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 AduroT wrote:
Everyone I know who saw Marvels thought it was a good, fun movie.

Same here. I still don't understand why it bombed.

 Geifer wrote:

Fast and Furious might have had its own, distinct problems. It's only half a movie and dialed back the outrageous nonsense (a bit).

Ok, granted, they didn't launch another car into space....
But they in no way dialed back any of the outrageous nonsense.

 AduroT wrote:
Everyone I know who saw Marvels thought it was a good, fun movie.

Same here. I enjoyed it.

The audience just isn't showing up like it used to. Of all the sequels released since Covid, only SM: No Way Home and Doctor Strange 2 had an increase in number of tickets sold. The rest did not retain the audience that their previous installments had.

Click on the below image to enlarge.

Fast X didn't have rocket cars flying into space. The absurdities of Fast 9 were dialled back for Fast X.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
... Mission Impossible, Fast and Furious...

There are Mitigating circumstances for these ones. COVID productions being a big part of it (remember that when M:I shut down, they kept paying everyone despite no work being done, and that was expensive). Plus M:I had the unfortunate slot of opening a week before Barbenheimer took over. As for Pixar, that's Disney's fault for training everyone into knowing that a Pixar film will hit streaming pretty soon after going to theatres (assuming it even gets to a theatre), so why go the hassle and cost of bringing children to the movies when they can stay home?

And Star Wars is not on life support. Star Wars is dead.

 AduroT wrote:
Everyone I know who saw Marvels thought it was a good, fun movie.

And I'm sure that makes the 18 and a half people who saw it very happy. Didn't help its box office any.

I don’t buy the mitigating circumstances story. In 2018 or 2019, even mediocre F&F or M:I movies would have had big opening weekends, even if another big film was dropping a week later. The idea that audiences save their ticket money for the one big movie they would see that summer is a new one, at least on this scale.

I’d also say Disney trained the MCU fans the same way to wait for streaming. (Although I agree they also lost a chunk of their audience due to the phase 5 blahs of mediocrity.)


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On a somewhat related note, there were more people in our showing of the Marvels (week 2) than in our showing of Aquaman (opening weekend), a lot more. However, Aquaman seems to be doing better overall due to the nature of the holiday box office.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

I’d also say Disney trained the MCU fans the same way to wait for streaming.

I wonder how much of it is 'training' and how much of it is just practicality and a limited budget.

Before streaming, I had the option to go see a movie at the cinema or wait and buy or hire the DVD. With streaming subscriptions, I'm already effectively paying for the second option anyway, so there is little incentive to go to the cinema unless it's something that I really want to see on the big screen. The vast majority of movies that aren't Star Wars, I'll happily wait.

They tend to bring the movies to streaming very quickly compared to the days when you have to wait for a DVD. So beyond economic incentives, they have also made streaming more convenient and waiting less of a hassle. Perhaps conditioned would have been a better word than trained.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I don’t buy the mitigating circumstances story. In 2018 or 2019, even mediocre F&F or M:I movies would have had big opening weekends, even if another big film was dropping a week later. The idea that audiences save their ticket money for the one big movie they would see that summer is a new one, at least on this scale.

I'm not sure how you got the idea that movies don't compete with each other. Sure you have counter promotion such as when a popular family film is opening then you release a horror film because not everyone wants the family film. The problem is that when you have big event picture vs big event picture they can, and often do, compete for each others audience.

As far as M:I goes it wasn't up against a single film it was up was against two and those two were a weird cultural moment: it was big event vs big event vs big event with the two other pictures having a tied together momentum. Of course it was going to have an impact on ticket sales.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I don’t buy the mitigating circumstances story. In 2018 or 2019, even mediocre F&F or M:I movies would have had big opening weekends, even if another big film was dropping a week later. The idea that audiences save their ticket money for the one big movie they would see that summer is a new one, at least on this scale.

You can not buy it all you like: Facts are facts. Barbie and Oppenheimer opening the week after M:I is significant as it cut the legs out from under that film, meaning it never had any chance to grow.

Compare that to, say, Godzilla -1, a film that came out in a virtual dead zone of release (Aquaman 2!), and thus had time to build and audience over time, turning it into the huge success that it is. If Barbie and Oppenheimer had come out the week after G-1, things would be different for that film.

A successful film can hamper other films because money is not infinite. People do pick and choose.

So. Echo.

Pleasantly surprised to see they’ve released all episodes at once. And there’s a just five of them.

First one is scene setting and recapping. But not in a “last time on the MCU”.



Having by necessity of a deaf lead character, there’s a lot of subtitles, so will need to come back to this after work as my usual watch just isn’t gonna cut it.


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Halfway through Episode 3, and I’m impressed.

Good deal more violent than most MCU, but not at Daredevil/Punisher levels.

Also a new ident. “Marvel Spotlight” without the usual intro.

Native American stuff is also pleasing unto me. It’s not a culture I know a great deal about, so these odd snippets here and there show me new. And I quite like new.

 creeping-deth87 wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
Everyone I know who saw Marvels thought it was a good, fun movie.

Same here. I still don't understand why it bombed.

For one, a night at the movies has become ridiculously expensive, along with everything else, much moreso than wages have increased.
So naturally, for a lot of people their budget for leisure activities has decreased.

Just being a fun movie simply isn't good enough for a lot of people to spend that much of one's budget on anymore.
For another, most people myself included, just don't have the same engagement with the past Infinity War characters. They haven't earned the goodwill that Iron Man and Captain America built up, so people are simply less willing to take a chance and go just because it's Marvel.

I don't speak for anyone else, of course, but I didn't see The Marvels because I just don't care about the MCU at this point. I like the people in it but that really isn't enough to make me want to go sit in a theater, and I enjoy going to the movies. It looked like perfectly fine streaming material but not must see theater experience.

