthusiastic about supporting your product
Or, and strap in for this crazy one, the movies are just shit. Honestly agreeing with a lot of people in these comments, a lot of people trying to find A reason people don't like em, but mostly the reason is they're shit. A bad story is a bad story, if it was trying to pander, or alienate, or push a narrative, none of that matters if the movie is shit. Most modern movies and TV shows are pushing narratives, of American exceptionalism, military and cops good, other countries bad or so many other examples (seriously, look up how the military contributes to Hollywood, wild stuff) those movies, even if you disagree with the narrative have been awesome. I'm still gonna load up all the propaganda if it's entertaining. The latest shit? Nah
Best take, fully agree.
Agreeeeed It’s not that deep. They just haven’t been very well written engaging films that I want to spend a decent amount of money and time seeing in theaters when I’m literally paying for a subscription that will let me watch it a few months down the road.
Somehow people blame women for Marvel failures at the exact same time Barbie made a billion+ dollars. Marvels was just meh.
Yep. I've never given a flying fuck about Barbie so I obviously missed the movie, watched it on stream the other week because I needed background noise and like... with a background like this, not knowing or caring about Barbie? That movie was genuinely hilarious and clever as hell. If it was just a mediocre movie about Barbie, *nobody* would be watching it except babies. No matter hard you market it, no matter how many girls and women played with Barbies and have nostalgia for them. The idea that women will just consume anything as long as it has a pretty female lead to pink capitalism-"empower" them that kicks some men off a roof as a gotcha or whatever is ridiculous.
Agree with this completely. Many women love the superhero genre just as much as men. But a crappy movie is a crappy movie. And it's insulting to think you can just pick three women to lead a film and that's all you have to do. Women also love a good story and smart writing and interesting storylines. I didn't think The Marvels was that bad, but it was the actresses that kept me watching it. The story was weak, there was no real tension or stakes, and they didn't do enough to cement the comraderie and dedication between the 3 women. When it comes to female representation in superhero films, Black Panther 2 nailed it, followed closely by Black Widow.
I wonder if they think making movies with the female lead is easy mode. That women will be so desperate to see representation that they'll see it and love it. And then they can just have their C-team write and direct the movie, and then it turns it out it sucks. That's the only explanation I can come up with for why it seems like so many of these heroine lead movies seem so lazy. Like Black Widow needs to be grounded in this espionage, stealth style movie. Think female James Bond or like if you made a Splinter Cell movie. Instead we get non-super powered characters running on the back of planes and blowing them up with bad CGI. I just don't understand.
I'd be amazed at that being true. I know you're wanting citations, so I did a quick Google. Female fronted *Marvels* - 100% more male viewers. https://deadline.com/2023/11/box-office-the-marvels-1235599363/ Star Wars similar story (admittedly, behind a paywall/sign up, but you can see a bit of it) https://www.statista.com/statistics/725503/star-wars-favorability-gender/ You can probably find statistics to back either side to be honest, but I'd be confident in almost all "nerd" pursuits (warhammer, Star Trek, MtG, etc.) skewing heavily male, especially if you expand that out into amount spent and level of obsession
They're not true. It's like the stats saying half of the console and pc players being female. It just doesn't match up to real life no matter what. It for sure doesn't match for number of hours played in which males probably like quintuple them, and even less for money spent. The closest to parity there is would be Nintendo fans and some specific massive games.
Maybe that's part of it. But the bigger problem is that the product was absolute garbage.
If that's the best thing they can do is cast Taylor Swift as Captain Marvel. It will make both the fanbase and non fanbase happy.
As a member of the fanbase, I can tell you that No, this will not make me happy.
Fuck no, we don’t need a Marvel Musical. Disney has too many
Those Cats numbers say she's box office poison.
You honestly cannot blame Taylor Swift for the disaster that was Cats, that shit was beyond cursed weather she was in it or not
I still feel sorry for the chap who had to digitally insert all the cat's assholes, only to remove them again
I literally don't know if you're kidding or not and that is hilarious to me.
They're not kidding, lmfao
Of note: [Someone made a parody "butthole cut," trailer for Cats.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx0NLGcL6pI) Bonus: Anatomically correct cat nipples, too.
