Movies: The Marvels

[NyQuil]

Whether or not they succeed that's kind of the point though. Disney is selling to a global market place so when they have the white guy market cornered with Stark/Rogers/Thor/Parker/etc, so they try to seek growth in other markets. Which is why Brie Larson's Captain Marvel is a character that maybe little girls will look up to (again whether or not that works is beside the point), and not some big boobed blond in spandex and high heels.

This is a topic though that 'gamers' started getting pissy about some years back and it's expanded into other geek culture. And of course with social media & youtube you have a whole content creator model that earn their living peddling this nonsense.

I don't have an issue with them branching out into different segments - my issue is that when these films aren't as financially successful, everyone takes it personally.

Maybe expect niche financial results for a niche demographic, unless they come out and support it in droves.

It’s like the posters that are constantly surprised and outraged at hockey’s relatively insignificant stature among the US sports landscape.

Back to the original point, it just irks me when a flawed or mediocre film doesn't perform well, the fingers are automatically pointed towards toxicity and not the fact that maybe the film wasn't very good.

The same thing happened with The Last Jedi.

In this case, it seems to be a charming if by-the-numbers entry into the Marvel landscape and I would chalk it up to oversaturation and a lack of connectivity between the characters and the audience.

Disney didn't seem to have much faith in the movie given how many times they pushed back the release date and did re-shoots. Also, no toy line which is pretty telling.

I remember when people were predicting doom and gloom for the Super Mario Brothers movie because critics hated it.

I predicted a massive windfall and of course I was proven right.

It's a film aimed at children and families (including parents of multiple generations who played the games) and it hit that segment like a bulls-eye.

The fact that a certain critic or two thought that it was "inane" and "missed an opportunity to tell a larger and more nuanced story" just goes to show how out of touch they are sometimes with the movie-watching populace.

Captain Marvel is not one of the more popular heroes in the Marvel canon, so I'm not sure why people were expecting the character to be widely accepted. The film itself was pretty standard origin story fare, with nothing that really distinguished it from any other MCU film aside from having a female protagonist.

The only reason GotG worked was because of the James Gunn approach which embraced humour and overall silliness. It had nothing specifically to do with the characters themselves IMO.

Thor: Ragnarok did a 180 in terms of style from the previous two Thor films and unsurprisingly is regarded as much better than the previous ones which were pretty generic.

Loki and Wanda Vision probably attracted the most buzz of anything in the past few years and unsurprisingly they were the most original products of the MCU.

The same again applies to Andor in the SW universe.

 

[NyQuil]

I don't think this is the main reason it's failing. The Flash and Blue Beetle failed recently as well. But I do think women are more likely to see a "guy movie" like Gladiator or Top Gun, than men are to see a "chick flick".

The Marvels isn't a "chick flick", but it does kind of feel like a super hero movie for girls.

Mrs_NyQuil informed me that she likes the Marvel movies but mainly because she became attached to the characters, and enjoys the dialogue and banter.

"Then, when the chases and fight scenes start, I get my phone out."

 

[RandV]

I don't have an issue with them branching out into different segments - my issue is that when these films aren't as financially successful, everyone takes it personally.

Maybe expect niche financial results for a niche demographic, unless they come out and support it in droves.

It’s like the posters that are constantly surprised and outraged at hockey’s relatively insignificant stature among the US sports landscape.

Back to the original point, it just irks me when a flawed or mediocre film doesn't perform well, the fingers are automatically pointed towards toxicity and not the fact that maybe the film wasn't very good.

The same thing happened with The Last Jedi.

In this case, it seems to be a charming if by-the-numbers entry into the Marvel landscape and I would chalk it up to oversaturation and a lack of connectivity between the characters and the audience.

In my opinion this is where you get into the 'too online' category. Bickering online drives engagement for social media & youtube, but doesn't really effect the box office. Online rating services however do get effected as it's too easy to flood them with 0 or 10 scores.

 

[Osprey]

I know I might get accused of sexism for saying this, but I think men are less interested in female centric movies.

This isn't to say men don't like movies with female leads, many films with female leads garner a large male audience (Rogue One, TFA, Aliens, and so on). But there's a difference between a film with a female lead, and female centric film; or a movie that feels like it's made for a female audience.

I don't think this is the main reason it's failing. The Flash and Blue Beetle failed recently as well. But I do think women are more likely to see a "guy movie" like Gladiator or Top Gun, than men are to see a "chick flick".

