I still have hope for the multiverse it can work look at Spider-Man and Everywhere all at Once I still love the stories, even though there’s still a little bit of problems with
I think audiences would clap in theatres 😂 And actually, it's a great idea, the stakes would increase a lot: "Every action we take from here on now matters to the world..." And would be a great way to make the situation for mutants harsher, and the exploration aspect for the FF cooler, they are going into the unknown in a single universe.
Also have a few male characters rather than Turing all male characters into women! The forgot who there audience was! Hope the cat moms save the marvels but I doubt it!
what "central" avengers are u talking about tho? No one has the popularity Iron Man and Cap had. People like Thor and Ant Man can only do so much. Focus on Fantastic 4 and Xmen
They can’t do Dr. Doom to replace Kang. Doom needs a build up like Thanos had. Doom has way more layers to peel back then Thanos, thus needs time to build. Please do not ruin him Marvel. Please.
Dr. Doom is probably the most universally recognized & awesome marvel villain there is. Doom without his iconic costume including mask would be ridiculously dumb.
I think part of this is organizational too. At this point we’d already have an avengers team. I remember when the first avengers movie came out. The hype was real. There was a focus on those 5 characters and the guardians. Right now, I just feel like there are too many properties and none of the characters have really worked together in a meaningful way.
This, basically they introduced cool characters in Shang Chi, for example, and probably we won't see anything about them in more years... MCU thrived on their characters, specially their side characters, like Coulson, Darcy, Peggy, etc. Now we barely know even the main ones 🤔
@@JoshLange3DI would change the Disney plus strategy. I would make it very similar to the Netflix set up. Street level characters who don’t need a lot of sfx. Get some good choreography for good fight scenes. Let those characters co exist, and if the ship goes down, it doesn’t have to bring the movies down with it.
Remember when we met Black Panther and then he jumped right into Infinity War? It was exciting. The closest we got so far was Yelena coming from Black Widow into Hawkeye. And nothing else
The issue here is that the main Avengers actors don’t want to play these characters for the rest of their lives. Why is that so hard for fans to understand? If actors want to be done, Marvel has to move forward. New characters aren’t the problem, it’s the stories they’re choosing for these characters.
The new characters are terrible. Why replace the Hulk w She Hulk? We want the hulk and they still have him around. Iron Heart? Namor? The Marvels? All super weak uninteresting characters. And that’s not news. They’ve been non issues in the comics that nobody cares about. We want X-men and our favorites from the comics.
WandaVision was based on The Vision and the Scarlet Witch comic run. And after that Wanda was involved in numerous iconic stories like House of M, Avengers vs. X Men, Avengers Disassembled and Children's Crusade. The fact that they abandoned these stories for Multiverse of Madness is just insane.
This was a terrible move, yeah, they moved away from decades of Scarlet Witch as an Avenger directly to the mess Brian M. Bendis did in the 2000s. They could have moved directly to her overcoming that story, but we know what Raimi did when ignoring WandaVision...
I stopped watching all of Marvel after Multiverse except for the Spiderman No Way Home movie. They did Wanda dirty. I adored the real adult issues and trauma unearthed in WandaVision. They threw that whole storyline away and I won't forgive them for it.
They had greenlit a Doctor Strange movie, not a Wanda movie so they couldn't really do a Wanda-centered story that he isn't in because the money committed to a Dr. Strange movie, which means that is what they had to deliver. This speaks to the core problem though which can be summed up as "squirrel." There is a complete lack of focus. They should have made an actual Dr. Strange movie and a Wanda movie based on one of her classic stories. They get distracted by shiny objects.
