The Marvels | November 10, 2023 | Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter

[ThomasNicole]

I never though i would live to read that minutes watched, which is basically the reason streaming can be measured, is a worthless metric to judge a streaming project performance lol 

[SpiderByte]

7 minutes ago, M37 said:

Honestly, IMO the more concerning number there is Secret Invasion. The shows that have higher profile characters and/or skew more serious/adult put up the better numbers in general, while the more comedic/light-hearted and younger skewing program draw fewer.  Secret Invasion should have been able to pull around Hawkeye/Moon Knight numbers, and its well below

And by all indications Loki is doing fine. Again, everyone tries to scale each MCU release to the others. The Marvels is not going to affect Deadpool 3, Ms Marvel isn't going to affect Loki, etc etc. And watch minutes, again, are worthless. It's like Parrot Analytics with "desire to watch", what the fuck does that even mean.

 

Basically, theres a million reasons why the presales are what they are, and everyone's going to spend from now till May bitching about it until Deadpool opens big and then rinse and repeat.

Edited October 12, 2023 by SpiderByte

[ThomasNicole]

3 minutes ago, SpiderByte said:

And watch minutes, again, are worthless. It's like Parrot Analytics with "desire to watch", what the fuck does that even mean

One of them is made by the platforms themselves and Nielsen, so yeah, not remotely something like Parrot Analytics 

[Valonqar]

5 minutes ago, M37 said:

Honestly, IMO the more concerning number there is Secret Invasion. The shows that have higher profile characters and/or skew more serious/adult put up the better numbers in general, while the more comedic/light-hearted and younger skewing program draw fewer.  Secret Invasion should have been able to pull around Hawkeye/Moon Knight numbers, and its well below

 

A female skewing teen comedy show not pulling in huge viewers isn't exactly a red flag to me; my daughters didn't really care, so we skipped it, and I imagine a lot of MCU fans without kids did as well

 

But the show was meant to attract your daughters demo! That's the whole point. They expected to draw huge new audience that didn't care for SH previously. The audience that is watching anything from Stranger THings to Euphoria to Summer I Turned Pretty. It didn't happen. Ms Marvel was meant to be Barbie for teen girls and it completely flopped in that regard. 

 

26 minutes ago, PlatnumRoyce said:

It would probably significantly help The Marvels (also places it within a "normal" sequel timeline) but I think you're downplaying existing goodwill from Thor: Ragnarok. Reviews would hurt but there was clearly an intrinsic hook to the film audiences resonated with.

 

The Marvels ran away from Barbie only to get caught in TET juggernaut that no one saw coming when the movie switched dates. Point being, if interest isn't there, release date doesn't matter. Audience will always find something else to rally behind or simply not show up for anything. Look at Dead Reconing Pt 1. That movie was not meant to flop/underperform. It came off highly regarded previous installments that increased their boxoffice. It got rave reviews. Test screenings praised it for months. TC was King of the Boxoffice thanks to TGM last year. And yet the audience that cared not so long ago went to Oppenheimer instead. Overnight, a movie that was a sure-thing was not a thing anymore. My point is that you can't just swap 2 movies and expect the other one to do better than the one that didn't do as well as expected. There are many factors and demand is the most important one. Dead Reconing lost demand that it shouldn't in large part because Oppenheimer that atrgeted its audience created interest that killed interest in DR even with loyal audience. But that cannot be the only factor cause it's always a number of them combined. But in TM case, move away from Barbie didn't help cause another female-driven event emerged as more attractive option.

[JustLurking]

30 minutes ago, SpiderByte said:

And by all indications Loki is doing fine. Again, everyone tries to scale each MCU release to the others. The Marvels is not going to affect Deadpool 3, Ms Marvel isn't going to affect Loki, etc etc. And watch minutes, again, are worthless. It's like Parrot Analytics with "desire to watch", what the fuck does that even mean.

 

Basically, theres a million reasons why the presales are what they are, and everyone's going to spend from now till May bitching about it until Deadpool opens big and then rinse and repeat.

How you're comparing literal actual watched time, a tangible reliable metric which you can use for direct comparisons to other shows with parrot's literally made-up memery that shits out the most ridiculous claims is beyond me

Edited October 12, 2023 by JustLurking

[Willowra]

22 minutes ago, Valonqar said:

 

But the show was meant to attract your daughters demo! That's the whole point. They expected to draw huge new audience that didn't care for SH previously. The audience that is watching anything from Stranger THings to Euphoria to Summer I Turned Pretty. It didn't happen. Ms Marvel was meant to be Barbie for teen girls and it completely flopped in that regard. 

