f13.net

I figured it would be easier to do a mega thread for Marvel since there is a bit of news out there at the moment.

First big news/rumor item is that Avengers Phase 2 is looking like it's going to lead to World War Hulk.  With the Hulk getting a movie, Planet Hulk,  after Avengers 2 and then Avengers 3 being his return in a World War Hulk story.

We also know for sure that there is an Ant-Man and Doctor Strange movie coming in phase 3.

Also Chris Pratt, recently in Zero Dark Thirty, has been cast as Star-Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy.

The sourcing on the World War Hulk thing, though, is incredibly thin--it's basically one fanzine making a big deal out of a seemingly off-the-cuff remark by Feige about how they want to use good Marvel stories without getting caught up in continuity bloat, e.g., something like Planet Hulk/World War Hulk would be fun to do if it could be non-bloaty. Still, I can see why they'd think it's the way to go in terms of keeping the Hulk as fun as he was in The Avengers rather than as glum as he was in the Ed Norton Hulk flick.

The Doctor Strange thing isn't absolutely for sure for sure but it's looking pretty good.

I think the fact that they are making Guardians of the Galaxy certainly shows that the whole thing is very unpredictable--that anything could happen, any character might get a flick.

That site has been spot on almost all its Marvel leaks since the get go.  It's the main reason it's getting so much press.  I think the biggest thing that rumor has going for it is that Hulk was easily the biggest fan favorite in Avengers.

Doctor Strange and Ant-Man has been confirmed by Kevin Feige.

I'm disappointed if they go with WW Hulk/Planet Hulk. Kind of looking forward to Thanos and the infinity gems/gauntlet.

They already did that animated Planet Hulk that was rather good.  Why bother with a live action version ?

Especially since Banner has pretty much fuck all to do with it.

I love Doctor Strange so much as a character. He has one of the most distinctive origins and backstories in all of comics, just beneath the pure genius of Batman and Spider-Man's origins. He's about the only superhero I can think of whose origin is basically "depressed middle-aged man who has fucked up his life gets another chance, not because he fell into a radioactive puddle, but because he works hard and takes a leap of faith". He's sort of like the Theoden of super-heroes: midlife crisis melancholic, looking for a chance to be worthy of the moment. If they can keep that clear and intact, I think it could be great.

It also could be the most awful cheese fest of all the Marvel films if they get it wrong. I think they need to go to the fantasy-horror end of things visually--Strange's enemies can't look too much like their bright, spandexy comic-book versions. The upcoming Thor film will tell us a lot about whether they can do the Strange pic well.

Do Strange wrong, though, and you're just retreading Iron Man.

Yes, though it's interesting--that's really an element of the Iron Man character that developed slowly in the comics and didn't really take hold hard until the first film and Downey's interpretation of the character. Whereas it's built right into Strange's DNA from the outset.

It wouldn't be a Stan Lee/early Marvel character if he wasn't ripping off the pulps in some ways, of course--Strange has definitely elements of Lamont Cranston baked into him, for example.

They almost ought to go the other way from Downey's take on Tony Stark. Tony Stark in the films (and now the comics) is a cocky, super-talented, hedonistic prodigy who is always one step away from a catastrophic fall. Strange opens his story having been the arrogant prodigy who has already long since fallen. So his cinematic character has to be a guy who is so afraid of his own mojo, so gunshy about himself, that he might miss the moment where he has to act without hesitation or regret.

Could make a meeting down the line between Stark and Strange interesting if they get the right actor for the part.

The problem you run in to here is pretty often taking a fan-favorite character of an ensemble and making him the centerpiece falls flat.  You realize that it was the interactions that made the character shine, not the character themselves.

Not that it can't be done, but it's quite a risk.  Particularly with the Hulk who's already had two failed films.

I still love the first hulk film, personally. It was cerebral in a way that most hero films were not at the time and arguably laid the foundation for the much more complex films that came after. Stan Lee still says that Hulk got a bum rap. I agree that the ending was a mess but most of the film was wonderful.

That said if they go "Hulk fights space aliens!!" everyone is going to laugh their head off. World War Hulk might have been great fun but it was completely daft.

Benedict Cumberbatch

This. It was also terrible. WWHulk was just BAD from the get go. And it was tied to and part of that whole goddamn Skrull Invasion shitpile of a story that was tied to the even bigger steaming shitpile of a story, Civil War. You'd have to be detaching a lot of story tentacles. Not that it couldn't be done, but I'd rather they go another way.

Someone explain, and be as succinct or verbose as you desire, why they are making a movie about Guardians of the Galaxy.

Who at Marvel has got such a hard-on for Guardians of the Galaxy, that they're getting a movie? Much less getting a movie ahead of Dr Strange.

My bewilderment springs from the fact that I used to read Iron Man, Hulk, and Ghost Rider (along with X-Men, the Avengers, and the occasional Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, or Dr Strange story), but the GotG were nowhere to be found during my comic-reading days. I can't see how a GotG movie is going to do well financially. Unless there's an Avengers tie-in, maybe? Who the hell are these people?

Re: Avengers 2 (or 3). I wouldn't mind seeing an Ultron/Vision story. Ultron was a classic Avengers villain. Although they haven't really established his creator in the Marvel Movie Universe just yet.

Edit: punctuation, they are the little marks that use their influence, to help a sentence make more sense

Am I the only one that's scared about Eccleston in the Thor 2 movie ?

Gi Joe was an abortion due to him hamming it up.  Not that it was ever going to be any good, but you understand where I'm coming from.

Guardians of the Galaxy have always had a really strong cult fanbase.

Keep in mind that it's not an Avengers-like project. The budget will be much smaller.

And there will most likely be an Avengers tie in. Wouldn't be hard with the space stuff. Even if it's minor.


Wait... Okay.... wait, no. Eccleston is totally hammy, which can be fun, so I can't really disagree with the comment about him hamming it up.. but THAT is the reason the GI Joe movie sucked? The whole project was terrible.

I think the Guardians film has two reasons:

First, that it's actually drawing on some of Marvel's strongest storytelling in the last decade--while Civil War and all its follow-ons were shitting the bed, Annihilation and the stories that followed it were taut, interesting, and actually had a relatively tight and self-referential continuity. You could enjoy all the MU elements being drawn in but you didn't have to know about the appearance of Galactus in a Thor storyline six years ago, etc., to even have the faintest idea of what was going on. The characters will come to the screen with very few prior expectations even by the fans--you aren't going to have a lot of Rocket Racoon purists unloading fanboy angst in advance of the release. If you can make the character work visually and thematically in a film, everyone will follow along.

Second, this is just my suspicion, but I think the Guardians film is mostly going to be a way to amp up attention and drama for the second Avengers film by letting Thanos rip up and kill a bunch of relatively disposable characters. My guess is that they're looking over the script and deciding if any of the characters have a shot at being genuine favorite "discoveries" like the Hulk was in the first Avengers film. That character(s) will survive the film. Everyone else, I'm thinking, buys the farm. It's the way you make Thanos into a palpable, known threat. If the Guardians don't die in their own film, then the bulk of them will die in Avengers 2--that's even more likely, since they might want to get a bit of fun out of introducing the relatively 'real-world' characters of the Avengers to an angry tree, a laser-blasting racoon, a slinky green alien assassin lady, a dude who calls himself "Star Lord" and a big Hulk-like guy who fights with knives. The Guardians can tell the Avengers or SHIELD about Thanos, have everybody go 'Right, we don't do talking animals' and then freak out when they all get ganked by Thanos or minions thereof. (Blood Brothers would be a good warm-up fight..)

Without the Guardians' film they'd have to introduce Thanos cold in the second Avengers film. (You can't have him pop up as an antagonist in the individual flicks, even Thor's, because he would have to be a threat that none of them can even remotely deal with by themselves). 

Well, all you have to do is bring in Squirrel Girl into Thor 2 and problem solved.  :grin:

I think you're going to see threads of Thanos in all of the individual movies leading up to Avengers. Thor makes sense to have a little more, given it's in SPACE. But a more important reason to doubt that is the great amount of time between the release of Thor 2 and when Avengers 2 will come out, which would be over a year and a half. Guardians fits nicely in that with a release window of 2014.

Somewhere... soemwhere, there is a calendar that looks a lot like the infamous Blizzard calendars that I would love to see more than the Blizzard calendar.

I'm a geek and I have no idea who the fuck GoG are, or that they were even a thing.

It'd better be a damn small budget.

I don't think Squirrel Girl would get any love from the general public. She's too silly, even for me, and I like goofy things.  

It's not like "Geek" means you would know everything. I know GoG, but I don't know how to speak Klingon, for instance.

KA PLAH!



I only know what the GoG are because they showed up in the Avengers Cartoon for an episode. I have no idea how they intend to make those heroes relevant for a movie. At all.

The GoG they're going with in the film came together to fight a grim galactic war (in which Thanos was an antagonist but not the only one) and then stayed together to be a sort of emergency-reponse Special Forces team dealing with big universal crises. Basically think of them as the space version of the A-Team or the Howling Commandos and you're getting close to the mark. The character breakdown is basically:

Gritty, experienced veteran leader, human: Star-Lord
Han Solo-like wisecracking gunslinger, anthropomorphic animal: Rocket Raccoon
Ninja assassin with a dark past, sexy green lady: Gamora
Hulk-like giant rampaging brute, a giant alien tree: Groot
Riddick like cold killer on a suicide mission: Drax

GoG is being written by James Gunn (Slither and Super - which if you haven't seen either, DO SO). You can bet he will bring something fresh to the story, and it will be humorous but also probably violent. And the Guardians have been around a lot longer than the version that Khaldun brought up. They used to be a more super-hero-ey style cosmic group of heroes. This version does sound right up Gunn's alley though.

They're clearly going to forget all about the earlier Guardians, who are very much a product of an earlier comic-book era. Though the more recent stuff did make an interesting attempt to fold them back into the story eventually via temporal paradoxes and all that stuff.

I think it's fair to say we can expect a much more violent film than Avengers with a very different visual style. I think they're going more "niche" with this one.

But you know Klingon-speaking is a thing.  Meanwhile the public forgot it was a thing until Big Bang Theory brought it up again.

Not that GoG can't be a good film because the public will have clue "0" about it, but it's not going to be doing Spider Man or Avengers numbers without being a stellar movie.  It's uber-niche, which was my point.

GoG is probably more about Marvel finding a movie to put a bunch of Thanos information in before hitting Avengers 2.  I mean they basically hunt Thanos whenever possible.  Especially Drax and Gamora who both held infinity gems at one time.  It doesn't look like Iron Man 3 is gonna have much to do with Thanos.  Thor 2 has more of a chance to go that route, but with the addition of Enchantress and Executioner I don't know how much will be put in.

I wouldn't be too surprised if it turns out that Malekith in Thor 2 is working for or connected to Thanos.

In the current Marvel NOW continuity, Iron Man is off to team up with the Guardians. Additionally, images of a "Deep Space Suit" Iron Man got leaked. Now, the Deep Suit thing can be written off to some degree because toys always have weird versions not in the movies.

The Marvel NOW thing, however, is much more interesting. Tying Iron Man into it, even tenuously, would help the exposure greatly. However, Iron Man 3 also comes out in a couple of months, while GoG is still a lot further away.

Have you seen their animated take on Strange's Origins?
Painful to watch. Very, very painful.

Yeah, I didn't like it at all.

Fucking with Strange's origins is like fucking with Spider-Man's or Batman's. It's the one thing about the character that doesn't need any fixing at all.

Depends on which Eccleston was cast.  The manic smiler of the Ninth Doctor, or the misanthropic bastard of Heroes.  Given that he's playing Malekith, it would seem like a chance to chew the scenery in a really memorable way.

--Dave

Re: the Planet Hulk/World War Hulk rumor as the post-Avengers 2 direction of these properties:

Joss Whedon said in reply to a query from IGN, "no, that's nonsense".

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2013/03/05/planet-hulk-movie-rumor-whedon-nonsense/

Shocker.

Eh. Dismissal by someone like Whedon really doesn't give me a CASE CLOSED. Hell, Raimi denied all the time that there was  NO VENOM in his Spidey flick. He even said it was a stupid idea (which it was, ultimately).

Planet Hulk is palpably a stupid idea in a way recognisable by studio execs, also it has no obvious sales value. Wheras Venom is only a palpably a stupid idea to someone who has actually read a Spiderman comic.

I'm doubtful we'll see a standalone Hulk movie soon.

I also seriously doubt anyone worth a salary has been wasting their time on potential plots of 2016 movies four years ahead of time.

With how popular the Hulk was in The Avengers, you'd be wrong thinking Ruffalo won't get himself a Hulk movie.

Btw, when I first heard about GoG, my first thought was 'Green Lantern the movie'. That is how weird and shitty GoG could get.

As for Thanos, they don't really need to introduce him before Avengers 2.

Avengers movies aren't dependent on the villian as an antagonist, there isn't much screen time left after the Avengers finish antagonising each other. There may be threads and references, but it can work with or without the thing they did with Loki.

Meh, maybe, I doubt it'll even be planned till they see how Avengers 2 pans out.

The lead actors weren't the reason that the last two attempts were shit.

STOP IT.  WHY MUST YOU STIR THE CUP OF MY PERSONAL PAIN.

With how popular the Hulk was in The Avengers, you'd be wrong thinking Ruffalo won't get himself a Hulk movie.
[/quote]

If not for Hulk 1 and 2, you'd probably be right. However, nobody's chomping on that bit just because he had a few good scenes amongst a cast of a dozen other superheroes after two under-performers.

The point is that The Hulk in Avengers is what people have been asking for.  He's not just the total rage monster, he seemed to be in the more symbiotic Hulk/Banner stage. 

Lots of interesting stuff going on now with casting news and such.

Pretty clear that they're not going at Guardians of the Galaxy with faint heart--the current casting rumors around John C. Reilly and Glenn Close are that they're being looked at for relatively minor parts as officers of the Nova Corps, which is apparently being set up as the outer space and aliens counterpart to SHIELD. Continuing rumor that they're casting Tennant as Rocket Raccoon's voice, which seems a good idea to me. Contrary to my original guess, it doesn't seem like Thanos is the major villain of the film--sounds more like the Collector is going to be it. Though I wouldn't be too surprised if Thanos shows up in the background somewhere.

Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch seem pretty certain for Avengers 2--Whedon's been talking about that explicitly in public.

And there are numerous reports that "Thor 2" is in big trouble.

Could you expand on this? Havent heard anything.

Marvel has been keeping tight control over the movies they are directly producing and they keep butting heads with key people that are involved with the movies. The original Thor 2 director left over "creative differences" and the current director is fighting Marvel over the run time and edit of the movie. He wants a 150 minutes movie edit but Marvel only wants 120 minutes. The composer was also just fired.

I can see Marvel's point.  If it were 10 mins more, ok.  30 mins more, though? What could he possibly be adding to the story that isn't wank when it requires that much more time?

Dunno. Avengers was 140 minutes, though, and some people say the extended version of the Ed Norton Hulk was a better edit. Marvel presumably prefers it to be shorter cause that means more showings per day and presumably more money initially.

When you look at the history of how Marvel films got to this point, it's a razor-thin balancing act between control-freakery, weird corporate power battles, and a few inspired creative decisions. Like most corporate types, they're likely to think that a) and b) explain how they're making oodles of money rather than c), but c) is really where it's at.

Sean Howe's Marvel book is pretty good at laying out the strange maneuvers involved to get to this point.

Avengers was justified as an ensemble piece.  30 extra mins in a movie with 4-6 main characters? Flys by in chunks of interaction.  30 mins longer in a single-character piece like Thor, Spider Man or Iron Man?  Wankery.  If we'd lost the kid in IM3 would it have been a worse movie?

Christ on a stick. 30 minutes in a great script, with great direction, are great. 30 minutes in a dull bit of summer action-movie Michael Bay explosions and shit are agonizing no matter what.

30 minutes nothing until you see what the 30 minutes are. Do you trust Ike Perlmutter or people like him to decide which 30 minutes are the awesomesauce? Some of the mid-level bean counters at Marvel apparently tried to block Whedon's selection ("too cultish") and then a lot of his specific calls about how to do the movie.

The whole line is going to need to be considerably less calculated if it's going to thrive and not slowly degenerate into the Bond-style equivalent of "Octopussy".

Your distrust of Marvel doesn't change the fact that they have put out two movies (Avengers, IM3) that are in the top 10 money makers of all time.  Maybe they actually know what they are doing.

Having said that, they will have a flop sooner or later.  I say "Guardians of the Galaxy".  It could be interesting to see how that affects their plans down the line. 

Without seeing it obviously no one here can know.

But too long movies are fashionable at the moment because directors are being indulged. If the producer is pushing a director to cut tighter then it sounds like hes doing his job.

Even Django Unchained, which I thought was perhaps the best movie of 2012 and and probably a few years back...was easily 30min too long.  Tarantino was indulged and of course if he wasn't then it wouldn't be a Tarantino film BUT even great movies can go too long.

Benicio Del Toro just signed a multi picture deal with Marvel.  He'll be playing the lead villain in Guardians of the Galaxy.  Also I read that Guardians is going to be similar to movies like Ghostbusters and Galaxy Quest than a straight up action movie.

I agree completely.  A good editor makes a good movie great.  Although when I buy it on blu-ray I want all the deleted scenes they can scrape off the 'cutting room floor'.

So the news from the Comic-Con panel is interesting.

Guardians looks like it's shooting for a funny tone, which I think is wise.

Though it doesn't look like it's being used to set up Avengers 2, contra my own guess. Just to establish a space setting for the Marvel U. pictures, really.

Winter Soldier is looking pretty interesting--going for a taut conspiracy-filled thriller feeling, apparently.

The big surprise to me is that Avengers 2 chief bad-guy is not Thanos (who is at least name-dropped in Guardians, apparently) but Ultron. That means almost of necessity that in addition to Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, who have been confirmed as additions, that Hank Pym has pretty much got to move over from Wright's Ant-Man film into Avengers 2 *or* it means that Tony Stark will be the person who makes Ultron instead (which in many ways could make good sense and could keep the character's development from Iron Man 3 humming along--explaining among other things why he might get back into the armor.

I do wonder how they'll update Ultron or make him relevant given that he could easily come off as a superhero-franchise version of Skynet or some such. Also of interest now is the rumor about Vin Diesel being cast as the Vision--the Vision is a natural accompaniment to Ultron but maybe Diesel could actually *be* Ultron?

No discussion of Doctor Strange, apparently, despite the fact that there's been a lot of rumors about a completed script and some casting going on.

I really hope they don't fall into the trap of having too many characters, because Avengers 2 sure sounds like it's going to have a lot of them.

I hope that they stick with Ultron being made by Hank Pym, I'd rather not see it changed to Stark.  Besides those two never got along too well in the comics, so I'd find it funny if Pym stole or collected some of the "destroyed" Iron Man armors from the 3rd movie and used it to make Ultron.

I think that Vin Diesel would make a decent Vision.  I'm not sure who else he could play besides doing the voice for Ultron.

Vin does have the right face shape for Vision I think. I think it would fall apart once he started talking though.

Whedon has given a short follow-up interview stating that this Ultron will not be created by Hank Pym, and that they want to leave Edgar Wright to do his own thing with Ant-Man without any presumptions about that character. That kind of makes me think that the Ant-Man they're using for that film is not Pym in his comics personality but more like the Irredeemable Ant-Man version.

I could see Diesel doing the Ultron voice easily. His most important role ever was already a robot!

If they turn CA2 into a genuine thriller I'll be impressed.

I think they need to take some risks with avengers to stop it going stale.

Agree 100%. A Thor movie doesn't need to be two and a half hours. Sure, maybe that extra 30 minutes is some of the best film-making of all time - but probably not. Almost every summer blockbuster that is over 2 hours in length feels pointlessly overlong to me. Most of these movies have very thin material to start with. Economy and density are generally good for movies.

Diesel as Ultron's voice sounds cool. I would like to see Guardians played totally straight - I'm not that familiar with them but don't they have a fucking Ent and a Raccoon on their team? In some ways it would be more comedic to be completely serious with it.

Avengers 2 sounds incredibly overstuffed...and Scarlett Witch is one of the lamest characters in Marvel. Her super-power is incomprehensible bullshit and her role in most stories is to conveniently make whatever the writers wants to have happen happen. Even her costume is terrible.

The only thing that occurs to me is that we have a villain (Loki) who embodies the Xanatos Gambit (everything, even his "failures", moves him towards his goals).  So someone who mucks with probability is the logical counter if he is to be defeated.

That and she's one of the characters that freely hops back and forth between the Avengers and X-Men continuity, so maybe they're looking at some kind of crossover or reboot.

--Dave

Not unless Disney is willing to spend a whole hell of a lot to get the film rights to the X-Men back from Fox.

My understanding of Scarlett Witch and Quicksilver is that whichever movie franchise (X-Men or Avengers) uses them first owns them, so I'm tempted to think they are being used here in part to reserve them.

"Messing with probability" is such a dumb superpower - probability is not the cause of anything. If you flip a coin and it lands on heads it's because of the way you flipped it, air currents, etc - the probability of it landing on heads was 100% given the circumstances.

It's also a carte blanche to make dumb shit happen.

From what Marvel has said they are both using the two different parts of Quicksliver and Scarlet Witch.  Marvel can't make any reference to them being mutants or their connection to the X-men and Fox can't make any mention outside of those parameters.  I wonder if they will be used as villains in Days of Future Past and as heroes in Avengers 2.

It's made me wonder to what extent they can tiptoe around things in Avengers. I mean, they can't mention Magneto being their father, but can it be mentioned that their father is a super-villain and that they themselves are reformed villains? Also, they can't use the term "mutants", but can they say that some people are born with super-powers and that people are starting to fear the growing superhuman population>

I think the way they're playing it in the MU, nobody's a full-time "superhero" in the leotards-and-patrolling-for-crime sense. Except maybe Cap, and that's just his gig as a soldier or agent in a paramilitary force. So I don't think the idea of "established supervillains" who have children who can reform and become superheroes is going to be quite it for those two--when we see them, I'm guessing it will be as their superpowers activate for the first time, with a relative minimum of backstory. Maybe they'll use elements of the storyline where Ultron kills an entire Eastern European nation and have them be 'discovered' in the course of a battle there.

In Days of Future Past, judging from the Comic-Con panel, I think we're just going to see a bunch of mutants in quick succession in the apocalyptic future. Putting Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch there is probably just an IP-politics move, not a substantive element of the plot.

That's just his acting.

Statistical mechanics called, it said "henh?"

Margalis is correct, probability does not exist or even have theoretical meaning except in the perception of the observer.

