Marvel Comics on Film

Discussions of specific films and franchises.
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mfunk9786
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#176 Post by mfunk9786 » Tue Oct 22, 2019 5:41 pm

"If you wanna be the king, you have to deal with the... king shit" - anonymous

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Brian C
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#177 Post by Brian C » Tue Oct 22, 2019 5:51 pm

Brian C wrote:
Tue Oct 22, 2019 5:23 pm
It just seems like bitterness from people who don't like the movies.

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Mr Sausage
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#178 Post by Mr Sausage » Tue Oct 22, 2019 8:08 pm

I feel like these criticisms apply better elsewhere, like Disney shoehorning skin-deep feminism into its live action remakes for entirely cynical reasons. Pretty good video on it. The inclusive Marvel films at least make race and gender part of the core themes of the film rather than having it be superfluous ala those Disney remakes.

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zedz
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#179 Post by zedz » Tue Oct 22, 2019 9:21 pm

Mr Sausage wrote:
Tue Oct 22, 2019 8:08 pm
I feel like these criticisms apply better elsewhere, like Disney shoehorning skin-deep feminism into its live action remakes for entirely cynical reasons. Pretty good video on it. The inclusive Marvel films at least make race and gender part of the core themes of the film rather than having it be superfluous ala those Disney remakes.
Also, the 'diversity' in the Marvel films isn't just shoehorned in: they're comic characters who go back to the 60s (Black Panther) and 70s (Master of Kung Fu, Ms. Marvel). The first female Captain Marvel (in the 80s) was black, so they missed a golden opportunity to double-pander there! It would be weird and remarkable if the movies didn't focus on any of the black, Asian, or female heroes that have been part of the comics for decades.

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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#180 Post by knives » Tue Oct 22, 2019 9:23 pm

Also some of it is just casting quirks. Thor got a lot of shit about its diverse casting, but the choices fit with everything Brannagh had done to that point.

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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#181 Post by Big Ben » Tue Oct 22, 2019 10:29 pm

zedz wrote:
Tue Oct 22, 2019 9:21 pm
Mr Sausage wrote:
Tue Oct 22, 2019 8:08 pm
I feel like these criticisms apply better elsewhere, like Disney shoehorning skin-deep feminism into its live action remakes for entirely cynical reasons. Pretty good video on it. The inclusive Marvel films at least make race and gender part of the core themes of the film rather than having it be superfluous ala those Disney remakes.
Also, the 'diversity' in the Marvel films isn't just shoehorned in: they're comic characters who go back to the 60s (Black Panther) and 70s (Master of Kung Fu, Ms. Marvel). The first female Captain Marvel (in the 80s) was black, so they missed a golden opportunity to double-pander there! It would be weird and remarkable if the movies didn't focus on any of the black, Asian, or female heroes that have been part of the comics for decades.
In addition to this that moving forward Marvel will be releasing films from more diverse places and directors too. Shang-Chi will have an Asian protagonist and director. Clhoe Zhao (Yes that one) will be directing The Eternals which comes out a few months before. This is of course before the inevitable Captain Marvel 2 and Black Panther 2.

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tenia
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#182 Post by tenia » Wed Oct 23, 2019 2:47 am

Brian C wrote:
Tue Oct 22, 2019 5:23 pm
Once you declare that corporations are just doing stuff because of a profit motive, then it naturally follows that everything they do is motivated by making a profit. Which is how we ended up here, because someone pointed out something about the MCU that a lot of people think is good, and the response was, yeah, but they're only doing it to make money. You can apply this prism to literally everything they do.
Disney isn't just any big corporation. They're much bigger than most, and, to me, seemingly also accordingly more opportunistic in an ultra-capitalistic and wealth-accumulating way. THAT was my point.
I don't think we can put all big corporations with them in the same bag. Disney is now GAFA sized. That's not a negligible difference.

