Marvel (MCU) -vs- DC (DCU/DCEU)

From https://thecatseye.org/

https://thecatseye.org/2874/showcase/marvel-vs-dc/#:~:text=Though%20Marvel%20has%20some%20deeming,last%20more%20than%20two%20movies.


https://www.marvel.com/


Marvel is better than DC: The true opinion


The debate between Marvel and DC has been the talk of controversy ever since they both came into existence, but as a Marvel fan, it is without a doubt that Marvel is better, and here’s why.

Firstly, Marvel movies have more characters that have more connections both with each other and in their storylines, while DC has a lack of continuity within their cinematic universe. Flop movies are movies that are highly unsuccessful and poorly favored, and DC has had many flop movies. “Catwoman,” was a disappointment at the box office with a total gross of $85 million, and “Green Lantern” faced a similar disappointment despite Ryan Reynolds efforts.

Marvel on the other hand has had more successful box office numbers. For example, “Black Panther” grossed 1.3 billion worldwide and is #14 of the highest grossing movies of all time. From the beginning of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the origin story of Iron Man grossed over $585 million and is considered a timeless marvel movie. In comparison, doesn’t DC have more flops?

Some may argue that DC has better comics, but from the corny dialogue to the cheap CGI, it is without question that most of DC’s movies are just plain horrible. DC movie plotlines are dull, for an example. If you watch “Justice League,” then you will find Superman defeating all the members single handedly. While that is not the case in any Marvel movie. Consider the movie “Captain America: Civil War.” The battle between team Captain America and team Iron Man was evenly adjusted even though vision was on iron mans side. The amount of action is either to much or too little.

In the movie “Steel,” the action scenes had everything but action. The Justice League is often said to have too much action and too grim and gritty. DC storylines can also be difficult to follow with their casting inconsistencies, making the stories all-the-more confusing. DC tries hard to emulate marvel movies but fail to reach Marvel’s standards. For example when Marvel did a crossover with “Secret Wars,” DC followed with “Crisis on Infinite Earths.” “Doom Patrol” copied the “X-Men” (or vice versa), “Swamp Thing” copied “Man-Thing” (or vice versa), and so on.

“I believe Marvel is better than D.C.,” said Freshman Rahanna Banks. “I was introduced to both at a young age, but I leaned more towards Marvel. Marvel has more characters and a variety of stories, which we now see to be coming together and creating one big story. DC to me just seems like one group of people that they focus on and not other characters, leaving disinterest.”

Marvel heroes are more nostalgic and have an incomprehensible range of the characters. There are over 70,000 characters in the MCU, while DC only has around 10,000 characters. The MCU never disappoints to connect characters to a storyline and portray them in an aesthetically pleasing way.

Marvel also has some of the best superteams. The most popular teams include “The Avengers,” “Fantastic Four,” “X-Men,” “Guardians of the Galaxy,” and “The Eternals.”

“Marvel has a better storyline and is more structured than DC,” freshman Scarlette Ricotta said.

Besides movies, Marvel has also had huge successes with series like “WandaVision,” “Loki,” “Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D,” “Moon Knight,” “What if?..” and more. These shows go into deeper detail for both main and side characters and showcase the versatility Marvel has to go from live-action movies, series, and animated.

“I prefer Marvel because it isnt the same material recycled over and over again and actually has an interesting point of view unlike DC,” freshman Kennedy Ewing-Chow said.

In general, Marvel is better than D.C. due to its complex characters, better superteams, relatable, superheroes, and development. There are so many aspects of Marvel that DC just can’t compete with.


-vs-

https://www.dc.com/


DC is better than Marvel: The darker opinion

The DC vs. Marvel debacle has been going on for as long as the two have existed. In the past, the controversy was between the comics but currently, it’s been a debate of the cinematic universes. Though Marvel has some deeming qualities, such as their movies, DC is just overall better.

While watching or reading DC, ever noticed there are more iconic villains? Marvel hardly has any good villains that last more than two movies. Plus, their back stories are dainty and not incredibly in-depth. DC, on the other hand, has so many incredibly interesting villains that have rich backstories and easily make them more favorable.

“DC’s villains are a lot more realistic, edgier and violent. They give off more of a scarier vibe,” said senior Collin Amaya.

