sol_bad
Member
I will post something saying I like it or love it and I'll be called a shill. I'm not antagonising anyone thank you very much.
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Marvel's Shang-Chi Fishes for Performance Outrage Before the Movie Releases
I will post something saying I like it or love it and I'll be called a shill. I'm not antagonising anyone thank you very much.
nush
Gold Member
You can't take any criticism, posters have directly told you this many many times. Instead of self reflecting you make it other peoples issue.
You can criticize something you love it's called balance. For example being a Sega fan 1995 forward was tough, but there was a saying "Nobody hates Sega more than it's most diehard fans". You'll see the most ardent sports team supporters absolutely call out bad performance and management, but they still love their team.
sol_bad
Member
Me liking something and being called a shill is not criticism.
And with you, I stated a fact and you call me a thick fuck. Just because I believe a statement and you don't doesn't really give you the right to attack people.
Maybe you should treat people online the same as you treat strangers in real life, I'm sure you don't call people in real life thick fucks, and if you do maybe you should reflect on yourself.
Hulk_Smash
Banned
Where do you get this idea that they were C list characters? They were some of the first ones optioned off and they were optioned as solo films at that. They both had long running well-known solo comics. They were founding members of Avengers and they’ve been around for over half a century.
B list, yes, but c list is reserved for relatively new or incredibly obscure characters. A more apt comparison would be Guardians, Cap Marvel, and Black Panther.
And all of those only have a shot because of what all came before it.
Shang Chi is dangling in the wind, postponed because of COVID, no hype for movies in general, and I think what is bound to be a coming backlash of burnout concerning superhero movies.
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ManaByte
Member
They were going to make Captain Marvel and Black Panther movies earlier than they did. They did extensive work on a Black Panther movie in 2011. Perlmutter shut it down. Same thing with Captain Marvel, she was originally at the end of Age of Ultron (and that scene is on the Infinity Saga boxed set).
nush
Gold Member
See you can't take criticism at all.
Hulk_Smash
Banned
It really doesn’t change my point. Although points for bringing up trivia I didn’t know.
All phase one characters were out by the time those others came out and they were riding a seriously good wave of positive fandom and publicity.
Not to mention 10 years of comic movies coming out before iron man.
nush
Gold Member
5 Reasons Superhero Movies Are a Bubble That Will Soon Burst
Bad news: The explosion of big-budget superhero movies is a bubble that seems poised to burst. How do we know? Because it's happened before.
www.cracked.com
Article from 2013.
SentientStone
Member
Nice review, getting me very slightly hyped from initial non-hype. I’m in for kung-fu and bright costumes.
ManaByte
Member
5 Reasons Superhero Movies Are a Bubble That Will Soon Burst
Bad news: The explosion of big-budget superhero movies is a bubble that seems poised to burst. How do we know? Because it's happened before.
Article from 2013.
Just look at the posts here leading up to the first Guardians movie. Everyone was convinced it would be Marvel's first flop.
How was Iron Man C-tier he was in a bunch of hugely popular fighting games and had a decent cartoon on free to air all around the world. If you were born in the 80s you knew who he was for sure. And as for saying you had to be a nerd fucking everyone played the VS games they were everywhere.
There is a bit of a mythology growing around a lot of marvel movies. Iron Man, Thor and Cap were not these obscure properties no one had ever heard of.
But saying Kevin Feige made Z-List heroes into A list in terms of popularity is more interesting than Marvel bumped up their A- or B list hitters into AAA
ManaByte
Member
People are blinded by a decade of success. Prior to 2008 the Marvel Trinity was Spider-Man, Wolverine (and by extension, X-Men), and Hulk.
Even the Avengers were second-tier to the X-Men. That's why Capcom didn't make Avengers vs. Street Fighter. Their Marvel fighting games started with the X-Men and then eventually added the second-tier characters.
How does that make Iron Man this unknown superhero that no one had heard about. No one is saying Iron Man and Thor were as well known as Spider-Man just that they weren’t as obscure as Shang-chi and black widow etc
ManaByte
Member
Guardians were as unheard of as Shang-Chi. Everyone expected that movie to be a flop.
I’m not saying Shang-chi is going to flop. I’m saying Iron man and Thor etc weren’t on the same tier of recognition as characters like captain marvel, Shang-chi or Guardians. Plenty of unknown properties have had successful movies anyway.
DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
I liked Ragnarok but didn't like all the jokes undercutting the emotional moments.
I just find it fascinating when people are super critical of these movies and saying "it's a flop waiting to happen because people are tired of cape ish"...
