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[ManaByte]

Crisis at Marvel: Jonathan Majors Back-Up Plans, ‘The Marvels’ Reshoots, Reviving Original Avengers and More Issues Revealed

Marvel has enjoyed a nearly uninterrupted string of hits ever since it started independently producing its movies with 2008’s “Iron Man.”

variety.com

The most pressing issue to be discussed at the retreat was what to do about Jonathan Majors, the actor who had been poised to carry the next phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe but instead is headed to a high-profile trial in New York later this month on domestic violence charges. The actor insists he is the victim, but the damage to his reputation and the chance he could lose the case has forced Marvel to reconsider its plans to center the next phase of its interlocking slate of sequels, spinoffs and series around Majors’ villainous character, Kang the Conqueror.

At the gathering in Palm Springs, executives discussed backup plans, including pivoting to another comic book adversary, like Dr. Doom

“Marvel is truly fucked with the whole Kang angle,” says one top dealmaker who has seen the final “Loki” episode. “And they haven’t had an opportunity to rewrite until very recently [because of the WGA strike]. But I don’t see a path to how they move forward with him.”

Sources say there have been talks to bring back the original gang for an “Avengers” movie. This would include reviving Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man and Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, both of whom were killed off in “Endgame.” (That shouldn’t be a stumbling block — in comic books, beloved characters are often killed off, only to be resurrected thanks to the power of things like the multiverse.) But the studio hasn’t yet committed to the idea — if it were able to bring those actors back, it wouldn’t come cheap. Sources say Downey Jr.’s upfront salary for “Iron Man 3” was around $25 million.

 

[The Cockatrice]

I dont even care anymore what they do who does what who comes back. The peak of MCU has been reached already and it will never ever be surpassed, it's only downhill. I think the whole superhero shtick has worn off people due to all the garbage tv shows and movies released post endgame. Im shocked to say this but Im more interested in the DCU's whole reboot thing and I think MCU will prolly do that as well soon enough if they cant find or make anything good. Hell even Deadpool 3 is prlly going to suck.

 

[Sleepwalker]

Id watch an original avengers movie but got very little interest for anything else.

 

[LordCBH]

Aka: “nobody’s watching our dogshit movies anymore.”

 

[analog_future]

The MCU is fizzling because the stories are dogshit now and full of plot contrivances and plotholes.

It's not because RDJ is gone or everyone wants the original Avenger's back. It's because there's nothing interesting or consistent about the story or universe anymore.

 

[ManaByte]

The Blade movie:

One person familiar with the script permutations says the story at one point morphed into a narrative led by women and filled with life lessons. Blade was relegated to the fourth lead

 

[K' Dash]

they completely devalued Marvel, Star Wars and their iconic animated films with shit live action "remakes"... whats next on the list?

 

[diffusionx]

I dont even care anymore what they do who does what who comes back. The peak of MCU has been reached already and it will never ever be surpassed, it's only downhill. I think the whole superhero shtick has worn off people due to all the garbage tv shows and movies released post endgame. Im shocked to say this but Im more interested in the DCU's whole reboot thing and I think MCU will prolly do that as well soon enough if they cant find or make anything good. Hell even Deadpool 3 is prlly going to suck.

Everyone knows this. Including Disney and Marvel. The problem is that there is this entire company and massive bureaucracy whose literal jobs depend on MCU capeshit continuing indefinitely. They're not just going to throw in the towel and say, "welp, it's over, time to resign and not feed my family."

 

[Fbh]

But some people on GAF have told me Marvel is still incredible, better than ever in fact, and everyone adores the new characters.
A new Avengers movies with She Hulk, The Eternals, Shang-Chi, Ms Marvel and Kate Bishop should easily surpass Infinity War and Endgame at the box office.

 

[The Cockatrice]

The Blade movie:

Hopefully the lead will be a black deaf woman who likes to paint Blades on vampire corpses.

 

[Jinzo Prime]

I feel that the quality of writing has rapidly deteriorated at Marvel since Avengers Endgame and I suspect that is why no one seems to care about their movies anymore.

Not to mention they release three movies a year and multiple television shows, watering down the content even more.

They have been quantity over quality for far too long.

 

[balls of snow]

They actually have to earn our money now.
You love to see it.

 

[NickFire]

I thought the Panderverse was satire.

 

[balls of snow]

Am I reading right, one half hour she hulk ep cost 25 million dollars to make.

