Current Events > Marvel reportedly already considered dropping Kang prior to Major's legal issues

(+) Yeah! (+)

VFalcone posted...

My overall point was that people aren't going to buy tickets to see a movie about characters they don't know or care about even if it gets 98% Rotten Tomatoes, so the movies fail automatically.

And my point is the entire history of films proves you wrong. Nobody knew who Neo, Luke Skywalker, John. McClain and hundreds of others were prior to seeing their movies. Now they are household names. Recognition matters far less than quality.

lolife67 posted...

And my point is the entire history of films proves you wrong. Nobody knew who Neo, Luke Skywalker, John. McClain and hundreds of others were prior to seeing their movies. Now they are household names. Recognition matters far less than quality.

That's true to an extent.

But perhaps it is harder today to make a quality superhero movie that stands out since there has been so many. More of the same isn't enough anymore. Those movies were iconic and impactful because they were something new and exciting for audiences.

Punished_Blinx posted...

That's true to an extent.

But perhaps it is harder today to make a quality superhero movie that stands out since there has been so many. More of the same isn't enough anymore.

I'm sure that's part of it. And what you and I are discussing in another topic. Things are different now for a number of reasons. That's why Marvel Studios stepping back and saying they're going to make adjustments is a good thing.

When the potential rumors adjustments are stuff like bringing back the OG Avengers I hope they don't blow it completely.

lolife67 posted...

And my point is the entire history of films proves you wrong. Nobody knew who Neo, Luke Skywalker, John. McClain and hundreds of others were prior to seeing their movies. Now they are household names. Recognition matters far less than quality.

These are not the same situation. The Matrix, Star Wars, Die Hard, etc., were new IPs that succeeded because they were good movies. MCU movies are taking pre-established characters and adapting them and their stories.

Comic book movies rely on nostalgia, everybody knows who Superman/Batman/Spider-man/etc. are so they have automatic pull at the box office. If a superhero is a literally who that nobody except dedicated comic book readers would know the draw is not there, and instead you just end up with a decent popcorn flick with a ludicrous budget. It's part of the reason why I find Disney's commitment to the D+ show model so baffling. It's like they figured that e.g., a Moon Knight movie would underperform at the box office so they made it a TV show instead, but the TV show budgets are also completely insane and now they aren't making any money from box office sales. I don't know how long they can justify throwing money into the D+ black hole.

GOTG was lightning in a bottle for Disney and is the exception that proves the rule. Hell, Ant-Man (a fellow literally who) has had 3 movies and is played by a popular actor and Quantumania still bombed.

I feel like dismissing either quality or recognizeability is oversimplifying the issue. There are too many examples to push in either direction.

Iron Man was famously a D-lister, but got the whole MCU rolling. At the same time, it was really Iron Man 2 that set what we would really see as the greater MCU in motion, and that movie is universally considered dogshit; if quality were the determining factor, the whole project should have died right there. Especially since the first Cap and Thor movies didnt exactly set the world on fire. But they carried the weight of the A-list heroes, and kept the fire alive long enough for Avengers to blow the roof off.

Amd that movie captivated audiences so hard that Iron Man 3 did amazingly despite again being a colossal disappointment in the quality department. And it's a good thing the sugar-high of Avengers carried forward, because it made a random group like the GotG easier to sell; yes, the movie was great, but there's no telling how well it would have done if it hadn't dropped at a point when the world was still riding a massive MCU high. It had a name brand behind it, which made it much easier to sell.

The two factors feed each other; you need quality to build the brand, and A-listers to carry it through the slump times. The problem we have right now is that we have both D-list characters AND a slump time, and while the name brand is still big enough to ride it out, the weakness is starting to show. This transition phase was really the worst time to lose Cap and Iron Man from the roster (along with black widow, and Hulk considering they've basically de-hulked him). Spider-Man isn't enough ti carry the day, and Love and Thunder and Multiverse of Madness being swings-and-misses really didn't help matters.

I think Spider-Man would have helped quite a lot if a new one was about to release. Put him in a movie with The Marvels and the movie would make bank.

I think the whole structure in general was off.
Captain Marvel 2 should have been the followup.

Ms Marvel should have been a movie about a Marvel fangirl about becoming a superhero and meeting the remaining Avengers and/or Spider-Man.

Eternals should have been a Disney+ show.

They should have waited to use Doctor Doom, Galactus or Magneto as the big bad and just focused on building a new foundation until that worked out. Kang should have just been a villain on Loki.

It also really, REALLY doesn't help that Marvel seems hell-bent on writing out every single relationship/character dynamic they've built up so far (spoilers for basically everything to follow):

Iron Man is dead

Cap is old, retired and out of commission

Spider Man basically wrote himself out of the story, all for the sake of giving us the generic "poor photographer" Peter instead of the one we had.

