Rolling Marvel Cinematic Universe thread (+ a poll: Classic or Dud?)

If Mikkelsen was Mephisto, it'd be like a remake of Constantine, with Tilda Swinton playing the mentor to the eponymous sorcerer and a well-known Scandinavian character playing the devil!

"Scandinavian character actor"

Constantine was better than it had any right to be

I agree, it's pretty much the best live-action DC comic movie made, alongside Batman Returns. If only they'd cast a proper English actor in the lead role and gotten rid of the boring sidekick, it would've been perfect.

I wonder if Cumberbatch is gonna be American in Dr. Strange? Has he player Americans before?

smaug is from grand rapids iirc

I'd like to think that they didn't discover Benedict's irredeemably-awful and previously-unattempted American accent until after he'd already been cast.

"Howdy, y'all, I'm Doctor Strange!"

Marvel Studios tells the publishing-side Creative Committee "you can keep your story notes to yourself, thanks."
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/09/02/marvel-creative-committee-disbanded/

I can't believe this hasn't been shared here yet: http://io9.com/i-have-some-serious-concerns-about-the-captain-america-1728289328?utm_expid=66866090-48.Ej9760cOTJCPS_Bq4mjoww.0&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

i didn't realize the comic was that nuts. still a little alarmist - from what i understand age of ultron had little to do with that comic - and this tickled me:

As had been pointed out by many people, by the time Civil War comes out, there will be 11 heroes in the MCU: Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow, Hawkeye, the Falcon, Black Panther, War Machine, the Vision, the Winter Soldier and Spider-Man.

dude forgot ant-man, daredevil, and one of the 12 heroes he listed

apparently in the comics "age of ultron" heavily involved time travel. so it's not like there's no precedent for simplifying things rewardingly.

AoU movie had absolutely nothing to do with AoU comic. So getting pre-alarmist about Civil War based on the comic is kinda dumb.

it'll suck for its own reasons, not because the comic sucked.

Cap's position is going to have to be different, as the MCU hasn't really be bothering with secret identities.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D has more superheroes (and more concerns about secrecy), but I'm assuming this works in tiers like the old Star Wars continuity - films don't have to acknowledge whatever happens in TV (is anyone saying Daredevil will actually turn up?).

I'm pretty sure he will turn up in a Marvel movie at some point.

I think we already know that Civil War the movie will much closer to Civil War the comic than Age of Ultron was to the comic, since it's been revealed the movie is about a superhero civil war and Cap and Iron Man will be the main antagonists. I can't imagine they'll be fighting over the superhuman registration act, as Chap points out, it doesn't make much sense in the MCU. Presumably Civil War will continue the theme of "security at what cost?" that was present in both Winter Soldier and AoU... So Tony will probably still want to improve his drone army and use that to protect people, maybe as a new director of the new SHIELD (or a post-SHIELD organization like HAMMER)... Where as Cap will against that based on his experiences on HYDRA and SHIELD in Winter Soldier. That way they can keep the main ideological conflict from the comic (security vs. liberty), but the reason for the conflict will be organic to the movies.

i think the civil war movie is going to suck if they try to keep to the comic story.

while writhing in agony over the past few days, i tried to make a tally of every marvel character or collective (not like "star wars" or kick ass or anything tangential like that but core universe characters) whose name has thus far been included in a feature film since 1970, because that's how i do my pain management: making pointless mental lists. here's what I came up with:

punisher
spiderman
wolverine
x-men
avengers
thor
iron man
hulk
ant man
guardians of the galaxy
fantastic four
daredevil
blade
ghost rider
elektra
man-thing
silver surfer (cheating a bit here but his name was on the marquee)
ultron (ditto)
winter soldier (same)

with Gambit, Apocalypse, Deadpool, Doc Strange, Black Panther, Spider Woman (maybe?), Captain Marvel and The Inhumans on tap for the next four years as films.