 

 

The Marvels ran away from Barbie only to get caught in TET juggernaut that no one saw coming when the movie switched dates. Point being, if interest isn't there, release date doesn't matter. Audience will always find something else to rally behind or simply not show up for anything. Look at Dead Reconing Pt 1. That movie was not meant to flop/underperform. It came off highly regarded previous installments that increased their boxoffice. It got rave reviews. Test screenings praised it for months. TC was King of the Boxoffice thanks to TGM last year. And yet the audience that cared not so long ago went to Oppenheimer instead. Overnight, a movie that was a sure-thing was not a thing anymore. My point is that you can't just swap 2 movies and expect the other one to do better than the one that didn't do as well as expected. There are many factors and demand is the most important one. Dead Reconing lost demand that it shouldn't in large part because Oppenheimer that atrgeted its audience created interest that killed interest in DR even with loyal audience. But that cannot be the only factor cause it's always a number of them combined. But in TM case, move away from Barbie didn't help cause another female-driven event emerged as more attractive option.

out of the frying pan into the fire

[M37]

6 minutes ago, JustLurking said:

How the fuck are you comparing literal actual watched time which you can use for direct comparisons to other shows with parrot's literally made-up memery that shits out the most ridiculous claims is beyond me

In the same way we can use BO$ to compare while understanding that the baseline expectation was not the same?

 

Shang-Chi $225M - brand new character, released still during pandemic - is much better outcome than AMWQ $214M, an established character and introduction of new main villain 

 

EDIT, I misread, agree with your point (but gonna leave this up anyway)

 

 

Edited October 12, 2023 by M37

[THUNDER BIRD]

2 hours ago, Valonqar said:

 

I absoltuely agree that YA (ha!) is a terrible idea, not only because all of these young characters are bland af (most of them basically uninteresting versions of old favorites) but because new generations of viewers don't want hand-me-down heroes. They want their own heroes. That is why Star Wars still skews old since it was boomers thing, for example, and younger people are simply not taking to it in numbers that studios need, no matter how hard the studio tries to modernize the universe. It simply isn't something that new audience organically discovered and embraced. Same thing is happening with Millennials' fixture superhero movies. New generations want something that's their own, not something that they inherited from Millennials. 

 

As for Ms Marvel, I know next to nothing about her comic books but read in several places that they were cancelled and then renewed multiple times so not exactly an A list or even B list hero. Marvel used to turn F listers like GOTG into A listers. Used to. Not anymore and I don't think it's due to fatigue or whatever but that they were picking IPs that translated on the screen well despite dire comic book sales. Some things are simply more cinematic. I think that the biggest problem was and still remains D+ rush to fill the new streaming service with content. Hence greenlighting absolutely unnecessary stuff. Not every hero is born to headline a solo project be it a show or a movie and while Marvel was selective in that regard in the build-up to Endgame, they threw caution out of the window afterwards thansk to D+'s barren catalogue and started to greenlight anything. I mean, just because Agatha was a breakout in WV, did she really need her own show? I say no. Same goes for all those other shows save Loki and WV. The latter was an experimental artistic mini series so that worked, while the former was centered around one of the most popular characters (who's dead in movies). The rest? Big shrug. 

Excellent point about not everything in comics translates to Cinema. The point of "It happened in comics" is dicey because it's a completely different medium.

 

Case in point - I don't know how it looked in the Comic panel, but Council of Kangs in Quantamania looked awful.

 

[Willowra]

I hope @Shawn gives 30-40m of long-range projection. At least the movie would get some talk online by this lol

[JustLurking]

6 minutes ago, M37 said:

In the same way we can use BO$ to compare while understanding that the baseline expectation was not the same?

 

Shang-Chi $225M - brand new character, released still during pandemic - is much better outcome than AMWQ $214M, an established character and introduction of new main villain 

 

EDIT, I misread, agree with your point (but gonna leave this up anyway)

 

 

In case someone else misreads, I just meant that hours watched is an actually useful metric as it is something tangible and with reliable means of tracking.

 

Parrot's "demand" metrics on the other hand are a complete mystery box fuckery, we don't know how they calculate them and they often produce hilariously wrong results which makes them for all intents and purposes completely useless, they can't even be used for comparisons so they are of no worth at all

[THUNDER BIRD]

Also another thing is that MCU had made not much efforts to convince people to go watch the movie.

