on that one) then what kind of effect will a reopening have for the MCU? Will it help the odds of "dark horse candidate" movies like Eternals or will the first year without an MCU film since the Bush years cause normies to show up for it because it's a summer blockbuster and the lockdowns would be over at last?
Disney want a return on their investment, anything less than 1 billion is going to be a disappointment for them. The problem is that those numbers will be very difficult with the state AMC and other chains are in. I don't think you'll see the superhero genre die out in a single bomb. It's more of a steady decline and studios realizing that they can make cheaper product on streaming services and then start experimenting with such.Assuming the lockdowns ever truly end (gonna preemptively rate myself
At first, I figured the lockdowns would end by the middle of June but then the BLM coup and the inevitable spike in cases caused the lockdowns to get worse and the MSM to milk it even more.
By then, everything was already delayed and I figured we'd see Black Widow do very well since she's actually got a fanbase among non-beardos/non-dangerhairs and everyone wanted to get back to normal but then it'd decline from there since the normies had a chance to detox from capeshit.
But now, I think the extended lockdowns could go either way and if we ever do get a full reopening, then it could be a 50/50 shot of either an intensified detox (normies finally moving on from capeshit and then the box office bombs) or a brief second wind because it's "back to normal" and that bubble could be enough to keep Phase 4 afloat until they can officially bring in the X-Men and at that point, we're fucked.
Yes, but the profits have to be huge, and the cost has to be minimized. I honestly don't see the traditional "Phases" they've been running with as sustainable in the long wrong. Not because they won't make money, but because they can make so much more by lowering the budget. I predict you'll still have capeshit, but the budget is going to be decreased exponentially from previous efforts, even branching out into other genres, but with the Marvel characters.
The other problem is just the unreliability of the franchises still around. Spider-Man will always be profitable, but at any point Disney is set to lose it as Sony may very well do better without them given the success of Spider-Verse and PS4. Not to mention the Raimi fanboys that are already trying to kill the MCU to get their Spider back.
The thing about the X-Men is that they were huge during the 90s, but they have been suffering greatly due to the rights dispute between Fox and Disney. Basically, some of the best X-Men stories have needed access to the wider Marvel Universe for them to be good. They did most of the good stories already: God Loves Man Kills, Days of Future Past, the Dark Phoenix Saga (twice, and both ended in failure). With the rights solved, they can have all the access they wanted... but the damage has been done, both in the movies and especially in comics.
So what you're saying is that they should make Marvel tokusatsu?
If that happens the various producers and movie executives will congregate together in their finest velvet hooded robes to gather around the sacred altar in order to to cast the enchanted dice carved from the bones of dead child actors in order to seek guidance. The horrid monstrosities they worship will answer:
People were saying that before Cinematic Universe was even a term since Marvel didn't have Spiderman and X-men, so maybe they can pull something off. But I'm with you on this one, I don't think they can make it happen with the heroes that are left.
The actors in the new crew aren't nearly as big of a draw. Logan did well because of Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart.
The X-Men? That's a depressing question. See the wokes have a a trend where there's absolutely no subtelty about their politics. If there had been in the past a subtle nod to some social issue, the wokes tend to just take it and blast it in your face like a shotgun. For the X-Men the narrative is always that they were popular because of the civil rights movement (Despite the invonvenient fact that the X-Men didn't really start to take off until Claremont took over in the late 70s and the stories shifted away from those themes).
Oh man I can picture it now. The bad guys being groups that look like a cross between charlottesville protestors (because that horse can never be beaten enough) and Trump supporters (wearing some kind of brightly colored hat). They will all be shouting about how "MUTIES NEED TO BE LOCKED IN CAGES!!!" while waving tiki torches around and the X-M*N will have to go save the poor mut-norities from heavily armed nationalist groups that look suspiciously like the proud boys.