Fatigue of repetitive movies more like. Ever since Disney bought Marvel they all became the same damn movie over and over again. When it was still under Paramount they were different, Iron Man was different to Thor which was different to Captain America.
The issue with the MCU is that for a decade everything was building towards Endgame, which for me delivered, but after that it was hard to reinvest in what they were doing. It also didn’t help that many of the TV shows and movies since haven’t been particularly good…
Agreed. I think fans need to remember that there wasnt a direction or alot of connection for a while, until 2012 with thanks introduced. even after that they weren't building to endgame that hard with it, with only minor connections between the film. they need to show that we are building to something, doom or kang or whatever. Endgame was such a definitive event, a milestone, an ending, trying to regain the same magic they just finished is difficult, theyre basically back in 2008 in terms of rebuilding back up to something.
I think it was Steven Spielberg that said superhero movies will go the way of the western, once the most popular genre in Hollywood, now very rarely made, and I agree with him, I haven't watched a superhero film since "end game" which should have been the end of it.
Regarding the cosplay phenomena and the popularity of the Marvel movies in the US: I'm a costume expert and also a scholar of Japanese culture. What you say about cosplay in Japan is entirely true, although it was going on way back in the 1980s as well. Japanese society is extremely rigid and young people crave an escape. When I was studying at university there in the 80s, it was shocking how much younger than the American students of the same age they behaved. The popularity of Marvel in the US came at a time when everything we knew about our financial lives (that we'd work hard at a good job, buy a house, and sell it to retire someday) broke down. I think people loved Marvel because there was a clear-cut hero battling evil. In the real world, there wasn't. I also think that's why Trump got in: because he cast himself as a hero who was going to save the working class. Too bad the Marvel fans didn't realise he was Thanos.
What do you mean by "they behaved younger"? I think your viewpoint is just biased. I've lived in Japan a number of years and my perspective has changed on that. In some ways, I think college kids in the US behave much younger than in Japan. College kids in the US tend to lack respect for other people and act tend to act much more selfish. I would consider that to be a sign of immaturity. And that behavior has gotten worse in the US. I think you simply viewed Japanese people through the biased lens of someone from the US.
Clear cut heroes? Wasnt one film about a civil war between the heroes? Never watched it myself because the whole marvel universe is ridiculousness on top of ridiculousness.
Just to jump in with your GTA comparison: yes the game by itself has made $7.7bil, but it has made most of that off releasing constant content for the online mode. So it's not the best place to look for hope in a non continuously updating content stream
More content for the Content Funnel! Get that content down ya! (edit: just realised that this is an old episode, so Osman & Hyde havent made the content funnel joke yet 😂)
I think the analysis is spot on regarding the interest in Marvel. More than just fantasy, it's corporate anesthesia for the masses, where moviegoers can feel noble by rooting for good over evil, or rationalizing ends justifying means if it means your side wins. All the while ignoring the real life complexities of life, death and justice, where a motivated application of morality and ethical standards could actually make a positive difference in the world.
I enjoyed the pre-MCU superhero era a lot more because the films still functioned mostly as self contained properties - X-Men 1 & 2, Spider-Man 1 & 2 and Batman Begins leading into The Dark Knight Trilogy. Fast forward to something like Doctor Strange 2 and it is utterly incomprehensible even if, like me, you've watched and modestly enjoyed the first film.
Feige was not the mastermind, Perlmutter and the Marvel Committee were, it's not fatigue, it's terrible scripts and taking the movies away from the source material.
Totally agree on the marvel part as a very casual fan of these films, I missed a couple, couldn’t be bothered to catch up as was a few movies behind and just called it a day
Me too, I also started to resent them slightly as I started to realise they were killing other movies. Used to be that a star wars or James Bond or something came out once a year and of that time that's all a cinema would show. Now with a new Disney backed film out every week there is so much less space for other films
This is a great podcast. An intelligent human and the tall guy from Pointless talking sense to each other while holding their hands up so we cant see their faces. I think i will binge some more.
I'm with you on the Paul Mescal... Or put in George MacKay or Jack O'Connell... Any one of them... Top notch Marvel content for the content mill. To please the young children for another 3 hours, until the next 3 hours. And the next 3 hours. And the next reboot, remake or requel. I just rewatch the old Sam Raimi Spiderman 2... Who doesn't not like a bit of Alfred Molina in their life!?
Wow, how didn't I know this existed. I'm a big Marvel fan, but falling out of favour because it's just too much effort to keep up with all of the goings on. Plus it gets harder every time to explain it to my wife. In terms of Drive to Survive, they are doing a Rugby one on the Six Nations that should be interesting. In particular talking to Ellis Genge and Andrew Porter, a couple of colourful characters from non traditional rugby backgrounds.
Why is so much stuff so infantile? Or am I taking myself too seriously? Anyway, this is such a great podcast. EDIT: OK, just got to that part of the podcast... EDIT EDIT: I didn't realise Henry Kissinger had died. Best news I've heard all week!
