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[MCU Movies] Morbin’ Time No More!
Atomika
Live fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered User regular
Live fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered User regular
Well this will be short…
Here’s the all-new MCU line-up for 2024!
- Deadpool 3
-
-
-
- no seriously that’s it
2024 will be what the Detroit Lions call every year: A Rebuilding Season
The theatrical division is gonna take a minute, reflect on some things, and make some course corrections. Everything that was on the slate is now off, giving more time to retool, refine, and redefine what direction the MCU will be taking in this next wave of The Multiverse Saga.
Phase 4 was a random and aimless series of misfires, capped off by the arrest of its main heavy, Johnothan Majors, for sexual assault with a trial date pending. Phase 5 has been hit or miss already, and the last year has been a wellspring of bad press and hushed insider rumors of a corporate division stretched thin and rudderless. Films that are in the can are now going back for reshoots. Production on Blade has stalled more times than a Chevy Astro in an ice storm. Daredevil has been pushed back until 2049 and will now have to fight replicants made by Jared Leto.
Everything is up in the air, and if your favorite movie ain’t in the can, don’t count on it happening just yet. Feige is in reboot mode, and that guy isn’t afraid to kill his babies. Like Vision. Sweet beautiful Vision. 😢
Before we break into Phase 6, here’s what’s still holding onto the slate like a mountain goat to a sheer cliff:
- Deadpool 3
- Captain America 4
- Thunderbolts
- Blade
Nothing is in stone, so don’t be surprised if you hear something has been canceled, renamed, rejiggered, or rescheduled. It’s the multiverse, anything can happen.
Except the X-Men.
Here’s the all-new MCU line-up for 2024!
- Deadpool 3
-
-
-
- no seriously that’s it
2024 will be what the Detroit Lions call every year: A Rebuilding Season
The theatrical division is gonna take a minute, reflect on some things, and make some course corrections. Everything that was on the slate is now off, giving more time to retool, refine, and redefine what direction the MCU will be taking in this next wave of The Multiverse Saga.
Phase 4 was a random and aimless series of misfires, capped off by the arrest of its main heavy, Johnothan Majors, for sexual assault with a trial date pending. Phase 5 has been hit or miss already, and the last year has been a wellspring of bad press and hushed insider rumors of a corporate division stretched thin and rudderless. Films that are in the can are now going back for reshoots. Production on Blade has stalled more times than a Chevy Astro in an ice storm. Daredevil has been pushed back until 2049 and will now have to fight replicants made by Jared Leto.
Everything is up in the air, and if your favorite movie ain’t in the can, don’t count on it happening just yet. Feige is in reboot mode, and that guy isn’t afraid to kill his babies. Like Vision. Sweet beautiful Vision. 😢
Before we break into Phase 6, here’s what’s still holding onto the slate like a mountain goat to a sheer cliff:
- Deadpool 3
- Captain America 4
- Thunderbolts
- Blade
Nothing is in stone, so don’t be surprised if you hear something has been canceled, renamed, rejiggered, or rescheduled. It’s the multiverse, anything can happen.
Except the X-Men.
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I'm comfortable calling Phase 4 a dud at this point. I don't hate any particular movie, except for Th4r, but even the ones I like a lot have massive flaws. Even so, if the stingers and cameos were selling an overarching story, a lot would be forgiven. It doesn't seem like it's going anywhere in particular, which is the strength of the format. Get it together, Kevin.
Sadly agree, though was Loki done or still being filmed after the Major issues came out?
Loki:
Regardless, they can just change actors anytime if they want.
Lots and lots of flaws, lots of underused elements, but probably my favorite of the post-Endgame movies (minus Black Panther 2 and Quantumania, which I haven’t gotten to yet). And while I understand Wanda gets the short end of the stick from some perspectives, I actually really liked her in-movie arc as a narrative.
So, what does this mean? Marvel's trying to do a complete rethink on the movie and no longer do Kang? They're still doing Kang, but bumping the movie back made Cretton's schedule too full? A Kang variant portaled in and convinced Cretton not to do it? Who knows.
