Marvel Cinematic Universe

[Allanon]

Maybe, but I just want capeshit to fucking die.

The MCU finally crashing and burning wouldn't fix all of Hollywood's problems, but it'd be a nice start and it could level the playing field somewhat by wounding Disney and getting Hollywood as a whole to finally drop capeshit like they dropped Westerns



Agreed, but I actually liked a lot of the blockbusters of previous years.

Unlike the 2010's where the blockbusters seem to be nothing but capeshit and woke reboots of older stuff from the 80's (with a few very rare exceptions) the blockbusters of the 80's/90's/2000's had a lot more variety in their subject matter.

Like, you had a small capeshit boom in the 2000's (X-Men, Dark Knight, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movies) but it wasn't as overbearing as the MCU and definitely not as formulaic by comparison.

Then again, I also unironically like a lot of the low-budget grindhouse B-Movies too. So make of that what you will.

But replace it with what? More remakes? More generic dystopia pseudo sci fi movies? MCU is so popular for two reasons: the soap opera formula and the fact that there's nothing else worth watching. MCU dying won't suddenly provide good replacement movies. It'll just be a world full of live action disney movie remakes, Terminator Dark Fate, and 'dystopia where the rich live in a utopia and the poor live in future ghettos' movies. And romcoms. So many romcoms.

 

[Syaoran Li]

But replace it with what? More remakes? More generic dystopia pseudo sci fi movies? MCU is so popular for two reasons: the soap opera formula and the fact that there's nothing else worth watching. MCU dying won't suddenly provide good replacement movies. It'll just be a world full of live action disney movie remakes, Terminator Dark Fate, and 'dystopia where the rich live in a utopia and the poor live in future ghettos' movies. And romcoms. So many romcoms.

Problem with your line of logic is that if the MCU finally crashes and burns, then chances are shit like woke reboots, sci-fi dystopian movies, and Disney's live-action remakes are going to be doing even worse and the zeitgeist of the 2010's will be fully dead. If the MCU's quippy Whedonist formula is popular because all the other woke dystopian shit is even worse and more unpopular, then chances are the MCU's demise means the studios might be forced to find a new genre or fad to exploit.

The soap opera formula isn't the problem itself and it predated the MCU, but it's everything else about it, the wokeness, the snarky "lol so quirky" Whedon-style bullshit, and the fact it's capeshit and has crippled genre media as a whole.

The key issue is going to be the Chinese market keeping Disney and Warner afloat despite all this, and if we can get a second term of Trump and increased trade sanctions on them (which looks likely, should he win) then Disney will have to look elsewhere once they get the fabled Marvel box office bomb.

Disney's already been hit hard by COVID-19 and the MCU in particular is a very high risk/high reward series even by Hollywood blockbuster standards. One movie flopping could cripple the franchise. Two of them failing will kill it. Hell, one underperforming and another flopping very badly would likely kill it as well.

 

[Internet's Boyfriend]

In what world is a hispanic girl white? There's more than white, black and dot indian in the world. How do these woke people not get devoured by the very 'pocs' they pretend to champion when they do stuff like this?

Hispanics are like asians where they're counted as white until it's convenient to count them as POC.

 

[Allanon]

Problem with your line of logic is that if the MCU finally crashes and burns, then chances are shit like woke reboots, sci-fi dystopian movies, and Disney's live-action remakes are going to be doing even worse and the zeitgeist of the 2010's will be fully dead. If the MCU's quippy Whedonist formula is popular because all the other woke dystopian shit is even worse and more unpopular, then chances are the MCU's demise means the studios might be forced to find a new genre or fad to exploit.

The soap opera formula isn't the problem itself and it predated the MCU, but it's everything else about it, the wokeness, the snarky "lol so quirky" Whedon-style bullshit, and the fact it's capeshit and has crippled genre media as a whole.

