Justice League performance and release issues will be covered in a postmortem in the very near future - till then, check out the Midnight’s Edge After Dark Retrospective and Review in the meantime! ua-cam.com/video/rH1B4p4xi6o/v-deo.html Also, the old intro made a special guest appearance in this video too due to traveling and the logistics of making the video on a back-up travel computer, rendering times and unstable internet conections - the sweet new intro will be back soon.
Midnight's Edge Tried watching that video yesterday... And it sucks. But it's not all bad: most of the criticisms were on point but was hidden under a cheap bait and switch that fell flat as some of the jokes in the actual movie that was reviewed.
Marvel did it, it took a lot of time, money, planning etc to do it. Avengers came out and made over a $billion. Other companies want that and decide to fast track a universe instead of taking their time as Marvel and how it should be done. Then they wonder why they failed when instead of releasing fun movies they are basiclly 2 hour adverts for future stuff.
Sadly, this seems to be the norm for several industries - make cynical products meant to promote other products for the consumer to spend their money on rather than make good products people actually want to spend money on.
The fact is that when you announce a cinematic universe before the first movie is even out, audiences are savvy enough to recognize it for exactly what it is: a cynical cash grab. The MCU was, from early on, built organically, with standalone films that were only connected by very small lines of dialogue or post credit scenes: nothing that intruded on or affected that film's story, Iron Man 2 being the sole exception. When you announce an entire universe with a series of interconnected movies, audiences, rightly, query themselves, "Did I ask for this?" and then answer with their wallets.
Spot on. All of the cinematic universes outside of Marvel have been obvious, desperate cash grabs that produced awful movies with characters and stories that nobody wanted to invest in because they were not developed well.
Thats exactly it. They were in a rush forced attempt to catch up with Marvel that clearly reeked of desperation. They should have took their time and got advice from the comic writers on how to write the characters.
If I was Universal I would use prequels and retroactive continuity to fix the mistakes with The Dark Universe, like with Jekyll's group. Plus it looks like Warner Brothers is still having problems with The DCEU.
i cant help but feel a sense of schadenfreude because of this...because its obvious the only reason why they try to start a cinematic universe is cuz they are jealous of how successful and rich marvel's made them, so they want a piece of the pie too, not because they care about the actual world building, but just want the fucking money.
audiences aren't stupid (well dceu fans are) and can smell bullshit a mile away "hey guys we are making our own casino with blackjack and hookers you should come visit" sounds like "we don't know how to be original please like us more"
Calm the fuck down, not everything marvel touches turns to gold. Alot of its early attempts were rebooted, as was the case with Hulk. Now it's always been the case that marvel was the underdog to DC since time immorial. People had no idea who cap, ironman or Thor were, so it was quite normal for DC to assume its position was unshakeable. DC films dominated most of modern history and suddenly Marvel enjoy many recent successes with their MCU and all the fanboys are rejoicing. Well hopefully it stays that way. Because DC had enjoyed that position for decades with its Christopher Reeves superman and Michael Keaton and recently Christian Bale batman. People have very short memories, so be careful that in a decades time this golden era of marvel cinematic universe films become a bygone era. Because the moviegoing public are an unforgiving bunch and will quickly forget any success it had and just focus on who is the next successor
Because when Marvel started, they weren’t even trying to set up a Universe, they were trying to make good movies, then piece them together. Iron Man and Incredible Hulk initially weren’t in the same universe until late in production when Marvel made a deal with Universal to put a Tony Stark appearance at the end of the film. DC tried with Man Of Steel, Which divided critics and audiences alike. Instead of making a sequel to Man Of Steel, they brought in Batman, Wonder Woman and the rest of the JL heroes in a forced attempt catch up to Marvel when they should have made MOS2 first then make Wonder Woman, then you can do the Justice League.(Batman doesn’t need a solo film until after Justice League,tbh).
Feige did say they were trying to build up to Avengers as far back as the release of Iron Man 2, but I don't think he could've predicted the TV presence or the expanded release schedule.
Spot on! I didn't like Man of Steel and it was a terrible idea to try and introduce team movies after only one solo film which wasn't exactly a smash hit. There should have been Man Of Steel 2, Wonder Woman and maybe Aquaman before Dawn Of Justice was even attempted , but they jumped the gun with a director who, let's face it, can't tell a coherent story. I really liked Justice League though so I'm hoping that Joss Whedon or Patty Jenkins gets to direct Man Of Steel 2 because the Superman in Justice League is the one I want to see from now on.
Psyclapse at least they managed to build a character platform for Superman during these past 4 years. So yeah he may have some underwhelming moments but he will get better later on. Look at how Captain America was handled.
You're so right it's just rushed I think DC should do what Logan did make badass standalone movies like watchmen instead of this cinematic universe fest.
Producers can't understand that characters are more important than spectacle. The only way a Cinematic universe or a cinematic movie works is CHARACTERS you want to see more of them or other characters with the same goals/development. The best MCU movies don't spend much time on the shared universe they focus on story and character.
fire Zack Snyder! He doesn't understand Supes even though Supes is way easier to understand than Bruce or Tony. Dude doesn't know shit and makes shit movies! I gave him my money once, I am NOT making this mistake again! I really think the DCEU would have been better if they started with Wonder Woman and kept that director for the rest of the universe. WW was far from perfect but it was better than Snyder's turds! Fire him!!!! I've just realized that my comment doesn't have much to do with this thread but I don't want to delete it soooooo...
I think announcing a cinematic universe is also trying to get audiences pre-engaged in the series. That makes you tired of wanting to see it before you see. Like you said, Marvel has you invested by the time you realize you are in a cinematic universe. They all want to start at Avengers. I think The Mummy should have started with just a mummy movie, with no connections to a CU world. Just have Cruise show up in the next or 3rd movie. Same with the Amazing Spider-man movies and showing us the villains' weapons. Just surprise us in a 4th movie with all the past villains as the Sinister 6. I think the studios have less patience in seeing these movies than the audience.
Chris Gammon But Homecoming is already a part of a bigger picture. We're talking about starting out. If Homecoming was the 1st movie in a Spider-man cinematic universe then that would be different. Homecoming was movie... 17. The MCU is established.
Right, But still when i heard Universal announced all these great actors would play all these monsters, I was excited. From there you could maybe focus on individual movies with these great actors. But they tried to crossover stuff on their first movie.
Johnny Skinwalker The only ways I can think of doing it is getting us invested slowly or have a central agency out of the gate. Kinda like making SHIELD the main characters in the MCU instead of the glue. A better version of Hugh Jackman's Van Helsing. I guess that's what they were trying to do with The Mummy, but they did it as a mummy movie 1st. Give us secret agency monster cops with superhumans/monsters as the lead cops. But thinking about it... that's just Hellboy.
jinxie712 Good idea, yea. They could have come up with the agency concept right off the bat. I figure they did not do that cause they wanted to keep an air of mystery...? I think they amputed themselves with the Mummy. They figured "the last monster movie franchise that was successful was the Mummy so let's use the Mummy". Nevermind that what made that franchise work was because of Brendan Fraser and the humour. And this new horror franchise would never be this light hearted.
Cinematic universes are the new normal, it's just taking the corporations a looooong time to figure out how to do it. Kevin Feige runs Marvel like a tense TV drama, and other producers haven't done much beyond lean heavily on the public's knowledge and affection for the brands.
The Sean Ward Show Actually a good analogy...Marvel broke out from the pack by introducing subplots similar to what was done in contemporary soap operas of the time. Having a small, tight set of creators encouraged the connectivity in a way DC had never successfully pulled off. Does make one wonder...when TV as we know it goes away, how TV producers will make good cinematic universes?
edwardvondoom I don't believe in anomalies and neither do most studio execs. We'll doubtlessly see more efforts and eventually more successes when the correct lessons are finally applied.
edwardvondoom Of course there's room. It's a big media landscape. But, as you say, it needs to be built brick by brick with good stand-alone movies. I strongly suspect that, after two false starts in Green Lantern and Man of Steel, the powers-that-be at WB panicked and moved the timetable to its current pace and state of discombobulated. Your reaction to the Dark Universe was mine. Hell, that was my reaction to the first trailer of this incarnation of The Mummy, blasphemying the Stones in the bargain. It has loser stink on it from jump. But the next crowd outside of the MCU might get it right.
And that is why the TV series "Penny Dreadful" worked so well. It was a modernization of the Universal Monsters dones right. Cause it was in the confine of the concept of a TV series where you have the time to develop the characters over a long period and actually writes something with meat around the bone. And the monsters all being there never felt forced given that it was not only about them but about Eva Green's character's possession by the Devil.
I want to know why Hollywood always learns the wrong lesson from successful movies. Titanic as a smash, so obviously people want to see 3 hr long movies. Marvel was successful, so obviously people want to see shared universes. Star Wars was a success, so obviously people want to see space lasers. Nolan's Batman was a success, so obviously people want their superheros to be dark and moody. Are they really so inept that they genuinely don't notice the difference between what makes something good and a gimmick? Are they so lazy/cheap that they think the gimmick is just as effective? (That also implies they think it takes more work to make a good movie--I don't believe that.)
dMb I have a theory that Hollywood, or most of it, hates story structure and would rather film 2 hrs advertisements for even more 2 hrs advertisements.
dMb Even comic book companies made this mistake in the 80s and 90s. After Watchmen and Batman The Dark Knight Returns were successful, many companies (mainly Image Comics) thought they should make their comics darker with lots of violence and other R-rated content and their heroes more anti-heroic. Many thought that the success came from the mature content, not the storytelling which made Watchmen and Batman TDKR critically acclaimed in the first place. The result, The Great Comic Books Crash of 1996. This is exactly what happening with cinematic universes. Execs miss out on what made the successful work successful in the first place.
@Imaad Shahrukh when marvel first started out their comic business, the same thing DC is doing now happened then. NerdSync has a video on that that goes further
Because people tend to forget that 'Hollywood' and 'studio heads' are made up of jobs, mostly corporate jobs. Like any corporate job, individuals don't get to do what he or she wants most of the time even if it's beneficial to the company and business. Execution is a completely different beast.
Characters first, Cinematic Universe second. Both Universal and WB made the same mistake: they rushed it and tried to force a shared universe before anyone could get invested in the characters inahbiting it. Worse, they did that poorly in the bargain and their attempts were either highly polarizing (MoS, BvS) with a sharp drop-off after release or simply tanked (The Mummy).
The biggest shame about Warner Brothers and DC is that they could have easily have the ones to create a Superhero Cinematic Universe first considering they have all the film rights to the characters
Immortal Rimas yeah, but they need to focus on making good movies instead of starting an universe. Iron Man only set the universe with the stinger at the end, the rest is a stand alone movie, while DC movies seem to be more interested to wink at characters that will get movies or will get in the justice league than tell an actual story
Olivia Williams yeah I agree they should focused on their first film and other standalone films with only a big reference scene @ the end or end of the credits especially taking their time setting up the first Justice League Film. DC and Warner Brothers could have started the slow burn as far back as 1999 and beat Marvel and Disney to the punch but no matter who got their first Warner should have taken their time with establishing a DC Cinematic Universe
I would actually say that MoS is actually a self contained movie. It's just not a very good movie like Iron-man was. BvS is where they tried to cram an entire universe in at once.
its sad that they ruined a good thing. the justice league cartoon has been on cable tv for what 15 years so it has a built in audience. too bad WB film studios decided they needed to do diversity casting and ruin what was expected from the characters that has been around since the 1960s in comic book form. if you wanna blame somebody blame zack snyder and the WB suits. there is some basic rules for DC characters: 1) batman doesn't use guns 2) superman doesn't kill. DCEU broke those rules and now nobody is buying tickets.....its the studios fault.
