Dr.Device

This is straying pretty far off the topic of this post, but I'm really curious what this "single monolithic, zealous worldview and political mindset" you see taking over consists of. 

Mulan did not make $240M on its opening weekend. There was some messed up analysis going on shortly after its release that said that, but no one in the industry believes that now. It may have made 80-90 million dollars (citation) in its first week of streaming, but keep in mind, it was streaming only. Black Widow made $60M streaming on opening weekend, plus $80M in theaters. So Black Widow easily outperformed Mulan.
 
 

This is straying pretty far off the topic of this post, but I'm really curious what this "single monolithic, zealous worldview and political mindset" you see taking over consists of. 

Sounds likely, but also for the PR push that a big open gives a movie.

Mulan did not make $240M on its opening weekend. There was some messed up analysis going on shortly after its release that said that, but no one in the industry believes that now. It may have made 80-90 million dollars (citation) in its first week of streaming, but keep in mind, it was streaming only. Black Widow made $60M streaming on opening weekend, plus $80M in theaters. So Black Widow easily outperformed Mulan.
 
 

IMO, Black Widow was never destined to be a huge earner for Marvel even without a pandemic throwing a wrench into the works. That's not because Marvel has lost its way, but because some Marvel movies are simply not going to click with a massive audience. And while Disney loves making gobs of money like all studios do, there is actually room in the Marvel line-up for characters that deliver only moderate box office performance, like Ant-Man and Black Widow.
 
The Disney+ MCU streaming shows seem to be doing extremely well, which says to me that Marvel is still on top of their game. I think Shang Chi will only do moderately well, not unlike Black Widow, but mostly because I think there is a smaller audience for the martial arts corner of the superhero genre, not because Marvel has hit some proverbial iceberg. It's hard to say how well Eternals will do because when it is released we will still be under the thumb of a pandemic and we don't yet know how hard Disney is going to push it in terms of advertising. Disney will need to push pretty hard, I feel, because it is just like the Guardians of the Galaxy in that the Eternals is a team of heroes who are completely unknown to the public, and so the public needs to be shown/convinced why they should be excited to see a movie about them.

You keep beating this drum, but the box office was very poor for everything in 2021. Black Widow is the top earner in domestic box office. There is no way to paint that as a failure of the movie.
 
To me, it simply looks like an average Marvel movie, which is still a good thing, just not something I'm excited enough for to drop $30 on for just me and my wife to see. It honestly has the same vibe for me as all the Disney Plus shows, as a set up for some character (Yelena) for the next phase. Which doesn't make it bad, but makes it less of its own thing in my opinion. (The Disney Plus shows have all been OK, but just a little lacking IMO.)

There are some uncited assertion in there. Where did female cast members "bash males"? The Brie Larson quote cited in the article listed upthread had nothing to do with the MCU, and was nothing close to male bashing, and it's the only thing presented so far.
 
As Ternaugh pointed out, Captain Marvel was a blockbuster, by any reasonable definition. As to why Black Widow is doing so relatively poorly, that's really complicated. I sincerely doubt it has anything at all to do with anything Johansson has said in interviews. The movie is about a character that is already dead in the continuity of the series. It was released simultaneously to streaming and theaters, and it was released a year late due to the pandemic. All those are almost certainly bigger factors than folks caring about whatever Johansson said.
 
Regarding Dr. Strange being cut from shows, do you have an example beyond WandaVision? Otherwise, that's one show, and I've got to say, making the decision to not have the powerful man come in and save the day at the end of that series was a solid one. Having any character show up and Deus Ex Machina the ending would have been bad, but having a man do it in a show that's otherwise been mostly centering women would have sucked.
 
This whole panic over more diversity in the MCU makes me laugh. There was one female super hero for the entirety of phase one of the MCU, and she's the one who didn't get a solo movie (until just now), while there were four male-led solo movies. In phase two they added two more women. Wanda only became a hero at the very end of the last movie of phase 2, and Gamora was added as the one woman in a crew of five. There were once again four male-led solo movies, and zero female-led. Phase three gave us our first female-led movie, and five male-led movies.
 
As the original lead actors retire, their characters are getting replaced. We got a black Captain America. We're going to get Iron Heart instead of Iron Man. We know we're getting a female Thor in Love and Thunder, and rumors say that Hemsworth's Thor may be going to die, but I haven't heard anything solid on the future of those two characters. A lot of fans want Shuri to be the new Black Panther, but, once again, Marvel seems to be playing their cards close to their chest, so who knows. This year we get Shang Chi, a new male lead, our first Asian lead in the MCU. Someone in one of these threads said that Dr. Strange is going to die in Multiverse of Madness, and that Hawkeye is going to die in his Disney+ series. I've seen nothing to back these up. 
 
