
Marvel Avenged: From financial ruin to the biggest film franchise in history - inm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-32379661
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smusings
I am glad that this article brought up the elephant in the room. Eventually we
have to get a re-boot of these characters, and I think that moment is fast
approaching. These actors are getting older, and we already see someone of
them stepping down, such as Hugh Jackman, and possibly RDJ. Furthermore we
have two movies coming out which hint at major character deaths/reboots (Thor
3:Ragnakor and Cap 3:Civil War). I know Marvel has plans to add more
characters with Black Panther, Inhumans, Ant-Man, Doctor Strange via movies
and Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones via TV. However, that is what they are
new characters. They are not going replace Cap, Wolverine, Iron-Man, or Thor.
With the start of the DC Cinematic Universe coming out next year and
continuing for the next 5+ years,I think we are going to see a saturation of
new heroes and people are simply going to lose interest or get bored. You can
only drag someone to see an origin story so many times.

~~~
morley
Why is rebooting the characters a bad thing? The rich comics universe shows
that there are endless stories to tell with these same characters. It's true
that a reboot could be a worse take on a character, but plenty of reboots --
Daredevil, Nolan's Batman, and more yet to come -- are welcome reexaminations
of their heroes.

Audiences won't get bored as long as their are good stories to tell.

~~~
therobot24
Thank you. The easiest analysis is that people will move on to something else.
I must have read it a hundred times (at least!) in the last month alone.

Based on a few 'superhero' examples, clearly, a reboot can work:

Box Office (in millions of dollars):

-Spiderman 2002: $821

-Spiderman 2012: $757

-Batman 1989: $411

-Batman Begins 2005: $374

-Hulk 2003: $245

-The Incredible Hulk 2008: $263

-Robocop 1987: $100

-Robocop 2014: $242

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runn1ng
It's nice to see a company finally exploit the never-expiring nature of
today's copyright laws.

Here's to a thousand of copyright extensions more!

By the way, did you know that Marvel and DC jointly owns a trademark to the
word "super-hero" and no other company can use it unless licensed?

~~~
elithrar
> By the way, did you know that Marvel and DC jointly owns a trademark to the
> word "super-hero" and no other company can use it unless licensed?

Source?

[http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=toc&state=4809%3Aa...](http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=toc&state=4809%3Aaevyw2.1.1&p_search=searchss&p_L=50&BackReference=&p_plural=yes&p_s_PARA1=&p_tagrepl~%3A=PARA1%24LD&expr=PARA1+AND+PARA2&p_s_PARA2=super-
hero&p_tagrepl~%3A=PARA2%24COMB&p_op_ALL=AND&a_default=search&a_search=Submit+Query&a_search=Submit+Query)

~~~
runn1ng
[http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=72243225&caseType=SERIAL_N...](http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=72243225&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch)

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maxerickson
The throwaway line about 80s movies is wrong. There was a Punisher movie
released in 1989, starring Dolph Lundgren(!):

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Punisher_%281989_film%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Punisher_%281989_film%29)

There was also a 1990 Captain America movie:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_America_%281990_film%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_America_%281990_film%29)

(Which wouldn't technically be a contradiction, but the spirit of the line is
that they weren't making movies then, not that they released the movie they
made shortly after)

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emsy
Apperently in Germany there is a boycott of the newest Avengers movies because
Disney demands a too high margin of the ticket price for smaller cinemas to be
sustainable: [http://www.dw.de/german-cinemas-boycott-
avengers/a-18402619](http://www.dw.de/german-cinemas-boycott-
avengers/a-18402619)

~~~
rurban
That's interesting because the ticket price for Avenger Ultron 3D was 7.50 EUR
yesterday in Dresden, Germany, which is far less than the typical blockbuster
price of 10 EUR, not talking about 3D yet.

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canvia
I strongly dislike Marvel movies. I have no respect at all for films that are
released in 3D (and sometimes IMAX and IMAX 3D) when they are not filmed in 3D
or using IMAX cameras. It is a pure money grab. Disney does not care about
quality, they care about profits. The endless sequels and prequels and
spinoffs are simply greed. They will not withstand the test of time. A decade
or two from now, people will look back at Nolan's Batman series as the
definitive super hero films of the day. They use real sets and stunts instead
of endless poor quality CGI action scenes that move too fast for you to see
what is even happening (hint: it's because what's happening is meaningless,
but bright colors and fast movement stimulate your brain). Marvel exists to
sell children disposable plastic action figures and made in China clothing
that will fall apart before the next sequel comes out.

Children are marketed to and manipulated with cartoons and "happy meal" toys.
It is insidious.

On top of that, Disney expends a tremendous amount of money on marketing to
force their products into the prevailing culture. Have you noticed how many
television shows have references to Marvel super heroes? Those jokes aren't
because the writers are fans, Disney pays for them. Actors don't wear super
hero t-shirts randomly. It's all marketing.

They are doing the same thing with Star Wars. There has been an insane amount
of hype for the new movie and various spinoff products already. Quite frankly
I am sick of it. I am not going to see the new Star Wars movie in theaters
because this type of behavior should not be rewarded.

Disney buys up treasured parts of global culture and exploits them to death.
It was heart breaking to see them do this to Pixar. Cars 2, Monsters
University... just shameful cash ins.

To make matters worse, Disney doesn't even pay it's fair share of taxes on the
massive income generated by these franchises: [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-
europe-30412293](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30412293)

The only thing that you can do is to vote with your dollars and time. Please
stop supporting this exploitative behavior.

