First off I want to elaborate on the fact that I didn’t include
Fox and Sony for one major reason, they have a limited resource of characters that they have the rights to use and it seems that expanding it in a universe for them will be harder.
Fox have been more than great with the
X Men movies and for the most part, they have shown that they care about it as a property. Of course they had bad attempts like Wolverine Origins and X Men 3, but the rest are pretty solid and now we will get a bonus with Deadpool and Gambit solo movie.
The reason why those might not actually be as successful as the
MCU or
DCEU movies is that
FOX has mainly
X Men mutant characters and they are a part of the same origin, they don’t have those inner solo universes (
that for example Thor, Iron Man, Captain America have), with multiple supporting characters on their own, and separate origin stories based on different circumstances.
People were exited for
The Avengers because they got to see each character jump from their own universe to a shared one, which had never happened before. In the X Men’s case, they are a team that Fox is trying to break down in solo stories, if possible and in the meantime juggle their X Men movies, which come out a lot more frequently that lets say an Avengers one would.
Personally I am a huge X Men fan due to their epic
X-MEN TAS from the 90s, which in my opinion was the definitive version we always wanted to see on screen.
Wolverine is a great character, so is
Cyborg and
Gambit,
Deadpool is awesome, Magneto is amazing, there is just so many we love, but can we make a trilogy of movies for each one of them. I think not.
Their best option is to have X Men event movies following a certain timeline as they are doing now with FC,
DOFP and
Apocalypse and then spin off a few major solo movies that work within those stories in some capacity.
They have a lot of villains that are on their disposal that can make the big screen explode with fandom.
As for
Sony they made the right move with Spiderman and they know it, enough said for them. Sony go back to the corner and realize that you were very very bad lately. Spiderman, Jobs, Angelina Jolie, where does it all stop Sony?
Now as the name suggests I am a big
DC fan, mostly because I grew up with their characters. What their main issue was back in the days of
Burton and
Nolan was (with combining a universe of characters that interact with each other) Batman. Yes they were afraid to put Batman in a world where more colorful characters exist.
I always look at Batman comics in two separate ways. One is when Batman is all alone he doesn’t use any major DC superheroes in his story lines and he is a street crime, Gotham-centric, no super powers, magic, aliens, witches, demons, alternative earths and god knows what else character. The other Batman is the one that works along Gods like
Superman,
Flash,
Martian Manhunter,
Wonder Woman, Aquaman and other
JLA members. That Batman has always been a little off to me, because I had access to him only via comic books and animated features.
Nothing wrong with that of course, it’s just not my style of
Batman.
Recently I gave it some thought and came to the following conclusion. Should I be worried about this transition to the big screen, hell no! We have the classic campy Batman from the 60s, we have the classic comic books from the 80s and 90s, we have the art deco
Batman from Burton from the 89 and 92 movies, we have the ultra-commercial Batman by Mr Joel Schumacher (if only he would have passed it after Forever), we have a full on spectacular Batman TAS from the 90s, we have the best CBM trilogy of all time by Nolan and we have the best Arkham Games series that gives us a completely new look on his character. We even have a TV show about his villains and him as a kid. I mean what do I have to complain about, it’s time for us to see him interact with DC’s FINEST.
From the looks of the BVS and SS trailers, this version was nailed in terms of how he looks, how he operates and what his motives are. Enough said, let’s wait and see.
Superman is popular enough to sustain a franchise on his own, but some other members of the JLA will definitely need the support of the big boys.
Now let’s go over at
Marvel, what they did is very smart. They recognized that with the properties they had at the time, they would need some help to get the momentum. That help came from the idea to use the shared universe style. Now we see this in the comics all the time and maybe we haven’t given it much thought but that is a brilliant marketing. At any given time society around us changes and with it – taste.
Superman might have been the big thing for DC back in the 40s, 50s and 60s but then the times took a turn and Batman sat on the same throne during the 70s, 80s and 90s.
At some point Flash will be this relevant hero, as he is doing now with a great TV show that implements Sci-Fi, time travel, subjects that are important at this moment in time in pop culture.
Captain America was super relevant back in the days when America was going on the battle field against the Nazi, then that title would be passed to
Iron Man and his engineering skills and “man in the machine” feeling in some of his Novels, new technology and all that other goodness that comes with a tech genius.