The way to make a "Dark Universe" is to basically turn it into "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure" and base it around the Van Helsing family going through the ages and battling iconic Universal Monsters. That way you can get: Monster Movie Enthusiasts, Connected Universe Enthusiasts and the General Audience in the seats. Heck, you could even basically make it Hellsing! Have the first movie be Van Helsing beat Dracula, but not kill him. Then make it the Hellsing storyline with the Van Helsing Family using Alucard (Dracula under their control using arcane powers) to battle other Monsters and connect those to Millenium, leading into the Hellsing Manga storyline! You get a 1-2 Whammy with that!
The most HILARIOUS conclusion is that it shows you how out-of-touch these decrepit thinking movie executives are! I mean something so EASY as a cinematic universe comes across very difficult for them because they can't seem to get away from rushing everything. Chasing only money, instead of slow cooking it. Any old school comic book fan knows how to properly create one. Marvel is the ONLY company that listened to us. And in return, we support them fully and continue to make them successful. If you take the name brand heroes out of Marvel movies, they are STILL good movies.
A five year old could have told these Hollywood executives this. Yet they still made these stupid mistakes. Universal and WB, just make a good first film, an outline for future films and let flow naturally. That's all you really have to do.
dc, not wb. wb has two very good universes. its their wb-dc division if you can call it that that isnt doing well. that was supposed to be their third universe. the problem is that the execs kept messing with snyders vision. snyder was supposed to be the feige of dc, now we will never know if it was truly good or doomed from the start. to be fair i didnt really like a lot of snyders film, but i definitely would have given him a chance. he had a really complex evil superman, darkseid superman team up, flashpoint multiple universe time travel paradox storyline, and joker lex luther team up that we will never see since alot of his ideas were shot down and edited in post. each movie was cut at least an hour off. theres still footage in bvs, suicide squad, and justice league that we've never seen to this day.
I did not get way too excited by Nick Fury's monologue at the end of Iron-Man, eventhough it was a big deal. But after the end credit scene of The Incredible Hulk, I remember myself almost screaming "they're doing it... the heroes will actually Team-Up, like in the comics!" What a magic, glorious moment that was!
John Alertas weird. I was just like meh and didn't give it .uch thought cause it wasn't unusual to me. Comci book characters always existed in an extended universe
Because they built their way up to that. They didn't try to cram it down people's throats like the other studios did. They took the time to make sure people were fully invested over the course of a few well done world-building films before the concept of a "shared universe" was even brought to the light. The Avengers was a complete surprise. That's part of the reason it blew everyone away. They took their time and made sure ALL the proper groundwork was laid down first. They had someone who understood both movies and comics to run the entire operation. The executives stayed away from it, remained patient, and trusted the long term direction of the superhero movie experts, and gave the man in charge FULL AUTONOMY!!!!!!!!!!! That means they didn't interfere with his decisions because they understood their lane. The Disney execs knew that they didn't know anything about superhero movies so they put someone in charge who did and fully supported and trusted him, right or wrong. And he in turn made sure that the directors he picked made sure that the movies were good enough to hold up on their own whether they were in a connected universe or not. They made sure ALL the characters were established first, then you combine them in a big team up movie. The executives allowed the creative people to do their thing with no interference and now the box office and the toy department of every retail store belongs to Disney. And as a result, now Disney might as well have its own special section at the Federal Reserve. It's like a small percentage of all the money that's printed every year is exclusively for Disney.
The worst part for WB is that they already did a DC film shared universe: The DC Animated Universe with Bruce Timm as producer. Starting with Batman: The Animated Series under Bruce Timm's direction, a DC superhero shared universe was done to perfection and DC should have followed that example ever since.
kchishol1970 that's true. A Superman series. A Batman series. World's finest. And then justice league. They kinda tried that but did the flaw with marvel by making it a fight.
Just before I watch this video I feel that the most obvious answer is that these other studios are desperate to capture lightning in a bottle as Marvel did and are rushing their stuff out in an attempt to play catch up. This is nothing new in Hollywood though. They see something that works and so they try to emulate it's success by repeating the formula. But they don't fully comprehend WHY the formula worked in the first place. They just see "cinematic universe" coupled with high budget effects and assume that's the key. They don't consider other key factors that contributed (charming cast of characters/actors, staying true to those characters and the source material, etc). The Dark Universe idea, which no one even asked for, was probably the saddest attempt so far. DC is the runner up as they should have taken their time and released individual movies that helped establish the characters on their own, giving the audience time to care about them and expand on the world building. But at least we got Wonder Woman. That's the plus side from the DCU.
Alex 7 WW was asked for but was bland and boring. I prefer to watch Aliens or Timber Raider. I'd even watch Red Sonja over WW Gal Gadot won't be WW after JL2 she's already caused too much drama backstage.
With an overwhelming amount of moving parts, only a studio with a daring , original and rock solid plan could even hope to be mildly successful. I want to watch a documentary about the making of the MCU!
tornay131 We know It's coming. The only question is when. In the meantime, might I suggest you watch Rise And Fall of the Comic Empire here on UA-cam? It touches on some of this but it's a fascinating overview of how the comic industry got weak enough to be exploited by folks like Disney in the first place.
That is probably a key part to it. You shouldn't start with the mindset of setting up a shared universe. Or at least you shouldn't shove the idea of one down the throats of people who aren't invested yet. Make a great movie first that can stand up on its own if need be. If that works out then sure keep building on that. Phase 1 was good on that front. Sure there were ties to Shield in a few movies, and Fury appeared in a few films, but they were movies focused on their main character first. Even Captain America made sure to spend 95% of the movie in the WW2 time period. I agree the Avengers worked in part because people didn't see it coming. And on that front it worked because it was the first time for it. Getting all these superheroes in a live action movie where their solo movies were already established felt fresh. Sadly I expect most people in Hollywood to misunderstand why their films are failing. They are likely to think "only Marvel can really make this work, we're out." That isn't it.
These other studios don't earn it. They instantly shove it in our faces that it's a shared universe of all these characters before giving us a reason to care about any of them, let alone be excited to see them all together. They also don't do anything original or unique. The Mummy seemed like it was trying to be a blockbuster super hero movie. If I watch a mummy or vampire movie I want them to be horror. If I want to see a superhero movie I'll actually go see a superhero movie. The Mummy didn't work in either catagory.
Marvels felt like a genuine plan and it was done well. They also had great characters a built in fan base and like 70 years of stories to work with. Dark universe is a who cares idea. DC universe feels like a rushed mess desperately trying to chase Marvel. They hired a hack director who should never be in charge of a story more complex than 300.
The dark Universe failed cause they announced their shared universe before the release of the mummy, and went on to BRAG about them being the first to have had the Cinematic Universe with their 40s and 50s monsters. The DCEU failed cause it seemed rushed, shoe horning characters before their own stand alone movies and some of the forced movies did not live up much to the hype. DCEU should have gone with MOS 2, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg, a refurbished Green Lantern, The Batman stand alone film and if they released 2 of each in a year like example 1 during summer and the other during Fall or Xmas period , it would have taken just 4 years...and thats 2014-2018, it would have worked and they would at least grounded their characters to a wider non comicbook fan audience and things would have been a bit better. The Ghostbuster Franchise was doomed even before they started filming cause they decided to reboot with an all female squad leads which fans didnt like from the get go. So the succesful Cinematic unviverses that did right (so far) are the MCU, The Conjuring Universe, The Potter/Fantastic Beasts Universe....However these others are possible to succeed if done right are the Fast& Furious Universe, The KongZilla Monsterverse. On a side note WB could hit the jackpot if they did the Mortal Kombat Universe ....(If they do not rush and shoe horn characters) As for Sony's Spiderverse...we will still have to wait and see And the X-men universe....we also still have to wait and see where they go next if they are gonna tie in Deadpool (R-rated) with the X-Men (PG 13)
monsterverse is already in the works. this means wb has three universe. marvel has 2 technically, with number 3 basically being their disney princessverse (that they downright refuse to actually show any thing of except of random cameos). wb could have had a good fourth universe with the dceu, but that didnt do so well. xmen already is a universe though. thats what ppl usually dont say. the wolverine movies have characters that dont show up in the normal xmen, the old xmen and new xmen were together in days of future past, and deadpool showed up with the other 2 xmen. they couldnt afford the rest of the cast, as deadpool said in the film. i feel bad for the spiderverse. i wanted to see a good venom. i also liked rhino, the old andrew garfield spidey, and gwen.
The really sad thing about the Ghostbuster Franchise is that they could have gotten away with all-female leads if they hadn't done it on top of attempting a reboot (with an occasionally aggressively UNfunny script)--I mean, it's been decades. Go with it being a sequel that just happens to have a long timeskip and be about the original team's successors--lead by one of their daughters, who had to grab not-yet-moved-away-nor-employed friends because whoops no time to properly recruit. That could probably give you more than a few jokes alone.
Agreed and the worst part of the new kong film was the writting as most of the characters are forgettable expect for John C relly and Samuel L Jackson which these two are easily one of the best parts of the reboot.
I love the idea of creating a cinematic universe, the problem is if a film is released that is supposed to be tied in and it sucks, it makes the "universe" worse by extension. This is why I don't care if Justice League is good or not. Suicide Squad and BvS suck, and by extension, Justice League is part of a sucky EU. If however, they just said that the previous movies didn't happen in the continuity of the newer movies they make from this point on, they could sorta save the DCEU over time, but at this point I don't trust them, it's going to take many more steps in the "right direction" before I start caring about the DCEU. As for the Dark Universe of Universal and ANY *EU* for that matter, they need to create an artistic vision for the setting and characters, as well as tone and mood, AND make a good monster movie using said setting/characters with great dialogue and narration, or they can't expect people to care. I may be an amateur film maker, but I would love to work on a Monster EU, but ultimately, if they want to do an EU, they need to focus on *good stand alone films* that share the same same setting, before we can as an audience demand more of it, especially more of the same characters in other films. Great video, thanks for bringing this up.
Any larger plan is doomed if one or more critical, starting films are bad. DC CU would be fine if they chose the right people like they did with Wonder Woman.
PeterZeeke This mistake was the same one comic book companies made in the late 80s and early 90s when making superheroes darker, edgier and more mature to cash in on Watchmen. Many failed to understand what made Watchmen work in the first place and this resulted in the comics crash of 1996. The cinematic universe idea does not work for many because most executives failed to understand what made the MCU work in the first place.
Because the MCU took its time and is carefully planed. The MCU marketing is also brutal. MCU knows how to build hype. MCU movies are generally good and entertaining and don't take themselves too seriously.
Because they all rush it, they don't have one clear mastermind (or show runner) with a working plan to keep everything together and some of the properties aren't really made for an overreaching universe.
The problem I see frequently in these failed projects is that they fail to make that individual film. They are too wound up in setting up future films and the world itself. They forget that we need a hook into it.
