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

[filmlover]

Captain Marvel's overperformance was a classic case of "right movie at the right time."

 

I stand by the belief that the impending underperformance (apparently) of this can be attributed to nearly 5 years being too long to crank out a sequel. Sometimes, timing is everything.

[ZattMurdock]

15 minutes ago, PlatnumRoyce said:

I think I've made this point before and I've yet to see a real counterpoint - if you look at what Marvel actually said, they explicitly sold AM2 as a disposable "pallete cleaner" after IW while they hyped up CM as introducing the big new cornerstone of the MCU who was now the most powerful Avenger and thus implicitly what would tip scales in Endgame.  They pretty openly laid out a public facing reason for this marketing strategy that you can agree with or disagree with but you sort of have to address. 

 

This is still marketing not an automatic rule of the universe. Disney did a GREAT job marketing CM. They tied the films together and created anticipation. 

 

Alternatively, arguments are correlated. If you disagree and think Captain Marvel was a true talent $1B WW film, the fact that the sequel is imploding pre-release should send you running around with your hair on fire about the current state of the MCU. The first "real/extended" appearance of a movie star in a star making role should pack a punch. 

 

13 minutes ago, Kon said:

 

The promotion connected Captain Marvel with Endgame a lot more than Ant-Mand and the Wasp. I mean, Captain Marvel has a post-credit scene in Infinity War. Not to mention that Captain Marvel was the movie happened just before Endgame.

 

Captain Marvel was also promoted as the first female lead movie in the MCU, which also attract a lot of attention.

 

So, I think the promotion influenced a lot the Captain Marvel box office.

I disagree with these two assessments. I do remember marketing hyping Ant-Man and the Wasp as integral to Avengers: Endgame. Also, if we look at Avengers: Endgame, Ant-Man is far and beyond more integral to that film than Captain Marvel, so it was marketed with good reason as integral to Avengers: Endgame. 

I agree with Disney making an outstanding job marketing Captain Marvel, though. Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible to The Marvels for a situation beyond the creatives control. With that said, I still don’t think that The Marvels will be the utter failure that people here are making out to be. I think there is still time for that film to bounce back and have a successful box office run, and let me note: I didn’t said that Avengers: Endgame didn’t influence either Captain Marvel’s or Ant-Man and the Wasp’s box office grosses. What I’m saying is: while had some Endgame’s influence in Captain Marvel’s and Ant-Man and the Wasp’s box office results, it wasn’t neither as much neither as little as people seem to think. I think it’s a given that The Marvels won’t gross as much as Captain Marvel, but I still think it has far more potential to gross more than Quantumania, despite the current tracking and lack of stars promoting the film. It’s all up to the film’s quality now, and we will know about that soon enough.

Edited October 21, 2023 by ZattMurdock

[Zakiyyah6]

15 minutes ago, filmlover said:

Captain Marvel's overperformance was a classic case of "right movie at the right time."

 

I stand by the belief that the impending underperformance (apparently) of this can be attributed to nearly 5 years being too long to crank out a sequel. Sometimes, timing is everything.

The way to remedy that situation would have been to give Captain Marvel a prominent role in another Marvel movie before her sequel. 

[ZattMurdock]

11 minutes ago, Zakiyyah6 said:

The way to remedy that situation would have been to give Captain Marvel a prominent role in another Marvel movie before her sequel. 

Hot take: Captain Marvel showing up when Ant-Man and Wasp were way over their heads while Scott dies sacrificing himself against one Kang and Carol saves the rest of the Pym / Lang family would make for a far better Quantumania film. Now that could make Quantumania gross $800m plus and actually be deemed a good to great MCU film if executed right.

[Kon]

23 minutes ago, ZattMurdock said:

 

I disagree with these two assessments. I do remember marketing hyping Ant-Man and the Wasp as integral to Avengers: Endgame. Also, if we look at Avengers: Endgame, Ant-Man is far and beyond more integral to that film than Captain Marvel, so it was marketed with good reason as integral to Avengers: Endgame. 

Ant-Man is more integral for Endgame than Captain Marvel.

 

However, I still think Marvel promoted the connection of Captain Marvel with Endgame a lot more. As I said, even Infinity War post-credit scene promotes Captain Marvel.

[JimmyB]

Crazy how big of a bomb this is shaping up to be. A 40% drop from the total box office of the first movie seemed reasonable but this might/probably drop 60-65% from the first movie. Crazy.

[ZattMurdock]

14 minutes ago, JimmyB said:

Crazy how big of a bomb this is shaping up to be. A 40% drop from the total box office of the first movie seemed reasonable but this might/probably drop 60-65% from the first movie. Crazy.

