The Fantastic Four: First Steps - Frontloaded Opening Can't Match SUPERMAN

[Monterey Jack]

It's telling that Sinners and F1 (both original films aimed at adult audiences) will have box-office totals higher than all three MCU movies released in 2025. Who would have EVER predicted that back in 2015?

[AndyDursin]

This is the point.

Its boring. Its played out. Sooner or later the audience is going to get tired of this genre.

And even if this WAS done well, its still the THIRD time they have made a movie about these characters.

Maybe the XMen will fare better for Disney but the same thing is going to apply there too....the 3rd time around (with how many films in the can before them, 8? 9? I forget) doesnt mean people will be running to see the same thing all over again.

Plus any notion DisneyMarvel "will do right by the comic books" has been squashed after years of woke retellings and adaptations.

Calling it right now: they are going to throw a pile of money at Ryan Reynolds for a Deadpool cameo in the XMen and play it up to save face.

They need to do something because FF was supposed to be THE movie that grounded the upcoming Marvel slate and its not doing that at all.

[Monterey Jack]

The manuscript is the MCU, James Caan is the box office, and Kathy Bates represents the increasingly agitated and desperate Marvel fanbase over the last year:

[AndyDursin]

[Monterey Jack]

This is the reason why the next Spider-Man keeps announcing new cast additions on pretty much a weekly basis...Disney's gotta be in all-hands-on-deck panic mode, considering that all three MCU movies released this year will have grossed barely half of what the Chinese animated blockbuster Ne Zha 2 has taken in since January. And you know they're gonna break the bank in enticing Ryan Reynolds back for a big cameo in the next Avengers.

[AndyDursin]

Yep, and the problem there is the audience that goes to DEADPOOL isn't necessarily the hardcore MCU fanboy and certainly not family audience that populates the Deadpool crowd either. Paying him unlimited gobs of cash to show up is just going to be an attempt to throw his audience a bone.

Disney is in a rut with this genre and I think there's no way to recapture the magic either. Their best solution is:

a) recognize they have misfired badly since ENDGAME and their MCU has hit a wall

b) realize even an X-MEN reboot isn't going to lead to some $1 billion worldwide gross -- that franchise was played out by Fox, resulted in over a DOZEN movies or side films, and has already been rebooted. A new cast that represents the 3rd time around for those characters is much more likely to result in FF grosses than anything resembling Spidey or the Avengers

c) Save face by bringing back as many original stars as possible (already done -- see Downey, Evans, etc). This will drive up the cost and isn't a long-term solution to their woes either, but hey, at least they can say "we're back!" even if we know they aren't

d) use the next AVENGERS as a launching pad for whatever they're doing NEXT, not trying to legitimize what misfires they've already made

The fact it has Downey and says AVENGERS will get some people to go -- but given how badly these last movies have done, I see it outgrossing the meager likes of FF and THUNDERBOLTS but not matching whatever they did before or coming close to that. Just bringing Downey back was an admission that they're desperate and have no other options.

[Monterey Jack]

As much as I despised the phrase "The New Normal" in 2020, studios have to acknowledge, with rare exceptions, $500 mil is the new billion, especially for superhero movies. The Pandemic choked off the lucrative China market, and even in other countries, most recent superhero flicks have barely doubled their already anemic U.S. grosses. They could at least keep the genre's head above water if they pivoted to reasonable budgets, but Disney, in particular, seems allergic to spending any less than $200 million on these, and I'm sure the next Avengers will probably exceed $600 million by the time the final tally is revealed, which is obscene. Utilizing the usual "Must make twice what it cost to break even and three times to earn a profit" measuring stick, that'd have to make almost TWO BILLION, and only one MCU movie has come close to that in the last five years (Spider-Man: No Way Home). Spidey's really the last breathing character in the MCU people will roll out for with any degree of enthusiasm, which is why they're (over)loading the new movie with as many D+ characters and B-listers as possible. It's like that Simpsons episode where Homer was given carte blanche to design the "ultimate car", and it ended up an $80,000 monstrosity that bankrupted his half-brother Herb's company.

[Monterey Jack]

[Monterey Jack]

This is what Doomsday is gonna be like...

[Edmund Kattak]

The big question is: Was Alan Cumming acting with "mystery actors" in ATLNATA or PRAGUE? Talk about an even more dystopic experience.