Kevin Feige, the MCU has a singular vision that keeps the consistency and hire "useful" directors to give each film a fresh feel. These other universes are built by committee which is why the filmsare so bloated.
Yup, and we can see even Star Wars isn't immune to this as their directorial direction seems to be floundering a bit because they seemed to only chase down "hot and trending" directors with mixed results (Lord and Miller, JJ Abrams, Edwards, Treverrow). Original trilogy didn't need the same director on all 3 movies, but it helped to have one vision (ie. Lucas) to connect them all. That seems to be the lesson modern movies have forgotten in their pursuit of focus groups, trend tracking, and market research. The only common thread in all of the new SW is Kennedy so, maybe she needs to reevaluate her role in all of this as well.
Dularr The Conjuring is the main overarching franchise, and the Annabelle spinoff launched a separate franchise, which connects to the main one, and even teases the Nun, which was featured in The Conjuring 2 and will get a separate sequel - which also may spawn a separate franchise. So you have several interconnected franchises that share the same continuity. How is it not a cinematic universe?
That is why I feel it's in the sequel and spin off category. Now for a lower budget shared universe, M. Night pulled off with Unbreakable and Split leading to Glass.
I feel like the Conjuring became a "shared universe" more by fumbling their way into it whereas the MCU had a plan set. I think other franchises could easily pull off what the Conjuring did, but no one, except Disney's Star Wars franchise, can pull off the MCU. The core dynamic needed is a rabid fanbase. The Universal Monsters, Godzilla/King Kong, King Arthur.... all these have fans, but not Trekkie levels and not in those numbers. A "cinematic universe" will only truly work with a property, like comics and Star Wars, where the fans are clamoring for any new material. The fact that the bulk of SW fans will read the books and play the games and buy the toys means they will eat up a collection of inter-related films that are not direct sequels per se, but rather inter-connecting paths. The trick is to make people believe that they are in on a secret. In Rogue One, nearly every audience member recognized R2 and 3PO, the original Rogue Squadron members and all that other shit, but each person wants to think they are the only ones who truly knew. That's why they clap and make noises- to let everyone else know "I KNOW WHAT THAT IS!" Beyond comics and SW/ST, there are very few properties with that level of dedication and fanaticism.
It's simple and Midnight's Edge answered it already. Marvel's first wave of movies are (for the most part) all stand-alone movies that work as just movies. They aren't packed full of "wait till nexttime" sequel bait meant to prime a cinematic universe. No one else, not universal, not warner bros, not sony, are willing to do this. The closest we get is Fox and the X-Men movies.
Charles Slaton Interestingly, though, the later MCU films borrowed a practice from the classic James Bond films and state such and such will return here. In terms of cultural zeitgeist, Marvel films and superhero films in general have become the equivalent of the old Bond films.
With later MCU films Marvel can afford that. They have trust of people now. They believe in their movies, they invest in their characters, they know that when they write "Doctor Strange will return..." or "Spider-Man will return", people will be glad to come to see these sequels, because the characters were great and people liked them and their stories. That's why most Marvel villains are weak and uninteresting - the hero is the one who must be cool and great, villain is just a tool to make the hero likeable and you to root for the hero.
Mike Dasik Which again follows the Bond formula. By and large, all his villains were just as disposable (Blofeld and Jaws being the sole major exceptions). By the late 1960s is when you saw the same "will return" promises at the end of the credits. It's a remarkable thing to consider...someone should write a more in-depth comparison.
Mike Dasik I'm of that generation that watched the Sean Connery and Roger Moore James Bond films every summer on TV (TBS and ABC usually) to fill the airtime in the pre-HBO original series era. That's how come I know a lot of this stuff.
As many here have commented, Marvel set out to make a good movie first, then build the connective tissue using very small scenes, often as post credit bits, which in those days, were easily missed. Iron Man and Incredible Hulk were stand alone movies. Incredible Hulk mentioned SHIELD, and then had Tony show up at the end, creating that first connection. The Avengers was just a thing that got mentioned after that, as sort of a tease, not the whole point of the films. It's also important to point out that Marvel wasn't afraid to adjust their plan as they went. Thor: The Dark World didn't work super great, and this lead to them looking at what they were doing, and adjusting their plans. Some planned films got dropped when they couldn't find a way to make them work the way they needed to, and the whole MCU was, and probably still is, in a constant state of flux, with plans and goals being adjusted on the fly. This is the second half of the equation other studio execs don't get. You can't lay out a road map that you are going to stick to no matter what. You have to be prepared to change and adapt, rearrange, and abandon any part of it that isn't working at any given point in time. Actors decide not to return, as Hugo Weaving did, forcing them to reshuffle their plans for Red Skull's place in the larger narrative, or their availability changes, forcing a movie to be delayed, and that part of the bigger story has to change as well. Marvel just looks like they had it all planned from the start. They didn't. They were able to adapt, and were ready to let the whole MCU die if it wasn't working. They basically faked it till they made it, because they could adapt to changes as they arose, instead of being married to a single plan that was flawed from the start. Gotta be nimble these days if you want to build a better box office guys. Make a good movie first, worry about the connective tissue second, and be damn ready to abandon any part of it at the drop of a hat. It's not so much a road map as it is a guide book. That's the spot they really messed up. For instance, DC should have added a tiny post credit scene of Bruce Wayne watching news footage about Superman, calling Alfred over, and saying, "Everything just changed." That's it. That's all it would have taken. Then move on to the next movie and don't worry about paying that off right away. Marvel didn't pay off anything right away. Hell, it took ten years to pay off some of what they started in Iron Man. Honestly, I don't get how these guys are in charge of multimllion studios when they can't even grasp simple stuff like this. It's basic series writing.
First rule to make a cinematic universe. Make sure the movies can stand on their own. Let the characters breathe and develop by their own. Be sure that Audiences are hooked and THEN you can connect them by little details. Is surprising, more in the DC part, because, DC and WB made a successful shared universe before. The Bruce Timm/Paul Dini Animated universe. Maybe that's another key to success. Make sure you have a producer with vision and passion in the project that can make all work.
Another tip to make ... well ... to make anything exciting. Just make it gradually epic. Start small then go bigger & bigger. Marvel knew that and the result is a way up in epicness through the individual heroe movies 'till the final blow up in Avengers.
To the MonsterVerse's (Godzilla and King Kong) defense, the producer Thomas Tull has been wanting to do this for over a decade. He became a film producer and founded Legendary Pictures with the eventual goal of doing a Godzilla vs Kong remake.
I am here to announce this new Commentmatic Universe. Now that you are invested...... what?.... that's not how it works?.... you mean people get turned off and tune out when they hear about a shared universe before getting invested in the story?...... shhhhh..... don't tell Sony and maybe they will let Marvel keep Spider-Man.
I remember Avengers getting announced after Iron Man became a huge hit, at the time it seemed completely insane to announce a bunch of upcoming movies about B-tier superheroes ending with a big crossover movie, in hindsight they were lucky that Thor turned out so well. Also, I'm positive that at least a few of these cinematic universe announcements weren't real, as if people would rush to see the movies now if they pretended to have a big timeline of movies coming later.
The thing is that Iron Man is an actually, honest to God, good standalone movie, that gets people invested in the characters. If they had only released The Incredible Hulk that year the MCU wouldn't be what it is today. The quality of that first movie is, in my opinion, what made people keep watching Marvel despite the rest of Phase 1 being very mediocre (Thor, Captain America) and the rest of the bland MCU. And that's what the other attemps lack: you need to make a very good, self contained story that entertains people without leaving a bad taste of cynicism in their mouths
The first Captain America was good. The Winter Soldier, on the other hand, was better than the Avengers. The Iron Man sequels were not at the same level as the first movie.
The first Captain America is okay in the first act, before he becomes the actual Captain America, then the movie just becomes generic action/war movie. I understand why people love Winter Soldier, but I don't share as much enthusiasm (altough I would agree it's better than the Avengers). I can enjoy (most) Marvel movies when watching them for the first time, but I don't have them in very high regard and don't feel the need to rewatch them.
Heitor Mello That about sums up the first Captain America movie. I don’t care much for the Thor movies; the first one was kind of entertaining but nothing special. I thought Civil War was also better than both Avengers movies. Maybe not as good as Winter Soldier. That last Spider-Man was a mess.
I honestly didn't care for Civil War, I thought the plot was a mess. It's entertaining in a superficial level, but thinking about it just made it worse for me. I enjoyed Homecoming for what it was, but then again, I'm a big spider-man fan and after the last 3 sony movies movies anything is a breath of fresh air.
Sean Wheeler Perhaps a rephrase...Marvel plans ahead by making a film work both as puzzle piece AND a stand-alone film. The failures of others is that they lean too hard towards the former.
Both Man of Steel and Wonder Woman are great standalone movies. In fact, Warner Bros actually made sure that Man of Steel made a decent amount of money before they went on with the DCEU.
Sean Wheeler I can buy that last. In fact, it was when I heard about Batman V Superman that I knew they were getting away from what made things work in the first place.
At least a DC shared cinematic universe would be what comic book fans want. DC fans, including myself, are disagreeing with the critics. Yep, the DCEU has it's own fanbase. And I think the shared universe should be able to work better for DC because Warner Bros has every character DC created to use, unlike Marvel Studios where half of the Marvel universe was off limits because of Fox, Sony, Universal and other studios that had Marvel characters when the MCU started.
Yeah, that probably is the reason. I think Universal would have been better off using a different character. Perhaps the Creature from the Black Lagoon, or maybe even a completely new original monster. It certainly would have allowed them more creative freedom.
You have it exactly right. I’ve never read a comic book and before the MCU only watched superhero movies because other friends wanted to. But I loved Iron Man and saw Avengers because I wanted to follow his narrative. It wasn’t until much later that I went back and saw the other stand-alone movies. And it’s because many of them have compelling stories of their own with strong writing and characters that are true to themselves even when in the hands of different writers and directors that Marvel has won me over. I’m a fan now because of the quality, not because of a shared universe gimmick.
The Monster-verse has been succesful, probably because they didn't rush the production, the 2014 Godzilla film was in development from 2007, and there was a three year gap between Godzilla and Kong: Skull Island. The next film isn't for two more years.
How did they expect to create a ghostbusters cinematic universe anyway? I saw a signal for a sequel but a UNIVERSE? Universal monsters I get - there are many to choose from and connect. Same with giant monsters like Kong and Godzilla. Even King Aurthur I get even though it's a terrible idea. But who else besides ghostbusters would have been in this so-called ghostbusters universe? Makes no sense.
True, even in a shared universe there has to be some variety from one movie to the next, they can't all be about the same thing. When I was a kid I always wanted to see a Ghostbusters vs Beetlejuice movie, but the closest we got was Dan Ackroyd's cameo in the Casper movie.
that was a great cameo. Him and Father Guido. But yeah, without any variety, it's not a universe, it's just a series of sequels. As far as I could tell, Ghostbusters 2016 wasn't setting up any expanding universe possiblities the way The Mummy, Skull Island, Batman V Superman or Amazing Spider-Man did.
To me, THe Avengers was one of the only real 'comic book' movies. It really played and felt like a comic book, most other movies up to that point were trying to be "Cinematic versions" of the characters and costumes, etc. Some of the scenes in The Avengers looked like comic panels.