Thor is constantly ditching whatever friend group he had last, and completely relapsed on his "take responsibility and lead" arc he'd had since the beginning. And the Loki dynamic thru-line is gone, too.

Vision is dead

Black Widow is dead

T'Challa is dead

Wanda is dead solely so they can give us the X Men version

Captain Marvel doesn't give a shit about any of these people

Nick Fury just lost his entire team when he wasn't looking.

Dr Strange doesn't talk to anyone, as far as I can tell

The Guardians all split up, and the new Gamora is decidedly less interesting than old Gamora.

Like... Theyve really given longtime viewers very, VERY little to hold on to. The Avengers are basically gone. Nobody left has any dynamic, relationship, or rapport with anyone else. All yhe fun relationships and dynamics that made fans fall in love with the MCU are gone, and theres been basically nothing to replace them. More than ever the MCU just feels like a string of disconnected oneshots that happen to occupy the same space, and thus far, Kang hasn't been the person to tie it all together again.

They really needed a crossover to tie up phase 4, because as it is now, everything is way too all-over-the-place.

Well they in theory want to make the " New era" be with the Young Avengers but not sure anyone will give a damn about them.

DarkBuster22904 posted...

Vision is dead

I will say that with White Vision having all of the original's memories and personality after the Wanda created Vision uploading all of his memories to White Vision's databanks, he might as well have been revived in my book.

Necronmon posted...

Well they in theory want to make the " New era" be with the Young Avengers but not sure anyone will give a damn about them.

And they can do that. But if they want to replicate Phase 1 to hype up their Next Generation, they need two things:

1. An Iron Man 1 level movie to give audiences a singular character to latch onto. And

2. An Avengers 1 level crossover to spark the hype about the interconnectivity and team dynamics.

They've given us neither. And the Endgame sugar-high is four years old and long-since worn off.

dancing_cactuar posted...

I will say that with White Vision having all of the original's memories and personality after the Wanda created Vision uploading all of his memories to White Vision's databanks, he might as well have been revived in my book.

Which would be great if there were a single character he had any relationship left. Shame there isn't. Just like everybody else.

Necronmon posted...

Well they in theory want to make the " New era" be with the Young Avengers but not sure anyone will give a damn about them.

I think that's what is confusing me the most. This is what this phase should have been structured around. The next generation of the Avengers filling the hole left behind from Captain America and Iron Man. Ms Marvel could have been a good character to kick-start that around similar to what the videogame did.

Who would you say is the face of the MCU now?

St0rmFury posted...

Who would you say is the face of the MCU now?

Either Spider-Man or Doctor Strange I guess?

Its suppose to be Captain Marvel at the moment but its failing horribly. Would have been Spiderman but they don't like sharing with Sony, and then Black Panther became a mess to.

St0rmFury posted...

Who would you say is the face of the MCU now?

It's definitely SUPPOSED to be Captain Marvel.

The problem is they haven't given her any decent content, or done anything to make her charismatic or likeable.

A single 7/10 movie and ten minutes in Endgame doesn't cut it. And, to be fair, Cap's first movie was also a 7/10. However, unlike Captain Marvel, the best part a out Cap's movie was Steve himself. The same can't be said for Carol.

I think people would like Captain Marvel more if she actually was in stuff. There's over 4 years between Captain Marvel and The Marvel's. Outside of that it's just cameos. One in Endgame and one in Ms Marvel.

In that same period of time Captain America was in two solo movies and two Avengers movies and he's a main character in all of them.

Its not that odd frankly. They likely realized very early that Kang had no potential. Hell idk what they even saw in the character.

I cant recall a single great story he was in that became mainstream story. So making him the next thanos made no sense. It didnt help that the avengers were all pretty much retired, and whats left were a bunch of B list nobody could give two craps about.

Sadly They realized a little too late that you arent supposed to permanently kill off anyone in comics. Ever.

I never found the character interesting from what the MCU put out. He had a weak setup at the end of a Disney+ series and a poor debut with a flop like Ant Man 3.

Prismsblade posted...

Its not that odd frankly. They likely realized very early that Kang had no potential. Hell idk what they even saw in the character.

I cant recall a single great story he was in that became mainstream story. So making him the next thanos made no sense. It didnt help that the avengers were all pretty much retired, and whats left were a bunch of B list nobody could give two craps about.

Sadly They realized a little too late that you arent supposed to permanently kill off anyone in comics. Ever.

It didn't help that in his big screen debut they made him an Antman villain. That dudes a comic relief clown and they tried to set up phase 4s big bad by having him lose to him in a single movie. All the marketing and buildup in the world can't overcome how completely underwhelming that was.

I think they are trying to go for the "what, you thought there was only 1 Kang?" twist reveal in the post credits, but it kinda fell flat to me and I'm not a comic reader.