~~~
deeviant
Well, to be fair, the OP did not mention the quality or historic import of the
new Disney managed Marvel properties, but only their financial and viewership
success.

I happen to think CGI is the key element to make good comic book movies but
despite how advanced it is now days, it's still not there yet. It's still too
expensive to do it well, so it often gets half-assed and the cost also affects
story lines, like less hulk, because hulk is expensive. The expense also
affects greatly which characters they decide to bring into the stories at all.

------
SG-
The article goes on about the films, but also Marvel has been making quite a
few TV shows that seem to be hits and doing well.

One of the latest is a Netflix exclusive Daredevil which was just released and
this week another season was ordered (I highly recommend watching it, HBO
level production and violence and amazing fight scenes).

It seems Netflix will also be release a few other Marvel series going forward
too.

~~~
freshyill
The article did mention TV shows, very briefly. But I'd be shocked if anybody
who had even the slightest interest in this stuff wasn't aware of Daredevil
and the other upcoming Netflix shows.

------
SG-
As the article mentions, at one point Marvel was really broke and simply
started licensing out the rights of characters to different studios, here's a
breakdown of what studios own which characters.

[http://screenrant.com/marvel-comics-movies-characters-
carl-6...](http://screenrant.com/marvel-comics-movies-characters-carl-6766/)

Because they sold the rights of the X-men to Fox they can't use that character
in their own movies. Same with Spiderman to Sony until recently (last month)
where Sony is going to let Marvel use Spiderman in the Marvel Cinematic
Universe and also produce future Spiderman movies (Sony was simply constantly
rebooting Spiderman because of his limited stories and hasn't been able to
expand the character and story too much with other characters).

Marvel has started getting back some of these characters, mostly by defaulting
it back (studios are forced to release a movie every X years or the character
goes back).

~~~
ericcholis
Because of this, Marvel has started to phase out entire classifications of
characters from the comic mainstream. For example, mutants (read: X-Men) are
losing favor to Inhumans, a similar group of characters.

The Fantastic Four series, one of the longest running in comics, is ending
shortly. Speculation is that it's because of Fox's ownership of the Fantastic
Four film rights.

It's a slightly strong-arm tactic, but also in the best interest of Marvel's
bottom line. Why publish comic books with characters that appear in movies
that you don't own.

Had Sony not been hacked, they would likely still control Spider-Man.

~~~
hullo
That's all just rumors, which Marvel (and simple observation of facts) has
disputed over and over. Marvel is currently publishing over a dozen x-books;
characters from the Fantastic Four are central to the upcoming major event
(Secret Wars). Sure, the Inhumans are getting a big push, but folks just
publish these death-of-X articles to get traffic and buzz.

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untog
I do honestly wonder if there is a breaking point in all of this. There will
always be a market for superhero movies, but we're seeing _so many_ right now.

~~~
smacktoward
It's just pent-up demand, I think. Comics never really made sense as the
source material for movies until very recently, because they're full of
outlandish, fantastic characters and locations that would have been
prohibitively expensive (or just downright impossible) to have staged using
only stunts and practical effects.

Look at the 1978 _Superman_ movie, for instance; the big selling point there
was that "you will believe a man can fly!" Never mind all the _other_ stuff
Superman can do in the comics; it was stretching the boundaries of the
possible just to show him flying in a way that was convincing to an audience.

