Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase Three and BEYOOOOONND

[csyphrett]

54 minutes ago, slikmar said:

Wait, so a studio going under the "if it aint broke..." style of movie making? That doesn't make sense. Where is the corporate guys who have been in business their whole lives who KNOW they can make movies better and therefore need to tweek things?

Well, They did get rid of Perlmutter so he couldn't interfere in the process anymore so we could get a black panther and captain marvel movie

CES

[zslane]

Kevin Feige is the exception to nearly every rule in Hollywood. Keep that in mind as the Marvel movie division continues to break new ground and defy expectations, even if only in ways that seem small and relatively inconsequential to the lay-person.

[slikmar]

Hmm, I forgot to turn on [sarcasm] before my statement, apparently, hehe.

It is one of the reasons that I have commented that the worst marvel movie is better then 50% of the stuff put out there (maybe higher, but I tend to have a low bar for movies as I just want to have a day out of movie and pizza for myself).

[Rails]

On 11/2/2019 at 12:03 PM, slikmar said:

Wait, so a studio going under the "if it aint broke..." style of movie making? That doesn't make sense. Where is the corporate guys who have been in business their whole lives who KNOW they can make movies better and therefore need to tweek things?

 

Those guys work for DC.

[Bazza]

 

[Bazza]

“...and there are fewer independent theaters than ever...the fact is that the screens in most multiplexes are crowded with franchise pictures.” ~ Scorsese

 

Reason can be as simple as theatres have to pay the bills and “franchise” films draws the crowds in droves which helps the economics of theatres. Independent theatres who show art-house films are dwindling for the same reason. One just has to compare the box office for non-blockbuster “franchise” films nominated for best picture to blockbuster “franchise” films to realise that the audience ie market for the former films is minuscule.  

 

“And if you’re going to tell me that it’s simply a matter of supply and demand and giving the people what they want, I’m going to disagree. It’s a chicken-and-egg issue. If people are given only one kind of thing and endlessly sold only one kind of thing, of course they’re going to want more of that one kind of thing.” ~ Scorsese

 

Theatre tickets $$$! 

 

“Many films today are perfect products manufactured for immediate consumption. Many of them are well made by teams of talented individuals. All the same, they lack something essential to cinema: the unifying vision of an individual artist. Because, of course, the individual artist is the riskiest factor of all.” ~ Scorsese. 

 

What about Kevin Feige, a producer, as an artist? 

 

“The situation, sadly, is that we now have two separate fields: There’s worldwide audiovisual entertainment, and there’s cinema. They still overlap from time to time, but that’s becoming increasingly rare.” ~ Scorsese

 

This has been the case for many many years, maybe at lease a decade. 

[Bazza]

..

[Bazza]

Rebuttal from 2011: The Day the Movies Died

http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/201102/the-day-the-movies-died-mark-harris?currentPage=all&printable=true

 

”No, Hollywood films aren't going to get better anytime soon. Mark Harris on the (potential) death of the great American art form

 

You want to understand how bad things are in Hollywood right now—how stifling and airless and cautious the atmosphere is, how little nourishment or encouragement a good new idea receives, and how devoid of ambition the horizon currently appears—it helps to start with a success story.

 

Consider: Years ago, an ace filmmaker, the man who happened to direct the third-highest-grossing movie in U.S. history, The Dark Knight, came up with an idea for a big summer movie. It's a story he loved—in fact, he wrote it himself—and it belonged to a genre, the sci-fi action thriller, that zipped right down the center lane of American popular taste. He cast as his leading man a handsome actor, Leonardo DiCaprio, who happened to star in the second-highest-grossing movie in history. Finally, to cover his bet even more, he hired half a dozen Oscar nominees and winners for supporting roles.

 

Sounds like a sure thing, right? Exactly the kind of movie that a studio would die to have and an audience would kill to see? Well, it was. That film, Christopher Nolan's Inception...”

[Starlord]

Bull.

 

Is the stuff going into theaters?  Not really, but I see all kinds of interesting and crazy, odd Indy stuff on Netflix and Amazon every day.  A huge dose of foreign stuff as well.  The model hasn't died, it's just changed.

[ScottishFox]

2 hours ago, Bazza said:

“...and there are fewer independent theaters than ever...the fact is that the screens in most multiplexes are crowded with franchise pictures.” ~ Scorsese

 

Reason can be as simple as theatres have to pay the bills and “franchise” films draws the crowds in droves which helps the economics of theatres. Independent theatres who show art-house films are dwindling for the same reason. One just has to compare the box office for non-blockbuster “franchise” films nominated for best picture to blockbuster “franchise” films to realise that the audience ie market for the former films is minuscule.  

 

“And if you’re going to tell me that it’s simply a matter of supply and demand and giving the people what they want, I’m going to disagree. It’s a chicken-and-egg issue. If people are given only one kind of thing and endlessly sold only one kind of thing, of course they’re going to want more of that one kind of thing.” ~ Scorsese

 

Theatre tickets $$$! 

 

“Many films today are perfect products manufactured for immediate consumption. Many of them are well made by teams of talented individuals. All the same, they lack something essential to cinema: the unifying vision of an individual artist. Because, of course, the individual artist is the riskiest factor of all.” ~ Scorsese. 

 

What about Kevin Feige, a producer, as an artist? 

 

“The situation, sadly, is that we now have two separate fields: There’s worldwide audiovisual entertainment, and there’s cinema. They still overlap from time to time, but that’s becoming increasingly rare.” ~ Scorsese

 

This has been the case for many many years, maybe at lease a decade. 