Numerous times, DC has explored conceptual and deep meaning within their characters. With Disney now owning Marvel, this means that there are stricter guidelines to abide by, excluding Deadpool. This leaves them will less room to play with deeper, scarier ideas. DC has explored darker themes including the backstory of Reverse-Flash, the Death of Superman, and Wonder Woman killing the Justice League. Of course there are many more, but these examples show that comic books and DC are not just for kids.

A very iconic character is The Batman, who laughs. In the “Dark Days: The Casting,” Batman kills Joker. This released a toxic gas turning Batman into the biggest nightmare Gotham could face. With his terrifying grin, he kills the majority of his allies and turns his son Damien Wayne into a mini-joker.

Marvel has a fantastic cinematic universe with beautiful storylines and characters, whereas in that area, DC is lacking. The last pretty popular movie DC came out with was “The Batman” starring Robert Pattinson as Batman. Before that was a train wreck of other movies that had a lot of potential but sadly flopped. Where DC does exceed though is in its animated series.

For example, DC made a well known series called “Batman: The Animated Series.” This was produced by Warner Bros Animation. It’s a well made story following the main character batman, voiced by Kevin Conroy. It’s a four-time Emmy winner. It was followed up with a Justice League cartoon made in the early 2000s.

“DC definitely shows more emotion and you feel how the characters are feeling,” said Junior Nathan Carrasco.

Overall, DC is better than Marvel. With its more conceptual ideas, in depth storyline, characters, and iconic villains, DC wins by a landslide.

Though Marvel has some deeming qualities, such as their movies, DC is just overall better. While watching or reading DC, ever noticed there are more iconic villains? Marvel hardly has any good villains that last more than two movies.Feb 27, 2023

James Gunn Doesn’t Get ‘Weird Belief’ in Marvel and DC Rivalry: ‘There’s Not Only One Winner’

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/james-gunn-doesn-t-weird-210000154.html




Few working filmmakers can speak to the inner workings of both Marvel and DC quite like James Gunn, who has just completed his three-film MCU run with this week’s release of his trilogy-capper “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” while also working to rebuild DC Studios alongside longtime producing partner Peter Safran.

So, if there’s one guy who gets what it’s like in Marvel Land and DC World, it’s this dude. And he’s not buying that the two superhero-powered studios are all that different.

The filmmaker and newly minted studio honcho told Yahoo! Entertainment in a new interview that he doesn’t ascribe to the belief that Marvel and DC are locked in some intense rivalry, or even that they do things in opposing ways. “People have this weird belief that Marvel and DC hate each other or somehow are polar opposites,” he told the outlet. “But it’s just not the truth. I mean, listen, man, our job is the same. We want to get people into the theaters to see movies. That’s what matters.”

He added, “And I think that we work together to do that. And the more good Marvel movies are, the better it is for DC movies. The more good DC movies, the better it is for Marvel movies.”

And, for those hoping for an explanation in sports terms, Gunn offered that up too, telling the outlet that promoting a Marvel movie while he’s also co-running DC is its own thing, and it’s not as if he’s batting for the Red Sox while also managing the Yankees. “There’s not only one winner,” he said. “There can be two winners because it matters who goes to see your movies and who enjoys ’em.”

While Gunn and Safran are still knee-deep in planning out their vision of the DC cinematic universe, Gunn has already personally enjoyed another facet of having two major studios going all-in on superhero stories: the ability to build stories of all kinds within the right cinematic framework.

As he told IndieWire in August 2021, when Gunn moved over to Warner Bros. to write and direct one of the studio’s DCEU films after being fired (only to later be re-hired) by Disney, he was understandably looking for a bit of freedom. That included an R rating for “The Suicide Squad,” one of the major stipulations of him even taking on scripting duties for the feature.

While the Marvel Cinematic Universe has yet to mount an R-rated entry (“Deadpool” doesn’t count), the DCEU has moved into more adult territory in recent years. Zack Snyder’s “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” arrived in theaters with a PG-13 rating, but an Extended Cut available on home video is rated R. Todd Phillips’ hit “Joker” is rated R, but even Phillips has said it took him a year to convince Warner Bros. to go for it.