The advent of affordable CGI removed those limitations, of course, but by the
time that came along there had built up this huge well of untapped source
material and a big audience that grew up reading comics for which seeing this
stuff on screen is completely novel. Eventually one or the other will dry out,
and superhero movies will go back to being just one genre among many.

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pferde
However good their movies are, I still can't forgive Marvel for stealing
Whedon away from working on his own things.

~~~
talmand
What do you mean his own things? Avengers is an example of his own thing, yet
with established characters. Avengers is a classic example of Whedon's
strengths as a creator. He's always been good with ensemble casts.

If you're meaning his own characters, there is that. But from now on he can
likely do whatever he feels like. I hope he decides to tell a new story with
new characters in the Buffy universe.

~~~
pferde
Sure, you are right to some extent wrt Avengers, but his hands are still tied
by Marvel - there are other people in charge of "big picture", so he can't do
anything _he_ wants there.

~~~
talmand
Sure, he's obligated to maintain certain things to go along with the overall
storyline that's being told in the cinematic universe. But it could easily be
said he has to follow guidelines about any project he would work on that has
studios with other people in charge involved. Unless he wishes to fully fund
the project himself.

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marktangotango
My family was always a bit mystified with my preoccupation with comic books
when I was younger. I always gravitated toward the Marvel characters back
then. It's incredibly gratifying to see how popular the movies, based on my
childhood heroes (Iron Man, the Avengers), have become. Of course the X Men
and Spiderman franchises have done well, it's good to see the other parts do
well. I do not have much hope for the Fantastic Four reboot, however.

~~~
Vaskivo
I also love comic books, specially super-heroes. It's usually cheesy and
derivative but, on those well written stories, so touching, so inspiring!

I also started with Marvel. It's characters are grittier, more humane, and all
their "real life" troubles make them extremely relatable (spiderman is the
best example).

As an adult, I started to gravitate towards DC. Their characters are larger
than life, almost perfect gods. They are not people, they are walking symbols.
Only as an adult did I _get_ Superman.

~~~
talmand
I've always preferred Marvel because of DC's deal of making their characters
too perfect. Once they started creating silly weaknesses to Superman so that
they can have some sort of conflict to tell the story it went downhill.
Without conflict you can't have drama.

I've only really liked Batman because they aspired to make him an example of
the perfect human being in every way. Except he's still human and the best
Batman stories reflect that.

~~~
hajile
Watchmen seems to be a warning that your typical moviegoer can only handle so
much imperfection in the characters.

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meesterdude
Everyone loves a rags to riches story. I'm not such a fan of all the comic
book movies coming out, but I applaud them for doing it all themselves and
having such success with it.

To me, anything that puts another creative agency on the field is a good
thing; and they've obviously found demand and have a long term plan in play so
I don't think they're going anywhere anytime soon.

~~~
agumonkey
Their movies had a good blend of quality and 'newness' since they weren't
reboot. Thor was surprisingly well executed and strange at the same time. But
they may pulled the Saint Seiya string inside of me (who else?) with their
golden armour and nordic mythology.

~~~
mercurial
Not much about Nordic mythology in there. Between the Asgardian robots, the
sci-fi-looking Asgard and the black Heimdal... It has as much to do with Norse
mythology as Diablo has with tabletop RPGs.

~~~
agumonkey
Fair enough, still enough to gave it a bit of connection with Saint Seiya.

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majani
I wonder if producers began to take video game movies seriously whether they
could uncover a demand like what happened with comics.

~~~
maxerickson
I think the first Mortal Combat movie did a lot to make room for the first
X-Men movie.

(both have a lot more necessary digital effects and fantasy elements than the
other comic book movies that were being produced at that time)

The Doom movie was only _mostly_ taken seriously, but it made a real attempt
at fleshing out a story rooted in the game, and at least wasn't hugely
hindered by a limited budget.

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chiph
The point about the comics becoming too complex to keep straight was a good
one. While I'd love to see more movies from them, I think Marvel needs to keep
a handle on things and not try and do too much, so they ensure the longevity
of the series.

~~~
hullo
Marvel is constantly restarting their series in a way that is welcoming to new
readers - the longest run on a current book is I believe Avengers 44 (out next
Wednesday) - which will also conclude that volume; they'll have a big event
(Secret Wars) and then there will be an all new Avengers team with a new
writer and direction. Individual series are lucky to make it to #20 these days
without a reset.

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LunaSea
Most boring and dull movies ever produced.

~~~
saraid216
Huh. That describes your comment, too. Well done.

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steamy
Marvel Avenged: From financial ruin to the biggest film franchise in history
... to financial ruin again!