 

Shang Chi for its time was interesting because people were looking for a new direction for MCU, and Shang Chi promised that, so did Eternals.

 

Now Marvels is just there, what's the reason to watch it, if it has something to do with future of MCU then tell the Audience, and if it is related to Skrulls and stuff, then MCU has shot in their foot by Secret Invasion.

 

Currently it is looking like some Streaming movie with a character that hasn't had much to do in MCU so far and 2 streaming characters and they are doing their things.

 

Those who are interested in these characters may watch, rest can give it a pass. 

[Valonqar]

9 minutes ago, THUNDER BIRD said:

Excellent point about not everything in comics translates to Cinema. The point of "It happened in comics" is dicey because it's a completely different medium.

 

Case in point - I don't know how it looked in the Comic panel, but Council of Kangs in Quantamania looked awful.

 

 

 

agreed. I remember that CW had terrible multi and while CB fans were salivating over the airport fight, I remember GA comments that it was stupid and broke the tone of the movie. On one side, you had serious terrorist shit and then there was a goofy airport superhero fight in the middle of it that didn't move the story forward but felt out of place. I think the same is happening with multiverse variants. The idea may be more suited for CB than movies. 

Edited October 12, 2023 by Valonqar

[TheFlatLannister]

7 hours ago, eddyxx said:

There is no way this is getting 3x legs.

That’s only 2.75x multi for DOM. That seems reasonable imo considering smaller OW and holiday szn 

[Kon]

8 minutes ago, THUNDER BIRD said:

Also another thing is that MCU had made not much efforts to convince people to go watch the movie.

 

Shang Chi for its time was interesting because people were looking for a new direction for MCU, and Shang Chi promised that, so did Eternals.

 

Now Marvels is just there, what's the reason to watch it, if it has something to do with future of MCU then tell the Audience, and if it is related to Skrulls and stuff, then MCU has shot in their foot by Secret Invasion.

 

Currently it is looking like some Streaming movie with a character that hasn't had much to do in MCU so far and 2 streaming characters and they are doing their things.

 

Those who are interested in these characters may watch, rest can give it a pass. 

 

Honestly, I really think Marvel don't care about this movie anymore. They must have already realized that The Marvels is not going to be a success, so they are going to abandon it with the minimum possible promotional expenses.

 

I think Marvel is more worried about future projects at this point.

Edited October 12, 2023 by Kon

[PlatnumRoyce]

30 minutes ago, Valonqar said:

 

But the show was meant to attract your daughters demo! That's the whole point. They expected to draw huge new audience that didn't care for SH previously. The audience that is watching anything from Stranger THings to Euphoria to Summer I Turned Pretty. It didn't happen. Ms Marvel was meant to be Barbie for teen girls and it completely flopped in that regard. 

 

 

The Marvels ran away from Barbie only to get caught in TET [Swift Concert]juggernaut that no one saw coming when the movie switched dates. Point being, if interest isn't there,..My point is that you can't just swap 2 movies and expect the other one to do better than the one that didn't do as well as expected. There are many factors and demand is the most important one.

Good point about Swift but my hidden assumption is simply that there's inherently more interest in sequels if you "strike while the iron is hot" and release a film within 2 or possibly 3 years. Time is related to demand as inertia slips away. 

 

 

 

For example, after a mediocre sequel, I suspect that the third Rock-Jumanji movie is going to suffer significantly if it comes out in 2025 instead of 2022 (which is why it probably never gets made unless that other Kasdan-Rock film is a huge hit). On the other hand, something like Creed 3 shows the folly of relying on such arguments too much. 

 

 

[Willowra]

4 minutes ago, THUNDER BIRD said:

Also another thing is that MCU had made not much efforts to convince people to go watch the movie.

 

Shang Chi for its time was interesting because people were looking for a new direction for MCU, and Shang Chi promised that, so did Eternals.

 

Now Marvels is just there, what's the reason to watch it, if it has something to do with future of MCU then tell the Audience, and if it is related to Skrulls and stuff, then MCU has shot in their foot by Secret Invasion.

 

Currently it is looking like some Streaming movie with a character that hasn't had much to do in MCU so far and 2 streaming characters and they are doing their things.

 

Those who are interested in these characters may watch, rest can give it a pass. 

