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  1. #31
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    Quote Originally Posted by chicago_bastard View Post
    First, it's impossible that Logan inspired Infinity War because filming of the latter started in January 2017 and therefore at a moment Logan wasn't even released. So the screenplay had to be finished even earlier than 2017.
    Feige explicitly said LOGAN was an inspiration for them for ENDGAME
    (https://www.cinemablend.com/news/247...ctful-as-logan)

    Second, the Avengers movies make more money in foreign markets than in the US,
    That's not how the box-office works.

    International grosses by itself don't count as profits because a lot of that money goes to fees to international distributors, tariff fees, taxes, to respective nations and so on. Whereas the US box office gross doesn't include any of that, and also benefit from some generous tax breaks...so the lion's share of the profitability of any American blockbuster depends mostly on the US grosses. International grosses are multipliers of that, and amplifiers but not entirely profitable by itself. That's why movies like Warcraft which failed in the Western market but did really well in China isn't getting a sequel.

    I mean Disney execs considered Age of Ultron a box-office failure (https://www.goliath.com/movies/aveng...is%20committee.) even if it had a worldwide gross of $1.4bn simply because it's US domestic gross significantly lower than Avengers 1.

    if we look at Endgame US audiences were responsible for only about 30% of the total box office. So your theory about the presidency having a big effect on the success of these movies is rather flawed unless you think people in China or Europe care about who the current US president is when they decide to watch a movie.
    People in China and Europe do care who the current US President is, especially because if often affects the Visa status of many relatives audience members there currently have studying or working in America. And besides, Trump's election set off and was part of a big populist wave of authoritarianism worldwide. It matters greatly who the US President is. Dissidents can point to America as a model when Obama or someone like him is in charge and not when there's a president whose personal intentions and ambitions are not very different from Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un.
    Last edited by Revolutionary_Jack; 08-06-2020 at 04:15 PM.

  2. #32
    Mighty Member capandkirby's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Feige explicitly said LOGAN was an inspiration for them for ENDGAME
    (https://www.cinemablend.com/news/247...ctful-as-logan)



    That's not how the box-office works.

    International grosses by itself don't count as profits because a lot of that money goes to fees to international distributors, tariff fees, taxes, to respective nations and so on. Whereas the US box office gross doesn't include any of that, and also benefit from some generous tax breaks...so the lion's share of the profitability of any American blockbuster depends mostly on the US grosses. International grosses are multipliers of that, and amplifiers but not entirely profitable by itself. That's why movies like Warcraft which failed in the Western market but did really well in China isn't getting a sequel.

    I mean Disney execs considered Age of Ultron a box-office failure (https://www.goliath.com/movies/aveng...is%20committee.) even if it had a worldwide gross of $1.4bn simply because it's US domestic gross significantly lower than Avengers 1.



    People in China and Europe do care who the current US President is, especially because if often affects the Visa status of many relatives audience members there currently have studying or working in America. And besides, Trump's election set off and was part of a big populist wave of authoritarianism worldwide. It matters greatly who the US President is. Dissidents can point to America as a model when Obama or someone like him is in charge and not when there's a president whose personal intentions and ambitions are not very different from Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un.
    True. Just read a statistic on this recently in fact. Movie studios make 60% of domestic box office but only 20-40% of International box office.

    https://www.investopedia.com/article...make-money.asp

    Excerpt: “Traditionally, a larger chunk went to the studio during the opening weekend of a film. As the weeks went on, the theater operator's percentage rose. A studio might make about 60% of a film's ticket sales in the United States, and around 20% to 40% of that on overseas ticket sales.”

    You’re not wrong about sentiment towards the superhero genre changing either, as much as it pains me to say it (as someone who’s loved the genre for 30 years now). Time recently wrote a hit piece.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/time.co...en/%3famp=true

    Excerpt: “Superheroes have dominated popular culture for the last decade—they are fixtures of the highest-grossing movies and icons to more than just our children. They are beacons of inspiration: protesters dressed as Spider-Man and Batman have turned up at recent Black Lives Matter demonstrations. And yet what are superheroes except cops with capes who enact justice with their powers?”

    “With a few notable exceptions (more on those later), most superhero stories star straight, white men who either function as an extension of a broken U.S. justice system or as vigilantes without any checks on their powers. Usually, they have some sort of tentative relationship with the government: The Avengers work for the secretive agency S.H.I.E.L.D.; Batman takes orders from Gotham police commissioner Gordon; even the villainous members of the Suicide Squad execute government orders in exchange for commuted prison sentences. And even when superheroes function outside the justice system, they’re sometimes idolized by police because they are able to skirt the law to “get the job done.”