In any way those will change over time, but what will not change is the demand for diversity and that is what makes the MCU a hit for many.
Marvel didn’t have a juggernaut at the time, but that’s the main plus for them, they weren’t afraid to combine lesser known characters as they didn’t have to lose anything at the time.
Another factor that most people don’t really consider is the serialized approach to a movie universe. As you know in 2015, good thriller, cop, comedy, drama lives on TV. Shows like
Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones,
The Wire, True Detective, Narcos, Mad Men, The Sopranos and many others can only exist as a narrative on TV.
Studios don’t really invest big budgets as often as they did in the 80s and 90s in such one off or non-franchise material movies. Do we love those shows, absolutely love them! Do I love each individual episode, not really.
Some of
Breaking bad's episodes from season 1 I watched with one eye closed, some I watched with two eyes wide open and then watched again. This is how a series work, they hook you up in episode 4 and then “surprise” you in episode 9.
It’s an interesting reversal of the TV and Cinema worlds if you think about it. A lot of crime, drama that was consider your blockbuster in the 90s and 80s is now material for a good TV show that you binge watch on Netflix and (chill) love each character.
Cinema on the other end is releasing franchise movies mostly and the occasional “original” movie exist once a year pre-Oscar season. Not many people would prefer to go and see The Walk in the cinema but you can be assured that Fast and Furious 9 will make at least 600 Million in the box office.
Our movie slate from now till 2020 is filled with 6 or 7 movies based on Super Heroes a year and that might kill some genres that were in decline even before that. We will continue to get more family friendly Marvel movies and darker DC movies, we will definitely get the more reality based X Men and a
non-costumed Wolverine.
But in all cases we will either over saturate the market with super heroes or lose them at some point or studios will become very selective in what gets a release date. We know what happens to a solo franchise when it fails, they re-boot it, but what happens when the entire franchise stinks? How do you reboot 6 different characters and 3 team up movies all co-existent in the same timeline?
Dc have some time before they have to worry about that, but with marvel it might be closer than we think. We have Captain America’s third solo movie coming, Iron Man already passed his, Thor is getting his third movie in 2017 with Hulk, who has had 2 solo movies that one is considered canon, do they kill them off in Infinity Wars? But then again how do you kill your main players, Ant-Man proved that even ridding the back of Avengers AOU and a proven franchise in the face of the MCU needs China to sit on 450-500 Million.
Falcon has always been a supporting character, to have a solo movie he might have to take a mantle from Caps, or will that be The Winters Soldiers role, Scarlet Witch I don’t believe will be doing any solo movies soon and Vision looks not to be set up for one too.
As we know from their actions so far, the main players in the Avengers will be the ones with solo movies, so we should assume Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Dr Strange, Spiderman and Ant-Man.
The question is Can those characters carry 3 solo movies, if Spiderman done right, yes he can – he has more villains that any of the other mentioned here.
Black Panther I seriously don’t know if he can pull it off, let’s hope he can. Does he have an impressive enough rogue’s gallery to do 3 movies, maybe yes maybe no.
Captain Marvel is also a big unknown for me, in terms of where would her adventures be based at Space or Earth.
As for Ant-Man – I know he is getting a sequel, but if the sequel doesn’t beat the 1
st movie in the box-office, he might not get a 3
rd one.
As for Dr Stange, let’s see how magic will be portrayed on the big screen and if the movie will get traction, we know Scarlet Witch didn’t look impressive enough, but in her case –her powers might be way different than Dr. Stange’s power skills. And let’s not forget, he might be very trippy and new, fresh and open a whole new conversation.
All we know for sure is too many Avengers on the screen can shift the focus from the story as they did in AOU.
We were happy for a while, can we be cutting our own feet, for now as the bucks pour in we should be ok. I did however notice some movies getting a lot of love recently that would usually get less box office like The Martian, Jurassic World, Furious 7, Mission Impossible 5 and Straight outta Compton.
I love most of them except Jurassic World, as I find it to be just a carbon copy of what worked in the first one. But most of those movies people went and saw them because and I quote a lot of people I know that don’t like super heroes one bit “ I just want to see something that is not DC/Marvel or has super powers in it” and I understand them. While we feast, they really are getting a lot less good movies to enjoy. So maybe CBM revive some dead genres and help Hollywood diversify.
Next trend Manga movies making it big, my personal prediction. A 300 Million Akira movie should get the hype going.