The Flash – Official Trailer




The Flash - Official Trailer 2

SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE - Official Trailer (HD)




SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE - Official Trailer #2 (HD)

AQUAMAN 2: The Lost Kingdom – Full Trailer (2023) Jason Momoa Movie | Warner Bros




Aquaman 2 And The Lost Kingdom Official Trailer (2023) Jason Momoa | Warner Bros | DCEU

Blue Beetle – Official Trailer




BLUE BEETLE – New Trailer (2023) Ben Affleck, Xolo Mariduena Movie | Warner Bros

THE MARVELS Trailer (2023) Brie Larson, Action

SHAZAM 2 FURY OF THE GODS Trailer Teaser (2023)




SHAZAM! FURY OF THE GODS - Official Trailer 2




SHAZAM 2: Fury Of The Gods Trailer 3 (2023)




SHAZAM! THE FURY OF THE GODS – Final Trailer (2023) Zachary Levi Movie | Warner Bros (HD)

While I enjoy both, I do admit I like Marvel a bit more.

Also Howard the Duck is Marvel :p

‘Iron Man’ rescued superhero movies. Ultimately, it wrecked them.

Marvel Studios’ debut film reimagined the comic book movie and eventually ate Hollywood

https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2023/05/11/iron-man-anniversary-mcu/





It was 15 years ago, almost to the day, when I first saw “Iron Man.” I don’t remember where — most likely a nondescript multiplex in the Baltimore suburbs. Was the room abuzz with anticipation? Maybe so. Big studios had already released adaptations of “Spider-Man” and “X-Men,” but this would be the first release from Marvel Studios, formed by Avi Arad and Kevin Feige to bring coherent vision — and creative control — to the potential gold mine of Marvel Comics’ intersecting storylines, larger-than-life characters, multigenerational brand recognition and rabid fan loyalty.

Honestly? I couldn’t have cared less either way. I had been dutifully dazzled by Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire’s endearing “Spider-Man” when it was released in 2002, but by the third iteration, its web of childlike charms had begun to sag. Christopher Nolan’s moody, broody Batman had left me a little cold. Let’s just say that, at that “Iron Man” preview, I arrived with notebook open, pen uncapped, eyebrow cocked and elbows decidedly out.

Maya Angelou observed that people might forget what you said, or what you did, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel. I’ll never forget how “Iron Man” made me feel two hours later, having roused me from my cynical torpor and sending me out of the theater on a cloud of joy, amazement and gratitude.

Here was a Hollywood genre exercise — just another superhero movie — that managed simultaneously to honor and reinvigorate the form. With intelligence and economy. Humor and finesse.

And, most important, with Robert Downey Jr.

As billionaire inventor and reformed death merchant Tony Stark, Downey made sure that “Iron Man” stuck the landing literally and figuratively, cracking wise with sarcastic patter one minute and conjuring credibly somber emotion the next. It’s impossible to overstate how seamlessly Downey’s cocksure persona fused with his character’s own hubristic confidence: It was that wondrous, vanishingly rare case of an actor finding the role of a lifetime, in the last place we would have looked for him. Downey’s performance was all the more impressive for being delivered, for much of the film’s running time, while trapped within the confines of a cramped metal suit.





The genius of “Iron Man” was that, its astonishing $585 million box office haul notwithstanding, it was essentially a scrappy, let’s-put-on-a-show indie: The Iron Man character was chosen not because he was as beloved as Spider-Man or as iconic as DC Comics’ Superman, but because he was available. Downey, bedeviled by substance abuse issues and some box office flops, was anything but a sure bet back then. Although director Jon Favreau had made “Zathura: A Space Adventure,” no one was sure that he could handle the blend of practical and computerized visual effects “Iron Man” demanded. (It turned out he very much could.)

It was precisely because “Iron Man” wasn’t reverse-engineered as a crowd-pleaser that it managed to please nearly every crowd, from viewers who didn’t know Jarvis from Jar Jar Binks to the Comic-Con faithful who, when the Marvel team announced “Iron Man” in 2006, immediately wondered if an entire Cinematic Universe might be in the offing. “We had no real plans at that point,” Feige told Vanity Fair in 2017. “It was a pipe dream.”

A decade and a half later, it beggars belief that Feige’s pipe dream could ever be in doubt, so thoroughly has the MCU permeated real life. Forget the Cinematic Universe: As a sly critique of America’s Military Industrial Complex, “Iron Man” wound up launching Marvel’s Cinematic Industrial Complex, which would transform the way modern-day visual storytelling is conceived, produced, consumed and understood. For people who grew up with “Iron Man” and its successors, Marvel is now what movies look like. For actors and directors, spandex spectacle is the only game in town. And, fueled by social media, an obsessive brand of fan culture once reserved for Hall H at the San Diego Convention Center has now infiltrated everything from the art house to business and politics.