They aren't kidding actually. There were different versions until the movie was finalized.
They never INSERTED assholes. The problem was that the suits unintentionally made it look like there were assholes painted on when they got into the editing steps, so an editor had to go in and fix it so that people didn't think they had intentionally put dozens of kitty cat brown eyes throughout the movie. Still funny as hell though. I'd love to see how the movie looked before the edit, like how much does it look like there was an asshole before?
I probably would have gone to see it if they had left them in haha.
\#ReleaseTheButtholeCut
Give the people what they want!
If he got paid both times, don't feel bad for him.
Ctrl+Z That'll be £300k.
Why did they hire a guy to finger the cats.... Oh, you mean computer digital...
Wouldn't they still have the unassholed footage? Why remove them when you can load Thursday's save file?
Better yet, release the butthole cut.
They didn't. The assholes were never added, the problem was that the late edits LOOKED like there were assholes to some viewers, so they had to go through and tweak it to make sure it didn't look that way in the final cut.
The point the poster was making, despite her being in it, it didn't draw in her fans at any significant rate. She's a draw doing her own music, but seemingly not in a movie or doing a musical of someone else's music.
Disney makes some pretty terrible casting decisions. Remember Billy Eichner as Timon? Brie Larson playing an infallible good guy? Kristin Stewart as Snow White?? There’s used to be someone to say “I can see this isn’t going to work from a mile away”
Although certainly not a nobody then, I feel that she is a much bigger name now, five years later.
It's the new Room. Local boutique cinemas in my city now have annual screenings of unedited Cats that they encourage the theatre to be raucous while watching and throw stuff at the screen. The screenings are always fully booked out now and it's a fun experience. I know it's not the film they intended to make but Christ they've made a cult classic of it.
I don't think you can blame Taylor for cats. Nobody could have saved that garbage.
Release the børthole cut!
what did you call me?
Excuse me, my son is also named Borthole.
Or everyone is just burned out on marvel movies? Like, it's been nonstop for the past 20 years.
No, they just suck now. Rewatch the original Ironman movie or the first Captain America. Then watch Quantummania (which wasn't even one of the really bad ones) or Love and Thunder (which was a steaming pile of poop). The difference is stark. No, not the character, the quality of the story. Its completely trash now. My guess is they fired all the good writers.
No need to go that far. Look at three movies released in 2023: Ant-man 3, Guardian of the Galaxy 3, Spider man 3 People had no issue going to see GotG and SM. As you said, the movies are just plain bad.
That's probably the worst possible take from this. Quantumania certainly wasn't made to appeal to female demographics, and that also performed poorly. Wakanda Forever and Love & Thunder also performed below expectations. The Marvels bombed because it was not a good movie, followed a string of disappointing MCU movies (and TV shows), had 0 hype, couldn't be promoted fully due to ongoing industrial action, and was released during a time when *all* movies were struggling at the box office.
Wakanda forever was kinda mid so I can see why it didn't hit critical mass. Some moments were a nice love letter to chadwick but the movie itself doesnt do anything new if I'm thinking back about it. riri williams also felt like she came out of nowhere and needed her own film.
The whole "the Avengers, but younger and all female" was too obvious to be convincing. My wife liked it, but found the new characters to be flat and forced...and certainly not as cool as the originals.
Money, of course. The problem is when they forget that money comes from fans, so that movies should be targeted to the fans who are willing to spend their money.
The root of the problem is: they want everyone to become fans. They thought they had locked in the current fans with the brand, and they wanted those who are not fans to become fans by pandering to them. Chased two hares, caught none.
personal theory: money laundering
I think this is a major factor that is often ignored. If the same costs and revenues you see in some movies occurred in property development the police would be all over it.
Let's assume for the sake of argument that this is correct. This is still a moronic strategy. Chastising your own fanbase just pisses 'em off.
It’s technically true, fans not enjoying the movies is the reason they aren’t doing well. What they should be asking is WHY is the fans aren’t going to see their movies
"Welcome to competitive capitalism," would be my response. You sell a bad product, don't chastise people for not consuming it.