In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Lee said he liked Spider-Man “because he's become the most famous. He's the one who's most like me - nothing ever turns out 100 percent OK; he's got a lot of problems, and he does things wrong, and I can relate to that.” The best Marvel movies are not about the superheroes they are about the people, that’s where Marvel has moved from and that’s why the movies are becoming less relatable, not superhero fatigue
There is a correlation between the comics and the films. Spider Man, Batman, Superman, Wolverine, Deadpool, and Iron Man have had comics that sell. There is a lot of stories to mine from those characters, and fans will follow them. Dr Strange, Shang Chi, Aquaman, Captain Marvel (all of them from both companies), Moon Knight… have never been that popular. They can be used as supporting characters but they aren’t enough to focus on. Both Marvel and DC need to focus on the big characters and cut down the amount of products. It’s cool to have a universe story like this, but they are all stretching the concept too thin.
I met Ronnie O'Sullivan whilst on a company 'jolly' to Las Vegas: we bumped into him, drinking alone, at this very exclusive nightclub and, two days later, bumped into him at the airport, where he was, again, all alone, dressed like a hobo and trying to get some kip by stretching out across three seats in the departure lounge. He seemed really bored and lonely; it was very sad... Regardless, I'm surprised that Marina and Richard didn't talk in more depth about the recent trend for these self-controlled celebrity documentaries - like Beckham, Robbie and Arnold etc. What they gain from the exclusive access and archive footage, they lose by ignoring - or atleast presenting a very one-sided view - of past indiscretions and scandals. I'm not particularly interested in watching an out-and-out hatchet job, but I'm also not that interested in watching something that the subject has had full veto on.
I think the main things not touched on RE Marvel is the timing of their ‘flops’. Started around the time Bob Chapek took over at Disney and tried to cut costs wherever he could. Word being he mandated 20 mins be cut from Thor 4 so there could be more screenings a day. Covid hit so perhaps some things were rushed to meet the ‘plan’ Also, the rise in right wing male ‘reviewers’ who hate strong female leads, equality and anything remotely ‘woke’. Brie Larson and Iman Velani were their targets for no reason in the MCU.
I think they have two issues. Superhero fatigue is what the casuals like myself have. I'm beyond bored of those films. But I was never i die hard anyway. There seems to be a seperate issue with the fans that seems to be a mixture of politics and quality.
Disney plus. Marvel phase one was an experiment. Having sold off movie rights to its most popular properties - X-Men, Spider-Man - to ensure financial survival, Marvel were left with its B-characters. Along come fans who’ve grown up in the industry, who take one look at these dregs and say “That’s the Avengers!” Hence the phase one experiment. People now forget how ground-breaking that was. (See also for fans growing up in the industry aging/reviving a franchise in Dr Who.) The Avengers’ success spawned a whole new approach to blockbuster movies which culminated in Avengers End-game which should have been a completely inconceivable and impossible thing to achieve. That’s where it should have ended. (With a lifetime achievement award for Kevin Feige.) But the money men wanted more. And the newly launched Disney plus needed content. So they tried to adapt their movie franchise to streaming series. Suddenly too much, too diluted. Content both in the movies and on Disney plus. Expensive content. Disney plus should have taken their cue from the Netflix series featuring some Marvel C-list characters a few years earlier. Far lower budget, far more dramatic and engaging.
I don't think the Avengers would be considered B-list by anyone even passingly familiar with the comics industry; from a Marvel standpoint yes the X-Men and Spiderman were bigger but with the possible (and I do mean possible) exception of the Fantastic 4, the Avengers would be next on the list. Totally agree about which characters and arcs the streaming services should have gone with though although I'd call them more "street level" than "C-list"; Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Punisher etc. *IF* it ever comes out the Blade (and Black Knight?) movie should have been a series, and Falcon and Winter Soldier should have been a movie. All IMO, of course
@@viperion_nz Exactly, _everyone_ knew who the Phase 1 Avengers were, even if they didn't know the comics (except _maybe_ Thor, but they'd still see a picture of a viking dude with a hammer and make the connection). The X-Men and Spiderman are absolute juggernauts of popularity that would be recognised by people from tribes deep in the jungle that have never had contact with the outside world, but lay people would still instantly recognise characters like Captain America, Iron Man, and the Hulk from things like the cartoons from the 60's and 90's, or the _multiple_ adaptations of Hulk (remember, Ang Lee's Hulk had released only _five_ years prior to the release of the Incredible Hulk) The _real_ "experiments" in seeing if unknown characters could have mainstream success were 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy for the MCU and, probably more importantly for Marvel, 1998's Blade. But I do completely agree that the MCU probably should have finished with Endgame. It was a satisfying conclusion to the arcs of these characters we'd been following for a decade, and NGL, Phase 4 entries lacked the "connective tissue" that made Phase 1 work so well, with each show or series feeling much more self-contained than anything that had come prior, which absolutely spoils the illusion that all these things are happening in the same setting.
Characters who pass a certain omnipotence threshold remove all drama. Risks that are amplified just by "make number bigger" have no drama to begin with No one cares that last time they saved the galaxy, this time it's the universe and next time it's the omniverse. Conceptually they are all too big to imagine in the first place. There is no extra jeopardy just by saying bigger words. There is no jeopardy at all if a character exists who can click their fingers and make all the baddies go away. No drama, no jeopardy = no story
Oversaturation. It happens with all movie genres that go through a peak time. After a while they tend to just be rehashing familiar ideas with diminishing results. Then they go out of fashion for a decade or two before a movie comes along and has success, which brings more movies of the same type again. My personal bugbear is that they hardly seem to make movies with normal people any more. If the character isn't a superhero then they are the world's greatest assassin or a psychic detective or the smartest person who ever lived. I miss seeing normal people placed in situations beyond their control. A movie I really liked was Boiling Point with Stephen Graham because it felt novel in its ordinariness. There's a place for fantastical movies and for realistic movies but the balance has gone completely towards the former in recent times and it makes me feel as though entertainment is squarely aimed at teenagers now.