    ...Though I’ll add that the comics have addressed this issue by separating the Avengers from both the government (they declared themselves as belonging to the world, not any one country) and separating them by location (they live in the North Pole). And in Coates Captain America run, at least, cops definitely are NOT portrayed as good, in fact most of them are on the payroll of Wilson Fisk and the Power Elite. So the recent comics have done a better job of not being cop propaganda. The films... eh. They may have a point.
    Last edited by capandkirby; 08-06-2020 at 05:43 PM.

  3. #33

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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Feige explicitly said LOGAN was an inspiration for them for ENDGAME
    (https://www.cinemablend.com/news/247...ctful-as-logan)
    Doesn't change the fact that the decision that Tony Stark would die was already made long before they saw Logan. Feige only states that they saw another movie where a longterm character had an impactful death and hoped that their take would be equally successful. Not really as much of an inspiration as you make it out to be.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post

    That's not how the box-office works.

    International grosses by itself don't count as profits because a lot of that money goes to fees to international distributors, tariff fees, taxes, to respective nations and so on. Whereas the US box office gross doesn't include any of that, and also benefit from some generous tax breaks...so the lion's share of the profitability of any American blockbuster depends mostly on the US grosses. International grosses are multipliers of that, and amplifiers but not entirely profitable by itself. That's why movies like Warcraft which failed in the Western market but did really well in China isn't getting a sequel.

    I mean Disney execs considered Age of Ultron a box-office failure (https://www.goliath.com/movies/aveng...is%20committee.) even if it had a worldwide gross of $1.4bn simply because it's US domestic gross significantly lower than Avengers 1.
    If your theory were correct the Fast & Furious franchise wouldn't have any chance to exist as it grosses only a tiny fraction of its money at the US box office (FF8 made only 226 million USD domestic compared to over one billion overseas), yet Universal keeps expanding that franchise.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post

    People in China and Europe do care who the current US President is, especially because if often affects the Visa status of many relatives audience members there currently have studying or working in America. And besides, Trump's election set off and was part of a big populist wave of authoritarianism worldwide. It matters greatly who the US President is. Dissidents can point to America as a model when Obama or someone like him is in charge and not when there's a president whose personal intentions and ambitions are not very different from Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un.
    Read my quote properly: "people in China or Europe don't care about who the current US president is when they decide to watch a movie." The statement that US politics affect the success of comic book movies in Europe and China is bonkers.

  4. #34
    Ultimate Member Ascended's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    The Pandemic of 2020 is not to be compared to anything that came before. The lessons learned before might not be applicable to the current situation.
    Indeed, but that's not my point. My point was that movies have survived every crisis America has gone through. I expect them to survive covid 19. Not without a few new scars, but they'll survive this just as they've survived everything else.

    Quote Originally Posted by capandkirby View Post
    Excerpt: “Superheroes have dominated popular culture for the last decade—they are fixtures of the highest-grossing movies and icons to more than just our children. They are beacons of inspiration: protesters dressed as Spider-Man and Batman have turned up at recent Black Lives Matter demonstrations. And yet what are superheroes except cops with capes who enact justice with their powers?”

    “With a few notable exceptions (more on those later), most superhero stories star straight, white men who either function as an extension of a broken U.S. justice system or as vigilantes without any checks on their powers. Usually, they have some sort of tentative relationship with the government: The Avengers work for the secretive agency S.H.I.E.L.D.; Batman takes orders from Gotham police commissioner Gordon; even the villainous members of the Suicide Squad execute government orders in exchange for commuted prison sentences. And even when superheroes function outside the justice system, they’re sometimes idolized by police because they are able to skirt the law to “get the job done.”
    This just makes me sad. The nerd in me chafes at the inaccuracy (Batman takes orders from Gordon? Clearly the author must be Jon Snow, for they know nothing) but the entire sentiment and the series of awful events that have led to this point are just depressing.

    The hilarious irony is that when you boil it down and look at the thematics, the prototypical superhero is closer to being a protester than a police officer.
    "We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another, as if we were one single tribe."

    ~ Black Panther.

  5. #35
    Ultimate Member Holt's Avatar
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    Black Panther was the highest grossing solo film of the entire franchise, and Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange and to a lesser extent Ant-Man all did well. The upcoming films like Shang-Chi and the Eternals are certainly obscure, but a lack of familiarity hasn't stopped audiences in the past.

