The MCU - Marvel Cinematic Universe

[JNHFan2000 2,981]

New trailer tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

[Edmilson 7,626]

According to Forbes, Disney spent $276 million on Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania after some tax reimbursement from the UK government. Since studios only take approx. half of a movie's box office, this means they had a $38 million loss on Quantumania.

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinereid/2024/04/19/ant-man-and-the-wasp-quantumania-set-to-blow-its-budget-as-costs-surge-to-nearly-330-million/

[Tallguy 3,527]

I've been seeing that headline a lot lately. I don't get how a movie that came out last year is "set to blow its budget" now. Is the movie somehow doing worse than it did a year ago when it was a bomb?

[JNHFan2000 2,981]

 

[Edmilson 7,626]

I like that Wolvie now has comic-accurate suit, but tbh I think older Jackman looks a bit ridiculous in it. I dunno. Movie looks fun though. 

 

12 hours ago, Tallguy said:

I've been seeing that headline a lot lately. I don't get how a movie that came out last year is "set to blow its budget" now. Is the movie somehow doing worse than it did a year ago when it was a bomb?

This writer from Forbes has been revealing the massive budgets on many recent Hollywood movies over the last few months. Aside from the Quantumania I posted, there's another one from Indy 5 which I posted on the respective thread:

 

Plus another one from Universal's Fast X:

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinereid/2024/04/17/universal-reveals-over-budget-fast-x-cost-nearly-half-a-billion-dollars/

 

And just to say she isn't completely negative, here she calculates the humongous profits that Infinity War and Endgame made for Disney despite their monstrous budgets:

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinereid/2023/09/01/revealed-the-two-avengers-movies-that-made-14-billion-of-profit-for-disney/

 

Either way, the fact is that, partially due to filming during the pandemic, movie costs have grown exponentially over the last few years. It's no wonder Bob Iger wants to cut costs on the Disney productions.

[JNHFan2000 2,981]

There's a wider shot in the trailer where there are a lot of people standing in frame, there's some fun cameo's there that I didn't expect to see.

[Dr. Rick 1,158]

Time stamp?

[Edmilson 7,626]

Is this a giant Ant-Man helmet? If so, does that mean they went for an apocalyptic version of the main MCU universe in the future, where Ant-Man's giant armor is lying on the ground? 

 

 

Also, for a moment I thought this James McAvoy's version of Charles Xavier, but then re-watching it and this character is clearly a female. Maybe one of Doctor Strange's magicians? Since on the other scene they're going through a Dr Strange magic portal.

 

[JNHFan2000 2,981]

The wide shot I mentioned is posted above by Edmilson. You can see Lady Deathstrike & Azazel.

 

@Edmilson that's Cassandra Nova played by Emma Corrin. Xavier's twin sister.

It's been revealed.

[Edmilson 7,626]

Every cameo from the trailer:

 

https://comicbookmovie.com/deadpool/deadpool-wolverine/deadpool-wolverine-every-major-marvel-cameo-in-the-new-trailer---possible-spoilers-a210574

 

And 7 Easter Eggs and revelations:

 

https://comicbookmovie.com/deadpool/deadpool-wolverine/deadpool-wolverine-7-biggest-easter-eggs-reveals-and-spoilers-in-the-new-trailer-a210575

 

Spoilers in both links, so be careful.

 

Anyway...

Spoiler

On the second link people are speculating that the Wolverine from this movie is not the same from the Fox movies (whether it's the original timeline or the First Class timeline). Firstly because that one died in Logan, and also this "new" Wolverine is from a reality where he failed to save it from being destroyed or something - perhaps Cassandra Nova was the responsible? Also, people are saying it's from this reality that the Beats from the The Marvels post-credits scene is from.

 

[Jay 37,516]

[Edmilson 7,626]

Comic book writer Mark Millar said on Twitter that Ant-Man's giant dead body from the Deadpool & Wolverine trailer could be a nod to his comic Old Man Logan. That book is set in an alternate reality where the Marvel villains attacked at once, killed almost every hero and Wolverine (after being unintentionally responsible for the death of the X-Men, courtesy of Mysterio), retired to a quiet life until being brought back in action for a final mission.

 

Interestingly, elements of that book were already used in 2017's Logan. This means that Hollywood writers and directors working on superhero movies only read, like, the same three or four comics in their lives.

[Edmilson 7,626]

Chris Hemsworth Takes Blame for ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ Failure: ‘I Got Caught Up in the Improv and the Wackiness’ and ‘Became a Parody of Myself’

 

It's not his sole fault. Waititi tried to be the most wacky and silly and stupid he could be and the movie became Ace Ventura with Superheroes.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,719]

Remind me again.