I wouldn't know why, but I'm definitely kinda done with the endless superhero movies. I loved the first 10 years and I have watched Loki which was great, but that's kinda it.
For me it';s more about villain fatigue. When I was a child the villains were much more reasonable, where as now they are capable of destroying entire universes. Meh, that's boring.
Some really interesting takes, but dear god man - gaming and live action are so different in how they can generate revenue, you can't compare them. 'Live Service' games are not unlike the problems Marvel are facing, gaming has strangely become just the bigger medium.
I for one am getting very tired with the constant slew of superhero films (not just from Marvel either). Some feel rushed and put out for the sake of having a new film. However, Loki (TV series on Disney +) has been absolutely outstanding and has blown everything else out of the water. Some of the Marvel TV series have been absolute rubbish, but Loki was incredible.
_"These are films about everything… colonialism… feminism…"_ I think that was a large part of their downfall. They started prioritising ham-fisted sociopolitical messaging over solid storytelling. They also just spread themselves way too thin (especially on streaming). They overdid the humour which was fun in small doses. They increasingly rushed their VFX. And their narratives became so grand and convoluted that they were no longer relatable.
She-Hulk was a great, funny comic, as a comic and because of it being a comic. Way meta, Brechtian alienation, subversively sincere. As was Howard the Duck, which also didnt survive its tranformation into High Profile Entertainment. Nor to be honest, have the Avengers, FF, etc. The best marvel movies were the Venture Bros
I've never understood people that hold up actors over characters. I've seen worse cruise/willis/stalone films that were made solely because tom cruise or whoever was roped into or owed someone a favour. Actors are paid to portray characters ergo the characters should be the most important thing in films. Sadly many films still have awful character writing but that's another discussion.
Marvel films are successful because there is no other choice being presented. I used to go to cinemas all the time but i view the schedules and there is nothing i want to watch. Partly because quality tv series took over for a while but that seems to have exhausted itself as well. Plus we have so many real life villains these days, fiction just cant compete with it on a day to basis.
Since Marvels Phase 4 ended, Marvel movies have been rubbish aimed solely at mega fans and kids, which is why adults are let down by them now. The writing is poor and CGI is poor, but the mega fans will keep going to them
Impossible, Uncharted, the Devil all the time, onward and... Just tonight Holland got a nominationed for the best actor by critics choice awards you should be ashame of yourself
@@NeonCinema no actor has that power anymore Leonardo DiCaprio, tom cruise, Harrison ford all floped in 2023 but not Holland every project that he's in it's at the top of the box office and streaming which shows the love of the audience for him
@@parsaalishiri8138I agree, the point is, the reason for uncharted + all the marvel films doing so well is because the branding, in the “old days” all the biggest earning films were because of the stars attached. Not at all trying to knock Tom, just observing that stars don’t exist anymore
Admittedly killers of the flower moon is a better example than Tom Holland, Di Caprio + De Niro + Scorsese, that incredible combo and it’s still a flop :(
@@NeonCinema okay you kinda got my point what I'm trying to say is that the star power of actors isn't as it always is you know Holland has Starpower just like DiCaprio and tom cruise it's just the problem is it's not as strong as in used to be like in 2000s they bring back people to movie theaters just by there names attached yeah but it's just not enough people that guarantee a box office hit
Because it's not. You make good trailers and promo, doesn't have a lot to do with the movie quality. If you want people to talk about your movie 2 years on as something no one can believe they missed - then make a good movie.
Poor quality of films leading up to Avengera Infinity War and Endgame. Since then the quality has only deteriorated. But even at its Best, most of the Marvel movies have been average to mediocre with a few exceptions.
Why have Marvel/superhero movies fallen off? For me it comes down to a simple problem! They used to make good movies that happened to have superheros in & now they just make trashy superhero movies.
There is no superhero fatigue! It’s just that since Endgame, fans are fed up with the poor quality! What on earth happened?? Disney/Marvel prioritising social and political agendas over quality storytelling, alienating, insulting and vilifying its own male audience, and hiring activists as writers and directors who have zero experience in the industry…. Let’s go back to proper storytelling, proper character development, hiring people who are knowledgable and passionate about the source material! Honestly, we’ve had writers and directors openly admitting they’ve not seen the previous MCU content that they’re writing follow ups for…. 😬💀
Marvel is beyond tired. I've spent a lifetime as a huge fan of all things Marvel. Having every film and show, based around *a very strong female who can beat any man* is boring. The cultural push towards masculine_violent_ insulting *women as leads* is not entertaining. It's bad writing.
Used to love marvel films, but yeah its getting stale and woke in a silly way. All the guys are gotta be gay or bi. The girls can take down foes twice their size with ease. I mean i know its fantasy, but its getting silly!
