The Marvels...done your MCU homework yet?

[Monterey Jack]

"Do-over, do-over...!"

[AndyDursin]

[Monterey Jack]

The fact that they're dumping all eight episodes of Echo at the same time on D+ -- instead of their usual week-to-week strategy for MCU and Star Wars shows -- proves they're treating it as a write-off.

[Monterey Jack]

Disney optimism circa 2019 vs. Disney reality circa 2023...

[Monterey Jack]

What a novel concept...!

[AndyDursin]

Owen Gleiberman's kind of weird post-mortem on Marvel in Variety speaks to the bed Disney made for itself.

Time isn't going to be kind to any of these films. NONE of them have the spark or cinematic quality of the original SUPERMAN movies (first two), Raimi's SPIDER-MANs, Nolan's Batman films...the best of them to me are "very good" but none of them are great, and the fact that they don't exist on their own terms...especially the pictures that came during the ENDGAME years and everything afterwards...is going to limit their appeal to future generations, who won't want to "sit through all 30!" just to get a buzz or try to follow a plot line so wrapped up in itself they started dropping story elements in the middle of movies they didn't belong (like the whole Tom Holland section of IRON MAN 3 or the CAPTAIN AMERICA flick that was more an AVENGERS film).

But that's what the formula was intended to do -- keep everyone going "to the next one!" -- and it worked, until it didn't. When they became more interested in release dates and promoting their next movie before getting it right in the project they were making, that's when things really fell apart. Just as it did for STAR WARS.

We all know DEADPOOL will make money because Reynolds will do his snark thing and if they're smart, they'll let him poke fun of the whole franchise now that it's in a down cycle -- but Disney isn't going to hit the high points of the super-hero zeitgeist ever again. If they manage X-Men and Fantastic Four smartly and start concentrating on the core heroes again, maybe they can bring it back to a reliable fiscal model -- but the days of one of these doing ENDGAME dollars is clearly over.

[Monterey Jack]

But that's what the formula was intended to do -- keep everyone going "to the next one!" -- and it worked, until it didn't. When they became more interested in release dates and promoting their next movie before getting it right in the project they were making, that's when things really fell apart. Just as it did for STAR WARS.

This is a virus infecting the industry as a whole...remember when the latest James Bond movie would tell a satisfying, self-contained espionage/adventure story, one that didn't matter if it was your first Bond movie or fifteenth to understand and enjoy? We hit the Daniel Craig era, and they reverse-engineered it into a half-assed "miniseries" where you DID have to remember specific plot points from the earlier movies to get any sort of dramatic satisfaction from the one you were currently watching. This is not what kept the franchise viable for the forty+ years that preceded Craig's tenure in the role, and will make his films a hard sell in the aftermarket of "Watching a random Bond movie on ABC/TBS" that's keep interest in it going since the 1970s. Only Casino Royale and Skyfall function as stand-alone adventures, the rest of the Craig movies are incoherent unless you do a series deep-dive and watch them all in rapid succession (and are pretty dissatisfying even if do watch them all, taking a dour, funereal tone that's the antithesis of what made the series so endearing for years and years).

What Disney's done to Star Wars is even worse, taking a generation's great CINEMATIC saga and turning it into an endless grind of generic streaming "product" that only exists to drop breadcrumbs to lead you to the next miniseries. Back in 2013, the prospect of more SW was enticing (especially to blow the stink off of the Prequels), but now it's about as thrilling as going out to collect your mail.

[AndyDursin]

Exactly right. What they're missing is the thinking will eventually turn off the casual viewer and make them less likely to come back.

The next Bond really needs to go back to a brighter, more escapist tone with standalone story lines. It served the series well for decades -- new settings, new villains, new girls always got viewers going even if the formula remained the same. Not everyone needs a "franchise" and I think the fans turning their back on Marvel might help herald a return to that direction.

[Monterey Jack]

Can you say "Desperate", boys and girls...?

[AndyDursin]

Deadline has become an absolute shill-house for Disney -- witness this ALL OUT RAVE for this movie despite it sitting in the 50% range even amongst woke movie critics on the Tomato Meter.

It's a TRIUMPH I tell you!!

https://deadline.com/2023/11/the-marvel ... nt-3908269

[Monterey Jack]

Yep, only us stinky men hate it...

[Monterey Jack]

[AndyDursin]

Even with your contribution, they couldn't hit $50 million!

https://deadline.com/2023/11/box-office ... 235599363/

UPDATED SATURDAY, refresh for more…: The last-minute push for The Marvels with an appearance by star Brie Larson on The Tonight Show and at a theater in NYC post-actors strike have not weekend moved grosses any higher for what is Marvel Studios‘ The Marvels which is seeing a Friday in the vicinity of where we expected it at $21.5M and a weekend opening between $47M-$52M, the lowest ever for Disney‘s Marvel Cinematic Universe. Oh, also, The Marvels gets one of several post-pandemic B CinemaScores from audiences after Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (B+), Thor Love & Thunder (B+), Eternals (B), and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (B). Disney’s official numbers are coming soon.

[Monterey Jack]

It's noteworthy that a large family walked out before the mid-credits scene for this (featuring a terrible CGI recreation of an actor who was done-up proper with prosthetic effects seventeen years ago). And for a movie that was barely 93 minutes WITHOUT the credits roll!

There are also so many clips from the previous movie, Mrs. Marvel and WandaVision I expected to see a "Skip Recap" button pop up at the bottom-right of the screen.

[Eric W.]

It's toast. No interest.