Marvel Universe (Thar be spoilers ahead.)

[DraconianOne]

It's not undeniable. The simple response is: "We find it a more valuable use of our resources to create merchandise that promotes characters that appear (or could potentially appear in the future) in our movies, TV series, and animated series. "

Pretty close to their actual response: " If you had two things, and on one you earned 100% of the revenues from the efforts that you put into making it, and the other you earned a much smaller percentage for the same amount of time and effort, you’d be more likely to concentrate more heavily on the first, wouldn’t you?" (That's from Tom Brevoort btw).

Which is why the recent X-Men films (including The Wolverine) have had few - if any - toys or video games released at the same time. (Even X3 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine had tie-in video games). I suspect there won't be anything in relation to FF later in the year. Or Deadpool. Or Age of Apocalypse next year.

Main very obvious timeline point - this only seems to have happened after Disney acquired Marvel.

[NowhereMan]

Presuming the Deadpool movie is any good, I'll be sad if it's negatively imacted by this.

[jgsugden]

...
Main very obvious timeline point - this only seems to have happened after Disney acquired Marvel.

To be more specific: A few years after.  It seems to have picked up around the time they went after Spider-man.

A positive way to view it: They may be trying to reduce the value to make it cheaper to reacquire the properties.

In other news from a Latino Review-esque source: They're reportedly considering Cloak & Dagger, Ms. Marvel (the new one, not Danvers), and Hulk (as a prequel) for Prime Time tv and Blade, Punisher and Ghost Rider for Netflix - not necessarily as full series, but as characters to work into the existing framework and see if they get the appeal to steal one of the series slots.

http://www.blastr.com/2015-6-3/rumor-day-marvel-tv-considering-blade-ms-marvel-punisher-hulk-series

[Lakov_Sanite]

They could easily(and should) work punisher into the current daredevil series.  It would work well as a counterpoint to Murdoch's philosophies and fits well with the street level heroes. 

[DraconianOne]

...
Main very obvious timeline point - this only seems to have happened after Disney acquired Marvel.

To be more specific: A few years after.  It seems to have picked up around the time they went after Spider-man.

We're only a few years after it now. They started killing X-Men movie tie-ins from First Class onwards - ie 2011, a year after the acquisition - and before they started renegotiating deals with Sony about Spider-man movie merchandising.

Also, that Cloak & Dagger, Punisher and Hulk TV Series rumour has been around since 2012 or so.

[Nevermore]

Of course, it could also be that one of the most recognizable of those properties (Wolverine) is dead in the comics (or has he returned yet) and none of the other X-Men really has anywhere near that sort of recognizability.

I think he's still dead, but I fully expect he'll return with the end of Secret Wars.

Likely, but there is talk it may be a different version of Wolverine than the one that died: Old Man Logan might be the Logan that emerges. 

Yep, that's him all the way on the right.

[Velorath]

It's not undeniable. The simple response is: "We find it a more valuable use of our resources to create merchandise that promotes characters that appear (or could potentially appear in the future) in our movies, TV series, and animated series. "

Pretty close to their actual response: " If you had two things, and on one you earned 100% of the revenues from the efforts that you put into making it, and the other you earned a much smaller percentage for the same amount of time and effort, you’d be more likely to concentrate more heavily on the first, wouldn’t you?" (That's from Tom Brevoort btw).

Which is why the recent X-Men films (including The Wolverine) have had few - if any - toys or video games released at the same time. (Even X3 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine had tie-in video games). I suspect there won't be anything in relation to FF later in the year. Or Deadpool. Or Age of Apocalypse next year.

Main very obvious timeline point - this only seems to have happened after Disney acquired Marvel.

The MCU hasn't really had many video game tie-ins either though. Disney Infinity 2.0 I guess, and Marvel Heroes tends to do character or costume packs tying into movie releases but that's about it. Mobile games come out here and there, but there have been X-Men mobile games released in the last couple years also.