No matter what the storytelling tool being used is, if it's used successfully and makes bank then other studios will try to mimic it, usually unsuccessfully, until a new fad comes along for them to imitate in their ham fisted pursuit of profits
LEGO MOTEL ... Absolutly! Remember when the star wars prequels came out, you started to see so many other prequel projects. They also started coming out with movies that were the first in trilogies, only to find they didn't have enough story to fill one movie. Same old story here too!
I think that WB and Legendary have done a surprisingly good job at building their Monsterverse. They didn't announce, or probably even plan, that Godzilla 2014 would be the start of a cinematic universe. It wasn't until after they released it to decent reception that they said, "Hey, we're also doing a King Kong reboot. What if we tie them together so we can do a crossover, like the old King Kong vs. Godzilla?" And even then, they didn't announce a million movies. Just that the Kong reboot we already knew was coming would be part of the same universe, that the Godzilla sequel everyone assumed was happening was happening, and that there would be a crossover. The DCEU and Dark Universe strategy would've been to announce, "And we're also gonna do Gamera, and the Cloverfield monster's gonna be there, and then Ultraman, Gypsy Danger, Voltron, and the Megazord are gonna team up to fight them! And then in phase 2..." Most importantly, the movies themselves have just focused on being solid standalone giant monster movies. Godzilla 2014 and Kong: Skull Island aren't perfect, but they're still reasonably enjoyable, and whatever flaws they have aren't caused by the movie coming to a screeching halt halfway through to show the audience advertisements for future movies-- I mean, do some worldbuilding. Outside of the Monarch connection and Kong's post-credits teaser, the two movies are basically completely standalone. Instead of repeatedly telling the viewer how awesome it would be to see Godzilla and Kong punch each other, they just made Godzilla and Kong punching things look awesome and let the viewers think about how awesome it would be if the things they were punching were each other.
funny thing is del toro could actually make his own universe with all the pacific rim robots and the aliens precursors.. and hopefully they fight clover.
Because most Studios that are trying to catch-up with Marvel Studios, are rushing without a good plan and as a result they make lousy movies. Marvel Studios, with the help of Kevin Feige, has been doing this for 10 years now.
I think the king Kong and Godzilla universe will work. The made some good movies and like you said, only after the movie paid off did they announce they were connected and hinted at future movies. Plus, Godzilla movies were always connected in the first place.
I still remember being 15 in '08 when _Iron Man_ first came out, we had all thought it was just another usual Marvel movie, but one that did exceed expectations thanks to the passion that was put into the film, along with Downey's performance, at the time me and my Pops had seen it as Downey's "phoenix moment" as an actor, but when it hinted at an Avengers film, it was a huge surprise even to me, this was before I had ever heard the term "cinematic universe", and so when I had seen _The Avengers_ four years later, it felt like those four years of investment was worth it, and it had left me super-excited for more MCU movies. It still amazes me, to think that it has now been ten years since the MCU had started, and it is still going strong, especially now that _Avengers 3_ has come out and blew up the entire world. If you had met me in '08 when I was 15 and told me that _Iron Man_ would be launching a massively successful Marvel Cinematic Universe that would last for the next ten years to come, I'd probably have never believed you, and yet here we are now.
If anyone plans on making a cinematic universe based on existing properties. Let's use a hypothetical "Super Smash Bros" Universe as an example. Don't just make each movie puzzle pieces for a Smash Bros movie. Make a good Mario movie, Make a good Zelda movie, Make a good Metroid movie, focus on the main character's stories and add the connections later into the production, don't focus on the connections first off.
People are over reboots. The Universal Monsters are classic for a reason. They need to ADD to the universe, build on it. The way Monster Squad did. These reboot can't take the concept too serious...
They should try making some NEW monsters, as there must be some horror novels that have never been adapted into movies. I also wish they would treat them as continuations of the old 1930s movies. Make a shared universe that simply picks up from where the classic films stopped. If Star Trek, Star Wars, and Doctor Who can do this, why not Universal Monsters?
Cinematic universes that aren't Marvel so often fail because they try to make the universe in 3 movies or less. Marvel knew that something of that scope would take years. So they built a 10 year plan and started to interconnect them. Other attempts try to get to that same stage in 3 films or less. They are so worried about the NEXT movie in the chain that they forget about the movie they're currently screening. Even movies that are looking to make simple trilogies are now too often guilty of this. They are so busy setting up the next film that they completely forget to do anything with the preceding film. The plot is muddled. The scenes are scattered and all over the place. They try to shove too much too fast. It's not organic. DC for example, could've easily made a very successful DCEU if they had just taken their time to do so, following Marvel's plan of 10 year slates. Start a narrative. Introduce characters. Introduce plots. Interconnect everything. Allow it to grow organically. For example, a Justice League movie should've been the 5th or 6th film in the first slate. A Superman movie to kick it off. A Batman movie to follow it up. A WW movie next. A GL movie (or another Supes/Batman). A Flash movie (or another Supes/Batman). And THEN a team up movie. That movie could also introduce other characters in it that will soon have their own solo outings (like Aquaman). Then on to the second slate. This way they have people roped in for the long haul. Like Marvel managed to do. The Dark Universe could've worked too, but like the rest, they are trying to make a full universe in 3 movies or less. They have a brilliant array of characters to use and the universe is one that people would LOVE to see unfold. But it has to be done right. Dracula Untold wasn't a smash success, but it laid a groundwork that could be used. Follow it up with a Frankenstein film. This ties the first two together. Then drop a Wolfman movie. Then a Mummy movie. Then another Dracula movie that maybe has another character in a smaller role, but more than a few lines. Then a team up/mash up film. Then on to slate two. The Creature, The Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll. And so on. Again, this universe could work if done right and if they are ready to commit to a long haul and not just a few films and BAM universe. That's not how that works.
5:00 Hammer wasn’t licensed by Universal. In fact, Universal tried to shut them down but couldn’t convince the British court that there was enough overlap. The only Universal Monster created specifically for that franchise was the final one- The Creature From the Black Lagoon. The closest Hammer came to remaking it was The Reptile. By the time Horror of Dracula was released (1958), the copyright on Bram Stoker’s novel had expired. In fact, most film historians agree that Tod Browning’s Dracula is more of an adaptation of the stage play than the original novel, and Hammer was allowed to release in America after the Hayes Code expired. Hunchback of Notre Dame, Phantom of the Opera, and Frankenstein were all Public Domain by this point as well. They even supplemented with other public domain stories (the Karnstein trilogy and references to it are straight from Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla). Hammer was allowed to make their own adaptations on the merit they were closer to the original and didn’t use any imagery that wasn’t found in it. Dracula’s cape was in the book, the bolts on Frankenstein’s monster were not, which is why the former appears in all the sequels but the latter only appears once. Seriously, the only character to recur in Hammer’s Frankenstein movies is Peter Cushing’s Baron. While I appreciate the work you do, at least try to do your horror homework before talking about beloved monster movies. While Hammer has a niche audience, that audience can be feral.
The accent and proper pronunciation are killer. It's like hearing someone properly say "Notre Dame" instead of "no-terr day-me." And of course, because Andre is Andre, and Andre is just awesome.
(Smiles) man's already the heart and soul of this channel, while the collaboration of his partners adds to the discussions held here on a weekly basis!
Spot on. I think some of these announcements are made mainly to please shareholders rather than to appeal to fans. But in an age of the Internet, how to talk to fans and shareholders at the same time?
Why did the monsterverse only get a passing mention? Godzilla 2014 and Skull Island have been sucesses in their own right. I look forward to Godzilla vs King Kong in 2020.
As a fan of the Universal Monsters, I do agree that Universal should not try to make 4 quadrant, action-horror movies, out of the monsters. However I don't think they should make them into gothic period pieces. If you look at the films, they were sort of a hodgepodge of Victorian gothic, but also modern times, and that should be the goal of bringing them into the modern era. Outside of that great video.
Johnny Skinwalker true and I heard that some of the films for The Dark Universe would take place in the past like Frankenstein, Bride Of Frankenstein, and The Wolf Man to have them lead up into modern times.
The most important aspect to building an interconnected cinematic universe is to HAVE an interconnected universe you can tap. A lot of people forget that Marvel started the type of universe building they're famous for way back when that phoenix shape appeared in X2. Back when mutants were still part of it(sort of). Marvel HAS a massive universe that is being adapted--we really haven't yet touched anything new. Every one of these movies has been leading up to the Infinity War. It's, as noted, chapters that can be read to get to the next story--and NEXT is important. Because the word isn't 'chapters'--it's 'issues'. Each movie IS a few comic books--a comic book story arc. The post credits scenes are the last page--the one that sets up the next issue DC is not doing as well because they're not really getting this--even though they have it too. They're trying to make interconnected movies--movies with sequels, instead of issues. And it shows. Worse, you can see, in the movies, their frustration that it's not working. They try to ape the Marvel films. And it shows as bad as Superman's mouth. You can't just announce a universe, you've gotta plant a seed and hope it grows.
So funny no one talks about the TOHO shared universe. Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, ect? Those guys? They been sharing universes and still around, going strong 50 years later. No respect.
Son of Frankenstein (1939) is quite good (if you ignore the squeaky kid) it has Lugosi's last great role as Ygor, and is generally considered to be the last great movie of that era. Dracula's Daughter (1936) was critically well-received and is an early example of a Hollywood lesbian exploitation flick. I think you're referring to the movies that came after SoF. like the House ofs and the monster 'meets' monster flicks of the 1940s.
concord327 And That's true of anyone I've ever heard talk up how they'd love to do something creative without following all the way through. Discipline separates the pros from the amateurs.
The really funny thing is the The Mummy already launched a cinematic universe! The first Mummy remake, I mean. There was (1) The Mummy, (2) The Mummy Returns, (3) The Scorpion King, (4) The Mummy; Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, (5) The Scorpion King II, (6) The Scorpion King III, and (7) The Scorpion King IV. So, as of now, the Mummy Cinematic Universe (MuCU) has more installments than the DCEU, and only one less that the Star Wars universe....
Amy Pascal doesn't represent Hollywood on a whole though. As a representative example sure, but only for Sony in the grand scheme. Aside from failed cinematic universes like Dark Universe & Ghostbusters (and hopefully Transformers) you forgot to mention that it seems oddly convenient that Disney jumpstarted the Star Wars series again with LucasFilm and now there's a Star Wars film once a year now.
yup its star wars churn out movies machine. its kinda annoying since rogue one had an extremely boring first half. it feels very cash grab. i liked the original trilogy.
Guns Up Gameplay Official See I actually liked Rogue One, dare I say preferred it as one of my favorite Star Wars films. Yeah it's not the original trilogy nor Force Awakens, but it still hits the beats of what an action / sci-fi is. Better than the prequels by far and I agree the first third is just stuck in the mud. But by God that finale was a how a Star Wars should end. Fanservice? Yes it's fucking porn for Star Wars. Not smartly thought out, but that's all it needs to be like Pacific Rim or ID4 (arguably) and what Transformers SHOULD HAVE been and not the cynical monster machine that it is now.
Amen! I have nothing substantial to add to your video. In summery you hit the nail on the head: Hollywood has a tendency to learn all the wrong lessons. The cinematic universe was one of many.
