Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, the WTF thread.

[Dom D Spoon! Find all posts View Profile Close Dom D]

So I made that thread where we can all bitch about Warners, DC and HBO and I figured Disney needed one too as they seem to be going through the same shit just 6 months later.


Disney had looked impregnable to me. They've got Marvel, they've got Star Wars, they've got all that Fox content and, if you have small children, you basically have to have Disney. Little fuckers are going to want to watch Frozen another 3 million times yet.


And yet, in the last 3 months of 2022 Disney dropped 2.2 million subscribers. Largely that was because they lost rights to Indian Premier League Cricket. That probably seems inconceivable as a cause to American readers but believe me, the IPL is a big fucking deal. Broadcast rights for IPL games are second only to NFL. And there's more than a billion Indians. So that hurt.

Next, Star Wars looks like a slightly toxic property right now. The last film was in 2019 and did not set the world on fire to put it mildly. Unclear when the next one is although word on the street is it will be by Taiki Watiti so expect lots of hilarious scenes where Chewbaccas do laundry while bug eyed monsters yammer at them with with Kiwi accents. If Solo didn't kill Star Wars that will.

Pixar is no longer a license to print money. What did you think of Soul, Turning Red and Lightyear? Not exactly household names are they?

Lastly Marvel appears to have finally hit the wall. The Eternals was terrible and people didn't want to see it. The last Thor was terrible and people didn't want to see it. The last Ant Man was terrible and people didn't want to see it. Disney supremo Bob Iger sees the need for change: "over the next five years, you'll see a lot of newness," he says. How new? "We're going to turn back to the Avengers franchise, but with a whole different set of Avengers." So nothing new then. More Avengers but rather than having Captain America and Iron Man and Hulk you'll have Shang Chi and The Eternals and Ant Man. Looked at like that it's not hard too see why the public is losing interest.

I think 10 years back Disney saw its future each year producing two Marvel movies, one Star Wars and a Pixar or two and watch them all bring in a billion dollars each. Suddenly it doesnt look so simple. Which may be the cultures gain. To anyone who values originality Disney's upcoming slate has been depressing for years. Maybe this will push them into doing something? I know, I know, zero chance of that but at least you could make a case for it

[agent999 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close agent999]

Yep, certainly looks like Disney are in deep shit, but they've had a history since the 90s of running their properties into the ground (remember all those straight to video sequels to their classic animations? Even Toy Story 2 started life as a cheap video cash in). They just don't know when to stop. Also they have issues with not wanting to pay the people that they made stars their salary demands, so they kill off Avengers/Star Wars cast and hope that people like the new blood enough to carry future movies, and that doesn't seem to be working (kids may not care but these properties have a massive adult audience too). I think the middling to bad reaction to most of the Star Wars TV shows (even the Mandalorian season three is now underperforming) shows you can't brand just anything as Star Wars. Then there's the lack of any unifying vision, those Star Wars sequels were clearly written without a plan, probably because they rushed to get a new one out every two years. Rogue One is the best of the Disney bunch in my opinion, but even that has some issues. Shit's just too expensive nowadays when a film can make over a billion and yet underperform and maybe the TV series are hurting the films when you can get something similar at home. I don't think these big shared universe things work too well when they prioritise quantity over quality, people will only stand for so much before franchises sour.

[Ian Jane Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Ian Jane]

They'll probably bring in The Young Avengers. The comic run isn't bad and they've already established a few of the characters in the MCU (Kate Bishop being an easy example). This'll allow them to not use the same cast members (who aren't getting any younger and will want top salaries) and bring in a younger cast that they can get a few movies each out of. That's my theory at least.

[Dom D Spoon! Find all posts View Profile Close Dom D]

Then there's the lack of any unifying vision, those Star Wars sequels were clearly written without a plan, probably because they rushed to get a new one out every two years. .

That was bizarre. Given Disney paid as much as they did for Star Wars you would have thought that there would have, at the very least, been a plan for the sequel trilogy rather than let Abrams and the other dude overwrite each other over the course of three films.

I think Andor got very good word of mouth didn't it? I watched half the first episode and switched it off. I can't get in the mindset for Star Wars that takes itself that seriously. Star Wars is supposed to be swashbuckling Saturday Matinee movie fun not depressing, at least in my eyes.

[Dom D Spoon! Find all posts View Profile Close Dom D]

They'll probably bring in The Young Avengers. The comic run isn't bad and they've already established a few of the characters in the MCU (Kate Bishop being an easy example). This'll allow them to not use the same cast members (who aren't getting any younger and will want top salaries) and bring in a younger cast that they can get a few movies each out of. That's my theory at least.

Could be a thing. Was the point of the most recent Spiderman movie, which I thought was alright, to setup the idea that they can introduce any actor as Iron Man or Captain America and it not intrude on the continuity because they can just say "It's the alternate universe version"?

Did Disney wind up getting X-Men back? I don't know my comics but my understanding is that Marvel is driven almost entirely by X-Men and Spiderman.

[Ian Jane Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Ian Jane]

Could be a thing. Was the point of the most recent Spiderman movie, which I thought was alright, to setup the idea that they can introduce any actor as Iron Man or Captain America and it not intrude on the continuity because they can just say "It's the alternate universe version"?

Did Disney wind up getting X-Men back? I don't know my comics but my understanding is that Marvel is driven almost entirely by X-Men and Spiderman.

That was probably part of the point of the last Spider-Man movie (agree it was pretty fun) but The Young Avengers characters exist in the main '616' Marvel Universe not in a multiverse and since, like I said, a few of the characters are already in the MCU I'd be very surprised if they didn't go in that direction.

And yes, Disney got the X-Men back.

[Matt H. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Matt H.]

You can't go home again.

[agent999 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close agent999]

You can't go home again.

You can, but you'll find some Nerf herder took a dump in your bed.

[Dom D Spoon! Find all posts View Profile Close Dom D]

Marvel has dropped Jonathon Majors after his conviction. Anyone got a punt on where they go from there? There have been several movies and a tv show building him up as the Big Bad and he was also the centerpiece of their Multiverse concept which has dominated their movies recently. Do they just start fresh with an all new bad guy or recast?

[agent999 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close agent999]

Marvel has dropped Jonathon Majors after his conviction. Anyone got a punt on where they go from there? There have been several movies and a tv show building him up as the Big Bad and he was also the centerpiece of their Multiverse concept which has dominated their movies recently. Do they just start fresh with an all new bad guy or recast?

They need something they can control. Something that won't get drugged up, slap its girlfriend around or come out as a far right sympathiser. They need AI. Or the ghost of Mr Rogers.