Also I think another obvious timeline point is the release of Avengers in 2012. Prior to that the first two Iron Man movies had done really well, Hulk not so much, and Thor and Captain America did ok but weren't huge successes. It doesn't seem unreasonable that when Avengers brought in 1.5 billion worldwide that it made more sense for Marvel/Disney to put their resources into capitalizing on those characters.

Edit: X-Men: First Class toy tie-ins would have been shit. Wolverine only has a very brief cameo, and aside from Mystique, Beast, and Azazel, pretty much all the characters look like normal people. Kids weren't dying to get their hands on Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, and Kevin Bacon figures.

[Fordel]

Is X-23 the new Wolverine :D

[DraconianOne]

The MCU hasn't really had many video game tie-ins either though.

Ack, lost my original reply but short version - yes, there was a video game tie-in (mostly on consoles, 1 or 2 on PC) for every MCU film from Iron Man onwards up until Avengers. There was meant to be an Avengers game but it was being developed by THQ who had other worries at the time and they ended up releasing Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth on Wii-U and XBox.  Phase 2 tie-ins have all been mobile only (and yes, there have been some X-Men games including a DoFP one) - except for Age of Ultron which will be the Lego Marvel Avengers game later this year.

Also, they did plan on making First Class toys and collectibles but they got canned iirc.

[Velorath]

The MCU hasn't really had many video game tie-ins either though.

Ack, lost my original reply but short version - yes, there was a video game tie-in (mostly on consoles, 1 or 2 on PC) for every MCU film from Iron Man onwards up until Avengers.

Those were all part of a licensing deal with Sega that was put together a couple years before Disney bought Marvel, and was not renewed likely because those games were all shit. Point being, it wasn't just X-Men tie-in games that stopped getting made on consoles.

[DraconianOne]

Fair point.

I have a theory about how this is all a gambit by Disney to get the distribution rights back for Star Wars rather than X-Men/FF as well but all I can really think about it lunch so you'll be spared that inane rambling.

[Margalis]

Disney / Marvel is all about casual games - either iOSor lego / infinity.

It does seem weird, but I suspect part of that is that the number of AAA publishers / developers is small now so there just aren't many places that could do a good AAA Marvel game. The days of companies like Sega or Raven doing good enough games is over, or at least has shifted to iOS. And the EA / Star Wars deal shows what Disney is thinking - rather than managing development of a bunch of different games via a bunch of different devs they want a one-stop-shop. Realistically there are maybe 3 publishers that could offer that.

[Evildrider]

Disney / Marvel is all about casual games - either iOSor lego / infinity.

It does seem weird, but I suspect part of that is that the number of AAA publishers / developers is small now so there just aren't many places that could do a good AAA Marvel game. The days of companies like Sega or Raven doing good enough games is over, or at least has shifted to iOS. And the EA / Star Wars deal shows what Disney is thinking - rather than managing development of a bunch of different games via a bunch of different devs they want a one-stop-shop. Realistically there are maybe 3 publishers that could offer that.

They should just rebuild Lucasarts and bam, in house studio for Marvel and SW games.

[Merusk]

Yeah, Disney has no interest in producing AAA games, they said as much when they acquired Lucasfilm and announced Lucasarts closure. The risk and cost is too great for too little payoff, they'd rather be the client than having to build that expertise and manage it. It doesn't align with their marketing and movie-making core.

Margalis is right when he points-out the EA deal is exactly what they were looking for.  Experts to come to them with ideas that they'll approve or deny. They didn't even look at a model like Infinity until after Spyro had proven it worked for ~2 years, and even then they're being cautious in how they roll it out.

Mobile games, however, they'll release the fuck out of, yeah. Lower cost to develop, easier to roll-out and much better revenue if you're expecting it.  They've got a huge amount of mobile and web-based games.

[HaemishM]

It wasn't like Lucasarts was producing anything of note for the last decade. Disney did us all a favor by putting a fucking bullet in its head. To make it worth a damn, they'd have had to build it back up almost from scratch, which is expensive.