Hey, I mostly agree with everything you said, but I think you forgot a very important point. Ahem. Hollywood. STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM ALEX KURTZMAN, ROBERT ORCI AND J.J. ABRAMS!!! I mean, at the end of the day, Marvel has what the greatest emperors had; the smartest people in the room. I mean, Kurtzman and Orci are trashlords and even in interviews, people like Zach Snyder and Amy Pascale just come across as complete tools. Marvel just knows how to read people well. Why do the creators of Lost (which I don't like) have so much pull?? Seriously, Hollywood, this isn't hard, or are you THAT divorced from reality that you can't delineate between people that know how to work with people and aren't just using connections? Rant over.
Andre? before the madness of Star Wars: Episode VIII: The Last Jedi comes by next month, you and the team please try and do vid on: On how to; Save/Repair the DCEU Cinematic Universe? Once enough of us have gone to see Justice League this weekend and our reactions to it come in more heavily as the first 2 weeks go by. Research everything and include Warners past and current successes with DC related movies, the success of their DTV (Direct To Video) animated features. The current CW TV universe of DC comics and how it compares to WB's ongoing theatrical DCEU films! (with Black Lightning and the Krypton series coming up next year and all) And possibly bring up, discussion points on what the upcoming trouble DC films like; The Batman and Flashpoint will have to do in order to save the DCEU films. And what expectations are expected of; Shazam going into production early next year (Finally) and what long time former Batman film producer Michael E Uslan role might be in regards to Shazam, if it finally gets off the ground. He's always tried to produce a Fawcett's Captain Marvel/Shazam based movie? Wonder if he'll be producing the upcoming one from Warners as well is all! And of course Aquaman talk? As we'll all possibly be talking about Justice League's aftermath of storylines next week in the spoilers. And how it all relates to further DC films from Warner Brothers in the near future. As the future king of Atlantis will be the only sole DC based film in 2018 against a whole horde of Marvel property based films like; Black Panther (MCU), New Mutants (Universal Studios), Avengers: Infinity War (MCU), Deadpool 2 (Universal Studios), Ant-Man And The Wasp (MCU) and X-Men: The Dark Phoenix (Universal Studios). Think this discussion of Cinematic Universes has only just begun. Cheers and congrats on a great video. Keep'em coming!
Same, quite sad it never reached a larger audience but that would've needed it to be diluted like the dark universe. Still think that it was planned for longer than the 3 seasons we got despite what we were told.
The funny thing is, you'd think Universal would understand this whole idea, since they themselves followed it when creating the original monster movies. As said in the Nostalgia Critic review of the Mummy, the Universal monster movies were the original cinematic universe. They started with individual films about certain monsters that told good stories on their own, then started moving towards a shared setup with multiple monsters per movie later on. If they'd just done that again (and made a good standalone Mummy movie to start things off), it could have worked well. But no, they decided they wanted to set up the shared universe thing right from the off, and it backfired horribly.
Others fail do to poor planning and a lack of understanding of core character canon. And also from studio heads butting in (Ike Perlmutter VS Joss Whedon) during the making of Avengers: Age of Ultron. The people in charge of writing and making the movie should have a joy of understanding the characters they are bringing to the screen. People are not bored with cinematic universes people are sick of failure of other studios.ua-cam.com/video/sCFk9Rg4J6Q/v-deo.html.
Spot on Andre. Another issue I would argue is when setting up connections to future plot points becomes more important than the self contained narrative of the movie being watched. This was something Marvel did very well in phase 1 - and the Conjouring! i.e. ensuring a film works well as its own movie regardless of connection to a wider narrative. The same complaint can be made of films relying on sequels to tell a complete story - the more recent Alien films for example.
Improper planning, incompetent writers/directors who had no love to the original source material & big named actors/actresses who were hamming their performances rather than low-key actors/actresses who were on-point to their characters.
Snyder for he hated the original depiction of SuperMan, Cahill's wooden performance, Mamoa for being almost gnarly as a surfer dude; & Ezra Miller as almost a carbon copy of Spider-Man, right to his awkwardness
You nailed it, Andre. While I would love to see an update of Creature from the Black Lagoon, I do not want to commit to watching a bunch of other films that have little or nothing to do with him. I am also the one who for more than 2 years (since the announcement that Aquaman would be morphed into Aquadude in what is thesedays called, 'race bending' at least since they started saying that White washing was a thing and did not like the words black washing) have been predicting that JL would fail.
My thoughts? Blood simple...the producers of now-aborted "cinematic universes" thought they could use Lysol like it was Miracle-Gro. Marvel and the Conjuring succeeded by a)doing it organically film by film and b)refusing to tip their hand too early. I always find it ironic when Marvel gets accused of making movies that are adverts for other movies. Love 'em or hate 'em, NONE of them EVER needed an "Ultimate Edition" to get the story to feel whole.
Don't know...im Still excited for a MonsterVerse (Godzilla Universe) It has a Lot of similarities with both Universal Monster movies and Marvel so who knows how it will go. From what I can tell most people don't seem to care about it but most don't HATE the movies either...so yea
Justice League performance and release issues will be covered in a postmortem in the very near future - till then, check out the Midnight’s Edge After Dark Retrospective and Review in the meantime!
ua-cam.com/video/rH1B4p4xi6o/v-deo.html
Also, the old intro made a special guest appearance in this video too due to traveling and the logistics of making the video on a back-up travel computer, rendering times and unstable internet conections - the sweet new intro will be back soon.
I think the regular intro has an elegant simplicity. ANYWAY keep up the good work! :)
Hurry up. I can't wait to hear your explanation as to why WB keeps failing with an IP that should be making more $$$ than it is.
Midnight's Edge thank you guys. The ads aren't stacked on top of each other. The show flows better.
Midnight's Edge Tried watching that video yesterday... And it sucks. But it's not all bad: most of the criticisms were on point but was hidden under a cheap bait and switch that fell flat as some of the jokes in the actual movie that was reviewed.
Great analysis, always a pleasure to watch your vids!👍😄
Marvel did it, it took a lot of time, money, planning etc to do it. Avengers came out and made over a $billion. Other companies want that and decide to fast track a universe instead of taking their time as Marvel and how it should be done. Then they wonder why they failed when instead of releasing fun movies they are basiclly 2 hour adverts for future stuff.
You are absolutely correct in your statement.
Sadly, this seems to be the norm for several industries - make cynical products meant to promote other products for the consumer to spend their money on rather than make good products people actually want to spend money on.
The fact is that when you announce a cinematic universe before the first movie is even out, audiences are savvy enough to recognize it for exactly what it is: a cynical cash grab. The MCU was, from early on, built organically, with standalone films that were only connected by very small lines of dialogue or post credit scenes: nothing that intruded on or affected that film's story, Iron Man 2 being the sole exception.
When you announce an entire universe with a series of interconnected movies, audiences, rightly, query themselves, "Did I ask for this?" and then answer with their wallets.
Spot on. All of the cinematic universes outside of Marvel have been obvious, desperate cash grabs that produced awful movies with characters and stories that nobody wanted to invest in because they were not developed well.
Instead of building their cinematic universe on a solid foundation, they plop a fully formed franchise on a sinkhole.
mariokarter13 Fantastic way of putting it.
mariokarter13 Not even that solid...try quicksand.
Thats exactly it. They were in a rush forced attempt to catch up with Marvel that clearly reeked of desperation. They should have took their time and got advice from the comic writers on how to write the characters.
If I was Universal I would use prequels and retroactive continuity to fix the mistakes with The Dark Universe, like with Jekyll's group. Plus it looks like Warner Brothers is still having problems with The DCEU.
they said it was daft to build a fanchise on a swamp but I did it all the same just to show em. It sank into the swamp :D
i cant help but feel a sense of schadenfreude because of this...because its obvious the only reason why they try to start a cinematic universe is cuz they are jealous of how successful and rich marvel's made them, so they want a piece of the pie too, not because they care about the actual world building, but just want the fucking money.
That is exactly the reason
audiences aren't stupid (well dceu fans are) and can smell bullshit a mile away
"hey guys we are making our own casino with blackjack and hookers you should come visit" sounds like "we don't know how to be original please like us more"
"Oh no _Justice League_ is flopping, we must watch it 6 times each to help it succeed!"
You know you're in denial when...
Calm the fuck down, not everything marvel touches turns to gold. Alot of its early attempts were rebooted, as was the case with Hulk. Now it's always been the case that marvel was the underdog to DC since time immorial. People had no idea who cap, ironman or Thor were, so it was quite normal for DC to assume its position was unshakeable.
DC films dominated most of modern history and suddenly Marvel enjoy many recent successes with their MCU and all the fanboys are rejoicing. Well hopefully it stays that way. Because DC had enjoyed that position for decades with its Christopher Reeves superman and Michael Keaton and recently Christian Bale batman. People have very short memories, so be careful that in a decades time this golden era of marvel cinematic universe films become a bygone era. Because the moviegoing public are an unforgiving bunch and will quickly forget any success it had and just focus on who is the next successor
Very well said.
Because when Marvel started, they weren’t even trying to set up a Universe, they were trying to make good movies, then piece them together. Iron Man and Incredible Hulk initially weren’t in the same universe until late in production when Marvel made a deal with Universal to put a Tony Stark appearance at the end of the film. DC tried with Man Of Steel, Which divided critics and audiences alike. Instead of making a sequel to Man Of Steel, they brought in Batman, Wonder Woman and the rest of the JL heroes in a forced attempt catch up to Marvel when they should have made MOS2 first then make Wonder Woman, then you can do the Justice League.(Batman doesn’t need a solo film until after Justice League,tbh).
Feige did say they were trying to build up to Avengers as far back as the release of Iron Man 2, but I don't think he could've predicted the TV presence or the expanded release schedule.
Spot on! I didn't like Man of Steel and it was a terrible idea to try and introduce team movies after only one solo film which wasn't exactly a smash hit. There should have been Man Of Steel 2, Wonder Woman and maybe Aquaman before Dawn Of Justice was even attempted , but they jumped the gun with a director who, let's face it, can't tell a coherent story.
I really liked Justice League though so I'm hoping that Joss Whedon or Patty Jenkins gets to direct Man Of Steel 2 because the Superman in Justice League is the one I want to see from now on.
They had the plan from the get go, but they went in step by step to not paint themselves into a corner.
Psyclapse at least they managed to build a character platform for Superman during these past 4 years. So yeah he may have some underwhelming moments but he will get better later on. Look at how Captain America was handled.
You're so right it's just rushed I think DC should do what Logan did make badass standalone movies like watchmen instead of this cinematic universe fest.
Producers can't understand that characters are more important than spectacle. The only way a Cinematic universe or a cinematic movie works is CHARACTERS you want to see more of them or other characters with the same goals/development. The best MCU movies don't spend much time on the shared universe they focus on story and character.
Producers can't understand that characters are more important than spectacle. -blame Michael Bay
night breed Why? Such focus on spectacle neither started nor will end with him. Focus on character is such a rare thing in any major film.
Monsterverse
fire Zack Snyder! He doesn't understand Supes even though Supes is way easier to understand than Bruce or Tony. Dude doesn't know shit and makes shit movies! I gave him my money once, I am NOT making this mistake again! I really think the DCEU would have been better if they started with Wonder Woman and kept that director for the rest of the universe. WW was far from perfect but it was better than Snyder's turds! Fire him!!!!
