"The Marvels" on pace to be the MCU's first massive bomb

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

They're losing hundreds of millions of dollars. I am actually what would presumably be one of Marvel's target demographics, not that I have ever liked their movies, but I don't even know who they are even trying to appeal to now.

The only MCU movie to lose money under normal circumstances (not released during the pandemic) is Ant-Man 3. Everything else was profitable. Some of you people must learn the difference between one movie underperforming at the box office and being a bomb.

This one is, again, about to literally be potentially the biggest bomb of all-time in terms of dollars lost, topping Disney's own John Carter and The Lone Ranger, two disasters from the early 2010s. Let alone this year's Dial of Destiny and The Flash.

This is not just me saying this, this is the forecast from box office experts based on hard data that's being confirmed now that the movie's been released.

Some people must learn what the definition of what a "bomb" is and stop being so f--king unwarrantedly smug when you're objectively wrong.

I don't understand why you are getting so worked up for my objectively true answer to another poster. I haven't a crystal ball to see the future, like you obviously, so allow me to judge the Marvels' box office after the movie gets released and not before.

Well now we have the numbers: https://deadline.com/2023/11/box-office-the-marvels-1235599363/

Lowest debut in MCU history.

[DaleCooper]

Rotten Tomatoes scores are much more likely to be manipulated by the studios than by haters, but both do happen.

[John Dule]

Rotten Tomatoes scores are much more likely to be manipulated by the studios than by haters, but both do happen.

And even if people are bombing the movie's score with negative reviews... so what? Nobody is claiming that they're bots. They're all individual people with their own personal opinions on the film. And yes, some people reviewing it may not have seen it, but (A) that's probably true for all movies on RT, and (B) that's far less troubling than Disney paying off critics and bribing them with early previews to write positive reviews, which absolutely happens.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Yeah, ratings and reviews seem to suck, so I'm not gonna see it. No surprise here.

Instead I watched the season finale Loki, where the show truly managed to outdo itself.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Rotten Tomatoes scores are much more likely to be manipulated by the studios than by haters, but both do happen.

And even if people are bombing the movie's score with negative reviews... so what? Nobody is claiming that they're bots. They're all individual people with their own personal opinions on the film. And yes, some people reviewing it may not have seen it, but (A) that's probably true for all movies on RT, and (B) that's far less troubling than Disney paying off critics and bribing them with early previews to write positive reviews, which absolutely happens.

[John Dule]

What did he mean by this?

[GoTfan]

Saw it last night. Honestly, it's fairly alright. A film like this was trading on the chemistry of its three leads, and they worked together well. Problem is that 'fairly alright' is not good enough anymore.

Form what I've seen, they're recalibrating with only a single release next year, which is definitely the right move.

What's actually going to annoy me is certain people using this film as validation for extremely reactionary and regressive views, and the possibility that film makers will start thinking they have a point.

I think what is desperately needed is for Marvel to step back, catch their breath, stop loading shovelware onto Disney+ (for f**k's sake Marvel, you're not the f**king Romine brothers), and stop making so many "setup" films. Oh, and for crying out loud, stop throwing so much money into films. Not everything needs to $250 million plus.

[OSR stands with Israel]

The Rise of Skywalker has a 86% audience score. Those are easily manipulated and mean nothing.

They were manipulated by haters who review-bombed movies without even seeing them but that changed after the first Captain Marvel. Now you have to prove you actually watched the film before voting (through Fandango).

Yes but that doesn't mean it's a random sample of people who saw it like a poll. Die hard Marvel fan boys are the ones voting. Clearly also the case for people convinced Star Wars could never do wrong with The Rise if Skywalker although today no one defends that abomination and Star Wars die-hards hate it as much as Jar Jar Binks.

I highly doubt this movie is anywhere near as bad as TRoS but the box office numbers so far are in lime with the predictions here that were being dismissed.

The reason Rise of Skywalker had such a high audience score is after how much the last Jedi sh**t on the fans and the entire storyline , the fact that Rise of Skywalker had moments of fan service was viewed as a sigh of relief . Yes the movie was awful in every possible way but at the time it still didn’t feel anywhere near as maddening as the Last Jedi

[Landslide Lyndon]

Saw it last night. Honestly, it's fairly alright. A film like this was trading on the chemistry of its three leads, and they worked together well. Problem is that 'fairly alright' is not good enough anymore.

Form what I've seen, they're recalibrating with only a single release next year, which is definitely the right move.

What's actually going to annoy me is certain people using this film as validation for extremely reactionary and regressive views, and the possibility that film makers will start thinking they have a point.