I feel like after endgame they should’ve done one single phase going back to basics. And promote it as such. It’s back to street level, character intros. Little connections. Let us take a breather. follow up on some characters w the shows and intro a few new ppl. After credit scenes focus on small multiverse hints. Then make wanda the big bad. Make this new team of avengers have to deal with one of their own going mad and powerful. Its a villan that we would all be conflicted about bc we would KNOW what shes been through. itd be earned. After that film make Wanda the reason a new team of avengers had to assemble. Then have wanda break open the multiverse. and have THAT launch is into the multiverse phase. Now we build on spiderman no way home, dr strange, etc, and have kang be the background end scene teases. and after kang we go into secret wars with all the stuff we've built. But we just went from endgame to anyway the multiverse. And I still don’t know what who or how did we get here. Like was it wanda? was it loki? was it spiderman? was it dr strange? they all seemed to have done it but i cant follow how was this threat realized
Also for a new big bad- I thought the most fascinating thing about Thor L&T (despite disappointment) was the idea of angering Zues and all the gods of myth. Wrathful gods wanting to wipeout superheroes would be an incredible and money making villain angle imo.
I'm actually not mad at this at all.... The idea of God VS Heroes is cool. Heroes are know characters, God's are also well know so you won't need to spend a lot of time introducing them..... Again a missed oppo8for the MCU
My issue with Kang is that he hasn't been very well written. They keep TELLING us that he's dangerous and he should be feared but we haven't SEEN anything done by him that would make us fear him. Like, in Quantumania, instead of having the Ant-family defeat him, why not have him defeat the Ant-family (maybe kill some of them) and trap them in the Quantum Realm along with him (to evoke the whole "I don't have to win, we both just have to lose" line from the movie)? He could then capture the Ant-family and torture them for an alternative method for getting out of the Quantum Realm.
I went into _Quantumania_ imagining that Scott's Ant-Man was being manipulated in a Kang vs. Kang battle. That wasn't the case, then we see a stadium full of Kangs seeming to get along with each other.
They did the same thing with EVERYBODY, except Iron Man, Cap and Thor. Cap and Iron Man WERE WAY OVER POWERED. Also, they minimized Hank Pym and had Iron Man invent EVERYTHING😂. Bruce and Hank are brilliant scientist but they made them play second fiddle to Tony at every turn.
The mcu isn't going anywhere. It's foolish to think so. There's absolutely no evidence to show the franchise is ending. This is akin more to a forest fire clearing out the underbrush for new growth. If anything, I'm more optimistic for the mcu since they are going to course correct.
@@metallicnole4514 This is like saying “the cowboy movie isn’t going anywhere.” Sure, people still make Westerns, but the genre has never returned to its heights in the 1930s and 40s. The superhero genre is already no where near where it was just a few years ago. The MCU has lost millions of dollars worth of fans who are not going to come back without some huge changes. Some will never come back.
"[Blade morphed into a film] led by women ... with Mahershala Ali relegated to fourth lead." My shocked face: 😐 ... Ali should walk. He's too good an actor to be messed around like this.
@@AnthonyPi1999 I'd have killed Hank Pym instead and trap at least Scott or Hope in the Quantum zone. At the very least, Team Ant-family should've lost something, anything to Kang.
He got beaten up by ANTS! How tf can anyone take that seriously. And Kang isn’t some crazy supervillain in the comics. He’s a super interesting side villain that can be teased out over lots of stories before doing something with him. He’s not the type to just beat people up.
Bad writers Bad casting Horrible choices by Disney Calling the audiences "toxic" because they are stating the obvious doesn't change the fact the audience is right.
Spend Phase 4 building up Skrulls on Earth while establishing Osborn + various villains who survive their debut films. Phase 4 ends with Secret Invasion, and Osborn becomes the "hero" by killing Queen Varanke. Phase 5 is the Dark Reign with said villains becoming Osborn's Dark Avengers. Simple, effective, comics accurate.
@@tomemyscoobies That's what I wish happened imagine Osborn as the shining light saving the world from the skrull invasion. I would also still do that red hulk arch
I'd heard somewhere before that Darth Vader may have been based on Dr. Doom. But just being a villain that shows up against various teams, doesn't seem to match him being a dictator of a small country (a Baltic state?).
I honestly think the best way forward is exactly that, new avengers, develop characters and our relationship with them, as we did with the first ones. Long time goals and not so many loose ends and characters that go anywhere....
That and keeping it what entertainment is at its heart. Making people happy first, and thinking in some way comes after indirectly. It's about having fun (with the weird, cool, and everything in between) and sharing it with others 🙂 It's an escape or an exaggerated reality. An alternate world with different conflicts so we can get away from the ones we have temporarily.