LOVE AND THUNDER.

Is that the one where Banner gets stranded on some planet, and is forced to fight?

[Tallguy 3,527]

23 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Remind me again.

LOVE AND THUNDER.

Is that the one where Banner gets stranded on some planet, and is forced to fight?

 

No, that's Ragnarok.

 

I continue to be baffled by the people that loved Ragnarok, but thought L&T was awful. Other than Ragnarok had Loki and Banner, what's the difference?

[Faleel 5,447]

30 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

 

No, that's Ragnarok.

 

I continue to be baffled by the people that loved Ragnarok, but thought L&T was awful. Other than Ragnarok had Loki and Banner, what's the difference?

Mark Mothersbaugh. And Led Zeppelin

[ddddeeee 267]

The humour in Ragnarok is almost always about character. 

 

In Ragnarok, there's a play depicting Loki's death. It's hilarious, but it tells you absolutely everything you need to know about Loki: he craves affection from his brother and father and has no idea how to go about it. Loki's arc and relationships are completely set up in that scene.

 

In Love and Thunder, there's a play scene depicting the events in Ragnarok because...people found the play scene funny in Ragnarok.

 

To me, the difference in those two scenes sums up the movies. Ragnarok is never laughing at Thor. He has a good story, learning to not make the same mistakes of his father while learning to lead. Loki, Valkyrie, Korg and Banner/Hulk's little arcs all revolve around Thor - he helps them all to become better people.

 

Love and Thunder laughs at Thor. He takes nothing seriously and is completely inept a lot of the time. The style of humour is similar in both movies, but the context is entirely different.

[mstrox 6,677]

I liked Love and Thunder a bit more than most, I think - but my biggest “problem” with it was that it was very episodic, so not extremely cohesive as a two hour movie. I also didn’t like the Olympus stuff, didn’t think it clicked as interesting or fun. 

[Mr. Who 924]

7 minutes ago, ddddeeee said:

The humour in Ragnarok is almost always about character. 

 

In Ragnarok, there's a play depicting Loki's death. It's hilarious, but it tells you absolutely everything you need to know about Loki: he craves affection from his brother and father and has no idea how to go about it. Loki's arc and relationships are completely set up in that scene.

 

In Love and Thunder, there's a play scene depicting the events in Ragnarok because...people found the play scene funny in Ragnarok.

 

To me, the difference in those two scenes sums up the movies. Ragnarok is never laughing at Thor. He has a good story, learning to not make the same mistakes of his father while learning to lead. Loki, Valkyrie, Korg and Banner/Hulk's little arcs all revolve around Thor - he helps them all to become better people.

 

Love and Thunder laughs at Thor. He takes nothing seriously and is completely inept a lot of the time. The style of humour is similar in both movies, but the context is entirely different.

I agree completely with this. While I prefer a more serious tone for Thor, I think ragnarok was great for the reasons stated above. In Love and Thunder Thor is an idiot whose character development is completely removed and he acts more like in the first film before he became worthy, destroying a whole city (in the prologue) because he’s an idiot etc.

[Edmilson 7,626]

46 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

 

No, that's Ragnarok.

 

I continue to be baffled by the people that loved Ragnarok, but thought L&T was awful. Other than Ragnarok had Loki and Banner, what's the difference?

I'm not a fan of either of them. Ragnarok was decent but I don't think it is in the upper echelon of MCU movies like most people think.

[Dr. Rick 1,158]

Here's a good video summing up the differences between the two.  Why one worked and the other did not.

 

 

 

[Yavar Moradi 2,650]

2 hours ago, mstrox said:

I liked Love and Thunder a bit more than most, I think - but my biggest “problem” with it was that it was very episodic, so not extremely cohesive as a two hour movie. I also didn’t like the Olympus stuff, didn’t think it clicked as interesting or fun. 

 

It was definitely missing something... like THIS scene inexplicably left on the cutting room floor!

 

Yavar

[Naïve Old Fart 9,719]

2 hours ago, Faleel said:

Mark Mothersbaugh. And Led Zeppelin

 

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO had Led Zep, and that was awesome.

[Edmilson 7,626]

Possible synopsis for Deadpool & Wolverine.

 

CAREFUL WITH SPOILERS!!!