If this bombs, superhero fatigue is real. If this doesn’t bombs, superhero fatigue is still real and the reason why KOTFM bombed. Marvel Studios can’t win either way.

[Blaze Heatnix]

A hard fact: Other than the dedicated MCU fanbase that watches everything MCU related ( no matter how good / bad it is ), people overall don't care about The Marvels. It's just another MCU movie and it really lacks energy.

 

Now you might ask: Why is there a strange feeling that the movie is lacking energy and attention? That's what Mr Kevin Feige and his team should figure out.

 

So, what's the main draw for this movie? How is it relevant to the MCU narrative? Why should I care about it? Guardians 3 is/was meant to be the end of the story with the characters we got to know in the past. Even Ant-Man 3 had something like the main villain to be set up for the next Phase. Now, what do we have for Marvels? 

 

I don't think the strikes are playing a part on the lack of interest. There's something odd with the movie, the tone, the style. I think they're trying to turn Captain Marvel movie into a mix of Thor Ragnarok / Love and Thunder and Guardians all together. The tone/style is all over the place.

 

The visuals at least look pretty, BUT this movie has nothing going for it. 

 

Now let's go to another serious / bombastic discussion: Is Brie the right actress for the role? I think she's a great actress, BUT I'm not feeling her character. It's not organic like Downey Jr for Iron Man, Evans for Captain. I feel it's forced. I feel she's acting and trying way too hard. Maybe the writing team isn't helping at all and a better director could get the best from her, but sorry folks, I don't think she's right for the role.  Where's the organic connection between actor and character? 

 

I liked her in Captain Marvel 1, but I didn't like her in Endgame and I'm not interested in this sequel. I really think something happened ( behind the scenes maybe? Not sure ) and she lost her "mojo". 

[Johnny Tran]

I think it's becoming clear that people just didn't love Captain Marvel that much.  It got the Avengers bump and now it's coming back down to where it would have fallen if not for the Infinity War/End Game craze. 

[Valencia]

15 minutes ago, Johnny Tran said:

I think it's becoming clear that people just didn't love Captain Marvel that much.  It got the Avengers bump and now it's coming back down to where it would have fallen if not for the Infinity War/End Game craze. 

A lot of it is probably brigading because Brie is the lead but all of its audience metrics are bad nowadays.

 

It has 45% Verified Audience score right now on Rotten Tomatoes. 2.7 Letterboxd. 6.8 IMBD. 

You can chalk the original’s A Cinemascore to Endgame hype, peak superhero craze, and support the first marvel movie female lead imo.

[Maggie]

 

[nevermore]

4 minutes ago, Valencia said:

A lot of it is probably brigading because Brie is the lead but all of its audience metrics are bad nowadays.

 

It has 45% Verified Audience score right now on Rotten Tomatoes. 2.7 Letterboxd. 6.8 IMBD. 

You can chalk the original’s A Cinemascore to Endgame hype, peak superhero craze, and support the first marvel movie female lead imo.

Captain Marvel's RT score is from before they added verified ratings. It has twice as many user reviews as Endgame does because it was heavily brigaded and the reason why there's verified ratings in the first place.

[PlatnumRoyce]

42 minutes ago, ZattMurdock said:

I disagree with these two assessments. I do remember marketing hyping Ant-Man and the Wasp as integral to Avengers: Endgame. Also, if we look at Avengers: Endgame, Ant-Man is far and beyond more integral to that film than Captain Marvel, so it was marketed with good reason as integral to Avengers: Endgame. 

I agree that they easily could have promoted Ant-Man 2 as a plot-critical film but I just think all evidence you can find points in the opposite direction including pretty direct statements by Fiege about how it. I don't really want to pull this again so I guess we'll agree to disagree on that.

 

57 minutes ago, ZattMurdock said:

I didn’t said that Avengers: Endgame didn’t influence either Captain Marvel’s or Ant-Man and the Wasp’s box office grosses. What I’m saying is: while had some Endgame’s influence in Captain Marvel’s and Ant-Man and the Wasp’s box office results, it wasn’t neither as much neither as little as people seem to think.

 

The core problem here is that Captain Marvel just made too much crazy money at the box office (peaked at 21/22nd highest grossing film of all time) and Ant-Man 2 got too small of a post-Ant-Man 1 boost [which includes his role in Civil War] for mild arguments to work. Knock $200M WW off of that and the film still grossed more than any GotG film. A mild Endgame effect implies a massive alternative effect that should sick around for this film. 

 

I gather you think that will show up for the film in a way that's not true of tracking but that, to my eyes, implies a comparison to GOTG franchise/sequels (so CM was a big hit supercharged into a mega hit) not Ant-Man 3. 