But the thing is, if the MCU becomes no longer completely centered around white males for a while, it's not the end of the universe. White males have dominated lead roles in these movies so far (and in all of Hollywood, for that matter) for a long while, and it would take a long time of that no longer being true to reach even close to parity. It would be okay to let some other folks take the spotlight for a while.
 
 

That was a pretty standard Captain America speech. Cap has been a social justice warrior since way back.

This is, to put it politely, somewhat overwrought, and entirely inaccurate.
 
Is the Falcon (now Captain America) nerdy or gay, submissive, or an idiot? No.
 
Sure, the Winter Soldier is a reformed villain, but, then again, so was the Black Widow.
 
Black Panther? None of those things. And if the actor hadn't died, he'd be back for another movie soon.
 
The Vision died again recently, but we may well see him again.
 
Spider-man is nerdy, I'll give you that but what's wrong with that?
Dr. Strange doesn't fit this categories either, although he is a bit of a pompous ass.
 
I won't include Hawkeye, since he's a serial killer (but other than that he's an okay guy), or Starlord, because I'd say he does tend to fall in the idiot bucket (and is also an arrogant, insecure jerk).
 
I've seen Ant-Man criticized because Wasp is a better fighter than him, but there's a lot more to being a positive role model than being able to kick ass (which he still often manages).
 
There are also a ton of supporting characters who are good role models.
 
And, guess what, a gay character can be just as much of a positive male role model as a straight character, not that we see many of them in the MCU or other action movies (The Old Guard is a nice exception there). 
 
And Terry Crews is, this very year, playing a badass character on Brooklyn 99.  A smart, accomplished bad ass. He just happens to also be a dad, and a caring person. It's a sitcom, so of course they give him an amusing tic (he tends to refer to himself in third person), but he looks like a pretty positive role model to me.
 
 
 
 

I'd like to see some links to these interviews and statements by Brie Larson and Scarlett Johansson.
 
The idea that Marvel is somehow portraying white men as inherently evil is laughable on its face. Captain America? Iron Man? The Hulk? Hawkeye? Dr. Strange? Thor? Ant Man? Star Lord? Spider-man? Yeah, no.
 
Do they have evil white men in their shows and movies? Sure. But nowhere is it ever implied that being white and male makes them evil or inferior in any way. 
 
And as for people not going to see Captain Marvel, it's the second highest grossing of the non-team-up MCU films, so I don't think people stayed away in droves. And it really doesn't make sense to draw any conclusions about Black Widow, with the year+ pandemic delay, the new and untested release strategy, and the lack of a China release (as of yet).
 
 

What properties are only "meant for boys"? What properties are only "meant for girls"? Dr Who has always featured strong female characters, and the audience demographics are split pretty much down the middle when it comes to gender. There's a large male following for My Little Pony, which was originally to sell toys to girls. Fandoms expand, or they die.
 
Is Hero System only meant for boys? What about D&D? Pathfinder?
Is it wrong for me to give out Hot Wheels to girls and boys on Halloween?
 
And back to topic, are comic books and their various spin-offs only for boys, or can girls like the Guardians of the Galaxy or the Avengers, too?

I am not sure I put too much stock in Rotten Tomato scores.  Because of the way they count bad reviews vs. good ones, the result can be pretty skewed.  At one point in time recently, the best movie ever made, according to RT scores, was Paddington 2.  Now that may have been a swell movie, but I don't think anyone would pick it as the best movie of all time. 

When did He-Man join the MCU? Did I miss something? 😉

Since we can't rerun the universe a little differently, we'll never know who's right. I just find the idea that it's position in the release schedule added half a billion dollars to it's box-office take to be ridiculous on its face.
 
 
Wow. That's utterly ridiculous. Marvel's marketing team guilted the world into making Black Panther the number four top grossing movie of all time? Seriously? I'd love to see examples of this '"you're a terrible person and bigot if you don't watch this movie" woke marketing.'  Or is this like the horrible things Larson and Johansson said about men that we're just supposed to assume really happened, without evidence given? 
 
Further, I'd love to hear why, if that kind of marketing happened, and was so effective, Marvel didn't do the same with Black Widow.
 
It seems like the idea that there was an audience that had been clamoring for movies like these and came out in droves to see them is just unfathomable to y'all.
 