Statistical mechanics is merely a strategy for combining the range of possible micro interactions, with an application of the law of large numbers to provide a useful model of macro behaviour of a thing, given the limited information available to an outside observer.

https://www.rigb.org/contentControl?action=displayContent&id=00000005671

And you think comic book writers have a clue about anything you've said?

Go back to the coin flipping example. Say you flip a coin and it is going to land heads, but then Scarlett Witch uses her powers so it lands tails instead. What actually happened there?

She changed...air density? Made your thumb quiver as you flipped it? Slowed the rotation of the coin in the air? Those are all physical effects, not changes to probability. Probability does not determine behavior, it's a statistical aggregate measure. When you make something that wasn't going to happen happen or vice-versa you're adjusting the "probability" from one to zero or the reverse.

In essence she has the ability to make anything happen, which is why her story lines are so often lame. The Wikipedia section on her powers is pure gobbledygook.

Manipulating luck is a nonsense power that when taken to its natural conclusion is just the power to do anything. "My enemy randomly self-immolated, how lucky!"


There have been a lot of attempts to explain, change and retcon her powers, so on some level the writers do recognize that it's bullshit. Even if you don't get exactly why manipulating probability is dumb it becomes apparent when you write for the character and realize that it's carte blanche to do anything.

Also, Superman can't possibly fly. The laws of gravity and aerodynamics are against him.

Scarlet Witch's probability powers come from the same place that all the extra mass Banner pulls out of nowhere comes from when he changes into the Hulk.

The same place that Mjolnir's mass goes (Hulk can't lift it, but he can toss Thor while *he's* holding it, so it loses mass when Thor holds it).  Obviously extra dimensions are involved.

--Dave

Isn't Mjolnir's deal that only those who are worthy of the power of Thor can use it? It's not that it's physically that heavy, more of a protection against <blah> thing, where the thing is <not thors>.

NO, he's not correct.  Are you both stupid?  Do have no awareness of quantum mechanics?  No awareness of thermodynamics?  WTF?

Yeah.

So.. a wizard did it.

Well, yeah.  He's a God, dude.  What other explanation is there ?  Advanced Science = Magic = Wizards.

There isn't one. It just amused me that 2 pages of superhero blerf once again came down to "Magic, shut up."

There is a huge difference. Flying is a power with limits you can define. An audience can conceive of how an unknown thing can deliver a specific power like that.

Messing with "probability" doesn't mean anything, other than possibly "able to make arbitrary changes to reality". If your audience has an ounce of imagination they end up getting frustrated because it is never clear why you don't just solve all problems immeadiately with a power.

Trying to write a worthwhile story for that, even if it made any philosophical sense, is worse than trying to write for Hiro Nakamura.

Neither of those things impact what Margalis said.

Quantum mechanics is a dumb example that does not impact the way almost any real world statistics are calculated. But as it happens crazy land physics reinforces the point - probability is a function of the observer in combination with that which being observed to a greater extent in quantum physics  than any other field.

As for thermodynamics I have no idea why you think that changes the nature of probability.

A wizard did it is a fine premise.

So long as we're clear what it is a wizard did.

The number of possible energy states a system can be in directly effects how that system behaves, it's the wave function.  The probability of a system being in any one of those states is effected by the number of states that exist.  An observer only comes into play with the collapse of the wave function.  The electron orbitals of hydrogen are not dependent upon an observer.

If you accept the Psi function as being real, then the power to alter probably is effectively the power to alter the Psi function of a system.  I'm not a fan of Wanda, but dismissing her power as not meaning anything based upon real-world physics (rather than your readers just won't understand what her power is) chaffed me.  If she can alter the decay rate of an isotope, she could make it more radioactive and kill you with it.  The Marvel writers don't get this, I concede that.  The Marvel writers also don't get the magnetic forces are 1/c harder to generate than electric forces makes Magneto's required potential energy absurdly large, but that doesn't stop him from being a cool character.

They don't explain her power very well, or define it's nature and limits, but that is different from "it just doesn't mean anything".  They didn't explain why the Hulk increases mass in a universe where mass/energy is conserved, but we aren't dismissing the Hulk's powers.  Wanda's power is fine, if they define its source and limits a little better.  It's actually one of the less obviously physically impossible powers. 

That said, the character is bland and unlikeable and her costume sucks, I'll agree to that.

I think people are seriously over estimating the physics knowledge of the world.  To most "luck" is a very tangible and real force, as bullshit as that is. Giving someone the power to change luck needs no explanation beyond that in the sense of explaining it for movie goers to accept.

If you are arguing her power alters quantum wave functions, that would be fine. Except of course that makes her as powerful as God.

But it isn't the same as the power to adjust probabilities. Probability is the likelihood of the value or outcome of a given variable considering the information available to the observer.

If I flip a coin, P(heads) from my point of view might be 50%, when it lands and I cover it, it might be 100% from my point of view, but still 50% from yours. As for the concept of 'true probability' from God's point of view, its neither knowable, nor can we know if it exists. It certainly isn't useful as a concept.

I don't have the language or know-how to really articulate this, but what if you imagined that what the Scarlet Witch is doing is opening a tiny multiversal rip or aperture in a 'many worlds' kind of physics (which Marvel's comics often play around with anyway) and essentially substituting one coherent state for another, but she can't really control exactly which 'branch' she draws from or even entirely which 'branching point' she's substituting or stitching in.

So she points at the coin flip and maybe she gets a different outcome of the flip not by changing the physics of the flip in "her" reality but by swapping the flip with another universe where the flip came down differently. But maybe she can't control it well so sometimes she gets a flip where the coin fell on the ground or the coin is radioactive or the man flipping it has a heart attack mid-flip, etc.

The problem with this in the end besides yeah, it really doesn't make that much sense in terms of physics (but it's better maybe than 'controlling probability') is that in Marvel's continuity this kind of moosing around with 'many worlds' causality has already demonstrably posed a serious risk to omniversal reality (Hickman's current writing on Avengers is once again barking up this tree). She would indeed be a kind of God and enormously dangerous. Which is actually consistent with her history but also means there is just no way at all that she should be running around in a leotard fighting bad guys. At this point in the MU continuity, Tony Stark Hank Pym and Reed Richards would know enough to know that she has to be killed or rendered permanently harmless.

In the film? I dunno how they're going to handle her exactly. Particularly if they have a Doctor Strange movie coming--there's no way around it, Strange HAS to be a magician of some kind, even if you come up with a scienc-y explanation for magic, so you might want to do the same (more or less) for Scarlet Witch and really go to the "a wizard did it" line of explanation. Problem there in narrative or expositional terms is setting limits on what the character can do  that feel at least slightly thought through.

Again dude, you are WAY over thinking this.  To most people "luck" is a tangible thing, does it have any basis in science whatsoever? no.  Will telling people "she gives others bad luck" make sense? of course it will.

People think it is, then they sit around wondering why the 'luck potion' subplot sucks so badly.

Khaldun's rationalisation isn't terrible. 'The ability to shake things about but probably with unpredictable and arbitrary consequences'. But your entire plot is now deus ex machina.

And it doesn't relate to probability. But that isn't a bad thing.

In the film, you could essentially treat her like the first X-Men movie treated Rogue: a person whose powers are so dangerous and unpredictable in their consequences that she only uses them as a desperate last resort. Which is actually consistent with the Scarlet Witch's role in several Ultron stories--she's the only one who has been able to get past Ultron's other defenses by basically having a power that can't be defended against (but in at least one case she temporarily made him more powerful because of her inability to control the exact outcome of her hexes). So you just bring her along for the ride and don't really let her do much until some critical juncture in the plot. At which point, sure, she's a deus ex, but then so was Eric Solvang saying, "Ok, get Loki's staff and I built a backdoor onto the unbeatable gadget" or the Cosmic Cube in Captain America, etcetera. You can have your deus ex if you've established that it's a hail mary plot device that the characters have reason to be very afraid of using before the moment where they have no choice (or that they had no possiblity of knowing about before that moment).

They've clarified a lot:

* No Pym in Avengers II.  Pym will be in Ant-man, although it is not clear he will be the titular character.
* Ultron is a 'Stark creation'.
* Thanos does appear in and impact Avengers II (I'm betting he (or an agent - the Ultimate version Collector?) puts a virus in Ultron, which will be Stark's army of unmanned Iron Man suits).
* We've been told for a long time that GotG leads into Avengers II, but does not overlap it (The GotG do not appear in Avengers II).
* Planet Hulk is not likely to happen during the next decade.
* Age of Ultron is only a name - the Storyline from this last year has nothing to do with the movie.  The movie will not have time travel, X-men, Fantastic Four or any of the other key elements of the AoU comics.  It is described as an origen story.

Another thing to note: By the time Avengers II hits in summer 2015, we'll have had about 25 hours of movies set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, 4 15 minute shorts, and 31 or so hours of S.H.I.E.L.D. The world will be more defined by the cohesive stories appearing accross episodes of S.H.I.E.L.D. than it will be by the various stories spread across the movies.  You can be sure they'll use the series to establish framework for the movie that is not essential, but enriches the movie.

And,  there is some pretty solid evidence that if S.H.I.E.L.D. is a monster success, we could see a second MCU TV series in 2014 giving us another 15 hours of MCU TV (Jessica Jones, Hulk, Daredevil, Power Pack, Black Panther and Heroes for Hire are all in some stage of TV development - I would think that a Daredevil TV series could give them an outlet for their 'Urban hero' tales (As seen in the comics in Spider-man, Daredevil, Moon Knight, Batman, etc...) without too much of a special effect budget).  However, I'd place the more likely date for a second TV series to be Fall 2015 after the sequel hits.

This perspective just seems arbitrary.  I get that you and Margalis don't like the concept, she honestly isn't a favorite of mine.  Saying that probably manipulation doesn't mean anything, or that correlating her power to control of wave functions automatically give her God-like powers doesn't sound like opinion, it sounds like you're saying the power simply won't work.  Which I think is wrong.

Look at wikipedia's definition of, Probability Amplitude (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_amplitude).  The wave function is a probably amplitude.  Being able to change a wave function is saying that the person is able to change a probability amplitude.  The square of which is a probability.  I'm saying that what Marvel means by, "she can control probability" is that she has some form of control over wave functions.  Being able to change a wave function is not the same as being able to change the wave function of the entire universe.  It's a matter of extent.  It doesn't immediately make her god like (although some of the comics kind of present her in that way).  That's an order of magnitude less suspension of disbelief than, he got dosed with gamma radiation or bitten by a radio active spider, require (from me).

I haven't seen anything that actually states it will be a stark creation. Where was this? The only thing I've seen is that they say they are crafting a new origin.

If so, that's a helluva spoiler.

Terrible analogy.

Superman can fly because of magic. Magic cannot make things happen by altering probability as probability does not make things happen - it's merely post-facto observation.

My problem is not the magic part, it's the altering probability part. I'm willing to accept that magic exists but even if it does changing the probability of something and thus causing it to happen is nonsense.

Like flying so fast one can reverse the spin of the Earth and turn back time?  Or being able to lift any amount of mass and size despite only having two tiny hands?

It can be just as silly and just as (un)defined.

Discount the science/probability argument and look at the story-writing implications. There's a reason why stories involving Wanda are mostly stupid. One writer makes her use her powers to make a gun jam, then the next writer ups the ante and makes that gun explode, then the next guy makes the holder of the gun explode. Pretty soon you're at the point where she can explode an entire galaxy and why not?

"The Thing is pretty strong and can lift up to 80 tons" is pretty straightforward. "Scarlett Witch can make improbable things happen" can mean anything. "It's magic" is fine but her magic is basically the power to do anything - which is silly.

Magneto can do a lot of different things but they are at least loosely tied to his powers - at least some weak explanation is required for why he can fly around for example. Wanda can just increase the possibility of a strong localized gust of wind...

Here's a question: Can she increase the probability of being bitten by a radioactive Spider and immediately just become Spider-Man?

I thought that they finally narrowed her powers down to reality alteration and not just simply probability manipulation.

One way to do it well would be to make her power strong but incredibly unpredictable in it's strength or it's affect. Make it so dangerous that even to her it would be a last resort.  I'm not arguing it's not a stupid power but we can't bring science into this argument because it can never be explained.

My point is that reality alteration has always really been her power.

Edit: As far as making her powers work for good stories, I agree that were her powers weak enough, small enough, or worked on a more probabilistic basis it could make for some good stuff. For example if she is fighting 50 guys with guns and 2 of their guns jam, one guy trips and shoots another guy, the fattest guy has a heart attack, etc.

But of course new writers come in and want to evolve characters, make them gain better control of their powers, shake things up - and Marvel is not good at disciplined editorial oversight. Her powers are very open-ended and ripe for abuse. If you want to make the Hulk fly you can get creative and have him jump really far but that's not really flying. You could have him flap his arms with super strength but that's just too dumb. But for Wanda if you want her to fly you can make her increase the chances of a strong localized gust of wind and now she functionally has flight powers.

This will be my last post on why I think she is lame:

1. "Adjusting probability" is really just adjusting reality - which is extremely open ended and ripe for abuse
2. Many of her story lines are dumb, in part springing from the nature of her powers
3. Marvel clearly has issues with her given the numerous attempts to retcon or change her powers in pretty fundamental ways
4. Her costume is ugly as fuck

Characters with very open-ended powers work in small doses but as major characters present a lot of problems.

Doctor Strange is an interesting comparison. What exactly can he do or not do? I don't know. It's worth pointing out that Dr. Strange has mostly worked better as a guest character than as a main character, and also that he deals mostly with crazy wizard mystical shit. When you're fighting some sort of demon sorcerer in another dimension you're already so out there that exactly how big a fireball he can conjure up is pretty irrelevant.

It's either that or chaos magic.  I think they waffle between the two.

You're right - it isn't explicitly said in any coverage so far.  However, the graphic used at Comic Con, the events of IM III, Joss' comments that they need to utilize the existing characters in this story to achieve the origen, and all the other little pieces sprinkled down over the past 6 months pain the picture pretty darn clearly - I think it would be a big stretch to call it a spoiler at this point. 

My pet theory: They nixed the original post credits scene from IM III and have not announced what it was.  There were claims that it was going to have Iron Man in his space armor meet the GotG, but I (now) think it was going to be the first piece of the Ultron puzzle - perhaps seeing one of those suits of armor rebel against Stark?

GoG just started production, so I'm not sure how that was ever a possibility for an after-credits scene for IM3.

edit: AH! I knew that rumor sounded familiar. It all came from marvel making "space suit" iron man toy, and someone extrapolated that as a possibility. But it was always stupid considering there's always crazy shit that is not in the movie that the toys are licensed on.

http://screenrant.com/iron-man-3-post-credits-scene-cameo/

Perception absolutely is arbitrary.

The distribution of amplitude has all sorts of interesting consequences and can be used to model all sorts of interesting stuff, but it isn't an inherent property of the thing, it is the construct of the limited information you have about a thing.

It is possible (but unhelpful and probably incorrect) to argue that there is a maximum amount of information you can know and assuming our understanding of physics is perfect (again unlikely and impossible to be certain of), and that this should give a best possible wave function. But that is entirely unhelpful for all practical purposes as you can never know that it is what you are looking at.

In case you didn't figure it out, this fundamental misunderstanding about stats is particular bugbear of mine and something stats syllabuses leave till way way too late. It causes massive confusion.

There are a few things mixed together above, but one aspect was confirmed: Marvel nixed the original after credits piece in IM III and replaced it with the Banner/Stark piece.  According to a quote attributed to Ruffalo:

They were about to wrap the movie and I saw Robert (Downey Jr.) at the Academy Awards and he had this idea. Marvel had had an idea but then they scrapped it.

I believe the change was made when something they anticipated being ready (or close enough that they could fake it) was behind schedule - or that RDJ's contract uncertainty forced the change.  I think, given the Ultron news and the events of IM III, it was Ultron related, although I originally throught it might be GotG related like everyone else seemed to think.

That statement to me reads that they liked his more. I really don't see the evidence that it would have been GoG or Ultron after the credits.

Agreed... there is no evidence of Ultron or GotG as the original angle... just theories ( for now). I bet we'll eventually get the truth.

I think Ultron probably works better than Thanos. If you bring in Thanos you probably also have to bring in a bunch of other Marvel cosmic stuff.

Plus Thanos in the original Starlin stories that got the character rolling only worked to some extent with Starlin's trademark bombast and pretentiousness--his motivation being that he was in love with Death, who was a "literal" abstract entity who really existed in the MU. That worked in those comics, but I just cannot see that kind of pure comic-book motivation flying in the more grounded cinematic MU. They're doing work now on Thanos to texture his origin more--basically he's a combination of an alienated freak, a science nerd who has a sort of Asperger's, and a guy who has an imaginary friend who might be Death but also might be his imagination. Plus he's got daddy and mommy issues (from having murdered mommy) and he's a demigod. It helps to make him a bit more grounded but if anything he's a more queasy mix of rather shopworn everyday psychological tropes and cosmic space handwavium. He might be the kind of character who is best kept way off in the distance for a long while and is menacing through more accessible front-line badguys (Nebula, the Collector).

I can see Ultron working really pretty well. I think if they go on to an Avengers 3, that might be when I'd roll out something like the Masters of Evil just for the sheer craziness of a big mano-a-mano between multiple heroes and multiple bad guys.

No.

If we're going to have a fucking stupid nerd argument, Superman isn't magic. He's an alien being who processes yellow sun radiation in such a way that it gives him a range of abilities including flight. It's a natural ability he has as a Kryptonian to be Earth's most successful solar panel. Superman is also especially vulnerable to magic.

Arguing about semantics (i.e. "Probability means <this particular definition>") and powers in comics is insane anyway, but honest to god don't write off one set of powers on a character is acceptable BECAUSE COMICS ("I'm willing to accept that magic exists"), then get your panties in a bunch about how Scarlett Witch isn't using the correct technical terms for her ability to bend reality to her will.

They said magic because there's no way in the laws of physics the guy can fly.

Well, I take that back, there's one way.

Superman flies by emitting the longest most glorious series of farts out his sanctimonious sphincter that the jet of super fast air propells him like a squid through water.

Anti-Grav Internal Organ.

Supes doesn't fly he just does really long controlled jumps!

Well, that is how it started.

Mine's more eloquent and doesn't involve breaking physics!

Super jump, squeeze a few out.  Dude has super breath, why not super gas?

Hey, don't look at me, I don't know how many times I have to repeat this :

I don't like Superman, he's an utterly retarded Superhero.

No, I get that.  I'm not fond of him either, which is why I find "on the brink of shitting his pants at all times" more satisfying than magic or an anti-gravity mcguffin.

There is a group of physicists that are arguing that the wave function IS 'real'  Ars Tech Article (http://arstechnica.com/science/2011/11/the-insanely-weird-quantum-wave-function-might-be-real-after-all/)

All experiments point to there being no hidden variables, there is only a little uncertainty left possible with our current world view. 
There is a maximum amount of information you can have about a system due to the uncertainty principle (talking about data here). 
We definitely don't know everything there is to know because the Standard Model is incomplete (talking about forces and systems here).


Well said.  Wish I had said that.

The argument being made there is that the particle may be smeared across multiple positions and literally be in all of then at once.

If that is ever proven, then the the function isn't a probability function at all, even if experimental physicists would be likely to continue to use the term incorrectly.

It would mean the wave function is more analogous to a reality density map.

Superman can fly because of telekinesis. Basically he can fly because he says so. He can also keep the structural integrity of objects because he says so. Also he is functionally immortal since his body can't age because he says so.

There are more things in heaven and earth, f13 crowd, Than are dreamt of in your physics.

Of course you are right, you just made a phrase to prove it.  "reality density map", not a probability at all... even though it's calculated exactly like a probability, quacks like a probability, and has feathers like a probability.  If you didn't laugh when you typed that, you should chuckle now.

meanwhile, 50 years ago

Stan Lee: I have a great name for a new character in the X-Men universe, The Scarlet Witch!
Jack Kirby:  ... is she a whore?
Stan Lee: (thunderous) NO!  She's a, a, a witch!  She wears red.
Jack Kirby: We're doing magic in mutant land?
Stan Lee: WHAT, hmmm. (fuming, but seeing Jack's point)
Jack Kirby: What's her power?
Stan Lee: You know, she hexes people
Jack Kirby: Gives em warts?  Makes them fall in love with her?
Stan Lee: No dammit, she gives them bad luck.
Jack Kirby: (eyebrows raised)
Stan Lee: Well it's not just people, it's things too!  She's like Murphy, if something can go wrong it will go wrong!
Jack Kirby: So she's Irish?  That makes sense, evilest witch I ever dated was an Irish girl, but boy did she have
Stan Lee: STOP BEING A DICK!
Jack Kirby: (laughing) Ok, ok.  But still, sounds like magic.  Maybe her mutant power is that she can alter luck?
Stan Lee: Yes! Now you're talking... wait, gotta be bigger than that, she can modify probability!
Jack Kirby: I'm getting it.  So if she's in a fight, and the floor is even a little slippery, the villain will slip and fall possibly hitting himself on the noggin?
Stan Lee: EXCELSIOR!

I can't think of a single super hero/villain doesn't sound just dumb if we break it down like that.

The punisher?

You don't have to break down Punisher for him to be dumb.

A guy with PTSD goes around shooting people he thinks are bad? Eerily realistic.

And everyone loves him for it  :oh_i_see:

And we don't hold those dudes up as heroes.

Punisher is a dumb character. I've never seen the appeal.

The former cop in LA who went on a shooting spree against other cops is still held in high regard by many and he was killing "the good guys"  you think someone going around murdering killers wouldn't be famous? Have you seen Dexter?

Dexter is also a tremendously unappealing premise, to me.

Okay, you sold me, Punisher is THE BEST CHARACTER EVER.

 :drill:


Famous does not mean heroic. Dorner was also not a hero. There are people that loved Manson too.

We like the idea of vigilante justice when the targets are people you don't like. In the 80's it was all drug dealers and mob bosses. If the punisher decided to gun down ceo's and shoot up abortion protesters, I'm sure half ya'll drink the koolaid. I think the new 52 superman went all "coporate america is evil, planet busting PUNCH" when he entered metropolis.

Dude, even the most vile murderers are heroes to some.  Just because YOU do not think they are heroic doesn't mean that no one would.  Yes IMO the punisher is not a hero, he is a vigilante at best and at worst a psychotic killer but the character as he was originally conceived is entirely realistic.

What is your point? Of course I'm speaking of my own opinion. Christ.