 

Spoiler

"Not only will [Deadpool and Wolverine] be working to defeat a range of villains plaguing the Marvel universe, bub, but they’ll be gate-crashing the MCU franchise, too, and putting their own R-rated, 20th Century Fox-styled twist on some of our favorite moments from Phases 1-4!"

 

Source

[Naïve Old Fart 9,719]

This sounds amazing!

 

[Nick1Ø66 4,871]

On 1/5/2024 at 1:45 PM, Naïve Old Fart said:

 

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO had Led Zep, and that was awesome.

 

Well, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross actually, but awesome nonetheless.

[Edmilson 7,626]

Going forward, expect no more than 5 MCU productions (3 films and 2 TV shows) in a single year.

 

Marvel Will Release No More Than Three Movies and Two Shows Per Year, Bob Iger Says

 

This part is interesting:

 

Quote

Iger says Marvel has “a couple of good films in ’25 and then we’re heading to more ‘Avengers,’ which we’re extremely excited about,” adding: “Overall, I feel great about the slate. It’s something that I’ve committed to spending more and more time on. The team is one that I have tremendous confidence in and the IP that we’re mining, including all the sequels that we’re doing, is second to none.”

 

Officially, Marvel has not a couple but rather four movies slated for 2025:

• Captain America: Brave New World on February 14, 2025
• Thunderbolts* on May 5, 2025
• The Fantastic Four on July 25, 2025
• Blade on November 7, 2025

Then the next Avengers on May 1, 2026.

 

Iger's comment makes me think they'll postpone FF4 and Blade (whose production has been an absolute chaos since 2019).

 

Actually, the way he phrased ("a couple of good films in ’25 and then we’re heading to more ‘Avengers'") makes me suspect he will force Marvel to release Avengers before F4 and Blade.

 

After all, Disney and Marvel had an utterly disastrous 2023 and now need to rebuild their image as powerful figures in the box office, and what better way to do that with a new Avengers movie? As of now, this is more of a priority than another F4 reboot or even Blade for that matter (yeah, they introduced Mahershala Ali as Blade on Comic Con 2019, but still).

[Nick1Ø66 4,871]

1 hour ago, Edmilson said:

Going forward, expect no more than 5 MCU productions (3 films and 2 TV shows) in a single year.

 

I'm seeing a lot of comments online about how this is a "good thing". It's only a good thing if the 5 projects they release are, well, good. If the quality doesn't improve, they can cut it down to one a year and it won't matter.  There probably is something to "Superhero fatigue" but I think it's just as much "bad movie/TV shows" fatigue.

 

1 hour ago, Edmilson said:

Disney and Marvel had an utterly disastrous 2023 and now need to rebuild their image as powerful figures in the box office, and what better way to do that with a new Avengers movie?

 

The question is, do people really want an Avengers movie with the current Avengers?

[Groovygoth666 730]

25 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

The question is, do people really want an Avengers movie with the current Avengers?

 

Who are the current Avengers? 

[ddddeeee 267]

I think we're kidding ourselves if we choose to believe that an Avengers movie with Holland's Spider-Man, Hemsworth's Thor, Ruffalo's Hulk, Cumberbatch's Strange... isn't going to have a lot of appeal. That's before you consider Maguire, Garfield, Jackman.... It's past its heyday, but there'll be spikes for sure.

[Jurassic Shark 12,236]

4 minutes ago, ddddeeee said:

Garfield

 

Didn't they just premiere his own movie?

[Nick1Ø66 4,871]

16 minutes ago, Groovygoth666 said:

 

Who are the current Avengers? 

 

Exactly.

 

11 minutes ago, ddddeeee said:

I think we're kidding ourselves if we choose to believe that an Avengers movie with Holland's Spider-Man, Hemsworth's Thor, Ruffalo's Hulk, Cumberbatch's Strange... isn't going to have a lot of appeal. That's before you consider Maguire, Garfield, Jackman.... It's past its heyday, but there'll be spikes for sure.

 

Sure. And that's what they're going to have to do if the new films are going to have any chance of success...pull out the greatest hits.  Which wasn't the original plan.

[Jay 37,516]

1 hour ago, Groovygoth666 said:

Who are the current Avengers? 

 

There isn't one, but presumably would be some subset of these candidates:

 

(the ones with their own solo movies)

• Bruce Banner / Hulk
• Sam Wilson / Captain America
• Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel
• Stephen Strange / Dr Strange
• Scott Lang / Ant-man
• Shuri / Black Panther
• Shaun / Shang-Chi
• Blade
  
  (the ones without)
   
• Jennifer Walters / She-Hulk
• Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch
• Vision
• Hope Dyne / Wasp
• Wong / Sorcerer Supreme
• Brunnhilde / Valkyrie
• Joaquin Torres / Falcon

• Marc Spector / Moon Knight

 

There's tons of other teams now too

 

 "Young Avengers"

• Kamala Khan / Ms. Marvel
• Kate Bishop / Hawkeye
• Cassandra Lang
• Riri Williams / Iron Heart
• Spider-man?