I've just realized that my comment doesn't have much to do with this thread but I don't want to delete it soooooo...
I think announcing a cinematic universe is also trying to get audiences pre-engaged in the series. That makes you tired of wanting to see it before you see. Like you said, Marvel has you invested by the time you realize you are in a cinematic universe. They all want to start at Avengers. I think The Mummy should have started with just a mummy movie, with no connections to a CU world. Just have Cruise show up in the next or 3rd movie. Same with the Amazing Spider-man movies and showing us the villains' weapons. Just surprise us in a 4th movie with all the past villains as the Sinister 6. I think the studios have less patience in seeing these movies than the audience.
Chris Gammon But Homecoming is already a part of a bigger picture. We're talking about starting out. If Homecoming was the 1st movie in a Spider-man cinematic universe then that would be different. Homecoming was movie... 17. The MCU is established.
Right, But still when i heard Universal announced all these great actors would play all these monsters, I was excited. From there you could maybe focus on individual movies with these great actors. But they tried to crossover stuff on their first movie.
Johnny Skinwalker The only ways I can think of doing it is getting us invested slowly or have a central agency out of the gate. Kinda like making SHIELD the main characters in the MCU instead of the glue. A better version of Hugh Jackman's Van Helsing. I guess that's what they were trying to do with The Mummy, but they did it as a mummy movie 1st. Give us secret agency monster cops with superhumans/monsters as the lead cops. But thinking about it... that's just Hellboy.
jinxie712 Good idea, yea. They could have come up with the agency concept right off the bat. I figure they did not do that cause they wanted to keep an air of mystery...? I think they amputed themselves with the Mummy. They figured "the last monster movie franchise that was successful was the Mummy so let's use the Mummy". Nevermind that what made that franchise work was because of Brendan Fraser and the humour. And this new horror franchise would never be this light hearted.
Johnny Skinwalker I wonder if a monster movie version of Mission: Impossible would work. That looks like where it could have headed.
Cinematic universes are the new normal, it's just taking the corporations a looooong time to figure out how to do it. Kevin Feige runs Marvel like a tense TV drama, and other producers haven't done much beyond lean heavily on the public's knowledge and affection for the brands.
The Sean Ward Show Actually a good analogy...Marvel broke out from the pack by introducing subplots similar to what was done in contemporary soap operas of the time. Having a small, tight set of creators encouraged the connectivity in a way DC had never successfully pulled off.
Does make one wonder...when TV as we know it goes away, how TV producers will make good cinematic universes?
edwardvondoom I don't believe in anomalies and neither do most studio execs. We'll doubtlessly see more efforts and eventually more successes when the correct lessons are finally applied.
edwardvondoom Of course there's room. It's a big media landscape. But, as you say, it needs to be built brick by brick with good stand-alone movies. I strongly suspect that, after two false starts in Green Lantern and Man of Steel, the powers-that-be at WB panicked and moved the timetable to its current pace and state of discombobulated.
Your reaction to the Dark Universe was mine. Hell, that was my reaction to the first trailer of this incarnation of The Mummy, blasphemying the Stones in the bargain. It has loser stink on it from jump. But the next crowd outside of the MCU might get it right.
And that is why the TV series "Penny Dreadful" worked so well. It was a modernization of the Universal Monsters dones right. Cause it was in the confine of the concept of a TV series where you have the time to develop the characters over a long period and actually writes something with meat around the bone. And the monsters all being there never felt forced given that it was not only about them but about Eva Green's character's possession by the Devil.
edwardvondoom Marvel movies are beginning to wear out their welcome yet you’re excited all the next 3 Marvel films
I want to know why Hollywood always learns the wrong lesson from successful movies.
Titanic as a smash, so obviously people want to see 3 hr long movies.
Marvel was successful, so obviously people want to see shared universes.
Star Wars was a success, so obviously people want to see space lasers.
Nolan's Batman was a success, so obviously people want their superheros to be dark and moody.
Are they really so inept that they genuinely don't notice the difference between what makes something good and a gimmick? Are they so lazy/cheap that they think the gimmick is just as effective? (That also implies they think it takes more work to make a good movie--I don't believe that.)
dMb deadpool was a succes, so obviously people want rated R superheroes, comedy, and cursing.
dMb I have a theory that Hollywood, or most of it, hates story structure and would rather film 2 hrs advertisements for even more 2 hrs advertisements.
dMb Even comic book companies made this mistake in the 80s and 90s. After Watchmen and Batman The Dark Knight Returns were successful, many companies (mainly Image Comics) thought they should make their comics darker with lots of violence and other R-rated content and their heroes more anti-heroic. Many thought that the success came from the mature content, not the storytelling which made Watchmen and Batman TDKR critically acclaimed in the first place. The result, The Great Comic Books Crash of 1996. This is exactly what happening with cinematic universes. Execs miss out on what made the successful work successful in the first place.
@Imaad Shahrukh when marvel first started out their comic business, the same thing DC is doing now happened then. NerdSync has a video on that that goes further
Because people tend to forget that 'Hollywood' and 'studio heads' are made up of jobs, mostly corporate jobs. Like any corporate job, individuals don't get to do what he or she wants most of the time even if it's beneficial to the company and business. Execution is a completely different beast.
Characters first, Cinematic Universe second. Both Universal and WB made the same mistake: they rushed it and tried to force a shared universe before anyone could get invested in the characters inahbiting it. Worse, they did that poorly in the bargain and their attempts were either highly polarizing (MoS, BvS) with a sharp drop-off after release or simply tanked (The Mummy).
Even Legendary's MonsterVerse is doing better.
The biggest shame about Warner Brothers and DC is that they could have easily have the ones to create a Superhero Cinematic Universe first considering they have all the film rights to the characters
Immortal Rimas yeah, but they need to focus on making good movies instead of starting an universe. Iron Man only set the universe with the stinger at the end, the rest is a stand alone movie, while DC movies seem to be more interested to wink at characters that will get movies or will get in the justice league than tell an actual story
Olivia Williams yeah I agree they should focused on their first film and other standalone films with only a big reference scene @ the end or end of the credits especially taking their time setting up the first Justice League Film. DC and Warner Brothers could have started the slow burn as far back as 1999 and beat Marvel and Disney to the punch but no matter who got their first Warner should have taken their time with establishing a DC Cinematic Universe
WB doesn't care or like superheroes
I would actually say that MoS is actually a self contained movie. It's just not a very good movie like Iron-man was. BvS is where they tried to cram an entire universe in at once.
its sad that they ruined a good thing. the justice league cartoon has been on cable tv for what 15 years so it has a built in audience. too bad WB film studios decided they needed to do diversity casting and ruin what was expected from the characters that has been around since the 1960s in comic book form. if you wanna blame somebody blame zack snyder and the WB suits.
there is some basic rules for DC characters: 1) batman doesn't use guns 2) superman doesn't kill. DCEU broke those rules and now nobody is buying tickets.....its the studios fault.
The way to make a "Dark Universe" is to basically turn it into "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure" and base it around the Van Helsing family going through the ages and battling iconic Universal Monsters. That way you can get: Monster Movie Enthusiasts, Connected Universe Enthusiasts and the General Audience in the seats.
Heck, you could even basically make it Hellsing! Have the first movie be Van Helsing beat Dracula, but not kill him. Then make it the Hellsing storyline with the Van Helsing Family using Alucard (Dracula under their control using arcane powers) to battle other Monsters and connect those to Millenium, leading into the Hellsing Manga storyline! You get a 1-2 Whammy with that!
The most HILARIOUS conclusion is that it shows you how out-of-touch these decrepit thinking movie executives are! I mean something so EASY as a cinematic universe comes across very difficult for them because they can't seem to get away from rushing everything. Chasing only money, instead of slow cooking it. Any old school comic book fan knows how to properly create one. Marvel is the ONLY company that listened to us. And in return, we support them fully and continue to make them successful. If you take the name brand heroes out of Marvel movies, they are STILL good movies.
Wis Dom this
Focus groups and checklists.
A five year old could have told these Hollywood executives this. Yet they still made these stupid mistakes. Universal and WB, just make a good first film, an outline for future films and let flow naturally. That's all you really have to do.
JT Westvold Too bad they didn't have any five year-olds to advise them.
dc, not wb.
wb has two very good universes. its their wb-dc division if you can call it that that isnt doing well. that was supposed to be their third universe. the problem is that the execs kept messing with snyders vision. snyder was supposed to be the feige of dc, now we will never know if it was truly good or doomed from the start.
to be fair i didnt really like a lot of snyders film, but i definitely would have given him a chance. he had a really complex evil superman, darkseid superman team up, flashpoint multiple universe time travel paradox storyline, and joker lex luther team up that we will never see since alot of his ideas were shot down and edited in post. each movie was cut at least an hour off. theres still footage in bvs, suicide squad, and justice league that we've never seen to this day.
I did not get way too excited by Nick Fury's monologue at the end of Iron-Man, eventhough it was a big deal. But after the end credit scene of The Incredible Hulk, I remember myself almost screaming "they're doing it... the heroes will actually Team-Up, like in the comics!"
What a magic, glorious moment that was!
John Alertas weird. I was just like meh and didn't give it .uch thought cause it wasn't unusual to me.
Comci book characters always existed in an extended universe
Because they built their way up to that. They didn't try to cram it down people's throats like the other studios did. They took the time to make sure people were fully invested over the course of a few well done world-building films before the concept of a "shared universe" was even brought to the light. The Avengers was a complete surprise. That's part of the reason it blew everyone away. They took their time and made sure ALL the proper groundwork was laid down first. They had someone who understood both movies and comics to run the entire operation. The executives stayed away from it, remained patient, and trusted the long term direction of the superhero movie experts, and gave the man in charge FULL AUTONOMY!!!!!!!!!!! That means they didn't interfere with his decisions because they understood their lane. The Disney execs knew that they didn't know anything about superhero movies so they put someone in charge who did and fully supported and trusted him, right or wrong. And he in turn made sure that the directors he picked made sure that the movies were good enough to hold up on their own whether they were in a connected universe or not. They made sure ALL the characters were established first, then you combine them in a big team up movie. The executives allowed the creative people to do their thing with no interference and now the box office and the toy department of every retail store belongs to Disney. And as a result, now Disney might as well have its own special section at the Federal Reserve. It's like a small percentage of all the money that's printed every year is exclusively for Disney.
The worst part for WB is that they already did a DC film shared universe: The DC Animated Universe with Bruce Timm as producer. Starting with Batman: The Animated Series under Bruce Timm's direction, a DC superhero shared universe was done to perfection and DC should have followed that example ever since.
kchishol1970 that's true. A Superman series. A Batman series. World's finest. And then justice league. They kinda tried that but did the flaw with marvel by making it a fight.
