Marvel's Kevin Feige Defends Sequels as an 'Absolute Pillar of the Industry' (variety.com) 61
Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, who has overseen the Marvel Cinematic Universe's unprecedented success, has expressed his longstanding appreciation for sequels and world-building in cinema at a time when Disney's top executive has admitted that the company has diluted audience's attention by making too many TV shows and movies.
"I was never cynical or rolling my eyes the way people still do today for some reason, even though there've been sequels since the '30s and they're an absolute pillar of the industry," Feige told Variety in an interview, highlighting his enthusiasm for returning to beloved characters and expanding on established narratives. The studio's ambitious expansion into streaming content for Disney+ has led to what Disney CEO Bob Iger described as "some disappointments" in theatrical releases. In July 2023, Iger cited the increased output for streaming as a factor that "diluted focus and attention" at Marvel. In response to these challenges, Disney announced a strategic shift in May, with plans to reduce Marvel's output to a maximum of three films and two TV series per year. This move aligns with Iger's commitment to prioritize quality over quantity, a strategy he believes is "particularly true with Marvel."
"I was never cynical or rolling my eyes the way people still do today for some reason, even though there've been sequels since the '30s and they're an absolute pillar of the industry," Feige told Variety in an interview, highlighting his enthusiasm for returning to beloved characters and expanding on established narratives. The studio's ambitious expansion into streaming content for Disney+ has led to what Disney CEO Bob Iger described as "some disappointments" in theatrical releases. In July 2023, Iger cited the increased output for streaming as a factor that "diluted focus and attention" at Marvel. In response to these challenges, Disney announced a strategic shift in May, with plans to reduce Marvel's output to a maximum of three films and two TV series per year. This move aligns with Iger's commitment to prioritize quality over quantity, a strategy he believes is "particularly true with Marvel."
Good sequels are fine (Score:1)
Good sequels are fine
Marvel Cinematic Universe bullshit is not fine
Star Wars Universe bullshit also isn't
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Good sequels are fine
Marvel Cinematic Universe bullshit is not fine
Star Wars Universe bullshit also isn't
The comparison between Marvel and Star Wars reminds me of the line "there's always a bigger fish" from... well, that Star Wars film that was not a sequel exactly.
What I liked about Iron Man was that the technology in the film was at least relatively realistic outside of the arc reactor. (Or is that an acronym? ARC reactor?) Anyway, it was enjoyable because of how "real" it was. The threat was some crazy dude that killed people for money. This is a plausible threat that I could wrap my head around.
Then
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I cast Summon Bigger Fish!
https://www.darthsanddroids.ne... [darthsanddroids.net]
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At that point it becomes difficult to fit the old stories with the new stories in the same world that was built and your world falls apart.
And then we reboot it, obviously. ;)
Surely you already knew that.
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And then we reboot it, obviously. ;)
Surely you already knew that.
Yes, I knew that.
The Spider-Man movies have been a series of reboots for decades. They'd retell Spider-Man's origin story, have a sequel, then start over again. That's a near complete lack of world building, and not how a studio would build a large following among it's audience. It's fine to build a world that is shared among different films but at some point the world gets so big that only the most hard core can follow.
I believe the MCU should have reached it's end of world building at the end of the st
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It was intended as a rhetorical statement. I of course assumed you knew that.
I believe the MCU should have reached it's end of world building around the time someone thought making a story about the infinity stones was a good idea.
The entire infinity stones was arc was awful, just awful. Dumber than rocks, with a time line that made absolutely no sense*, that was then poorly executed, with a cheesy time travel element that literally renders the whole thing almost entirely pointless.
Otherwise we agree.
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I don't have a problem with the idea of sequels *per se*. It is, however, problematic as a business model. You might say I have a problem with the idea of an entertainment *franchise*, because it's predicated upon the promise of a psychological impossibility: an endlessly and perfectly repeatable experience. You are never going to be able to relive the experience you had as a kid watching Star Wars: A New Hope for the very first time, but that's the promise of every new installment in the franchise.
So to m
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Good sequels, like the Bond franchise. Which technically I wouldn't call them sequels really, but... If they had 3 Bond movies a year, plus 2 ongoing Bond themed TV shows (BlofeldVision and Spy Island), everyone would be sick of it.