The key issue is going to be the Chinese market keeping Disney and Warner afloat despite all this, and if we can get a second term of Trump and increased trade sanctions on them (which looks likely, should he win) then Disney will have to look elsewhere once they get the fabled Marvel box office bomb.

Disney's already been hit hard by COVID-19 and the MCU in particular is a very high risk/high reward series even by Hollywood blockbuster standards. One movie flopping could cripple the franchise. Two of them failing will kill it. Hell, one underperforming and another flopping very badly would likely kill it as well.

I honestly just can't think of anything more interesting that would replace it in any likelihood. The chances of replacing it with interesting space operas or fantasy movies that actually have a budget put into them are next to nil. Maybe it's because I actually like superhero movies, especially the Whedon style that isn't afraid to embrace the sillier and campier aspects of comics, instead of constantly crippling itself by saying 'look, you can take us serioously! We hate costumes too, we use a gray filmgrain over every shot, we're so serious and dramatic' like every single attempt at comic adaptions until the MCU. With that in mind, I can't think of anything that could replace it with any consistency. Therein lies the problem when I say 'replace it with what?', because just creating a vacuum doesn't necessarily create anything good to replace it. Especially not with as lazy and derivative Hollywood is.

 

[Syaoran Li]

I honestly just can't think of anything more interesting that would replace it in any likelihood. The chances of replacing it with interesting space operas or fantasy movies that actually have a budget put into them are next to nil. Maybe it's because I actually like superhero movies, especially the Whedon style that isn't afraid to embrace the sillier and campier aspects of comics, instead of constantly crippling itself by saying 'look, you can take us serioously! We hate costumes too, we use a gray filmgrain over every shot, we're so serious and dramatic' like every single attempt at comic adaptions until the MCU. With that in mind, I can't think of anything that could replace it with any consistency. Therein lies the problem when I say 'replace it with what?', because just creating a vacuum doesn't necessarily create anything good to replace it. Especially not with as lazy and derivative Hollywood is.

Honestly, I can think of a few things that will replace the capeshit fad in the 2020's/2030's should the MCU die out.

First off, I think we're gonna see a return to the divergence between "geek culture" and mainstream pop culture to at least some extent. I doubt it will be as harshly divided as it was in the 70's and 80's or even the 90's, but I do think it'll be more like the early-mid 2000's where there is some overlap and you can admit to liking "geeky" things so long as you're not an obsessive sperg but it's still not mainstream.

Really, I think the MCU's successes artificially extended the lifespan of the "geek is chic" fad that emerged at the start of the 2010's.

With that in mind, my best guess is that we're going to see a revival of war movies with stuff like Dunkirk, 1917, and Hacksaw Ridge setting a fairly good precedent. Horror movies could also have a major comeback both in the mainstream and by independent productions. The horror genre has a built-in audience similar to Sci-Fi and Fantasy movies but there's a lot more crossover appeal into the mainstream and they're also a lot easier to make on a lower budget than the typical sci-fi, fantasy, or capeshit movie.

Really, the demise of the MCU won't mean the end of flashy Hollywood blockbusters but it will mean the end of the capeshit fad and likely a return to the geek pop culture/mainstream pop culture divide of the 2000's as well.

If we're going to see any major Hollywood trends to replace capeshit and woke reboots in a post-MCU era, it's going to be horror movies and war movies. The former lends itself well to lower budgets and the latter is one of the few genres that can bring in both the "Hollywood Blockbusters" crowd and the "Oscar Bait" crowd as well.

Romcoms will still be around but they've always been around

 

[Xerxes IX]

Honestly, I can think of a few things that will replace the capeshit fad in the 2020's/2030's should the MCU die out.

First off, I think we're gonna see a return to the divergence between "geek culture" and mainstream pop culture to at least some extent. I doubt it will be as harshly divided as it was in the 70's and 80's or even the 90's, but I do think it'll be more like the early-mid 2000's where there is some overlap and you can admit to liking "geeky" things so long as you're not an obsessive sperg but it's still not mainstream.