Of everything in this post, I'm most excited for Shang-Chi 2.
So with uncertainty about Majors and lack of enthusiasm for the multiverse* so far, just say "that's all for Kang" and move on to Doom (whom they will have to knock out of the park from day one to have any chance at this point).
*in general people are hyped about the multiverse, but only in the exhausting fanservice sense of wanting to mash all the action figures together. We got our fanservice movies already, can we please just move on from the idea of seeing every version of every character interact? And aside from that aspect, there is nothing compelling about a multiverse so let's ditch it.
It's hard for me to conceptualize what Marvel would have to do to get me excited about their movies in the way I once was, because I can't think of a single character, new or old, that I really want to see a movie about that badly. That said, if you asked me before Iron Man if I cared about any of the Avengers, I never would have imagined the level of investment I'd have in those second-stringers (and by that I mean all of the Avengers, including the ones we now think of as the headliners). So I don't think it's an impossible task.
But they really need to scale things back. No more battle scenes. Quantumania would have been bad either way but the enormous battle at the end just made me check out entirely. Wakanda Forever had a great core plot but was bogged down with the need to be epic. Endgame's battle was an indulgence I'll allow as the dessert to a fine meal. Infinity War's Wakanda battle would have been better served to just be a fight with the main characters. Seeing 1000 unnamed guys running across an open plain at 1000 faceless enemies has zero meaning for me and it seems like that scene is planted into every movie at this point.
For that matter, I think they should scale back on the ensemble casts. Which is a hard thing to suggest because the interaction between the characters has always been the Avengers' strong suit, and I don't want to go back to the days of the solitary hero who only interacts with his love interest (who doesn't know about his secret identity). But I think I'd rather see Ant-Man bouncing off of Luis, Kurt, and Dave than off of the Ant Family (and this is a hard ask because people seem to hate non-super sidekicks and they cheer when an assist character gets a suit of their own). Every single movie seems to be trying to build up a mini team and even though those teams have often had good chemistry, to me it bloats the plot. GotG worked even in the Avengers context because they started out so separated from the Avengers (and the theme of the first movie established them as a mini-team that together basically constituted one Avenger- that's how I always read the "holding the power stone" moment, anyway).
Fantastic Four of course gets a pass because as much as I am not excited for yet another crack at a team I have never really cared about, I don't think they could move forward with a Doom Phase 5 without them. And making a good FF movie at this point is going to be an uphill battle, because we've already had so many "just the Fantastic Four" movies that the temptation will be to scale it up, when I really think they need to scale it back. Better to remake a simple origin story and run the risk of reminding people of FF (2005) than to overcomplicate things. Tease Doom pulling the strings behind some lesser villain they can cut their teeth on.
A year break is a good idea. I'd even say some kind of reset is in order. Not an actual continuity reset, but some way of establishing that rather than the setting being "post Avengers, superheroes and villains are everywhere and no one is special and the world is a nightmare mess of color and superpowers going off", somehow find a way to set up the world as having quieted down with the departure of the Avengers and gotten back to some sense of normalcy, into which our new characters and new chapters for the existing ones can be introduced. Just give us some meat and potatoes movies as a palate cleanser, because the attempt to have everything be bigger and flashier than the rest has already been demonstrated to be unsustainable.
It means as long as Cretton is tied to Kang Dynasty, he can't work on other movies. Since the Kang Dynasty is so up in the air right now, that means there are huge stretches of time where he is basically unemployed, while still being forbidden from seeking other work. Cretton's contract probably had a clause that said unless the movie in production by so and so date, he can leave without consequences.
Since even if Disney where to pay him extra to sit around(they won't), getting a rep as a director of collecting a paycheck without work.. it is the kiss of death for a directors career. Its way smarter to leave and try for other work. Especially if you can blame scheduling as the reason.