There are 3 main reasons why Marvel is failing, 1) Disney has killed Marvel (along with everything else they own) with their woke DEI agenda! They have replaced most of the male characters with female ones and instead of concentrating on the main heroes & making great stories (they only care about "the message"), this is why they are losing the comic book fans. The MCU is now the M-she-U fact!!! 2) Superhero fatigue does exist with a lot of regular (non-comic book fans) movie goers, but most people have given up on going to the cinema because of streaming sites! 3) Too many modern movies (Marvel in particular) are flooded with CGI effects which has made Hollywood writers lazy. Before CGI, special effects were difficult to make and expensive. Because of this writers had to keep them to a minimum, which meant the movies had a lot more written depth to them. Now the writing is very basic and the movies are flooded with CGI effects to fill the gaps. Also because of the amount of movies that have wall-to-wall CGI, people have gotten used to them, so the WOW factor is missing! The first time I saw Superman (Christopher Reeve) catch that helicopter was amazing, but now that would be CGI, so would be nothing special!
Iron Man was similar to the Dark Knight in that it was a real world with the one sci-fi twist. They are great. By the time of Endgame it was a full fantasy universe. But, like a boiling frog, the temperature was increased slowly. Even Thor was explained as just advanced science looking like magic. People just ignored it because it was introduced slowly. Then came the woke stuff. I know a lot of people don't care about it, but a lot do. Captain Marvel was bad for half the audience and bad because it was woke for the other. Likewise the Eternals. I remember seeing the Girls getting together at the end of Endgame and squirming. Since Endgame, that's been the priority and I'm not interested. But it's not Superhero fatigue because there is hunger for GOOD, non woke Superheroes. That's why Spiderman did so well and Deadpool is so hungered for. Even Love and Thunder was highly anticipated because people wanted Ragnarok 2, but got something that made me bleach my eyes.
Marvel and Superheroes were stale from the start. 50+ year old characters from another country and culture with widescale property damage and explosions all brought to you via the lazy mans answer to filmmaking CGI. YAWN.
There are always horrors, indies and interesting movies being made, including those of the young indie directors marvel hires. So this view that marvel is all there is and is oushing everyone out isnt true, they are boring and should stop for awhile so im not defending them, but this anti marvel image is overblown espeicially when nearly all the other blockbusters are action franchises like mission impossible, star wars and indiana jones etc and many of them are far worse than marvels best
More glib left wing opinions recycled in its own echo chamber. These media "experts" dismissing fans as a bolshy cohort that can never be satisfied - yet that arrogant attitude is exactly the approach taken by the Disney Board. It hasn't played out so well for them. And these "bolshy" fans are to coin an old fashioned phrase - customers. The people who pay for those lovely big salaries - but hey - just patronise and talk down to them that's always an intelligent strategy. I always thought these two would illuminate the dire thought processes in the business and haven't been disappointed. Everything wrong with UK media encapsulated in these two.
Not surprised to see the usual whiners in the comments going on about how nothing after Endgame has been as good. Well, nothing before Endgame was as good, so does that make everything that came before bad? No, it doesn’t. It just means that not every movie or tv show can be as good as Endgame. That’s just the way things are. Crying about it like a pathetic bunch of man-babies just shows how entitled these people are.
Fatigue of Bad Movies more than superhero Fatigue
Fatigue of repetitive movies more like. Ever since Disney bought Marvel they all became the same damn movie over and over again. When it was still under Paramount they were different, Iron Man was different to Thor which was different to Captain America.
I use to love popular entertainment culture but have felt disconnected in recent years - this podcast hits the spot!
The issue with the MCU is that for a decade everything was building towards Endgame, which for me delivered, but after that it was hard to reinvest in what they were doing. It also didn’t help that many of the TV shows and movies since haven’t been particularly good…
Agreed. I think fans need to remember that there wasnt a direction or alot of connection for a while, until 2012 with thanks introduced. even after that they weren't building to endgame that hard with it, with only minor connections between the film. they need to show that we are building to something, doom or kang or whatever. Endgame was such a definitive event, a milestone, an ending, trying to regain the same magic they just finished is difficult, theyre basically back in 2008 in terms of rebuilding back up to something.
Quite happy this came up on my recommendation page :)
I think it was Steven Spielberg that said superhero movies will go the way of the western, once the most popular genre in Hollywood, now very rarely made, and I agree with him, I haven't watched a superhero film since "end game" which should have been the end of it.
The problem with this channel is that you can only subscribe once. It's format is good enough to want to hit the subscribe button every time.
Regarding the cosplay phenomena and the popularity of the Marvel movies in the US: I'm a costume expert and also a scholar of Japanese culture. What you say about cosplay in Japan is entirely true, although it was going on way back in the 1980s as well. Japanese society is extremely rigid and young people crave an escape. When I was studying at university there in the 80s, it was shocking how much younger than the American students of the same age they behaved. The popularity of Marvel in the US came at a time when everything we knew about our financial lives (that we'd work hard at a good job, buy a house, and sell it to retire someday) broke down. I think people loved Marvel because there was a clear-cut hero battling evil. In the real world, there wasn't. I also think that's why Trump got in: because he cast himself as a hero who was going to save the working class. Too bad the Marvel fans didn't realise he was Thanos.
