Currently watching “Assembled: Echo”. I’ve really enjoyed the Assembled specials, seeing the process and watching them talk to the people involved, it gives a bigger understanding of the project, and this is no different. I really recommend checking it out.

As I've said before, I have no particular love for Deadpool as a character. More often than not, I find his schtick to be kinda tired, very one-note, and done better by other characters. I did see both of his movies in the summer of 2022 and found them to be... fine at best. Nothing too extraordinary, but also not particularly terrible. Perfectly serviceable comedy comicbook movies that wouldn't have felt so revolutionary without the f-bombs, gore, and genitalia. My more complete thoughts on them are in the non-MCU thread.

But I'm actually... looking forward to "Deadpool and Wolverine"? Somehow? The TVA rumors were true, kinda looks like the 20th Century Fox universe got pruned, and I can't help but be excited to see more comics-inspired takes on characters like Wolverine and Pyro, and surely others as well.

It still makes me sad that the most comics-friendly take on the X-Men in cinema have been in Deadpool movies, but I'll take what I can get until they get their full debut.

Yeah, I'm definitely interested in seeing the MCU take on the X-franchise too. Would be nice to see the characters and stories guided on screen by people who actually have passion for them.

It's funny thinking about Deadpool's previous movies. My partner HATES them. Finds their comedy puerile and easy and their narratives regressive and easy-- but she LOVES Deadpool in Marvel's Midnight Suns because, without the carte blanche of an R rating, his jokes actually have to be crafted and funny. She wound up really appreciating the depth in his characterization there, and damned if it didn't remind me why I loved the Kelly and Simone comic runs back in the day.

Haha so I'm hoping that Deadpool's MCU appearances have that quality of writing and don't just fall back on the R rating for easy laughs.

I get that. So much of the humor in the movies feels a bit too devoted to "it's funny because a superhero is saying f**k a lot". I honestly found the humor in the second movie to be much more creative and actually funny, like when Deadpool is going on a rant about how useless Domino must be and how she seems like a "character designed by an artist who can't draw feet" (all while she is demonstrating exactly how useful and skilled she is and how potent her luck powers are). Or "You killed Black Tom! You racist!".

But yeah, I'd hope that we get more humor like that and less of the "Ha ha, butt stuff!" (like we saw in the trailer, sigh).

More evidence that Bob Iger is having Marvel Studios scale back and return to a “back to basics” approach. That is very relieving.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/mo...es-1235830951/

Also? We’re rumored to be getting a Midnight Sons movie from WEREWOLF BY NIGHT’s director?

https://www.cbr.com/rumor-midnight-s...ael-giacchino/

I’m gonna have an extremely normal one.

Also, I’ve been noticing some odd traffic on this page in the last couple months. One day, I saw there were over 200 visitors, and today, despite the fact that I haven’t posted anything here in awhile, there are 16 visitors on the page.

Please keep an eye on the YouTube channels and podcasts you frequent for anything that sounds like me. After Hbomberguy’s video on plagiarism, I’m starting to feel paranoid about the activity on this thread.

The Hollywood Reporter has an article about Bob Iger's remarks at a film conference where he alluded to quietly canceling several projects in hopes of making fewer but better products.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/bu...ce-1235843133/

I've been ringing this bell for awhile, but I think this is an overall good thing. Marvel's post-2020 slate has been incredibly inconsistent and polarizing, with many criticizing writing, effects, and the timing & necessity of projects.

Slowing everything down and focusing on important characters and projects and easing back into the pre-2020 slate speed will be imperative in earning back the goodwill.

And it's not just Marvel! Star Wars has been pretty darn inconsistent lately too. In the past, they announced A TON of projects, but have seemingly stalled on most of them.

That's for the best. When any entertainment format floods the market, the average quality drops over time. It may work for them short term, it's how Marvel Comics became the more dominant publisher between the Big Two in decades past, but inevitably, the quality takes a dip and things need to be scaled back.

Which isn't to say there hasn't been a lot of stuff from this era of SO MUCH MCU CONTENT that I haven't really enjoyed. I still feel like the MCU at its worst is better than some other superhero movies at their middling, and fewer still at their best, but yeah. Dial it back a bit, make some truly great movies and series again.

I do feel like Echo is a step in the right direction. The MCU needs more small-scale stories overall. As well as just plain fewer projects.

THis may be because your Ms. Marvel was sooo oddly similar in some concept to what is coming out in Next Phase. when I saw the dial, I thought of yours first and came to see how similar they are.