The Marvels isn't a "chick flick", but it does kind of feel like a super hero movie for girls.

I agree. There's a difference between "female-led" and "female-centric." My favorite movie (Aliens) is one, but not the other. It's very appealing to guys like me, but happens to have a female lead. Being female-centric or seemingly made for female audiences is very different and not usually that appealing to guys like me. I agree that there seems to be a difference between the sexes on this, since guys tend to groan at the suggestion of watching "chick flicks" while women seem to be more open to watching "guy" movies. In fact, the saying "women want him, men want to be him" is often used to try to explain the appeal of guy movies to both sexes, but there doesn't seem to be a similar phenomenon the other way around. Also, I recently read someone theorize that women want to like what guys like, but guys don't have as much desire to like what girls like. I thought that that was an interesting theory that could further explain why female-centric movies have more difficulty finding broad appeal.

Mrs_NyQuil informed me that she likes the Marvel movies but mainly because she became attached to the characters, and enjoys the dialogue and banter.

"Then, when the chases and fight scenes start, I get my phone out."

Lock up this thread. Mrs. NyQuil has spoken.

 

[x Tame Impala]

If the movie was great, people would go out and see it, even the "incels". The female-led cast is only a detriment if the movie is lame.

Its so obvious i'm not sure why beowulf even bothered to mention it.

 

[tarheelhockey]

That's why it's a meaningful comparison. It was much anticipated and this was not.

But we already knew that, right? Did anyone ever think this would be a highly anticipated movie, going back to the first announcement of its existence?

I guess I’m wondering why it’s such a big deal that it’s the least successful movie so far. If you had never watched any of the MCU movies, and ranked them using only descriptions of the plot and characters, would this one not be at the very bottom of the list for expected audience?

 

[RandV]

But we already knew that, right? Did anyone ever think this would be a highly anticipated movie, going back to the first announcement of its existence?

I guess I’m wondering why it’s such a big deal that it’s the least successful movie so far. If you had never watched any of the MCU movies, and ranked them using only descriptions of the plot and characters, would this one not be at the very bottom of the list for expected audience?

I don't know I've never done the 'rank all the MCU' thing, but I feel like head to head it would be low-mid tier. Where it suffers is we're about reaching peak Marvel fatigue with the movie going audience and peak 'just wait for Disney+'. Like you can't tell me people were anticipating The Eternals to a tune of (checking wiki) $162M global opening to the paltry amount The Marvels has made

 

[StreetHawk]

I don't know I've never done the 'rank all the MCU' thing, but I feel like head to head it would be low-mid tier. Where it suffers is we're about reaching peak Marvel fatigue with the movie going audience and peak 'just wait for Disney+'. Like you can't tell me people were anticipating The Eternals to a tune of (checking wiki) $162M global opening to the paltry amount The Marvels has made

The turnaround time between theatres and steaming service is too short. I mean maybe I’d go see it in 2 weeks if it’s going to be 4/5 months until it lands on streaming. But 8-10 weeks from now? And it’s not a must see movie?

Again I go back to execs not factoring the timing of the first movies release and the bump it got before avengers came out. Plus, do the other co-heroes really add anything’?

 

[kingsfan28]

This was really the 1st movie directly impacted by the actor strike. With no promotion , interviews with the cast or multiple premieres with press coverage featuring them allowed, nobody outside of a small area knew about it. They couldn't even be seen in a Marvels hat without the SAG/AFTRA jumping all over them. All the big movies, Barbie,Openheimer, MI7 , Dial of Desteny all had massive promo tours and premieres [ Openheimer and Indy 5 premiered at the Canne Film Festival ] leading up to the July 14th strike date. Then they all had to stop. Pretty sure Cruise circled the earth 5 times and had 8 different premieres before it opened on the 12th. He was on every tv channel for weeks. That stuff sells the movie, same with musicians who go out and promote new records. Without promotion, its not going to do well and i think this was a big of the reason for the low numbers. As for the movie, I enjoyed it , and thought it was an average Marvel movie and not as bad as the bro boys tried to make it out to be. Thought it was better than Antman 3 and Dr.Strange 2 and even the last Thor.

 

[kingsfan28]

Here's an article from March that I read a few days ago. It's a warning to be prepared for the "go woke, go broke" crowd to take credit if/when this movie flops, but it seems relevant because you're giving that crowd that credit by suggesting that the "incels" are part of the reason why the movie is failing. The article argues that it'll have failed for reasons other than that and that we should be honest about those reasons.