What do you mean by "they behaved younger"? I think your viewpoint is just biased. I've lived in Japan a number of years and my perspective has changed on that. In some ways, I think college kids in the US behave much younger than in Japan. College kids in the US tend to lack respect for other people and act tend to act much more selfish. I would consider that to be a sign of immaturity. And that behavior has gotten worse in the US. I think you simply viewed Japanese people through the biased lens of someone from the US.
Clear cut heroes? Wasnt one film about a civil war between the heroes? Never watched it myself because the whole marvel universe is ridiculousness on top of ridiculousness.
Gosh Darn this is a freaking amazing podcast. i wish i knew you two to talk about this stuff haha
Just to jump in with your GTA comparison: yes the game by itself has made $7.7bil, but it has made most of that off releasing constant content for the online mode. So it's not the best place to look for hope in a non continuously updating content stream
Not to mention the P2W shark cards etc etc
More content for the Content Funnel! Get that content down ya!
(edit: just realised that this is an old episode, so Osman & Hyde havent made the content funnel joke yet 😂)
I think the analysis is spot on regarding the interest in Marvel. More than just fantasy, it's corporate anesthesia for the masses, where moviegoers can feel noble by rooting for good over evil, or rationalizing ends justifying means if it means your side wins. All the while ignoring the real life complexities of life, death and justice, where a motivated application of morality and ethical standards could actually make a positive difference in the world.
I was Fatigued by that studio 10 years ago. 10 years on it dosent even register with me.
Thank you algorithm for recommending this! 3rd episode I've watched today. Subbed.
I enjoyed the pre-MCU superhero era a lot more because the films still functioned mostly as self contained properties - X-Men 1 & 2, Spider-Man 1 & 2 and Batman Begins leading into The Dark Knight Trilogy.
Fast forward to something like Doctor Strange 2 and it is utterly incomprehensible even if, like me, you've watched and modestly enjoyed the first film.
Feige was not the mastermind, Perlmutter and the Marvel Committee were, it's not fatigue, it's terrible scripts and taking the movies away from the source material.
Totally agree on the marvel part as a very casual fan of these films, I missed a couple, couldn’t be bothered to catch up as was a few movies behind and just called it a day
Me too, I also started to resent them slightly as I started to realise they were killing other movies. Used to be that a star wars or James Bond or something came out once a year and of that time that's all a cinema would show. Now with a new Disney backed film out every week there is so much less space for other films
This is a great podcast. An intelligent human and the tall guy from Pointless talking sense to each other while holding their hands up so we cant see their faces. I think i will binge some more.
28:00
Loved it! - Would it be possible to include links to the picks in the description?
I'm with you on the Paul Mescal... Or put in George MacKay or Jack O'Connell... Any one of them... Top notch Marvel content for the content mill. To please the young children for another 3 hours, until the next 3 hours. And the next 3 hours. And the next reboot, remake or requel.
I just rewatch the old Sam Raimi Spiderman 2... Who doesn't not like a bit of Alfred Molina in their life!?
I was doing some invoicing, half-listening to the Kissinger introduction and had a genuine double take rewind at "huuuuuge starfucker" :D
I have never watched a marvel movie. 😮
you two are fabulous!
So glad these are on video! Pods are fine but you lose so much without the visual
Superhero fatigue kicked in over a decade ago at least.
Great show. Unlike the MCU, this wasn't long enough. :)
Thank you :)
Wow, how didn't I know this existed.
I'm a big Marvel fan, but falling out of favour because it's just too much effort to keep up with all of the goings on. Plus it gets harder every time to explain it to my wife.
In terms of Drive to Survive, they are doing a Rugby one on the Six Nations that should be interesting. In particular talking to Ellis Genge and Andrew Porter, a couple of colourful characters from non traditional rugby backgrounds.
Why is so much stuff so infantile? Or am I taking myself too seriously? Anyway, this is such a great podcast.
EDIT: OK, just got to that part of the podcast...
EDIT EDIT: I didn't realise Henry Kissinger had died. Best news I've heard all week!
In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Lee said he liked Spider-Man “because he's become the most famous. He's the one who's most like me - nothing ever turns out 100 percent OK; he's got a lot of problems, and he does things wrong, and I can relate to that.”
The best Marvel movies are not about the superheroes they are about the people, that’s where Marvel has moved from and that’s why the movies are becoming less relatable, not superhero fatigue
Richard, do you remember the darts documentary with Kevin Painter in the 90s?
There is a correlation between the comics and the films. Spider Man, Batman, Superman, Wolverine, Deadpool, and Iron Man have had comics that sell. There is a lot of stories to mine from those characters, and fans will follow them.
Dr Strange, Shang Chi, Aquaman, Captain Marvel (all of them from both companies), Moon Knight… have never been that popular. They can be used as supporting characters but they aren’t enough to focus on. Both Marvel and DC need to focus on the big characters and cut down the amount of products. It’s cool to have a universe story like this, but they are all stretching the concept too thin.
I met Ronnie O'Sullivan whilst on a company 'jolly' to Las Vegas: we bumped into him, drinking alone, at this very exclusive nightclub and, two days later, bumped into him at the airport, where he was, again, all alone, dressed like a hobo and trying to get some kip by stretching out across three seats in the departure lounge. He seemed really bored and lonely; it was very sad...