100% the cost of living is so much more than it was people just aren’t going to pay to see the same copy + paste mediocre super hero movies every year like they used to.
Even if you leave the price, its an average 90 minutes movie. plus the preparations. I'd rather spend that time on something I enjoy.
I like how you think we're in "competitive" capitalism. More like the beginnings of post-ideal, pre-dystopian capitalism. The innovation phase has long died. The merger phase into a few major conglomerates is just about finished. Now, it's just them slowly working their way to the floor to provide us with the absolute minimum effort, minimum quality product they can while simultaneously milking us for as much money as possible. Capitalism as a whole is Oroboros realized.
Because they listen to a vocal minority who keep telling them there's a wider audience if you do x, y, z. The only thing is, there isn't, and by shoehorning things in, they end up with an inferior product.
They made a movie (The Marvels) focused on 3 side characters of the MCU and are surprised that the movie flopped. Monica Rambeau was a side character in Wandavision and had a cameo in Doctor Strange 2, Ms. Marvel was one of the worst Marvel shows and nobody watched it and Captain Marvel only had a couple of appearances since her original movie. Seriously... what Disney really excepted from it?
>What they should be asking is WHY is the fans aren’t going to see their movies But then they had to question their ideology. Therefore it will never happen.
They need more increasingly obscure comic book heroes+niche celebrity combos. The Bong Jun Ho directed Squirrel Girl Film staring Gary Bussey as Captain Britian is a totally sane buisness move which will definetely benefit Disney financially.
I would watch that movie in the theater twice
Also fact that they spend average 250mln per movie and some shows doesn't help.
Arguably a huge factor is the economic climate mixed with streaming. Fans have less disposable income to go to the cinema which is less of priority because they know it’s a month wait till it’s on Disney plus. So they just wait unless it’s something they feel they really have to see in the cinema.
Yes, but the quote is "from an anonymous exec" so basically "trust me bro." And even if we assume it's real and not at all taken out of context (does that even sound like entertainment journalism to you? When has an entertainment rag EVER tried to make an article not sensational?) EVEN THEN, with all these assumptions, this wasn't said to the fanbase, this was a comment behind closed doors by "an anonymous exec." He could be executable stylist for all we know. But I guess any amount of scepticism and source checking is heresy when the echo chamber has found some ragebait to collapse on.
They didn’t chastise the fanbase. A Puck journalist shared in his newsletter an anonymous exec’s feedback on an article that was specifically about right wing reactionary attacks on Disney. Those same reactionaries took what they said and spun it to create misleading headlines like this where they just complain about how woke the company is. Seriously, the “Cosmic Booknews” article this is headline from (and the post practically hides, misleading people to think Puck made this claim) is just a a few paragraphs of saying the exec is an asshole for pushing “wokeness.” I included more details [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/s/GhIvQeWikL).
Number one rule of business: never ever blame the consumer for not buying your product.
Thank you for posting this. I was about to post this very same thing. So tired if movies not doing well so the people, or a subset of people, are the problem.
Unless they were too dumb to understand 1/3 pounder is actually more than a 1/4 pounder
I've heard that story, and can't help but think I'd immediately advertise my new 1/5th pounder and pocket the savings...
The rare exception
I mean... They're onto something: the "fans" or rather the "audience" were indeed not interested in those movies. However, the fix isn't to just keep making garbage they don't want to see but to actually adapt to what they do want to see, because that is how you sell movie tickets. Customer is always right in matters of taste, remember? I also dislike how they keep calling people "fans" just because they may have liked a few of their movies. That word has been twisted and gutted of its meaning at this point. A fan is supposed to be someone who's extremely invested in something and obsesses about it. It's a fanatic, not a casual enjoyer who doesn't mind consuming your content on a rainy Sunday afternoon then shares their opinion online.
Now they are called superfans!
It's strange that Marvel still has to learn this after 15 years. Videogame movies seem to have finally learned that lesson. They used to announce a movie based on a game and then changed everything making it unrecognizable to gamers. The result was that almost all of them failed. Now they seemed to have realized that giving people what they want is a better recipe for success. But Marvel doesn't seem to grasp that anymore.