As in all things that succumb to overkill, it all started innocently enough. In the case of “Iron Man,” everything that Favreau, Downey and Feige did right couldn’t help but be copied, iterated, supersized and doubled-down-on to near oblivion. The most obvious result is that pop culture has morphed into franchise culture, with studios and streamers searching their vaults and new acquisitions for series-friendly IP like so many nickels in couches.

Gone are those felicitous, quirkily original one-offs that were simply the result of a good idea executed with skill and solid entertainment value; even “Air,” the most recent example of that kind of unicorn, could only be made with the branding behemoths of Nike and Michael Jordan at its back.

Chronic sequelae is now our shared preexisting condition. It’s the only language Hollywood understands, because it’s global, lucrative and easy to translate.

It’s precisely their global reach — and that sweet, sweet, Disney money — that made “Iron Man” and its Marvel brethren so irresistible to auteurs who might be expected to turn their noses up at such widget-y product. Indeed, part of Marvel’s strategy for conquering mainstream entertainment has been to come for the indies, with wallets tantalizingly open. Having grokked the piratical sensibilities that gave “Iron Man” its punchy, irreverent vibe, Marvel set about poaching actors and directors from that world — with admittedly smashing results: Mark Ruffalo fans who caught their first glimpse of the actor in small movies like the delicate family dramedies “You Can Count on Me” and “The Kids Are All Right” might have been bemused when he ended up in 2012′s “The Avengers” playing the Hulk, but no one could begrudge a big payday for a talented actor who had been toiling in the low-budget vineyards. Ditto Jeremy Renner, whose breakout performance was in the Oscar-winning “The Hurt Locker,” and Tom Hiddleston, the British actor best known by cineastes for his work with experimental filmmaker Joanna Hogg, now known to millions as Loki in the “Thor” movies.





Suddenly, the actors who had been well-kept secrets among the cognoscenti were being scooped up left and right by prestige-hungry comic book projects — as were emerging directors fresh out of their Sundance debuts. No sooner had Ryan Coogler made a splash with the searing drama “Fruitvale Station,” about the killing of Oscar Grant III, than he was enlisted by Marvel to create “Black Panther.”

The rest of that story is cinematic history at its richest, most textured and groundbreaking. But Marvel’s co-opting of indies has incurred an inestimable cost. Not only were gifted young directors immediately sucked into a pipeline defined by someone else’s highly regimented vision, but the results were often muddled and undistinctive. For every Taika Waititi who grafted his signature antic humor to “Thor’s” family tree, we’ve witnessed underwhelming misfires like Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s “Captain Marvel” and Chloé Zhao’s “Eternals.”





When I interviewed her in 2021, Zhao remarked that, having been born in the early 1980s, comic-book spectacles defined what cinema meant as she came of age: Whereas baby boomers and Gen-Xers might conjure both “The Godfather” and “Star Wars” when they hear the word “movie,” for millennials and Gen-Z, movies overwhelmingly mean one thing: hyper-potent supernatural beings fighting for control of the cosmos because something-something-evil, in a fantastical world that is guaranteed to keep expanding (some would say metastasizing). This year’s big Oscar winner, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” has made the influence of “Iron Man” more palpable. The trippy action-fantasy, about a humble laundromat owner who becomes a metaphysical superhero, marked a watershed on many levels, not least as evidence of an ongoing generational transfer of cinematic capital that threatens to reduce movies to little more than a self-iterating monoculture.

“Iron Man” certainly didn’t invent franchise obsession in Hollywood, which has always depended on familiar source material and serialized installments to de-risk an inherently speculative (and wildly expensive) proposition. But it did create a new language for comic book movies, less in its visual language than its tone, which felt bracingly fresh in 2008 and now feels rote, predictable and cloying.

Downey’s improvisations with his co-stars kept “Iron Man” aloft with quippy spontaneity that immediately became the chief hallmark of the Marvel house style, composed of expositional mumbo-jumbo, punctuated by a glib one-liner, followed by a screeching chase or variation on the run-from-fireball trope, segueing into snarky cross-talk, punctuated by another one-liner. Rinse and repeat; nostalgic Top 40 needle drops might be optional, but the end-credits stinger is contractually mandated.