[Teleku]

They could easily(and should) work punisher into the current daredevil series.  It would work well as a counterpoint to Murdoch's philosophies and fits well with the street level heroes. 

I'm really hoping one of the next Netflix series they do (after the current announced ones) is Punisher.  Its right up DeKnights alley, and even he himself has said he would like to do the Punisher, so I have high hopes.  Would be great with the freedom for violence and grit they have on net flix.  And yes, a good contrast to Daredevil.  I loved the series, but I'm not really happy with them turning him into Batman "I wont ever kill anybody ever."  And I love Batman.  But Jesus Christ, the 500th time joker gets out and kills another hundred people, its really Batman murdering them at that point.

[Khaldun]

Think about it. This is one of the things DC (or Marvel) needs to work through. It's not Batman's fault that he lives in a completely different universe where the public at large is basically ok with Charles Manson being sent to a minimum security asylum. Because that's basically the thing: they either don't have the death penalty, or don't use it very often, or they have extremely indulgent ideas about insanity. Meaning everyday 'normal' people in those universes are very different than in ours.

This isn't going to work in the cinematic universes, I don't think--in the main MCU, they're slowly but surely making "ordinary people" into people who live in a fantastical universe where incredible things can happen, and shifting their nature slightly to accommodate that.

[Evildrider]

It wasn't like Lucasarts was producing anything of note for the last decade. Disney did us all a favor by putting a fucking bullet in its head. To make it worth a damn, they'd have had to build it back up almost from scratch, which is expensive.

Yeah, but it's not like Disney is hurting for money.  Besides I'd be all for it, considering EA's doing such a mediocre job on Battlefront.

[MediumHigh]

Think about it. This is one of the things DC (or Marvel) needs to work through. It's not Batman's fault that he lives in a completely different universe where the public at large is basically ok with Charles Manson being sent to a minimum security asylum. Because that's basically the thing: they either don't have the death penalty, or don't use it very often, or they have extremely indulgent ideas about insanity. Meaning everyday 'normal' people in those universes are very different than in ours.

This isn't going to work in the cinematic universes, I don't think--in the main MCU, they're slowly but surely making "ordinary people" into people who live in a fantastical universe where incredible things can happen, and shifting their nature slightly to accommodate that.

Comic books are designed around reoccurring characters that explore different angles on the same theme. Movies are about short attention span hero beats villian, villians never seen again.

[jgsugden]

...
Comic books are designed around reoccurring characters that explore different angles on the same theme. Movies are about short attention span hero beats villian, villians never seen again.

They have been about that... but there is room for more.  And both Marvel and DC want to have villains reappear.  Ledger's Joker would have been a feature villain in the third Batman film.  Marvel is building villains over multiple films (Loki, Crossbones, Thanos, etc...) 

I'm going to be looking for forshadowing during phase 3 of what the next big bad after Thanos will be - perhaps Master of Evil featuring Abomination, Mandarin, Loki, etc...?

[Khaldun]

Think about it. This is one of the things DC (or Marvel) needs to work through. It's not Batman's fault that he lives in a completely different universe where the public at large is basically ok with Charles Manson being sent to a minimum security asylum. Because that's basically the thing: they either don't have the death penalty, or don't use it very often, or they have extremely indulgent ideas about insanity. Meaning everyday 'normal' people in those universes are very different than in ours.

This isn't going to work in the cinematic universes, I don't think--in the main MCU, they're slowly but surely making "ordinary people" into people who live in a fantastical universe where incredible things can happen, and shifting their nature slightly to accommodate that.

Comic books are designed around reoccurring characters that explore different angles on the same theme. Movies are about short attention span hero beats villian, villians never seen again.

But that's as it should be! Movies aren't serials that arrive every month, and characters who constantly recur and never change make for lousy stories when every minute in the story counts. The only time this works is when stories are told incrementally and it hardly matters if it all makes good cohesive sense when it's all compiled together.

[jgsugden]

Spidey casting news a few weeks ago seemed to be premature - seems like they couldn't reach a deal with Butterfield and they're looking elsewhere.  A number of names are coming up still. 