Thunderbolts

• Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier
• Ava Starr / Ghost
• John Walker / US Agent
• Yelena Belova / Black Widow 2.0
• Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian
• Antonia Dreykov / Taskmaster

X-Men

• Monica Rambeau
• Deadpool?

Fantastic Four

• the usual suspects

Guardians of the Galaxy

• if they still exist; I haven't seen the third movie yet

Defenders

• If they fully bring the entire Netflix saga into the MCU and get all the actors back

Eternals

• Whoever was in that movie (haven't seen it)

[Yavar Moradi 2,650]

No Ant-Man @Jay? Also, Hulk did get his own solo MCU movie... just with a different actor in the role. But it's recognized as canon and other characters/actors from it have appeared in later MCU things.

Yavar

[Edmilson 7,626]

2 hours ago, Jay said:

 

There isn't one, but presumably would be some subset of these candidates:

 

(the ones with their own solo movies)

• Bruce Banner / Hulk
• Sam Wilson / Captain America
• Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel
• Stephen Strange / Dr Strange
• Scott Lang / Ant-man
• Shuri / Black Panther
• Shaun / Shang-Chi
• Blade
  
  (the ones without)
   
• Jennifer Walters / She-Hulk
• Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch
• Vision
• Hope Dyne / Wasp
• Wong / Sorcerer Supreme
• Brunnhilde / Valkyrie
• Joaquin Torres / Falcon

• Marc Spector / Moon Knight

 

There's tons of other teams now too

 

 "Young Avengers"

• Kamala Khan / Ms. Marvel
• Kate Bishop / Hawkeye
• Cassandra Lang
• Riri Williams / Iron Heart
• Spider-man?

Thunderbolts

• Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier
• Ava Starr / Ghost
• John Walker / US Agent
• Yelena Belova / Black Widow 2.0
• Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian
• Antonia Dreykov / Taskmaster

X-Men

• Monica Rambeau
• Deadpool?

Fantastic Four

• the usual suspects

Guardians of the Galaxy

• if they still exist; I haven't seen the third movie yet

Defenders

• If they fully bring the entire Netflix saga into the MCU and get all the actors back

Eternals

• Whoever was in that movie (haven't seen it)

The problem is, these people aren't Avengers in the sense that they are a team who have worked together for a while but rather a random collection of superheroes who have been mostly busy with their own stuff.

 

Thor, Hulk and Hawkeye were part of the original team that assembled in 2012. Others like Falcon, War Machine and Vision joined during Age of Ultron. The other veterans (Captain Marvel, Dr Strange and Wong, Spiderman, Shuri, the Guardians) helped during the war with Thanos, but aside from those who survived the Snap (Rocket, Captain Marvel, Nebula) and thus were able to create some bonds on the five years that followed Thanos's victory, we only saw them as Avengers during the last battle.

 

And then of course there are those who only appeared after the Infinity Wars: Shang-Chi, Monica Rambeau, Ms Marvel, Moon Knight, etc.

 

So: with most of the original Avengers gone, we'll have an Avengers movie featuring veterans who were part of the team for a little while and newcomers who only now are revealing themselves to the superheroic community.

 

The thing about Infinity War and Endgame was that those movies were sold as the end of the line for characters and plot points we had been watching for a decade.

 

Now these new movies will be about superheroes who are mostly unknown to each other. So if the prospect of Shang-Chi meeting Thor is way less exciting than Captain America meeting Thor in 2012, Disney will go down hard on cameos from actors of older Marvel movies. Maguire, Garfield, Jackman, maybe Halle Berry, Reynolds, the other Fox-Men

[mstrox 6,677]

1 hour ago, Edmilson said:

The problem is, these people aren't Avengers in the sense that they are a team who have worked together for a while but rather a random collection of superheroes who have been mostly busy with their own stuff.

The Avengers (2012)

[Bellosh 3,510]

[Edmilson 7,626]

51 minutes ago, mstrox said:

The Avengers (2012)

If the next Avengers movie was planned to be about the new team assembling then yeah. Problem is they don't want to do another movie like the 2012 about a team being formed, they want Infinity War and Endgame all over again. But the heroes who are going to fight this last battle haven't been a team for years. Which is why I imagine it won't have the same impact.

