discussion Marvel Studios in crisis, gathers to figure out path forward

[mystery]

VARIETY: Crisis at Marvel: Jonathan Majors Back-Up Plans, ‘The Marvels’ Reshoots, Reviving Original Avengers and More Issues Revealed
 

This past September, a group of Marvel creatives, including studio chief Kevin Feige, assembled in Palm Springs for the studio’s annual retreat. Most years, the vibe would have been confident — even cocky — given how the premier superhero brand, owned by Disney since 2009, has remade the entertainment business in its image. But this occasion was angst-ridden — everyone at Marvel was reeling from a series of disappointments on-screen, a legal scandal involving one of its biggest stars and questions about the viability of the studio’s ambitious strategy to extend the brand beyond movies into streaming.
 

At the gathering in Palm Springs, executives discussed backup plans, including pivoting to another comic book adversary, like Dr. Doom. But making any shift would carry its own headaches: Majors was already a big presence in the MCU, including as the scene-stealing antagonist in February’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” And he has been positioned as the franchise’s next big thing in this season of “Loki” — particularly in the finale, which airs on Nov. 9 and sets up Kang as the titular star of a fourth “Avengers” film in 2026. 

 

“The Marvels,” which opens in theaters on Nov. 10, will struggle to get the ball past the infield, at least by Marvel’s outsized standards. The movie, which cost $250 million and sees Brie Larson reprising her role as Captain Marvel, is tracking to open to $75 million-$80 million — far below the $185 million “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” took in domestically in its debut weekend last year. But instead of seamlessly building on the success of “Captain Marvel,” this move resulted in four weeks of reshoots to bring coherence to a tangled storyline.  Then eyebrows were raised again when DaCosta began working on another film while “The Marvels” was still in postproduction.

 

Disney’s top brass, including newly returned CEO Bob Iger, was said to be apoplectic about Marvel’s VFX troubles. One month after the “Quantumania” premiere debacle, the guillotine fell on Victoria Alonso, who oversaw the studio’s physical production, postproduction, VFX and animation. Insiders say Disney was incensed that quality control on its Marvel productions was plummeting, particularly on the ever-expanding TV front. The VFX logjam had been evident for some time, with some final effects for such Disney+ series as “WandaVision” and “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” inserted after their streaming debuts.
 

But some internal sources suggest Alonso was a scapegoat and point to the “She-Hulk” VFX issues as a symptom of a deeper rot — namely a lack of oversight on script development. In the original arc of “She-Hulk,” a flashback of star Tatiana Maslany’s transformation into her Hulk character didn’t take place until Episode 8, the penultimate episode. But after Marvel’s brain trust watched footage, it realized the scene needed to happen in the pilot episode so that audiences could see more of the character’s backstory early. That meant that the VFX team was tasked with fixing the mess in postproduction. “The so-called bad VFX we see was because of half-baked scripts,” says one person involved with “She-Hulk.” “That is not Victoria. That is Kevin. And even above Kevin. Those issues should be addressed in preproduction. The timeline is not allowing the Marvel executives to sit with the material.” All the while, Marvel was bleeding money, with a single episode of “She-Hulk” costing some $25 million, dwarfing the budget of a final-season episode of HBO’s “Game of Thrones, ” but without a similar Zeitgeist bang.
 

As public criticism mounts, Feige is pulling the plug on scripts and projects that aren’t working. Case in point: the “Blade” reboot. But the project has gone through at least five writers, two directors and one shutdown six weeks before production. One person familiar with the script permutations says the story at one point morphed into a narrative led by women and filled with life lessons. Blade was relegated to the fourth lead, a bizarre idea considering that the studio had two-time Oscar winner Ali on board.  Amid reports that Ali was ready to exit over script issues, Feige went back to the drawing board and hired Michael Green, the Oscar-nominated writer of “Logan,” to start anew. Speculation around town is that the studio is looking to make the film, now slated for 2025, on a budget of less than $100 million — a deviation from Marvel’s big-spending strategy. 
 

With Iger publicly acknowledging the downside of a Marvel TV glut that “diluted focus and attention,” the keepers of the comic book empire are considering some dramatic moves. Sources say there have been talks to bring back the original gang for an “Avengers” movie. This would include reviving Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man and Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, both of whom were killed off in “Endgame.”
 