Have audiences finally begun to tire of the formula “Iron Man” accidentally perfected? The latest “Ant-Man” movie — as well as installments of DC properties “Black Adam” and “Shazam!” — indicated that franchise fatigue is real, although the recent $100 million-plus opening of the final “Guardians of the Galaxy” suggests otherwise.

Regardless of the MCU’s future, it has already worked on us in deep and possibly permanent ways. We may not like every movie that the Marvel content farm is extruding, but the company has brilliantly convinced us that we need to see them all, in order to get the big picture — not only have they co-opted talent, they’ve co-opted filmgoers who, if they expect to get anything out of the latest streaming spinoff or prequel, feel duty bound to study and memorize the MCU begats.

It’s a truism that comic book movies have infantilized the culture, rewarding our craving for frictionless wish fulfillment fantasies of unaccountable power and righteous impunity. But something took stronger hold after “Iron Man” made its debut. It’s no coincidence that the film arrived at the dawn of social media, when iPhones, Facebook and YouTube were still young and Instagram and Twitter hadn’t dropped yet; those combined forces would create a world in which pandering has become a prime value. The comic book aficionados who once felt unfairly marginalized were suddenly all-powerful in the eyes of the studios adapting their beloved master texts; with full-blast fully enabled, they turned tyrannical — to the point where New York Times film critic A.O. Scott cited the Marvel-DC-Pixar behemoths as a major reason why he left the profession earlier this year. “You create something so enormous and so powerful that it seems like such just a fact of nature, almost,” Scott told his colleague Michael Barbaro on the podcast “The Daily.” “It just crushes any dissenting voice or point of view and doesn’t give you a lot to talk about.”





Those critics who haven’t opted out entirely have been fairly accused of caving to the pressure, grading Marvel movies on a curve because we don’t want to alienate readers or simple because our arms are too short to box with Groot. There have been some genuinely excellent films within the canon, with the “Captain America” chapters and early “Ant-Man” flicks carving out a distinctive look and tone within the myriad deliverables. But as the saga has inexorably expanded, the stakes have shifted: How to judge a movie on its own merits when those merits consist of setting up the next one? Viewers are no longer expected to be invested in the survival of characters we care about as much as the survival of the franchise itself. We’re now in thrall to building the very behemoth that was Feige’s pipe dream when he set out simply to make “Iron Man” a good movie.

Toxic fandom has become particularly distressing in our civic life: Just as Feige and his filmmakers anticipate and cater to their core audience’s every expectation, today’s politicians aren’t expected to make policy or solve constituents’ problems as much as serve up viral content and stay true to canon, preferably in trailer-worthy clips. Tony Stark’s reach as corporate influencer can be detected in everything from the Roy kids’ painfully un-witty, pseudo-smart banter in “Succession” to the evolving mythology of Elon Musk who, according to “Iron Man” screenwriter Mark Fergus, inspired Stark’s character (and later had a cameo in “Iron Man 2”).

Just as “Iron Man” didn’t invent the franchise, nor did it invent fan service. But few can deny that fan service’s indulgent ethos and shallow exuberance has colonized our collective psyche in the ensuing decade and a half, in ways that make us dumber, harsher and more entitled. It’s pointless to expect Hollywood to kick its superhero addiction cold turkey. There are too many more Phases to be rolled out, their narratives and imagery too ingrained in young filmmakers’ imaginations to be exorcised anytime soon. Still, there’s reason for optimism. “Iron Man” proved that anything can be reinvigorated, with the right convergence of talent and taste. For now, we’re all trapped in that cramped metal suit, until someone swoops in to break us out.

Not sure if this belongs here,  but I felt like it

‘The Flash’ was supposed to be an easy billion at the box office. Why did it bomb?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/comics/2023/07/01/the-flash-box-office/





It’s officially a Flash fact: DC Studios’ Scarlet Speedster bombed at the box office.

It’s been two weeks since “The Flash” debuted in theaters. In that time the film has yet to even cross the $100 million mark domestically (perhaps that finally changes this weekend) and has only grossed just over $100 million internationally (ouch) for a worldwide box office haul of $216 million as we approach the Fourth of July holiday, a stretch of summer that should have been another box office burst of speed.

There was a time even just a few months ago when “The Flash” sparked buzz at CinemaCon and a consensus that the film would be a sure bet for a $100 million opening weekend. The film barely made half that. Some were heralding “The Flash” as the best DC film of the “Justice League” era. Not even close (that’s still “Wonder Woman” by a lot, folks). James Gunn declared “The Flash” to be one of the greatest superhero movies he’s ever seen in his first big address as co-head of DC Studios. But Gunn is a company man now: “The Flash” wasn’t made on his watch, but he said exactly what a studio head was supposed to say.