Really, I think the MCU's successes artificially extended the lifespan of the "geek is chic" fad that emerged at the start of the 2010's.

With that in mind, my best guess is that we're going to see a revival of war movies with stuff like Dunkirk, 1917, and Hacksaw Ridge setting a fairly good precedent. Horror movies could also have a major comeback both in the mainstream and by independent productions. The horror genre has a built-in audience similar to Sci-Fi and Fantasy movies but there's a lot more crossover appeal into the mainstream and they're also a lot easier to make on a lower budget than the typical sci-fi, fantasy, or capeshit movie.

Really, the demise of the MCU won't mean the end of flashy Hollywood blockbusters but it will mean the end of the capeshit fad and likely a return to the geek pop culture/mainstream pop culture divide of the 2000's as well.

If we're going to see any major Hollywood trends to replace capeshit and woke reboots in a post-MCU era, it's going to be horror movies and war movies. The former lends itself well to lower budgets and the latter is one of the few genres that can bring in both the "Hollywood Blockbusters" crowd and the "Oscar Bait" crowd as well.

Romcoms will still be around but they've always been around

Horror in particular has done a lot to recover from the stigma of being mass produced schlock using the same stale tropes over and over again or reliant on cheap scares. While a fair share of it has been through courting the "pretentious and artsy" crowd and that comes with its own criticisms, it's no longer seen as trashy and overdone like it once was.

 

[Pumpkin Girl IRL]

When the MCU crashes it will make room for my Murder She Wrote/Columbo cross-over.

 

[-4ZURE-]

Maybe it's because I actually like superhero movies, especially the Whedon style that isn't afraid to embrace the sillier and campier aspects of comics, instead of constantly crippling itself by saying 'look, you can take us serioously! We hate costumes too, we use a gray filmgrain over every shot, we're so serious and dramatic' like every single attempt at comic adaptions until the MCU.

I used to like the Whedon style, but now I hate it. If you want really good works that embrace the stupidity of comics, I would recommend the old 60s Batman starring Adam West, or it’s modern contemporary Batman Brave & The Bold. Both just go balls to the wall in their insanity and feel a lot smarter than most MCU productions. The problem with the MCU is outside of occasional films, they really are this repetitive in-between of the 2000s “cool heroes” and the campy. They feel to silly to take seriously, what with the constant quips, but they never reach the insanity of comics quite like Brave and the Bold. They are just massively sterilized films made for mass appeal, they have enough comic stuff to not follow a realism template, but they will never go into the full wackyness of comics as it would be too off putting.

Honestly, I can think of a few things that will replace the capeshit fad in the 2020's/2030's should the MCU die out.

First off, I think we're gonna see a return to the divergence between "geek culture" and mainstream pop culture to at least some extent. I doubt it will be as harshly divided as it was in the 70's and 80's or even the 90's, but I do think it'll be more like the early-mid 2000's where there is some overlap and you can admit to liking "geeky" things so long as you're not an obsessive sperg but it's still not mainstream.

To take a guess at what the next trend is, I believe we should look at some modern successes.

I think you are right in saying that war movies will be big, especially after 1917. Horror also seems plausible for a major comeback.

Personally, I think Sonic and Joker will be huge players in how the next decade of films are made. Maybe throw in Spider-verse for animated productions. I think video games could take over as the big children’s trend now that Sonic was such a success. With Sonic and Pokémon, a president has been set that these films could work. If Mario gets a good film, then I definitely see many video game mascots making the leap to the big screen. If I had to guess Zelda, Crash, maybe another shot at Ratchet and Clank?
Joker will definitely set up more mentally unstable loner against society stories. I can see a huge interest in people suffering from mental illness being a focal point for new films. Many will act in making them not completely evil like a Marvel villain, but not romanticized like The Fault in Our Stars. Something that shows the dangers, yet wants the audience to empathize. That said, Chris-Chan movie when this decade?