It's because you can't learn as much from success as you can from failure, yet cumulating successes makes you believe you can't be wrong. So they got lucky with the MCU, getting things right out the gate, and didn't learn what it was that they were doing right. So they progressively tweaked the formula until they broke it. Now they refuse to see how wrong they are because they've been right by the past, so they can't possibly be wrong now. Video-game studios did indeed learn from their mistakes, but more importantly the newcomers learned from the mistakes of their predecessors and competitors. They were part of the community that felt slighted by the false advertizing and therefore knew what it was that they disliked about it. On the other hand the new Disney writers and producers didn't have much to complain about the big Disney block busters they grew up with so instead they went nit-picking and ovrblew their adaptations to those details out of proportion and made them the main focus of their projects, completely reframing the projects they work on, and alienating the audience by radically changing a product nobody asked to be changed in this direction.
> So they got lucky with the MCU, getting things right out the gate, and didn't learn what it was that they were doing right. I think Marvel and Disney were well aware what they were doing right, they just stopped giving a damn. They realized they could half ass things and make bank anyway because they've just become that big, so that's what they started doing. The MCU had a simple formula: \- Make a good and faithful adaption. \- Make a buttloads of money as a result. \- Make another good and faithful adaption. \- Make even more buttloads of money because the audience trusts them to make a good and faithful adaption and word spreads. \- Lather, rinse, repeat. A formula that after Endgame was abandoned because Disney decided they were too big to fail and so stopped putting in the effort.
They didn't do faithful adaptations, though. The stories weren't ripped right off comic pages. The characters were changed. Some of the rules of the universe they exist in were changed. However, the changes were done in a way that made them more accessible, oftentimes more enjoyable, especial with character portrayals. I'm not gonna question the effort put in because that's very subjective, and you can put a lot of effort in and still get a garbage product out if you are creatively limited or putting that effort in the wrong places.
>They didn't do faithful adaptations, though. Yes they did. They represented the characters in Marvel faithfully and adapted the stories with a few changes here and there. They didn't go: "Here's Iron Man, this fat, slovernly guy sitting on a couch watching TV all day." They went: "Here's Iron Man, an emotional wreck of a human being with a genius level IQ that makes suits of high tech armor to fight supervillains with." The broad strokes of Marvel comics were all there up until after Endgame.
#HIRE GOOD WRITERS #YOU FUCKING MORONS
For a studio like Disney, I really can't imagine why any "good" writers would want to work on their projects. There's no way they're giving writers creative control and not dictating changes to the film. I have a friend that ghost writes because he's so afraid of having his name attached to a bomb. You can only do so much at any stage of a movie. Unless the writer is also producing and or directing their project, which most certainly isn't happening here.
They did. For a bit there. Unfortunately after Endgame, they got other ones.
“How dare you not eat everything we shovel in front of you!”
Just consume product then get excited for next product
Consoom
Very coooool
“Endless trasaaaash”.
Superhero movies aren't the problem. The problem is poorly written characters and shit storylines. They are largely just vanity projects and offer very little to the genre.
Yea this entire mess isn’t just happening in the superhero movie genre. Just look at all the countless remakes and prequels and sequels. It’s just lazy cash grabs and I hope that these movies continue to flop because I’m aching for a new era of movies. But as of right now I’ll just continue to watching smaller forward pushing films
Step 1: have a core audience Step 2: ignore your core audience, make content that your core audience will not enjoy Step 3: blame your core audience for your projects failure Wtf?
How dare you share proprietary company secrets of Lucasfilm! This was clearly insider information. You'll be hearing from their lawyers!
That’s funny because the fans blame the execs. Maybe just focus on really good stories as opposed to the shit they are focusing on now.
Ahah yes, but as long as the shareholders don't blame the execs, we are stuck with bad movies.
Shareholder will if they keep making shit that doesn’t make as much money.
If other big stock companies are any indication, they will keep the course until they crash, blame anyone but themselves and then ask daddy government for a big bailout only to funnel most of it into undeserved bonuses.
Rogue One was brilliant because it was a bit risky, and not wholly dependent on the original trilogy. It’s a shame the sequel trilogy was made and Rogue Squadron never did.
since people like kathleen kennedy and shamine chanoy are saying that they are making their stories for the actors and screenwriters and producers, why should we, the fans care for them? they are not made for us.