But it doesn't act like a probability - that was the point of the article, previously people have argued that it doesn't matter if it is a probability distribution based on observer knowledge or actual superposed states, because it gave the same result in every useful model. Those guys appear to be arguing that it isn't a probability distribution because they found a small thing that maybe gives a definite result.

Which apart from anything else would make the whole thing a lot more elegant.

George Zimmerman is probably closer to a real-life version of the Punisher than we'd like to admit. There's a reason society doesn't tolerate vigilantes, everyone has a slightly different idea of who the good and bad guys are.

 :ye_gods:

The problem is that a dude comically slipping naturally escalated into "the entire history of the universe is instantly re-written."

There is an art to creating superpowers. Spider-Man has remained almost unchanged since inception. If you look at heroes that have been re-written a lot it's very often because their powers are ill-defined, too restrictive or not restrictive enough, Very often these types of characters work in small doses but fall apart in continuing series.

Its easy, the bad guys are the people who don't understand what probability is.

LOL, so good.  Would read again!

Some of you appear to be taking this discussion a bit too personally.

This was a small but pretty great element of The Dark Knight--the guys who all go out dressed as Batman. I really wish one of the two major superhero universes would engage this more thoroughly. Combine us (real-world modern humans) with those universes, and I guarantee you'd see the following:

1) Serious social movements and maybe even political parties built around the strongest or most extreme examples of superhuman vigilantism.
2) Massive bodies of law and legislation and whole businesses built around the consequences of superheroics. (e.g., Damage Control in Marvel Comics--a reconstruction and insurance agency specializing in the aftermath of superhero battles; the law firm She-Hulk worked for that dealt with superhero/villain litigation; etc.)
3) Religious cults around superhero/villain resurrections; also, at least in the DC Universe, the existence of God and Satan is a readily verifiable, straightforwardly empirical fact which would have at least a bit of impact on people;
4) Tons of people dying or suffering injury from irradiating themselves, jumping in toxic vats, etc. , in hope of gaining superpowers.

So yeah, Zimmerman isn't a bad premise for superhero stories--except that he shows that *some* people would very much tolerate vigilantes, especially IF they thought the vigilantes were beating up on or killing those "other guys".

I'd definitely agree with that. Spider-Man is clearly very powerful, but yet still clearly very mortal, BUT he's never so mortal that I'm left wondering how he isn't dead yet 50 times over.

Yeah, you're just left wondering if THIS one is ACTUALLY Peter Parker or a clone or an alien.

PS, they killed him.

I'm sure he'll get better!

This is the movie forum.  They didn't kill him in the movies.  They just killed him in all the comic universes to undercut the value of the character as a movie tentpole in a bid to get the rights back.

There has been PLENTY of non movie talk in this thread about the basic structure of the characters that Marvel have/use.

I know.  I was just looking for a way to work in the moves Marvel is making to diminish the film rights of the characters they do not control.

I don't buy that that is their strategy. Not even a little bit.

They didn't kill him because they had problems writing his character due to his powers. The fact that they killed him (sort of) for various other reasons is not particularly relevant.

I think you're reading too much into my comments. I was merely making fun of marvel and the clone peter parker stuff.

Wait, how do you know it was him reading too much into your comments and not his .... DUM DUM DUM.... clone?

(http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/TomsMindBlown.gif)

Vin Diesel will be voicing Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy.

He is Groot!

Leaked Guardians of the Galaxy stuff from Comic-Con. (http://vk.com/video-28416224_165782862)

That page isn't working for me at all, but it appears the MarvelStudios reddit has a bunch of stuff, including stills.

http://www.reddit.com/r/marvelstudios

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3OxMAJ6piDM/UgkY3AKrQ7I/AAAAAAAABeY/nQVgRfj4zu8/s320/tumblr_mrff3fGVZM1rvhl57o1_400.gif)

Feige confirmed that Ronan the Accuser is the main Big Bad of the Guardians movie, but that he may be working for or with Thanos, and that Thanos is the "big bad behind the scenes" who is seen fairly often in the course of the film.

Given the announcement of Ultron for Avengers 2, I think they may be lining up Thanos for Avengers 3 if the Guardians film does well. If by that point they've also had Doctor Strange, Black Panther and Ant-Man films, I could see 3 being a kind of crazy-ass "everybody against a big bad guy" flick.

Maybe on Thanks for 3, but I don't see them doing a physical fight with Thanks himself until Further down the road.

Why would the avengers fight Tom Hanks? He seems like such a nice guy.

Fucking after the fact spell check...

I'm not jazzed on the idea of Thanos being a major villain at any point, as I suspect any Thanos story would involve the infinity gauntlet and thus be stupid.

It's not like one of the gems has shown up in one of the movies or anyt..... oh wait.

Worse than that :

They're not beholden to the comic continuities.  The Infinity Gauntlet will clearly be a 'thing', but it may not be right out of the comics.  I think they'll change a lot - for example, I doubt we'll ever see Thanos humoping the leg of any physical manifestation of Death.

Thinking about it more I wouldn't be surprised if the angle they take is that the IG makes Thanos powerful in ways comparable to the Avengers - stronger than Hulk, smarter than Iron Man, etc. Sort of like an Avengers version of Super Skrull. Or even if it gives him massive power that's how he chooses to use it.

I don't think you can write a story around a guy who can do anything. The original IG series is proof of that - collecting the gems in Thanos Quest was cool, but the actual IG series was dogshit.

Starlin's version of Thanos has always been expressly about a guy who invariably defeats himself because he doesn't believe he's worthy of either ruling the universe or of the love of Death. Problem was that at the end of IG, he supposedly recognizes that and quits for good. It's not an interesting story or bad guy either way--it's Starlin's Mary-Sue version of a 'profound' bad guy who learns a lesson about power, and as such is just not very interesting.

(http://snakkle.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/james-spader-GC.jpg)

http://marvel.com/news/story/21099/exclusive_avengers_age_of_ultron_casts_james_spader_as_the_films_legendary_villain

Yeah, kind of left field casting, but I'm fine with it.

I kept reading this as James Woods and thinking it was awesome. James Spader is ok though.

I can see it. He can definitely play a cold, calculating but somehow needy character, and that's a good take for Ultron.

It's just gonna be voice tho, right ?

I imagined so, even before this casting news. I figured Ultron would be CG anyway.

I'm betting there is a 'man in a suit' to this Ultron rather than pure CGI.  The comic representation with an unmoving head probably would look pretty dumb on the screen.  I think they'll do something to let Ultron look more human.  Or at least more like Spader.

So Stan Lee said in an interview that Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Ant-Man, and the Inhumans look to be the next Marvel projects.

The interviews and articles seem to be boiling down to their focus on the Inhumans is their attempt to give them an X-men like property for the screen.  I think the buzz around Guardians of the Galaxy is going to be a big factor in how the Inhumans unfolds...

Black panther and Doc strange could be really, really awesome if done well.

Especially Doc Strange.  Have we even had a good Adult "magic" hero movie in, like, forever? 

If nothing else, it should give us some entertaining rubbernecking as conservative Christians lose their minds over it.

I have never heard of any of those characters, just saying. As someone who never read comic books, I really wonder how far Marvel can dive down the well of obscurity before the balance between the instant appeal of the characters and their actual realisation in film form tips towards the point where audiences (particularly international ones) just say 'fuck this'

Iron Man wasn't an instantly recognizable character prior to his movies either. Hell, the first successful movie based on a Marvel character (although not nearly as successful as the modern stuff) was Blade. As long as they don't go overboard with budgets, don't make shitty movies, and continue to do a good job marketing them, they should be fine.

I had actually heard of Iron Man prior to the film, and Iron Man is a somewhat relatable character (relative to all these other characters). I wiki'd some of these characters and the description of Thanos reads like the sort of thing a six year old would write in a fit of sugar-addled excitement.

I'm entirely ready to be proven wrong when Guardians of The Galaxy breaks box office record and such.

I think Spiderman or one of the X-Men will sneak into a Marvel movie.  There are vibrations in the interwebs.

I think Guardians of the Galaxy is the one that will really struggle because it's Sci-Fi which is typically a hard sell, and will also likely have to have a large budget if they want to do it right. And I guess Ant-Man might have problems also because Edgar Wright makes great movies that everybody loves, but nobody goes to see in theaters.

He also makes shite, like Scott Pilgrim.  I'm really, really not going to put GotG up or down due to him.

I do, however, agree that it seems to be a much harder sell.  The actual idea itself doesn't interest me terribly much and I really have no clue how you tie it back to everything that's come before.

You're not alone in this.  I had this discussion already in whichever thread we started discussing Gog a year or two ago and I'm in the exact same position & mindset as you re: comics.

I know I'm old and out of touch, but all I've seen is people laughing at the ludicriousness of the raccoon firing guns .gif.  When I tell them it's from a movie coming out I get an incredulous, "wait, really?"  Which isn't going to be good if it's taking itself seriously.

Guardians of the Galaxy is being done by James Gunn, who has a history of making quirky, crazy shit into entertaining movies. FFS, he made a movie about space slugs attacking a small town entertaining.

That could be any number of films ;  narrow it down ?

He did Slither (the aforementioned space slug movie) and Super, both of which were a bit black comedy. He also did the series of web videos PG-Porn that were pretty funny. You can bet Guardians of the Galaxy will not take itself too seriously.

Was Slither the one with Castle ?

Yes, that's the one.

Okay doke.

(Oh and I realise now I'd written Guardians rather than Ant Man.  Not sure about either of them, to be honest...)

I think Ant Man will be fun, but it won't be a hit. The character is just too wacky to be that big a hit. He's a February success, not a summer blockbuster.

Do you have a link to that image?

http://wifflegif.com/tags/161876-rocket-raccoon-gifs

 :uhrr:

Out of context, all comic ideas are moronic and seem destined to fail.  Man turns into giant green rage monster?  Alien can see through walls and move faster than light?  Man dresses up like bat to intimidate criminals?  Hot woman dresses up in skimpy outfit and ... no, that one always has an audience.  They're all crazy shit.  However, like everything in the comics/sci-fi universe, there are angles to these ideas that work and angles that suck.  Example: [Star Wars teddy bear that works: Wookie.  Star wars teddy bear that sucks: Ewok.]

When I talk about whether GotG, Doc Strange, and Inhumans could work on film, I remind people to look at Thor.  Thor in the comics and Thor in the movies are substantially the same character in many ways, but are different in key ways that make him more relatable to a movie audience.  Many of those changes are expansions of updates that have been worked into the comics over time.  They'll make the changes they need to make to get these new characters to work on film.

The Destroyer featured in Thor was a creation of the same drug addled 60s and 70s minds that invented Thanos, Ronan, Rocket Raccoon and Doctor Strange.  However, it has also been featured in comics for decades and has been updated over time to stay appealing to a modern comic audience - just like the rest of the characters.  The Destroyer worked in Thor.  It may not have been a perfect execution of the concept, but it worked.  I have faith that the team working on these other films will also make them work.

And, don't underestimate the benefit of having SHIELD (and potentially other shows) on TV to lay groundwork for these odd-ball ideas.  Even if people seeing these films do not watch the Marvel shows, the Marvel shows will be big enough to impact mainstream culture and lay groundwork.

You sound like every Hollywood exec right before a genre crash.

Thor was little-known but not unknown. That movie also had the advantage of word being out that this was one of a trilogy of movies to introduce The Avengers.  Even given that advantage, it still did barely more than its budget domestically.

Blade was a better example of an unknown character. (Who was released among the trend of Vampire movies in the late 90's vs. superheros of the 00's.)  It remains to be seen if he was also a better example of the budget they should be pushing on GoG.

Thor succeeded precisely because they cut all that shit out.  They basically gave us Alien Shakespeare with a hot fucking lead for the women and fight scenes for the guys.

There was a bare Minimum of comic retardery in that film.  Hell, Captain America had a lot more.

When I heard they were making a Thor movie, I thought for sure it was going to be terribly both narratively and financially. I was wrong on both counts. It was executed well and made money. I'm willing to give Marvel films the benefit of the doubt on making off-the-wall concepts work on screen.

Honestly, I found very little in Thor that I could relate to; the main reason I enjoyed the film is because Chris Hemsworth is fun to watch romping around*. Hell, Captain Vanilla should be on a par with Iron Man in the relatability stakes (he is human after all), but the film was full of comic nonsense and moustache twirling and suffered greatly for it.

I think there's fantastical ideas, like aliens fighting their family feud on earth, that can work. It's not the most novel plot concept, but it's something that's easy enough to accept and run with, it's a familiar idea. Then there are fantastical ideas that are pure comic-book homage with none of the inanity sucked out, such as evil demon laser-wielding nazi things hiding in the forest (seriously, what the fuck was the plot in that film other than "Demon-nazis bad!"). While there are familiar ideas in there: nazis are bad, demons are bad, lasers are cool, oh shit there's a plane with bombs on headed for the US that we have to stop! It was all thrown in with no apparent sense other than the fact that it was all connected via some comic written decades before I was even born.

This is what I feel when I look at the premise for GotG:


I look at the list of characters, I have never heard of them. There could be a really fun sci-fi story in there, but my suspicion is that the authors will be so horribly constrained by the existing IP that the story will end up being an incoherent mess of canonincal wank that marks the tail-end of most comic book series as far as I can see. If the IP were better known then riding on the cooattails and absorbing the baggae can work, but I literally have no clue who any of these people are, and names like Drax the Destroyer don't fill me with confidence, neither does a genetically engineered raccoon...

*also Natalie Portman...


Fuck off, Ewoks are  :awesome_for_real:

And now we're back to the exact point we were the last time the conversation was had.  Skeptics who have no idea wtf the property is and comics true believers who have faith in Marvel.

So we're back to the 'guess we wait and see' state.  Ah well, it was a good half-days conversation.

Yeah, but at least this time I got to see a baffling Raccoon gif.

I'm not sure why people hate the Racoon gif. I think it looks great.

I'm sure I'd love it as a Funny or Die clip; as a film I have to pay £15 to see I'm less enthused  :awesome_for_real:

I would love to see what you think is worth that price and how closely you hold to that. Cause if a raccoon with a gun is enough to hold you off, I would think that the vast majority of modern popular entertainment would leave money in your pocket as well.

So looks like there is an Agent Carter TV show in the works now.  Marvel is pretty busy.

I'm not so sure on this rumor - the equivalent tales have flown around for Jessica Jones, as well as some rumors for Heroes for Hire, Daredevil and a few other properties.  I am betting there will be a second Marvel Universe series, but I don't think Agent Carter is an appreciable front runner to be the Wonderland to SHIELD's Once Upon a Time.  Heck, I'm betting they have 6 to 10 series at similar levels of development. 

Of course, if they follow the original idea for Wonderland as a limited run counterpoint for Once Upon a Time, Agent Carter would make a lot of sense - Agent Carter during the days SHIELD gets off the ground in an 8 episode miniseries would make a lot of sense as a way to bridge the summer gap between Season 1 and 2 of SHIELD.  An approach like that - 8 to 10 episode stand alone tales in the MCU focusing on secondary film characters (War Machine, Loki, Thunderbolt Ross, Warriors Three, Nova, etc...) or other 2nd and 3rd tier characters (Heroes for Hire, Jessica Jones, Punisher, Blade, Runaways, Power Pack, etc...) makes a lot of sense.  You could get A list talent to commit to those roles if they know it is limited and that there might be movies to come. 

I'm sure they've constantly got a lot of stuff in "early development". That phrase is so vague it could just mean that they have one guy scribbling ideas down in a notebook.

This.

And media / comic websites are just so happy to run any story that gets them clicks.

While I think they have a number of series in similar stages of development, the coverage of this story does note that they've elevated the situation to having someone write a pilot.  That requires a number of substantial steps to have been taken (fleshing out the roles, developing budgets, etc...) and investments of hundreds of thousands of dollars.  It doesn't mean that we're going to see a series, but if the articles are accurate, they do indicate more than just a passing fancy.

No, they don't.

The guy who sits next to me at the office has a brother in Hollywood. He's shot 15 different pilots, but only two have seen air time and only a few more than that even made it to the stage they were reviewed as potential series after being shot.  Writing a script is as meaningless as "someone bought the movie rights to <property>."  It's a business and that is just a part of it.

Much more important are the backers, if it's a vehicle for a trend or an actor, or has a producer with enough influence to get it pushed through.  Which all come before quality of the material, as evidenced by the number of shit shows that get aired and cancelled within a few episodes each year.

Someone else around here works directly in the business and can point out with much greater detail why 'writing a script' isn't necessarily an indicator of any serious interest in a project.

Pretty much. At least some of these kinds of rumors are also to float trial balloons or promote work they've already got coming out. Say, in this case, for example, to make fans curious about the Agent Carter short if they weren't already. Now that they've established that they do Easter Eggs and have a plan, they can stoke up fan interest at even a hint of a future possibility of an MU character or plotline making its appearance.

From the original article (http://www.deadline.com/2013/09/marvel-developing-agent-carter-tv-series/#utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter):


So assuming any of this is true, they don't even have a writer nailed down to write the script for the pilot yet, it's one of many projects they're working on, and they don't even know if the same actress would play the character.

There was talk of Guillermo del Toro doing a Hulk TV show for a couple years, and then it was just put on hold. At the same time, AKA Jessica Jones was being worked on, then ABC mentioned a couple years later they passed on it, then the person who was doing the writing said earlier this year that she hoped it might end up on cable. These are projects that were officially announced that they were in the works (rather than just rumored), had fairly big names attached to them and 2-3 years later it was mentioned that they were put on hold (along with a number of other projects). Even if the Agent Carter thing is real, you're looking at potentially years before anything actually happens with it.

Not just the writing of a script, but the selling of a script means fuckall to whether it actually gets made into a movie. I had a guy approach me recently about purchasing the option to write a screenplay for my first novel - which would have netted me some money had he done it but peanuts compared to what he would have made by selling the screenplay. And even if he'd gotten far enough to sell it, that's no guarantee on it being made into anything. For every movie released, there's probably a thousand scripts sitting on someone's desk that someone paid for.

It is business.  And business is expensive.  What took place before those scripts were written, before the properties were purchased, etc...?  A lot of analysis and paper pushing.  And that shit is expensive. 

By the time Agent Carter goes to pilot script, they've had people in development, legal, accounting, and a variety of other areas massaging the situation.  All along the path they had to repeatedly make the decision: Continue to proceed or cut our losses and let it die.  The payment that goes to the writer is a small part of the entire cost.  For a project to get to that point, the studio has devoted a lot of resources.

This is obviously quite different in situations where someone is shopping a script.  However, that is not what we're dealing with in these Marvel projects.  Marvel is driving this train and they've spent a lot of time on the issue before this pilot gets written.

Psst. Thanos was in the first Avengers film.

In much the same way as Blonde American Waitress was in the film, yes.

 :oh_i_see:

No he wasn't. The cocktease segments after 15minutes of credits do not count as 'in the film'; by that point I've already taken a piss and cycled halfway home from the cinema.

So I was thinking.  With the Age of Ultron (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr5rzSMNmRM) teaser finally released it brought something to mind.  What if Ultron is actually a corrupted form of JARVIS left over from the destroyed suits in Iron Man 3?  I mean the suits probably weren't all totally destroyed and there were enough for something to be cobbled together.

Welcome to five pages ago.

The "teaser' isn't released. That's a clever capture from SDCC cleaned up a bit. Notice the crowd noise at the end, the relative hallowness of hte audio and how INCREDIBLY DARK the entire thing is.

Cap stuff moved to:

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=23756.0

Ant-man rumors going round is that Paul Rudd is in the lead as Hank Pym and Rashida Jones as Janet Van Dyne.  I actually don't have a problem with this considering this is supposed to be a more comedic film than the other movies.

Rashida Jones as Wasp is pretty inspired casting.

Paul Rudd I'm not a fan of and he doesn't strike me as right for the part either. Hank Pym is a pretty messed-up dude, need someone that can hint at being messed-up under the surface.

I have a feeling that Marvel really isn't going to go into wife-beating asshole Hank Pym.  I think there are too many kids that love the Marvel movies that they wouldn't ever go that dark.

Checking the source on the Paul Rudd rumor, the story is from back in February and consists of "He was hanging out with Ruffalo and Evans at the Oscars, and Edgar Wright tweeted about him once".

There have been more recent rumors and somewhat of a confirmation.  Even AICN (http://www.aintitcool.com/node/64799) is commenting on it.

AICN also jumped on the Planet Hulk rumor bandwagon until it got debunked. Hey, maybe the Paul Rudd thing will happen but AICN commenting on it doesn't do anything to remove my skepticism.

Edit: Which apparently brings us full circle to the start of this thread.

Yes. That zine has actually reported a lot of stuff that not only hasn't happened, but appears never ever had a chance of happening. I think a lot of this kind of early rumor-milling is basically fans making lots fan-informed guesses, calling them "rumors", and occasionally getting close by the luck of the draw.

Also don't discount an actor interested in a part trying to build up his chances of getting the role by leaking rumours to selected sources. Getting a lead role in a Marvel film doesn't necessarily have a great payday for the actor (at least on their first contract) but it is great for profile building.

Pardon the slight cross-post, but is the Ultimates universe being cancelled?  And why is the main universe called 616?  The wiki didn't explain.  The cinematic universe is 19999 I think, just wondering if these numbers have any meaning.  Lastly, the MCU is based off the Ultimates universe correct?

Captain Britain (and then Excalibur later) stories involved a lot of dimensional travel and also introduced the Captain Britain Corps who were tasked with protecting all of reality more or less. Presumably to more easily keep track of which reality is which, each one was given a number, and since each member of the Corps was a version of Captain Britain the numbers were used to differentiate the various members of the Corps.

As far as I know, it's unknown what the post-Cataclysm state of the Ultimate Universe will be. And parts of the movie Universe are based off the Ultimates universe, parts are based of the regular universe, and parts are made up specifically for the movies.

Essentially, yeah, they're closing the Ultimates universe down, bringing the Miles Morales Spider-Man to the main MU, but they've also been steathily redoing the "main" MU so that it is more like the Ultimates universe (and thus more like the movies)--Samuel Jackson Nick Fury, Cap is way more like the Ultimate/Movie Cap, etc.

The ultimate universe really bums me out.  I really liked almost all of the Ultimate universe versions of the various comic lines very much for their first few years.  I'd say the first 5'ish years or so of the Ultimate universe was really really good (or at least way the fuck better than what the main universe had become).  Then they started doing the same shit to it that corrupted the main universe (which is what they had initially said they specifically created the Ultimate universe to get around!!!!1).  The whole thing started going to shit, then they decided to kill it in an orgy of bad plot and horrible writing.  Cataclysm indeed.

