Marvel Universe (Thar be spoilers ahead.)

[Sir T]

Made in 1951. Just saying.

[jgsugden]

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!

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.

[eldaec]

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.

[jgsugden]

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.

[Lakov_Sanite]

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.

[Margalis]

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.

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.

[Velorath]

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.

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.

[Merusk]

Made in 1951. Just saying.

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.

[Evildrider]

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

[UnSub]

Marvel, before Disney, said that the entire collection is worth more to them together than if it were broken up.  

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.

[jgsugden]

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. 

[Lakov_Sanite]

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

[eldaec]

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.

[jgsugden]

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

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. 

[sigil]

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?

[jgsugden]

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

[Pennilenko]

 

[K9]

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. 

[Sir T]

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

[Lakov_Sanite]

Requires at least one good meltdown for that.

[HaemishM]

Imagine if 2018 had Civil War I

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.

[jgsugden]

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.

[Lakov_Sanite]

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

[Merusk]

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

[Raguel]

the comic version was disappointing

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.

[HaemishM]

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.

[Raguel]

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. 

[HaemishM]

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

Actually, it's both.

[Merusk]

Imagine if 2018 had Civil War I

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.

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.

[jgsugden]

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. 

[eldaec]

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

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

[Lakov_Sanite]

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.

[HaemishM]

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.

[Lakov_Sanite]

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....

[Merusk]

, people spent a lot of time talking about it in the comics world,

This right here is where you torpedoed your own argument.