YM!

Anyways really excited for Wakanda. Haven’t thought anything this phase outside of Shang-Chi and Ms. Marvel was great, with a lot of barely 3.5/5s I enjoy but have flaws or are highly flawed (WandaVision, She-Hulk, Hawkeye, Strange 2, NWH and Eternals), mediocre (Black Widow, Loki) and stuff I hated this phase (What If, FaTWS) and going forwards there’s a lot of stuff I am likely skipping Phase 5 onwards (Moon Knight, next season of Loki, Blade if it isn’t R, Fantastic Four, Agatha) and have a lot of worries going forwards but there’s a lot of stuff that looks great in this, seems like it’s made with a lot of passion and Coogler is easily the best MCU director (Black Panther is probably one of my favorite blockbusters of the 2010s, and that’s Coogler’s weakest film).

If the Rock wasn’t scared of being beating up by children and debuted in Shazam! (although that would be hard to fit in the narrative), Black Adam probably would’ve done more than it. I don’t think Black Adam is a big name in the cinematic universe as of now but I do think he’ll appear again. Eternals did the same as Black Adam box office wise with similar budgets and grosses and the characters will appear again. Black Adam will get to face Superman but he’ll likely have to face Shazam too as he’s not big enough for a Superman vs Black Adam movie. It’ll likely be a Shazam 3 with Black Adam and Superman with meaty roles and a seperate Man of Steel 2.

Ghostbusters seems like the least appealing of the four (Aquaman, Migration and Wonka) and has always been something that no one really cares about except those nostalgic about Halloween memories. I’m not expecting too much more than 350m WW.

Indiana Jones 5 - $175m/$550m Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 - $215m/$500m The Little Mermaid - $125m/$160m/$450m Aquaman 2 - $90m/$380m The Super Mario Bros Movie - $105m/$360m The Marvels - $135m/$325m Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania - $105m/$120m/$295m Blue Beetle - $80m/$245m Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning - $105m/$245m Dune Part 2 - $80m/$240m Potential 200m+ hitters: Im thinking Fantastic Beasts numbers for Hunger Games and 200-225m for Wonka. Out of all the animation, Illumination has become the biggest brand at the box office so Migration seems likely for 200m. Trolls 3 could do 200m as could Wish (Wish is Disney’s only tentpole this holiday and 100th year thing so I think they’ll push it). Across the SpiderVerse is in a situation where it will get fucked over by all sides because the nostalgic toy commercials are too strong but we will see if the love of the first is strong enough. Elemental could do well but whenever Disney does a six week sandwich of film release, the one in the middle gets fucked. Flash depends on how much the Ezra stuff will hurt, it could do sub 200m or 300m+ and neither would surprise me. Barbie reminds me of Detective Pikachu and WB is incompetent at selling family films (cause in point being Pikachu and all of the WAG movies). Oppenheimer seems more of a 100m hitter and with The Marvels so close I imagine a Matrix 4 situation where Oppenheimer just gets IMAX and The Marvels takes all other PLFs and then IMAX after the week is over.

Ghostbusters 2 or is it 4 (even though the series as whole hasn’t been good), Illumination’s Migration, and Wonka should also equally 600m, likely even exceed it.

I feel The Marvels is more likely on 300m than Ant Man tbh. I am also iffy on SpiderVerse doing 250m, especially when squashed between Mermaid and the June stuff that competes with all its target demographics.

You doomed 200m, why would you want to doom a sequel?

I have yet to watched Werewolf by Night and have no plans at all to ever watch Moon Knight and decided not to do the tv shows.

Anyways glad to see Wakanda is doing well in the early reactions although they can be highly fickle to read due to fandom access. Black Panther will always have a special place in my heart, not only is it my favorite MCU film but one of my favorite recent blockbusters and comes from Coogler who I am a huge fan of (this is definitely one of the MCU movies that couldn’t be replicated without choosing said director). Sadly the king is gone but hopefully the world of Wakanda still has a lot of wonder in it.

Shazam and SpiderVerse (especially the latter as that’s my favorite) are probably amongst the best CBMs and both are pretty lighthearted and humorous but highly deliver on emotional moments and arcs. Tbh humor apart from LaT hasn’t bugged me this phase, the problem lays in pacing and poor screenwriting.

Guessing Ant Man, The Little Mermaid or Elemental and Avatar 2

Anyways trailer I’m overall in this is just fine camp. Kang looks cool (honestly glad for Majors getting a star treatment, he was excellent in The Last Black Man in San Francisco). I do think for the most part the Quantum Realm looks fun to explore and I truly love the Ant-family and Reed is probably amongst the Marvel directors I find reliable (Coogler, Gunn, Cretton) however I still have my concerns in Loveness as a writer as most Rick and Morty writers when doing Marvel have given bad scripts, upping the scale takes away a lot of the charm rather than making it exciting to me and looks more like the majority of Marvel movies as of late (“Yay, the world is ending or will face doom like it has for the past 7 out of 8 Marvel movies”) and no Pena is disappointing.

And I like most of those movies too, I just prefer Ant Man and the Wasp a lot better. Top 10 MCU for me honestly.

The problem is more so tone. Yes cgi will be a big factor but the fun low stakes family adventure feel of the Ant Man movies is more appealing to me than “oh look multiverse shit will cause the end of the world until it doesn’t” again.

The hate Ant Man 2 gets when its better than all of Phase 4 and the IW/EG duo just for being fun.

I mean No Way Home did 800m with a last blitz ad rush during the last three weeks. I’m pretty confident Avatar 2 will be the main holiday event with a marketing blitz during the last month. Things have just changed marketing wise mainly due to Covid. The usual 3-4 trailers for movies is now a teaser 4-5 months prior and and a trailer to coincide with ticket sales. Also while yes indeed fuck the mouse, if they didn’t care at all, we wouldn’t get an Avatar rerelease.

The only movie where Scrat got his nut.

Seems a bit early no with Wakanda reactions and likely a big tv spot Wednesday.

I think that’s due to the effects not being finished yet.

Yes, I’d love a She Hulk movie. The show is like top 3 in Phase 4 and probably the second best series.

At least C-list (B list us a bit arguable) but dude is definitely more known than the JSA. Definitely the most popular Blue Beetle.

Blue Beetle was also in Injustice. Hell Blue Beetle was a co-lead in that Batman cartoon in the 2000s. I think Blue Beetle before their movies was more known than Shang-Chi. I do agree DC is still building back up trust and Marvel is bigger but no one has done a big Hispanic led superhero movie.

Honestly I can see a situation it’s number 2 to Guardians 3 in that it pulls a Guardians/Panther/Captain Marvel. Ant-Man, Aquaman, and Marvels seem like 300-340m grossers, The Flash is a wild card and Shazam seem more like an Ant Man 2 like jump.

You’d be beating Marvel to the punch to Miles Morales and kind of X-Men. However Zaslav’s ass probably wouldn’t greenlit for obvious reasons considering he tried gutting POC workshops and a lot of projects he axed.

Missed the Blue Beetle discussion but honestly think it can be pretty big. DC comics fumbled the big with both Jaime Reyes and Virgil Hawkins as both could’ve easily been their Spider-Man in the comics despite Blue Beetle and Static being somewhat popular thanks to exposure in 2000s cartoons and appearances in video games. It also helps that’s there has never been a Hispanic led superhero film and test scores are pretty great. If marketing is strong and reviews are stronger, I think Shang-Chi numbers are the minimum (especially if it goes to September 22nd).