@@elementonly08 There are more standalone projects in Phase 4 alone than there were movies in the entirety of The Infinity Saga. AND the Infinity Saga had multiple trilogies and sequels which maintained consistency for audience interest. By the time Captain America 4 comes out, not to mention an Avengers film in which Sam could be the new leader, it will have simply been too long of a wait from Endgame or F&tWS to be a meaningful follow-up.
@@snuffles504 you’re getting more characters this time interacting with other characters in their debut than before too. She hulk dealt with hulk and daredevil. Falcon and winter soldier in his show. Nick fury was interacting with the girls the whole time.
Didn't we see that in one or more of the Fantastic Four movies? Hugo Weaving played a man in a mask in _V for Vendetta_ very well. But I can understand how people wouldn't like not getting the attention for their role like Pedro Pascal.
Huh, I just rewatched Werewolf by Night (now in color) with my son, and we both loved it (again, in my case). Wonderful music, great atmosphere, cool characters.... a great homage to classic horrorfilms imo. And I thought it was a convincing directorial debut for Michael Giacchino.
Same I watched it last night and still really liked it. I actually wonder if it would classify as rated R as there is a lot of blood in it, Blade shouldn’t have an issue.
It’s SO obvious. The Snap meant 50% of people were gone for 5 years. No one knew who was gone. The Scrulls could have easily replaced people. Then after Endgame, people return and THAT is the impetus for realizing-oh man-Dr. Strange (or whoever) is a Scrull. It was so obvious. I do not know how the creative/business team screwed it up this bad.
True and the Marvels, Armour Wars, Iron Heart, Thunderbolts, Captain America 4, etc. part in Secret Invasion saga then perhaps ease into Multiverse (introducing F4) then Deadpool, then Secret wars years in the future. I think it would have been better if we're in the secret invasion saga right now. PS Covering the events 5 years after the snap, finally settle the skrull and kree war, introduction of nova, blue marvel, Daredevil born again, etc.
So annoyed at Jonathan Majors. Guilty or not, he had such an amazing opportunity with his Star ⭐️ rising so fast and the range of films he was attached to. Sigh. Such a talented man, with such an avoidable scar on his reputation. 🤦🏾♂️ That being said, definitely done with Multiverse. Need DOOM & F4.
Dr.Doom is Marvels Greatest Villain imo, Magneto second. If they really Made a great Dr.Doom they could spark a new wave of insane MCU!. They just have to execute flawlessly and they don't seem capable. They Really seem interested in trying to make unestablished characters stick and it just isn't happening.
I don't want to see old avengers. Fans are begging to see the OGs back but then if Disney does it, they'll say it's a desperate attempt and mock the decision. I hate the idea of recycling old toys that lead nowhere. Fanboys keep crying about old characters but they will also demand to see Dr Doom, Blade, Wiccan, The X-Men , The Scarlet Witch... We can't do both, especially now. We need to move on.
One Piece should be the model on how to do "diversity." It's as diverse a cast as you'll see but they are all just cool, fun characters. No girl bosses. No speeches about "the patriarchy". No "white man bad" tired tropes. No talk of sexuality at all. It was refreshing.
@@a.jordan9288 that’s something i fully agree with but for example sexuality; a gay character should have a relationship without having to talk about it much. BUT you can’t not show it because that wouldn’t be diversity
The illustration that the Variety article used paints a sad but somewhat true picture of the current state of Marvel. The one where the audiance are walking away from current line of MCU characters.
Quite Frankly, Grace doesn’t understand the appeal of Dr. Doom. Yes, a guy in a mask who is a science wizard. Awesome. It even could totally make sense playing into the established mcu storylines with Sokovia. Having a neighboring nation like Latveria having a major grudge. Using leftover ultron tech to build his army of doom bots. So much big bad potential there, but I don’t think they should rush him to squeeze him into secret wars.
If you use him in Secret Wars you start him off as too powerful which makes everything after a climbdown. You need to build Doom up and set up the layers.