Don’t Blame Wokeness When The Marvels Fails

The Marvels combines a lot of factors, and a silly name, which suggest it could be the MCU's first major flop. Don't blame wokeness if it is

www.thegamer.com

There are active groups of little boys who don't want girls playing in their sandbox trying to tank the movie [ or any female lead movie], and are now padding themselves on the back in multiple Reddit threads.

 

[beowulf]

Disney didn't seem to have much faith in the movie given how many times they pushed back the release date and did re-shoots. Also, no toy line which is pretty telling.

No toys? Not my thing to collect those so don't really follow it but it did have a tie-in with McDonald's and toys for kids in those happy meals.

 

[S E P H]

I'm a big Marvel fan and I'm even having trouble keeping up with all the over-saturation.

Within the last month or two:

GotG 3 streams
Marvels
Loki 2
Echo trailer
Announcements of new movie release dates

It's non-stop and, IMO, hurting the overall product.

That and two other things; no direction in these and too many of them got sequels. With Infinity Wars, you have a direct enemy, a direct plot, and a direct war. This new phase is just a jumble mess with I think Kang as the main bad guy, but he doesn't come until the Ant-Man one IIRC. Too many sequels which go to your point of over-saturation have also been a mess, nobody cares about Ant-Man III, Thor IV, and Black Panther II. All of these were trash and didn't really do good in the box office. BP I think did the best, but hard to say it will get the same amount if they decide to do a third one. I know I wouldn't be watching it considering how utterly disappointing the second one was for me. I haven't watched this Marvel movie and I don't plan to until it comes out on D+, but I am expecting it to be a worse version of Black Widow (which I quite liked).

 

[Drytoast]

I'm over the "girls get it done" crap. As Bre Larson said once "this movie was not meant for you". So hard pass on this one.

The Boys/Gen z? That's about all I can stomach now when it comes to the super hero shit anyways.

 

[AtlantaWhaler]

I'm a big Marvel fan and I'm even having trouble keeping up with all the over-saturation.

Within the last month or two:

GotG 3 streams
Marvels
Loki 2
Echo trailer
Announcements of new movie release dates

It's non-stop and, IMO, hurting the overall product.

And now Madame Web and What If?2 trailers and releases in about a month. Crazy

 

[StreetHawk]

That and two other things; no direction in these and too many of them got sequels. With Infinity Wars, you have a direct enemy, a direct plot, and a direct war. This new phase is just a jumble mess with I think Kang as the main bad guy, but he doesn't come until the Ant-Man one IIRC. Too many sequels which go to your point of over-saturation have also been a mess, nobody cares about Ant-Man III, Thor IV, and Black Panther II. All of these were trash and didn't really do good in the box office. BP I think did the best, but hard to say it will get the same amount if they decide to do a third one. I know I wouldn't be watching it considering how utterly disappointing the second one was for me. I haven't watched this Marvel movie and I don't plan to until it comes out on D+, but I am expecting it to be a worse version of Black Widow (which I quite liked).

You are also now into the lesser known heroes. Imagine DC not having Batman, Superman, WW, Lantern, Flash, Aquaman as part of their JL? That it was instead headlined by:
Green Arrow - to replace Batman
Shazam - to replace Superman/WW
Jessica Cruz or the other one after Kyle Raynor for GL
Black Canary
Hawkman

But, you get the idea.

Loss of Chadwick Boseman hurt this phase after End Game. Was to be him, Strange, Marvel as the main ones. Too many lesser known heros. Aside from the hard core fans, most have no clue.

Really have to nail the story to get people interested. Don't have the built in audience that you would with a more recognizable character.

 

[Osprey]

This was really the 1st movie directly impacted by the actor strike. With no promotion , interviews with the cast or multiple premieres with press coverage featuring them allowed, nobody outside of a small area knew about it. They couldn't even be seen in a Marvels hat without the SAG/AFTRA jumping all over them. All the big movies, Barbie,Openheimer, MI7 , Dial of Desteny all had massive promo tours and premieres [ Openheimer and Indy 5 premiered at the Canne Film Festival ] leading up to the July 14th strike date. Then they all had to stop. Pretty sure Cruise circled the earth 5 times and had 8 different premieres before it opened on the 12th. He was on every tv channel for weeks. That stuff sells the movie, same with musicians who go out and promote new records. Without promotion, its not going to do well and i think this was a big of the reason for the low numbers. As for the movie, I enjoyed it , and thought it was an average Marvel movie and not as bad as the bro boys tried to make it out to be. Thought it was better than Antman 3 and Dr.Strange 2 and even the last Thor.