Kang wouldve been better set uo without moms backstory. If antman was the one to first find Kang and he sabotaged his escape plan so the movie ended with Kang settling for conquering the Quantum world. A setback not a defeat.

St0rmFury posted...

I think they are trying to go for the "what, you thought there was only 1 Kang?" twist reveal in the post credits, but it kinda fell flat to me and I'm not a comic reader.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a13e9063.jpg

You're telling me that this concept fell flat?

Punished_Blinx posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a13e9063.jpg

You're telling me that this concept fell flat?

I especially love the stadium full of Kangs, so much cringe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1lTnHDr9zY

mystic_belmont posted...

I especially love the stadium full of Kangs, so much cringe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1lTnHDr9zY

Less is more, the full stadium was a mistake. Like Im enjoying Loki S2 but I keep wondering how does this lead to the army of Kangs?

Link_of_time posted...

I think they're talking about public knowledge of them. In that case they're right. The public didnt know who ironman, thor or captain america was before MCU. They'd be considered B level celebrities.

Plenty of older Gen Xers know who Hulk and Captain America are because of the old TV shows and plenty of younger Gen Xers and older Millennials know who they are because of a slew of video games and animated shows.

St0rmFury posted...

Who would you say is the face of the MCU now?

It should have been T'Challa. That can't happen for obvious reasons, so their next best bet would have been to introduce the Fantastic Four and X-Men early in Phase 4 for Reed Richards and Professor X (and through him Wolverine, Cyclops, Jean, and Storm) to act as the new faces of the MCU.

Punished_Blinx posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a13e9063.jpg

You're telling me that this concept fell flat?

Yeah, I just didn't really feel it. That's just me though.

St0rmFury posted...

That's just me though.

Apparently not

darkace77450 posted...

Plenty of older Gen Xers know who Hulk and Captain America are because of the old TV shows and plenty of younger Gen Xers and older Millennials know who they are because of a slew of video games and animated shows.

Yeah, but those people are likely already comic fans(like me), who because of those shows, have some knowledge and were interested when heard about those movies. The public at large has no clue about those characters outside of their existence. Prior to to the MCU, the public had no clue who Steve Rodgers or Ironman were.

Yeah, I've never read a single issue of Iron Man or Capt, but I played both characters regularly in MvC.

lolife67 posted...

This is completely false. The characters the MCU started with were NOT A-listers at all. The were maybe B-list, at best. You're revising history.

And public knowledge of characters is, ultimately, irrelevant. The vast majority of characters people live were literally unknown before their films.

The thing with that is people didn't just magically get hyped for B and C-list characters out of nowhere. It was the unique formula of establishing a bunch of heroes in solo movies and then bringing them together (in a way that connected plot threads from the separate heroes' movies) that raised hype into the stratosphere.

Marvel can't maintain the hype without regular big crossover events. People aren't gonna drool over Shang Chi and Moon Knight just because they exist in the same universe as other heroes. They gotta actually cross over and have fun and meaningful interactions with other heroes.

mystic_belmont posted...

I especially love the stadium full of Kangs, so much cringe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1lTnHDr9zY

Marvel: "Hey, let's bring in a Rick and Morty writer for this movie so we can cater more exclusively to that crowd!"
Also Marvel: "Hey, let's end this movie with a 1:1 lift from the comics revolving around a concept that Rick and Morty already parodied to a masterful degree, and expect the audience to take it seriously!"

Ok now I remember why the post credits fell flat for me, the Kangs are acting like a bunch of buffoons.

And doesn't help their outfits just look like they raided Party City

Yeah, that after credits scene was goofy as fuck.

JustaSandwich posted...

The thing with that is people didn't just magically get hyped for B and C-list characters out of nowhere. It was the unique formula of establishing a bunch of heroes in solo movies and then bringing them together (in a way that connected plot threads from the separate heroes' movies) that raised hype into the stratosphere.

Marvel can't maintain the hype without regular big crossover events. People aren't gonna drool over Shang Chi and Moon Knight just because they exist in the same universe as other heroes. They gotta actually cross over and have fun and meaningful interactions with other heroes.

Correct. As I said earlier, I get that Disney Plus needed content and I'm all for more comic stuff but they did it wrong. They should've linked the shows with the films better. For example, if you do WandaVision then have Dr. Strange 2 come out a few months later. Captain America 4 should be released within a year of the Falcon and Winter Soldier show. Werewolf by Night should've been paired with Blade. Limit it to 2-3 shows per year and 2 films that connect to 1 or 2 of the shows.

Of course, I admit this is all said in hindsight.

lolife67 posted...