Regardless, I'm surprised that Marina and Richard didn't talk in more depth about the recent trend for these self-controlled celebrity documentaries - like Beckham, Robbie and Arnold etc. What they gain from the exclusive access and archive footage, they lose by ignoring - or atleast presenting a very one-sided view - of past indiscretions and scandals. I'm not particularly interested in watching an out-and-out hatchet job, but I'm also not that interested in watching something that the subject has had full veto on.
I think the main things not touched on RE Marvel is the timing of their ‘flops’. Started around the time Bob Chapek took over at Disney and tried to cut costs wherever he could. Word being he mandated 20 mins be cut from Thor 4 so there could be more screenings a day.
Covid hit so perhaps some things were rushed to meet the ‘plan’
Also, the rise in right wing male ‘reviewers’ who hate strong female leads, equality and anything remotely ‘woke’. Brie Larson and Iman Velani were their targets for no reason in the MCU.
I think they have two issues. Superhero fatigue is what the casuals like myself have. I'm beyond bored of those films. But I was never i die hard anyway. There seems to be a seperate issue with the fans that seems to be a mixture of politics and quality.
Disney plus.
Marvel phase one was an experiment. Having sold off movie rights to its most popular properties - X-Men, Spider-Man - to ensure financial survival, Marvel were left with its B-characters. Along come fans who’ve grown up in the industry, who take one look at these dregs and say “That’s the Avengers!” Hence the phase one experiment. People now forget how ground-breaking that was.
(See also for fans growing up in the industry aging/reviving a franchise in Dr Who.)
The Avengers’ success spawned a whole new approach to blockbuster movies which culminated in Avengers End-game which should have been a completely inconceivable and impossible thing to achieve. That’s where it should have ended. (With a lifetime achievement award for Kevin Feige.)
But the money men wanted more. And the newly launched Disney plus needed content. So they tried to adapt their movie franchise to streaming series. Suddenly too much, too diluted. Content both in the movies and on Disney plus. Expensive content.
Disney plus should have taken their cue from the Netflix series featuring some Marvel C-list characters a few years earlier. Far lower budget, far more dramatic and engaging.
I don't think the Avengers would be considered B-list by anyone even passingly familiar with the comics industry; from a Marvel standpoint yes the X-Men and Spiderman were bigger but with the possible (and I do mean possible) exception of the Fantastic 4, the Avengers would be next on the list.
Totally agree about which characters and arcs the streaming services should have gone with though although I'd call them more "street level" than "C-list"; Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Punisher etc. *IF* it ever comes out the Blade (and Black Knight?) movie should have been a series, and Falcon and Winter Soldier should have been a movie.
All IMO, of course
@@viperion_nz Exactly, _everyone_ knew who the Phase 1 Avengers were, even if they didn't know the comics (except _maybe_ Thor, but they'd still see a picture of a viking dude with a hammer and make the connection).
The X-Men and Spiderman are absolute juggernauts of popularity that would be recognised by people from tribes deep in the jungle that have never had contact with the outside world, but lay people would still instantly recognise characters like Captain America, Iron Man, and the Hulk from things like the cartoons from the 60's and 90's, or the _multiple_ adaptations of Hulk (remember, Ang Lee's Hulk had released only _five_ years prior to the release of the Incredible Hulk)
The _real_ "experiments" in seeing if unknown characters could have mainstream success were 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy for the MCU and, probably more importantly for Marvel, 1998's Blade.
But I do completely agree that the MCU probably should have finished with Endgame. It was a satisfying conclusion to the arcs of these characters we'd been following for a decade, and NGL, Phase 4 entries lacked the "connective tissue" that made Phase 1 work so well, with each show or series feeling much more self-contained than anything that had come prior, which absolutely spoils the illusion that all these things are happening in the same setting.
Characters who pass a certain omnipotence threshold remove all drama. Risks that are amplified just by "make number bigger" have no drama to begin with
No one cares that last time they saved the galaxy, this time it's the universe and next time it's the omniverse. Conceptually they are all too big to imagine in the first place. There is no extra jeopardy just by saying bigger words. There is no jeopardy at all if a character exists who can click their fingers and make all the baddies go away.
No drama, no jeopardy = no story
What was the word Marina uses at 26.55? Any spelling of mine gets corrected to allergy by google!
elegiac
Imagine the war between pointless fans and marvel fans and Richard does the captain america line of pointless fans...... assemble
Oversaturation. It happens with all movie genres that go through a peak time. After a while they tend to just be rehashing familiar ideas with diminishing results. Then they go out of fashion for a decade or two before a movie comes along and has success, which brings more movies of the same type again.
My personal bugbear is that they hardly seem to make movies with normal people any more. If the character isn't a superhero then they are the world's greatest assassin or a psychic detective or the smartest person who ever lived. I miss seeing normal people placed in situations beyond their control. A movie I really liked was Boiling Point with Stephen Graham because it felt novel in its ordinariness. There's a place for fantastical movies and for realistic movies but the balance has gone completely towards the former in recent times and it makes me feel as though entertainment is squarely aimed at teenagers now.
Villain kinda has to be Kang as phase 5 is all building towards the multiverse
I wouldn't know why, but I'm definitely kinda done with the endless superhero movies. I loved the first 10 years and I have watched Loki which was great, but that's kinda it.