Just, gah.  Its amazing how much Marvel can swing between greatness and complete stupidity.

It's just what happens when you have what, 60 years of continuity?

At least Marvel hasn't completely ruined their continuity like DC has many times over.

I think most of the movies' resemblance to the Ultimate Universe is superficial aside from the Nick Fury thing. The Ultimates generally had a much darker and more cynical tone than anything the movies have gone for.

Yes. But there's some character notes from Ultimates that they've definitely borrowed, and they've also gone for that more 'real' sort of feeling that the early Ultimates books had (e.g., not a universe overcrowded with spandex guys.) Which, by the way, explains why I don't think they're going to use any of the cheesier kinds of costumed guys in the SHIELD show--they clearly want to be fairly parsimonious with creating super-powered people in movies.

Turns out if you do a reboot but keep all the same writers and methodologies the same problems occur!

Yup. Don't reboot unless you're interested in getting new writers and artists involved who will look at things completely differently.

And don't reboot a comic-book universe unless you have a new idea about how to handle long-term serial storytelling. Superhero movies have been very interesting in this respect: they haven't bought into a lot of the tropes that drive shared universe comic-book stories. Secret identities have been treated as being of minimal interest for the most part, and so all the recycled stories that center on the maintenance of secret IDs have fallen by the wayside. Villains are seen much more as a done-in-one, and so all the contrivances used to keep them alive and available are being dropped. I'd love to see DC or Marvel start a "pocket universe" line where every month's books advance the real-time lives of characters by six months or so--first so that their lives don't seem improbably packed with significant events or conflicts, second so that we can get genuine progression in their lives--they can marry or be injured or die or age and then that's just it, that's the status quo. Every year of story telling could be about five years in-universe. The MU movies are already almost doing about that--at least some months, sometimes longer, in between stories. 

Still rumor at this point, but I like the direction here as it makes sense of the apparent inconsistency between 10 Rings In IM I (and II briefly) and the Mandarin tale in IM III (obviously, spoilerish if true):

http://www.blastr.com/2013-10-29/rumor-day-ben-kingsleys-secret-marvel-project (http://www.blastr.com/2013-10-29/rumor-day-ben-kingsleys-secret-marvel-project)

My question would be where would this pay off?  Avengers III?  S.H.I.E.L.D.?  IM IV in 2019 or later?  A war machine mini-series?

So under the category "news to me" Michael Rooker is playing Yondu, and I saw somewhere he's going to be one of the villians. John C. Reilly is playing Rhomann Dey(sp), which I find to be odd unless they are planning on adding Richard Rider/Nova sometime soon.

Amy Pond is going to be Nebula. I wonder if it's a random add or are they going to play up her relationship with Thanos?

After reading this new team of GotG I still don't much care for RR and Groot. I'd rather they had Moondragon, Mantis, Adam, or Major Victory/Justice (however they wanted to deal with that). If they do add a Quasar later on I'd hope it would be Wendell, or they do something fairly interesting with Phyla.

I'm still scratching my head over Yondu. Of all the characters to use from the old team, he'd be the last I'd use in a story. I can see how Starhawk, Major and Charlie may be hard sell (for a movie) on a team that already has a Raccoon and an Ent though.

We've already seen Adam Warlock - if you looked carefully and knew what you were seeing.  Think 80s geriatric movie...

Oh, and about that conversation we all had back in September where I said Daredevil, Heroes for Hire and Jessica Jones were in development and you thought I was crazy... we were both right.

You mean the conversation back in this thread? The one that was actually about the rumors of an Agent Carter TV series that had nothing to do with you mentioning that there were rumors of those other shows also? In fact would this be the same conversation where you said "While I think they have a number of series in similar stages of development, the coverage of this story does note that they've elevated the situation to having someone write a pilot." indicating that you thought an Agent Carter TV show was further along than some of these other rumored shows? I mean you realize we can click back a couple pages and actually reread the conversation right?

I said I was crazy.

I forgot to mention how worried Del Toro's take on the Collector scares me.   :ye_gods: People say this guy can act but I just don't see it.

Don't be insane.  Del Toro is a great actor with just as much range as say a Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage or even a Tom Cruise.

I don't think the studio is to worried about his take on the character, considering that 99.99% of the viewing public will have no idea who the character is.

I was a 35 comic a month guy in the late 80's/early 90's and I barely remember him.

In the meantime, David Goyer is reportedly writing some side script treatments to go along with Batman v. Superman that includes films built around Booster Gold, Team 7, Suicide Squad and Deathstroke. The Team 7 one is especially laughable, as it's one of the biggest flops of the New 52 (that's saying something) and makes absolutely zero sense whatsoever if your film is not set in a universe absolutely crowded with spandex heroes. http://www.firstshowing.net/2013/david-goyer-developing-dc-comics-films-like-suicide-squad-more/


I think Marvel can rest pretty easy.
 

I know absolutely nothing else about the character, but the Booster Gold episode of Justice League Unlimited remains one of my favorites.  If they had put Ryan Reynolds  in a movie based on the JLU character instead of in Green Lantern, I would have watched the hell out of that.

Oh yeah, Ryan Reynolds as Booster Gold would have been golden perfect.

This thread is weird. Del Toro is great.

Well the Collector is a minor character. I'm concerned though that the overall movie will be campy.

Pretty sure from day 1 that is what they have said they were going for.  Perhaps the word campy was not used but certainly an action/comedy.

I can deal with action/comedy. You can argue that most of the Marvel films are action/comedy. "Adam West campy" is what I thought when I saw Del Toro.

IM III was pretty much a combination of IM II and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.   It was a Shane Black film in the MCU.

I have a feeling we'll get the same type of thing from GotG: A James Gunn film in the MCU.  If you want an idea of what this film is going to end up being, look to Dawn of the Dead, Slither and Super for guidance. 

I'm not sure I agree with the Dawn of the Dead bit. He only wrote that one. And I wouldn't say that it was the script that was the best part of that one. Slither and Super are both great. But more notably, Gunn got his start with Troma, to get the idea of what his style is. It will have some camp, which is not bad if it's done well. I mean, it has a raccoon with a machine gun. You can't do something like GoG straight up.

I expect, nay demand at least one yiffing joke.

I think they're going camp, if not Adam West camp, and that it should be fun. I don't think you can play it safe if you're making a movie with a space raccoon, a giant tree-alien, two green people with knives and a guy who calls himself Star-Lord.

You would think not, but its not long ago that studio execs spent millions on a humourless Green Lantern film. They even hired Ryan fricking Reynolds, and not for a joke or anything.

Ryan Reynolds was NOT the problem with that movie, even by a longshot. And hell, I didn't hate GL as most did.

This. Green Lantern wasn't a terrible movie by any stretch of the imagination. It just wasn't as good as it could or should have been. And Ryan Reynolds was absolutely not the problem with that movie.

I don't have a problem with the movie as long as I pretend Ryan is Kyle Rayner  (a character I don't own a comic featuring). I just don't think he's a good Hal.

Reynolds would have made a superb Guy Gardner.

I'll just leave this here for completeness on the "comic book hero" genre. This was back in July but its the first time I've seen it.

http://ie.ign.com/articles/2013/07/23/gina-carano-is-taking-avengelyne-to-the-big-screen

What does that have to do with the Marvel Universe?

Perhaps confusion with Angela?

Same thing as the Green lantern. And I wasn't about to make a new thread based on that.

Does that mean every shot of every character will only be from the knee on up and they'll cgi in the jelly-like spines?

My favorite Leifeld is still the following, which is even on topic.

Is it sad that I didn't even have to click that to know exactly which picture it was?  :awesome_for_real:

Edit: Instead of going off on Leifeld mocking for the next three pages, I'll just link this. (http://www.progressiveboink.com/2012/4/21/2960508/worst-rob-liefeld-drawings)  Yes, it is where I got the pic I linked but there is so much more there.   :grin:

I like the one with the Torch making tender missionary position love to the Thing.

that whole article was fantastic. Thank you so much.  I'm happy to know I wasn't the only one who thought the comic art of the 90s was bullshit, largely because of ALL OF THAT being replicated by every artist.

Oh that Liefeld rant was beautiful!   :heart:

I........sorry.  Some of it was funny, but a lot of it felt like they were really stretching for shit to complain about.  Maybe its because that's what I grew up with, but a lot of that looked perfectly fine.  Its style choices, and a lot of the little nitty gritty things they dinged him on for much of that I could do the same with pretty much every other comic book artist ever.  I actually like a lot of the 90's style artwork, unrealistic as it (but not a lot of comic artists have ever really tried to go for ultra realistic, which seems to be the only thing they will accept).

I don't know... I would enjoy seeing a Leifeld inked animated movie. It'd be great stoned.

I expect even comic book artists to be able to understand basic human anatomy.  Leifeld clearly doesn't.  He's also a lazy artist.  Whether or not other comic book artists are also lazy and have no understanding of basic human anatomy is irrelevant.

LOOK AT THIS

(http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1070346/40.gif)

Out of context... in the prior panel her spine was crushed by an I=beam.  Right?

I believe what he's saying is not that the art is good but that very few comic artists can be held under a microscope and come out clean.

There's being under a microscope, and then there's just blatant disregard for human anatomy. He can't even be bothered when it comes to teeth:

(http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1070450/16_medium.jpg)

What is that, 50+ teeth in that guy's mouth? If you don't want to try drawing teeth, don't draw a fricken closeup of a guy's mouth.

I agree that some of the complaints about his art was nitpicking, but there was a lot that was pure laziness and sloppy drawing.  The anatomy issues are the worst part, but stuff like never drawing feet (and when he does so, being bad at it), muscles on top of muscles on top of muscles, the perspective problems (e.g. thighs being larger than entire torsos), characters having headgear so he can give them crazy mohawk mullet hair... just really bad sloppy things like that. 

Going on about coloring choices or continuity mistakes - that gets nitpicky.  Unless Liefeld was the colorist too, then it's back to lazy and sloppy.  The design stuff.. I can overlook most of it because it was the 90s and that was the style that had become popular, largely because of Liefeld, though.

Compare DC of the same era to Marvel/ Image and that says all you need to know.

Leifield is the problem.   DC was doing the same shadow tricks, dark ultra contrast/ crosshatched face and super gritty nonsense but the drawing was much better.  People were over-muscled but still respected anatomy.  Women were super-boobed but had intact spines and proportion was always there.

His is not "comic" style it is "Cartoon" which is entirely different and looked down upon because it takes less talent to do it.

I used to hang out in a comic book shop back in the 90's and I can assure you everyone there ridiculed Liefield's 'art'.

One of the best examples of the "lazy artist" syndrome thing in that rant was the one with the hair.  Two characters.  Two pages. Something like 6 individual pannels.  SIX PANNELS.  And BOTH of their fucking hair change in practically every single pannel.

That is utterly stupid level of bad right there.

Sooo.. Along with Amazing Spiderman 3 going into production not long after 2 comes out, they are spinning off both Venom and Sinister Six movies. 

I don't know what to think about that really.  I wasn't a big fan of the new Spiderman, I guess I'll have to see how the sequel goes.

At least some of this is driven by a desire to grab as much of the content that the IP allows. It's really amazing when you go back to the selling of Marvel's IP to the most recent franchise holders how little Marvel *or* the purchasers really valued it in relationship to its potential. But now that they've got what they've got and Marvel's main cinematic universe has become what it is, it's pretty clear that both the Spider-Man and X-Men holders are going to try and get everything on screen that they're potentially entitled to have.

At least until one or all of the holders make a stinky bomb that can't recoup any of its costs simply because it's a bad concept or idea. I wonder a lot about what a Sinister Six movie would be like. If all of the Six are Oscorp creations rather than a group of independent operators who come together for a single purpose, I'm not sure I see what the concept in there will be. Maybe a kind of Thunderbolts/Dirty Dozen/Suicide Squad thing, I suppose, where the Six are stuck in a situation where it's cooperate or die.

I'm still thinking that we'll have an announcement by 2020 that will put all of the Marvel Properties in one cinematic universe.  It is just a matter of negotiation and planning.  The properties are more valuable together than alone.  Disney is willing to deal (see Indiana Jones), so it is just a matter of time.  I think the current announcements about X-men, Spider-man, etc... films are as much about negotiation and planning as they are about carrying forward their franchises. 

Unless Marvel has it all under their wing, and is in control of choosing writers/directors/actors, I'd rather they remain separate.  I don't think it has anything to do with planning them all being together.  It's more about the other studios trying to mimic Marvel as much as possible.

Well I for one think it is awesome that the US government is open minded enough to hire blind IT guys.

He's born to play Deadpool.

Just not weapon X

Ant-man.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/65504 (http://www.aintitcool.com/node/65504)

If you can't be bothered to link to the original source, at least don't link to fucking Aintitcool.

People complain about everything, here. The article isn't puff, and it mentioned the source. There is no reason to hate on it other than blind bitching.

It's all puff!

"Hey, we knew this already, plus we really like him! He's a good guy!"

Do you know what quotation marks represent?

"Yes."

To note, I've never really liked AICN. Especially because of Knowles. In the early days, my main movie haunt was Corona's Coming Attractions.

But that piece was pretty much the definition of Puff, with the only theoretical part of it being based off of Faraci's (Bad Ass Digest) comments.

Not only is the article almost completely puff, it also neglects to mention that the Wrap's confirmation comes from sources of theirs and that Marvel and Rudd's representatives have not officially announced it and are not commenting on the story. Also it's just common courtesy to link to the people who wrote the original story so they get the traffic.

To who though? It adds value to Disney, but that doesn't benefit Fox or Sony. The deal will come when either Fox or Sony either thinks there is no value left in keeping the licences separate.

Having different studios behind the different franchises potentially means more films get made. If Disney had a stake in all of them they aren't going to release an X-Men, Spider-Man and Avengers film in the same year because the costs would be very high. They'd stick to one or two Marvel films a year to maximise exposure and ROI.

If the value to Disney was 2X, to Sony was 2X and Fox is 2X for their individually licensed components, but the value if you combined them was 7X, then it is just a matter of negotiation.  They can each come out ahead.  The only real sticking point is getting people to agree to valuations. 
I disagree.  Marvel, before Disney, had to be very careful with the pocketbook.  However, after Disney, they have deep reserves.  So, funding a movie is not a problem if they believe it will be profitable. 

When the studio looks at when to make movies and how to make movies, a limiting factor is whether you're going to burn out the audience by having too many similar films out within a given period.  That issue has nothing to do with the studio making the films.  Marvel currently has to consider X-men, Spider-man, and DC film projects when deciding how many of their own films to make just as much as if they were the ones making those films. 

I firmly believe that if Marvel were able to terminate all of those licensing agreements and get back all of those rights, they'd be making 4 films a year within 2 years - plus a few TV series, even with DC making films and tv series, too.

Negotiating such a huge deal when the super hero bubble is close to popping would be a terrible business decision. 

What evidence do you have to make that claim?

The Super Hero bubble is a lot like the Star Wars bubble - it will have dips, but they're going to have resurgences, too.  Disney is going to be making Marvel films for a long time.  That is opinion, but I am pretty darn sure I'm right.  I expect them to reboot the MCU at some point, and they may take a few years off while rebooting, but the whole machine has a long ways to go before that happens.

Some might argue that Marvel's best strategy is a short term strategy: Make 10 films a year for a few years - and get people burnt out on Doctor Strange, Iron Man, Hulk, Avengers, Captain America, Daredevil, Defenders, etc...  At the same time they're getting burnt out on the Disney stuff, they'll be burning out on Spider-man, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and DC properties.  Nobody will be in a good position to make quality films and we'll go into a fallow period for Superhero film - during which time the rights to more Marvel characters would revert to Disney.  Then they could reboot the entire thing and plan to include all of their properties.

And negotiating a huge deal can be done at any point if it is done right.  The key is to understand the positions and needs of the parties.  It isn't like Marvel would just hand over a large check to the other studios.  There would be profit participation involved, etc... 

That's a lot of wishful thinking with no real evidence to support it.  I'm not saying it's false but there's no way to know whether super heroes movies will sustain.  All we do know is that movie bubbles do exist and eventually pop as people get burnt out and move to different things.

When talking about these things, it's important to look beyond "movies" too, just to be fair. Cartoons, comics, theme park stuff, toys, flamthrowers, etc.

No, the throwing of flam NEVER goes out of style.

Since 1978, we've seen about one film every other year with a major Superhero in it.  Around 2000 it picked up to an average of 3+ per year.    It is accelerating, and has been going on longer than most of the readers on this board have been alive.  Although some argue that the best way for Marvel to get their properties back is to flood the market, I personally believe it will be hard to do.  I think you could do one major Superhero movie a month and not crush the market.  I'm not saying all comics fans would see all movies, but if done well, their is enough material and interest for them all to be profitable.  yes, you might undercut the profits of the next Avengers by having 12 superhero films before it in the year, but I think you can make up for that dip with the profits from the other ones. You've got 5 major comic book based movies in 2014 (including TMNT) and 2015 has at least 3 plus at least 6 Superhero TV series planned to be on TV around that time.

I just don't see a bubble bursting.

The real indicator will be the tier 2-3 superheroes that marvel is going to start putting out and how well those movies do compared to the big names.

*This* time is different.

You can flog anything into the ground, and movies are notorious for it.  It doesn't matter how many Superhero movies a year the market could sustain indefinitely, the industry will blow past that mark and make so many even the most die-hard geek is saying "Another Batman reboot already?  WTF, the Justin Bieber version was just a few years ago."

--Dave

Uh. My comments had nothing to do with a perceived "bubble", just pointing out that any deal Disney would want picking up the other parts would not just be about the movies. It was not an argument for or against some bubble.

I was replying to several concepts that were related. 

And note that Marvel is not making the same superhero movie over and over.  Cap II is essentially a political thriller.  Guardians of the Galaxy is a sci-fi story.  Thor II was a war movie.  IM III was nothing like IM I or IM II.  They're not retreading the same ground just because they take place in the same universe and involve costumed characters.

The other studios are also aware that you need to shake things up.  The Wolverine is significantly different compared to the prior 4 Wolverine films.  The reworked the Amazing Spider-man films to distance them from the prior trilogy.

I don't know why you guys keep arguing with him. It was apparent several pages ago he's a true believer in the idea that superhero movies will never die or get stale. That the current state is how movies will be for evah!

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/79/Supermanmolemen.jpg)

Made in 1951. Just saying.

I apologize for stating an opinion and then supporting my view with facts.  I'll try to use your approach of baseless mockery instead.

You suck.

There was a brief discussion on the last page based on an assumption that the Avengers would have made even more money than it did if spiderman and the xmen were crammed in there.

I'm really not sure that is actually true.

You obviously could base an avengers film around spiderman, just as this one was based on Iron Man. But I really don't buy the idea that Sony is 'obviously' leaving money on the table here. Seems like a lot of headaches for limited gain unless Disney just decide buy the whole thing for crazy money.

Marvel, before Disney, said that the entire collection is worth more to them together than if it were broken up.  I imagine a lot of the value would have little to do with movie ticket revenue, but would have more to do with the product sales for figures, etc...  Further, it would allow them to do events that tie everything together, like a 'Secret Wars', 'Invasion', or 'Civil War' movie event that featured a few characters from the different books/movie franchises, but had a bunch of others do cameos (mostly in action shots - perhaps entirely in CGI).  Imagine if 2018 had Civil War I, 2019 had a solo Cap and Iron Man Movies related to the storyline, 2020 had X-men, Spider-man and thunderbirds movies, and 2021 had the conclusion Civil War II.

Just because spiderman is in the same comic universe as captain america, does not mean the public at large knows this or even cares.  I think you are under the false assumption that most people even asked "why isn't spiderman in the avengers movie?" anyone asking that question is in the minority.

I would argue that most of the Marvel movies are fundamentally similar. They may have different settings or different superficial genre trappings but if you've seen one you've seen a half-dozen.

As far as Spider-Man not being in the Avengers, this strikes me as a "be careful what you wish for" scenario. The single largest reason superhero movies go off the rails is that they become overstuffed. The last thing these Marvel movies need is Spider-Man and the X-Men to also appear in them.

As to whether or not superhero movies are a bubble - who knows? The action-adventure genre certainly isn't a bubble, and many of these movies are just blockbuster action-adventure movies. Not a lot of huge movies these days aren't based on existing IP. If you want to make an expensive vampire hunter guy movie it probably makes more sense to base it on Blade than on something original.

In other words, imagine if all the worst aspects of comic books were brought into the movies and everything just became crossover after crossover. Instead of just trying to make a good solo Cap movie like they're doing now which advances his personal storyline, they've got to do a Cap Civil War tie-in movie. Much like in the comics, the X-men get diminished somewhat because the concept of people hating and fearing mutants doesn't work as well when there are dozens of other people with superpowers which are more or less indistinguishable from mutants. Even Spider-man's character traditionally works best when he isn't involved with the Avengers. Company-wide crossovers have shown time and time again that throwing every character possible into one story typically makes the story worse, not better.

The bubble is not reflective of superhero movies being made, but that they are a greater portion of the funds and projects than they would be otherwise.  How many other superhero movies were in '51.  The 10 years following?  How about after Superman in 1980 or Batman in '89?

There's a resurgence and they're making lots of money because geeks and geekery are in.  Things will shift and movies with shift with them eventually, it's just a question of when.

I think crappy non Marvel/Disney movies will kill the genre more than anything else.  I'm looking at you DC, Sony, Fox.

Said Marvel, who were also responsible for breaking up the collection to begin with. Sure, they want Spider-Man et al now that its been a proven performer for Sony.

I can't see Disney putting out six $300m+ films (before marketing) a year all focused around superheroes. It's a case of loading up too heavily on one thing.

And nothing is stopping Marvel developing TV shows around other interesting characters it holds other than Marvel / Disney. After all, Disney could be funding multiple TV shows per year, but instead has opted to sign a deal with Netflix to spread the production risk.

Six $300 million movies a year?  Cap II has a budget of $140.  Thor II  $170.  Iron Man III $200.  Avengers $220.  IM II $200.  Thor $150.  Rather than 1.8 billion, I think you'd be more likely to see 800 million and four films a year - or roughly 500,000,000 less than the net budget revenue (worldwide revenue minus budget) of the Avengers alone.

As for Spider-man (FYI - Spider-man has a dash in the name... Stan Lee didn't want his name to look too similar to Superman) in the Avengers:  It is all about Buzz.  You get Buzz when you combine big names.  You get Buzz when yhose big names are actors, or characters, or storylines that can be brought into the mainstream media.  Anything that the media can grab and spin a thousand different ways...  Often, the buzz is more important than the quality of the movie.  If you drop Jennifer Lawrence in a movie right now, it is guaranteed to be profitable, even if it were crap.  If you make a crappy Superman movie, the name alone will get people in the seats.  It is stupid, but it is the truth. 