So, what happened? How could a film that was supposed to be an easy billion at the box office — with the much-hyped return of the GOAT Batman, Michael Keaton, a Latina Supergirl (Sasha Calle) who gave an impressive performance and a lot of multiversal surprises (regardless of how you feel about alternate universes at this point) — fail so hard? There are a multitude of reasons, starting with how DC Studios introduced Ezra Miller as their new Flash.

Miller was announced as DC’s new cinematic Flash in 2014, the same year “The Flash” television series starring Grant Gustin in the titular role debuted on the CW. Miller ended up doing a cameo with Gustin during the CW’s “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover years later, but his casting gave off a vibe of corporate indifference, as if DC was saying “The Flash” television show didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things — all this despite the goodwill Gustin was building among comic book fans. An awkward approach given “The Flash” series lasted for nine seasons.

Then turmoil came for “Justice League.” When director Zack Snyder was forced to depart production on the film because of a family tragedy, reshoots under Joss Whedon tanked Miller’s superhero standing. Snyder had envisioned the Flash as the Justice League MVP, giving the character a defining end-of-the-movie moment of saving the Justice League and the entire universe single-handedly. Whedon’s version left that on the cutting room floor, using Miller’s Flash as comic relief in an effort to lighten up “Justice League’s” dark tone. The results were disastrous. “Justice League” was a box office failure, not even making $700 million worldwide. By the time Miller’s defining superhero moment resurfaced years later on Max, with its incredible symphonic score and dazzling special effects in the four-hour long Snyder Cut version of “Justice League,” the damage had already been done to the Flash movie brand.

It’s now clear that as “The Flash’s” debut neared, DC wasn’t satisfied with the pre-release buzz. Almost a month before “The Flash” hit theaters, director Andy Muschietti confirmed that Nicolas Cage’s version of Superman, which almost made it to theaters in the ’90s, makes an appearance in the film. That’s the type of surprise that shouldn’t be ruined a month before a movie’s release date. The announcement came off as a gimmick to drive up hype. Perhaps the early box office tracking was beginning to come in and Warner Bros. and DC Studios realized they were falling short of a $100 million weekend, but the apparent scramble was an odd play that deflated the moment of Cage’s longhair Superman appearing in “The Flash.” Most people who walked into the theater already knew it was coming.

Meanwhile, numerous free fan screenings meant to ignite the fan base meant a lot of the fans who wanted to see the movie already did. The fan that sees a superhero movie four or five times in a theater is a dying breed, not because they don’t want to but because these movies hit streaming platforms so quickly. The one secret that seemingly didn’t get spoiled was George Clooney’s surprise cameo as Bruce Wayne at the end of “The Flash.” Why did that scene actually work? Because nobody knew it was coming. No spoilers please.

Could multiverse fatigue have played a factor in “The Flash’s” box office returns? Absolutely not. Multiverse fatigue is just something your favorite movie critic likes to say. If that were really a thing, would “Across the Spider-Verse” have jumped back to the No. 1 spot at the box office?

Perhaps some in the superhero movie fandom just decided they were going to sit this one out. The combination of Miller’s personal controversies and DC’s lackluster promotion of the film can’t be taken lightly. DC’s recent casting announcement of David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan as Clark Kent and Lois Lane in Gunn’s “Superman: Legacy” feels like an attempt to muster up some good will in the wake of a disaster. In a world where “The Flash” is a box office hit, that decision probably wouldn’t be announced for several more months.

The heralding of a new Man of Steel feels like a future is now moment for DC. Don’t expect a speedy answer as to whether this particular corner of the Flash universe is still a part of those plans.

From the set of Deadpool 3, Wolverine in the yellow suit!

‘The Flash’ was supposed to be an easy billion at the box office. Why did it bomb?


The Flash’s ORIGINAL ENDING REVEALED! | DC Films

‘The Marvels’ has the worst opening weekend ever for any MCU film at $47 million

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/12/the-marvels-worst-opening-weekend-box-office-for-marvel-cinematic-universe.html


“The Marvels” didn’t go higher, further or faster during its opening weekend in theaters.