A large number of hardcore fans are boycotting this movie for reasons we all know, but casual fans are also not interested because they think the lead character is Shazam of the MCU, a very less important and irrelevant character. The movie was destined to flop once they decided not to tell the audience whether she is a big character or not.

[toutvabien]

54 minutes ago, M37 said:

Honestly, IMO the more concerning number there is Secret Invasion. The shows that have higher profile characters and/or skew more serious/adult put up the better numbers in general, while the more comedic/light-hearted and younger skewing program draw fewer.  Secret Invasion should have been able to pull around Hawkeye/Moon Knight numbers, and its well below

 

A female skewing teen comedy show not pulling in huge viewers isn't exactly a red flag to me; my daughters didn't really care, so we skipped it, and I imagine a lot of MCU fans without kids did as well

Secret Invasion actually had 461M minutes watched in its first five days vs 418M for Moon Knight, tho the episode was 10 minutes longer, so when you do the math, that's actually a few more people who watched MK. But damn, they weren't even that far apart at first. Biggest suprise is honestly that She-Hulk actually did quite well, 4B minutes is good, considering how short the episodes were.

[PlatnumRoyce]

Quote

"The biggest difference from the other MCU movies to date is that it’s really wacky, and silly," DaCosta teases. "The worlds we go to in this movie are worlds unlike others you’ve seen in the MCU. Bright worlds that you haven’t seen before." 

Not to pile on, but I don't want this elevator pitch to get lost in the shuffle. It's one the first MCU pitches to clearly just completely fail to resonate with audiences because it doesn't actually separate The Marvels as a distinct brand in audiences minds relative to any of the other "cosmic marvel" stories. Not the biggest problem but I think it's a real one/indicative of Marvels' failure to sell interest in the film (hence all of the focus on the fun teamup stuff).   

 

The initial Thor movies (Shakespeare/big 80s fantasy space opera), Ant-Man(Heist), various captain Americas ("war/political thriller"), Black Panther, Spider-Man (friendly neighborhood stark apprentice), Shang-Chi (martial arts movie/Chinese setting), etc. had these strong specific conceptual pitches that carved out separate niches.

It's not clear how CM2 really builds on CM1's "vibe" (e.g. 90s stuff or with the military stuff). That's fine (and I like silver age wackiness better than another CM1) but it does seem to be a semi notable shift unless I'm missing something. 

 

edit: really building off of  @THUNDER BIRD point but I didn't see his comment before I hit submit. 

 

 

Edited October 12, 2023 by PlatnumRoyce

[BadOlCatSylvester]

5 minutes ago, Kon said:

 

Honestly, I really think Marvel don't care about this movie anymore. They must have already realized that The Marvels is not going to be a success, so they are going to abandon it with the minimum possible promotional expenses.

 

I think Marvel is more worried about future projects at this point.

I have to agree. I can't help but think that the likes of Marvels, Echo, Agatha and Ironheart are probably going to suffer a slight DCEU effect, since they now represent a vision that Marvel is no longer pursuing if the recent Daredevil article is to be believed. Echo being dumped all at once is telling. I'm somewhat expecting Agatha and Ironheart to get similar treatments. I'm also wondering if any movies that didn't begin filming prior to May are going to get any major reworks. Daredevil is getting rebooted despite filming a decent amount, so anything is possible now I suppose.

[M37]

1 minute ago, toutvabien said:

Secret Invasion actually had 461M minutes watched in its first five days vs 418M for Moon Knight, tho the episode was 10 minutes longer, so when you do the math, that's actually a few more people who watched MK. But damn, they weren't even that far apart at first. Biggest suprise is honestly that She-Hulk actually did quite well, 4B minutes is good, considering how short the episodes were.

But what happened in the end? It had the streaming equivalent of poor legs, enough up front demand to get people to tune into the first episode, but unable to retain interest or build by WOM.  I tend to think our family is fairly representative of the casual MCU/CBM crowd, and we watched 3 (maybe 4?) episodes of Secret Invasion, found it boring and convoluted ... and never ended up finishing it. That and Ms Marvel are the only two MCU series (excluding What If?) that we didn't finish (and for the latter, never even started). Also She-Hulk had 9 episodes, so the total series run time is about the same as the longer 6 Ep runs

 

We've already watched Ep1 of Loki S2 ... but there is very little interest for Marvels.  (I also couldn't talk kids into seeing AMWQ or Shazam 2 fwiw)