How exactly will this franchise sustain itself?
They're covered till Phase 3. But what happens after? Sure they can think up a story ark but soon they'll have to kill off iron man or replace RDJ with someone else. There's also the problem with overcrowding with how many characters they're bringing in
Spiderman chronicles
They have Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Dr. Strange, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and most importantly Spider-Man to make more films out of.
I do admit, I think the moviescape is becoming pretty crowded in terms of characters, and I'm doubting they have much flexibility. Which is why I was so surprised to see Runaways on Hulu instead of a film.
I'm on board as far as Infinity War Part 2, then I think its time to reassess the MCU.
See, I don't get why everyone wants to stop at Infinity Wars. Personally, I want to see them keep going until they dry their well of stories and characters. Like, I want to see when they start putting Silverclaw and Ruby Thursday into their films.
There's also the thing with audience fatigue. There's too many Sup Forums related movies
The DC verse
Fox's Xmen and F4
MCU
Personally I think they might be able to acquire rights to F4 and do Galactus for Phase 4-6
I think Hollywood in general is facing fatigue. Profits are way down from last year, and everything just feels more manufactured than made out of love of the product. There's also the fact that Marvel is the only one with a stable cinematic universe while X-Men has a very confusing continuity and DC is doing such drastic moves too early (like killing Superman).
I don't get why people think Galactus is a good big bad for the MCU. When you have a villain that big, the fights all become the same. "Everyone attacks him, attacks do nothing, then a deus ex stops him". At that point, it doesn't matter if you have 100 or 4 heroes to stop Galactus, he's still just a giant who shrugs off all attacks, and therefore a very boring villain.
I'm not saying I want to stop. I'm just saying I'm invested at this point and for better or worse I'm fully on board until that point. It's just that Infinity War Part 2 is the end of the road were on at the moment, everything has been building to it and until that moment MCU kinda gets a free pass from me.
After Infinity War Part 2 it's new waters and make or break time. I won't be giving it a free pass, I'll actually be looking at it as "Is this actually still good?" rather than just accepting it due to investment.
>Personally I think they might be able to acquire rights to F4 and do Galactus for Phase 4-6
Am I the only one who doesn't give a shit about the F4. I mean does anybody even care about them. I haven't heard anyone complain about their lack of books since Marvel started pretending they didn't exist
>but soon they'll have to kill off iron man or replace RDJ with someone else
It could go on forever honestly. People will start getting bored of the movies when the movies start looking more like the comics tho
I think Marvel has been concerned with this as well. I mean, they are planning all the way to 2030 with these things. But I wouldn't be surprised if they pull the trick of comics where the last page of the big event reveals that there's another event coming. I wouldn't be surprised if Thanos' shenanigans cause a tear in dimensional space that causes other things to happen.
That's because most of Sup Forums only cares about FF's villains like Galactus, Annhilus, Kang, and most importantly Doom. Say what you will about the team, they do have some of the most famous villains at Marvel.
I still want to see Doom done right on the screen but he's not fit for an avengers villian. Maybe a villain in a solo movie but power level too low for full avengers villian
It's mostly because he's a believable threat. But yeah boring villain, sure. They could do Beyonder. I think if they want to phase out a few actors, a villain with reality bending powers is the way to go
The problem with Riri and a lot of these legacies is that they haven't done anything memorable to make multiple films out of. The closest is Kamala because she at least has a very solid supporting cast and themes. Miles barely has one memorable villain, and Riri I doubt will be used much outside the first arc of her fighting some tech based Iron Man villain then being flung into an event.
Bucky Cap seems the most likely to happen in the MCU, and Cap does have a lot of leftover villains to explore, but a lot of the rest seems too unstable to work in the MCU.
RDJ will inevitably stop playing Iron Man sooner or later and my point is, when he does, who do you think they will cast as a replacement?
>I still want to see Doom done right on the screen but he's not fit for an avengers villian. Maybe a villain in a solo movie but power level too low for full avengers villian
We are talking about the same Dr. Doom, right? He's ranked up there as one of the biggest villains at Marvel.
>It's mostly because he's a believable threat. But yeah boring villain, sure. They could do Beyonder. I think if they want to phase out a few actors, a villain with reality bending powers is the way to go
I could see the Beyonder working, as he's a pretty difficult villain to take down. I can see a total makeover though, because that 70's look won't fly these days. Though it's kind of funny if they follow up the Infinity Gauntlet with a guy who is essentially an Infinity Gauntlet.
