I must say, this article is a pleasant surprise coming from Bob. I had him pegged as a brainless Marvel cheerleader but he proved me wrong here, props to him.
The Downside of the "Marvel Effect"
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
Marvel so far has not screwed over their films, sure 2 or 3 might be okay at best they are not running jokes. WB/Fuax and Phony need to bring in a comic bent crew and let them develop the comic films becuse the studios have no clue at what they are doing as so far between them their films has been mostly miss.
captha: vote pancakes 0-o
captha: vote pancakes 0-o
All the properties they have any claim TO make a grab for ARE in need of rescue.MovieBob said:
Even the X-men.
(And just because Fox may have a plan, doesn't mean it's good, especially when they don't stick to it in order to be needlessly reactive to what other studios are doing.)
I'm all for Marvel doing Marvel.
That's my opinion anyway.
Well, I mean there could be issues, I'm just not sure if they exist outside of Bob editorialising. For example, ASM2 did slightly worse than the first. The budget was already pretty massive and it's been reported that the marketing was almost as costly as the budget. While there is still a large chunk of profit here (and Bob had to walk back prior comments), they could be worried about any other movie in the franchise costing them money in the long run (maybe they should have thought about that before using this one to try and set up five sequels, but still). Costs tend to go up on iterative movies, so they may be looking at the big picture here.shintakie10 said:
Does it make sense? Ehhhhhhhhhh. Kind of, especially when we're talking a company that's had some pretty big financial woes.
Personally, I'd like to see this franchise continue as-is, if only to spite the people who act like it's literally worse than the holocaust.
Oh... finding the brainless fanboys is easy. Just look for the people calling other people brainless fanboys.Uriel_Hayabusa said:
What differentiates a black person from a white person? What distinguishes a Muslim from a Catholic? Do you really think peoples capacity for irrational hate is that limited? Plus if you play up Magneto as the mutant Osama Bin Laden, you have a perfect in-universe scapegoat to whip up anti-mutant hysteria.Steve the Pocket said:
Seriously, what in the news at the moment makes you think people can't be inspired to horrible acts of violence under the flimsiest pretences?
Bob, admit it, you do all 4 of those fan behaviors you listed on the first page. Don't presume you speak for EVERYONE in your age bracket of geek culture. Now I just feel bad for Sony, showing how inept they are at securing their internal documents and making great Spider-Man movies. It looks like Bob's predictions in his videos will come true!
Knowing actors are well paid in a movie doesn't make it more enjoyable. The conditions crew are under doesn't necessarily make a movie more enjoyable. Being a good movie makes a movie enjoyable, and so far Marvel have a fantastic track record.
When they put out a stinker they will lose their goodwill they've accrued up until now. But that hasn't happened, so this article is premature.
When they put out a stinker they will lose their goodwill they've accrued up until now. But that hasn't happened, so this article is premature.
Actually as an outsider we really don't know how well it did for Sony for they never released how much the movie cost to make and how much they spent on advertising. Last time I checked and it could have changed now, but a movie needs to make twice as much as the production value plus the marketing costs at theaters to generate a profit. If the rumors from multiple websites is the combined cost of ASM2 was around $350 million dollars and if Box Office Mojo is accurate with an international box office of just under $709 million that means Sony might have made money, but was it enough to justify the initial risk?shintakie10 said:
Think of EA and Battlefield 4, they were sued by their shareholders because they felt the issues around the game cost them money and I can easily see that happening with Sony and the Amazing series of movies.
I really wouldn't like to see Marvel in direct control of the "Superhero genre", but I would like to see them in control of their properties and leasing them out to other studios for movies that are different instead of Sony and Fox rushing movies out every few years because they want to keep the licenses.
Looking back at my issues with the Spider-Man movies which to me are the last three movies (Spider-Man 3, Amazing Spider-Man, and Amazing Spider-Man 2) all suffered with reported studio meddling, I wonder if that is really where a lot of the problems are for the franchise. So that makes me wonder if the reason why Marvel is doing better then the other right now for they are guiding the movies, but at the same time allowing the people who are directly working on the movie have more control over the final product.
Guys like Thor, Captain America, etc. are seen as individuals. Mutants are seen as a race. And a race with dire evolutionary implications for normal baseline humanity, i.e. eventual extinction. THIS is what makes mutants different. I never understood why many fans have a difficult time grasping this concept. XMFC and DoFP practically hit you over the head with it even though in that universe mutants are the only ones with powers. I'd say mutants being without non-mutant peers to have a contrast with eliminates the bulk of what makes them interesting.esserin said:Yeah but black and white people look different. How do you separate thor and captain america from mutants?
Wolverine? "Oh, I'm not a mutant. I'm actually from asgard."