@@Relugus oh, I totally agree that it’s desperate to try to cram him in as the big bad with all the multiverse Kang set up as is. They’ve had missteps with this story, but they really need to see it through so they can move on to the next one. I do NOT want a rush job on Doom, you can f him up that way, but I just think it’s silly that Grace doesn’t seem to see the appeal, and doesn’t think he should have a mask. 😂
Agree. You only get One Chance at Doom. Leave it to Grace she'd have Doom go maskless, not have a eastern european accent, be a "Business Guy" and never use magic.
Along with poor-quality of writing, the main problem is that there is no over-arching story anymore. Having different tv shows and movies focusing on a particular area cannot fly anymore because of how global the avengers are getting. They have to interact and have stores interwoven at the same time to make people feel like they can't miss out on any show or movie altogether.
Wow that Blade tea is shocking... I'm offended for Mahershala Ali. I can't believe they thought that was a good idea after the backlash from the recast T'Challa thing. Its kinda hard to deny the m she u criticism if the creators are so out of touch they would ever think that was a good enough idea to send to Mahershala Ali.
The only reason Wakanda Forever got away with its plot was that everyone knows a real-life tragedy put the film in a no-win situation. But that won't fly with Blade.
OMG Grace, you don't think Ryan Coogler is political? Well, let me enlighten you! And it is my pleasure! I am African European, I know this. The introduction of Black Panther II, where the Queen goes for a speech at the UN and tells The French off for pretending to NOT know who attacked their lab in Mali, when it was THEM! The French! Why was that beautiful? Because in real life, Mali, the country have accused the French (at the UN!), also the former colonial power, to finance "djihadists" by giving them food and weapons to destabilise Mali. And the movie came out something like 2 years before the actual UN speech from the Mali officials. And the rebellion spread from Mali to Burkina Faso and from Burkina Faso to Niger! These countries are the same ethnicity so their African languages are the same or close. That's the beauty of BP2! And we don't know if Art imitated Life or if it's the other way around! Ryan Coogler isn't loud but he is political, in a good fantastic way! Quite. Frankly! 😂
I never understood Wanda and Vision's relationship. Nor did I get why Wanda loosing her family gave her the right to hold all those people hostage and go evil?
That I at least understood in the context of Wanda had never really understood her powers. The spell and taking the town hostage just happened. I think the show was trying to say she didn’t know what she had done until the very end.
I think the issue is that shield/hydra/agatha created the scarlet witch/wanda and the show portrayed that. But they didn't explain how it shifted from her accidentally creating that hostage town, to her being corrupted by the darkhold and turning evil.
@@vingram100 It was already explained how she got unknowingly held the town hostage in one of the episodes. And the name is S.W.O.R.D with Hayward not S.H.I.E.L.D/Hydra
Jonathan Majors should have his day in court before anyone says he can’t come back from it. Johnny Depp did have his day in court and didn’t have a chance to come back.
One of the top problems for me with the MCU right now - is Kang. He is supposed to be the BIG threat like Thanos - but he is SO OVER THE PLACE that what kind of threat is he? Not only we get a new Kang everytime we see a Kang, but every Kang want something different and is minding their own problem so how he is supposed to be a big threat? He isn't.
Literally the main issue with Marvel is primarily the too much content. The movies have almost always been mid phase 1 and 2 but what was great about them was the rarity and the fact it built to a great story. BRING BACK the rarity and continue telling great individual stories that build into a bigger one
Get back to the actor who single-handedly established Marvel, Wesley Snipes. Make Wesley the brother of the late Queen in Black Panther, and charge him with training a young T'Challa. Introduce Dr. Doom, and allow Wesley Snipes to dawn the temporary mantle of BP. $1.5b easy!
Grace Black Panther is very political especially amongst us in the Black Community. For me personally it touched on how people directly from Africa look at African Americans and wondering why there is animosity. The second movie was poltical too but they are done very VERY well
I like the idea that there could have been a Black African state that wasn't subject to imperialism, and colonial conquest. We almost got that with Ethiopia, but the League of Nations allowed Italy to attack them, and when Italians lost battles, they resorted to blister gas to win the war.