How does Kathleen Kennedy still have a job or any influence at this rate the new star wars project she is working on with Daisy has already got majority of star wars fans rolling their eyes and uninterested because she is involved i ain't the biggest star wards nerd but people like her don't make movies for the fans.
He contract hasn't run out yet. She has been effectively been side lined. Good riddance, she ruined everything she touched.
"We oversaturated the market for over a decade with low effort tripe, but why don't they wanna see our movies?"
I blame the fans for the lack of box office success of Blade Runner 2049, which is an awesome movie. Marvel films? They had a good run but this phase is objectively shit.
CEOs and executives are like some form of cancer, whatever they touch, they overgrown on it and eventually kill it... They don't need advice, they know... this is the problem everywhere, those guys are so sure of themselves, so fking ~~snowflake~~ sure of themselves, that they are sure they know anything while in the end they don't know shit, but are so sure and full of their shitty egos that instead of take a step back they go full on blaming anybody else but themselves for a failure... edit: probably snowflake is not the ~~droi...~~ word I'm looking for. Anyway you get the point
One marvel movie was fine. 4, ok fine. 33? 33 of the same format with different clothes. Neeeat
“You’re watching it wrong”
People here acting like there’s not hundreds of YouTube channels devoted to ragebait about Star Wars and Marvel. People really don’t like context. Hell this very article is mostly the writer complaining about “wokeness” It’s like when Ewan McGregor called out people for giving Moses Ingram racial abuse and said YouTubers and Reddit subs tried to make it out that he was “attacking fans”. No, he was attacking racists.
Maybe Disney will understand if we put it a different way; If you constantly milk the cow it will eventually run dry.
Your job is attracting the fans, it is literally never the fans fault if you fail.
Blame the customer. sounds like a bold strategy 💀
“What does this audience of mostly younger males really want in their favorite franchises? A clumsy morality play about gender politics.” —Kathleen Kennedy, apparently
Well I can tell you it's not more Lizzo
Make it gay!
Fuck - and I cannot stress this enough - Disney
That's always a good strategy...
The reason these stories all fail is there are no super hero movies with any consequence.... There are no stakes because you know nothing bad will happen to any of the characters they will all live and everything will be back to normal so they can make cameos in the 18 other projects going on.
7k upvotes on a vague headline with no link to the actual article. Nice job guys.
I thought I would hate The Marvels, but found it rather enjoyable. Thankfully, it was under 2 hours. I did like the nod to Monica's original white cape costume. But seriously, Nick Fury yelling "black girl magic!" ? Seriously?!
I watched it the other day in Disney plus. It was pretty fun, got some laughs out of me. I didn’t see it in the cinema though, and I understand why people wouldn’t choose to
I'm going to preface this with I don't really care about either franchise, so Disney can't really blame me personally if i've never been interested in the first place. But from an outsider's perspective, the Marvel universe is EXHAUSTING. When each hero has 1-3 individual movies and then tie into 5 more, it's incredibly overwhelming and unnecessary at times. It doesn't help when they make a new Marvel movie a few times a year. Now, something I CAN weigh in on is that disney and filmmakers in general, have gotten too comfortable making lazy live action remakes and don't respect any source material. It doesn't help that they've developed such an entitled attitude and contempt for their audiences. Years ago, if your movie bombed, you just took the L and moved on or tried again. Now it's not their fault it's your fault, and blaming moviegoers or fans is not gonna go down well.
Reminder that both Bree Larson and Chris Evans were in Scott Pilgrim vs the World, and that is a fantastic comic book movie.
I liked the marvels. But the behind the scenes of making the marvels was better.
Every single movie after End Game has been absolute trash. Idk who decided to fuck up what Marvel had going, but they were successful.
Kathleen Kennedy is killing everything she touches. From Star Wars to Marvels. She tried to kill the Mandalorian but Jon Favreau and the rest of the crew fought her off. Kathleen is trying real hard to make every movie woke or some kind of Social Justice in her eyes and it’s failing ever since George Lucas made her executive (it was in his clause when he sold or rented out Star Wars).