[Khaldun]

Tom Holland has been cast as Spider-Man.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/06/23/tom-holland-cast-as-the-new-spider-man

[sickrubik]

Also, the Director was named, as noted in the same article. Jon Watts

[Ironwood]

That'll work.

[jgsugden]

The focus of the new Spider-man movies seems to be the one thing they could not do in the last two attempts: Showing Spidey's attempt to become part of the hero universe.  It goes back to the early Spidey stories in which he wants to be an Avenger, he wants to turn them into the Fantastic Five, etc...  Those type of stories, even if they do not have the rights to all of the stories.  

If that is the main goal of the character, I would not be surprised to see him run into multiple Marvel heroes over his first few movies.  Hulk, Daredevil, Iron Man, Cap, etc... all have history with him.  I could see It all depends on how central they want to make the character.  

Also, they seem to be indicating we'll get a 'new' villain - eliminating Goblins, Electro, Rhino, Venom, Lizard, Sandman, Kingpin and Doc Ock.  In terms of obvious candidates, that leaves Kraven, Vulture, Mysterio (not sure if we count the Amazing hinting at this character), and Shocker near the top of the list.  My gut, given the ideas they had for Sinister Six that seem to be in tentative hold rather than dead, is Kraven with a build towards the Six.

[SurfD]

I would probably go with Mysterio if they want to introcuce a new villian, but start with someone  who is not up there on the list of people with "big" powersets.  Someone who works primarily with practical based Illusion and Misdirection as their gimmic would be perfect to put a freshman spiderman up against.  He would  also be the perfect character to showcase the whole "parker is as intelligent as he is agile" aspect of the spiderman character.

[jgsugden]

For those worried about meaningless details: We have a Title for Guardians 2:

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

[Merusk]

Ronan has a freaking Infinity Gem when he gives Thanos the finger.  He can destroy worlds with a touch and he knows it. 

And that meant and still means fuck all to the audience. You've got all this mythology and back story in your headspace because - Comics. I have tangential knowledge because - geek. The folks I talk to in the real world who see me as some uber geek when I'm really not? Their first question was, "If Ronan was so powerful, why didn't he just blow-up the Guardians instead of fighting them? What was the point of any of that?"

Fuck if I know, I wonder the same thing. You can't build-up "a freaking Infinity Gem" and then make the big baddie impotent AND inept when he's got it. Guess what Marvel does because they have to wrap things up with no real deaths in the last 30 mins.


The formula is starting to wear thin, these ramblings on geek-centric boards are just the first signs.

[Evildrider]

Meh, it's getting to the point where there is no reason to post anything fun on these boards because it'll just get nitpicked to death.  Also this is the first place I've seen this much complaining about Thanos and how he is portrayed in the MCU so far.

[jgsugden]

I'd enjoy hearing the over understand from the nay sayers on when Marvel will have their first flop.

[Lakov_Sanite]

There's almost no such thing as a flop when it comes to superhero movies with a pedigree.  The amazing spiderman2 which for all intents and purposes was a terrible movie, still made quite a bit of money.  Superman with it's lukewarm reaction likewise did and so will BvS.  You can have good superhero movies, you can have bad ones but they all make and likely will continue to make money for the foreseeable future. 

The quality of the movies will not determine when the hero movie bubble bursts, it will be audience fatigue and that is a hard thing to gauge.

[Margalis]

I'd enjoy hearing the over understand from the nay sayers on when Marvel will have their first flop.

I don't think their will be any sort of flop outside of Agents of SHIELD. More like a slow decline.

[Evildrider]

I'd enjoy hearing the over understand from the nay sayers on when Marvel will have their first flop.

I don't think their will be any sort of flop outside of Agents of SHIELD. More like a slow decline.

SHIELD isn't a flop though.

[DraconianOne]

I'd enjoy hearing the over understand from the nay sayers on when Marvel will have their first flop.

Punisher: Warzone didn't even make it's money back.  Ghost Rider 2 scraped by because of the international market.