Correct. As I said earlier, I get that Disney Plus needed content and I'm all for more comic stuff but they did it wrong. They should've linked the shows with the films better. For example, if you do WandaVision then have Dr. Strange 2 come out a few months later. Captain America 4 should be released within a year of the Falcon and Winter Soldier show. Werewolf by Night should've been paired with Blade. Limit it to 2-3 shows per year and 2 films that connect to 1 or 2 of the shows.

Of course, I admit this is all said in hindsight.

Just to add to that: Marvel realized they made a mistake with content overload. They're intentionally slowing down the pace of releases.

mystic_belmont posted...

She didn't tell her family anything about being stuck for so many years?

PTSD.

VFalcone posted...

Marvel is failing because it's making a crap load of movies and relevant TV shows about a bunch of characters nobody cares about. People aren't going to fill the theaters to see Moon Knight or Miss Marvel. Who even are they?

MCU is done for. They already used Ironman, Captain America, Hulk, Black Widow, Black Panther, and Spider-Man. The rest like Thor, Doctor Strange and Ant-Man are clinging on for dear life with only GoG standing on its feet. The populace is very simple-minded. Marvel was successful because it was about the A-listers. People want to see stuff about the big-time A-listers. And yes, the actors playing them also matter. The intended replacements for the main A-team will never be accepted by the populace. Ever. Captain America, Hulk, Black Widow, Black Panther, Thor, Spider-Man, etc., will always beat out the nobodies every single time.

All they have left is X-Menverse and Fantastic Four. Or maybe try to milk the multiverse even more and bring in Miles Morales

Lol.

lolife67 posted...

This is completely false. The characters the MCU started with were NOT A-listers at all. The were maybe B-list, at best. You're revising history.

And public knowledge of characters is, ultimately, irrelevant. The vast majority of characters people live were literally unknown before their films.

Only if you never read a single comic.

masterpug53 posted...

Marvel: "Hey, let's bring in a Rick and Morty writer for this movie so we can cater more exclusively to that crowd!"
Also Marvel: "Hey, let's end this movie with a 1:1 lift from the comics revolving around a concept that Rick and Morty already parodied to a masterful degree, and expect the audience to take it seriously!"

Huh I didn't know Rick and Morty was created in 1986. That's a really neat thing to find out.

St0rmFury posted...

Ok now I remember why the post credits fell flat for me, the Kangs are acting like a bunch of buffoons.

Like something out of a Saturday cartoon.

Revelation34 posted...

Only if you never read a single comic.

Been collecting since the mid-80s, so yeah I know what I'm talking about.

Revelation34 posted...

Huh I didn't know Rick and Morty was created in 1986. That's a really neat thing to find out.

Don't be dense. You know perfectly well that I specifically said 'parodied,' which implies that R&M would have needed preexisting source material to parody.

Revelation34 posted...

Only if you never read a single comic.

The vast majority of MCU theater-goers are not comic book readers. Marvel tapped into the mainstream with their movies. Iron Man did great because they did a great job of bringing an intriguing concept to the big screen, they landed the perfect actor to play Tony Stark who simply oozed charisma, and word of mouth.

At large, people were not clamoring to see Iron Man based on their familiarity with the character.

Revelation34 posted...

Only if you never read a single comic.

So 90% of the MCU audience?

I guess it's time to admit the Disney+ experiment was a failure. They greenlit too much, diluted the brand, and stretched themselves too thin. It doesn't help that the D+ shows were mid with only Wandavision and Loki being the critical standouts.

Ivynn posted...

I guess it's time to admit the Disney+ experiment was a failure. They greenlit too much, diluted the brand, and stretched themselves too thin. It doesn't help that the D+ shows were mid with only Wandavision and Loki being the critical standouts.

Not at all. Most of their shows are actually at the top in terms of streaming numbers. They just stumbled in subjective quality but that's an easy hurdle to overcome.

Ivynn posted...

I guess it's time to admit the Disney+ experiment was a failure. They greenlit too much, diluted the brand, and stretched themselves too thin. It doesn't help that the D+ shows were mid with only Wandavision and Loki being the critical standouts.

Yeah, it's crazy how they managed to fumble things in a just a bit over a single phase. They just thought people were gonna eat up whatever shit they threw on the wall.

archedsoul posted...

Yeah, it's crazy how they managed to fumble things in a just a bit over a single phase. They just thought people were gonna eat up whatever shit they threw on the wall.

Could have also been an issue with rights.

If I'm correct, most of the stuff we've gotten since Endgame would have been in production before the Fox merger; that would have precluded all the more iconic arc villains like Doom or Galactus

DarkBuster22904 posted...

Could have also been an issue with rights.

If I'm correct, most of the stuff we've gotten since Endgame would have been in production before the Fox merger; that would have precluded all the more iconic arc villains like Doom or Galactus

If it's something like that then this Kang stuff should have been wrapped up completely by now. It's the slowest of slow burns right now trying to cater to an audience that's already burned out. There's no winning.