On the other hand... Like Bethesda said when asked why they kept re-releasing Skyrim, "as long as people keep buying it..." Part of the problem with these Hollywood franches is though is that they don't give a lot of alternatives. People like chocolate, so let's give them all
Some dilution but also actively rejected audience (Score:1, Troll)
It was classic "get woke, go broke"... "humiliate the male characters and attack the male customers and then lose money".
I'll be seeing Deadpool. It's going to be good per the reviewers I trust.
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Lenina Huxley, "Lenina Huxley: He's finally matched his meet. You really licked his ass."
couldn't resist.
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Keep in mind that was an ultra modern idea when Spidey first got bitten... first I ever hoid of it was around 1965... the tail end of the Nukular Era.
Yes, I said it. 1965. That was wildly imaginative and captivating in 1965.
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we're talking about radioactive spiders biting people here.
If it didn't happen, how did we get the real Spiderman, eh?
I seen it on TV.
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I believe this is 100% correct... and in addition, I would say taking stories down paths that don't make sense via the years of canon material that precede a particular story, or overusing the time travel trope to be able to invent new storylines can be a problem as well. Having strong female characters is good, that said, making them the ones that are clearly smarter/faster/better than their male counterparts means you run the risk of losing half your audience.
The problem as I see it is that while yes, a strong female lead is not at all a bad thing, but to put it mildly, especially in the case of Disney, the storytelling is horrid. Much doesn't make sense. Some of the strong female leads are seriously unlikeable, and sometimes their actions are pretty strange perhaps even evil. They also rewrite canon with every new product.
The latest disaster brought to us by Harvey Weinstein's personal secretary, the Acolyte now has turned the Jedi into the force of evil.
Now
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i planted poison ivy (it doesn't bother me) on my lawn, and rose bushes mixed with poison ivy around the periphery...
Me either - Trivia now. Japanese lacquer contains Urushiol, the chemical in poison ivy that invokes the allergic reaction. It can be either a honey color, or if left to harden in air, becomes the glossy black lacquer that is a hallmark of Japanese painting. They usually harvest the oil from trees that also contain it.
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There have been 3 decent live action movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that started production after the red letter day announcement that they were oh so proud about of the M-She-U with Brie Larson as Captain Marvel. The only one produced by Disney was GotG 3. Spiderman No Way Home was Sony, and Deadpool 2 was Fox and only Part of the MCU after the fact. Deadpool 3 will be the last decent MCU movie until they gut the people in charge and get rid of the M-She-U idiocy and DEI bullshit.
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I see folks trying to censor/suppress my comment but it's not a troll comment. It's fact that as of phase four, Marvel made a series of movies where the male characters were actively humiliated unequally to female characters *and* that the corporation directly attacked their own unhappy male customers.
The captain marvel character was huge public relations disaster from day one. Inserting a "deus ex machina" character literally in between the last two movies was *really* the worst possible move they coul
Dilution depends on quality (Score:5, Insightful)
If you turn out good sequels, it's not dilution. If you try to cash in on a success with a sequel that exists only for that reason, that's dilution. If you add more stories in the same setting, but they're crap that only exist because the setting was popular, that's dilution.
'Superhero' is more a setting than a genre, it is definitely not a straitjacket determining plot points and tropes absolutely. You can't possibly dilute a setting with too many good stories.
Nobody (except the investors) expects a hit every time, but it would be nice if the obvious cash-in garbage and the insulting pandering that doesn't even work with the plot never happened.
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Mod parent up and it should have been the FP, too, if'n you ask me.
I think it's hard to imagine a good universe. The Culture from Iain M Banks is probably my favorite. But I don't think "sequel" about his Culture books. I just lament his passing... (But would a GAIvatar of Banks produce a sequel?)
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If you turn out good sequels, it's not dilution. If you try to cash in on a success with a sequel that exists only for that reason, that's dilution. If you add more stories in the same setting, but they're crap that only exist because the setting was popular, that's dilution.
'Superhero' is more a setting than a genre, it is definitely not a straitjacket determining plot points and tropes absolutely. You can't possibly dilute a setting with too many good stories.