Did you just correct someone and cite the reasons why for the proper spelling of a comic book character's name?

While he is incredibly annoying, you can't really dump on an f13 poster for calling out spelling and grammar. That is what we do.

FYI - when someone says FYI, it can be meant as:

"Listen, Oh Ye Turd Clinging to the Ass of Society: You're a moron.  Everyone knows the following...", or
"Hey, here's some info that might be of interest... I kind of thought it was interesting when I first heard it..."

Although, I imagine, most people will be using the former when talking to some people on these boards, we're all (generally) going to be better off always assuming the later. 

Wow, you really are new here, aren't you?

Clearly. If I'd been here a while I'd have Doolittled more of your asses into respectable gentlepeople.

 :popcorn:

(http://i.imgur.com/H0FOo1m.png) (http://imgur.com/H0FOo1m)

Query; Is it appropriate for me to say "This thread delivers" Yet?

Requires at least one good meltdown for that.

Bringing in the Civil War or any of the other super-fucktarded storylines that Bendis has been a part of to the movie-verse would be the quickest way to kill the worth of the Marvel franchise I can think of.

See above. It'd generate buzz. It is something big media can grab. And, just because the comic version was disappointing, a movie version is not rewuired to be the same thing. Age of Ultron is being used as a tagline for Avengers II because it fits the general content of the movie and it has some established recognition the media can grab onto... not because the story is the same one told in the comics.  There are some superficial similarities with some of the characters, but Avengers II is more about the 60s stories than anything from this decade.

There's a fine line between reasonable argument and hopeful fanfic wishing.

Don't say that, you're being mean if you don't jump in to the deep end and abandon rational thought!   :awesome_for_real:

Then why bother with it at all?  At any rate in the CU all the heroes' true names are already known to the government, and IMO there's no rational reason against registration seeing as how we have required licenses for every day, real world stuff.

Civil War means fuckall to the media that would be important for generating buzz on a movie. The only thing that the media gave a shit about to come out of it was when Spider-Man revealed his identity - which has been quickly forgotten by like... everyone.

You mean the media forgot or it's been retconned out of the comics?

I'm a bit biased in that I haven't really collected comics in quite some time and I believe, with ample reason (e.g. spidey clone) that most of the stuff I haven't read was utter garbage and I have zero interest in seeing an interpretation of them on the big screen.  I'm pleasantly surprised with the Guardians and related stuff, but then those now count as comics I've read.  :why_so_serious:

Actually, it's both.

Want to know how well Civil War movie would do?  Start asking random people in your office if Spiderman is a black boy who might be gay.  Those who don't laugh at you are the ones who would watch a CW movie.

One more time: Civil War was a major Marvel event.  Some people loved it, but many people thought it was trash.  That is 100% irrelevant.  What is relevant is that it got major buzz.  There were a lot of articles about it, people spent a lot of time talking about it in the comics world, and many aspects of it (Heroes accidentally getting people killed, Super hero registration, Cap's Death, etc...) were also discussed in non-comic specific media.  In other words, it was one of the greatest breakout media storylines for Marvel, especially if we look at the last decade only.

Civil War is a name with higher degrees of recognition than other Marvel cross-over stories.  Am I saying everybody in the world knows the name?  No.  Am I saying it is a case of automatic name brand recognition for casual movie goers across the globe?  No.  However, it is something the media can jump on, do crappy research around and write articles about.  It is something that would create speculation (Does this mean Cap dies?  Does this mean that XXXX's secret identity will be revealed?) which feeds the machine.  That is why they're eventually going to do it. 

They won't be the same friggin thing from the comics, but it will use the names - just like the smarmy Tony Stark was not the Stark from the comics, Hulk's origen was not a gamma bomb in the movies, and Age of Ultron is not a time travel story focused on Sue Storm and Wolverine. 

No, but a 'Hi from the Den' is getting close.

Civil war is never going to get touched for a reason I think you are missing. 

Current comic movies are not aimed at current comic readers.  They have been and are being aimed at those of us who read comics as children and grew up, not men and women that are reading them in their thirties.

Look at the big events the movies are starting on: The infinity gauntlet, days of future past, even the sinister six.  All of these things are from 20+ years ago, they are the storylines that 30-40 year olds grew up with.

If you are expecting to see the civil war on the big screen then I'd say you have another couple decades wait.

Civil War means as much to the major media outlets as Secret Invasion, Avengers vs. X-Men, Heroes Reborn, Heroic Age or Avengers Disassembled - exactly fuckall. Super-hero crossovers of this type would be a huge failure for movies. They are hugely reliant on continuity and often very convoluted continuity at that, and thus reliant on the audience knowing at least some of the continuity. No movie studio is going to rely on that. Avengers really was an outlier even in the continuity it had with the other films but if you watch, it really doesn't require that you have seen any of the other franchises. Try telling a movie exec he needs to spend $300 million on a movie that requires a 5-minute recap OR the audience to have seen another movie or set of movies (that weren't direct sequels or prequels) to understand.

Crossovers are wet dreams for manchildren but they are both terrible narrative devices and terrible business.

But alien v. predator and freddy v. jason were such huge hits....

This right here is where you torpedoed your own argument.

Merusk, try to finish reading a sentence before you comment on it.  The point is that both the comic world and the non-comic world cared more about the events in and around the Civil War books than about Secret Invasion, Avengers Vs X-men, or any of the others that Haemish listed.  The Death of Captain America, though a thoroughly annoying trick that has been done to death, was on CNN.com's front page.

Lakov_Sanite - Some of the movie stuff is updated versions of old stuff, but certainly not all.  Extremis (Iron Man III) came from a 2005-2006 storyline in the IM comics.  A lot of movie universe is based upon a balance of the Ultimates Universe and the traditional Marvel Universe.  Avengers II is capitalizing upon a VERY recent storyline name, even though the storyline from the movie and the comic series are unrelated.  They are pulling from everywhere - 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s... They're going to look at what makes the most financial sense.  Civil War, for all the reasons I mentioned, is one of several options that makes a lot of sense from a marketability perspective.  Also, it has the added benefit that you can have a lot of heroes without many villains, which is cheaper for Marvel/Disney (hero on hero action allowed them to have a lot of action in Avengers while cutting at least two villains that Whedon had in the original script). 

I strongly suspect that the big storyboard in Marvel headquarters that plots out future projects has Civil War on it, either in the column for projects in early development or in the column for future projects to do.  There is a certain sense in holding off on it until you get rights to more characters or until we're more invested in more characters, but I would not be surprised to see it in 2018.

My point is, no, they didn't.  You're delusional.

CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/06/15/captain.america/index.html?iref=hpmostpop (http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/06/15/captain.america/index.html?iref=hpmostpop)
Fox News: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxnews.com%2Fstory%2F2007%2F07%2F01%2Fcaptain-america-buried-at-arlington-national-cemetery&ei=A-S9Utn4I8Td2QWmyIHABw&usg=AFQjCNHJwHSVOK8Zkq_Ju5ZVjDB4vKOYZw (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxnews.com%2Fstory%2F2007%2F07%2F01%2Fcaptain-america-buried-at-arlington-national-cemetery&ei=A-S9Utn4I8Td2QWmyIHABw&usg=AFQjCNHJwHSVOK8Zkq_Ju5ZVjDB4vKOYZw)
Bloomberg: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=avjxuPKYtGsw (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=avjxuPKYtGsw)

That was 4 seconds of internet searching for the death of Captain America.

While 99.9% of Foxnews qualifies as delusional, my statement does not.

Er, it was the death og an iconoc character, with "America" in his name. Same thing happened when Superman died. And I didn't even know that the death of CA was related to Civil War in any case.

This. The news media and the general public (the people movies are targeted towards) wouldn't even know or remember the name of the crossover unless it was "Death of (Insert Character Here)." Civil War means NOTHING to anyone that isn't a comics fan and that includes the movie producers.

As someone who isn't in the comic book world, I haven't heard of any of these things. I don't really care either; don't comics kill off their characters and magically resurrect them all the time anyway?

There are plenty of summaries of the event available, if you care.  They all pretty much note Cap's death as the coda and many call it a cheap ploy to limit the ramifications of the storyline.

Most of them also note that the entire thing was meant to relate to real world political issues of the mid 00s - primarily, the conflict between security and freedom.  They were taking issues that dominated the news then (and continue to dominate the news today) and putting them in comic terms.  It was explicitly designed, according to the interviews surrounding the event, to draw the attention of the world outside comics.  I don't think it was as successful as they hoped.  

For the record, I didn't read it at the time.  All I saw was this extraneous news coverage.  I then read it in hardcovers about 2 years ago when someone oversold it to me.

And it sucked wet farts out of dead pigeons.

Ok, *now* this thread delivers.

You did it again. 

Also, fluff pieces in human interest/ arts aren't major coverage. They're filler for page clicks.

Proved my point?  Yes.  I tend to do that when I take a position I can support.
Whether there for clicks or to impart information - it was there.  Front page.  CNN.  Bloomberg.  Foxnews.  The label of human interest / arts does not make it any less 'major' coverage.

I'm done on this sub-topic.  Arguing it is pointless. 

How
about
a
nice
game
of
...
chess ?

Um. Look, I should be the target grahic for these people to get the buzz. I'm a 41 (would have been late 30s then) anti-social geeky guy who does not read many comics anymore but still has something of an interest in comics and other geekery. Fact is, I had heard about Caps death, but heard zero about it being in this big arc called "Civil War," or if I did at the time it was in such an offhand way that I don't remember hearing it at all. If someone like me had no idea it was part of it till an hour ago, then using Cap as an example is flawed. People were interested in Cap's temporary death, sure, but not really civil war and they never mentioned it as far as I remember.

I guess because it was in essence the concept was an unfocused mess. PEOPLE HATE MUTANTS but Spiderman, the Hulk and Deadpool are NOT mutants so they cool. Wat?

Deadpool isn't a mutant? Huh I always thought he was originally or was the healing factor artificial? Yeah the whole mutant hating but we love giant rock guy and man l made out of deadly fire was always a head scratcher.  In a way I like the movie universes being seperate for this fact alone.  Having mutant racism in the same world filled with popular meta humans is a stupid stupid idea.

No, he got his healing factor through the Weapon X program. Unfortunately the artificial healing factor massively accelerated a cancer he didn't know he had, which rampaged though his body and brutally scarred him. And it altered his brain chemistry by aggressively replacing dying brain cells, driving him totally insane.

If you want confirmation that he is not a mutant... *beware image may not be safe for sanity*

I don't think any of the plot at any level has anything to do with the public reception of the movies, nor do they need to generate buzz by pulling in comic storylines one thousandth as popular as the movies are.

I mean...what the fuck is The Avengers plot? Can anyone actually describe what happens in that movie? Loki allows himself to get captured for no reason then escapes also for no reason, then the Avengers fight him and some random aliens. I mean...it makes "Atlantis Attacks" look genius by comparison. The Avengers is Secret Wars 2 level of bad in terms of plot - nobody cares.

Why the heck is it thar be spoilers instead of Thor be spoilers...

Probably the most important and astute statement in pages.

YOu mean you've never heard of King Thar (http://www.comicvine.com/king-thar/4005-14650/)? You non comic gook you

Guardians Lineup Photo released. (http://i.imgur.com/DKBTXGZ.jpg)

I'm more impressed with Rocket than anyone else.

Also apparently Warlock's cocoon was shown in Thor during the mid credits. I don't remember it at all.

I'm really hoping for a Captain Marvel movie in Phase 3, and I don't care if it's Mar-Vell, Carol, Monica, or a combination thereof.

You do realize that you're more likely to see him in the JLA movie than anything else?

--Dave (Captain Marvel, aka Shazam, is a DC character)

There are Captain Marvel's in both DC and Marvel Universe. 

And in fact, the DC one had to change it's name to Shazam! because of Marvel gained a trademark on "Captain Marvel".

You just got geek served?

To make it even more confusing, there are actually several Captain Marvels in the Marvel universe, both Male and Female. Comics everybody!

Yeah. I just don't care to see Genis or Phyla, even though their names make me laugh.

Now a Cladus-Vell I would pay to see.  :grin:

The only Captain Marvel you will see in a movie is Carol. You might get a tiny bit of Mar-Vell if they show her origin in any depth... but I can see them skipping over him entirely just to avoid any confusion with all the Kree blah blah etc.


The only question is if they'll stick with the modern Captain Marvel branding for her, or if they'll chicken out and put her back into the Ms. Marvel to ensure the cheetodust dollars. Her new fanbase and demographic vs. her old one, who will bring more eyeballs to the film.

A green Na'vi; an extra from Pineapple Express; a Raccoon (?); Kratos, God of War; and one of the Ents from LoTR?

Pretty much!

Paging Alan Moore; but I hear he doesn't do "fun" any more.

I for one am glad my safety is in the hands of that lot.

I think GOTG is really the First bite of the Marvel film making guys into heroes that are not well known, so it will actually be interesting how it turns out.

Short answer, it's going to sink or swim entirely on weight of the movie alone and not be reliant on name recognition.

I was actually wondering how they will market the film - with a strong emphasis on the ties to the other movies, or as more of a standalone film?

Ironman and the guardian's of the galaxy....

I think that's Rocket Raccoon, which I'm only aware of because he's in Marvel Heroes.  If I had to guess, green Na'vi girl is a martian.  Or is that DC?

The rest?  Not a fucking clue.

From Left to Right: Gamora, Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon, Drax the Destroyer and Groot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardians_of_the_Galaxy_(2008_team)

Pretty sure that's Burt Macklin not Star Lord.  :awesome_for_real:

You have no idea how much I wish that were the case.

That looks nothing like a giant flying turtle.

Has anyone ever explained why second and third tier (ok, 4th tier) characters played such a big role from Annihilation to Thanos Imperative? I'm assuming it was deliberate (primarily to keep the story separate from the other books, and also to try to drum up interest in the less popular/known characters). I wish DnA were still doing Nova and GotG.

I also wonder what is the rationale behind the GotG calling themselves such, without the cosmic events happening and no Adam Warlock and Quasar.

GoG has been around since the late 60s, as I recall. *shrug*

Not really weird that someone with "galaxy" in their name to be involved with matters intergalactic (planetary).

Intergalactic, planetary, planetary, intergalactic.

I can not type or say the word "intergalactic" without going straight into that.

Well sure but that doesn't really answer the question. The original team fought the Badoon. DnA's version literally tried to repair the universe, stop a war between two Galactic empires and defeat an alien invasion from another universe. From what I gather of the CU version, one of them stole something they shouldn't have, and now they are on the run.

I'm not sure what the question is.

If you're talking about the Abnett/Lanning Guardians, I think it was just how they went about anchoring a "cosmic" story, by finding the "regular joe" characters who had relatable motivations and letting Galactus, his heralds, Annihilus, Thanos, etc. be more the stage on which the regular joes acted. In Annihilation they did a pretty bang-up job of taking characters who'd been around forever but who had always been sort of one-note folks and giving them personalties and motivations: Ronan, Super-Skrull, Drax, Moondragon, etc.  They finally took the next step with the Richard Rider Nova as well, making him grow up and go beyond being the Peter Parker-ish teenager he'd started as.

So when they got the nod to have GoG spin off out of Annihilation, I assume they just resolved to keep doing that--take 'cosmic' or 'space' characters and make them more interesting. Plus follow the standard 'team' book logic of putting characters together who would rub up against each other in all sorts of ways and have very different powers and skills. Dirty Dozen in space was the basic idea from the get-go. If you read the stupid team-up book that pretty much ended that entire era where they put all the cosmic big guns (Beta Ray Bill, Gladiator, Silver Surfer, etc.) together, you saw how boring it gets to have a bunch of dudes who can throw moons at each other hanging out together.

It's not a big deal or anything but the question is basically why does this group call themselves GotG? I suppose that is something they become as the film progresses as opposed to the first 30 min or so; I just wonder how that will play out.

In the movie, who knows? In the comic, it's taken semi-ironically at first, and they continue to meet cosmic players who are like, "Um, who are you guys?" but they also do operate on a pretty grand scale, if sometimes by accident. My guess is they'll play it the same way--ironically but they live up to the title when it's all done.

It's entirely possibly you are massively over thinking it.

It's also possible that they'll never actually call themselves that in the movie.

Dunno about that.  They even managed to shoe-horn in 'Earths Mightiest Heroes' into the Avengers movie.

I thought the clip at Comic-Con already has John C. Reilly as a Nova Corps cop saying, "These assholes call themselves Guardians of the Galaxy, that should tell you everything you need to know" or something to that effect, if I remember what was reported about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n5dkzMzrPI

~20 sec mark

eta: I just realized that that the symbols on the unis of those two guys look like Nova Corps. I know John C. Reilly was supposed to play Rhomann Dey but some site said Dey would be a SHIELD agent.

Spider-Man also has a capital 'm' in his name. FYI.

Civil War as a storyline requires a lot of superpowered characters, which the Marvel Studios film don't have established in the universe (as indicated in "Agents of SHIELD"). It was also a story that starts off with heroes blowing up a school, and the Marvel films (again) lack the minor characters to put into that situation.

It could be worked around, but it would lack even the minor impact of the comic book series.

I think this might be the third time in this thread someone corrected us on Spiderman.

I prefer the Jewish Spiderman.

Yes, the issue of Spiderman is very Spiderman vital to the Spiderman fabric of the Spiderman universe

The main reason civil war is not going to be top of any exec's list for filming is that it is a bad and widely disliked story. There is plenty of better shit to use.

there's a certain... spidermanesque sensibility when it comes to spiderman comics that really can't be properly captured with the Spiderman cinematic endevour.

Why isn't anyone talking about manspider in all of this? Or is it Man-Spider?

Again, it isn't the quality of the story that matters.  They're use it for rough inspiration, but they'll massively rewrite it. 

What matters is whether the name has soom roots that the media (and to an extent, the general populace) can grab onto and use in their discussion.  It is the reason why they used 'Age of Ultron' as the title of the next Avengers movie, despite the storyline having more to do with things that went down in the first few years of the Avengers rather than 2013 (when the comics AoU took place).  I imagine that if they made Civil War now, it would focus on a battle between Cap and Iron Man (like the story from the comics) in which they battle over whether the emerging super heroes of the world have to register (unlike the comics, in which the heroes were not emerging).

They won't use the story for Civil War anymore than they would for Age of Ultron for the same reason. Both stories were utter shit. And Age of Ultron has even less media presence than Civil War, that is if it was possible to have less than zero.

There's some precedence for that in the movie/tv continuity, especially in SHIELD.

I would of stopped doing it, but people keep getting it wrong.  :why_so_serious:

I think we're all set on aRACHNOmALE now.

Wouldn't Arachno-Cis-White-Male-Oppressor be more accurate?

Don't tell me the web shooters aren't just a phallic metaphor.

He's homophobic too because we all know real web shooters would be in Spider-Bro ass.

(http://unsubject.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/spider-manwebmouth.jpg?w=343)

And bonus, because Google Images really delivered this time:


(http://unsubject.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/spider-man-and-jonah.jpg?w=200)

Michael Douglas is Hank Pym.  Discuss.

I'm guessing that means we're getting dark emo Hank Pym, with Paul Rudd being a more devil-may-care Ant-Man (Scott Lang, probably) who takes/is given the outfit and powers from Pym.

I can't say I'm a fan of the decision to make Ant Man a (iirc) 60's hero but we'll see.

A devil-may-care thief, directed by Edgar Wright seems pertty great to me.

Also, Michael Douglas is being directed by Edgar Wright for a Marvel movie. WHAT A WORLD WE LIVE IN.

:mob:

I'm calling foul.  7 days and a new page and you're grammar snaking!?  FUCKING FOUL!  You should be ashamed.

It is more appropriate to spell out single-digit whole numbers.

I have no idea how they'll use this cast (Michael Pena in the flick, too?), but I'm curious to see.

My biggest concern is that they'll plan to have Pym play a continuing role - only to have Douglas kick it earlier than expected.

The real question is if it's ant man, Antman, Ant Man, Ant-Man or Formicidae Man.

ant-man for sure

This just got Amazing.

(http://i.imgur.com/6ZMdLpV.png)

Throw your safety overboard and join our insect nation.

Stand and Deliver!

 :heart:

I'm hearing Pena is 60s era Ant-man, now.

Hank Pym IS 60s era Ant-Man... so, not sure what you are hearing.

So, did 5 seconds of googling and the groupthink seems to indicate that Pena plays a villain.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1720482/ant-man-eyes-michael-pena-rashida-jones-roles.jhtml

I think he meant that someone in the movie will play a young Hank Pym in scenes set in the 60s, while Douglas will play Pym in the modern era; I've read there are going to be 3 actors playing Ant-Man so I figured Pena would be young Hank as well.

I wonder when/where they are going to place Janet.

Thank you for reminding me of this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2mmTDT6W7E)  :awesome_for_real:

That is not a grammar mistake, that is a fundamental misunderstanding about how the English language works.

http://tv.yahoo.com/news/abc-agent-carter-books-hayley-atwell-resurrection-duo-193727617.html

I thought the Agent Carter series had already been confirmed, but I guess it's official now.

I know Sony has Spiderman's rights for movies, but do they hold it for TV too?

The contract details are not public, but the general comments indicate that Marvel can't do any live action with any of the licensed characters, but retains the rights to pretty much everyone for animation purposes. 

There was an interview a while back in which someone at Marvel (Feige?) was asked what would happen if Marvel put an entirely CGI Spider-Man into Avengers II... and his response was very much a 'no comment' - something like, "That is not going to happen."  It sounded like he was passing a kidney stone while he said it.  If I had to guess at the behind the scenes discussion based upon his tone, there was someone that thought they might have a leg to stand on if they tried to do it, but that it would be a declaration of war and the benefit would not be worth the war that followed. 

A couple of (new to me) things:

http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/captain-america-winter-solider-trailer-super-bowl-sunday-075300913.html

http://www.mstarz.com/articles/24946/20140117/ed-brubaker-calls-captain-america-2-winter-soldier-best-marvel.htm
Glad to hear there will be a new CA:WS trailer.

I suspect Brubaker is a bit biased, but I hope he's right.

Tonely speaking, Captain America has the chance at being the best storytelling/themetic arc of any of the Marvel movies, for sure.

Captain America in present times has almost more potential from a story telling perspective than can be accomplished.

And here I was, thinking that people had missed it.