Black Panther was easily one of the best two movies in the MCU. Captain Marvel, not so much, but it was a solid superhero movie, and the first MCU movie with a female solo lead. 
 
 
 

Since we can't rerun the universe a little differently, we'll never know who's right. I just find the idea that it's position in the release schedule added half a billion dollars to it's box-office take to be ridiculous on its face.
 
 
Wow. That's utterly ridiculous. Marvel's marketing team guilted the world into making Black Panther the number four top grossing movie of all time? Seriously? I'd love to see examples of this '"you're a terrible person and bigot if you don't watch this movie" woke marketing.'  Or is this like the horrible things Larson and Johansson said about men that we're just supposed to assume really happened, without evidence given? 
 
Further, I'd love to hear why, if that kind of marketing happened, and was so effective, Marvel didn't do the same with Black Widow.
 
It seems like the idea that there was an audience that had been clamoring for movies like these and came out in droves to see them is just unfathomable to y'all.
 
Black Panther was easily one of the best two movies in the MCU. Captain Marvel, not so much, but it was a solid superhero movie, and the first MCU movie with a female solo lead. 
 
 
 

Since we can't rerun the universe a little differently, we'll never know who's right. I just find the idea that it's position in the release schedule added half a billion dollars to it's box-office take to be ridiculous on its face.
 
 
Wow. That's utterly ridiculous. Marvel's marketing team guilted the world into making Black Panther the number four top grossing movie of all time? Seriously? I'd love to see examples of this '"you're a terrible person and bigot if you don't watch this movie" woke marketing.'  Or is this like the horrible things Larson and Johansson said about men that we're just supposed to assume really happened, without evidence given? 
 
Further, I'd love to hear why, if that kind of marketing happened, and was so effective, Marvel didn't do the same with Black Widow.
 
It seems like the idea that there was an audience that had been clamoring for movies like these and came out in droves to see them is just unfathomable to y'all.
 
Black Panther was easily one of the best two movies in the MCU. Captain Marvel, not so much, but it was a solid superhero movie, and the first MCU movie with a female solo lead. 
 
 
 

You would think that type of marketing would drive the box office down but both topped one billion USD despite the haters. The people who were looking to be offended were I guess but maybe making movies for women and black audiences is something that could catch on. 

There are some uncited assertion in there. Where did female cast members "bash males"? The Brie Larson quote cited in the article listed upthread had nothing to do with the MCU, and was nothing close to male bashing, and it's the only thing presented so far.
 
As Ternaugh pointed out, Captain Marvel was a blockbuster, by any reasonable definition. As to why Black Widow is doing so relatively poorly, that's really complicated. I sincerely doubt it has anything at all to do with anything Johansson has said in interviews. The movie is about a character that is already dead in the continuity of the series. It was released simultaneously to streaming and theaters, and it was released a year late due to the pandemic. All those are almost certainly bigger factors than folks caring about whatever Johansson said.
 
Regarding Dr. Strange being cut from shows, do you have an example beyond WandaVision? Otherwise, that's one show, and I've got to say, making the decision to not have the powerful man come in and save the day at the end of that series was a solid one. Having any character show up and Deus Ex Machina the ending would have been bad, but having a man do it in a show that's otherwise been mostly centering women would have sucked.
 
This whole panic over more diversity in the MCU makes me laugh. There was one female super hero for the entirety of phase one of the MCU, and she's the one who didn't get a solo movie (until just now), while there were four male-led solo movies. In phase two they added two more women. Wanda only became a hero at the very end of the last movie of phase 2, and Gamora was added as the one woman in a crew of five. There were once again four male-led solo movies, and zero female-led. Phase three gave us our first female-led movie, and five male-led movies.
 
As the original lead actors retire, their characters are getting replaced. We got a black Captain America. We're going to get Iron Heart instead of Iron Man. We know we're getting a female Thor in Love and Thunder, and rumors say that Hemsworth's Thor may be going to die, but I haven't heard anything solid on the future of those two characters. A lot of fans want Shuri to be the new Black Panther, but, once again, Marvel seems to be playing their cards close to their chest, so who knows. This year we get Shang Chi, a new male lead, our first Asian lead in the MCU. Someone in one of these threads said that Dr. Strange is going to die in Multiverse of Madness, and that Hawkeye is going to die in his Disney+ series. I've seen nothing to back these up. 
 
But the thing is, if the MCU becomes no longer completely centered around white males for a while, it's not the end of the universe. White males have dominated lead roles in these movies so far (and in all of Hollywood, for that matter) for a long while, and it would take a long time of that no longer being true to reach even close to parity. It would be okay to let some other folks take the spotlight for a while.
 
