The Big Picture: Secret Crisis

[Cyberstrike_v1legacy]

this is not a reboot. the continuity is still there, the characters are still there but they are taking that universe and fitting it together with other universes on a new planet. nothing is getting rewritten. i'm surprise how many comicbook people aren't getting this.

I get it. I think it's stupid idea. IF Marvel or DC had the balls to do a hard reboot where everything gets reset back to basics I would have no problems with it. The problems with both the New 52 and the New Marvel Universe (or whatever they call it) is the cherry picking of certain works and ditching the rest because it's not popular or not popular anymore. With the New 52 all of Grant Morrison's work on Batman and all of Geoff Johns work on Green Lantern remained, but what about Peter David's work on Aquaman or Supergirl? Chuck Dixion's work on Robin and Nightwing. Alan Moore's work on Wildcats and Deathblow?

If Marvel said that Secret Wars III (or is it IV) would result in the complete and total end of the 616, Marvel UK, Ultimate, MC-2, 2099, and New Universes and what would follow would be a clean slate where none of the convoluted continuity would be carried over I would be more willing to try the post-SW3/4 Marvel Universe a try. Right now I'll stick to Spider-Man 2099 and Miracleman.

 

[Edhellen]

Why would they get rid of Ms. Marvel? The upcoming movie about Captain Marvel is still called Captain Marvel so it's unlikely they're changing it for brand reasons.

Captain Marvel movie in 2017 turns out to be about the original white dude Captain Marvel from the 70's. Carol appears as Ms. Marvel in her love interest role again, Kamala Khan is wiped from continuity because "Carol Danvers was always the most iconic Captain Marvel."

And if you think I'm crazy, ask yourself, would this sound like a weird story if it were coming from DC?

 

[maximara]

The problem is this ignored the practice of Hollywood accounting. While the gross may show that the movies are doing way better then the comics that doesn't mean the net ie PROFIT is.

Note that the link I posted did not say anything about box office gross, it was Marvel's actual financial reports. That $250 million is how much money Marvel actually made from films in 2008 - it's explicitly noted to be net income. Importantly, whatever games they may have tried to play with the numbers there, the stated figures for publishing and film are directly comparable since the same games will have been played with both.

Sure, the billions I referred to made by Avengers and the like was simply raw box office take, not counting production and advertising costs but also not counting DVD sales and merchandising, so it's hard to know exactly how much Marvel have made from any specific film. But the example of their 2008 earnings clearly shows that even their less successful films make multiple times more for them than their publishing arm. Iron Man and Incredible Hulk together cost about $300 million to make and made about $800 million box office. Avengers cost $220 million and made over $1.5 billion. Given a known net income of $250 million from the former, assuming a net income of over $600 million from the latter isn't at all unreasonable (since Marvel is now owned by Disney, their financial statements are mixed together so I can't find any actual figures on this). So a realistic estimate of income based on actual financial statements with no Hollywood accounting involved suggests that Marvel's more successful films will likely make the amount as 4-5 years of comics.

Note that I'm not trying to argue that Marvel would necessarily be right to screw with their comics in order to try to get more out of their films. I was just pointing out that claiming any benefits would be wasted because the gain would only be short term isn't really a good argument, because even the short-term gain is potentially large enough to make it very worthwhile for Marvel from a financial point of view. Whether they're actually able to produce such a gain in practice is a very different question.

Did you even READ what came after the part you quoted?


One example of Hollywood accounting is _Return of the Jedi_ which has made to date $475 million just at the box office and was budgeted at $32.5 million. Yet according to Lucasfilm in 2009 that film "has never gone into profit"

_My Big Fat Greek Wedding_ which made $350 million at the box office and cost just over $6 million to make supposedly LOST $20 million according the Gold Circle Films.

Another example directly related to this is Stan Lee's agreement for 10% of the net of the 2002 film _Spider-Man_. Despite the film making more than $800 million in revenue Marvel Enterprises claimed that the movie made NO PROFIT. Stan Lee of course sued.

If a movie that supposedly cost only $140 million and made $800 million (a ratio of 5.7) also made NO profit and a movie that cost just over $6 million and made over $350 million ( a ratio 58.3) also made NO profit then a movie that had had a 6.8 ratio (your Adventures example) could just as easily make NO profit.

According to Gold Circle Films not only did they somehow spend the $344 million between the movie cost and its box office gross but another $20 million on top of that
.
That is just how messed up accounting is in the movie making industry.

As you noted Marvel and Disney financial statements are mixed together to the point you don't know where one ends and the other begins how do you known any of the profit came from Marvel and not the Disney arm, hmmm?

 

[Jacques Jones]

Marvel already tried rebooting it's continuity with Heroes Reborn, a crossover event where an interdimensional being called Onslaught pretty much killed every superhero team in the Marvel Universe and Franklin Richards shunted them all to a pocket dimension in order to protect them. The deceased heroes were than 'reborn' and had to restart their lives from scratch. It didn't last very long, the only impact being Rob Liefeld's hideous artwork.

 

[martyrdrebel27]

this video addressed one of marvel comics' biggest hurdles, and it's actually something i wanted to make a forum topic about...

people like me (people who LOVE the marvel characters and lore but who aren't really into comic books) are not opposed to reading comic books, but i think the biggest problem is availability and marketing. firstly, comic book stores feel so densely esoteric that they feel unnapproachable at best and downright hostile at worst. this may not be your experience, but i've frequently been "bullied" out of nerd culture on a local level because they assume i don't belong because i had a 15 inch mohawk and a studded jacket... anyways, that's a different topic i want to talk about.

i don't like comic books. but i like graphic novels. this may only be a distinction that exists in my own mind as a misnomer, but i've read the Jonny The Homicidal Maniac series countless times. and even though the anthology Z? has slightly less content, i generally read that version. why? it's a complete book, not a flimsy little tabloid.

and that's what marvel should do. instead of serial issues, i'd much rather buy one collector book. but these things are already available, i assume. so why don't i buy them now? because they aren't a Marvel STORY collectable, they're a marvel COMIC collectable. And one of the hurdles i personally have is my aversion to comic book style art. i never could stand it. in what my brain catagorizes as "graphic novels" the art is much... better? that's not the right word, i'm looking for an objective quality here, but really, "better" sums it up so well.