 

Sure, these are just speculations, we don't know yet anything about these new movies. But I don't think the impact will be the same.

[Nick1Ø66 4,871]

Well more to the point, Avengers (2012) was riding off a wave of highly successful movies, featuring incredibly popular, likeable, characters. And had the benefit of an excited and engaged audience who couldn't wait to see the film. That's just...not the case now.

[Mr. Hooper 1,970]

54 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

Well more to the point, Avengers (2012) was riding off a wave of highly successful movies, featuring incredibly popular, likeable, characters. And had the benefit of an excited and engaged audience who couldn't wait to see the film. That's just...not the case now.

It does make you wonder what it'll take to bring the MCU back to the lofty heights that culminated with 'Endgame', and get the public excited again.

 

A good starting point would be to give the small screen a break and focus almost exclusively on movies, and to mine the comics/source material for a storyline with high enough stakes, that'll lead to an emotionally satisfying payoff.

 

But I also think it'll have to be really stellar for the general public to get on board and invest for another go around — cuz the freshness and newness of superhero movies is long past, and superhero fatigue is real.

[GerateWohl 4,474]

1 hour ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

Well more to the point, Avengers (2012) was riding off a wave of highly successful movies, featuring incredibly popular, likeable, characters. And had the benefit of an excited and engaged audience who couldn't wait to see the film. That's just...not the case now.

Hm. The MCU movies before Avengers were Iron Man 1+2, Incredible Hulk, Captain America and Thor, which were not that great (apart from Iron Man maybe). But Avengers was the movie that really kicked it off.

But I think, it was rather an advantage that the expectations were hnot so high. 

A problem is, usually one of the most exciting things about superheros are their origin stories and how they got their powers.

The new staff's origin stories are quite lame. Superpowers are nothing special anymore. Since Secret Invasion you take a pill and have all the superpowers you like at no cost. That's boring.

 

[Faleel 5,447]

8 hours ago, GerateWohl said:

Since Secret Invasion you take a pill and have all the superpowers you like at no cost. That's boring.

 

Only if you are a Skrull.

[Edmilson 7,626]

A piece of merch showing what appears to be Wolvie with his mask on:

 

Also, Deadpool's creator Rob Liefeld is confident people will like the movie due to Reynolds' commitment to the role:

 

 

[Alex 2,838]

https://www.gamesradar.com/avengers-endgame-alan-silvestri-marvel-return/

 

Quote

 

While in conversation with Silvestri at the Sands: International Film Festival in St Andrews, Scotland recently, we put the question to him: will he return to the MCU? Although the answer wasn't explicitly a 'yes', Silvestri's response hints that something is in the works, as he teased to GamesRadar+: "Well, it looks like that could be happening, I just can’t talk about it [laughs]. I love that universe, for sure."

 

[Jay 37,516]

'Fantastic Four’ Casts Ralph Ineson as Galactus

[Naïve Old Fart 9,719]

After tons of supporting roles (Finchy), it's good to see Ralph Ineson getting some recognition.

[crocodile 8,065]

It's a big role for him. Literally. 

 

(Splendid actor, by the way)

 

Karol

[Edmilson 7,626]

Would he had been a good Starlord?

 

Quote

Joel Edgerton revealed on The Playlist’s “Bingeworthy” podcast that he failed his audition for Star Lord in “Guardians of the Galaxy” because he just couldn’t nail down the tone writer-director James Gunn was looking for. Chris Pratt ended up getting the career-defining role, which he’d reprise in two “Guardians of the Galaxy” sequels and various other Marvel movies, including “Avengers: Infinity War.”

“Star-Lord’s a good one, actually, because I, unlike Chris [Pratt], didn’t quite sort of understand the tone of it the way he did and the way that those guys did,” Edgerton said on the podcast. “And I wasn’t really sure how I could be a part of that tone. And I truly think that the world is a much better place that I’m not Star-Lord, even if I had the opportunity or I did a good enough audition because it is the way it’s meant to be. And there was never a real conversation that it would have definitely been me. It was just, I had the opportunity to try and audition. I just didn’t quite understand it.”

 

https://variety.com/2024/film/news/joel-edgerton-guardians-of-the-galaxy-failed-audition-star-lord-marvel-1235997351/

[JNHFan2000 2,981]

Sooo....all the different show titles were part of the marketing. I like that.

 

 

 

[Luke Skywalker 1,810]

heh...