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Brian C wrote:
Tue Oct 22, 2019 5:23 pm
It reminds me of when people complain about rich people only donating to charitable causes due to tax breaks. Maybe so, but those kids still get to eat!
Tax breaks on donation is actually a very good example about broken systems.

Say you're in France and you want to donate to Notre-Dame rebuilding. As a big company, you can claim a 75% tax break. So you donate 200m€ except you really only donate 50 and the other 150 come from taxpayers who didn't ask anything.
In a good system, there would be no tax break, you'd donate 50m€ and the government would have get 150m€ from a dedicated budget. But it doesn't work that because with no tax break, there is no donation at all from these companies (the same way deleting the tax on fortune in France actually reduced the money invested by rich people in France - seems more free money seems more money to spend or hide ! who would have guessed !). This shows how the tax break actually IS the main incentive, not getting those kids to eat.

But there's more : on top of being able to write off 200m€ instead of 50 in donations out of their books (ie being able to reduce the amount of taxes the rich/companies will pay), this allows for a much bigger brag. "Hey, we gave away 200m€ in donations, how great are we ?"

So sure enough, it is a good thing for these kids to get to eat. But this doesn't mean the way to get them to eat isn't deeply flawed and leaves a lot to be desired.
Brian C wrote:
Tue Oct 22, 2019 5:23 pm
It just seems like bitterness from people who don't like the movies.
It's totally compatible to like those movies (I like some of them and do love GoG 2) and realise how inclusiveness seems to just be a useful tool for Disney to make more money by reaching additional audiences. In a way, it IS a good thing, but I can't help to think it's not gonna change much (like domino wrote) and that it's getting diverted from its true purpose (having a company policy allowing an equality of chances).

But maybe I'm wrong and we'll get tons of non-stereotypical Asian lead characters in blockbusters soon. :-k

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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#183 Post by nitin » Wed Oct 23, 2019 7:58 am

None of the comments by Scorsese, Coppola, Meirelles or Loach have anything to do with whether the MCU movies are inclusive? If anything, the reverse line of attack has been directed at those directors to discredit their comments.

That’s like saying some Z grade movie is not Z grade because hey at least it boosted the economy by creating jobs.

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Brian C
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#184 Post by Brian C » Wed Oct 23, 2019 9:12 am

It’s a thread about Marvel movies in general, not just about the comments of Scorsese et al.

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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#185 Post by nitin » Wed Oct 23, 2019 9:28 am

I realise that but the last few pages have been


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mfunk9786
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#187 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Oct 23, 2019 1:28 pm

Iger has weighed in:
Bob Iger wrote:[If they] want to bitch about movies, that's certainly their right... are you telling me Ryan Coogler, making Black Panther, is doing something... 'less than' what [they] have ever done... come on. There. I said it.
Which is rich, because the second unit handles the action sequences on Marvel films, including Black Panther, so Coogler, despite filming boxing sequences perhaps better than even Scorsese himself in Creed, had little to do with his own film in that department, at least.

I realize the last time I shared a quote by Felix from Chapo it went over like a lead balloon here, but I found this one amusing and on point in the light of this bizarre culture war: "Think how excited Bob Iger got when he realized he could say it was racist to not like his products and enough people would go along with it"

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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#188 Post by Finch » Wed Oct 23, 2019 5:00 pm

Considering what his company commissions to get made and that his hegemony in Hollywood poses a real cultural as well as a business threat, Bob Iger really should spare us the crocodile tears. Yes, Black Panther is at the high end of the spectrum of what Disney makes but that's still not the highest standard, even within mainstream cinema (the John Wick series has better action scenes and Brad Bird's Pixar films have superior writing).

I only have sympathy for the pushback in as far as Marvel's films, with a handful of exceptions, aren't the worst that the mainstream has to offer. The MCU hasn't made, say, Bad Boys 2, a studio film that really is despicable. Their weakest films are completely forgettable but they are not obnoxious as such.