    Hell, joking about how nobody knew who the Guardians were was part of the marketing campaign.

  6. #36
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    Quote Originally Posted by capandkirby View Post
    True. Just read a statistic on this recently in fact. Movie studios make 60% of domestic box office but only 20-40% of International box office.

    https://www.investopedia.com/article...make-money.asp

    Excerpt: “Traditionally, a larger chunk went to the studio during the opening weekend of a film. As the weeks went on, the theater operator's percentage rose. A studio might make about 60% of a film's ticket sales in the United States, and around 20% to 40% of that on overseas ticket sales.”
    Thanks for the backup.

    You’re not wrong about sentiment towards the superhero genre changing either, as much as it pains me to say it (as someone who’s loved the genre for 30 years now). Time recently wrote a hit piece.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/time.co...en/%3famp=true

    Excerpt: “Superheroes have dominated popular culture for the last decade—they are fixtures of the highest-grossing movies and icons to more than just our children. They are beacons of inspiration: protesters dressed as Spider-Man and Batman have turned up at recent Black Lives Matter demonstrations. And yet what are superheroes except cops with capes who enact justice with their powers?”

    “With a few notable exceptions (more on those later), most superhero stories star straight, white men who either function as an extension of a broken U.S. justice system or as vigilantes without any checks on their powers. Usually, they have some sort of tentative relationship with the government: The Avengers work for the secretive agency S.H.I.E.L.D.; Batman takes orders from Gotham police commissioner Gordon; even the villainous members of the Suicide Squad execute government orders in exchange for commuted prison sentences. And even when superheroes function outside the justice system, they’re sometimes idolized by police because they are able to skirt the law to “get the job done.”


    ...Though I’ll add that the comics have addressed this issue by separating the Avengers from both the government (they declared themselves as belonging to the world, not any one country) and separating them by location (they live in the North Pole). And in Coates Captain America run, at least, cops definitely are NOT portrayed as good, in fact most of them are on the payroll of Wilson Fisk and the Power Elite. So the recent comics have done a better job of not being cop propaganda. The films... eh. They may have a point.
    It's the nature of things. All genres cycle in and out and depend on the social and cultural context of its time for its success and popularity. The MCU reflected, for the most part, an optimistic belief in institutions and the ability of society to change and reform when Obama was in office because in part that was the narrative that he was trying to spread and inculcate. He was the outstanding American success, a self-made man whose rise to power was entirely earned on merit. Trump's victory by itself didn't negate that narrative or the belief in institutions, it was seen as unjust and unfair attempt at rewriting history and an attempt to reverse and nullify Obama's presidency, so that served the MCU well in the movies between 2016-2019, with Black Panther and Captain Marvel an attempt to remind people of the future that should have been and could have been. That narrative and idea, that optimism of the Obama years has gone now. The economy so strong and strident in Obama's term has lost all its gains from the recovery of the 08 Financial Crisis, with the current crisis making that seem quaint by comparison. So the MCU will have to take that into account going forward.

  7. #37
    Mighty Member capandkirby's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ascended View Post
    Indeed, but that's not my point. My point was that movies have survived every crisis America has gone through. I expect them to survive covid 19. Not without a few new scars, but they'll survive this just as they've survived everything else.

    This just makes me sad. The nerd in me chafes at the inaccuracy (Batman takes orders from Gordon? Clearly the author must be Jon Snow, for they know nothing) but the entire sentiment and the series of awful events that have led to this point are just depressing.

    The hilarious irony is that when you boil it down and look at the thematics, the prototypical superhero is closer to being a protester than a police officer.
    Trust me, made me sad, too. In fact I ranted on Twitter about it, pointing out the inaccuracies in the article (like I said in the Cap book right now the cops are CLEARLY the villains. Steve has taken on both cops, and ICE, who turned out to be members of the terrorist group the Watchdogs in the story. Moreover Cap, having been framed for murder, was placed in a prison system that tortured inmates, put power dampeners on them, then put them in cage fights, so the narrative went after the prison system, too. Coates isn’t holding back. At all.) Kind of a shame that all superheroes are being lumped together and also not given a little credit. Though I do agree that more can and should be done within the genre to a) be more inclusive and b) not glorify abuse.