Every time people today get criticism it's automatically labeled toxic. 🤦♂️ This in turn keeps them the same since they can't grow from self-reflection.
The high evolutionary from GOTG 3 was a more compelling villain than Kang so far. His agency and actions made Kang appear to be a toddler yelling. I did appreciate He who remains, but grew annoyed with the vagueness of his dialogue.
I have to say, this is all Cavil cgi mustache levels of bad, if not worse. I think stopping is what they need to do, but they can’t. Also to answer your question as to if there are any iconic stories of recent, the Chip Zdarsky run on Daredevil has been absolutely brilliant.
Shang Chi is the last unquestionable win (for a new character Marvel has had imo. Even BO performance was pretty strong taking into account the pandemic raging at the time
Kevin Feige got way too much of the credit for the success of the mcu and it went to his head. His mandates have been the largest criticisms of the movies and he’s only doubled down on it
Kang isn’t working for me because I still don’t know who he is. He’s been a different character in all his appearances so far (last episode of Loki season 1, quantumania and Loki season 2) and Jonathan Majors isn’t really selling me on any of his iterations tbh
12:05 Bringing back THE OG AVENGERS outside of SECRET WARS does “reek of desperation”. The Avengers in the comics were ALWAYS rotating lineups and the same should be done for the films. Plus it would be INCREDIBLY EXPENSIVE to hire the original Avengers actors again.
They could have made _Quantumania_ an Avengers: West Coast property with Shang-Chi and Wong, besides Ant-Man and the Wasp, and perhaps others. But that film was so messed up, it's painful to think of it.
The MCU has a villain problem because they don't know the difference between a pure evil villain and a villain who you can relate to. They instead try making every villain relatable, and that gets boring! There should be a balance!
Lando Calrissian could have been a white guy. But after criticism for not having any Blacks in _Star Wars,_ I guess Lucas felt he needed someone Black as a major character. I was reading one version of the original _Star Wars_ didn't have any women in it, but Lucas said he felt he didn't want to do a movie without women so changed it to include Princess Leia.
I agree with you in principal, but something tells me that you would still be mad if we got a Excellent Avengers movie but the team was majority women and POC.
@@Doomer253 I agree. The phrase I hear a lot is "Just make a good story and I'll go" which is code for or in practice becomes "make a good story about white men and I'll go." _The Woman King_ and _Till_ were critically-acclaimed but people didn't go, and they were actively campaigned against during Oscar season (which was against the rules). _The Marvels_ could have been an Avengers-level movie with the three ladies working alongside three guys. You could still have your female bonding moments (as well as Blacks talking with each other) without making it the whole movie. Curiously I don't remember Rhodey having a conversation with Falcon or Prince T'Challa (or the latter two with each other) in _Infinity War._
@@sandal_thong8631 Right on the money! That's basically what these "fans" are saying. Like cowards they'll hide behind legit criticism to cover for their bigotry.
@@sandal_thong8631 Marvel always seem to miss opportunities to have characters that should interact. I've been waiting for Nick Fury in Wakanda for 15yrs now! lol
Companies can expect employees to fall on the company's sword all they want. This is a new era. Nia da Costa is right. If she didn't have the conditions to make a quality product, if her employer was hindering her, and if this is going to affect her image and career, she should walk out.
I love the multiverse, but it’s just taking forever! We should’ve had an avengers movie by now. It’s like….what are these movies leading up to? I don’t see the path.
I said this and I will continue to say this. Wanda should have been the force/ drive of the multiverse saga. Here they have a character that is literally directly tied to the multiverse with her statements and prophecy in the mcu. Her being destined to rule and or Destroy the Multiverse , her powers being multiversal and all that. Plus this Phase started with her in WANDAVISION. And what did marvel do? Fumble again
I reckon Marvel are one more bad (or at least mediocre) year away from being forced to take a Star Wars-like break, I know a lot of people for example who are skipping The Marvels altogether & ending their MCU run after Deadpool 3 (eventually) comes out
Honestly I think bringing back the RUSO BROTHERS will bring a lot of marvel fans back to the hype! I know they have their issues but they made some GOOD marvel movies!