All the while disregarding COVID still being a thing and tons don't want to go to the movies if it's crowded. BUT, Disney+ ate into the box office for BW... That won't be the case with Shang-Chi... Theaters only, at least for 45 days.
I just find it fascinating when people are super critical of these movies and saying "it's a flop waiting to happen because people are tired of cape ish"...
All the while disregarding COVID still being a thing and tons don't want to go to the movies if it's crowded. BUT, Disney+ ate into the box office for BW... That won't be the case with Shang-Chi... Theaters only, at least for 45 days.
Toons
Member
What? The lawsuit has nothing to do with the box office revenue the lawsuit has to do with the fact Disney reneged pm their contractual obligations which stipulated how the lead actress was to be paid. They'd still be getting sued if this movie made 3 billion dollars, probably even more so.
Hulk_Smash
Banned
I am not blinded by their success. I've been following the comics for decades now. Before the movies, the Fantastic Four and the Avengers were anchors in the marvel line up since the 60s. They had cartoons and lunchboxes before X-men ever became a thing. Millions of people know who they (the Avengers) are. They are not obscure. I'm not going on the success of the movies, I'm going on the success of the comic. Only teenagers and comic noobs shrugged their shoulders when Iron Man was announced. Lots of people knew who Iron Man was and saw that pitch-perfect cast and wanted in. It did impressive numbers that opening weekend.
Again, they would have lead with Cap or Hulk had they re-secured the rights to their films first. But, since they didn't they rolled the dice with Iron Man. It was a gamble, but you're acting like Squirrel Girl got announced, everyone booed them off a cliff and then it made a billion dollars. That's not really how it went down.
You're right about Guardians, though. That was a much bigger gamble and it paid off. But, I'll add that that movie came out AFTER Avengers and the big 3 Phase plan leading up to Infinity War. Every movie, regardless of quality, has benefited from the phase 1 Avengers.
Now that Endgame is concluded, a lot of people left satisfied for now. Endgame had a send-off that rivaled Return of the King. Now Marvel has to start all over. And they're starting, NOT with X-men or Fantastic Four (or even Spider-man since he's gone back to Sony) but with Shang-Chi.
Don't get me wrong, I will see Shang-Chi but I've been collecting comics for a long time and I barely remember him. He is truly an obscure character. So are the Eternals- a team I am not familiar with at all. And maybe Marvel doesn't need it's comic collector core for these movies to work, I don't know. We'll see. I just know that lack of buzz, lack of word of mouth, burnout (or however you want to say it- lots of people think Endgame was a nice tidy bow to the Marvel Studios characters), AND a mediocre movie that doesn't deliver the goods will lead to a downturn in superhero movies.
If the movies are GOOD then people will keep seeing them, but if they falter at all. If the quality dips even a little bit, you're going to see the numbers drop. It might still make money, but it's not going to make Black Panther levels of money.
By the way, Dr. Strange and Ant-man are also relatively obscure and they didn't move the needle all that much, so Marvel isn't bulletproof with obscure characters.
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Unknown Soldier
Member
The Avengers and X-Men had very well-remembered arcade games decades ago. Anyone who is trying to tell us these characters were once obscure has a blatant agenda. Imagine trying to claim mother fucking Iron Man was somehow obscure.
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
Captain America and The Avengers - Wikipedia
X-Men (1992 video game) - Wikipedia
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She was being paid off the backend box office returns, which underperformed. Those backend deals are lucrative because they are based on the total box office.
Do you think if that film was doing endgame numbers she would be filing a lawsuit? Don't be absurd.
She is suing because the film underperformed at the box office, and she is alledging part of that failure is due to the fact that it was on Disney+.
Not always, the original comic failed to bring in the audiences hence the reshuffle into the new team in 1975.
Iron Man has always been front and centre in the Marvel line-up, I was a big fan when I was a kid and still have loads of IM comics. He was popular enough to have his own monthly title, akin to Wolverine transcending the X-Men and having his own book.
The same with Cap and Thor, A-list enough to warrant their own comic titles and films with genuine C-listers like Hawkeye and Black Widow being supporting characters.
nush
Gold Member
The Avengers and X-Men had very well-remembered arcade games decades ago. Anyone who is trying to tell us these characters were once obscure has a blatant agenda. Imagine trying to claim mother fucking Iron Man was somehow obscure.
Captain America and The Avengers - Wikipedia
X-Men (1992 video game) - Wikipedia
Don't forget the Capcom vs games as well.
sol_bad
Member
Yeah, I know the X-Men were a failure in the 60's and I understand why. I read the original 66 issues recently and they were godawful. I'm amazed the Iron Man and Captain America comics in the 60's weren't cancelled, they weren't much better.