When the “Quantumania” actor was arrested in March, Disney executives insisted that they could afford to play a wait-and-see game, given that “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty” wasn’t expected to begin shooting until early 2024. But then Majors was dropped in quick succession by his publicists and managers. (He remains a client at WME — the agency where he landed after CAA parted ways with him, pre-arrest, for his “brutal conduct” toward staff, says one source. CAA declined to comment.) In April, other alleged domestic violence victims of Majors began cooperating with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Then, ahead of a key hearing in October, media outlets including Variety obtained a court filing that referenced a police incident in London involving Majors that led his ex-girlfriend to seek medical attention. Making matters even stickier, the ex-girlfriend also worked on “Quantumania” as a movement coach, and the London incident took place while Majors was shooting Season 2 of “Loki.” On Oct. 25, a New York judge denied Majors’ motion to dismiss the case, which ensures that the actor will stand trial in late November. His legal team is attempting to keep some material in the case sealed. 
 

A studio source notes that regardless of the actor’s legal issues, Marvel already had considered moving away from a Majors-led phase because of the box office performance of “Quantumania,” which will struggle to make a profit. “It gave people pause given that ‘Quantumania’ didn’t exactly land,” the source says.  (On Oct. 27, Disney removed another Majors film, Searchlight’s “Magazine Dreams,” from the release calendar.) Recasting Majors is also an option, as Feige did when he replaced Terrence Howard in “Iron Man 2” with Don Cheadle.
 

Still, there was one bright spot in 2023: “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” which became Marvel’s biggest draw of the year with $845 million worldwide. The fact that it was directed by James Gunn, the guy now running rival DC Studios, was lost on no one.

“With Marvel, it used to be as close to a guarantee as you could get,” says Paul Dergarabedian, a box office analyst at Comscore. “So, going all in on the budgets made sense. ‘Guardians 3’ was a bit overlooked in how successful it was. But that had James Gunn and Chris Pratt, and I think star power is becoming more important. Then there was ‘Quantummania’ with $476 million. Anything under a half billion dollars is viewed as a disappointment. And these overreaching expectations are a result of so much success over the years.”

[Psylocke]

 

 

[mystery]

AP

 

[Arcadius]

Lordy 

[abc1990]

If they have to recast Majors as Kang, they should just offer Mahershala Ali the role as Kang and recast a younger actor as Blade 

[TaylorNation]

don’t let @GraceRandolph know 

[Talento]

They keep digging a deep hole for themselves 

[Domination]

The writing was on the wall. The fun couldn’t last forever and at some point they’d have to accept that super hero movies would return to the mean outside of a few hits every couple years.

[LiamVillain]

[Khal]

18 minutes ago, mystery said:

a single episode of “She-Hulk” costing some $25 million

The Department of Treasury needs to start a money laundering investigation.

[Katamari]

thats not what ppl wanted  

[AmericanIdol]

They need a 100% new main storyline. They should start with the X-Men movies/characters already, the GP is OVER the same tired storyline that they have already milked for filth. They can go back again to it in like 10 years once the X-Men storyline dries as well.

[Johnny Jacobs]

[Gesamtkunstwerk]

They'll never be able to reach the first Blade, so I see they don't even try 

 

[Azulito]

6 minutes ago, Domination said:

The writing was on the wall. The fun couldn’t last forever and at some point they’d have to accept that super hero movies would return to the mean outside of a few hits every couple years.

They started producing too much content. The TV shows were unnecessary. Should’ve stuck to just 2-3 movies a year with the known characters. With everything being connected it became almost a task to keep up with all the stories. 

[305]

So they’re not doing that right? 

[Jaye]

7 minutes ago, Marvin said:

They started producing too much content. The TV shows were unnecessary. Should’ve stuck to just 2-3 movies a year with the known characters. With everything being connected it became almost a task to keep up with all the stories. 

Exactly this. Also making the storyline focused on characters we simply weren't interested in. Focus could've easily remained on Spider-Man and Scarlet Witch while bringing in F4 & The X-Men and shifting towards that. 

[Souvenir]

the only thing i know is that THE scarlet witch needs to be BACK

 

[Walk_Away21]

[Raptus]

The whole multiverse thing was a mistake. Like now no one even cares if some character dies because they (Marvel writers) can bring them back as many times as they want. There's no stakes.

And they must stop trying to make every f****** second of every movie/show "funny". Last Thor and Ant-men were garbage  because of that. Like give us drama and bring back terrifying villains. 

Edited November 1, 2023 by Raptus

[DatChickDoe]

Ugh. They wonder why they are struggling too. 

[Bears01]

Good. They’ve been pumping our garbage for years now 

[Raptus]

Loki keeping Marvel afloat after 12 years

 

 

 

[kexin]

so like Mad Max: Fury Road? 

[Psylocke]

24 minutes ago, 305 said:

So they’re not doing that right? 

Yes, Mahershala Ali demanded that they rewrote the film from scratch and that they fired the director and writer, which they did. It's why the movie got pushed back a while ago all the way to 2025 when it was originally scheduled for this year.

Edited November 1, 2023 by Psylocke