You'd think Universal would be better at this considering they had a monster cinematic universe (of sorts) in 40s and 50s
Just before I watch this video I feel that the most obvious answer is that these other studios are desperate to capture lightning in a bottle as Marvel did and are rushing their stuff out in an attempt to play catch up. This is nothing new in Hollywood though. They see something that works and so they try to emulate it's success by repeating the formula. But they don't fully comprehend WHY the formula worked in the first place. They just see "cinematic universe" coupled with high budget effects and assume that's the key. They don't consider other key factors that contributed (charming cast of characters/actors, staying true to those characters and the source material, etc). The Dark Universe idea, which no one even asked for, was probably the saddest attempt so far. DC is the runner up as they should have taken their time and released individual movies that helped establish the characters on their own, giving the audience time to care about them and expand on the world building. But at least we got Wonder Woman. That's the plus side from the DCU.
Alex 7 WW was asked for but was bland and boring. I prefer to watch Aliens or Timber Raider. I'd even watch Red Sonja over WW Gal Gadot won't be WW after JL2 she's already caused too much drama backstage.
ThisIsTheEndPt2 Where did you hear this? This is news
With an overwhelming amount of moving parts, only a studio with a daring , original and rock solid plan could even hope to be mildly successful.
I want to watch a documentary about the making of the MCU!
tornay131 We know It's coming. The only question is when. In the meantime, might I suggest you watch Rise And Fall of the Comic Empire here on UA-cam? It touches on some of this but it's a fascinating overview of how the comic industry got weak enough to be exploited by folks like Disney in the first place.
Johnathon Haney Fantastic recommendation. Thanks a lot!
J Victor I live to serve.
That is probably a key part to it. You shouldn't start with the mindset of setting up a shared universe. Or at least you shouldn't shove the idea of one down the throats of people who aren't invested yet. Make a great movie first that can stand up on its own if need be. If that works out then sure keep building on that.
Phase 1 was good on that front. Sure there were ties to Shield in a few movies, and Fury appeared in a few films, but they were movies focused on their main character first. Even Captain America made sure to spend 95% of the movie in the WW2 time period.
I agree the Avengers worked in part because people didn't see it coming. And on that front it worked because it was the first time for it. Getting all these superheroes in a live action movie where their solo movies were already established felt fresh.
Sadly I expect most people in Hollywood to misunderstand why their films are failing. They are likely to think "only Marvel can really make this work, we're out." That isn't it.
The Mummy should have been stand alone, don't throw in any other classic monster characters. Also, pick a tone, horror or comedy.
You mean train wreck isn't a tone?
+HBHaga Nope, who would have guessed?
I prefer horror if you ask me.
+Chris Brasel I'd like comedy because of the Brendan Frasier ones.
Well that's fine as the comdey in the new mummy reboot failed because the film didn't know what tone it wanted to be.
These other studios don't earn it. They instantly shove it in our faces that it's a shared universe of all these characters before giving us a reason to care about any of them, let alone be excited to see them all together. They also don't do anything original or unique. The Mummy seemed like it was trying to be a blockbuster super hero movie. If I watch a mummy or vampire movie I want them to be horror. If I want to see a superhero movie I'll actually go see a superhero movie. The Mummy didn't work in either catagory.
Marvels felt like a genuine plan and it was done well. They also had great characters a built in fan base and like 70 years of stories to work with.
Dark universe is a who cares idea.
DC universe feels like a rushed mess desperately trying to chase Marvel. They hired a hack director who should never be in charge of a story more complex than 300.
The dark Universe failed cause they announced their shared universe before the release of the mummy, and went on to BRAG about them being the first to have had the Cinematic Universe with their 40s and 50s monsters. The DCEU failed cause it seemed rushed, shoe horning characters before their own stand alone movies and some of the forced movies did not live up much to the hype. DCEU should have gone with MOS 2, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg, a refurbished Green Lantern, The Batman stand alone film and if they released 2 of each in a year like example 1 during summer and the other during Fall or Xmas period , it would have taken just 4 years...and thats 2014-2018, it would have worked and they would at least grounded their characters to a wider non comicbook fan audience and things would have been a bit better. The Ghostbuster Franchise was doomed even before they started filming cause they decided to reboot with an all female squad leads which fans didnt like from the get go. So the succesful Cinematic unviverses that did right (so far) are the MCU, The Conjuring Universe, The Potter/Fantastic Beasts Universe....However these others are possible to succeed if done right are the Fast& Furious Universe, The KongZilla Monsterverse.
On a side note WB could hit the jackpot if they did the Mortal Kombat Universe ....(If they do not rush and shoe horn characters)
As for Sony's Spiderverse...we will still have to wait and see
And the X-men universe....we also still have to wait and see where they go next if they are gonna tie in Deadpool (R-rated) with the X-Men (PG 13)
monsterverse is already in the works. this means wb has three universe. marvel has 2 technically, with number 3 basically being their disney princessverse (that they downright refuse to actually show any thing of except of random cameos). wb could have had a good fourth universe with the dceu, but that didnt do so well.
xmen already is a universe though. thats what ppl usually dont say. the wolverine movies have characters that dont show up in the normal xmen, the old xmen and new xmen were together in days of future past, and deadpool showed up with the other 2 xmen. they couldnt afford the rest of the cast, as deadpool said in the film.
i feel bad for the spiderverse. i wanted to see a good venom. i also liked rhino, the old andrew garfield spidey, and gwen.
The really sad thing about the Ghostbuster Franchise is that they could have gotten away with all-female leads if they hadn't done it on top of attempting a reboot (with an occasionally aggressively UNfunny script)--I mean, it's been decades. Go with it being a sequel that just happens to have a long timeskip and be about the original team's successors--lead by one of their daughters, who had to grab not-yet-moved-away-nor-employed friends because whoops no time to properly recruit. That could probably give you more than a few jokes alone.
They keep hiring TERRIBLE writers and meh directors with no vision.
Gallen Dugall facts
Gallen Dugall like Transformers.
Bay has a vision for his films. It's a juvenile and shallow vision, but it is a vision. It's a vision of 'SPLOSIONS!
Agreed and the worst part of the new kong film was the writting as most of the characters are forgettable expect for John C relly and Samuel L Jackson which these two are easily one of the best parts of the reboot.
FINALLY! I kept telling myself "why can't these HIGH PAYING executives to hire a competent writers and director?"
I love the idea of creating a cinematic universe, the problem is if a film is released that is supposed to be tied in and it sucks, it makes the "universe" worse by extension. This is why I don't care if Justice League is good or not. Suicide Squad and BvS suck, and by extension, Justice League is part of a sucky EU.
If however, they just said that the previous movies didn't happen in the continuity of the newer movies they make from this point on, they could sorta save the DCEU over time, but at this point I don't trust them, it's going to take many more steps in the "right direction" before I start caring about the DCEU.
As for the Dark Universe of Universal and ANY *EU* for that matter, they need to create an artistic vision for the setting and characters, as well as tone and mood, AND make a good monster movie using said setting/characters with great dialogue and narration, or they can't expect people to care. I may be an amateur film maker, but I would love to work on a Monster EU, but ultimately, if they want to do an EU, they need to focus on *good stand alone films* that share the same same setting, before we can as an audience demand more of it, especially more of the same characters in other films.
Great video, thanks for bringing this up.
Any larger plan is doomed if one or more critical, starting films are bad. DC CU would be fine if they chose the right people like they did with Wonder Woman.
It’s because studios have misunderstood the term cinematic universe
PeterZeeke This mistake was the same one comic book companies made in the late 80s and early 90s when making superheroes darker, edgier and more mature to cash in on Watchmen. Many failed to understand what made Watchmen work in the first place and this resulted in the comics crash of 1996. The cinematic universe idea does not work for many because most executives failed to understand what made the MCU work in the first place.
Because the MCU took its time and is carefully planed. The MCU marketing is also brutal. MCU knows how to build hype. MCU movies are generally good and entertaining and don't take themselves too seriously.
Because they all rush it, they don't have one clear mastermind (or show runner) with a working plan to keep everything together and some of the properties aren't really made for an overreaching universe.
The answer is; Patience and Planning. Two things most in Hollywood do not possess.
This has to be the best way of explaining the shared universe I ever seen! My hat is off to you sir, great job! 👏🏽
DC Big Oso YAH High praise there, thank you!
Midnight's Edge It's praise that is well deserved my friend, keep doing what you are doing. 👍🏽
The problem I see frequently in these failed projects is that they fail to make that individual film. They are too wound up in setting up future films and the world itself. They forget that we need a hook into it.
Kevin Feige, the MCU has a singular vision that keeps the consistency and hire "useful" directors to give each film a fresh feel. These other universes are built by committee which is why the filmsare so bloated.
Yup, and we can see even Star Wars isn't immune to this as their directorial direction seems to be floundering a bit because they seemed to only chase down "hot and trending" directors with mixed results (Lord and Miller, JJ Abrams, Edwards, Treverrow). Original trilogy didn't need the same director on all 3 movies, but it helped to have one vision (ie. Lucas) to connect them all. That seems to be the lesson modern movies have forgotten in their pursuit of focus groups, trend tracking, and market research.
The only common thread in all of the new SW is Kennedy so, maybe she needs to reevaluate her role in all of this as well.
mcu films arent by committee its basically the same concept. you cant detract from feiges vision or you get burned- whedon and edgar wright.
The only other Universe doing this right is the Kong/Godzilla Monsterverse.
Miken Ayers I agree
Yeah, I wonder why they didn't mentioned it
El Ochentero It’s one of the more subtle ones:
I thought both Godzilla and Kong Island sucked, personally
Johnny Skinwalker cool comment
Conjuring is sequels and spin offs. Not a planned cinematic universe.
Dularr The Conjuring is the main overarching franchise, and the Annabelle spinoff launched a separate franchise, which connects to the main one, and even teases the Nun, which was featured in The Conjuring 2 and will get a separate sequel - which also may spawn a separate franchise. So you have several interconnected franchises that share the same continuity. How is it not a cinematic universe?
That is why I feel it's in the sequel and spin off category. Now for a lower budget shared universe, M. Night pulled off with Unbreakable and Split leading to Glass.
Dularr the trailers even refer to it as "The Conjuring Universe"
Well of course. Cinematic Universes are all the rage. Everyone wants one, marketing loves them.
I feel like the Conjuring became a "shared universe" more by fumbling their way into it whereas the MCU had a plan set. I think other franchises could easily pull off what the Conjuring did, but no one, except Disney's Star Wars franchise, can pull off the MCU.
The core dynamic needed is a rabid fanbase. The Universal Monsters, Godzilla/King Kong, King Arthur.... all these have fans, but not Trekkie levels and not in those numbers. A "cinematic universe" will only truly work with a property, like comics and Star Wars, where the fans are clamoring for any new material. The fact that the bulk of SW fans will read the books and play the games and buy the toys means they will eat up a collection of inter-related films that are not direct sequels per se, but rather inter-connecting paths.
The trick is to make people believe that they are in on a secret. In Rogue One, nearly every audience member recognized R2 and 3PO, the original Rogue Squadron members and all that other shit, but each person wants to think they are the only ones who truly knew. That's why they clap and make noises- to let everyone else know "I KNOW WHAT THAT IS!"
Beyond comics and SW/ST, there are very few properties with that level of dedication and fanaticism.
The Dark Universe wasn't the problem. Hiring that hack writer Alex Kurtzman, who ruined Star Trek and Transformers, was the problem.
BShinkicker That makes the fallacious assumption that he is the only hack writer in Hollywood. There are multiple ways to fuck up a script.