Nobody (except the investors) expects a hit every time, but it would be nice if the obvious cash-in garbage and the insulting pandering that doesn't even work with the plot never happened.
I don't hate the idea of a sequel since it lets you skip some of the world building and exposition and lets you dive right into plot and characters.
The important thing is that you have a story that makes the sequel worthwhile, if you're simply doing it to cash in on a popular first film then don't bother.
Nothing warms my heart more than reading the wikipedia of a popular movie, seeing that a sequel was in development for several years, but it never moved forward because the actors/director weren't happy wit
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The way all these things come out and they try to do ties ins and showcase as many IPs as possible in every movie. If someone told me there were 20 good superhero movies I haven't seen that would still easily be 10 too many.
I can handle a star wars every couple of years. Maybe one series at a time.
If you don't consume every little thing they publish then it's a mess of weird characters talking about shit you don't know about. On top of that there is a multiverse so... i dunno. Their normal marketing dog
Totally agree (Score:2)
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You can almost always tell a good song by the fact that it's good 'unplugged'.
I wonder if the same isn't true of movies - if you strip away all the genre stuff and have a straight script, I think if that is a compelling story then it'll still be good after you add the spandex back in.
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The nature of a show is that things can be spaced out, and the idea of building anticipation does work, but things shouldn't be an artificial pause in what is going on where people are just bored while waiting for the next major element in the story to happen. For movies that are between 1.5 and 3 hours long, that's NOT going to work well.
People misunderstand the problem (Score:5, Interesting)
The majority of people don't have a problem with sequels, so by itself, sequels are not the problem. The true problem is the nature of how interconnected the Marvel universe is. You can't watch one of the new movies without having seen the past 8 Marvel movies to understand what is going on with the characters and much of the reasoning for what is going on in any given movie. So, you end up with confusion if you haven't watched all the different movies and now the shows.
If they would do a bit more that did not tie in directly to other movies or shows, then there wouldn't be as much of an issue/complaint about the number of them.
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They also refuse to pay excellent screenwriters too. Some of the recent scripts are intern-quality.
Kevin used to be hungrier.
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When I watched Spider Man: No Way Home, I hadn't seen any of the Mysterio stuff, and didn't even realize it was a thing. The show just started and it hit me it was a direct continuation of a plot-line I didn't know about. The thing is, I had a new baby, a full-time job, and was working on a masters degree. I didn't keep up with pop-culture at the time. Now I have no hope of jumping in on the latest Marvel show and having any idea what is going on at this point.
Personally, I liked the original Avengers arc b
Re: People misunderstand the problem (Score:2)
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Amazing, this is the first time I've heard of that one. No joke. I guess it really was more of a direct sequel. My galactic level of not caring or bothering to keep up with Marvel films is showing pretty hard right now.
Re: People misunderstand the problem (Score:2)
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I missed on Marvel movie early on (Age of Ultron) and the next movie I saw in the theater baffled me, and the movie after that one. Apparently there were major plot points and character changes done in this one movie that everyone was telling me wasn't important.
Ironically, I do want to see some more DC movies, as they come out less often and thus feel a bit more fresh, but when there is new one I am already bored before the preview has finished, because it's just another superhero movie... Meaning Marvel
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When viewers start to get the impression that watching a show requires work to watch related shows they leave. All that will be left are the die hard fans and new viewers won't stay because it's too much work. At this point their fan base is only going to get smaller.
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This. One of the reasons why Wrath of Khan is the best Star Trek movie is that it's just a good move by itself. Doesn't matter if you know nothing about Trek, or who any of the characters are. Doesn't rely on any lore to work. The plot is self contained and not setting up the sequel (that was decided after it came out).
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Which is why the first Star Wars will always be teh best one - it was the only one created to be a standalone movie. All others are either sequels, intended as part of a series, or built on top of major plot elements from other parts of a franchise. It is impossible for anything new related to Star Wars to be original.
You can't solve the Superman III problem by having gigantic budgets.
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I'd argue that not only does Empire have a better plot than the original film, but you don't really need to have seen Star Wars to enjoy it.