I saw it.  At this point, I figure we're less than a decade of that being correct.

I think because its been done before a half a million times by now. Mission Impossible, Bourne Identity, and a few other men in suits chase super spy across country movies. Very familiar territory + new character = success in hollywood.

The difference is that you can use Captain America as a prism to view patriotism/nationalism and how it's changed. The first movie definitely had that simplistic view of 50s patriotism, while this second one looks to deal with more modern issues.

Mind you, we haven't seen the movie yet, and it could be utter shit.

No, Cowtain America is the one that is udder shit.

... what.

Cow.... udder.... This was an old Marvel joke...

 :oh_i_see:

I have no idea (besides the pun) about what Marvel joke you are making.

Maybe he was hanging out with Peter Porker, the Amazing Spider Ham?

I believe you mean What If he was hanging out with Peter Porker.

Not worth the effort to explain a running joke from the 80s....

Wow. Cool story, bro.

I'm from the '80's. They don't know what the fuck you are talking about anymore than I do.

Not worth the effort... but: I was surprised not to find anything when I googled it, but back in the 80s they had stupid cartoony issues that featured characters like the aformentioned Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-ham.  Anthropomorphized versions of all the characters were featured.  Several characters had several representations.  One was a Captain America cow name Cowtain America and people pointed out in the letters to the editer section of one of the Cap Mags that Cap should not have female udders.  There were a few letters that followed responding to it that took the silly thing way too seriously.  When I do a quick goggle, I only see the Captain Americat. 

Was that really so difficult?

I am a child of that era and read comics all the time. I have never heard of Cowtain America. I had googled Cowtain America back when you first mentioned it, assuming it was something like that but couldn't turn up anything.

I'm assuming a fever dream/confusion with Captain Americat, which I barely remember now seeing it. http://www.comicvine.com/captain-americat/4005-8693/

Given the critical importance of this pressing issue...

Rumors indicate the Atwell led Carter series is headed forward with a significant budget.  I'm still scratching my head on why a 50's era series seems like a good idea.  It has all those troubles of needing to keep everything secret to make sure the current continuity makes sense...

Because we are running out of nostalgia, and no-one wants to take the risk on a totally fresh idea anymore.

I'm betting 50/50 on a Gamera (Japanese flying turtle monster a la Godzilla) movie in the next 10 years.

Old timey spy stuff is more fun then futuristic spy stuff is my guess. Like, how many 'old' movies would just be over in 5 minutes now that we all have cellphones.

How many NEW movies would be over in 5 minutes if they remembered that digital files can be searched, copied and distributed in about as long as it took me to type this?

Having to keep everything secret is a benefit for a tv show. Keeps the budget down.

There's a rumor going around that Avengers will be partially set in South Korea and they are looking for a Korean actress to play the role of a villian.

This one hopes that "Korean" and "villian" are smokescreens.  :awesome_for_real:

Why? If we want to treat people equally, any race, gender, etc... should be equally acceptable in a hero or villain role. This would only enter the realm of unjust, to me, if the role were to be propaganda with stereotypes defining the character... something I think Whedon would walk out before doing.

This one was hinting at what the actress' role may (or at least hoped to) be.  :-P

eta: sorry I forgot to link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantis_(Marvel_Comics) (ok this doesn't work because the link doesn't include the ")"  and I have no idea why. :crying_panda: )


GoTG has been on my mind a bit, and even though she was an Avenger I preferred her in Annihilation:Conquest and (to a lesser extent) GoTG.

It just occurred to me though how many green people are in the Guardians (total of 4 iirc).

Just give us a link or spoiler something, Raguel.. esssh.

OK - I missed the reference.  My bad.

I just hope they never touch Eros/Starfox.  That character annoyed the heck out of me.

OOC: Would you rather they retire IM for a while after Avengers III, or recast? This is assuming IM IV with RDJ is not going to happen.

I think it's pretty much done for now. Last I heard there wasn't going to be any until at least after Avengers 3. As for recasting? I don't really care, as long as the product is good.

They are limited to the number of movies they can make in a year, so while i hope to see RDJ in Avengers 2 and 3, I hope to see Panther or Captain Marvel (either of the first 3 will do) take his slot.

I've seen rumors/wishful thinking that Avengers 4 (if there is one) will have a New Avengers lineup. I'd like to see that, personally. The old guard semi-retires (to be rebooted/recast) and leaves Luke Cage in charge. Maybe have Carol, Monica, Quasar, Panther, and Doctor Strange in the mix, or keep the new kids Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver for a bit of continuity.

I'll have to find the story, but apparently Marvel is so jazzed about Winter Soldier they brought back the directors for CA 3. I really hope they knock this year's films out of the park.

I really doubt they will add Black Panther in, if only because it would be so easy to fuck it up and make it horribly racist.

They could recast him as an Asian.

Neil Patrick Harris is...

Like, every version of Black Panther I've seen has his nation with space age technology but everyone is still wearing grass skirts and using spears and shit.

Maybe it's super high tech disguised as grass skirts and spears!

The noble savage has too much dignity for modern conveniences like pants.

That's not too terribly different from places like China and India, where you can find nice/advanced stuff but a lot of the country is still operating like it's 800 AD.

In the comics, esp. the more recent ones, all of the spears and such are essentially just traditionalist window-dressing. It would be hard to do right in a movie, but comic-book Wakanda is actually a pretty interesting place.

Yeah, in a movie it would most likely come off as weird, especially these days where people hunt for reasons to call something sexist and racist.

I read a polygon review of Bravely Default (If you ever find yourself writing "I read a polygon review" then you've already failed!) and a big point of the review was that the game included a character that was sexist, and thus was itself sexist. People are weird.

If you've read Priest's BP you'll see a division of Wakanda: some of them are old school tribesmen and some of them are city dwellers of the most (or one of the most, if you count Atlantis and Attilan) advanced nation on the planet, and they pretty much hate each other.

I haven't read anything much after that period so I don't what's changed.  I think what separates Wakanda from the real world is: (a) they have a real pagan god, (b) they've never really been the victim of imperialism  and (c) they've had super smart, hyper-competent leaders for generations.  

So it may not resonate with a lot of people but I still want to see it, especially if it's like Priest's version (which incidentally is a lot like Kirby and Lee's version). I could see them sacrificing a good chunk of that though, but keep the tribesmen rivalry. Hopefully keep the pagan god stuff.

eta: one of the things I liked most about Priest's run was the White Wolf, but bringing him in may seem like they are trying to milk another Thor/Loki relationship.

They gave the game an 8. And mentioned it as one bit that bothered them. That was a pretty big misrepresentation of the article.

Anyway, back to BP and Wakanda. If you're talking about a US production of a movie like this, and suddenly have people dressed with spears and grass skirts... that's going to have a heavy uphill fight with some heavy cultural weight attached to it. It takes a deft hand. A hand that Hollywood has not exactly excelled at.

New Captain America trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpfOREC-eiI

I liked the first one better tbh. This one is more comic booky than thrillerish.

Read a rumor that CA will be forced to go to a shrink by the name of Dr. Sofen.  :drill:

Also, there's going to be a cameo in Guardians. Some people think it will be Iron Man. I hope it's Adam, Nova or Quasar (either one I guess) but none of those really qualify as major cameos, certainly not an established CU character.

Cap, Black Widow AND Falcon!  Wooo!  Rogers not wearing the suit in many scenes....uh.  SHIELD has three helicarriers! Uh what?  I don't like that, there should be only one, the helicarrier is this universe's Enterprise.  Falcon looks cool, I hope they have a little red on him somewhere, always liked the red and white suit. 

That means Dr. Faustus will be involved in this somewhere. I'm cool with that. Also, this trailer is awesome.

Starfleet had more then one ship  :why_so_serious:


Also do not make Falcon look anything like any of his comicbook looks, the fact they managed to make him look cool in the trailers is utterly astounding to me, since he's such a giant flying dork in the comics.

It also appears that SHIELD has grown significantly after the attack on NY.

I won't spoil what I've guessed based on the original Winter Soldier story.

Actually, re: the TV show,

They are doing casting for the new Fantastic Four movie and not only do we get a younger cast, with Michael B. Jordan playing the Human Torch, but apparently they are testing for a possible female Doctor Doom.

Did a quick look on imdb, and it appears that Fox still has the rights, so expect this to be yet another abortion just to keep the rights.

They're melding it with the X-men universe - they want to merge all of the rights that they have access to into a universe with the 'scope' of the MCU.

What indication do we have that they are doing that at all, our of curiosity? The way they seem to be handling the X-Men stuff and Spidey (to a lesser extent) seem totally different than this project.

Xmen already has the scope of the marvel universe for free. That's why they are trying so hard to get single character movies going, in the hope we'll all be impressed when they then put the xmen back together.

That said, f4 vs xmen kind of makes sense, if only as a last roll of the dice to get f4 some traction - as of today it's a D list franchise that they might as well sell back.

A bunch of vague statements like the following are behind the linkage rumors: http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/x-men/28762/new-hints-of-an-x-men-and-fantastic-four-crossover-movie (http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/x-men/28762/new-hints-of-an-x-men-and-fantastic-four-crossover-movie)

There has been no official statement that it will clearly happen, but the tea leaves are as clear as tea leaves can be.

 :awesome_for_real:

The general focus of both franchises seem so wildly different, but I guess Wolvie and Spidey HAVE been on Fantastic Four before.

But will Captain America be on fire ?

http://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/guardians-galaxy-2-square-batman-superman/


Well, no one can accuse Marvel of lacking in confidence. If the rumor is true they must really think they have a hit on their hands. If GoTG does well, will Warner Bros/DC or Marvel blink first? My bet is WB.

http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/captain-america-sequel-lead-avengers-2-agents-h-124400592.html


Not exactly surprising but I'm so hyped for CA:TWS.

With Fantastic Four not coming out until next year, and X-Men: Apocalypse set for 2016, the earliest they'd realistically be able to do any sort of crossover movie would be in 2017. Even if things make it that far, where would they go after that? I can't see people get exciting about seeing an X-Men/Fantastic Four crossover movie every 2-3 years.

They do not necessarily have to do a cross-over movie to establish they are in the same universe.  All they need to do is a quick cameo or cross reference.  I think any 'X-men versus FF' type tale would be 2018 or so...

Given that we've compared it to what the MCU has done, that was sort of implied. I'm just not sure what threat they could weave through X-Men/F4 to tie everything together, which is what the MCU is doing. If they just want it within the same universe, they can just use a throw away line. That is not really the same thing as what the MCU is doing.

I really don't think I even want an X-Men/F4 movie. That sounds terrible.

he new xmen movie already looks like it's suffering from WAY too many characters, expectations are not high.

Another day, another rumor:

Paul Bettany to play Vision in Age of Ultron (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2553450/Superhero-Paul-Bettany-signs-Marvel-party-British-actor-star-The-Vision-new-Avengers-movie-Age-Ultron.html)

Oh and Ms. Marvel will be in it too.

 :oh_i_see: Well...

WB and Sony can try to do a shared universe but they'll fail.  Marvel has it baked into the recipe and those two are throwing shit on a wall to see what'll stick.

There are dozens of storylines that cross X-men with FF in the comics.  They tried to boost every title's sales by crossing it with the X-men.  IIRC, Franklin Richards plays a major role in some facets of X-lore.

Random stories are not the same thing and you know it. We've been comparing it to what they are doing with MCU, not a 3 issue crossover.

First - Avengers is the core movie of the MCU.  The closest comic equivalent to that movie is the beginning of Ultimates - which is a pretty random story.

Second - I don't know if the FF / X-men crossovers are all so inconsequential.  X-men vs. Fantastic Four is the obvious one, and you could modify a lot of those major cross-over events while excluding Spider and the Avengers (Secret Wars, Civil War, etc...), but they could also build something huge out of one of those random stories that barely hits upon both franchises or just work one franchise into a storyline that comes from the other's comic universe.
 
In the end, being able to put out 2-3 films a year between Wolverine, X-men, X-force, New Mutants, Fantastic Four, X-factor, Silver Surfer, etc... is going to be what they strive to do because they think they can make MCU type of money off of selling a combined universe.  It doesn't really matter whether there is a solid 'basis in comics' for it.

Your second point just seems to be "well if they do it right it could be good", which you could say about just about any idea. I get a feeling that when you heard about the direct to Sci-Fi channel Man-Thing movie back in 2005 you convinced yourself that if they adapted the right story it could be awesome and maybe they could set up some sort of crossover with that Blade TV series that was coming out the year after. Also, for fuck's sake stop suggesting that people adapt Civil War.

And as you point out, there are any number of X-men related franchises they could do if they want to build a shared universe (they're already doing an X-Force movie and have been trying to do a Deadpool movie for a while). Trying to shoehorn the Fantastic Four in there just because that happens to be another Marvel franchise they have the rights to doesn't really make any sense. A Wolverine appearance in a Fantastic Four movie might help sell some tickets but the FF aren't going to do anything to boost up the X-men franchises numbers. There's traditionally been very little overlap between these two franchises in the comics and there's not really a lot to draw on there. About the closest thing to an iconic moment between the two that there's been is when Wolverine fucked up the Thing's face and he had to wear that stupid fucking helmet for a while.

I'm not even sure what your point is. I really don't even think we're far apart if we're "wishing". They could totally do something, sure. I'm not arguing to stick close to any sort of comic continuity.

However, The Avengers do well separately and together, both in the comics and in the films, and Marvel has built a very nice film universe around it. F4/XMen do not have anything like "avengers" to tie it all together. There's a shared threat that weaves through the films/universe. I'm just not sure I see anything that would work for the Fox side of things. Especially given how different these projects seem to be. ESPECIALLY given that the X-Men stuff seems rooted in just going with the First class cast from here on out.

Also. If your'e talking about the mind 80s Claremont FF4/XMen thing, that book was dumb. I really hope they don't do that.

And the last bit of what they are going to do, of course they are. No one is arguing otherwise.

*shrug*

Time will tell.  I am pretty darn sure they're going to have them in the same universe, and that they'll do so meaningfully.

You also seem to think someone should or would adapt Civil War as a movie. Your judgement would seem somewhat... suspect on the matter.

I don't hate on Civil War as much as others, but without SHIELD, Cap and Iron Man, I'm not sure it makes anywhere the same amount of sense. The closest the X segment of the universe comes is Days of Future Past... and they're doing that already!

If you were going to do some shared FF/X-Men thing in a movie, it would only make sense if it was something like the aforementioned Days of Future Past or Age of Apocalypse - and they are already doing both of those without any word on some kind of cross-movie continuity.

*shrug* I guess we can ignore http://screenrant.com/x-men-fantastic-four-movie-crossover/ (http://screenrant.com/x-men-fantastic-four-movie-crossover/)

If the days of future past movie is anything but a bloated mess of characters I will give them some credit for making a F4/xmen movie but as it stands even the avengers suffers from bloat for I don't know how in hell they expect to pull that off.

But with Millar in consulting, what could go wrong?  :why_so_serious:

Did you read the article? The title is fucking terrible.


So, sure, in the X-Men movie they need something from Reed, so he shows up for moment. that is far different than anything you were proposing for an Avengers like team up.

If you are still talking about a generic same universe thing, I haven't disagreed o that front even remotely, but you keep bringing up an X-Men/FF4 movie or some big project like Civil War. Even Millar seems to indicate that not happening.

I think a lot of people read the contradicting statements in that article as backtracking after speaking out of turn - and once again, only time will tell.

Isn't the plot of this "civil war" thing exactly the same as the overall xmen premise?

Which also leads on to a problem I see with putting anyone else in the xmen world, how the hell are F4 or whoever any different from any other mutant.

Just from a branding standpoint you might as well just call it the xmen universe and be done with it.

Ultimately, however, it is about controlling mutants, yes. There are some distinct differences, as the X-Men boils down to Muties vs Humans, where Civil War wasn't really a racial thing, as it were. There were Mutants/Supers on both sides.

Civil War was 1 on 1. X-Men Universe is 1 on 1 on 1.

It makes more sense when you realize mutants are analogs for people who are gay. Born that way, can't help it but are hated for it. They're "Flawed!"

 Meanwhile the FF4 and others are normal people who were just in terrible accidents.  They're OK because they were only maimed. They were "normal" once.

That's a modern interpretation. I am pretty sure I have heard Stan Lee say it was to tap into teenage angst.

I'm trying to envision some films based around solo members of the X-Men that aren't wolverine and it's not going well. A cyclops movie? A storm movie? Those sound awful.

Magneto and Xavier could have been a whole movie without the first class, kind of a wasted opportunity there.

I remember a few good Storm-centric stories by Claremont back in the day, but I don't really care for Halle Berry so I'm in no hurry to see her in a stand-alone movie.

Conveniently Civil War and the X-men movies are modern stories.

I hesitate to mention anything about Civil War as there seems to be some mistake that people think I adore the storyline - I just think it is something that they could translate to film and sell as it was one of their most marketable mass events. 

It covers a lot of ground, but the core issues was meant to reflect the battle between security and privacy that was being waged after 911.  If a trustworthy government has access to all our data, it can do a better job to protect us from threats.  On the other hand, that is major Big Brother territory - and many would argue government is one of the worst threats out there.

Do the heroes have to give up their anonymioty and be regulated?  Or do they have the right to secret identities and privacy.

There are a lot of ways that was reflected, and they used the conflict between heroes as the main point, but according to the articles I read about the storyline, that was the sell at the conclave where they planned it out.

Except one of the main issues with Civil War is that it's not unreasonable to ask people who are more or less acting as law enforcement to register with the government. That's not really an invasion of privacy for the sake of security in the same respect that it's not unreasonable to require that people become cops rather than just let anybody who wants to put on a mask and go out and enforce Justice. Civil War's failing is that it shined a spotlight on tropes we've just agreed to ignore because, hey superhero comics. It makes sense to make superheroes register, and the writers put themselves in the position where they ultimately had to champion the wrong side because it's the status quo.

Edit: In fact the anti-reg side came across almost like an unintentional parody of the NRA. The only way to stop a bad guy with superpowers is a good guy with superpowers, and fuck no we shouldn't be subjected to registration or any sort of regulations or laws.

The interesting thing about Civil War, to me, was how it was viewed very differently in different areas and by different groups of people.  Go back and read some of the articles about it.  There are a lot of people that think like Velorath, but there are a lot of people that disagree, too.

They tried to portray it as more or less two equal sides at first, but they knew from the start they weren't going to keep registration around (because again, status quo). They ultimately had to stack the deck and make the pro-reg side look worse by having the Thunderbolts crippling people, having fake Thor kill the expendable black superhero, Cap getting assassinated after he turned himself in, etc., and they never made a reasonable case for why registration itself was bad.

I side very much with jgusden on the interpretation side of things when it comes to Civil War.

However, I think a lot of it is a Rorschach test.

He has a point in that all of it is based on super hero tropes and the entire arc had to be written to fit a fake world.  No amount of heroism would allow supers in the real world to get away with what they do, in one way DC's "gods amongst men" works because what the fuck can any government do to superman except try to make nice?  The marvel world however has so many low powered supers such that the world governments must be completely incompetent or all turning an unrealistic blind eye to vigilantes. 

Hey I'd love a world where we could let super powered people do what they want but if you think that would ever be the world we live in then I have a bridge to sell you.  So yes, any real world statements in civil war are diminished by having the result predestined before the argument even began due to fake world constraints.

Civil War was not helped by the idiotic portrayals of established characters like Tony Stark and Reed Richards. What they did in those stories went so totally against 40 years worth of canon that it felt horribly forced... because it WAS horribly forced, horribly conceived. It also wasn't helped that the whole goddamn thing was a stretched out version of 3 pages worth of Marvel Team-Up style plotting - the part where the heroes fight before teaming up.

It didn't really help Spidermans life.

I don't think it was his choices in Civil War that got him stuck with JMS as a writer.

If there was a completely separate comic universe called civil war where canon was built from scratch a la watchmen, I think it could have been something really great.

This has become a huge theme in both comics worlds since the early 2000s (gee, I wonder if something happened then...)--basically, I see it as roughly equivalent to the awkwardness of superhero comics in relationship to WWII in the Golden Age. You had characters then who could have ended the war, but the war was going on. The characters were escapism, but you couldn't push the escapism to "Awesome! Superman just killed so many Nazis that you don't have to worry about D-Day anymore," because that would be too  :uhrr:.

Since 2001, both companies have been increasingly preoccupied with on one hand having superheroes do stuff that feels "real", up to and including dealing with terrorism, covert or secret government, the militarization of democratic societies, etc.--but they obviously can't have superheroes 'win' any of those struggles.

Marvel lately seems to be slipping a bit more into really just saying, "Our fantasy universe is not your fantasy universe" mode: the Avengers are overtly involved in galactic politics, the Roxxon Oil Company is importing ice from their mining operations on Europa, AIM has just gone from being terrorist-analogues to something way weirder, etc. But neither company is never going to get this completely settled--in comics or in film/TV-- because they can't.

One thing to remember about Civil War, though, is that Millar was openly pro-registration and kind of openly anti-superhero in the way he developed the main story--and making the analogies very specific to the Patriot Act-era building up of a more intrusive US government, with apparent sympathy for that idea. Thunderbolts was kind of Ellis' reply to Millar: you fucking moral idiot. If you took even a small smidgen of that into a future Avengers film, you'd have to decide how to play it. So far I would say that the films seem to be going with "SHIELD/its bosses/governments are untrustworthy dickbags, you'd be better off going with Thor, Iron Man, et al".

This is one of the main problems I have with a lot of the guys in control of Marvel's super hero output these days. They fucking HATE the very idea of super heroes. They think it's stupid... because it IS stupid. Bendis is particularly guilty of this. They hate the concept and all the silliness and handwaving that is required for this to function in a modern world. And it bleeds all over their work and affects it for the worse, IMO. Super heroes of the power levels talked about would fundamentally change the nature of the world - and if the universe refuses to acknowledge that (which it does because that's the way it's been done for decades), stories have to be manipulated so that things sort of work. And that means characters have to act out of character.

So either stop trying to root the Marvel universe in the real world. Don't make the president Barack Obama, make it someone like him. It's worked before, there's no reason it can't work now. That's one of the reasons I dig DC Comics at times - they don't even bother trying to place it in the real world where places like Gotham and Metropolis don't exist. They inhabit their own fantasy universe. So a lot of the bullshit pretzel logic that Civil War had to go through just doesn't exist. Now that doesn't necessarily mean the characters in DC are better, but they are usually more consistent in their characterizations.

Of course, I'm of the opinion Marvel needs another serious Crisis on Infinite Earths type of reboot and start again approach, but that's not happening.