I don't want to overstate it, but these two are superheroes
Marina Hyde "Can I take the listeners back to 1972"
I'm 1 year old, I've just shat myself, I'm really unhappy. ☹
For me it';s more about villain fatigue. When I was a child the villains were much more reasonable, where as now they are capable of destroying entire universes. Meh, that's boring.
I've never even heard of Marvel - I must live under a rock.
I'd heard of it but didn't know what it was.
I don't think we missed much.
Superhero movies are like disco. Huge at first then everyone got pissed off with it. They should take a break for ten years
Some really interesting takes, but dear god man - gaming and live action are so different in how they can generate revenue, you can't compare them. 'Live Service' games are not unlike the problems Marvel are facing, gaming has strangely become just the bigger medium.
Is Richard a gamer of games? Can I interest you in a game called Alan Wake 2?
I for one am getting very tired with the constant slew of superhero films (not just from Marvel either). Some feel rushed and put out for the sake of having a new film. However, Loki (TV series on Disney +) has been absolutely outstanding and has blown everything else out of the water. Some of the Marvel TV series have been absolute rubbish, but Loki was incredible.
😂,it sells itself like barbie, or m'c donalds ,
7:50 And I think Edgar is Wright
I downvoted this sh*t comment
Lets Kang im..chuckle...
_"These are films about everything… colonialism… feminism…"_ I think that was a large part of their downfall. They started prioritising ham-fisted sociopolitical messaging over solid storytelling.
They also just spread themselves way too thin (especially on streaming). They overdid the humour which was fun in small doses. They increasingly rushed their VFX. And their narratives became so grand and convoluted that they were no longer relatable.
It's not mez-cal, it's just messkel. Paul mescal
While I'm at it. It's gallaher. Not gallagger. The gallaghers
Marvel movies used to be exciting but they're so boring now
Ryan Reynolds is making a fortune then...doing both Pokemon film and Marvel as Deadpool
I'd be perfectly content if no more 'super hero' movies were made.
4.53.....Feic 'movie stars' no one for ING then to do big franchises.
She-Hulk was a great, funny comic, as a comic and because of it being a comic. Way meta, Brechtian alienation, subversively sincere. As was Howard the Duck, which also didnt survive its tranformation into High Profile Entertainment.
Nor to be honest, have the Avengers, FF, etc. The best marvel movies were the Venture Bros
This podcast is great. But let's be honest. Red letter media had these conversations three years ago.
As niche as RLM are i don't even think they would cover 3 documentaries about 3 British celebrities...
I've never understood people that hold up actors over characters. I've seen worse cruise/willis/stalone films that were made solely because tom cruise or whoever was roped into or owed someone a favour. Actors are paid to portray characters ergo the characters should be the most important thing in films. Sadly many films still have awful character writing but that's another discussion.
Marvel films are successful because there is no other choice being presented. I used to go to cinemas all the time but i view the schedules and there is nothing i want to watch. Partly because quality tv series took over for a while but that seems to have exhausted itself as well.
Plus we have so many real life villains these days, fiction just cant compete with it on a day to basis.
Jesus, I had superhero nonsense fatigue 10 years ago. I haven’t watched this crap since Daredevil
Since Marvels Phase 4 ended, Marvel movies have been rubbish aimed solely at mega fans and kids, which is why adults are let down by them now. The writing is poor and CGI is poor, but the mega fans will keep going to them
Impossible, Uncharted, the Devil all the time, onward and... Just tonight Holland got a nominationed for the best actor by critics choice awards you should be ashame of yourself
He's a very good actor but not a star in the original hollywood sense, his name alone isnt enough to draw spectators.
@@NeonCinema no actor has that power anymore Leonardo DiCaprio, tom cruise, Harrison ford all floped in 2023 but not Holland every project that he's in it's at the top of the box office and streaming which shows the love of the audience for him
@@parsaalishiri8138I agree, the point is, the reason for uncharted + all the marvel films doing so well is because the branding, in the “old days” all the biggest earning films were because of the stars attached. Not at all trying to knock Tom, just observing that stars don’t exist anymore
Admittedly killers of the flower moon is a better example than Tom Holland, Di Caprio + De Niro + Scorsese, that incredible combo and it’s still a flop :(
@@NeonCinema okay you kinda got my point what I'm trying to say is that the star power of actors isn't as it always is you know Holland has Starpower just like DiCaprio and tom cruise it's just the problem is it's not as strong as in used to be like in 2000s they bring back people to movie theaters just by there names attached yeah but it's just not enough people that guarantee a box office hit
Why is everyone so shocked that the best way to sell tickets is to make good movies?
Because it's not. You make good trailers and promo, doesn't have a lot to do with the movie quality. If you want people to talk about your movie 2 years on as something no one can believe they missed - then make a good movie.
Poor quality of films leading up to Avengera Infinity War and Endgame. Since then the quality has only deteriorated. But even at its Best, most of the Marvel movies have been average to mediocre with a few exceptions.
yeah coz i care if they make money or not
i just want the films to watch
and i want them to be good
i do not care if they make money lol who does
I love it when the host of the things i watch recommends blatant copaganda made by their friends. 🙄
God I would hate to have her as a boss
Why have Marvel/superhero movies fallen off? For me it comes down to a simple problem! They used to make good movies that happened to have superheros in & now they just make trashy superhero movies.
"Far right" Christian films? I can't even...