The latest entrant in the Marvel Cinematic Universe hauled in an estimated $47 million domestically over its debut weekend, the lowest in the 30-plus-film franchise’s history.

Initial predictions saw the film opening at between $75 million and $80 million domestically, but those figures shrunk to a range between $60 million and $65 million ahead of Friday’s opening.

Internationally, “The Marvels” garnered $63.3 million in ticket sales, bringing its global haul to $110.3 million.


Lowest-grossing Marvel Cinematic Universe openings
“The Marvels” (2023) — $47 million
“The Incredible Hulk” (2008) — $55.4 million
“Ant-Man” (2015) — $57.2 million
“Captain America: The First Avenger” (2011) — $65.1 million
“Thor” (2011) — $65.7 million
“The Eternals” (2021) — $71.3 million
Source: Comscore


“Despite posting the lowest domestic debut for the MCU, ‘The Marvels’ proved once again the importance of the international marketplace for the Marvel brand,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “The film will now rely on Thanksgiving holiday corridor moviegoing to help move the big budget superhero film closer to profitability and help to determine the film’s ultimate success at the box office. ”

While critics were lukewarm on “The Marvels,” giving the flick a 62% on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences were more receptive with an 85% score. Still, Disney  had an uphill battle drawing moviegoers to theaters for its 33rd MCU film, which the company likely understood. CEO Bob Iger has already said this year that the studio would scale back its Marvel slate.

After the ‘Endgame’
After 2019′s “Avengers: Endgame,” which wrapped up storylines and arcs for popular characters like Captain America (Chris Evans) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Marvel Studios’ theatrical and streaming content has been hit-or-miss with audiences. It has also had a difficult time marketing its new projects to audiences, as it seeks to hit nostalgic notes but also push its storytelling forward.

“Marvel has simply set a very high standard for themselves,” said Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at BoxOffice.com. “When a new film or series is released, they have more pressure to stand on their own while also pushing the universe forward.”

Not to mention, the studio inundated Disney+ with series in an effort to pad its platform, making some fans feel like they had to slog through hours of stories in order to understand what was happening in the films.

“Expanding the MCU brand past the goldilocks zone of balanced exposure without feeling like homework to the casual audience has created a challenge for the franchise to begin correcting for,” Robbins said.

That is perhaps why “The Marvels” landed the second-lowest opening day for a MCU film, securing just $21.5 million on Friday. This figure includes $6.6 million from Thursday night previews. The only film to snare fewer ticket sales on its first day in domestic theaters was 2008′s “The Incredible Hulk,” which was the second-ever MCU film after “Iron Man” became a surprise smash earlier that year.

Robbins was quick to underscore that this box office stumble doesn’t mean that audiences are ready to give up on the MCU. After all, the franchise has generated nearly $30 billion since 2008.

“In fact, this underwhelming box office performance occurs at the same time ‘Loki’s’ second season is, ironically, drawing praise as one of the few Disney+ Marvel series to resonate positively with a big part of the fan base,” he said.

To be sure, a $47 million opening, is not bad for any film, but in comparison to the high highs that Marvel has achieved in the last decade, it is viewed as a disappointment. It could also act as a catalyst for leadership at the studio to rethink its future release plans.

Already, Iger has said he is looking at the company’s overall theatrical and streaming strategy to pare down how much content it makes.

“At the time the pandemic hit, we were leaning into a huge increase in how much we were making,” Iger said during Disney’s earnings call last week. “And I’ve always felt that quantity can be actually a negative when it comes to quality, and I think that’s exactly what happened. We lost some focus.”

Additionally, Marvel Studios is facing an uphill battle with actor Jonathan Majors, whom it chose to take on the role of Kang, the next big bad in the MCU. Majors is embroiled in legal troubles stemming from allegations of assault and abuse.

“If any IP has the depth and capability to do that, it’s Marvel under the leadership of Kevin Feige and his teams,” said Robbins. “This is certainly a crossroads moment from a creative and business standpoint. Perhaps the relative slowdown in Marvel content next year will provide a healthy and necessary buffer for the studio, for Disney, and for audiences.”