New Forbes report on Marvel Studios pivoting as Disney becomes more risk-averse. The highlights: ETERNALS, ANT-MAN & WASP: QUANTUMANIA, and THE MARVELS won't be getting sequels.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultas...h=22dd76e668d6

My feelings are mixed on this one.

1. It makes good business sense for Disney to refocus Marvel Studios on popular/likely properties like Fantastic Four and X-Men.

The Chapek regime saw them greenlight far more than was healthy for brand and all at lower quality than in Phases 1-3. "Less is More" makes good sense here, as does relying on popular brands during a period when the box office is more volatile than ever and seemingly suffering from "superhero fatigue."

2. It's a bummer that Disney is becoming more risk-averse. Part of what made Marvel Studios so interesting was that they were willing to take big risks on unknown properties and to hybridize genres.

3. I hold that ETERNALS was extremely underrated and will likely be re-evaluated in the coming years (I think its concept was too "out-there" for mass audiences), and I think that THE MARVELS was also underrated and got bad press for its Disney+ connections. Even still...

4. ...that doesn't negate the fact that Marvel whiffed on the post-ENDGAME slate. Some of that is on Covid and Chapek... some of that is failure to read what the audience needed following ENDGAME.

We never learned the post-ENDGAME worldstate, nor did we have a clear idea of what to expect from that world. Marvel has failed to find a good place for Captain Marvel when it sure feels like she should be central (along with Black Panther and Doctor Strange). It's not clear what the overarching plot of Phases 4-6 is. ETERNALS introduces enormous consequences that feel like they should've been meaningfully addressed somehow by now.

5. Marvel needs their next several films to be big winners. Part of that is to rekindle mainstream interest in the brand, but it's mostly because they've almost certainly overspent on their titles in development.

BLADE has been in turbulent pre-production for years, blowing through directors and screenwriters. CAPTAIN AMERICA 4 is undergoing significant reshoots, some rumored to even be changing the overall substance of the film. THUNDERBOLTS is also having trouble locking its story down. If these AREN'T close to billion-dollar winners, they may not turn a profit, even on a [reported] $250 million dollar budget.

That's probably why they're putting so much hope in Fantastic Four and X-Men-- they're the first properties of the (new) Iger regime, and likely the best hope of flipping the script on the "failing Marvel" narrative.

Some excellent observations.

I think you're right, Disney becoming more risk-averse likely means some comics characters I like won't see (more) time on screen, and that's disappointing, but makes sense if profits are not what they could be. Big names bring in big money, after all.

After a wide-but-not-deep approach to Phase 4 (we're in 5 now, I think?), a tighter focus on a few solidly interconnected films could be the ticket to getting butts back in seats for each.

Hopefully Deadpool 3 is the start of a new wave of solid solo/buddy features that future team films can build off of. And I think Echo and Werewolf might be the answer to the complaints of Disney+ having too much 'filler' content: scaling projects to the popularity of the character or size of the story you've laid out should lead to more full, more interesting experiences than waiting for the good parts of Hawkeye because they had 3 hours of plot and 4.5 hours to fill.

Many thanks, friend! haha I live for this armchair film industry talk.

I think you're right on the money with the Disney+ plans-- sounds like Marvel will be using the platform for their more grounded and smaller scale fare rather than blowing the budget with effects-heavy stuff. ECHO, HAWKEYE, DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN, and similar fare all sound like good calls to me.

That said, the D+ shows are in the same boat as the movies-- they need to figure out what to do with things that were greenlit and are in various stages of production prior to Iger's new regime. IRONHEART, ARMOR WARS, ZOMBIES, AGATHA, and more are all up in the air. AGATHA can't even seem to settle on a damn title. It's likely that a few of these might be quietly canceled to save money.

And all THAT said, I'm jonesing for a WEREWOLF BY NIGHT follow up so damn hard. Like... it's my top want from Marvel Studios. It's not official yet, but Marvel is rumored to be developing a Midnight Sons/Suns movie directed by WWvN's director, Michael Giacchino. I have spent an unhealthy amount of time scouring superhero movie fansites for any update on that whatsoever.

This is really such an understated part of things. Every film that comes out seems totally disinterested in exploring the consequences of Infinity War and Endgame; there's usually like, a single line here or there about it just to acknowledge that it happened, and that's it.