I think what is desperately needed is for Marvel to step back, catch their breath, stop loading shovelware onto Disney+ (for f**k's sake Marvel, you're not the f**king Romine brothers), and stop making so many "setup" films. Oh, and for crying out loud, stop throwing so much money into films. Not everything needs to $250 million plus.

The root of all problems for Marvel was Bob Chapek's demand for a constant stream of Marvel content for D+ while at the same time taking away authority from Kevin Feige and instead giving it to his banker friends who had no idea about cinema and were just bean counters, like Chapek himself. This approach brought oversaturation and strained quality control to the point of breaking.

Iger immediately saw the problem and the delay of so many projects is actually the best news Marvel had the last year. Heck, I even expect to hear that some D+ series are going to get scrapped altogether.

[DaleCooper]

The Rise of Skywalker has a 86% audience score. Those are easily manipulated and mean nothing.

They were manipulated by haters who review-bombed movies without even seeing them but that changed after the first Captain Marvel. Now you have to prove you actually watched the film before voting (through Fandango).

Yes but that doesn't mean it's a random sample of people who saw it like a poll. Die hard Marvel fan boys are the ones voting. Clearly also the case for people convinced Star Wars could never do wrong with The Rise if Skywalker although today no one defends that abomination and Star Wars die-hards hate it as much as Jar Jar Binks.

I highly doubt this movie is anywhere near as bad as TRoS but the box office numbers so far are in lime with the predictions here that were being dismissed.

The reason Rise of Skywalker had such a high audience score is after how much the last Jedi sh**t on the fans and the entire storyline , the fact that Rise of Skywalker had moments of fan service was viewed as a sigh of relief . Yes the movie was awful in every possible way but at the time it still didn’t feel anywhere near as maddening as the Last Jedi

No way. Any high audience score for Rise of Skywalker was definitely faked.

[Alben Barkley]

Well this movie was indeed an absolute dud, to put it politely.

This is the kind of bomb that rocks cinematic universes and studios.

I think Disney/Marvel messed up big time by making a bunch of streaming shows nobody asked for and basically making them required viewing for movies nobody asked for either. They should have waited a few years after the complete climax that was Endgame to build an appetite and nostalgia for Marvel/superhero movies again, and this time focused on a completely separate plot with their acquired properties from Fox, X-Men and Fantastic Four. Instead this multiverse s--t has been weird and confusing and turned off audiences, and they have oversaturated the market with samey garbage. Oh and now the guy who was supposed to be their main antagonist is in legal jeopardy, and the guy who made their biggest solo movie from before tragically died, to make matters worse.

As it is, their blunders might cause capes--t to go the way of the dodo or disco. Not that I'm complaining.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Not that I'm complaining.

Imagine if you were.

[GoTfan]

Well this movie was indeed an absolute dud, to put it politely.

This is the kind of bomb that rocks cinematic universes and studios.

I think Disney/Marvel messed up big time by making a bunch of streaming shows nobody asked for and basically making them required viewing for movies nobody asked for either. They should have waited a few years after the complete climax that was Endgame to build an appetite and nostalgia for Marvel/superhero movies again, and this time focused on a completely separate plot with their acquired properties from Fox, X-Men and Fantastic Four. Instead this multiverse s--t has been weird and confusing and turned off audiences, and they have oversaturated the market with samey garbage. Oh and now the guy who was supposed to be their main antagonist is in legal jeopardy, and the guy who made their biggest solo movie from before tragically died, to make matters worse.

As it is, their blunders might cause capes--t to go the way of the dodo or disco. Not that I'm complaining.

I doubt it's going away anytime soon. They're pretty clearly taking time to recalibrate, which, is absolutely the right move.

[DaleCooper]

Well this movie was indeed an absolute dud, to put it politely.

This is the kind of bomb that rocks cinematic universes and studios.

I think Disney/Marvel messed up big time by making a bunch of streaming shows nobody asked for and basically making them required viewing for movies nobody asked for either. They should have waited a few years after the complete climax that was Endgame to build an appetite and nostalgia for Marvel/superhero movies again, and this time focused on a completely separate plot with their acquired properties from Fox, X-Men and Fantastic Four. Instead this multiverse s--t has been weird and confusing and turned off audiences, and they have oversaturated the market with samey garbage. Oh and now the guy who was supposed to be their main antagonist is in legal jeopardy, and the guy who made their biggest solo movie from before tragically died, to make matters worse.

As it is, their blunders might cause capes--t to go the way of the dodo or disco. Not that I'm complaining.