Brandon Flowers from The Killers said something to the effect that "Nirvana took all the fun out of rock and roll."  I see this is the case with comics too.  That's why the MCU is doing so well.  Super heroes are stupid, everyone knows they are stupid, but a lot of folks still like them.  And Marvel is having fun with them.  None of the MCU movies have been total grimdark, everyone has a quip here and there while saving the world.  Look at the Guardians; a freaking raccoon with a machine gun.  While 'DCU' flounders in grimdark, the MCU struts by in it's platform shoes with goldfish in them.

Sure GL tried, but something just didn't come together over there.

I think a prime example of that was the whole thing with whether or not Hulk ever killed anybody in his rampages. Obviously if you look at it with real world logic, of course it's reasonable to assume that at least some people have died due to the Hulk, but that would make the Hulk a lot less likable as a character and makes him hard to redeem or portray as a hero when he sometimes goes crazy and kills innocent people (which makes for a potentially interesting character, but probably not how Marvel want portray him given how recognizable he is to kids). So you just handwave that stuff away. It's comics. Hulk hasn't killed anybody. Of course that's not good enough for Bendis, so he does a story where it's mentioned that Hulk went on a rampage in Vegas that killed innocents including children, because fuck all that handwavy shit, we need to take these superhero comics seriously.

Then Greg Pak, eventually retconned it saying that the Hulk doesn't kill because Banner subconsciously runs calculations that enable Hulk to rampage while not killing anybody (not sure how they dealt with the Vegas stuff specifically). This of course was an enormously retarded explanation, but only became necessary because Bendis had to fuck with the character since he is just incapable of accepting these tropes. When I was doing some searches online just now trying to remember the specifics of all this, I saw someone refer to the Hulk not killing as "Superman's Glasses". That made me think that if Bendis worked for DC, I could actually see him doing a Superman arc eliminating the Clark Kent disguise because there's just no way that shit would actually fool anybody.

Tony Soprano, Walter white, Dr Jekyll, MacBeth, are all relatable characters who do bad shit including killing innocents.

If you write well you can write past the hulk's issues. The avengers did a pretty good job, although they had the advantage of the hulk being nowhere near top of the bill.

Otoh if you limit the hulk to a poor misunderstood victim you get the last few attempts at a hulk film and everyone goes home bored.

Comic books are not and should never try to be Shakespeare.  That's the point.

It's a different genre, a different form of fantasy and escapism.  People get cynical and they want things to be as grimdark and cynical as there are but those people should not be allowed to write every damn comic.  Preacher was far and away better than most dramas you'll see in movies and tv but it never started out as a super hero comic.  There are venues in comics for telling grimdark stories without fucking over children's heroes.

Not for nothing, but I hate when people do this.

Comic books are pretty much Shakespeare.   :why_so_serious:

Oh you.  Next you'll be saying Justin Bieber is Mozart.

Just because it's art for the masses or some such.  Geez.

Oh God, No, I won't be saying that at all.

Though Mozart wouldn't get punched out in a fast food restaurant.

I recognize shakespeare is probably the closest one to comics but replace shakespeare with breaking bad or sopranos then, they just are not a medium for gritty realism.

I dunno, man.  The guy WAS kind of a douche in only the way a person exposed to fame from age 4 onward can be.

Some people here need to see more Shakespeare.

If you think he wasn't writing fantasy and escapism then you weren't paying attention.

Almost any good performance art is fantasy and escapism. That doesn't excuse you from including relatable characters

To be fair to people here, I should add that there are few people on earth who wouldn't benefit from more Shakespeare when writing film critism.

The Hulk stuff seems like a perfect example of editors not doing their jobs.

I think it was a case of creative confusion--that "realism" was what would make comics, and comics movies, work.

Which, again, means nobody at DC or Marvel was paying attention when "The Incredibles" worked so well. Audiences will love the fuck out of a superhero movie that isn't ashamed of having superheroes--you just have to get the whole feel right, beginning to end, and have tons of heart and almost no fanservice continuity-wank.

Tony Soprano and Walter White don't get to occasionally join the Defenders or the Avengers. Parents aren't going to pick up Breaking Bad comics for their kids expecting child-friendly entertainment and then have to explain to their kids that sometimes Walter White does stuff that results in the death of children and other innocent people.

Like I said, those kinds of characters are interesting, but they aren't the Hulk.

To be fair, children aren't really the target demographic for comic books these days (man-children but not children). Comic book movies are going for an all audiences type of thing, however.

Most comics these days sell like 30k copies or fewer. The target audience seems to be the smallish group of people who read comics in the 90s and stuck with them.

comics are deader than uncle ben.

They're a niche form now, that's for sure. Though they do sometimes still generate new characters who have potential to hold larger audiences in other media. Walking Dead is the most notable recent example of that but not the only one.

Once you start writing for kids, you're buried by things established in that era.  Once you establish that glasses make a good disguise, you're stuck with it - even if the audience evolves into something where that would never be believed.  Once you start a policy against showing certain types of violence, you're stuck with it - even if the audience evolves to the point where not showing that violence is a bit odd.

You don't have to show graphic violence in order to establish that actions of your characters can have problematic consequences. But if that is the conflict in your lead character, you have to have something act as the symbolic cost. I'm not saying the hulk has to kill bystanders, I'm saying for him to be interesting there has to be a cost, and even if that cost is civilian deaths, it doesn't stop him bring relatable.

Again, it comes down to decent writing.

I think being the Hulk costs plenty.

His pants budget alone is a killer.  :why_so_serious:

I'm perfectly fine with the idea that the Hulk's rampages don't kill anyone, despite that obviously not making any sense. You can do a "realistic" take on the Hulk but that's just not the Hulk.

I also don't think you need any explanation about Banner calculations or some shit. "It's a comic book" is explanation enough.

Or that superman generates an anti-gravity field thus enabling him to lift a battleship without splitting it in half or just punching a hole right through it? Yeah, comics don't need gritty realism at every turn, it's utter horseshit.

While that's true, him picking up lake Comooga still bugs me.

I can't stop laughing. He picked up a lake?  (still laughing) that's retarded.  I'm glad I don't know the story because it's cracking me up and I'm sure knowing the details would make it less silly more annoying.

(still laughing)

You've never seen Superman 3 ?

No.  I'm not a Superman fan.  He just seems broken.  I don't hate him, he just seems like it's really hard to write a good story with someone that powerful.  Last Superman I felt motivated to see (and oddly, liked) was, coincidentally enough, the one with your General Zod (Superman II, I think).

Not even the lure of the ultra-violence in the latest Superman could break my ambivalence.  I figure at some point they'll put it on cable and I'll see bits and pieces of it then.

New Avengers Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0jBF912xYY  :drill:

It was "eh, kinda funny" until hawkeye and then I lost my shit.

Sounds like they have a plan to put in 'Mutants by Another Name' into the MCU according to a spoiler from someone that saw footage. 
 
QS and SW will be amongst the first in this 'alternate explanation'.  It will be interesting to see how many additional Mutants make it into the MCU... and if other mutants that have spent considerable time in the Avengers now - including Wolverine? - are amongst them.  Could be bait for a fierce financial battle.

I also noted that in Tuesday's S.H.I.E.L.D. episode they referenced several races of aliens - including Skrulls, a race many considered to be linked to the FF rights.

It's easy to get around 'mutants' by just never using the word or saying their genes were manipulated by outside forces, very earth X.

Awesome! I was totally expecting this though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEBMkDWxny8

I don't really understand why people believe Disney are barred from using the term 'mutant'. I've never seen anyone suggest this away from f13, and whenever I've seen any more informed article it has suggested that while the contract isn't public, 'persons familiar' have indicated it covers the xmen franchise in a non-specific way.

They can use scarlet witch or whoever because she is also in other franchises.

They probably could argue they could even use wolverine, though it would be a dumb idea for obvious reasons.

Although the contracts are not public, there is a lot of evidence and informal talk stating that the word 'Mutant' (in the context of a label for a group of supes) is off limites in the MCU.  You'll see that they go out of their way to avoid it ... you'll see that very soon.  The mere fact that such an iconic Marvel word has not been used in MAoS or the movies is a pretty clear indication they can't use it.

They do play a bit loose with those restrictions.  They can't use Spidey or his key phrases - but they played around with it in the pilot what Skye has her own end for the phrase beginning, "With great power..."  I think the relationship between the studios is friendly and Marvel/Disney is going out of their way to keep it so.  They must be - else I think you'd be seeing a war pop up over rights.

So there was a press screening for CA:TWS earlier this week. Everyone says it's amazing, perhaps the best Marvel movie yet. Someone talk me down from the hype.

With that much acclaim I'm almost positive it's a riff from not just TWS storyline but Fury vs. SHIELD (and possibly Nomad) as well. I wouldn't be mad though if it didn't include those things and was just a great movie.

http://screensavant.com/2014/03/12/captain-america-the-winter-soldier-early-reactions/

Some of us still remember the initial reactions and tweets about The Dark Knight Rises...

I've had high expectations for every Marvel film.  Some didn't quite hit my high expectations, but they were all close.  Even IM II and Incredible Hulk.

My high expectations for this film, however, have more to do with what they'll do for the S.H.I.E.L.D. show than for what the movie by itself will be.  I'm expecting that Season 2 of S.H.I.E.L.D. will be highly impacted by the events of the film... in a positive way. 

The Agents of SHIELD will have been upgraded from cleaning up the garbage of Thor: TDW to filing the paperwork following CA: TWS' events, I'm guessing.

I'll be red in the face if I'm wrong, but I have a feeling the events of Cap II will influence the entire next season of SHIELD, if not the entire series.

MCU's Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver (http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/03/18/avengers-age-of-ultron-marvel-reveals-new-scarlet-witch-and-quicksilver-concept-art/)

There's also concept art from the Avengers 2 featuring Hulkbuster vs Hulk. Looks awesome.

They were displayed on the Marvel Universe show last night that was aired instead of shield.  Looked pretty good, and I liked the story they were laying out.  Apparently Avengers2 will cause yet another upheaval in continuity so they can start "Phase 3"  One of them made reference to an Avengers movie being a "Bookend" to each phase.  though the more they talked the more I realized they are, in fact, aiming for an Infinity Gauntlet storyline, which will just be  :awesome_for_real:

If you're curious how far the tenative plans stretch: 2028 - nearly 15 years.


 http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/192489-kevin-feige-marvels-superhero-at-running-movie-franchises (http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/192489-kevin-feige-marvels-superhero-at-running-movie-franchises)

Interesting article about Sony Entertainment / Spiderman

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303948104579533552594660962

Sony is banking hard on Spiderman 2 and sequels/spinoffs down the line. The studio head sounds like a retard tho, my favourite: "The studio recently selected its big summer bet of 2015: "Pixels," an action-comedy that combines videogame characters with actor Adam Sandler, a longtime favorite of Ms. Pascal. It is also fast-tracking a live-action comedy based on the Barbie doll."

So yeah ...

Buzz on this upcoming movie seems pretty lukewarm, if it disappoints maybe Sony will consider throwing in the towel and selling the license back to Disney/Marvel I am guessing for some cash + a revenue share of a few films or something. Sony overall is having a pretty rough go of it recently, could use the cash.

Adam Sandler is an immediate WILL NOT WATCH.

Saw some of it at a private event last night, unexpectedly.  From the bits I saw, I agree with the current reviews: It is a pretty good Spider-man in a pretty bad movie.  

They got the main character right, but the universe surrounding him wrong.  Spider-man's rogue's gallery of 60s and 70s designed villians is hard to do.  They failed. 

I think that Sony would be much better off licensing back the rights to Disney in exchange for a portion of revenue.  The contracts would be difficult to put together, but the character would benefit from shedding the universe they assembled around him and replacing it with the MCU.

I don't think Marvel can make an offer that would be greater than the profit Sony would make from mediocre Spidey films.

If I were Sony I'd 'loan' out Spidey for an extended surprise cameo in one or two Marvel movies.  They would get some cash and could raise awareness to go see the next Sony Spiderman movie.

Why on earth would Disney agree to that? They have more characters than they can use already.

Not to mention disney does own spiderman in all but the movie version.  Disney has the new infinity marvel figures coming out and spiderman is one of them.  Movie popularity will only help the toy sales, it's essentially free advertising.

Yeah. These Spider-Man movies bring in like $600 million plus just in box office. So they must be making around $350 million in profit, before you even get into DVD / HBO / etc.

If Spider-man were executed as well as IM was, it would dwarf the ASM and IM III numbers. The character is more popular than IM is. In the hands of a good caretaker,  it would rival or exceed Avengers.... not be less than half the box office. That is why it would make sense to license it back to the people that can cross promote it.

You have absolutely no evidence to back that up. Quality is in no way an indicator of box office success. See the Star Wars prequels for proof.

The first couple Spider-man movies were well received and taking inflation and 3D upcharges into account they probably would have brought in somewhere between IM3 and Avengers. Those previous Spider-man movies were also done by Sony, who did not need Marvel's help to successfully make and market a high grossing movie franchise. To an extent, Marvel's current success only exists because Sony and Fox helped pave the way with Spider-man and X-men movies that did really fucking well at the box office. Unless Marvel is going to pay half a billion per movie in licensing fees to license Spider-man back from Sony, why the fuck would Sony ever want  to let go of the franchise until they manage to crater it completely somehow?

Not to ignore Haemish's point, but I wanted to add: I don't know if Spider-Man's personality and character, translated to the real world through an actor, has as much appeal as Iron Man's. We're talking a charismatic, love-to-hate, worldly "Genius, Playboy, Billionaire, Philanthropist" fighting terrorism and governments in the name of individualism (and Downey *sold* that character to the audience from Day 1) versus a struggling American teenager dealing with urban issues who just can't seem to get a break.

Comic Books reach a limited audience (appeals to American youth) which I believe would skew the perception of character popularity. The movie format reaches a far broader demographic of people in all countries and situations. I would argue Iron Man and what's possible with his characters and his stories is the more appealing character when you take everyone into consideration and not just comic book fans. The movie's box office is a correlation.

Finally: I'm not certain you understand the business realities behind the movies when you talk about licensing.

Haemish: There are a few things that influence box office.  Hype/popularity is one.  Quality is another.  The biggest hits tend to have both. 

Velorath: There were hard critics of the first SM trilogy, and the current series, from amongst comic fans and traditional fans of the character from other media.  IM was widely well received by fans, despite not being entirely true to the comic version of the character. 

In the end, it is simple math.  If Marvel, with their cross-licensing abilities and proven record with their own characters, can likely generate more income and better franchise building by controlling the character than Sony can do on their own, it all comes down to figuring out how to split that surplus.  Sony will demand to have net revenues in excess of what they think they could do on their own.  Marvel gets the rest.  It all comes down to negotiation.

Maven: Your argument is that most people will have an easier time relating to a genius, playboy, billionaire, philanthropist than a struggling American teenager that can't catch a break?  SM is the everyman character.  IM is the fantasy.  Historically, in every form of media, the track record of the popularity of the SM proves my point.  Heck, look at how they characterized the start of the Marvel Cinematic Universe - IM, Thor, Cap - even Hulk were all considered B-team characters before the movies.  SM and X-men were the golden geese.  IM's popularity sored only after Marvel knocked it out of the park. 

I'm not saying the comic book fans define the audience for these movies.  The media does.  However, if you look at the media (CNN -> AICN -> Colbert), they base their definition on the history of the characters.... in comics.  The comics are the nexus.

In the end, it is simple t me: 1.) Marvel/Disney has proven that it does a better job with the Marvel characters than any other studio.  2.) Quality is a major factor in revenue (as is the ability to cross promote).  3.) SM, as the most popular Marvel character, is the one with the most potential for revenue. 

That all boils down to a pretty simple picture.

No, my argument is that more people want the fantasy and to live through it in times of hardship and uncertainty (such as we're experiencing) than to be reminded of their realities. We consume entertainment to escape. Super hero films are the most popular and profitable movie format currently as a TREND -- it won't always be like this. Gifted but flawed NON-everymen, fighting epic scale battles. Movie Iron Man is the kind of person people want to get a drink with, have at your party (even if he hogs all the attention). You want to see him tackle macro issues far beyond everyday perception with cool tech or go toe-to-toe in an argument with a trickster god because he's just that damn smart. Movie Iron Man's best scenes were when he was out of costume.

Spider-Man is a more grounded character, for sure. It also doesn't mean that there aren't people that exist who want to read about their issues and to live vicariously in that character.

Focusing *explicitly* on a comic audience, yes, Spider-Man is the more popular character and likely to generate more revenue -- in comic books. In the movie world, comic popularity is something to consider for green-lighting, but isn't the sole indicator of revenue potential.

Also, a question: why would a company hand over control of a prized character (sure of its revenue potential) to a competitor when they can make movies with it on their own?

Edit: polished argument. Let me simplify this:

1. Comic books have an inherently limited audience (primarily American youth).
2. Movies have a much broader audience than comic books that includes most everyone.
3. Youth audiences like characters whose struggle they can relate to. (Parents, right? Gosh, it's tough to balance all of life's demands.) They do not have as much exposure to real world issues.
4. Older audiences (everyone else) who have grown past this can understand when larger issues, such as corporate warfare, government and politics, and philosophic exploration, are the dominant theme of the work.
5. Youth audience responds to cool, rebellious personalities.
6. Older audience responds to charismatic, saavy personalities.
7. Spider-Man and what his stories are about cater to a youth demographic. His character is used to explore local issues in a singular setting (New York)
8. Iron Man and what his stories are about cater to an older demographic. His character is used to explore larger issues across the world. (World is his playground)
Conclusion: The movie revenue potential of Iron Man is greater than Spider Man.

Edit: added character personality and its indicators on audience appeal.

The first two Spider-man movies were incredibly well received with rotten tomatoes scores of 89% and 94% respectively. Domestic gross for Spider-man adjusted for inflation is $553 million and for Spider-man 2 $478 million putting them above every Marvel movie except for Avengers, and Spider-man 1 is only $40 million off from Dark Knight. Even without adjusting for inflation or taking 3D into account the first Spider-man trilogy are 3 of the top 5 grossing movies based on Marvel comics (http://boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=marvelcomics.htm).  ASM is #8 although Cap 2 might catch up to it, and taking worldwide numbers into account, it beats all the Marvel studios movies except for Avengers and Iron Man 3.

The simple math is that each Spider-man movie Sony has made has grossed between $700-800 million worldwide. There is no deal there that makes sense for either Sony or Marvel. Marvel would have to pay Sony close to those numbers for a deal to make sense to Sony, which is a massive risk for them to take. If the movie doesn't do well, they'd have to pay a shit ton of money to Sony anyway for the licensing. Even if Marvel were to make a movie that was as big a success as Avengers, Sony would walk away with half the money leaving Marvel with about as much as they've made off Cap 2. It's simple math but it looks like you didn't do any of it. Sony is still making big money off of Spider-man, and Marvel is making big money off all the characters they didn't license out.

Anyway, if Marvel had the Spider-man (and even the X-men) franchises back, how many Ant-man of Guardians of the Galaxy movies do you think we'd be getting?

Here: http://ifanboy.com/articles/the-all-time-comic-book-movie-box-office-ranking-list/

What I noticed:
- Spider Man's numbers are strong, with the reboot much lower down. The first trilogy started with and maintained strength compared to Iron Man's box office.
- Iron Man started low as the audience had to be introduced to the character (argument for more popularity of Spider-Man). He's now at much higher popularity and familiarity, but it took repeated performances by Robert Downey and the support of the MCU to get there. IM3 featured more Downey as Stark time, less superheroics.

So there's merit in that if the current Amazing Spider-Man run is "executed well", it could beat Iron Man 3. At this point it feels like we're arguing the difference of 50 or 100 million dollars on two properties that both have huge revenue potential.

Taking what I wrote earlier into consideration, I additionally don't think the Spider-Man has as much revenue potential as Iron Man because Spider-Man doesn't have the *direct* support of other Marvel films like Iron Man had (it has passive support from successful comic book / Marvel films) ... but that was your point, wasn't it? If it was brought into the fold and integrated, it would have much higher revenue potential.

Downey as Stark is running out of steam -- a reboot is likely after Avengers 2 when Marvel Studios enters the next phase and he gets too old for the role. IM's revenue potential is more tied up in Downey than Stark.

Yeah, jgsugden, you're right about which character is more popular, but your views on the business side undermine your other points. The studio that can execute a better film is not relevant to which studio gets to make the film. That's business's call.

Just as many, if not more.  Spider-man and X-men characters are already factored into the Marvel release strategy right now.... and now they have to factor in excess Sinister 6, Venom, Jubilee, and Wolverine's 8th cousin on his feral grandmother's side movies.

Yes, SM series I made a lot of money - but had a lot of critics, too.  If they'd nailed a few points better and had wider acceptance, they could have been higher numbers.  The biological web shooters, McGuire's insecure Spider-man (Parker insecure?  Yes.  Spider-man?  No), and the lack of the Gwen character ...  The character has a huge following and the movies were good (not great).  If you put the current SM in those movies, you might have had great movies, even.  Assuming they went an entirely different direction with SM III...

Maven saidYes - but the best business call is the one that generates the most net revenue - and the most net revenue can be generated by Marvel making the films.  The only question is whether they can reach an agreement on compensation that would get the rights back.

Regardless, given Sony's plans, and the initial box office numbers of this film, it doesn't look like that is going to have a chance to happen soon.  Maybe the rights can be licensed back around 2018 or 2021.  Mayybe.

Denying your competition revenue and market share is also smart business.

Let's go from your premise that, of all the studios, Marvel Studios can make the highest-grossing Spider-Man film, which is a reasonable conclusion from an unsupported analysis. I'm sure you will also agree with me that Marvel wants that property back, now that is has its own film studio.

How is it relevant who can make the highest-grossing film? Why would Sony hand the rights back over? They aren't swimming in bankable, low risk intellectual properties. Sony (and everyone else on the planet) knows that Marvel wants the rights back. That makes the asking price that much higher to get it -- Sony's possession is to its own advantage and Marvel's detriment.

Edit: I'm arguing on Sony's behalf. But I failed to integrate why you're arguing this case in the first place (see below)

You want Marvel to have the rights back to make a better quality Spider-Man film -- that's your desire -- but it feels like we're warping what's realistic to create a scenario where that's going to happen.

Again, this has absolutely no factual basis in reality.

Facts: bane of the visionary.  Why do you hate vision. 

He wasn't a very good Avenger.