 

[Allanon]

I used to like the Whedon style, but now I hate it. If you want really good works that embrace the stupidity of comics, I would recommend the old 60s Batman starring Adam West, or it’s modern contemporary Batman Brave & The Bold. Both just go balls to the wall in their insanity and feel a lot smarter than most MCU productions. The problem with the MCU is outside of occasional films, they really are this repetitive in-between of the 2000s “cool heroes” and the campy. They feel to silly to take seriously, what with the constant quips, but they never reach the insanity of comics quite like Brave and the Bold. They are just massively sterilized films made for mass appeal, they have enough comic stuff to not follow a realism template, but they will never go into the full wackyness of comics as it would be too off putting.


To take a guess at what the next trend is, I believe we should look at some modern successes.

I think you are right in saying that war movies will be big, especially after 1917. Horror also seems plausible for a major comeback.

Personally, I think Sonic and Joker will be huge players in how the next decade of films are made. Maybe throw in Spider-verse for animated productions. I think video games could take over as the big children’s trend now that Sonic was such a success. With Sonic and Pokémon, a president has been set that these films could work. If Mario gets a good film, then I definitely see many video game mascots making the leap to the big screen. If I had to guess Zelda, Crash, maybe another shot at Ratchet and Clank?
Joker will definitely set up more mentally unstable loner against society stories. I can see a huge interest in people suffering from mental illness being a focal point for new films. Many will act in making them not completely evil like a Marvel villain, but not romanticized like The Fault in Our Stars. Something that shows the dangers, yet wants the audience to empathize. That said, Chris-Chan movie when this decade?

Oh, I watch the cartoon movies that come out, too, they can be much better, more direct adaptions. The primary issue is that I'm not really into DC and definitely not into Batman. I wish we could get some quality marvel cartoons or tv series again, but whoever is in charge of their tv series has been terrible since the MCU started, and I guess since Wolverine and the Xmen flopped they're scared to try to do more x-men cartoons. Or it's just that Disney was choking Fox out and they haven't bothered to relax those standards yet.

 

[HumanHive]

Hispanics are like asians where they're counted as white until it's convenient to count them as POC.

And vice versa.

 

[Syaoran Li]

I used to like the Whedon style, but now I hate it. If you want really good works that embrace the stupidity of comics, I would recommend the old 60s Batman starring Adam West, or it’s modern contemporary Batman Brave & The Bold. Both just go balls to the wall in their insanity and feel a lot smarter than most MCU productions. The problem with the MCU is outside of occasional films, they really are this repetitive in-between of the 2000s “cool heroes” and the campy. They feel to silly to take seriously, what with the constant quips, but they never reach the insanity of comics quite like Brave and the Bold. They are just massively sterilized films made for mass appeal, they have enough comic stuff to not follow a realism template, but they will never go into the full wackyness of comics as it would be too off putting.


To take a guess at what the next trend is, I believe we should look at some modern successes.

I think you are right in saying that war movies will be big, especially after 1917. Horror also seems plausible for a major comeback.

Personally, I think Sonic and Joker will be huge players in how the next decade of films are made. Maybe throw in Spider-verse for animated productions. I think video games could take over as the big children’s trend now that Sonic was such a success. With Sonic and Pokémon, a president has been set that these films could work. If Mario gets a good film, then I definitely see many video game mascots making the leap to the big screen. If I had to guess Zelda, Crash, maybe another shot at Ratchet and Clank?
Joker will definitely set up more mentally unstable loner against society stories. I can see a huge interest in people suffering from mental illness being a focal point for new films. Many will act in making them not completely evil like a Marvel villain, but not romanticized like The Fault in Our Stars. Something that shows the dangers, yet wants the audience to empathize. That said, Chris-Chan movie when this decade?

I can definitely see more video game movies now that Sonic and Detective Pikachu have "broken the curse" on video game adaptations, being successful financially and with both audiences and critics.