MI7 and 'Dial of Destiny' lost money, despite all of their promotion. Having promotion helps, but doesn't guarantee success. 'Quantumania' had promotion and took in $106M in its opening weekend, more than double this, and still lost money. This movie was predicted to lose money well before the strike happened.

There are active groups of little boys who don't want girls playing in their sandbox trying to tank the movie [ or any female lead movie], and are now padding themselves on the back in multiple Reddit threads.

There also seem to be many who don't like or understand others pissing in their sandbox and imagine reasons why instead of listening to what the criticisms actually are.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

There also seem to be many who don't like or understand others pissing in their sandbox and imagine reasons why instead of listening to what the criticisms actually are.

I know

Who could ever stomach women in a WWII video game. UNTHINKABLE

 

[MMC]

Idk about y'all but I'm honestly just over this group of heroes and have been ever since Endgame. Their saga peaked and I just can't get hyped for the likes of a 4th Thor movie, 2nd BP when T'Challa is dead, etc. This epilogue stage shouldn't have taken 5 years (yeah covid happened but still). And the two I actually was excited for (DSMoM and Quantumania) ended up blowing dick.

 

[johnjm22]

MI7 and 'Dial of Destiny' lost money, despite all of their promotion. Having promotion helps, but doesn't guarantee success. 'Quantumania' had promotions and took in $106M in its opening weekend, more than double this, and still lost money. This movie was predicted to lose money well before the strike happened.

There also seem to be many who don't like or understand others pissing in their sandbox and imagine reasons why instead of listening to what the criticisms actually are.

For some perspective, here's the trailer views for each of those films on YouTube. These are total views for the top 2 trailers of each movie.

Dial of Destiny (384M BO)
15M
14M

MI7 (568M BO)
28M
17M

The Marvels (250M BO Projection)
22M
21M

Similar number of trailer views, but probably won't get anywhere near the Box Office numbers of those other films.

20-ish million trailer views is pretty low for a Marvel movie (Quantumaina did 36M and 26M on its main trailers). Hard to say whether it's lack of interest, or lack of promotion.

Honestly I think most of the MCU's "marketing" is free at this point. They announce the movie, they upload the trailer, it gets talked about and shared on social media. I'm not sure TV ads or celeb appearances matter much for these films.

 

[Satans Hockey]

I saw this yesterday and really enjoyed it. Unless I missed it I didn't see anyone in this thread talking about...

Spoiler

the mid scene credit with Kelsey Grammar showing up as the Beast. I'm really excited to eventually see what they do with the X-men.

 

[John Price]

I saw this yesterday and really enjoyed it. Unless I missed it I didn't see anyone in this thread talking about...

Spoiler

the mid scene credit with Kelsey Grammar showing up as the Beast. I'm really excited to eventually see what they do with the X-men.

I brought it up in a spoiler tag. imo it takes the mcu to a new exciting direction.

 

[Satans Hockey]

I brought it up in a spoiler tag. imo it takes the mcu to a new exciting direction.

Absolutely agree, I think whenever they do that movie it will be a pretty big hit since people are going to be curious to see how it's done. They would really have to screw up badly to drop the ball on this one.

 

[beowulf]

Absolutely agree, I think whenever they do that movie it will be a pretty big hit since people are going to be curious to see how it's done. They would really have to screw up badly to drop the ball on this one.

The Young Avengers is also interesting but ya it has taken a while for the MCU to bring in the mutants but it is happening and looks like DP3 could be the big crossing point.

 

[StreetHawk]

The Young Avengers is also interesting but ya it has taken a while for the MCU to bring in the mutants but it is happening and looks like DP3 could be the big crossing point.

Avengers characters need a break. Well past the top drawing characters now. Need to temper expectations. Really need to get the stories on point. Being a marvel movie alone won’t get more people to see it.

Xmen would give them something different. I wouldn’t try to tie them to this continuity. But that’s just me.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

X-Men is gonna have issues with the chuds and "wokeism".

X-Men kind of is about racism. Good luck tackling today.