They've also done Generation X (1996, who knew!), Agents of SHIELD and Agent Carter on the teevee (and Luke Cage, Iron Fist and Jessica Jones on the way on Netflix) and cartoons (or varying release breadth) for Loki, Doctor Strange, Spider Woman, Black Panther, Black Widow, The Inhumans, Sabretooth and The Eternals.

So what's obviously missing for them to make money on? Punisher reboot is happening in the Daredevil Netflix series so they'll likely add him over there; I imagine Shang-Chi will do the same. Namor is tied up in rights issues. I want a Damage Control series. Black Widow is overdue for a feature before Scar Jo ages out of the character. Who is even left? Ka-Zar and the Savage Land?

Power Pack.

i think we need to keep in mind that the io9 civil war article was written by rob bricken, who is afaict a total fuckin' idiot

The YA titles: Young Avengers, Runaways, Avengers Academy, Generation Hope.

Would obv. love a NextWave movie, will obv. also never see one.

There's some GotG-type cosmic heroes that will now only be seen in GotG sequels - Nova, Adam Warlock - the same way that most of Asgard will be only in Thor films (would quite like to see a low-level "Loki in NYC sitcom" but v. little chance).

Villain films in general - was there talk of a Sinister Six film?

Marvel Zombies, medieval S.H.I.E.L.D, X-Force, Gaiman's 1602, Squirrel Girl / Patsy Hellcat Walker, Planet Hulk.

Howard the Duck missing from your line-up - hang your feverish head!

Villain films in general - was there talk of a Sinister Six film?

Yeah, the end of Amazing S-M 2 was essentially a cliffhanger for one, got nixed when Fox's Spiderverse collapsed due to lack of interest.

I think Marvel might want to make a movie based on the new Ms. Marvel? AFAIK the comic has been a surprise hit, especially among those who don't otherwise read too many superhero comics, because it's not mired in continuity and doesn't have some of the worst indulgencies of American mainstream comics (no tits & ass). Besides the upcoming Spider-Man movie, they haven't really tried the teen hero approach, and since they've been criticized for the majority of their heroes being straight white men, doing a movie where the protagonist is a teenage Pakistani girl would obviously be a good choice.

Also, I think Avengers Academy would make for a great, soapy TV series (college drama meets the MCU), but the powers of the protagonists and the villains might be too expensive to do on TV. (And obviously they couldn't use Hank Pym as the headmaster.)

I think Avengers Academy would make for a great, soapy TV series (college drama meets the MCU),

I just...this sounds like the worst idea for a tv show ever, worse than Manimal Rides Supertrain.

Hey, that sky high movie wasn't too bad on a relatively meagre budget (n.b. I haven't seen it since I was 14)

It worked well in the comic, why not in a TV series?

(xpost)

I just hate high school/college tv shows in general. (exceptions: V. Mars, Buffy)

A lot of these characters would actually make great anchors for serialized tv shows, an obvious analog to comics, but the problem is the budgets are so huge that only a giant blockbuster can support the ambitions (as such) of the story. Daredevil was a wise choice for TV, because it's pretty low on tech and magic and shit, but many of the others would be prohibitively expensive to pull off well.

Damage Control would make a great TV series, especially to fill the gaps between movies. Could imagine, well, Joss Whedon having fun with it.

Frankly, I might be cool with Marvel wrapping up phase 3, figuring out what worked and what didn't, and maybe whittling everything down to like one movie a year (although I think the current TV/Netflix setup, with something akin to a long-form anthology of revolving series, is a good one). The QC is sure to get spottier as they get more plates simultaneously spinning.

I've heard talk about closing it down after that, as the actors get too old, and rebooting everything after five years or so. But would the money let them?

then it'll be time to get those new universe movies up and running - owen wilson for star brand imo, open to suggestions for the cast of kickers, inc.

imo there's no reason to reboot the mcu until the audience sags. granted, by the time they're all punching each other in space for the Infinity War the numbers may show that. In which case, sure, shut it down and take a nap. But if the box office is just cruising along and Dr Strange and Captain Marvel did well, just let RDJ take a nap and make Captain Marvel 2, Black Panther 2, bring out the Power Pack, etc etc.