You can, of course, just make a Thunderbolts movie that is down-market Avengers and be totally fine. The point I think Scottsman was making though is that you're wasting what was the narrative point of the original series (and later the Dark Avengers stuff) in that what makes the story interesting is that it's a bunch of villains pretending to be good guys so they can do bad stuff but ultimately kind of liking being good guys.
That's an interesting story to tell regardless of whether or not it's about superheroes and the fact that Marvel is completely whiffing on that opportunity is kind of dumb from a creative standpoint.
I love Ms Marvel, wasn't super into Chicago Iron Woman but more due to BP2, and don't know Archer's Daughter but heard she was good?
That said, the rest of the team is a who's who of bad B plots in bad films, what have we got, Ms. Marvel, Ironheart, Antman's daughter? America Chavez maybe? She's had a better showing in DS2 than those last three at least but that's not saying much, Phase 4 sets the bar so low you can step over it.
I'm sure all the actresses involved are great but unless we see some serious improvements in guest starring roles where the writers give them decent things to say then we're not going to have any real audience anticipation going into an "annoying B character passing the torch spinoff" series.
Wikipedia is telling me we're supposed to have a Kid Loki, both of Wanda's twin sons and young-Kang-variant-as-Iron-Man on the team and all of those are even less developed options than the above. The whole idea seems pretty half baked, I'd rather they focus on getting the main series Avengers right for now, make a spinoff when you're back on solid footing.
Let the whole thing cool off, maybe even dare to tell a tale without a villain once or twice, then hit us with Kang or Doom six movies in and end it on a cliffhanger.
I’m not sure what you do with Fantastic Four. Or, I’m not sure what you do that resonates with any meaning. We’ve been going to space for so long I’m not sure rich astronauts with their own skyscraper get super powers is going to wow anyone.
There's been a whole lot of "so what?" moments that haven't paid off and kinda don't seem like they will, and don't do a good job of connecting things. Harry Styles? Charlize Theron? Julia Louis-Dryfus? I know the pandemic screwed up everything, but were any of the phase 1-3 stingers (besides maybe Thanos' first appearance) setups for future movies so many years away, with likely no scripts and maybe not even outlines? Introducing some stranger with a "the world is even bigger and crazier than you thought!" wink doesn't work any more. A talking raccoon was the emotional heart of one of the better recent movies; we've been to space and the multiverse and the quantum realm; it ain't getting any bigger or weirder. SLJ's first appearance worked. Teasing Mjolnir worked. Today, yet another person in a space costume doesn't work.
The other is stakes fatigue. Shang-Chi would have been way better if the final fight was the one with his dad, not the CGI save the world from the interdimensional magic dragon fight. It would have been better if he wasn't saving the world. Quantumania would have been way better if it wasn't "clown on Kang with ants." Make it a heist movie with non-save-all-of-everything stakes. Save-all-of-everything should be reserved for the Avengers and end of phase team up movies. If the main focus of most of these movies had been personal stakes, without trying to save all of everything, I think a lot of them could have been much better.
Phase 1 had 5 movies, then the first Avengers.
Phase 2 had 4 movies, Avengers, then Ant-Man.
Phase 3 had 6 movies (the first of which was Civil War), Avengers, 2 movies, Avengers, then Spider-Man.
Thus far there have been 11 movies since the last Avengers-type "bring it all together" film (including Spider-Man at the end of Phase 3), plus 7-8 shows. Taking a break from all that is probably the right call in a narrative sense, but in hindsight I think having those big event pictures to serve as milestones might have been critical to the formula of somewhat interconnected storytelling. You could fairly easily enjoy the big crossovers without needing a shit ton of editor's notes to inform you which issue Doppelganger teamed up with Shriek, or how to remember Shield's first appearance, or what the fuck a Cloak and Dagger are when all you wanted was to read a damned Spider-Man comic (I might have been chased away from the medium pretty much entirely as a kid by this specific incident). And the crossovers lately feel less like "lets see what happens when Captain America meets Thor" *smash action figures together* and more like there's a big list somewhere that people are expected to have at least a passing familiarity with.