 

Where does Ant-Man and The Wasp fit into this theory? It also fell between Infinity War and Endgame, but made on modestly more than Ant-Man. 
 
 
My memory is more of a bunch of really positive reviews and a bunch of really negative reviews, with some in the middle. 
 
I can certainly seeCaptain Marvel's spot in the schedule boosting opening weekend somewhat, but I don't see that holding up long enough to get it to the levels it reached without a lot of fans really liking the movie. The idea that its position nearly doubled its take, but somehow only gave Ant-Man and The Wasp a modest boost, if any, strikes me as grasping at straws.

Entirely? That's an interesting theory. Have you seen anything to support it other than the certainty that people couldn't have really liked the film enough to give it those numbers?

Where does Ant-Man and The Wasp fit into this theory? It also fell between Infinity War and Endgame, but made on modestly more than Ant-Man. 
 
 
My memory is more of a bunch of really positive reviews and a bunch of really negative reviews, with some in the middle. 
 
I can certainly seeCaptain Marvel's spot in the schedule boosting opening weekend somewhat, but I don't see that holding up long enough to get it to the levels it reached without a lot of fans really liking the movie. The idea that its position nearly doubled its take, but somehow only gave Ant-Man and The Wasp a modest boost, if any, strikes me as grasping at straws.

There are some uncited assertion in there. Where did female cast members "bash males"? The Brie Larson quote cited in the article listed upthread had nothing to do with the MCU, and was nothing close to male bashing, and it's the only thing presented so far.
 
As Ternaugh pointed out, Captain Marvel was a blockbuster, by any reasonable definition. As to why Black Widow is doing so relatively poorly, that's really complicated. I sincerely doubt it has anything at all to do with anything Johansson has said in interviews. The movie is about a character that is already dead in the continuity of the series. It was released simultaneously to streaming and theaters, and it was released a year late due to the pandemic. All those are almost certainly bigger factors than folks caring about whatever Johansson said.
 
Regarding Dr. Strange being cut from shows, do you have an example beyond WandaVision? Otherwise, that's one show, and I've got to say, making the decision to not have the powerful man come in and save the day at the end of that series was a solid one. Having any character show up and Deus Ex Machina the ending would have been bad, but having a man do it in a show that's otherwise been mostly centering women would have sucked.
 
This whole panic over more diversity in the MCU makes me laugh. There was one female super hero for the entirety of phase one of the MCU, and she's the one who didn't get a solo movie (until just now), while there were four male-led solo movies. In phase two they added two more women. Wanda only became a hero at the very end of the last movie of phase 2, and Gamora was added as the one woman in a crew of five. There were once again four male-led solo movies, and zero female-led. Phase three gave us our first female-led movie, and five male-led movies.
 
As the original lead actors retire, their characters are getting replaced. We got a black Captain America. We're going to get Iron Heart instead of Iron Man. We know we're getting a female Thor in Love and Thunder, and rumors say that Hemsworth's Thor may be going to die, but I haven't heard anything solid on the future of those two characters. A lot of fans want Shuri to be the new Black Panther, but, once again, Marvel seems to be playing their cards close to their chest, so who knows. This year we get Shang Chi, a new male lead, our first Asian lead in the MCU. Someone in one of these threads said that Dr. Strange is going to die in Multiverse of Madness, and that Hawkeye is going to die in his Disney+ series. I've seen nothing to back these up. 
 
But the thing is, if the MCU becomes no longer completely centered around white males for a while, it's not the end of the universe. White males have dominated lead roles in these movies so far (and in all of Hollywood, for that matter) for a long while, and it would take a long time of that no longer being true to reach even close to parity. It would be okay to let some other folks take the spotlight for a while.
 
 

Where does Ant-Man and The Wasp fit into this theory? It also fell between Infinity War and Endgame, but made on modestly more than Ant-Man. 
 
 
My memory is more of a bunch of really positive reviews and a bunch of really negative reviews, with some in the middle. 
 
I can certainly seeCaptain Marvel's spot in the schedule boosting opening weekend somewhat, but I don't see that holding up long enough to get it to the levels it reached without a lot of fans really liking the movie. The idea that its position nearly doubled its take, but somehow only gave Ant-Man and The Wasp a modest boost, if any, strikes me as grasping at straws.

Well until this whole pandemic thing is under control and pre-pandemic society returns as normal, the billion dollar box office will be off-the-table.