 

The cost of tickets barely covers the auditoriums, projection equipment and comfy new recliner seats and the rental fee to the movie studios.

 

Theaters make almost all of their money on food & beverage sales.  But getting a consistently large number of butts in seats is THE priority for theater chains.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

Rebuttal from 2011: The Day the Movies Died

 

This is exactly what Scorcese was talking about.

 

Quote

"Let me posit something: That's bad. We can all acknowledge that the world of American movies is an infinitely richer place because of Pixar and that the very best comic-book movies, from Iron Man to The Dark Knight, are pretty terrific, but the degree to which children's genres have colonized the entire movie industry goes beyond overkill. More often than not, these collectively infantilizing movies are breeding an audience-not to mention a generation of future filmmakers and studio ecutives-who will grow up believing that movies aimed at adults should be considered a peculiar and antique art. Like books. Or plays"

 

[Starlord]

Again, bull.

 

The avenues a particular artist has to bring their creative vision to a screen today are FAR GREATER than they were even as recently as 10 years ago, much less 40-50 years ago.  The model has changed dramatically and the movie theater is simply one cog in a massive machine.

[Starlord]

6 hours ago, Bazza said:

Sounds like a sure thing, right? Exactly the kind of movie that a studio would die to have and an audience would kill to see? Well, it was. That film, Christopher Nolan's Inception...”

 

Inception, btw, was a clever movie with an intensely visual experience.  Ideally suited for a big screen showing. 

 

Something like The Departed does just fine in my home theater.

[pinecone]

Yeah, I'm not buying it. Clint Eastwood seems to make deep and quirky movies no problem. And made a Western! When all said that genre was dead and buried. Martin S. made his name making Gangster movies, the superhero films of the day. Nobody in "Hollywood!" has any grounds to wear the artist figleaf. Likely never did....

[Lord Liaden]

"Let me posit something: That's bad. We can all acknowledge that the world of American movies is an infinitely richer place because of Pixar and that the very best comic-book movies, from Iron Man to The Dark Knight, are pretty terrific, but the degree to which children's genres have colonized the entire movie industry goes beyond overkill. More often than not, these collectively infantilizing movies are breeding an audience-not to mention a generation of future filmmakers and studio ecutives-who will grow up believing that movies aimed at adults should be considered a peculiar and antique art. Like books. Or plays"

 

There's my biggest problem with that attitude in a nutshell: the conviction that superheroes and animation are inherently "children's genres." That hasn't been true for generations, if ever. When I started seriously collecting comics in the 1970s, a huge portion of their readership was college age or older, and most of their stories then and since were written for that demographic. And I defy anyone to watch Bambi, or The Lion King, or Bugs Bunny shorts, and tell me those are aimed at children -- that only started with Saturday morning television network programming.

[zslane]

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

the conviction that superheroes and animation are inherently "children's genres." That hasn't been true for generations, if ever.

 

No, but the perception has pretty much always been that way in America.

 

That is probably changing though. Thanks to the massive commercial and cultural success of the MCU, we now have a generation of kids who are growing up recognizing the validity of superheroes as a lens through which to tell any kind of story, even a mature one. And as much as I find shows like The Boys and Watchmen to be pretty much the opposite of what I want from "superhero storytelling"*, I nevertheless acknowledge that they may have an important role to play in moving the needle on this.

 

* The Boys features plenty of super powers but few, if any, heroes, while Watchmen features precious little of either.

[Lord Liaden]

The perception of the public with no experience with comic books may have been that way. Those of us who grew up with them over the past half-century always knew better.

 

BTW I'm fully with you on Watchmen and The Boys.

[Spence]

I seem to remember that it was an established fact that the new thing called Rock &  Roll would never be more than a fad because it wasn't real music.

 

Scorcese and those on his bandwagon are the big band leaders of the movies, adamant that it is their personal opinion or nothing. 

 

 

I've really enjoyed his gangster movies, but really cannot remember anything he has made recent I actually thought was great or near great.  Not since Goodfellas.

 

 

[slikmar]

I think one of the things that has made Marvel so good is recognizing genre's within genre's and, despite their flaws, the characters are heroes, willing to sacrifice themselves and fight the good fight just because it needs to be fought. Sometimes even on opposite sides (Tony and Steve) or trying to play the middle (Widow and Hawkeye). As has been mentioned, one of the things I thought was much better about the MCU civil war over the original comics one is that you could actually recognize why each side did what they did.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

As has been mentioned, one of the things I thought was much better about the MCU civil war over the original comics one is that you could actually recognize why each side did what they did.

 

I thought it was particularly weak, by contrast, since Tony's entire motivation made zero sense other than just sheer panic and wanting not to feel responsible.  All of the arguments he made were utterly weak and ridiculous, they made no sense.

[Lord Liaden]

Christopher, I'm not certain from your phrasing which one you see as weak: the comic Civil War, or the movie one?

[Christopher R Taylor]

Both, but the movie presented the argument so badly that bothered me more.  It felt less like "we have a story that will unfold naturally" and more "we gotta pit these guys against each other, give me a reason!"

[Bazza]

The Loki D+ series will tie into DS2. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

I re-watched Age of Ultron last night, and was favorably impressed.  Its still not nearly as good as the first Avengers movie, and Ultron's bizarre method of destroying the world which really was never adequately explained or made any real sense still is lame... but it was smarter than I remembered upon first watching.  And Scarlet Witch's mind-messing with Tony Stark explains a lot of what happened to him later.  She has no real control over her powers and I think she really scrambled his brains long term.  Its the only thing that makes sense of his nearly insane reactions and behavior after that.

[Bazza]

*chuckle*