I'd love to see a good Resident Evil adaptation as opposed to the shitty Paul W. Anderson movies or Netflix's upcoming adaptation. But I'm not holding my breath.

Other games that I think would make good movies would be Manhunt and probably even CarnEvil if you do it as a splatter horror comedy in the vein of Evil Dead II or some of Tim Burton's edgier works.

 

[-4ZURE-]

Other games that I think would make good movies would be Manhunt and probably even CarnEvil if you do it as a splatter horror comedy in the vein of Evil Dead II or some of Tim Burton's edgier works.

Might sound weird, but Portal would probably make for a really good film. The story is overall pretty simple as it is just the standard Hal 9000 evil AI. Plus an hour of Glados on a rampage sounds too good to pass up. It would also likely be pretty cost effective seeing as the sets would just be white room repeated with minor variations.

Other than that, I have no idea what would make a good film. I can hope for my boy Ratchet to get a second chance, but that is likely not happening. If Nintendo is more open to film adaptations, Metroid, Zelda, and Fire Emblem are likely their best bets outside of the already confirmed Mario.

Other than that, the only confirmed films so far for video game adaptations are Mario, Five Nights at Freddy’s, and maybe Sly Cooper? I guess we will have to see how those do.

but whoever is in charge of their tv series has been terrible since the MCU started, and I guess since Wolverine and the Xmen flopped they're scared to try to do more x-men cartoons. Or it's just that Disney was choking Fox out and they haven't bothered to relax those standards yet.

It is because Disney wants everything to relate to the MCU. Fans of the current shows hate them as major plots consistently get shafted because Disney says Ultron needs to be the villain to promote the new film, etc.. As for X-Men, Disney obliterated them on purpose to not promote Fox. The X-Men were removed from comics, shows, and video games prior to the acquisition.

 

[Allanon]

Might sound weird, but Portal would probably make for a really good film. The story is overall pretty simple as it is just the standard Hal 9000 evil AI. Plus an hour of Glados on a rampage sounds too good to pass up. It would also likely be pretty cost effective seeing as the sets would just be white room repeated with minor variations.

Other than that, I have no idea what would make a good film. I can hope for my boy Ratchet to get a second chance, but that is likely not happening. If Nintendo is more open to film adaptations, Metroid, Zelda, and Fire Emblem are likely their best bets outside of the already confirmed Mario.

Other than that, the only confirmed films so far for video game adaptations are Mario, Five Nights at Freddy’s, and maybe Sly Cooper? I guess we will have to see how those do.

It is because Disney wants everything to relate to the MCU. Fans of the current shows hate them as major plots consistently get shafted because Disney says Ultron needs to be the villain to promote the new film, etc.. As for X-Men, Disney obliterated them on purpose to not promote Fox. The X-Men were removed from comics, shows, and video games prior to the acquisition.

I've always been a big softie for X-men, and Fox was bad at it more often than it was good at it (somehow it managed to make a tv show about the lead up to the days of future past boring) so at the very least I hope we'll get to see X-Men and the Fantastic Four exist in adaptions again. Rather than scrape the bottom of the barrel and lean on woke tropes in the hopes of drawing in viewers (and probably driving them away) or pretending Iron Man is the primo scientist in the MCU, they ought to be priming up their most popular works again.

 

[Syaoran Li]

I've always been a big softie for X-men, and Fox was bad at it more often than it was good at it (somehow it managed to make a tv show about the lead up to the days of future past boring) so at the very least I hope we'll get to see X-Men and the Fantastic Four exist in adaptions again. Rather than scrape the bottom of the barrel and lean on woke tropes in the hopes of drawing in viewers (and probably driving them away) or pretending Iron Man is the primo scientist in the MCU, they ought to be priming up their most popular works again.

Honestly, the best route to take is one that will never happen as long as the wokesters at Disney are in charge is to kill the MCU outright and let capeshit die at least for a few years while audiences detox and move onto the next fad.