Godzilla Minus One is a must see theater experience.

I quite enjoyed The Marvels, but its also not the movie that is going to rekindle interest in the MCU. It's very much another Marvel movie and not the NEXT Marvel movie if that makes sense.

So Echo.

Overall, I really enjoyed it. Not at all what I was expecting, and it may be marmite because of that. But it moves along nicely, doesn’t outstay its welcome and remains decent fun throughout.

I watched Echo. It's not for me. The show has it's moments but there's too much mysticism for my liking.

Also they could have gone a little easier on the music. I haven't been yelled at like that since Silent Running.

but there's too much mysticism for my liking

Is there a story for how that got there? From Hawkeye, I assumed this would be about the title character violently trying to escape her criminal background and not do crime, after standard inner city childhood.

Finally getting around to What If? and quite enjoying it so far. Quite a bit more than season 1 to be honest. Voice casts have been a solid step up from season 1 and put in some great line reads (is this an AI thing? There's names I wouldn't expect being up for this and some of them sound... off....). It does make the episode where not RDJ and not Jeff Goldblum try to out ego one another stand out though.

I've got the back half to go. Hydra Stomper episode was legitimately great and the Christmas episode was full of great comedic timing and really highlights what the supporting cast can do. Looking forward to the rest.

Loki S2

I was not a superfan of S1. A lot of people really liked it, but I was more Meh on the whole thing. However, S2 was great, and makes S1 even better upon reflection.

Too bad about Mr. Majors. Dude could ACT!

It's being reported that the Serpent Society scenes in Captain America: Brave New World have been cut. That would include Seth Rollins' part in the film . It's been mentioned that the action scene at the beginning of the film didn't match the flow of the earlier Captain America films and a bunch of villains dressed up as snakes didn't fit the tone that Marvel wanted for the film.

I've seen reporting that they're borderline reshooting the entire thing, so definitely curious how this turns out in the end. I can definitely see wanting to focus on the political thriller style that made the other Cap films stand out over the MCU's current interest in campier elements of the characters.

I think they need to get back to making genre films that happen to feature super heroes instead of making superhero films.

Winter Soldier is still probably the best MCU movie. And it's because it's a political/spy thriller first.

 Lance845 wrote:
I think they need to get back to making genre films that happen to feature super heroes instead of making superhero films.

Winter Soldier is still probably the best MCU movie. And it's because it's a political/spy thriller first.

I said this same thing in a conversation at the flgs today.

Ant-Man was great because it was a heist movie with super heroes.

GotG was great. Because it was a sci-fi action film about a likeable group of misfits.

Spider-Man: Homecoming was great because it was about a teen trying to balance high school stuff with learning to be responsible with great power.

CapAm: First Avenger was great because it was a WWII film with sci-fi elements and a great character arc.

CapAm: Winter Soldier was great because it was a political thriller.

Strong likable characters in interesting well told stories.

 Ghaz wrote:
It's being reported that the Serpent Society scenes in Captain America: Brave New World have been cut. That would include Seth Rollins' part in the film . It's been mentioned that the action scene at the beginning of the film didn't match the flow of the earlier Captain America films and a bunch of villains dressed up as snakes didn't fit the tone that Marvel wanted for the film.

I feel like that was a solved problem years ago (with the early Xmen films). Just... don't make a big deal about campy names and don't put them in comic book costumes.
They don't seem to have problems adjusting powers to fit the medium, so why bother with goofy aesthetics that don't fit?

No. I think you DO put people in comic book costumes. Tweaked and updated yes. But put them in them. Marvel has done a great job putting them in the costumes so far.

 Lance845 wrote:
No. I think you DO put people in comic book costumes. Tweaked and updated yes. But put them in them. Marvel has done a great job putting them in the costumes so far.

I think it depends on the film.
If you're holding up Winter Soldier as 'the best' MCU film and want a successor to that, you put people in tactical gear, not brightly colored spandex.

Voss wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
No. I think you DO put people in comic book costumes. Tweaked and updated yes. But put them in them. Marvel has done a great job putting them in the costumes so far.

I think it depends on the film.
If you're holding up Winter Soldier as 'the best' MCU film and want a successor to that, you put people in tactical gear, not brightly colored spandex.

Winter Soldier is one of the best MCU movies because of the way they handled the characters. Winter Soldier's costume is taken straight off the page including a robot arm that looks like muscles with horizontal lines going through it. End Game is caps best costume and it even incorporates his scale mail. Iron Man 1 is just straight up his original and extremis era armor with his old underwear style coloring. The only characters they were shy about were Hawkeye until the end of his show when he got his Life As A Weapon suit and Wanda until she became the Scarlet Witch.

It doesn't need to be spandex to be the comic suit. I don't want to see Scott Summers running around in bright yellow underwear on the outside. But I do want to see him in actual blue and yellow.

Deadpool 3 set photo.

Agreed. The reluctance in so many super hero shows to put the heroes (and the villains, for that matter) in costume is a continual frustration. It was my one major gripe with the Netflix Defenders shows*.

Campier costumes can be updated where the original doesn't fit the tone of the show, but at least make some effort.

 bbb wrote:
Spider-Man: Homecoming was great because it was about a teen trying to balance high school stuff with learning to be responsible with great power.

It also managed to avoid the more trainwrecky aspects of secret identity issues that made parts of the previous Spiderman movies (and quite a few other superhero shows) so painful.




*See also Bayformers, with its hordes of unrecognisable, generic Decepticons.

And of course with Bayformers, filming the action from far too close, so you can’t tell what’s going on or who just clobbered who.