 :why_so_serious:

Right now SM is making decent money for Sony but there's a lot of weight on its shoulders. As the WSJ article mentions, Sony is banking HARD on it, not just this one, but they have 2 sequels planned, and 3 spin offs so this is a very critical film. Anyway, the opening weekend had a solid gross at 92$ million, we'll see what kind of legs it has.

I'm not sure what you find unrealistic - that a more broadly liked movie tends to generate more money than similar movies that are not so well liked, or that people were critical of biological web shooters, etc....  Either way, we clearly disagree.

It's best not to reply when he says things like that.

I think that sort of nonsense is driven by hugely inflated view of the value and quality of the comic book IP that he likes, as opposed to the value of 'half way decent filmmakers doing a thing'.

SM is the everyman character with awesome superpowers who married a supermodel.

Even the movie versions have the women just falling over themselves to be with him.

The everyman character usually rises up to get things the everyman reading/watching the story can't really get.  That is the nature of the everyman story - going from zero to hero.

No... that's not it at all. The nature of an everyman hero is resolving problems using only his wits and the resources available to him that anyone around him would have access to. The thing that distinguishes him is that he isn't distinguished in some way, unlike a Hero's Journey prototype who has some special ability that sets them apart. I'm thinking roles as played by Harrison Ford and John McClaine pre-contemporary Die Hard.

Spider-Man is *not* an everyman hero. His super powers alone eliminate him from that classification. He's classified as a street-level hero. He helps the little guy when he isn't put on a team like the Avengers.

Now, he DOES deal with balancing everyday issues a teenager / young adult might deal with, such as his relationships, lack of money, student obligations, etc.

You are absolutely technically correct.  No Super Hero is going to be a true everyman in the classic literature sense.  The presence of Superpowers is pretty much a nix to the idea of the true everyman.  There are a few everymen in comics (Rick Jones), but no heroes.

However, BEFORE Peter was biten, he was the everyman.  After being biten, as you point out, he continues to deal with the problems of everyday life.  The audience is intended to relate to his problems.  He is intended to be the Superhero version of the everyman.  You're intended to think, "If I had Superpowers, my life could be like his..."

My point was: This is different than Tony Stark.  The authors of Iron Man did not generally think the audience was going to relate to a rich tech genius that was a major cog in the military industrial machine.  He was intended to be a foreign character - it was pretty much the entire point of Iron Man.  Remember who was reading comics in the 60s and 70s and ask yourself what they thought of rich people that built weapons.  It wasn't until they started to break the character down in Demon in a Bottle that they tried to make his life relatable to the readers - and even then it was mostly envisioned that people reading would be familiar with his trials from seeing others, rather than themselves, going through similar issues.  Now, they've embraced a duality to them - you're supposed to despise his tendency to take control and impose his will while wishing you had the good things in his life.  With Stark, you're intended to think, "If I could choose to be a hero, I'd want to have his life, but I'd do it better."

Very different ways to relate to the character.

Everyman super genius.

I think you're taking advantage of shifting definitions based on your earlier ambiguity of meaning. I think we both agree Peter deals with everyday problems in his personal life, and I think we'll both agree on Spider-Man's popularity with audiences. The problems Peter faces in and out of costume are different though are often intertwined for more drama. Calling him an "Everyman Hero" is a bit messy from my perspective.

I'm not really talking about Iron Man anymore -- I agree with you that Spider-Man is closer to the common person, and that Stark's current popularity is a direct result of the Iron Man movies and not his comic book incarnation.

Well Edgar Wright has stepped down from directing Ant-Man.  Not sure what to think about that.  I love Wrights work but I could see where he may have a problem sticking to whatever style and tone that Marvel wants for the film.  I bet if the movie was a stand alone and not hooked into the MCU there probably wouldn't have been any issues.  The cast is still solid though.

This is bad for two reasons: The first being that Wright is a great director who really fought for this movie and the second is that it means marvel isn't going to take any chances in tone and style of their films beyond ant man such as dr strange.

This is a bit of a weird duck situation.  Wright wrote the film ~ 2006 when the MCU was just taking shape.  The story has been forced to evolve as the MCU evolved.  I'd have loved to see Wright direct this film, but I'm going to wait to see the new path before I get too worried.

I would be surprised if this did not result in a delay of the release date, though.

I find it hard to care given that most of his movies are bad.

I also have trouble seeing it as trouble until I know more about why it happened. Remember the original director of Thor 2 was similarly fired / let go for "creative differences." In general Marvel takes the view that individual directors and actors aren't as important as the properties - a view I think is wise.

It seems silly to me to say this indicates that Marvel won't deviate in tone and style when Guardians is about to come out. Scott Pilgrim is stylistically out there but the rest of Wright's movies aren't, and tonally they aren't any weirder than James Gunn stuff.

According to Latin Review,  A few weeks ago Marvel took Wright's script and had some in house writer's work on it.  When it came back Wright decided he didn't like it and walked away from the project. 

This also goes along with rumors that the project was in production limbo because of Wright taking too much time to get things going.

Marvel has had nothing but good relations with directors from past movies, so this is probably less of a "DOOM!" situation then it looks like.

Right after I posed the above I saw that Goddard has left Daredevil and Whedon twitting something interesting... That changes my concern level.  If Wright, Goddard and Whedon are all taking positions along these lines, it says something substantial.

Goddard leaving has more to do with him doing The Sinister Six then anything.

What was the Whedon tweet?  cant just cliffhanger us with that bit of news.

The Marvel Studios has a history of treating its film talent just as well as it has treated its comic talent: at best with indifference, at worst with contempt. Marvel Studios underpaid (or did their best to underpay) directors and actors on the logic that "Who really cares who the actor is; people will come to see our IP".

To date, that worked out fine. The Marvel Studios movies have been immensely successful, creating great profile for the actors who signed up to multi-film deals. For actors who wanted that boost, or wanted the guarantee of regular blockbuster work that would turn into better paying work elsewhere, it was an acceptable deal.

Directors are easier to replace - if one wouldn't play ball, it was easy enough to find another who would.

However, now that Marvel Studios has been so successful, it's much harder for them to try to lowball pay and it also appears that they are less and less likely to give directors much control over their films.

If you want links about some of this, I wrote a blog entry in 2010 before a lot of the Marvel films came out (http://evilasahobby.com/2010/09/09/why-marvel-studios-needs-to-pay-up/); also before "The Avengers" was such a massive hit.

That all somewhat conveniently skips over the fact that RDJ has been one of, if not the highest paid actor in recent years thanks mainly to playing Iron Man. Also, in regards to your blog post, replacing Terrence Howard and Edward Norton were both good calls. I'm also perfectly ok with replacing Goddard with Steven S. DeKnight on Daredevil. If Goddard wants to go focus on an unnecessary spin-off of an unnecessary reboot I guess we'll see what he can accomplish when he's not sucking at Whedon or Abrams' teats.

As far as the Wright thing goes, it's a shame since I really enjoy his stuff. That said, after 8 years of talk about this movie I not entirely surprised that ultimately things didn't work out.

RDJ got paid so much because marvel/disney needed him badly, he is the reason they have this movie empire.  They are sorta stuck in a weird place now though, people know marvel movies are big so they are going to expect big paychecks if they are an established actor/director and marvel is going to be reluctant.  Also the bigger name director the more control they will want but the better marvel does the less control they will want to give.  However if they can't secure big names behind their movies, the quality will definitely suffer.

It was just a pic of Whedon holding up a cornetto.

These movies don't need "big name" directors. Few movies do. Look at who is directing blockbusters these days - you have Michael Bay, then a bunch of people you've never heard of. Godzilla is Gareth Edwards. Captain America is the Russo brothers.

What these sorts of movies needs is a professional, competent steward. The Marvel movies with big-name talent behind them have been no better than the others. (I'm thinking specifically of Iron Man 3 and Thor - I couldn't even watch Iron Man 3, first Marvel movie I just turned off) Much of the movies are determined before there is even a script written. That's just the nature of these sorts of films.

If Marvel was aiming for high art then this might be an issue, but Marvel is producing people-pleasing consumer goods.

They need good directors and good talent.  Look at all the bad super hero movies.  They just need good ones that can buy into the Marvel vision and bring it to life, like Whedon, rather than ones that need to make their own thing.

I don't often agree with Margalis but he's right here, as is Marvel.  People aren't going to see <big name actor> in a <big name director> movie. They're going to see a Marvel movie about a Marvel IP.

So long as Marvel keeps up with a good quality of directors, actors and writers that's enough to continue producing the same quality they have been they'll be in a good spot.  So long as the public isn't tired of superheroes.  The next movie could be put out with a lead actor who's a guy whose only credit are Downy commercials and as long as he's not incompetent and able to get in to character it'll be good.  How quickly we've forgotten the "Who?" of Chris Hemsworth.

As others have said, they don't need big name actors or directors, just look at the people involved in the Winter Soldier. The Russos' prior directing experience outside of TV was "You, Me, and Dupree". The guys the wrote the screenplay had pretty much only done the Narnia movies before that. Even Chris Evans didn't have a huge amount of success (http://boxofficemojo.com/people/chart/?id=chrisevans.htm) prior to doing these movies. James Gunn, the guy who wrote and directed Guardians of the Galaxy doesn't exactly have a stellar resume either.

Hell, it's not even like Edgar Wright was a big name director they needed to bend over backwards to hold onto. His highest grossing movie was Hot Fuzz which made $80 million worldwide. If I was one of the Marvel execs I'd probably be a bit worried that Ant Man would end up being another great Edgar Wright movie that nobody watched.

Counterpoint, Nolan-batman

They need AT LEAST some range of aesthetics/directorial styles/approaches. A house style for every character, every movie, will get this killed immediately. I can see one "house Marvel" movie a year, not five. But five different movies in style and theme that happen to feature Marvel characters who might someday interact? I'm in.

James Gunn posted this on his facebook page about the whole thing:



"Sometimes you have friends in a relationship. You love each of them dearly as individuals and think they're amazing people. When they talk to you about their troubles, you do everything you can to support them, to keep them together, because if you love them both so much doesn't it make sense they should love each other?

But little by little you realize, at heart, they aren't meant to be together - not because there's anything wrong with either of them, but they just don't have personalities that mesh in a comfortable way. They don't make each other happy. Although it's sad to see them split, when they do, you're surprisingly relieved, and excited to see where their lives take them next.

It's easy to try to make one party "right" and another party "wrong" when a breakup happens, but it often isn't that simple. Or perhaps it's even more simple than that - not everyone belongs in a relationship together. It doesn't mean they're not wonderful people.

And that's true of both Edgar Wright and Marvel. One of them isn't a person, but I think you get what I mean."

Word going around that Josh Brolin is "voicing" Thanos.  Which prolly means he's gonna be CGI Hulk-style.

I'm very much ok with this.  Thanos not looking like the huge fucking monster he is would bug me.

Just an intersting conspiracy theory....

Bleeding Cool has a couple articles up that pretty much accuse Marvel of putting the characters they do not control in the movies in the can. 

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2014/05/29/would-marvel-really-cancel-fantastic-four-to-snub-fox// (http://www.bleedingcool.com/2014/05/29/would-marvel-really-cancel-fantastic-four-to-snub-fox//)
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2014/05/23/reboots-guardians-and-no-more-mutants/ (http://www.bleedingcool.com/2014/05/23/reboots-guardians-and-no-more-mutants/)

I noted that the decision to replace Peter Parker with Doc Ock as Spider-man around the times of the new movies was an interesting choice....

The comics buying audience is so small these days that what Marvel does with its comics is pretty much irrelevant. The comics don't drive the movies and the movie successes don't rub off onto the comics.

The role of the comics when it comes to the movies is to build awareness and establish stories over a period of decades. Turning Peter Parker into Doc Ock for a year makes absolutely no difference. 99% of people watching the movies have no idea wtf is going on in the comics.

The FF has been considered a weak, troubled book for a very long time. The general consensus among comics pundits is that the series just doesn't work any more.

As far as leaving mutants off of covers and such - there has been a lot more crossover with X-Men and Avengers recently. There is a book that was about the Avengers and X-Men teaming up, and Wolverine was an Avenger. I think Spider-Man has also been more actively involved with the Avengers. So I don't buy that Marvel is trying to bury the Fox/Sony owned properties.

I don't think Marvel cares too much.  Even if they got the properties back tomorrow, they already have a full plate with their current line up.

I'd strongly disagree.  If a magic wand was waved and they received the Fantastic Four, X-men and Spider-man rights back today, Marvel would be tearing up the plans they have spread out on their walls and looking for how they could incorporate those characters into their stable as quickly as possible.  If Spider-man reverted today, we'd see a Marvel run Spider-man on screen by 2019 - and yes, that is factoring in the very strong burn out factor for the overutilized character. 

Spider-man sure, but the FF? Nah.

No offense but that doesn't sound like the Marvel Studios we have now.  Yes they would want them back, but why shoehorn them in right away.  Most of the viewing public wouldn't look at it as Marvel making their own Spidey movie.  It would be more like, Jesus Christ.. the third Spidey Reboot in 20 years? 

They would be better off doing what they are doing now, and then maybe in 10 years busting out another Spidey/X-men.  As popular as Spidey and the X-Men are.  They are making bank branding out new characters and they have faith with movie goers to keep doing that.  And seriously.. I am more than happy watching the Avengers, their solo movies, and upcoming things like Guardians then I am the other Marvel movies right now.

They wouldn't need to do a full reboot.  Just let them cameo in other movies to establish they are around.

Exactly this.   Having Peter Parker show up at a Tony Stark press conference to take photos for the Bugle, or name dropping / image dropping Exaviour's School for Gifted Youngsters / Baxter Building into upcoming movies would go a long way to easily establishing the existance of various people into the MCU without needing to throw out another character movie.

Given that there are suggestions that the Inhumans are going to be added to the film stable, I'm pretty certain that Marvel would prioritise the Fantastic Four's inclusion if they could.

That's true, but only because he got in on the ground floor. He's the exception who got a better deal around Marvel needing him to play Iron Man (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/marvel-moolah-robert-downey-jr-avengers-iron-man-324639) and to act as the lynchpin for buiding up an eventual Avengers movie.


In contrast, Downey picked up US$50m+ from "The Avengers". And then there's the talk that he renegotiated further after "Iron Man 3" when he was out of contract.

Yes, I know - I'd love to make US$2m from a single project too. But it's in context, RDJ is the only actor who's really making serious dollars from the Marvel films. Once Marvel Studios showed the films could be a success, they've played hardball with everyone else.

Which is working for now. But it also means that actors aren't likely to have much loyalty to Marvel Studios when it comes to contract renegotiation. Meanwhile directors (who get paid less than that) are finding that Marvel is increasingly binding their hands in terms of what they can do, which makes signing on to the pain of a blockbuster film even less worthwhile.

Though now that those actors are known for the roles, their next contracts can be tougher negotiations.

They're surely prepared for finding replacement actors for their characters, the question is whether they are going to do a piecemeal strategy or a clean slate one. I suspect the former because it would be bad business to bind yourself to the entire group of actors.

Downey's going to be the first one to get too old for the role (or have him acting as Tony and letting CGI take care of the action). We'll see what happens after Avengers 2 -- if Downey stars in an Iron Man 4, I expect him for Avengers 3, and that'll probably be it for him.

Downey did make an amazing deal and profited immensely from it.

When the multi film deals end Disney has plenty of other characters they can use instead, not even Iron Man has to be in every avengers episode. And honestly, who gives a fuck about Hawkeye?

For the actors the advantage of doing these movies is building their recognition levels so they rise up the pecking order for other movies. None were on the A List for pay before avengers, abd Downey only gets paid so highly because they didn't lock him in at the start.

This. The actors will do their 2-3 movies, come out of it as bankable stars or at least as big enough names that they get plenty of other work and be a little richer in the bargain. Why wouldn't actors sign on for this? It's the perfect career move.

As for directors, there's no reason for an up and coming director NOT to do these films. Edgar Wright unfortunately doesn't NEED to do them - he's made a career off of smaller budget movies with more creative control. For guys that don't have that, taking a job on a Marvel movie means they'll likely get paid AND get more work either from Marvel or somewhere else because they were involved with a big budget success. Until the box office magic goes away (and it doesn't really show any signs of letting up for at least 2-3 more years), it's great work if you can get it.

He also did an amazing job, and Marvel profited immensely from it.  You could easily argue that the whole Marvel master plan has only worked because RDJ's Iron Man was such an awesome character, people were willing to transfer that perception to the rest of the stable.

Look at Thor and Captain America's first movies, or either of the attempts at Hulk.  Without RDJ knocking it out of the park, would we even be having this conversation?  Or would we be talking about how it would be cool if they stopped making one-off superhero movies and tied together the whole mileau, like X-Men but with more than just Wolverine getting a solo turn?

--Dave

Er, every time I hear people comparing Thor and Cap poorly to Iron Man, I really, really wonder what the fuck.

Both Thor and Iron Man were fantastic translations of comic guff to a mainstream audience.  I would argue that both the leads were just as good as RDJ, frankly, who really only had to play himself.  Again.

Hulk, of course, differs wildly and is a fair target.

I actually liked the second hulk movie.  Not sure why it gets so much flak.  I mean, it wasn't like it was a really great movie or anything, but it also did a good job of channeling 'comic book hulk' onto the screen, and I mostly had fun following along.

Yes, but  it was entirely confused in the focus, mostly due to the first one.  Also, Abomination wasn't really all that interesting really.

I find both "Thor" and "Captain America" to be very thin films, at least in terms of keeping my interest. I can certainly pick at "Iron Man" but RDJ and Jeff Bridges make that film a lot more interesting.

Marvel Studios' current strategy is great in the short term, and they've proved it works. Will they really be able to keep making films 10+ years into the future if they keep it up? I'm not sure they will. As I said, it reminds me of how they used to treat their comic book staff - "Screw you guys, you're work for hire, no-one cares who writes and inks Spider-Man provided the comics keep coming out." It's not a great way to keep talent on board.

OTOH, I do see them basically building in 'back-ups' for their characters. RDJ steps out, Don Cheadle can be War Machine in the Avengers. Chris Evans trying to push harder on a deal? Sebastian Stan can take over.

This.

And also, given everyone has rightly pointed out that IM2, IM3, and Thor 2 were all somewhere between not great and terrible, if you didn't like Captain America and Thor, you'd basically be saying Marvel have made 2 or 3 good films from 8 attempts.

People have been pointing out that Thor 2 wasn't very good?

The only way to solve this will be for everyone to list out which Marvel films they liked and which ones they didn't, and eventually we'll come to an amicable consensus.

*plants his flag* I like 'em all!  Come at me bro's!

A > IM > T > CA > CA2 >>>>>> IM3 > IM2 > T2

...wut?

See, that's actually kind of my point.  Not a lot of people quote stats or box office or bums on seats or anything tangible.  It's usually 'I didn't like it as much' which, in the grand scheme of things, means fuckall.  Sure, none of the other stats mean much either (see:  Star Wars), but at least it attempts to compare like for like.

I would actually argue that both Thor and Cap were much more IMPORTANT films for the Avengers setup than Iron Man 1 or 2 ever was, since they had stuff that tied directly into the story, but whatever.  People LIKE RDJ despite his somewhat average acting chops on display in the Marvel films and that counts for more to most.  I didn't find Thor to be 'thin' at all, coming at it, as it did, in the Shakespearean Mould and I thought that for what should have been utter bilge, Captain America ended up being far cleverer and MUCH more endearing than one could ever hope for.  Also, everyone involved took it Seriously, which has helped every single Marvel Movie in the new mould.

If you look at the DC attempts and what the 'real' people have said off camera, you really get the feeling that the reason they Can't seem to do it, versus Marvel 'yes we can' is simply due to that fact ;  They hire people who want to do it Seriously, as opposed to the 'Hey, who here's been laid' crowd at DC.

Though if we're going to go on personal preference on actors, I would posit that putting that horrendous bitch in as Pepper Potts pretty much ruined all the Iron Man movies and Avengers.   :why_so_serious:

Liked:                                         
Hell Yeah!: A,  IM, T
Yeah!: CA, CA2
Worth seeing in the movies:  T2
Worth seeing: IM2, IM3

Didn't Like:
Doh:
WTF?!:

IM3?

Of all the Avengers-tied Marvel movies, I enjoyed them all but the weakest were clearly IM 3 and Thor 2. At least IM3 had RDJ hamming it up as Tony Stark while Thor's most redeeming feature was Tom Hiddlestone's Loki. The other films were really good with Winter Soldier being a little better than Avengers, IMO.

The thing about the Thor and Captain America movies is that they should not have worked. The first Thor movie I especially give a lot of credit because I thought there was NO WAY those characters would make a translatable film that non-geeks liked that also didn't utterly piss off comic geeks and Thor fans. But it did, which is why the second felt so bland in comparison. I enjoyed it but it was mostly forgettable save Loki's bits. Captain America is a character that can so easily be badly written and badly played into the most boring Boy Scout in the world, but thanks to the framework set up by Brubaker (and to a lesser extent Mark Waid) in the previous decade's worth of Captain America's books, it wasn't. The directors and screenwriters took the material they were basing it on very seriously and it showed.

You don't have to be a fan of the comics to make good comics movies. You just have to respect that the material is being made into a movie for a reason - it's popular because there have been some stories told over the years that people like. You don't have to cater to the geeks and the nerd rage, but treating them with disdain is a sure fire way to make a movie that appeals to no one.

Box office-wise Cap 1 and Thor 1 weren't particularly successful. Even without adjusting for inflation or 3D or taking into account the growth of the worldwide market, Cap's worldwide numbers are right around those of X-men Origins: Wolverine and Fantastic Four. Adjusted for inflation, Cap 1 was about as successful domestically as the first Hulk movie. Thor 1 was only marginally more successful than Cap 1.

Ouch !

 :grin:

Marvel took the risk with those movies.  They knew they weren't going to be box office smashes, but look at how much the sequels brought in.  Even X-Men didn't bring in huge money when it came out.  Also don't forget those movies led to Avengers and that shit made bank.  The Amount of money that Avengers made alone would have funded 8-9 Marvel movies.  I guess the real test now is how Guardians does.  It'll be interesting to see if the goodwill that Marvel has with moviegoers will get them into the theaters.

"Avengers" being as successful as it was took pretty much everyone by surprise. Up to that point, Marvel Studio's success was based on how well the Iron Man films did, with "Thor", "Hulk" and "Captain America" not reaching that level.

Also, I enjoyed IM3 for the fact that it's done something new and interesting with the Marvel characters, and that it's a Shane Black film. "Thor 2" (and "Thor", for that matter) were enjoyable for Loki above all else.

"GotG" is indeed the acid test for Marvel Studios. Will Han Solo: The Movie bring people in to watch it?