 

[WittyUsername]

I can safely say that I don’t recall Ant-Man 2 being promoted as a big event that you absolutely had to watch in the lead-up to Avengers 4. As I recall, it was just marketed as a low stakes action comedy. CM was marketed as the new face of the MCU, and the movie was released right as the hype for EG was really kicking into high gear. 

[boxoff53]

3 hours ago, ZattMurdock said:

I think people in general like Captain Marvel far more than Ant-Man or Wasp.

You know,  I've been thinking that you sound delusional but didn't want to say anything.  This confirms it. Have you ever spoken to anyone who says they like captain marvel more than Scott? I find that really really hard to believe, and it sounds like wishful thinking to me.  This girl is exactly the type that marvel is trying to court,  and she ranks captain marvel below ant man 1 and 2, and among the worst movies in the franchise (at the time).

 

And there's no hiding behind the incel woman hater card because she's very much a "queer ally,  representation, etc" type person. The character just isn't very popular,  and CERTAINLY not more liked than ant man,  as pre-sales seem to confirm. 

[ZattMurdock]

Just now, boxoff53 said:

You know,  I've been thinking that you sound delusional but didn't want to say anything.  This confirms it. Have you ever spoken to anyone who says they like captain marvel more than Scott? I find that really really hard to believe, and it sounds like wishful thinking to me.  This girl is exactly the type that marvel is trying to court,  and she ranks captain marvel below ant man 1 and 2, and among the worst movies in the franchise (at the time).

 

And there's no hiding behind the incel woman hater card because she's very much a "queer ally,  representation, etc" type person. The character just isn't very popular,  and CERTAINLY not more liked than ant man,  as pre-sales seem to confirm. 

We are about to see that. I still think The Marvels will end up fairly more successful than Quantumania, if it’s any good. If data can’t show you that Captain Marvel is more popular (either when it comes to box office, comic book sales, literal online presence with Captain Marvel having one of the most vocal online fandoms bare any other character from either the MCU or DC), we will be fighting "who is right" here and that’s pointless. I won’t resort of calling you delusional or anything like that. I’m quite confident that if The Marvels is any good, people will show up for it, more than Quantumania. Let’s see what happens.

[boxoff53]

12 minutes ago, ZattMurdock said:

We are about to see that. I still think The Marvels will end up fairly more successful than Quantumania, if it’s any good. If data can’t show you that Captain Marvel is more popular (either when it comes to box office, comic book sales, literal online presence with Captain Marvel having one of the most vocal online fandoms bare any other character from either the MCU or DC), we will be fighting "who is right" here and that’s pointless. I won’t resort of calling you delusional or anything like that. I’m quite confident that if The Marvels is any good, people will show up for it, more than Quantumania. Let’s see what happens.

I notice you didn't answer my question.  Have you ever spoken to anyone who said they like captain marvel more than ant man,  as far as the mcu is concerned? Data can tell all sorts of stories if massaged the right way. Merely looking at a number requires inferences, or other data points for context, to draw conclusions.  What doesn't require inference is direct comments by the audience that is trying to be reached. I think evidence supports the idea that the character is likely about as popular or less so than ant man.  

 

As a secondary point,  how do you simultaneously believe the character is well liked and well known,  yet believe a lack of actor promotion is what's hurting sales? Surely if the people loved her so much, these hypothetical fans would be spreading the word and ticket sales would be trending up,  not down?

[Wandavisionlover0924]

23 minutes ago, boxoff53 said:

You know,  I've been thinking that you sound delusional but didn't want to say anything.  This confirms it. Have you ever spoken to anyone who says they like captain marvel more than Scott? I find that really really hard to believe, and it sounds like wishful thinking to me.  This girl is exactly the type that marvel is trying to court,  and she ranks captain marvel below ant man 1 and 2, and among the worst movies in the franchise (at the time).

 

And there's no hiding behind the incel woman hater card because she's very much a "queer ally,  representation, etc" type person. The character just isn't very popular,  and CERTAINLY not more liked than ant man,  as pre-sales seem to confirm. 

Ant man is not that popular of a movie franchise. It's jus there. I don't think a lot of people talk about that character or trilogy 

[ZattMurdock]

Just now, Wandavisionlover0924 said:

Ant man is not that popular of a movie franchise. It's jus there. I don't think a lot of people talk about that character or trilogy 

It doesn’t even need to be said, the hard data backs me up. Captain Marvel is way more popular than Ant-Man. All the metrics possible when it comes to these characters point to that. Sometimes you just gotta read absurd shit and let it go.

[Bob Train]

Imagine telling someone in 2019 that a horror movie released simultaneously on streaming and in theaters would open higher than the sequel to Captain Marvel.

 

Audiences are tired of the MCU, the low-quality products aren't helping, so they are moving on to new franchises.