I really think taking a break and focusing on the xmen side of things would have been the way to go. Phase 4 could've been Xmen and the big bad Magneto. Keep it simple.
It’s kinda ignorant to say Ryan Coogler isn’t activist talent and that the Black Panther movies have no politics especially when there are plenty of black creators on RU-vid that break down those political elements. HOWEVER a general consensus is that the politics in them are watered down/made digestible for white audiences
My 2 cents is that, after the massive Endgame MCU really needed to take atleast a year's break and slowed down with introducing new characters, following up on the remaining Endgame characters and gradually building up the foundation towards Phase 6 and the next Avengers movie as well as the next major villain.
I think there are issues with the quality of writing and the MCU failed to follow their own formula of having a core set of characters that we see over and over again in a variety of projects and have a chance to love in love with them. In addition, I'm over the whole multiverse.
And some of the 'villains' like Gorr in Thor 4, Christian Bale barely in that movie to be justified as the villain but only saving grace was CB's performance. Man, Gorr was wasted in that movie.
Except that’s the problem. Y’all asked marvel to switch up the formula for years and they did exactly that and now it’s suddenly the new complaint… what they did was listen to fans and the fans switched up. If anything this proves fans don’t know what the fuck they want.
I think it boils down to the script. They don't finalize the storyline before they shoot, which led to all the mess. I agree it started with Multiverse of Madness with how they handled Wanda after the success of WandaVision. It's too many projects being rushed out and in so littl time. And also as evident, relying on Post Prod to fix things does not work because not everything can be flawlessly fixed with something that was not shot or there.
Grace you are so insightful, your nuances about blockbuster talent and academy talent was something I never considered before! The sugar and medicine is a great take on how Hollywood is forgetting the sugar when making entertainment!
Doom: Alexander Skarsgaard in a Robert Eggers Northman/Classic Dracula hybrid. Action-adventure backstory/charming modern politician/espionage. Like Werewolf by Knight meets the Cap/Bucky political MCU (with Dev Patel's Green Knight weirdness for the 'mysticism').
They need to take more time & effort connecting the storylines so it feels cohesive especially timeline wise. One thing I thought would help is if they made shorter seasons & called them a limited series so they can focus on a great 3-6 episodes & spend the money on the sfx & scripts rather than trying to spread the budget out & making mid/filler episodes in-between with the current stuff (minus Loki 😆)
25:02 sums it up well. The fact that they've prioritized a second season of Loki over getting the X-Men or F4 out is crazy to me. And at this point, we've seen more Victor than Kang, and Majors' performance choices are not getting people pumped for a final showdown. If he were a dangerous villain over all of Loki S2, then we'd be excited, but the current story just feels meandering.
I don't really think they can or should prioritize the X-Men while they still don't know what they're doing with hald the characters they *already have* in the MCU.
I dont always agree with your points Grace (maybe 70% of the time I do). But I have to say you're intro analysis is exactly on point (I have the exact same opinion)!
The MCU didn't have a plan post-Endgame. They had 12% of a plan. The Multiverse saga should've lasted one phase and ended with an Avengers or Young Avengers movie featuring Kang to put a bow on the multiverse and prepare for the Fantastic 4 and X-Men. Secret Wars shouldn't have been considered until all the players have been introduced. There are too many dangling plot threads with Shang Chi, Eternals, etc. which shows that Marvel didn't know what to do with them. Kang is a compelling villain but Marvel neutered him in his first 2 appearances. He Who Remains being quirky is fine as long as the true Kang is a real threat, but then they had the brilliant decision to have him lose to ants. And his next appearance is the likeable but non-threatening Victor Timely. Not a good setup for Kang Dynasty. Marvel should've done a Marvel Knights sub-cinematic universe, a Young Avengers sub universe, etc. Loki is great and I would love for he and Thor to get back together in one final Thor movie written by the Loki creators. The Marvels should've been the Secret Invasion adaptation and had guest stars a la Civil War. Easy to say in hindsight, but some of the decisions were so apparently dumb.
As a Black American, it seems that all a Black character has to do is exist, be present, and their movie, arc, or just them being who they are will be called political.