I doubt it's going away anytime soon. They're pretty clearly taking time to recalibrate, which, is absolutely the right move.

It's not just superhero fatigue that is the problem. The film industry (and Disney in particular) have been making catastrophic financial and business decisions for years now and they're only now starting to bite them.

For one, they've deliberately destroyed physical media and rentals with their streaming service strategies, which makes it nearly impossible for movies to make money outside of theaters, but they've also been attempting to destroy movie theaters with their streaming services. This has been done by releasing theatrical films onto streaming the same day as their debut, or only waiting three or four weeks to dump them onto streaming. This is a problem because it is not possible to make a profit on streaming services when you're producing your own films and shows. If people aren't paying to buy or rent your film, and there are no ads being run, then you aren't making any money. Go f-cking figure. There is no world in which a season of She-Hulk will draw enough Disney+ subscribers to earn back the 500 million dollars it costs to make that one single product. It's total voodoo economics.

Another problem is that they, and Disney in particular, have totally failed to build anything resembling a new IP over the past ten years. They've just flooded the market (like never before in the history of cinema) with superhero crap. Once they exhausted the recognizable characters they started relying on D-listers. And since theaters are the only way to make money now thanks to their disastrous streaming model, every movie has to cost hundreds of millions of dollars and every movie has to make a billion dollars to be considered a success, and they have to do it in a shorter amount of time too because more "content" as they like to call it is constantly being produced, which also results in these 500-600 million dollar monstrosities being indistinguishable from each other.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Go f-cking figure. There is no world in which a season of She-Hulk will draw enough Disney+ subscribers to earn back the 500 million dollars it costs to make that one single product.

Jesus effing Christ! Where do you get these numbers from, George Santos? 

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I actually kind of liked the concept of that She-Hulk show, but then I found out what the season finale was like, and that killed any interest I had in watching the show.

[DaleCooper]

Go f-cking figure. There is no world in which a season of She-Hulk will draw enough Disney+ subscribers to earn back the 500 million dollars it costs to make that one single product.

Jesus effing Christ! Where do you get these numbers from, George Santos? 

That was a guess based on how much this crap usually costs. A good rule of thumb is to take the stated budget and double it to get a rough estimate of how much it costs to produce and market something. I looked it up and She-Hulk had a budget of 225 million (which is actually less than I expected though in my defense I thought the episodes were an hour long, not 30 minutes), so I'd say 400 million would be a fair estimate assuming they spent less on marketing than they would for a Marvel movie. Since it was dumped onto Disney+ it has made zero dollars. What a success!

[John Dule]

Well, that’s it boys. We killed feminism.

[President of the great nation of 🏳️‍⚧️]

It's too bad that Disney's greed killed capesh**t, 'cause I'd have loved a Dreadnought movie.

[DaleCooper]

Something else I forgot to mention is that the streaming model is even less viable now that the strikes have forced the studios to actually pay their people. Not only will they earn zero dollars from the movies and shows they put on their streaming services, but they also have to pay royalties to the people who actually created them. The studios' response to this problem will be to cut corners and make even worse "content" (again, their word) as part of their ongoing effort to destroy their own industry.

[Landslide Lyndon]

That was a guess based on how much this crap usually costs. A good rule of thumb is to take the stated budget and double it to get a rough estimate of how much it costs to produce and market something. I looked it up and She-Hulk had a budget of 225 million (which is actually less than I expected though in my defense I thought the episodes were an hour long, not 30 minutes), so I'd say 400 million would be a fair estimate assuming they spent less on marketing than they would for a Marvel movie. Since it was dumped onto Disney+ it has made zero dollars. What a success!

No, your assumptions are wildly inaccurate. Even the biggest theatrical releases don't spend 175 millions on marketing. And you can't compare spending 200 million dollars on a two hour movie with spending the same amount on a TV series whose total runtime is 5-6 hours. If you can't understand the difference because you have a hate-boner for Disney then this conversation just goes nowhere.

[DaleCooper]

That was a guess based on how much this crap usually costs. A good rule of thumb is to take the stated budget and double it to get a rough estimate of how much it costs to produce and market something. I looked it up and She-Hulk had a budget of 225 million (which is actually less than I expected though in my defense I thought the episodes were an hour long, not 30 minutes), so I'd say 400 million would be a fair estimate assuming they spent less on marketing than they would for a Marvel movie. Since it was dumped onto Disney+ it has made zero dollars. What a success!