There is no superhero fatigue! It’s just that since Endgame, fans are fed up with the poor quality! What on earth happened?? Disney/Marvel prioritising social and political agendas over quality storytelling, alienating, insulting and vilifying its own male audience, and hiring activists as writers and directors who have zero experience in the industry….
Let’s go back to proper storytelling, proper character development, hiring people who are knowledgable and passionate about the source material!
Honestly, we’ve had writers and directors openly admitting they’ve not seen the previous MCU content that they’re writing follow ups for…. 😬💀
Amen. Poorly made and leftwing propaganda pushing. It's hollow an has no substance.
Nah dude a lot of us are just fatigued and 15 years older than we were when that stuff was popular.
Ruining popular characters like Wanda and Thor is going to be their undoing.
The Bible 2. lol
Marvel is beyond tired.
I've spent a lifetime as a huge fan of all things Marvel.
Having every film and show, based around *a very strong female who can beat any man* is boring.
The cultural push towards masculine_violent_ insulting *women as leads* is not entertaining.
It's bad writing.
Larp..marvel....
o
The brief for this podcast is never say the word woke
Because woke is an overused buzzword that doesn't have any coherent meaning
Is it because it's dogshit !
Used to love marvel films, but yeah its getting stale and woke in a silly way.
All the guys are gotta be gay or bi.
The girls can take down foes twice their size with ease.
I mean i know its fantasy, but its getting silly!
Why did so many people like Barbie? I just don't get it.
There are 3 main reasons why Marvel is failing,
1) Disney has killed Marvel (along with everything else they own) with their woke DEI agenda! They have replaced most of the male characters with female ones and instead of concentrating on the main heroes & making great stories (they only care about "the message"), this is why they are losing the comic book fans. The MCU is now the M-she-U fact!!!
2) Superhero fatigue does exist with a lot of regular (non-comic book fans) movie goers, but most people have given up on going to the cinema because of streaming sites!
3) Too many modern movies (Marvel in particular) are flooded with CGI effects which has made Hollywood writers lazy. Before CGI, special effects were difficult to make and expensive. Because of this writers had to keep them to a minimum, which meant the movies had a lot more written depth to them. Now the writing is very basic and the movies are flooded with CGI effects to fill the gaps. Also because of the amount of movies that have wall-to-wall CGI, people have gotten used to them, so the WOW factor is missing! The first time I saw Superman (Christopher Reeve) catch that helicopter was amazing, but now that would be CGI, so would be nothing special!
What's Pointless?
Richard's TV quiz show on the BBC that he used to co-host with Alexander Armstrong
Iron Man was similar to the Dark Knight in that it was a real world with the one sci-fi twist. They are great. By the time of Endgame it was a full fantasy universe. But, like a boiling frog, the temperature was increased slowly. Even Thor was explained as just advanced science looking like magic. People just ignored it because it was introduced slowly.
Then came the woke stuff. I know a lot of people don't care about it, but a lot do. Captain Marvel was bad for half the audience and bad because it was woke for the other. Likewise the Eternals. I remember seeing the Girls getting together at the end of Endgame and squirming. Since Endgame, that's been the priority and I'm not interested.
But it's not Superhero fatigue because there is hunger for GOOD, non woke Superheroes. That's why Spiderman did so well and Deadpool is so hungered for. Even Love and Thunder was highly anticipated because people wanted Ragnarok 2, but got something that made me bleach my eyes.
🙄 Superheros are by their definition "woke". A non woke superhero is a villain.
The woke messaging is putting a lot of people off of movies and TV but im sure youre fine with that Richard
Marvel and Superheroes were stale from the start. 50+ year old characters from another country and culture with widescale property damage and explosions all brought to you via the lazy mans answer to filmmaking CGI. YAWN.
Osman saying he hasn't heard of the Oscar nominees bruh why am I listening to his entertainment opinions lol
There are always horrors, indies and interesting movies being made, including those of the young indie directors marvel hires. So this view that marvel is all there is and is oushing everyone out isnt true, they are boring and should stop for awhile so im not defending them, but this anti marvel image is overblown espeicially when nearly all the other blockbusters are action franchises like mission impossible, star wars and indiana jones etc and many of them are far worse than marvels best
Two people heavily in the industry missing the point and pushing the same boring points 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
Noooo... Bad story line, and poor character development fatigue.
Marvel quality has been awful under Kevin Feige.
More glib left wing opinions recycled in its own echo chamber. These media "experts" dismissing fans as a bolshy cohort that can never be satisfied - yet that arrogant attitude is exactly the approach taken by the Disney Board. It hasn't played out so well for them. And these "bolshy" fans are to coin an old fashioned phrase - customers. The people who pay for those lovely big salaries - but hey - just patronise and talk down to them that's always an intelligent strategy. I always thought these two would illuminate the dire thought processes in the business and haven't been disappointed. Everything wrong with UK media encapsulated in these two.
Not surprised to see the usual whiners in the comments going on about how nothing after Endgame has been as good. Well, nothing before Endgame was as good, so does that make everything that came before bad? No, it doesn’t. It just means that not every movie or tv show can be as good as Endgame. That’s just the way things are. Crying about it like a pathetic bunch of man-babies just shows how entitled these people are.
Being down to their C and D team characters won't help Marvel. Having to follow the Disney plus shows haven't helped either.