  8. #38
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    Quote Originally Posted by chicago_bastard View Post
    Doesn't change the fact that the decision that Tony Stark would die was already made long before they saw Logan. Feige only states that they saw another movie where a longterm character had an impactful death and hoped that their take would be equally successful. Not really as much of an inspiration as you make it out to be.
    Is it a problem for you if some fan says something nice about a Non-MCU superhero movie, or if I quote producers and others saying something nice about it? Feige and others loved LOGAN and said it inspired them in their Avengers movies, either confirm or validate the story decisions they have taken, try harder in execution to see if it matches and so on. After all remember that Avengers movies are extensively post-produced and altered with reshoots and so on. Endgame's finale was largely redone in reshoots so it's totally possible to expect them to take influence from new works. Likewise these movies don't always stick to script.

    If your theory were correct the Fast & Furious franchise wouldn't have any chance to exist as it grosses only a tiny fraction of its money at the US box office (FF8 made only 226 million USD domestic compared to over one billion overseas), yet Universal keeps expanding that franchise.
    1) Not my theory. That's the lived experience, wisdom, and actual thought process of most Hollywood watchers and execs.

    2) I am not familiar enough with the Fast and Furious franchise but taking a quick glance it seems to me that most of these movies are generally on a lower budget than MCU movies. Granted the budgets have become more and more expensive with each passing entry but on balance those movies do seem to be making big profits on the US releases which multiplies greatly overseas. I will say that from the looks of things, FF8 does seem to be a relative failure compared to FF7 which made $357mn domestic on a budget that was lower than FF7's. And FF8's failure does seem to have led to Universal take a back seat from saturating the franchise and allowing Hobbs and Shaw to take over before the 9th movie comes out (which it can't because of Pandemic).

    Your example does not disprove my argument at all. Having said that, I will add that obviously different studios have different standards and benchmarks, and obviously a Fast and Furious movie isn't going to be held the same standard as a superhero movie. Remember that USA has a population of 330mn people, largest in the western world, so by any criteria it's a huge market, and properties that are especially big in America like Star Wars or superhero comics are expected to succeed primarily on the American market. To reiterate, in the box-office, the profitability of any American movie depends largely on its US domestic gross. The profits reaped from international grosses are a smaller percentage owing to multiple deductions.

  9. #39
    Mighty Member capandkirby's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Thanks for the backup.



    It's the nature of things. All genres cycle in and out and depend on the social and cultural context of its time for its success and popularity. The MCU reflected, for the most part, an optimistic belief in institutions and the ability of society to change and reform when Obama was in office because in part that was the narrative that he was trying to spread and inculcate. He was the outstanding American success, a self-made man whose rise to power was entirely earned on merit. Trump's victory by itself didn't negate that narrative or the belief in institutions, it was seen as unjust and unfair attempt at rewriting history and an attempt to reverse and nullify Obama's presidency, so that served the MCU well in the movies between 2016-2019, with Black Panther and Captain Marvel an attempt to remind people of the future that should have been and could have been. That narrative and idea, that optimism of the Obama years has gone now. The economy so strong and strident in Obama's term has lost all its gains from the recovery of the 08 Financial Crisis, with the current crisis making that seem quaint by comparison. So the MCU will have to take that into account going forward.
    All very true. We’ve both said it now and I still believe it, the biggest obstacle the future of the MCU faces is the economy. Entertainment is the first thing to be cut when times are rough out of necessity. I don’t think people are quite grasping the severity here. The fed has been printing an obscene amount of money, hoping to stave off the recession, surpassing the levels of the 2008 financial crises. So inflation is going to be a massive issue here pretty quick. Couple that with unemployment levels that are Great Depression level of awful. All compounded by the fact that the threat of Covid hasn’t yet gone away and won’t for awhile. And even when it does, it’s going to take YEARS to recover from the fallout. I don’t care if someone resurrects Marilyn Monroe and puts her in the next MCU film along with Elvis, there are going to be less people are going to see that film because they simply won’t have the means.

  10. #40
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    Quote Originally Posted by capandkirby View Post
    All very true. We’ve both said it now and I still believe it, the biggest obstacle the future of the MCU faces is the economy. Entertainment is the first thing to be cut when times are rough out of necessity. I don’t think people are quite grasping the severity here. The fed has been printing an obscene amount of money, hoping to stave off the recession, surpassing the levels of the 2008 financial crises. So inflation is going to be a massive issue here pretty quick. Couple that with unemployment levels that are Great Depression level of awful. All compounded by the fact that the threat of Covid hasn’t yet gone away and won’t for awhile. And even when it does, it’s going to take YEARS to recover from the fallout. I don’t care if someone resurrects Marilyn Monroe and puts her in the next MCU film along with Elvis, there are going to be less people are going to see that film because they simply won’t have the means.
    You are quite right. I got into a discussion with a friend of mine online about the situation and the movie business and he was an optimist. I pointed out simply, "where was the money going to come to pay for the tickets, for the concessions, for the parking spot, for the gas?"