No, your assumptions are wildly inaccurate. Even the biggest theatrical releases don't spend 175 millions on marketing. And you can't compare spending 200 million dollars on a two hour movie with spending the same amount on a TV series whose total runtime is 5-6 hours. If you can't understand the difference because you have a hate-boner for Disney then this conversation just goes nowhere.

You are missing the forest for the trees. Even if they only spent 75 million on marketing for She-Hulk, it is still failing to make any of that back. There is no way to spin any of this crap as successful. There is no way that enough people are watching She-Hulk with ads running to make back all that money.

[Landslide Lyndon]

You are missing the forest for the trees. Even if they only spent 75 million on marketing for She-Hulk, it is still failing to make any of that back. There is no way to spin any of this crap as successful. There is no way that enough people are watching She-Hulk with ads running to make back all that money.

Something else I forgot to mention is that the streaming model is even less viable now that the strikes have forced the studios to actually pay their people. Not only will they earn zero dollars from the movies and shows they put on their streaming services, but they also have to pay royalties to the people who actually created them. The studios' response to this problem will be to cut corners and make even worse "content" (again, their word) as part of their ongoing effort to destroy their own industry.

You really have no idea what you're talking about. I might as well start writing about baseball.

P.S. She-Hulk was one of the biggest successes of Disney+ when it comes to viewership.

[DaleCooper]

You are missing the forest for the trees. Even if they only spent 75 million on marketing for She-Hulk, it is still failing to make any of that back. There is no way to spin any of this crap as successful. There is no way that enough people are watching She-Hulk with ads running to make back all that money.

Something else I forgot to mention is that the streaming model is even less viable now that the strikes have forced the studios to actually pay their people. Not only will they earn zero dollars from the movies and shows they put on their streaming services, but they also have to pay royalties to the people who actually created them. The studios' response to this problem will be to cut corners and make even worse "content" (again, their word) as part of their ongoing effort to destroy their own industry.

You really have no idea what you're talking about. I might as well start writing about baseball.

P.S. She-Hulk was one of the biggest successes of Disney+ when it comes to viewership.

Nope.

[GoTfan]

Well this movie was indeed an absolute dud, to put it politely.

This is the kind of bomb that rocks cinematic universes and studios.

I think Disney/Marvel messed up big time by making a bunch of streaming shows nobody asked for and basically making them required viewing for movies nobody asked for either. They should have waited a few years after the complete climax that was Endgame to build an appetite and nostalgia for Marvel/superhero movies again, and this time focused on a completely separate plot with their acquired properties from Fox, X-Men and Fantastic Four. Instead this multiverse s--t has been weird and confusing and turned off audiences, and they have oversaturated the market with samey garbage. Oh and now the guy who was supposed to be their main antagonist is in legal jeopardy, and the guy who made their biggest solo movie from before tragically died, to make matters worse.

As it is, their blunders might cause capes--t to go the way of the dodo or disco. Not that I'm complaining.

I doubt it's going away anytime soon. They're pretty clearly taking time to recalibrate, which, is absolutely the right move.

It's not just superhero fatigue that is the problem. The film industry (and Disney in particular) have been making catastrophic financial and business decisions for years now and they're only now starting to bite them.

For one, they've deliberately destroyed physical media and rentals with their streaming service strategies, which makes it nearly impossible for movies to make money outside of theaters, but they've also been attempting to destroy movie theaters with their streaming services. This has been done by releasing theatrical films onto streaming the same day as their debut, or only waiting three or four weeks to dump them onto streaming. This is a problem because it is not possible to make a profit on streaming services when you're producing your own films and shows. If people aren't paying to buy or rent your film, and there are no ads being run, then you aren't making any money. Go f-cking figure. There is no world in which a season of She-Hulk will draw enough Disney+ subscribers to earn back the 500 million dollars it costs to make that one single product. It's total voodoo economics.

Another problem is that they, and Disney in particular, have totally failed to build anything resembling a new IP over the past ten years. They've just flooded the market (like never before in the history of cinema) with superhero crap. Once they exhausted the recognizable characters they started relying on D-listers. And since theaters are the only way to make money now thanks to their disastrous streaming model, every movie has to cost hundreds of millions of dollars and every movie has to make a billion dollars to be considered a success, and they have to do it in a shorter amount of time too because more "content" as they like to call it is constantly being produced, which also results in these 500-600 million dollar monstrosities being indistinguishable from each other.

I'm not sure you've actually read anything I've typed. They're releasing one film next year, that being Deadpool 3. Their numbers on D+ have actually increased as a result of Loki, and word on the street is that the crew from that is going to be taking the reins from now on.