 

[RAÏSanÏa]

It always seemed like a bad decision to have permutations of the same villain in every movie by dressing them differently and putting on a mustache and glasses. It's something to giggle about as a gag/skit while dismissing it out of hand.

Thought Doom was already going to be part of the story. Guess they could elevate.

It's the supernatural side of the fiction that I'm more interested in. The demonic world doesn't seem to be affected by multiverse. Do demons dream in MCU?

 

[tkscz]

I always found it funny how the movies went in the EXACT same direction as the failing comics down to the story quality for pretty much the same reasons.

We had too many writers, none of them were talking to each other to make sure every story ran with each other smoothly (suddenly the giant space god is no longer in the middle of the ocean, inhumans just disappear without a trace), they all went the route of deconstruct male character, over hype female character (lets spend the entirety of Antman shitting on Antman no matter what he does, lets keep reminding the audience how inept Thor is compared to Valkyrie and Jane, lets make Hulk weaker and weaker and tell him he has no reason to be angry because she hulk is a woman and has ALL the reasons to be angry regardless how she has everything go her way. "It's not your fault Wanda, they won't know what you gave up for them".), stories have little focus and just throws everything at the audience expecting them to keep up, each movie now expects people to have seen the last to the point where they use the connection to other movies as marketing, introducing the multiverse and then using it as a crutch for everything, assuming the way to fix it is to just go back to basics without the original writing teams that wrote those basics.

It's like, you literally saw what happening to the comic books and repeat EVERY aspect and assumed the same shit wouldn't happen. The die hards will stay because they are die hards, but there aren't enough of them to support your terrible writing.

 

[pachura]

The peak of MCU has been reached already and it will never ever be surpassed, it's only downhill.

Indeed, they will never top Legion

 

[FunkMiller]

 

[ResilientBanana]

Desperate Disney/Marvel will be a good Disney/Marvel.

 

[Trunx81]

Cast a chick.
Make her gay.

Or just hire good screenwriters. Give it to the Andor-guy

 

[Kabelly]

I finally got around to watching Quantamania 2 days ago and I thought Kang was one of the strong points. He's a very compelling actor. I just wish he'd get more time to brew.


edit: oh wait this mofo just got arrested?? it's over

 

[Hugare]

Just use the Multiverse to change Kang's actor.

They have the perfect tool. So just do it.

Trying to change the storyline when they are already balls deep into Kang will be a huge mess

And trying to revive Iron Man, Disney lol

Will ruin the best part of those movies, stupid mfers

 

[jshackles]

Just use the Multiverse to change Kang's actor.

 

[Trunx81]

Just use the Multiverse to change Kang's actor.

They have the perfect tool. So just do it.

replacing a black actor .. good luck with that. Give the role to Ryan Gosling
Problem is that they stated that KANG is the same in every multiverse.

 

[jason10mm]

Just use the Multiverse to change Kang's actor.

Yeah, I don't get this recent obsession with one actor playing a role forever. Just recast him! Why deny a black man a role? They did it with BP and that was unnecessary and killed BP2 as a worthwhile story as well.

I gotta think Majors was smart enough to put some rider in his contract that if they replaced him with another actor he still gets a big check, enough zeros that Disney doesn't want the bad PR that they are paying out millions to an abuser (if thats the verdict in the end) just ebcause they can't re-write a fantasy story.

 

[Spyxos]

Nah i don't want Dr Doom such a boring character.

 

[Papa_Wisdom]

 

[3liteDragon]

As public criticism mounts, Feige is pulling the plug on scripts and projects that aren’t working. Case in point: the “Blade” reboot. With Mahershala Ali signed on for the eponymous role of a vampire, things looked promising for a 2023 release date. But the project has gone through at least five writers, two directors and one shutdown six weeks before production. One person familiar with the script permutations says the story at one point morphed into a narrative led by women and filled with life lessons. Blade was relegated to the fourth lead, a bizarre idea considering that the studio had two-time Oscar winner Ali on board.

 

[Badlucktroll]

I am superhero’d out.

 

[Punished Miku]

They killed it. All they have left to get me into a theater at Disney is Avatar 3 and Battle Angel 2.

 

[Ulysses 31]

Desperate Disney/Marvel will be a good Disney/Marvel.

They're desperate to get people to watch The Marvels with their references to Thanos in the promo yet they still put out clips like these that are supposed to entice you...



A leaked plot point is that Captain Marvel needs to sing to communicate with certain people.

 

[DrFigs]

I always found it funny how the movies went in the EXACT same direction as the failing comics down to the story quality for pretty much the same reasons.