    During the Depression, the movie business thrived because it was cheap. Average cost of ticket was a quarter. It's unimaginable today to conceive of a time when tickets were that cheap. Today, the cheap entertainment is YouTube and Social Media, and whatever you can get from streaming. The MCU will weather this better than others because they have more resources but still, Disney has its own troubles because a lot of their money comes from resorts and hotels, and no suicidal early opening of a theme park in Florida is going to turn around and restore those profits to what they expected at the start of this year. If Disney doesn't feel that its bread and butter is earning them enough, then the movies might be affected because as far as Disney goes, that's really icing and indulgence (remember in the past Disney have flirted with gutting their animation department due to poor returns and become a pure theme park business, the Eisner-Katzenberg era turned that around).

    Disney Plus is a new thing and the Marvel TV shows (like Falcon and WS, Loki, Wandavision) is on the backlog pile because they didn't complete production before the lockdown so it can't be edited remotely like Gunn's Suicide Squad and Amazon's The Boys. Disney Plus are lucky to have the upcoming S2 of The Mandalorian apparently but not much after that. The Eternals is being done remotely from what I read but these movies like extensive reshoots and Feige doesn't have room to do that now.
    Last edited by Revolutionary_Jack; 08-06-2020 at 07:50 PM.

  11. #41
    Astonishing Member Shinglepants's Avatar
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    I’m really not worried about the MCU. Sure, in a post pandemic world, Disney might slow down a little And produce films with smaller budgets but that’s not necessarily a crisis.

    As for the Avengers... The next Avengers roster will likely consist of Captain Marvel, Black Panther, Ant-Man and Falcon amongst others? Those guys will have all been in a minimum of 3-4 films, some more than that. It’s not exactly asking people to take a chance on a new team. It’s established, familiar faces who already star in their own successful franchises.

  12. #42

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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    1) Not my theory. That's the lived experience, wisdom, and actual thought process of most Hollywood watchers and execs.

    2) I am not familiar enough with the Fast and Furious franchise but taking a quick glance it seems to me that most of these movies are generally on a lower budget than MCU movies. Granted the budgets have become more and more expensive with each passing entry but on balance those movies do seem to be making big profits on the US releases which multiplies greatly overseas. I will say that from the looks of things, FF8 does seem to be a relative failure compared to FF7 which made $357mn domestic on a budget that was lower than FF7's. And FF8's failure does seem to have led to Universal take a back seat from saturating the franchise and allowing Hobbs and Shaw to take over before the 9th movie comes out (which it can't because of Pandemic).
    So expanding the franchise by making spin-offs is taking a back seat? So Disney was taking a back seat with Star Wars when they decided to make the Rogue One and Solo spin-offs? Don't think so.

    The FF movies are profitable, otherwise Universal wouldn't produce a spin-off and a ninth entry to the main story. The fact that Universal earned only 147 million USD with FF8 from the US box office (that's the 65% share of the box office that the studio gets) on a 250 million budget and still made profit shows that overseas box office is able to make a movie a success even if it fails in the US.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Your example does not disprove my argument at all. Having said that, I will add that obviously different studios have different standards and benchmarks, and obviously a Fast and Furious movie isn't going to be held the same standard as a superhero movie. Remember that USA has a population of 330mn people, largest in the western world, so by any criteria it's a huge market, and properties that are especially big in America like Star Wars or superhero comics are expected to succeed primarily on the American market. To reiterate, in the box-office, the profitability of any American movie depends largely on its US domestic gross. The profits reaped from international grosses are a smaller percentage owing to multiple deductions.
    What you're saying is right and would be on point for movies where US box office and international box office were split 50:50 or slightly in favor of international, but we're talking about the Avengers movies where domestic box office only accounts for 30% of the total gross. 858 million domestic and nearly 2 billion in the rest of the world is just too big a gap even with the higher share Disney gets from US box office. With Endgame Disney earned more money from overseas markets than from the domestic run, that can't be denied.

    What I'm saying is that the MCU is a global phenomenon and therefore it is not as dependent on the US market as other franchises like Star Wars, which is very dependent on its US audience because it fails to attract viewers in Asia. Don't get me wrong, the US market is still the most important for the reasons you mentioned, but the MCU could still be a success even if the interest of US audiences drops.