Then around 2030 or so, you'll see a lot of people get nostalgic for the very late 2000's and early 2010's, the time of 2008-2014 or so before the SJW culture wars kicked off. That's when you spring a revival of Marvel that does away with all the woke stuff and anything from the old MCU.

Focus on the core A-List superheroes like X-Men, Avengers, Fantastic Four, and Spider-Man if they can get a new deal with Sony. Maybe expand it into The Punisher, Daredevil, and Blade/Tomb of Dracula as well if it gets really successful.

The idea of a "cinematic universe" is a good concept but the problem is that a lot of people just tried to ape the MCU to varying degrees and failed. The DCU had this weird issue where they tried to combine the snark and irony of the MCU with the Linkin Park-tier edge of Zack Snyder and it all kind of fell apart with Justice League and Birds of Prey being the nadir of it all.

The Dark Universe would've been interesting to see since Universal Monsters and Hammer Horror were among the earliest attempts at a cinematic universe but that crashed and burned with only two movies to its name.

 

[Dom Cruise]

People give the MCU shit but you have to remember how fucking shitty so many Hollywood Blockbusters had become in the 2000s and 2010s, think crap like Stealth and Michael Bay's Transformers.

The Marvel movies were a cut above the dreck that was coming out at the time, that's all, yes they were formulaic but compared to something like the Michael Bay Transformers movies they were not as intelligence insulting and were simply better crafted, maybe their day is done but I can't really get behind the hate some people have.

 

[Basil II]

lol people still watch this shit.

 

[Idiotron]

Another thing that has started to become really popular over the last few years are old school really violent action movies.
John Wick is huge, The Purge sequels have done really well (and also made everyone forget about the shitty first movie), The Hunt was a hit on streaming platforms, Upgrade didn't do well cinematically but now it got so popular that we're getting a TV show, Olympus/London/Angel Has Fallen movies are pretty much the only thing that are keeping Gerard Butler's career afloat, Bad Boys 3 is still the highest grossing movie of 2020, let's also not forget about Mad Max: Fury Road.
People are loving that stuff right now and I think it's a contender for position of the capeshit replacement.

 

[starborn427614]

Another thing that has started to become really popular over the last few years are old school really violent action movies.
John Wick is huge, The Purge sequels have done really well (and also made everyone forget about the shitty first movie), The Hunt was a hit on streaming platforms, Upgrade didn't do well cinematically but now it got so popular that we're getting a TV show, Olympus/London/Angel Has Fallen movies are pretty much the only thing that are keeping Gerard Butler's career afloat, Bad Boys 3 is still the highest grossing movie of 2020, let's also not forget about Mad Max: Fury Road.
People are loving that stuff right now and I think it's a contender for position of the capeshit replacement.

Does that have enough mass market appeal though? Part of the reason the MCU is popular is that EVERYONE can enjoy it. Kids, teenagers, adults. They're all able to watch the majority of the movies without any restrictions.

 

[Syaoran Li]

Does that have enough mass market appeal though? Part of the reason the MCU is popular is that EVERYONE can enjoy it. Kids, teenagers, adults. They're all able to watch the majority of the movies without any restrictions.

I think we could see more of the "hard" PG-13 action movies become popular as capeshit declines in addition to R-rated action flicks, war movies, and horror movies.

Plus if we do get a "golden age" of video game adaptations in the wake of Sonic the Hedgehog and Detective Pikachu's surprise successes, that could fill the niche for kids, families, and teens.

 

[Idiotron]

Does that have enough mass market appeal though? Part of the reason the MCU is popular is that EVERYONE can enjoy it. Kids, teenagers, adults. They're all able to watch the majority of the movies without any restrictions.

Definitely.
All ages like them and, in the past, they used to be the top moneymakers.
Also, now that streaming is bigger than ever, kids can watch those movies with no problems.