I totally sympathise with the underlying concern of Scorsese et al that Disney's stuff is going to be the only thing playing at theaters in the future. I think Ed Norton had a point when he said that theaters play a part in preserving a culture where non-mainstream films are still to be found in cinemas. That does need to be addressed and if it doesn't, I'm more than happy to stay home and support the stuff I want to see through Netflix, Amazon and Apple and watch Sternberg et al on Blu-Ray on the biggest screen I can afford.

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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#189 Post by RIP Film » Wed Oct 23, 2019 6:14 pm

tenia wrote:
Wed Oct 23, 2019 2:47 am
Disney isn't just any big corporation. They're much bigger than most, and, to me, seemingly also accordingly more opportunistic in an ultra-capitalistic and wealth-accumulating way. THAT was my point.
Speaking to this, I just started watching Spiderman: Far from Home... and nearly laughed aloud at the opening shots. You have a disaster-torn Mexican town, and then Nick Fury pulls up in newest Audi SUV, in pristine condition, and the camera pauses on it for a moment. It quite literally comes off as a car commercial. I think this is one aspect that has been neglected in this “is this cinema” discussion, and that is how closely Marvel movies resemble a commercial.

I don’t mean just product placement, but the MCU itself being a product that spans more than movies, but also lines the aisles at Walmart. It reminds me vaguely of how Hasbro developed the Transformers cartoon in 1984 to sell the toyline. I don’t think it’s an innocent distinction; the medium is the message and all that.

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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#190 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Oct 23, 2019 6:40 pm

And it hasn't just appealed to some nascent nostalgia, either - suddenly there are millions of adults who know finite details of comic books that sold in the 5 figures throughout the 1990s... I ran with a pretty dorky pack in school and didn't know a single one of them who read comics. Just anecdotal, of course, but Marvel/Disney have done a hell of a job marketing these things to be essential parts of adults' (and of course kids', but kids are exempt from my criticism here, they should watch what they like) lives. It feels as though these films flicked on a lightswitch and thousands of cockroaches with beloved wells of superhero lore knowledge scattered all over the room - but surely that can't be right, why wouldn't sales have been reflective of this 20 or 30 years ago? It's just a... well... marvel... of marketing expertise to put in the effort to make this stuff not only socially acceptable but the norm, and then assault the marketplace with more comic-centric media than we could've ever thought possible. Surely the bubble will burst eventually. It must.

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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#191 Post by Mr Sausage » Wed Oct 23, 2019 11:19 pm

I knew a guy who was into comics. They were huge in the early-to-mid 90s, with some issues selling millions of copies (aided by variant cover art and a bunch of other things) and creators like Todd McFarlane being paid millions of dollars. I think you're probably incorrect.

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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#192 Post by zedz » Thu Oct 24, 2019 12:02 am

What you're referring to was more of a Beanie Babies fad that was aimed at speculators rather than actual comics fans. In many cases, the comics were sold sealed and needed to stay sealed in order to preserve their 'value.' They weren't intended to be read. Once those people realized that their 'treasures' were basically worthless unless other speculators were prepared to buy them, the market for these gimmicks collapsed. The people at the top of the pyramid, like Todd McFarlane, made a killing in the short term, which was the entire point.

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soundchaser
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#193 Post by soundchaser » Thu Oct 24, 2019 1:16 am

To zedz’s point: my non-comics-literate grandfather had a sealed copy of The Death of Superman, presumably as a collector’s item, that my brother inherited after he passed away. It’s now worth between five and ten dollars.

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tenia
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#194 Post by tenia » Thu Oct 24, 2019 3:33 am


Finch wrote:The MCU hasn't made, say, Bad Boys 2, a studio film that really is despicable. Their weakest films are completely forgettable but they are not obnoxious as such.
I'd argue that Black Panther really is bad in an awful way in regards of its politics, and that it's not just forgettable but a truly tepid movie.