Mutant problem is solved.
I think the main reason Marvel are doing so well as opposed to the rest is that in their case the studio is the auteur rather than any individual director. That's kind of a necessary thing if one wants to play in the expanded cinematic universe franchise game. Because 1 single director in charge of a film or a sub-franchise isn't enough. And every other studio plays by the rules of not being an auteur but rather hiring/buying the vision of a director for this or that project and such. That works ok for individual films and even trilogies once in a while but that will never work for a cinematic universe. You NEED someone over it all who's really the one with the vision and can direct the directors. Marvel has that in Kevin Feige. Maybe Kevin Tsujihara at WB/DC and Kathleen Kennedy at Lucasfilm can do that for their brands as well, who knows. They remain completely untested in this new arena. Only Feige so far has proved he can do it. Other than those two up and comers I don't see anyone like that at Universal, FOX or Sony.Sanunes said:
The villains in Thor 2 were at least threatening enough that they could kill one pre-existing character and make a credible case that they had killed a second one. I wasn't over-the-moon about the "Dark Elves", but they filled their niche well enough.P-89 Scorpion said:
All the Iron Man enemies were, to some degree, about figuring out who the "real" villain was. By the time- usually near the end- that the threat was narrowed down to the point that a hero like Iron Man could have a credible chance of striking back, I'll grant their perceived danger was often reduced- but while they were, say, paralyzing the hero in his home and removing the device that allowed him to remain alive, or introducing a platoon's worth of military androids, or calling in an air strike on his home, I'd argue they remained a pretty decent threat.
GotG's villain destroyed an entire planet's defenses en route to preparing to destroy the planet by touching it.
Now, your mileage, as ever, may vary, depending particularly on how willing you are to suspend disbelief that the heroes aren't going to come through in the end and save the day. I've found things like Hydra's level of penetration of the government and military fairly captivating. You may just roll your eyes, and you're certainly entitled to feel that way.
But compared with, say, Dr. Doom in the Fantastic 4 movie? There was never a moment in the film where one of Marvel's allegedly scariest villains didn't seem outclassed, almost to the point that four-on-one seemed downright unfair.
For me, I feel differently about all of these studios. Marvel has a very, very good track record so far. They haven't made a truly bad movie yet, just a couple of not-terribly good ones *cough*Iron Man 2*cough* I actively look forward to their movies, even the ones based on characters I know very little about. I mean, the Inhumans? They sort of sound like a Marvel-ized version of Nightbreed... okay, why the heck not?
I'm of two minds on Fox. For one, I've thoroughly enjoyed their last several X-men movies, and I want them to keep the rights for as long as possible. That's saying a lot coming from me, considering how much I disliked The Last Stand and Origins. Now, Fantastic Four... I have no idea what to think, largely because I don't a single freaking thing about it yet. Educate me, Fox. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt here.
Warner Brothers is a bit of an unknown factor here, and that's actually pretty intriguing in my opinion. At this point, we really can't say what most of the movies are going to be like, or how good they'll be. That's a total gamble, and I find it exciting. And it helps that Suicide Squad is sounding better and better all the time. Oh, and Jason Momoa as Aquaman? As a fan of that character, I'm thrilled that he'll be a certified badass on film.
And Sony... oh Sony. I hate saying bad things about them, since I actually liked the Amazing Spider-Man films. That being said, they are seriously going full retard on this. Instead of dropping their habit of screwing with the movies, they fire Andrew Garfield for calling them out on it. Seriously, WTF? He's one of the best things you have going with these movies. And making a cinematic universe around a single character and his supporting cast is just stupid.
I'm of two minds on Fox. For one, I've thoroughly enjoyed their last several X-men movies, and I want them to keep the rights for as long as possible. That's saying a lot coming from me, considering how much I disliked The Last Stand and Origins. Now, Fantastic Four... I have no idea what to think, largely because I don't a single freaking thing about it yet. Educate me, Fox. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt here.
Warner Brothers is a bit of an unknown factor here, and that's actually pretty intriguing in my opinion. At this point, we really can't say what most of the movies are going to be like, or how good they'll be. That's a total gamble, and I find it exciting. And it helps that Suicide Squad is sounding better and better all the time. Oh, and Jason Momoa as Aquaman? As a fan of that character, I'm thrilled that he'll be a certified badass on film.
And Sony... oh Sony. I hate saying bad things about them, since I actually liked the Amazing Spider-Man films. That being said, they are seriously going full retard on this. Instead of dropping their habit of screwing with the movies, they fire Andrew Garfield for calling them out on it. Seriously, WTF? He's one of the best things you have going with these movies. And making a cinematic universe around a single character and his supporting cast is just stupid.