We had too many writers, none of them were talking to each other to make sure every story ran with each other smoothly (suddenly the giant space god is no longer in the middle of the ocean, inhumans just disappear without a trace), they all went the route of deconstruct male character, over hype female character (lets spend the entirety of Antman shitting on Antman no matter what he does, lets keep reminding the audience how inept Thor is compared to Valkyrie and Jane, lets make Hulk weaker and weaker and tell him he has no reason to be angry because she hulk is a woman and has ALL the reasons to be angry regardless how she has everything go her way. "It's not your fault Wanda, they won't know what you gave up for them".), stories have little focus and just throws everything at the audience expecting them to keep up, each movie now expects people to have seen the last to the point where they use the connection to other movies as marketing, introducing the multiverse and then using it as a crutch for everything, assuming the way to fix it is to just go back to basics without the original writing teams that wrote those basics.

It's like, you literally saw what happening to the comic books and repeat EVERY aspect and assumed the same shit wouldn't happen. The die hards will stay because they are die hards, but there aren't enough of them to support your terrible writing.

idk if the die hards will stick around. who are the die hards for Marvel? Like 7 year olds? Don't they age out of the market?

 

[Puscifer]

I dont even care anymore what they do who does what who comes back. The peak of MCU has been reached already and it will never ever be surpassed, it's only downhill. I think the whole superhero shtick has worn off people due to all the garbage tv shows and movies released post endgame. Im shocked to say this but Im more interested in the DCU's whole reboot thing and I think MCU will prolly do that as well soon enough if they cant find or make anything good. Hell even Deadpool 3 is prlly going to suck.

I literally think the only force equivalent to Thanos would be the Phoenix Force considering how many normal heroes it's turned into literal Gods. Short of X-Men and a proper Dark Phoenix storyline I'm basically checked out

 

[MrA]

The Blade movie:

I have a solution, just release blade 1998 with better cgi, problem solved man

 

[Billbofet]

Much like Star Wars at this point, I genuinely don't give a shit what happens going forward. This reeks of desperation and sad that it's so bad we have to be nostalgic about shit that happened only four years ago already.
My kids probably care even less than I do. Disney needs to come up with something new/original or buy some other IP that they will then have five years to drive into the ground!

 

[Badlucktroll]

The multiverse storyline after Thanos is uninteresting and batshit. They should have just done something with Fantastic 4, Dr. Doom, Galactus, X-Men, ect after the Fox deal closed.

 

[mortal]

lol things must be bad if they're willing to pull out nostalgia bait this soon.

 

[DeafTourette]

I finally got around to watching Quantamania 2 days ago and I thought Kang was one of the strong points. He's a very compelling actor. I just wish he'd get more time to brew.


edit: oh wait this mofo just got arrested?? it's over

In May. He's had multiple hearings and the trial is set for late November. It was a wild ride.

 

[DeafTourette]

They're desperate to get people to watch The Marvels with their references to Thanos in the promo yet they still put out clips like these that are supposed to entice you...



A leaked plot point is that Captain Marvel needs to sing to communicate with certain people.

That scene looked fun... I don't know the context of it but it looks good to me.

 

[Evil Calvin]

Marvel's MCU movies haven't been great since Endgame. Original Avengers are getting pretty old. Maybe mix in 4-5 new Avengers mixing it up with the old......much like how Hercules, Giant Man, Hawkeye, Quicksilver replaced the original Avengers in the comics in the 60's. I would think having Iron Man, Wasp, Ant Man, Scarlet Witch and adding a new Hercules, Black Knight, Giant Man, Wonder Man

 

[tkscz]

idk if the die hards will stick around. who are the die hards for Marvel? Like 7 year olds? Don't they age out of the market?

Funny enough, the same 30 to 50 year olds who are die hard for the comics or just really into whatever they throw out there. I know a few of them who are nostalgic for the old movies so stick with the new ones and shows because it is content. They just consume, don't think about what they are consuming.

 

[Papa_Wisdom]

lol things must be bad if they're willing to pull out nostalgia bait this soon.

Even if they do bring RDJ and co back I don’t even think the nostalgia card will hold any weight. I think people will know exactly what it is and won’t fall for it. That along with the terrible writing and comedy that had run it’s course 5 years ago just won’t cut it anymore.

The best bet would be to just can everything, leave it for atleast a couple of years, recast everyone, and use that time to create and plan a new interesting story line, I’d love to see some decent Villains. Dc doom, mysterio, the main enemy galactus.