Hugh Jackman's gonna play Wolverine till he's nearly 50, so assuming they can afford their trainers, ScarJo and the Chrises still have another 15 years

He's 46 now!

yup, and he's said he's gonna do one more film - hence "nearly 50"

i think chris evans has said he'll be hanging up his shield after the infinity war movies are done

if the audience is still there, they can just bring out the us agent in a Black Widow movie, etc etc. There's just no reason to reboot all these franchises at once before the audience says they're done. Esp since, if we've consistently thrown money at them through the infinity war, they'll have like a dozen franchises.

they've already got bucky and the falcon as established characters, both of whom have picked up the captain america mantle in recent years, so they've got a couple of options for replacements after evans leaves

ant-man loudly lost its director in pre-production, was about ANT-MAN and still did as well as Captain America 1, getting solid reviews. Which if you consider how much better The Winter Soldier did than Cap 1, suggests Ant-Man 2 is a distinct and potentially profitable option. So while it does not behoove Marvel to promise us films til the end of time, there's also no reasons (yet) for them to promise to stop.

At this point I feel like "Marvel" is the brand moreso than any of the individual characters except Iron Man. So a gradual handoff to another Cap-like character seems totally viable IMO. One of the advantages of the big shared-universe concept is that you actually can sort of avoid the tedium of early reboots and re-origins, which I think has clearly hurt Spider-Man. You can do some of the lifting of introducing a new or replacement character within the big crossover movies, then maybe they can start their own movie just, like, on an adventure fighting stuff. So "spinoffs" can take the place of "reboots." This seems particularly workable for people like Cap where their powers are kinda generic and not super essential to the concept - very easy to do a handoff story where Evans bequeaths the mantle to a fresh face - "America needs a Captain America... America needs.... you!"

At this point I feel like "Marvel" is the brand moreso than any of the individual characters except Iron Man.

yeah, this is otm. no way an ant-man movie would have succeeded in 2008 but people definitely know now that they loved guardians of the galaxy even although they had no idea who star-lord was so they're way more willing to take a chance of a movie about a small dude doing some robberies or some shit

esp as the supporting cast gets simpsons-level huge, so that captain america 3 is really avengers 2.5, and black panther will basically be avengers 2.75.

So what's obviously missing for them to make money on?

Cloak and Dagger, DUH

i feel like "what do they possibly have left to exploit" stopped being a valid question after they made 700m off the talking raccoon and tree

Did anyone else who saw Ant Man just feel the air go right out of the theatre/movie when Falcon appeared? Like, he gets this dramatic intro, and no one gives a crap. Like we're supposed to be excited about Falcon, who may as well be called Captain Uncompelling.

nope

Yeah, no.

I honestly think Damage Control would make a great one-off film, moreso than a miniseries - it's a cute enough quick-pitch concept, so it really just needs a team that knows how to do a charming high-concept comedy (rather than the super-action people) to work over the script and put some recognizable funny faces in it. That's one where the Marvel brand isn't even strictly necessary - you could have done that with totally generic superheroes seen from a distance or on shots of the TV news, since the gimmick is about the everyday Joes sifting through the rubble. Or it could be about the effort to get the company off the ground, as one guy with a big idea starts with just a shovel and a little red wagon or something.

And yeah, Runaways - that was also basically made to be a filmable concept from minute one, as is Vaughan's stock in trade. Really clear, trailer-ready concept, fantastic characters. Maybe it does depend on feeling like the universe is big enough that there could be these two-bit never-heard-of-em supervillains poking around, or maybe it really should not be set in the Marvel Universe at all.

I think they'd avoid Young Avengers and Power Pack though - anything clearly "... but it's kids!" feels like box office poison IMO.