Like, I'm full-in at this point, the references aren't chasing me away any more, but I can still see them the way I did when I was a kid. It wasn't an exciting suggestion of a deep, lived in world, it was a series of inside references that were going to cost me 3.95 a pop to understand. It's all easier to access now, obviously, but I suspect there's just a certain level of interconnectedness that's annoying to people absent some solid handholding.
Less that, and more that when you remove the original concept from the Thunderbolts, they just become a team-name You can slap that onto whatever assortment of characters you want after that, because then there's no real point to the idea of "Thunderbolts." other than being a name with some small bit of recognition and an existing trademark.
MWO: Adamski
I think we're saying the same thing?
You're coming more from the direction of what is lost by losing that connection, I was more referring to once you remove that connection, it can really be about whatever, as there's no more "point" to the name, other than it's a name from a comic.
But as a lot of the released movies have shown, and the current production woes are showing, is that they don't have the good scripts, either. It seems like there's a major reliance on finding the movie in post. Like it was actually a big warning bell that they didn't even have the time travel suits from Endgame designed when they filmed the movie. I don't have a problem with CG suits, you can do some cool things with CG that you just can't with practical costumes. But they didn't even know what they were going to look like during production. And I think the fact that it worked out in Endgame led to them pushing more and more into fixing/finding it in post (plus the alleged reliance on improv for Ragnarok turning out so well).
So get a new solid plan in place, and get actual good scripts in the can, and have real preproduction so that post production is finishing the movie, not making the movie.
Kang: Stop me? Are you aware of the multiverse? I’m infinite!
Doom: Infinite? Does that not speak to your insignificance? THERE IS ONLY ONE DOOM!
*Doom then pressed a button and all the Kangs everywhere explode*
People forget that a fair amount of the phase 1-3 MCU films were mediocre, like Thor 2, Iron Man 2, Hulk, Doctor Strange, Ant Man, and Iron Man 3 (obvious depends who you ask on that one), but this is offset either by some wish-fulfilment level casting playing characters who while obvious a pale shadow compared to the recognizability of Spider-Man, still had SOME cultural penetration like Iron Man and Cap, AND the promise of these big coordinated crossovers which set them apart. And for every mediocre movie the follow up would generally be at least decent so it was easy to forget and get caught up in the hype. As someone else mentioned, they've had 11 films since the last Avengers and it looks like they have 5 more to go before the next Avengers. Most of these have been the Spider-Mans which is almost guaranteed to make money, one about a character who is already dead, a sequel where the actor has died and been replaced by someone far less amiable, and a few z-list tier adaptations. None of them, bar the Spider-Mans and Thor 4 have the leads to offset the ever-increasing mediocrity or the promise of building to something greater (and even Hemsworth couldn't compensate for how bad Thor 4 was). These films have also been supplemented by mostly average shows, the odd one having some brief sparks of inspiration, primarily Loki.
Cap 4 is apparently having reshoots due to bad feedback, Blade sounds like a trainwreck but they're course correcting, Thunderbolts is basically missing all the "good" bad guys from the comic and is filled with a bunch of super soldiers, and the willingness to trash what they had of Daredevil and start again shows some recognition of what is not working, but none of the upcoming films, at a glance, seem like they would be the type to completely compensate for the last few years and they're still not even sure if they're going to use Kang or not 2 years out. Fantastic Four probably has the most promise, especially if they cast a good Doom, but while not essential, I can see him being a Doom who is constantly taking his mask off.
Like, there's been problems all along, from day 1, but the newness of the concept and the handful of good movies helped gloss over bad ones. It carried things through to at least Captain Marvel, where the cracks shown the hardest, but we put up with it to get to Endgame, which was a great culmination and capstone.. but then we kept going.