 

[RAÏSanÏa]

Nah i don't want Dr Doom such a boring character.

That and I didn't care for the Fantastic 4 stories either.

Maybe they'll find some devilish work around licensing and make a lowkey Micronauts under a surprise Molecule Man movie to expand for Secret Wars. Have a few premonitions of The Beyonder.

That scene looked fun... I don't know the context of it but it looks good to me.

I thought that too! I'm unsure if Ms. Marvel was meant to be imitating Carol, but she totally nailed the expressions and that made the scene for me. Could be setting high expectations.

 

[Trunx81]

The multiverse storyline after Thanos is uninteresting and batshit. They should have just done something with Fantastic 4, Dr. Doom, Galactus, X-Men, ect after the Fox deal closed.

and how interesting it could have been .. there are great stories to be told. When they screwed up Strange 2 you knew they had no idea how to handle such a powerful tool. As if Tonys snap erased all good Marvel writers from this timeline.

 

[GnomeChimpsky]

Go woke go broke. It's gonna take a while but they're getting there lol. And I'm not just talking about audience losing interest. Look at all the directors who had their projects nuked by Kathleen Kennedy who then replaced it with utter trash. For a decade they've been doing everything they can to push competent people out of the business.

The talent just isn't there anymore to turn the ship around.

 

[DeafTourette]

That and I didn't care for the Fantastic 4 stories either.

Maybe they'll find some devilish work around licensing and make a lowkey Micronauts under a surprise Molecule Man movie to expand for Secret Wars. Have a few premonitions of The Beyonder.


I thought that too! I'm unsure if Ms. Marvel was meant to be imitating Carol, but she totally nailed the expressions and that made the scene for me. Could be setting high expectations.

Doctor Doom is a boring villain... IMO ...

Fantastic Four never hit it with me either.

Villains like Darkseid, even being just evil for evil sake, are usually very interesting in HOW they achieved power or maintain it, or WHY their followers are so loyal to them.

You get to see them figure things out instead of

"Boom! I already knew this was going on and this is my plan but I'ma double cross you the first chance I get and then get OWNED at the end by one of you goody two-shoes"

That's Doom's whole schtick... EVERY TIME! His arrogance isn't fun or funny. He's like Namor if Namor was born with the ego the size of Ego the Living Planet.

Even though Darkseid eventually loses, his comebacks are almost always kinda epic.

Negative Man, MCU Mandarin, Mr. Sinister, etc are much more interesting.

 

[sankt-Antonio]

Bringing in the man to fix it yet again. The people they pandered to turned out to not be their audience. Shocking.

Hope this makes them hire people based on their ability and not other trivial factors.

 

[mortal]

Even if they do bring RDJ and co back I don’t even think the nostalgia card will hold any weight. I think people will know exactly what it is and won’t fall for it. That along with the terrible writing and comedy that had run it’s course 5 years ago just won’t cut it anymore.

The best bet would be to just can everything, leave it for atleast a couple of years, recast everyone, and use that time to create and plan a new interesting story line, I’d love to see some decent Villains. Dc doom, mysterio, the main enemy galactus.

I've lost interest in MCU for years now because of the relentless milking and dip in quality. Seems Disney was more concerned with quantity over quality greenlighting 4-6 movies at once, multi-phase structure, etc.
The only thing I'm remotely interested in is seeing how X-men will be adapted, and I'm still mostly skeptical given how poorly so many of these movies and shows have been managed.

 

[March Climber]

They're desperate to get people to watch The Marvels with their references to Thanos in the promo yet they still put out clips like these that are supposed to entice you...

Ulysses 31 I don't know what type of academy award writing you were expecting with The Marvels, but that clip is exactly what I want from the movie. A fun experience. That's all it needs to be from expectations.

 

[U n i o n 0015]

They're adapting characters that weren't even interesting in the comics, and not even doing anything to attempt to make them interesting on screen. Marvel Studios isn't hiring writers or directors with vision, they're hiring project managers, hence why The Marvels director is able to peace out for the last few months of post-production.

The stories are uninteresting. The multiverse should be a cool concept but there's been basically zero consequences to it. A bunch of random stuff happens in XYZ movie, but none of it carries over or affects the next movie/TV show. It doesn't feel like there's an overarching story. I bet you'll be able to watch Avengers Kang or whatever they call it, while having not watched anything from 2019 onwards, and not miss a thing.

MCU won't reach the 2019 profitability again, the reality is the magic was gone once Feige started buying into the Hollywood chase-a-trend BS rather than listening to the fanbase.