Aside from wondering who that ghost dude is telling Luke to go to some swamp planet and find a frog guy to train him, you don't really need to know anything from the first film to enjoy it.
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The irony is that Wrath of Khan is a sequel to the TOS episode "Space Seed." That doesn't invalidate any point you made; when I first saw TWoK, I had never seen the original series episode. I lost no enjoyment because of it. The background lore of why Khan is obsessed with getting revenge on Kirk is more of a nice bonus than an absolute necessity to enjoying the film.
That Nicholas Meyer was able to write a sequel, while making it so you didn't have to see the original episode to get it, is a testament to hi
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The irony is that Wrath of Khan is a sequel to the TOS episode "Space Seed." That doesn't invalidate any point you made; when I first saw TWoK, I had never seen the original series episode. I lost no enjoyment because of it. The background lore of why Khan is obsessed with getting revenge on Kirk is more of a nice bonus than an absolute necessity to enjoying the film.
That Nicholas Meyer was able to write a sequel, while making it so you didn't have to see the original episode to get it, is a testament to his skill.
WoK should be on every aspiring screenplay and scriptwriter's mandatory classwork. And while we are at it, cinematographers need to watch it.
Present day cinematography needs a bit of a boost. Too much overly dramatic lighting, too much dreariness. as well.
Aside from using amateur directors like Harvey Weinstein's personal staff assistant, the writing and camerawork is pretty subpar (unless the Acolyte is supposed to cause clinical depression)
More's the pity - a planet of lesbian space witches could
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This. One of the reasons why Wrath of Khan is the best Star Trek movie is that it's just a good move by itself. Doesn't matter if you know nothing about Trek, or who any of the characters are. Doesn't rely on any lore to work. The plot is self contained and not setting up the sequel (that was decided after it came out).
Yes, it is about as good as a movie gets. Well written, and the protagonist vs antagonist play was about as good as you get. But it doesn't abandon what came before.
Today rewriting canon is considered subverting expectations, and keeping canon is called "fan service" as a sort of pejorative. It is a calculated move of telling the original fans to sod off, and hoping a new group of fans becomes as passionate as the original fans were. Star Trek isn't as bad as Star Wars in this respect, but I suspect the
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The comics were always this way. But the comic fandom was relatively small. Even then, most people who read and liked Marvel comics were not buying all of them or tracking all the interconnected series. But at least with Marvel they're just replicating the comics model; which is no excuse for Star Trek and Star Wars sequels and serie. Star Trek was great because it was original, and that can't be replicated with sequels and spinoffs. They've yet to replicate the space opera homage that Star Wars was in
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Don't forget, I think in the latest movie (The Marvels) they introduced characters who would have been revealed only if you watched whatever TV show series they made prior to that movie.
Since I don't watch TV much, I probably have no clue whats going on if I watched the latest movie. So that means I have no interest in that movie at all.
And thats the end of me bothering to watch whatever movies they make in that universe.
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God does exist in the Marvel universe. Several, actually - including Yahweh. [fandom.com]
OW MY FRANCHISE (Score:2)
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Enquiring minds want to know!
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And other grown-ass men complaining about the first batch.
So anyway, how was kindergarten today?
You tell us.
Non-originality now 'Absolute Industry Pillar' (Score:3)
Yeah, 'cause seeing the same "characters" with the same tired "story lines" is totally worth the $100+/night out each time - NOT! (and no, not even the cheaper 2hr-night-at-home-streaming-many-months-later either)
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Yeah, they're basically the equivalent of comic book issues - only nerds collect all of them the second they come out.
Skin in the game (Score:3)
You can say this Kevin (Score:2)
Origin stories (Score:2)
If you want to build longer stories, you need characters & plot lines with more depth & breadth than Paw Patrol.
The most entertaining Marvel can get at the moment is when it takes the piss out of itself, i.e. Ryan Reynolds' relentless gags & homophobic jokes.
The only "heroes" to disguise their identity in the USA wear white pointy hats, burn crosses, & put
Is it really quality vs quantity (Score:2)
Or is it actually just too much supply and not enough demand?
Itâ(TM)s probably good to be a little skeptical when the argument presumes itself.
still waiting (Score:2)