So they're basically trying to do the same thing again, which will never have the same impact. You're never, ever going to get the feeling of watching Iron Man, seeing SLJ show up as Nick Fury at the end, and then actually see a trailer for the Avengers three years later. You're never going to feel that way about Shang-Chi or the Eternals or whatever, because it's already been done. You're never going feel the way you did during the mass assembly scene (especially given how that's been memed to death.) In fact, that shit is just expected now. Like the Marvels
Likewise, we went from only a handful of movies a year to 3-5 plus a half dozen shows. The more work done, the more likely you're going to be putting out stinkers.
Hooking the MCU faucet up to Disney+ was a bad idea, as it's making them push more and more stuff without giving it the space or attention they need. So there's more projects, which means more misses, but now also there's more content to oversee, more labor needs to be brought in, and when you're doing 4-6 hours a year, the amount of CGI work needed pales in comparison to doing like 20-30 hours a year.
They need to slow things back to Phase 2/3 levels and we all need to realize that you can't go home again. 2008-2019 was a hell of a ride, but 2021-2027 cannot hit the same way.
Also, not relevant to the discussion, but aren't Quantumania, GotG3 and the marvels all Phase 5 projects?
<low point of movie where it looks like legion of Kangs are going to win>
Kamala Khan - Come on, you can't lose. You're the Avengers! You beat Thanos!
Rocket - Yeah, but that was literally a 1 in 14,000,605 shot.
America Chavez - That's it! <vanishes in multiverse teleport>
<Kang starts delivering gloating monologue>
<Multiversal portals start opening just like Endgame - but instead of all the rainbow of MCU heroes arriving it's 14,000,604 versions of Thanos arriving, and they're all pissed at Kang for ruining their post-snap "utopias">
Oh yeah Xochitl. She was good, seemed to be enjoying herself like Iman.
Yes and no; there was definitely a rash of mediocre ones and to some extent the prospect of the shared universe carried them forward (and the stellar casting definitely did). At the same time, my general understanding of the "shared universe" before Avengers 1 (being, at the time, much less terminally online than I am now, and very unfamiliar with comics anyway) was, "it'll be cool if they bring the characters together but I'll believe it when I see it". And if felt to me like after Iron Man 2 was underwhelming and both Thor and Captain America were good but a bit more contentious (I remember pretty lukewarm reception to both, even though now Captain America is pretty well remembered. FWIW I loved them both but they're not as unarguably masterpieces as Iron Man was), there was still question of whether this whole thing was going to work. Avengers bought a ton of good will, which was spent rapidly by Iron Man 3 and Thor 2. Then Winter Soldier and GotG bought good will which was tested by Age of Ultron and Ant-Man, and the cycle started to stabilize.
So I'd say it took some time before the promise of a shared universe was enough to prop up the not-so-good movies, but this was helped by the fact that none of the early movies, even the not-so-good ones, were actually outright bad.
Thor 2 was definitely bad, Loki basically saved his scenes but that was it. Your experience is different to my own at least, I remember it being a big deal that these post-credit scenes were linking to other films although yes there was no guarantee anything would ever come of the promised Avengers team up, and some attempts at crossover, like Iron Man 2, felt very forced which probably gave some pushback because in those cases the promise of the series was actively detrimental to the story of the film you wanted to watch. At least in those cases you only had 5 films to watch before Avengers and two of those were Iron Man. It might have felt more like a big deal as a comic fan though so maybe it was less so for the average viewer.
I didn't have a problem with the stakes as much as it was a Marvel martial arts movie, the first Marvel martial arts movie, and they didn't end it with a really awesome fight. They ended it with another CGI fest. And while I don't mind those either, not ending your first martial arts movie with a cool fight seems like a huge wasted opportunity.
Yeah I would have preferred them ending up fighting hand to hand without powers and just showcased some great fight choreography.
Shang Chi can just blast a thousand faceless mooks in whatever crossover vehicle he ends up in.
Come Overwatch with meeeee
Give Auntie Michelle Yeoh her own movie.
EEAAO is the best phase 4 movie.
EEAAO: Multiversal hopping
Star Trek: Mirror Universe variant
The Witcher: Traveled through dimensional portal
MCU: Lives in a pocket dimension
. . . somebody nail her foot to the ground