‘The Marvels’ does not live up to its name

Brie Larson, Iman Vellani and Teyonah Parris star as a team of decidedly dull superheroes in the latest installment of the MCU

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/movies/2023/11/08/the-marvels-movie-review/





The 2019 film “Captain Marvel” — a superhero origin story about the journey of fighter pilot Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) to adopt the mantle of the titular, cosmic-energy-enhanced champion — broke ground as the first woman-led feature in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (Of course, it arrived two years after DC Comics’ invigorating “Wonder Woman” beat it to the punch, so to speak.) A new sequel, “The Marvels,” ups the representation ante by teaming Carol with two sidekicks: Pakistani American teenager Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), already known to franchise fans as the protagonist of the Disney Plus spinoff “Ms. Marvel,” about a Jersey City crime fighter who idolizes Carol’s alter ego, and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), a Black astronaut who has somehow morphed from a little girl in “Captain Marvel” to a 30-something woman, while Carol, whom she calls her “aunt,” looks exactly the same.

Cosmic rays seem to be way better than Clinique for the skin.

Anyway, this so-called team takes awhile to coalesce, with Carol repeating, “We’re not a team,” long after the three have been thrown together by a surge in something called the Jump Point system, a network of wormhole-like portals that facilitate rapid intergalactic space transit. Early in the film, before anyone (including the audience) can really figure out what the heck is going on, we watch as the three characters teleport from one location to another, swapping places with each other with the rapidity of a lightning bolt. It all has something to do with a kind of short circuit that occurs whenever they use their powers simultaneously.

Yes, all three have powers, each related to different forms of light energy. Kamala’s seem to derive from a wrist cuff she received from her grandmother. And Monica’s, as we’re helpfully told, originated when she walked through a “witch hex.” You’d already know this if you watched “Ms. Marvel” and “WandaVision,” another Disney Plus spinoff series about two characters from the Avengers franchise. Anyone else, good luck.

Here’s the thing: Despite its progressive bona fides, “The Marvels” is so fueled by fan service and formula, like pretty much everything in the MCU these days, that it gives short shrift to such basics as narrative comprehension. Watching the movie from the standpoint of a normie — that is, someone who doesn’t eat, sleep and breathe this stuff — can sometimes feel like you’ve become stranded on the wrong side of one of those closing wormholes, in a parallel universe where nothing makes sense.

So let me break it down for you: “The Marvels” is basically the story of four women (the aforementioned Marvels and the film’s villain, an alien named Dar-Benn, played by Zawe Ashton) who are fighting over — wait for it — jewelry. Not just any jewelry, mind you, but a mate to Kamala’s magical wrist cuff, a source of great power that Dar-Benn acquires in the film’s opening scene, and which she spends the entire rest of the movie trying to pair, forcibly if necessary, with the one on Kamala’s forearm. All the while, the Marvels are trying to wrest Dar-Benn’s bracelet away from her, as Dar-Benn moves throughout the cosmos stealing oxygen, water and sunlight from various worlds to replenish the ruined resources of her own ecologically devastated one.

This interpretation is overly reductive, I’ll admit. But once the thought had implanted itself in my brain, I could not shake it: These ladies are going to war over a couple of bangles (Kamala’s word, not mine). There’s a lot of fighting, and the fate of the world is said to hang in the balance. But when you look at the screen, all you see is a bunch of people trying to grab some shiny things from one another.

It’s not a good look, in a story that’s supposed to be all about empowerment. Try as she might to make this a tale of sisterhood, director and co-writer Nia DaCosta (“Candyman”) is hamstrung by the demands of the MCU machine.

I mean, it’s not like you’ll have much else to think about. The film progresses turgidly and mindlessly, with respite granted only by two delightful interludes. One is set on a planet where the people can communicate only by singing and dancing, leading to a musical production number that looks like something out of “Schmigadoon!” — as well as a surprise revelation about Carol’s relationship status. The other, set to the song “Memory” from “Cats,” features the progeny of Goose from the first film, an alien creature known as a Flerken that resembles a marmalade tabby but whose special abilities facilitate a critical plot development in “Captain Marvel.”

They’re deliciously silly, even surreal moments, and they briefly elevate this exercise in drudgery to the cinematic heights that something called “The Marvels” would otherwise seem to deserve.



MY TAKE: It's visually stunning and great action scenes and has a lot of funny scenes but the storyline was somewhat confused, many characters were not needed or overused, and should I say it?  It's a mostly all-female cast that felt a little too much for me. That and I think the whole time/space/dimension thing is getting played out far too much in both Marvel and DC movies lately, but to be fair I give this move a slightly better rating than WAPO who game it only (1.5 stars) - for me more like (2.5 stars or 3 stars).