    Moreover the biggest chance for the MCU to thrive is to concentrate on the foreign markets, because it's more likely that there's room for further growth in Asia than in the saturated US market. And the decision to make a Shang-Chi movie is testament to Disney going exactly that path.

  13. #43
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    Quote Originally Posted by capandkirby View Post
    Six months ago my answer to this question would have been yes, of course it will survive. I mean, I say this as a huge Cap fan. Steve Rogers is my favorite character and while I will miss Chris Evans playing him, A LOT, I was really looking forward to seeing Mahershala Ali play Blade and that Eternals cast, wow. Was really looking forward to that film, too. But now I’m not sure it will survive, at least not with its previous popularity, and it has nothing to do with characters being retired. Disney is charging $30 for the live action Mulan on pay-per-view. Meanwhile AMC, the largest theater chain in the US, is teetering on bankruptcy and would be gone already if not for the bail-out. So the future of the MCU is contingent on whether fans would be willing to fork over $30 to watch a film, in their home, extra, over what they’re already paying for Disney+ (assuming theaters don’t survive... which, even IF they’re allowed to reopen they’ll have to include new safety methods, which means less seats being sold to observe social distancing). After a pandemic. Wherein the unemployment rate is the highest it’s ever been. I’d be willing to bet a lot less people are going to be willing to do that, particularly for characters, as you’ve pointed out, they don’t yet know.
    Agreed. A year ago, I felt that the future of the MCU looked financially bright. Although Phase 4 was composed of lesser-known characters, films like the Eternals and Shang-Chi were standing on the secure basis built by the previous MCU movies. It still blows my mind that the Avengers, who were for years the B-list within the Marvel Universe when compared to the X-Men, FF, or Spider-Man, have now become iconic in pop culture. Endgame is the highest grossing film of all time, worldwide. So, the MCU could be risky with featuring lesser-known and diverse characters.

    However, the pandemic has certainly deflated that momentum. I certainly hope Covid 19 will be a short term (and by short term, finish by the end of the year) type of thing. But its effects on the movie industry can't be discounted. When losing all of that money, the MCU may not be able to support lesser-known characters. They may want to return to old standards, like the Big 3. I see something like this occurring in the regular comics industry, where Marvel Comics is cutting down on the lesser known titles.

    But perhaps there's still viability in MCU's Phase 4 films? As has been mentioned Falcon, GoTG, Captain Marvel, they're still big names, who made their marks in previous films. There's still Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and the X-Men. Matters of diversity matter more than ever before, so characters like Black Widow, Shang-Chi, Valkeyrie, Black Panther, and Blade have resonance. And yes, somehow Kevin Feige has been able to turn a lot of unfamiliar characters into multi-million dollar earnings.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ascended View Post
    Hell, Iron Man wasn't perceived as an A-list property until the MCU in the first place. And there are already people campaigning for the MCU to fail; trying to boycott Black Panther and Captain Marvel, etc.

    The last time we had an Iron Man film was....2013? Tony showed up in other films since then so he was still around, but it's been a long damn time since an Iron Man movie came out.

    MCU is not only still going, but is making more money than it did ten years ago, and expanding into new formats. And now they have the rights to the mutants and FF.

    I probably sound like a MCU cheer leader, which is funny because I think a lot of their films are too formulaic and are mostly just "empty calorie" popcorn flicks, but I really don't get why people are worried about it. When Fiege leaves, that'll be a time to worry about the future but until then I think the MCU will just continue to improve, expand, and will remain a monolith of pop culture.

    Ten years from now, we might be laughing about how Shang Chi was once considered a Z-list character, and it'll boggle the minds of younger fans to think that he was ever anything but a headliner.
    Keeping those Deadly Hands of Kung Fu crossed, bro.
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  14. #44
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    I think its pretty clear that they have to.

    I suspect that Tony had to die for two reasons. First, they couldn't keep paying RDJ what his contract said he was due, and second, they would eventually have to explain why he didn't show up for every crisis (Tony being able to remotely pilot his armor).

    I'm curious how things will proceed going forward, as actors get cycled in and out.

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    Sure they will, they've gotten a Spier-man extension and he'll be viable for years since he's still in high school right now. X-men will inject a large amount of lore and characters for tv shows and movies by itself, they got the Fantastic Four back and they got back the Netflix Defenders. They have hundreds of obscure characters they haven't gotten to yet, which grows every few years in the comics. Can't they use Namor now? Another option they have is to do the Inhumans without Perlmutter interfering.

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