The original Iron Man, Avengers, Thor, Captain America etc etc etc movies did a lot of groundwork discussing the culture surrounding these superheroes and how they fit into the larger world. Part of why I like Civil War so much is that it takes the interesting idea of Superhero-centric legislation and really does cool character work and worldbuilding with it. I genuinely think some of the most interesting stuff in She-Hulk is the law in how it applies to superheroes, and some of the logistics (and lack of logistics) when it comes to smaller-scale heroes.

Far From Home, even though I really like the film, had such a slam-dunk set-up to show a high school class affected by the snap, and instead, it's just... all of the characters got snapped together, so that way, we don't need to do anything with it! Yay!

The most impactful films talking about Endgame at all still aren't really talking about the large-scale impact; Far from Home (and also No Way Home) talk a lot about Tony Stark's death and legacy, and Guardians of the Galaxy 3 does a lot of heartfelt stuff about Gammora, but these never really scratched that itch for me.

All in all, the presence of heroes in the MCU feels like such a "been there, done that" type thing, to the point where it's a gag in Love & Thunder that there's an ice cream shop based on Thanos! That's like if we had an ice cream shop based on Hitler for God's sake!

If characters show absolute apathy to the state of the world, if the world itself is apathetic about heroes and their antics... why should audiences get excited? Why should audiences show up when even the movie itself is saying "yeah who cares"?

https://comicbook.com/movies/news/ma...vot-explained/

It sure seems like Chapek regime forced Marvel, Disney, and Pixar to make content for Disney+ as fast as possible. With edicts like that, and the sheer amount of rescheduling that happened, there probably wasn’t time to plan further than reminding people that INFINITY WAR & ENDGAME happened with token lines and scenes. No way to think ahead when everything is up in the air and it MUST be released ASAP. I dig WEREWOLF BY NIGHT, but I guess that came about by Feige just kinda asking Michael Giacchino what kind of project he’d like to do— seemingly just looking for folks to fill the slate quickly, rather that continuing with the methodical approach they’d had under the first Iger administration.

I’m mixed on the LOVE AND THUNDER scene you describe. On one hand, your argument is absolutely valid; on the other, if you’re Waititi and have seen your culture colonized, that might seem like apt satire for your own experience. It’s an odd take of mine, but that was the only scene of the movie that felt fully wrought and personal. The rest of the film reinforced how little care for stakes, consequences, and thematic unity there was.

I’ve also kind of thought that leaning into the multiverse stuff was a mistake for the same reasons. The grander the scope, the more we realize little events don’t matter —that the Infinity Stones can literally be reduced to paperweights— why does any of it matter? (There are a few great multiverse movies, of course, and they’re all about emphasizing that breaking cycles is better than perpetuating them, but it sure seems like by and large, Hollywood is using multiverse movies for brand management. “Remember all that stuff you love? It’s all right here!”)

Dunno how closely the rest of you have been following the Marvel Studios news over the last several months, but it's been interesting.

Bob Iger and Kevin Feige have basically pivoted from the maximist strategy of '20-22 and will now be focusing on fewer titles per year going forward, averaging around 2-3 films a year and 2 shows max. We'll likely see the fruits of that change starting with FANTASTIC FOUR, as DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, CAPTAIN AMERICA 4, and THUNDERBOLTS* all went into production during Chapek's administration.

...though, in the meantime, CAP 4, THUNDERBOLTS*, BLADE, and the next Avengers movie, are going through production hell as they're rewritten, reshot, recast and more as other turbulent behind the scenes issues continue. Brace yourselves for talk of these movies underperforming, even if they make over half a billion dollars worldwide.

...and that' without getting into all of the TV shows that are still coming. Why are we getting an Agatha Harkness series? Does anyone expressly want that? IRONHEART was shot, and there have been production stills of Ironheart standing next to the Hood. Is that still happening? Is ARMOR WARS still happening? Is that going to be conglomerated into IRON HEART? Are both going to be retooled into movies? Or are both going to be dropped? DAREDEVIL's coming, of course, but that too has undergone extensive reshoots and rewrites. These are all more expensive and haphazard than anyone --likely including Marvel Studios-- was expecting.

Finally, Marvel Studios is officially bringing back the Marvel Television banner, trying to separate movies from TV so one doesn't feel like essential viewing for the other. So like the Netflix era again. But different. And better?

https://comicbookmovie.com/marvel-st...1046#gs.91nbc4

Lol so how do we all feel about this?