Iron Man and Cap aren't A tier, they didn't hold a candle to X-Men, Spider-Man, Batman or Superman, not until the MCU, that's when they became worldwide AAA stars.
Toons
Member
She is suing because they reneged on their contract and altered the deal after the fact. This is well documented. If the movie did gangbusters, and they released it on Disney plus, yes she'd still be suing because they are pocketing all of that revenue from that outlet and not paying her her portion of it.
SafeOrAlone
Banned
No. While Spider-Man, X-Men, and The Hulk were certainly at the top, Iron Man, Cap, and Thor weren't chopped liver. Sure, we didn't see them used in multimedia to the same extent as the top 3, but they were utilized in multimedia, such as their own games, cartoons, action figure lines, etc. These have been huge properties for a long time - just not blockbuster properties for a long time, which only a few franchise get to be at a time, anyway.
You also have to remember that comics were much bigger back in the day. Characters like Iron Man and Cap didn't necessarily need to be featured in multimedia, throughout the 70's, 80's, and 90's to establish themselves in pop-culture. Why? Because comics were still a popular form of entertainment. That was the main vessel in which the characters were known, and comics used to be a huge industry.
So yeah, if Marvel still had the rights, they certainly would have started the MCU with Spider-Man and the X-Men, but the whole tale of Iron Man and Cap being C-list characters is a bit of a fairy-tale to anyone who was actually paying attention before the movies hit big.
To be fair Spiderman in the 60s wasn’t that much cop either, as influential as Steve Ditko was I always felt his art looked a bit stilted.
Spiderman books came into their own during the 80s, around the same time that Iron Man titles flourished too. While Iron Man and Cap never hit the stratospheric heights of Spidey and X-Men they were certainly pushed as A-listers by Marvel. They’ve always been brand leaders in the comic book world, it’s just that they were largely unknown to most casual movie go-er’s.
Spiderman books came into their own during the 80s, around the same time that Iron Man titles flourished too. While Iron Man and Cap never hit the stratospheric heights of Spidey and X-Men they were certainly pushed as A-listers by Marvel. They’ve always been brand leaders in the comic book world, it’s just that they were largely unknown to most casual movie go-er’s.
ManaByte
Member
I honestly believe the only reason we saw the Iron Man animated series in the 90s and the toy line was because of the Tom Cruise movie that was being worked on for a 1998 release that fizzled out. Once that died, it was just Spider-Man and the X-Men as the focus for the next decade.
SafeOrAlone
Banned
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ManaByte
Member
Just like you can believe What If is shit without watching it.
SafeOrAlone
Banned
Manabyte, you're purposefully misinterpreting me now. I rebuttled this comment in the other thread. You ignored that rebuttal and just repeated your initial comment to me here. That's low, man.
For anyone curious, I made a post in the "What if.." thread, in which I criticized the animation I saw in the preview, while acknowledging that the show had a cool unique visual style and that my comments were only regarding the preview I had seen, not the final show.
Manabyte is getting worked up about it and calling me out for critiquing the show without watching it.
I hope the lack of logic is apparent.
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ManaByte
Member
SafeOrAlone
Banned
You are posting troll-like gifs and ignoring my comments while repeating yourself.
ManaByte
Member
You're the one almost spamming the forum in defense of your stupid comment in the other thread. You made TWO back to back replies trying to defend yourself after you waltzed into a thread about a TV show you haven't watched and posted why you think it sucks. Now you're trying to defend it in this thread.
SafeOrAlone
Banned
You are the one who literally brought it up again, unwarranted, several posts above us.
See, right here:
You can't be the one to bring up the topic, out of nowhere in an unrelated thread, and then call me out for responding to it.
That's a huge backfire, and makes you sound irrational.
Not to mention, it's a second case of you ignoring the topic at hand and resorting to childish behavior.
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ManaByte
Member
So wait, people are actually calling the guys who led each side of the Civil War in Marvel as obscure?
You realize the reason why Iron Man was one side of Civil War was because Marvel was trying to give him a push in the early 2000s due to developing the movie. Civil War came out in 2006 and originally the first Iron Man movie was going to be out summer 2006 before Nick Cassavetes' deal to direct fell through.
sol_bad
Member
The 1994 Iron Man cartoon.
It had 13 episodes released in 1994.
Then it had an overhaul and had another 13 episodes released in 1996.
Compare that to X-Men which had 76 episodes and Spider-Man which had 65 episodes. Iron Man wasn't popular.