Honestly? Just kill off Iron Man. Black Panther can fill in his role. Or whichever super scientist you want in the mix. Because truthfully, Iron Man never had that much lore to him to keep him up for so long. It's usually him vs. tech based villains, and beyond that, they are running out of things to do with him in the MCU. They gave him an army of suits,the Hulkbuster, made him create Ultron, did Civil War with him, did War Machine, and loosely did demon in a bottle. Outside having Tony build a Godzilla sized mech, there are no more tricks left to pull with Tony Stark, so you might as well move on.
Doom not an avengers level threat. Doom can barely defeat Thor but then you add in the rest, no way
Bond it. New guys as the principles.
Like there is literally a franchise of films that has been doing this for decades I dunno why everyone thinks its impossible.
I thought Doom was always this difficult villain for the heroes to beat and they usually had to just stalemate him.
Bond didn't have an ongoing story like the MCU, nor does it come out 3 times a year.
Hot toys and forcing it down our throats
Also the billion population of china
They'll retire the old character and focus on the new ones, and eventually recast them.
I mean, they've been rather upfront about Doctor Strange being the "new" Iron Man within the context of the MCU. If I had to venture a guess
Iron Man - Doctor Strange
Captain America - Winter Soldier
Thor - Black Panther
Hulk - He'll probably stick around. She-Hulk, maybe?
Black Widow - Captain Marvel
Hawkeye - Ant-Man
Plus Spider-Man and the Guardians of the Galaxy.
I think considering it one big "Marvel" franchise instead of multiple franchises with biannual crossovers was the biggest mistake they could have made.
I guess it helps get asses in seats for the lesser known stuff but it's what's caused this all to develop a singular tone, and for people to be looking for this overarching narrative that isn't really there.
After the Thanos story, scale back. Make a couple Avengers films with a tight cast of 5-6 heroes from the solo films, and keep characters like Spider-Man and the GotG firmly connected to the world, but separate enough so that no one feels obligated to see one movie just so that they can 'get' another.
Huh.
Though I'm sure we'll get a Black Widow film.
We need Dr Doom goddammit! He's perfect for the next overarching villain after Thanos. Remember that shit from EMH? Basically that
post yfw galactus quips back and forth with tony stark
Easy, they kill off all the big actors and replace them with their diversity-based counterparts.
>But I wouldn't be surprised if they pull the trick of comics where the last page of the big event reveals that there's another event coming
No shit! That's what they've done with practically every movie so far so I don't know why you would think they'd stop now.
The problem I have discussing movies with people is this:
>" they'll have to kill off iron man or replace RDJ with someone else"
For most of the people RDJ is Iron Man so for them you can´t have Ironman in a movie without RDJ. I don´t care, for me is like an artist change in a comic book, maybe will come someone worse or you get lucky and will come someone better. But the actor is not the character as the creative team or artist in the comic book is not the only take of the comic or character.
Don't Renew contracts for RDJ & Chris Evans
Hire matthew mcconaughey to play Osborne/Iron Patriot
I've heard literally NOTHING about the F4. Is it possible Marvel managed to buy them back? A man can dream
I want Nova, Namor, and Thunderbolts.
And maybe work out a deal with Fox to bring F4 into phase 4.
I wish they'd get the rights back to F4 so they could do the Annihilation storyline.
West coast avengers when?
Have Tony science himself into uplifting himself to an ai that lives in his robot, buy the rights to RDJ's voice and appearance for a hologram Tony. It can just be a good voice actor doing a computer aided RDJ impression and some CGI.
Have Tony have had a secret daughter with Pepper (that maybe even tony didnt know about) who can come in and be R.E.S.C.U.E.
Use Spiderman as the lynchpin to swing "new actors" around because he is so popular and everyone is used to Spiderman being played by different people. Plus you can bring in new-york focused Spiderman Adjacent heroes and villains starting with Dr Strange.
Fantastic Four would be a brillient get for thi as well if they can swing it, espcially if they use a team up with Spiderman as their first movie, or have them appear in a Spiderman movie before they get their powers as Lab Guys working for Oscorp or something.
Bringing in osbourne would be a perfect choice for this.