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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#195 Post by Mr Sausage » Thu Oct 24, 2019 6:25 am

zedz wrote:
Thu Oct 24, 2019 12:02 am
What you're referring to was more of a Beanie Babies fad that was aimed at speculators rather than actual comics fans. In many cases, the comics were sold sealed and needed to stay sealed in order to preserve their 'value.' They weren't intended to be read. Once those people realized that their 'treasures' were basically worthless unless other speculators were prepared to buy them, the market for these gimmicks collapsed. The people at the top of the pyramid, like Todd McFarlane, made a killing in the short term, which was the entire point.
Hmm. Hadn't realized just how much of a fad that boom was. Thanks.

Do you agree with mfunk's claim that few people ever read comic books and Marvel studios basically invented the comic book nerd through marketing? I've always had the sense that, tho' it went through boom and bust cycles, the industry was pretty robust and there was a significant group of people who were comic book fans as kids.

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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#196 Post by knives » Thu Oct 24, 2019 6:39 am

Before Disney Marvel was going bankrupt regularly. As a truly mainstream phenomenon comics died out more or less in the '50s. Superhero comics in particular have always lived off of a few fans. Even now at a theoretical boom where superhero movies and tv are the most popular thing and kids are loving comic books superhero comics are hardly read.

I don't find Mfunk's line of criticism a convincing negative as it merely shows that these movies are popular enough to google, but he's definitely right about their niche status.

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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#197 Post by Mr Sausage » Thu Oct 24, 2019 7:38 am

knives wrote:
Thu Oct 24, 2019 6:39 am
Before Disney Marvel was going bankrupt regularly. As a truly mainstream phenomenon comics died out more or less in the '50s. Superhero comics in particular have always lived off of a few fans. Even now at a theoretical boom where superhero movies and tv are the most popular thing and kids are loving comic books superhero comics are hardly read.

I don't find Mfunk's line of criticism a convincing negative as it merely shows that these movies are popular enough to google, but he's definitely right about their niche status.
I thought Marvel only went bankrupt once, when the industry slumped in the mid 90s. Also, I'm curious: was the big boom in superhero comics in the 60s really not mainstream? Wikipedia (sorry--no idea where else to look for comics figures) seems to think Marvel at least were selling 50 million comics a year by '68. Comics have indeed been a niche thing for a long time, like other nerd-culture mediums before their recent explosion into the mainstream, but I have a hard time believing it was quite as unpopular as mfunk seems to believe.

That said, I don't doubt the surge in popular comic book animated shows in the 90s has produced many current MCU fans.

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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#198 Post by knives » Thu Oct 24, 2019 7:47 am

I don't remember the exact number, but they definitely went bankrupt a few times. That's in part how the movie rights became such a mess. D.C. I think is the one that went bankrupt only once.

I'm not sure if it was ever as dire as Mfunk makes out, but they definitely weren't widely read. I'd be curious how the tabs break down for your '68 number. I could see a lot of that being Archie and underground comics which are largely what's booming now alongside day in the life of stuff.

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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#199 Post by Mr Sausage » Thu Oct 24, 2019 9:40 am

I can find no information on Marvel going bankrupt aside from their mid 90s trouble. There was a slump in the 70s, when according to here their sales were strong but their profits low and they were hemorrhaging talent, but no bankruptcy. From the small amount I've gathered, it seems comics go through heavy boom/bust cycles, where some moments see a much wider or more popular readership, and some moments see the industry buoyed by hardcore fans. But I don't know enough to be sure.

The above link gives the 50 million for Marvel comics alone, so no Archie or underground stuff.

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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#200 Post by knives » Thu Oct 24, 2019 10:51 am

That's quite impressive if true. I guess that might be another case of history making its own myths again. To go to the present day though while unquestionably comics are going through a boom Superhero serial comics are a surprisingly small chunk of that. Gene Yuen is probably more representative of what gets read in schools to go with an obvious example.

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