I doubt anyone truly believes that. They just want something to use to knock Marvel down a peg or two, which I'm sure is frustrating when they don't flop nearly as hard as other studios do on a regular basis.
Dude chill. Also, Dawn was literally nothing like its predecessor other than it had apes in it. They didn't even keep its biggest star. I mean, did you even seen that movie?
I can't think of an actual serious scene in this movie that didn't end up with some kind of punchline. The whole thing was a comedy from start to finish.
Edgar Wright's films have never been huge hits. They're good enough given their relatively small budgets (except Scott Pilgrim), but I highly doubt he himself would've added any big numbers to Ant-Man other than if he simply made an extra super crowd pleasing movie, which isn't really his thing.
Rockwell and Garry Shandling made IM2 at least entertaining. Also RDJ and Gwyneth still have great chemistry, which is way more than can be said for a lot of CBMs. Thor 2 was more boring to me honestly, mostly cause NPortman is so useless and shoved into the plot.
How about don't make a movie just to keep the rights. If F4 does end up back in Marvel's hands soon, it'll just be a repeat of what happened to Spiderman, which at least got one sequel out of its reboot before it crashed and burned. Ironic.
Can't compare actual quality since I won't be seeing F4 in theaters, but IM2 was by no means a failure either critically or financially. Yes, it's Marvel's biggest turd but it's better rated than Man of Steel and DC is building its entire cinematic universe on that movie.
If it's a fun movie, they should be letting critics review this ASAP so it can build buzz. It's still the only movie coming out next week without a RT rating yet.