For Steve Rogers you can have him start aging as the Super Soldier Syrum wears off (or from being in a dimension where time passes differently for a while or have Thanos decide to age him to infrimity with the gauntlet), bring in a new Captain America he passes the mantle to (maybe Patriot or someone) and have a different old man actor playing Steve as Nomad.
Dark Reign
Annihilation
Then reboot everything with House of M.
Galactus has a lot of potential. The appeal of being a force of nature is interesting and opens more in-depth lore of how the MCU works.
Moreover, you can introduce many relationships between the heroes by having not just one, by many heralds (they don't need to play by the rules and strictly have one herald). Since Galactus needs scouts for worlds to feed on, you can also introduce Gah Lak Tus elements as his own little robotic personal army while adding a twist and combining many elements of non-616 Galactus.
Doom is not an Avengers-level threat when it comes to physical combat pound for pound.
But when you let him play his schemes in the background, he will fuck shit up.
Scarlet Witch is the new Hulk. Use in team-up movies only, never gets her own story, and is the most powerful but also most unstable.
This reminds me of the Marvel Ultimate Alliance game. It might be nostalgia but I remember it being really good.
Wasn't there a rumor a few years ago that ROM the space knight would be in Phase 4?
>tfw we will never get a good Namor movie.
Even if there's an MCU Sub-Mariner, it'll be the wrong tone entirely because audiences don't like that kind of anti-hero.
They should do alternate universe oneshot movies about known and unknown characters. It would allow for more diversity in story, event, charaters... Like what DC does with comics but for movies.
The best comics are character origins and arcs because they are simple and focus on their characters, not events or points of view, but personal struggles.
MCU will end at phase 3, and then they will probably go back to lone adventures focusing on each hero and simple sequels.
Either that or it will continue forever and just become as messy and confusing as the comics, with plots going balls deep retarded and losing scope to universe threats.
Besides Spider-man none of those characters are good enough to get that ''timeless'' feeling that Spider-man, Superman and Batman have.
For example, if they reboot the GotG is going to be with different characters because people already don't give a fuck about anyone besides Rocket and Groot.
>they haven't done anything memorable to make multiple films out of.
How many Marvel Disney movies follow comic book lines? Like at all?
I can see him being an antagonist in a Black Panther sequel.
I want to see Osborn and Doom done right.
Like for Doom, the avengers try to stop him, and think he's all tech, then he pulls some mystical bullshit and they're like "Well, wtf was that shit? better call the other Steve."
The movies will continue to make money because the MCU will be popular with fans for a long time. The bubble won't burst but the movies will start to get less profitable.
The tricky thing is when RDJ and Evans stop acting and the other actors demand more money. This will make the movies need to produce more money at the box office. And Avengers 2 has shown that Disney always has a set bottom lime despite how much money the movie made.
Eventually the old formula of self contained franchises will be more profitable. The costs will be less and the studio brand will help any film.
Alright, here's the thing.
There's basically three levels of comic book crossover, right?
There's your basic "Ambient" crossover, which happens in the books all the time. Matt Murdoch happens to be defending an X-Man in court, Peter Parker covering the Olympics in a Luke Cage book, stuff like that. That's what most of Phase 1 was based on.
Then there's your basic team-up book. Avengers, Teen Titans, Justice League of America, stuff like that. Threats that require a larger, concentrated effort, but it's still mostly relegated to the individual book, and isolated from the universe at large. That's what Avengers 1 and 2 were. Awesome in their own way, but there's a good chance we're never seeing the Chitauri or Ultron ever again.
Then you have your huge, ultimate EVENT crossovers, which can be lead up to for years, span several books, have massive and lasting ramifications for the universe at large, and can change the way the books themselves are percieved and even sold. DC's crises, Flashpoint, the 2006 Civil War, stuff like that.
That's what Infinity War 1 and 2 are being built up to being.
The MCU as a whole is built up, not just of the individual characters' stories, but the over-arching meta-narrative of "Can these movie makers even pull it off?"
Nobody REALLY cared about Loki and the Chitauri in Avengers 1, it was all about whether they could pull off a crazy stunt like "Can we make a movie that's a sequel to five other movies at the same time?", and everything after is about escalating that insane game of Producer's HORSE.
The problem is, there's really nothing left to do. No real narrative stone left unturned. Anything the MCU does after Infinity War can only be a lateral move, so there's basically no reason left to care.