Cartoons generally don't show how popular a character is, Spider-Woman and Silver Surfer had cartoons, the general public barely know who they are.
And using video games as an example of popularity? They were niche in the 90's and aimed at geeky kids. The crowd who would already know about them.
It had 13 episodes released in 1994.
Then it had an overhaul and had another 13 episodes released in 1996.
Compare that to X-Men which had 76 episodes and Spider-Man which had 65 episodes. Iron Man wasn't popular.
Cartoons generally don't show how popular a character is, Spider-Woman and Silver Surfer had cartoons, the general public barely know who they are.
And using video games as an example of popularity? They were niche in the 90's and aimed at geeky kids. The crowd who would already know about them.
nush
Gold Member
Are you refering to just Marvel licenced games here?
sol_bad
Member
Niche may have been the wrong word but the majority of people over the age of 18 in the mid 90's didn't care about video games.
Uhhh...No they did not. They didn't "alter the deal". Scarlett is still being paid upfront and given a portion of the backend. That's the deal. Her lawsuit is alleging that moving the Disney+ releases interferes with the exclusive theatrical run, which affects the backend.
If Disney had changed the contract behind her back or whatever, that would be reneging on their contract. Why would Scarlett and her lawyers wait until after the release if offering a Disney+ option voided the contract? Come on dude.
This is silly. She would have no cause if the movie made endgame money. The only way this lawsuit works is if Scarlett can prove that Disney changing the Disney+ release affected the backend. The entire foundation of the lawsuit depends on the fact that the movie underperformed.
And let's be clear, it did underperform. By every metric, and has been reported as such by multiple trades. It hasn't made 500 million or whatever bullshit was spouted earlier.
Unless there is a clause in the contract saying that Disney+ can't be offered in certain dates, than Disney, (and Warner Bros) can do this with their streaming services. These contracts don't dictate what streaming can do, as Warner Bros has already shown.
ManaByte
Member
Her upfront pay was $20M. There are only a few actresses in Hollywood who make that.
The point isn't was Iron Man "popular". It is was he obscure, and the answer is no.
The crowd who were kids playing those "niche" games grew up and knew that Iron Man existed. They knew he was a character. This is not obscure. Being completely unknown, to the point that people didn't know if the characters existed or were just invented, ala Shangi Chi or GoTG is obscure.
And it's not like if you show people a picture of Captain America they would think it's a hieroglyphic.
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Toons
Member
Its well known at this point that they attempted to renegotiate the contract in light of the changes landscape of release. Disney ignored them so now they sue.
No, it depends on the cat they introduced a new method of distribution that was not present in the original contract, THAT WHICH affected the box office returns and her paycheck. But even if they released it on both and the movie made 500 million on Disney plus viewings, Disney was POCKETING all of that money which violates the contract. So yes they'd still be getting sued because by contract she is entitled to a portion of this folms earnings.
No one said it didn't underperform they said it was still a profitable film and it was. If you do the quick maths its at meager profit stage.
It has nothing to do with what they can and can't do. It has to do with the fact that she feels entitled to that Disney plus money as the contract states she is entitled to a portion of ALL of the films earnings. That means that if she can prove that the movie made earnings via that outlet she can make the argument that she should get a portion of that.
1. Refusing to renegotiate a contract is not reneging on it.
2. She is entitled to a portion of the box office backend. Not to the films earnings. She is not entitled to any movie from Disney+. This is in the lawsuit.
If the film did endgame numbers, than her lawsuit would have weaker standing, as her case is built on Disney causing her financial harm.
3. The film has a 200 million dollar budget without factoring in marketing. Assuming production budget * 2(though it should be higher since Black Widow went through 2 separate marketing campaigns) = breakeven, than Black widow is not profitable.
AnotherDayAnotherDollar
Banned
When I first heard of Iron Man in the mid 2000s I thought they were talking about remaking that movie that Shaq starred in.
intbal
Gold Member
If it were an American movie, it would feature American actors.
Awkwafina, born: USA
Simu Liu, born: China
Tony Chiu-Wai, born: China
Michelle Yeoh, born: Malaysia
Tim Roth, born: UK
Ben Kingsley, born: UK
Benedict Wong, born: UK
Florian Munteanu, born: Germany
Fala Chen, born: China
Ronny Chieng, born: Malaysia
Alina Zhang, born: China
Fernando Chien, born: Taiwan
Andy Le, born: Unknown
That's the entire named cast of the movie in IMDB's listing (excepting the actors portraying younger versions of Shang-Chi).
The only American in the cast is Awkwafina.