Plus Tom Cruise ruined it just like he did Stanley Kubrick's last film Eyes Wide Shut.
cinematic universes can work jsut have to be done right. the hollywood execs didn't fully study why Marvel pulled it of.
It's simple and Midnight's Edge answered it already.
Marvel's first wave of movies are (for the most part) all stand-alone movies that work as just movies. They aren't packed full of "wait till nexttime" sequel bait meant to prime a cinematic universe.
No one else, not universal, not warner bros, not sony, are willing to do this. The closest we get is Fox and the X-Men movies.
Charles Slaton Interestingly, though, the later MCU films borrowed a practice from the classic James Bond films and state such and such will return here. In terms of cultural zeitgeist, Marvel films and superhero films in general have become the equivalent of the old Bond films.
With later MCU films Marvel can afford that. They have trust of people now.
They believe in their movies, they invest in their characters, they know that when they write "Doctor Strange will return..." or "Spider-Man will return", people will be glad to come to see these sequels, because the characters were great and people liked them and their stories.
That's why most Marvel villains are weak and uninteresting - the hero is the one who must be cool and great, villain is just a tool to make the hero likeable and you to root for the hero.
Mike Dasik Which again follows the Bond formula. By and large, all his villains were just as disposable (Blofeld and Jaws being the sole major exceptions). By the late 1960s is when you saw the same "will return" promises at the end of the credits. It's a remarkable thing to consider...someone should write a more in-depth comparison.
I don't know Bond universe much (I've seen only Pierce Brosnan movies), but this idea seems very interesting. :D
Mike Dasik I'm of that generation that watched the Sean Connery and Roger Moore James Bond films every summer on TV (TBS and ABC usually) to fill the airtime in the pre-HBO original series era. That's how come I know a lot of this stuff.
As many here have commented, Marvel set out to make a good movie first, then build the connective tissue using very small scenes, often as post credit bits, which in those days, were easily missed. Iron Man and Incredible Hulk were stand alone movies. Incredible Hulk mentioned SHIELD, and then had Tony show up at the end, creating that first connection. The Avengers was just a thing that got mentioned after that, as sort of a tease, not the whole point of the films.
It's also important to point out that Marvel wasn't afraid to adjust their plan as they went. Thor: The Dark World didn't work super great, and this lead to them looking at what they were doing, and adjusting their plans. Some planned films got dropped when they couldn't find a way to make them work the way they needed to, and the whole MCU was, and probably still is, in a constant state of flux, with plans and goals being adjusted on the fly.
This is the second half of the equation other studio execs don't get. You can't lay out a road map that you are going to stick to no matter what. You have to be prepared to change and adapt, rearrange, and abandon any part of it that isn't working at any given point in time. Actors decide not to return, as Hugo Weaving did, forcing them to reshuffle their plans for Red Skull's place in the larger narrative, or their availability changes, forcing a movie to be delayed, and that part of the bigger story has to change as well.
Marvel just looks like they had it all planned from the start. They didn't. They were able to adapt, and were ready to let the whole MCU die if it wasn't working. They basically faked it till they made it, because they could adapt to changes as they arose, instead of being married to a single plan that was flawed from the start.
Gotta be nimble these days if you want to build a better box office guys. Make a good movie first, worry about the connective tissue second, and be damn ready to abandon any part of it at the drop of a hat. It's not so much a road map as it is a guide book. That's the spot they really messed up.
For instance, DC should have added a tiny post credit scene of Bruce Wayne watching news footage about Superman, calling Alfred over, and saying, "Everything just changed." That's it. That's all it would have taken. Then move on to the next movie and don't worry about paying that off right away. Marvel didn't pay off anything right away. Hell, it took ten years to pay off some of what they started in Iron Man.
Honestly, I don't get how these guys are in charge of multimllion studios when they can't even grasp simple stuff like this. It's basic series writing.
First rule to make a cinematic universe. Make sure the movies can stand on their own. Let the characters breathe and develop by their own. Be sure that Audiences are hooked and THEN you can connect them by little details. Is surprising, more in the DC part, because, DC and WB made a successful shared universe before. The Bruce Timm/Paul Dini Animated universe. Maybe that's another key to success. Make sure you have a producer with vision and passion in the project that can make all work.
Another tip to make ... well ... to make anything exciting. Just make it gradually epic. Start small then go bigger & bigger. Marvel knew that and the result is a way up in epicness through the individual heroe movies 'till the final blow up in Avengers.
To the MonsterVerse's (Godzilla and King Kong) defense, the producer Thomas Tull has been wanting to do this for over a decade. He became a film producer and founded Legendary Pictures with the eventual goal of doing a Godzilla vs Kong remake.
TVJUNK85 s
They rushed it, unlike Marvel.
10:30 oh i still remember when my aunt called me screaming "Iron man appears at the end of hulk, they are gonna do the avengers!"
I am here to announce this new Commentmatic Universe. Now that you are invested...... what?.... that's not how it works?.... you mean people get turned off and tune out when they hear about a shared universe before getting invested in the story?...... shhhhh..... don't tell Sony and maybe they will let Marvel keep Spider-Man.
I remember Avengers getting announced after Iron Man became a huge hit, at the time it seemed completely insane to announce a bunch of upcoming movies about B-tier superheroes ending with a big crossover movie, in hindsight they were lucky that Thor turned out so well. Also, I'm positive that at least a few of these cinematic universe announcements weren't real, as if people would rush to see the movies now if they pretended to have a big timeline of movies coming later.
The thing is that Iron Man is an actually, honest to God, good standalone movie, that gets people invested in the characters. If they had only released The Incredible Hulk that year the MCU wouldn't be what it is today. The quality of that first movie is, in my opinion, what made people keep watching Marvel despite the rest of Phase 1 being very mediocre (Thor, Captain America) and the rest of the bland MCU. And that's what the other attemps lack: you need to make a very good, self contained story that entertains people without leaving a bad taste of cynicism in their mouths
I like Captain America a lot. Both Hulk movies (Ang Lee and MCU) .. unwatchable boring. I wish it weren't so.
The first Captain America was good. The Winter Soldier, on the other hand, was better than the Avengers. The Iron Man sequels were not at the same level as the first movie.
The first Captain America is okay in the first act, before he becomes the actual Captain America, then the movie just becomes generic action/war movie. I understand why people love Winter Soldier, but I don't share as much enthusiasm (altough I would agree it's better than the Avengers). I can enjoy (most) Marvel movies when watching them for the first time, but I don't have them in very high regard and don't feel the need to rewatch them.
Heitor Mello That about sums up the first Captain America movie. I don’t care much for the Thor movies; the first one was kind of entertaining but nothing special.
I thought Civil War was also better than both Avengers movies. Maybe not as good as Winter Soldier. That last Spider-Man was a mess.
I honestly didn't care for Civil War, I thought the plot was a mess. It's entertaining in a superficial level, but thinking about it just made it worse for me. I enjoyed Homecoming for what it was, but then again, I'm a big spider-man fan and after the last 3 sony movies movies anything is a breath of fresh air.
Because Marvel plans ahead
So do all these other studios. I find it hard to comprehend how none of the 17 movies Marvel made failed? That's a crazy success streak.
Sean Wheeler Perhaps a rephrase...Marvel plans ahead by making a film work both as puzzle piece AND a stand-alone film. The failures of others is that they lean too hard towards the former.
Both Man of Steel and Wonder Woman are great standalone movies. In fact, Warner Bros actually made sure that Man of Steel made a decent amount of money before they went on with the DCEU.
Sean Wheeler I can buy that last. In fact, it was when I heard about Batman V Superman that I knew they were getting away from what made things work in the first place.
At least a DC shared cinematic universe would be what comic book fans want. DC fans, including myself, are disagreeing with the critics. Yep, the DCEU has it's own fanbase. And I think the shared universe should be able to work better for DC because Warner Bros has every character DC created to use, unlike Marvel Studios where half of the Marvel universe was off limits because of Fox, Sony, Universal and other studios that had Marvel characters when the MCU started.
They probably tried to do bride of Frankenstein because there have been too many Frankenstein films made over the last couple of years
Yeah, that probably is the reason. I think Universal would have been better off using a different character. Perhaps the Creature from the Black Lagoon, or maybe even a completely new original monster. It certainly would have allowed them more creative freedom.
You have it exactly right. I’ve never read a comic book and before the MCU only watched superhero movies because other friends wanted to. But I loved Iron Man and saw Avengers because I wanted to follow his narrative. It wasn’t until much later that I went back and saw the other stand-alone movies. And it’s because many of them have compelling stories of their own with strong writing and characters that are true to themselves even when in the hands of different writers and directors that Marvel has won me over. I’m a fan now because of the quality, not because of a shared universe gimmick.
Answer: Because they put the potential of a universe and the monetary worth over producing good films. Audiences want good stories > universes.
I think you nailed this perfectly Andre. This video sums up the entire issue completely well. This answered all the questions people may have.
I honestly think they should try and do actual horror films with them. Bride of Frankenstein is BEGGING for a Guillermo DelToro treatment.
Rue Ryuzaki so good! I would see that!
The Monster-verse has been succesful, probably because they didn't rush the production, the 2014 Godzilla film was in development from 2007, and there was a three year gap between Godzilla and Kong: Skull Island. The next film isn't for two more years.
How did they expect to create a ghostbusters cinematic universe anyway? I saw a signal for a sequel but a UNIVERSE? Universal monsters I get - there are many to choose from and connect. Same with giant monsters like Kong and Godzilla. Even King Aurthur I get even though it's a terrible idea. But who else besides ghostbusters would have been in this so-called ghostbusters universe? Makes no sense.
True, even in a shared universe there has to be some variety from one movie to the next, they can't all be about the same thing. When I was a kid I always wanted to see a Ghostbusters vs Beetlejuice movie, but the closest we got was Dan Ackroyd's cameo in the Casper movie.
that was a great cameo. Him and Father Guido. But yeah, without any variety, it's not a universe, it's just a series of sequels. As far as I could tell, Ghostbusters 2016 wasn't setting up any expanding universe possiblities the way The Mummy, Skull Island, Batman V Superman or Amazing Spider-Man did.
To me, THe Avengers was one of the only real 'comic book' movies. It really played and felt like a comic book, most other movies up to that point were trying to be "Cinematic versions" of the characters and costumes, etc. Some of the scenes in The Avengers looked like comic panels.
Scott The Artist exactly.. instead of scoffing at the source material or looking down at fans. Marvel embraces the comic book feel for their fans
No matter what the storytelling tool being used is, if it's used successfully and makes bank then other studios will try to mimic it, usually unsuccessfully, until a new fad comes along for them to imitate in their ham fisted pursuit of profits
LEGO MOTEL ... Absolutly! Remember when the star wars prequels came out, you started to see so many other prequel projects. They also started coming out with movies that were the first in trilogies, only to find they didn't have enough story to fill one movie. Same old story here too!
I think that WB and Legendary have done a surprisingly good job at building their Monsterverse. They didn't announce, or probably even plan, that Godzilla 2014 would be the start of a cinematic universe. It wasn't until after they released it to decent reception that they said, "Hey, we're also doing a King Kong reboot. What if we tie them together so we can do a crossover, like the old King Kong vs. Godzilla?" And even then, they didn't announce a million movies. Just that the Kong reboot we already knew was coming would be part of the same universe, that the Godzilla sequel everyone assumed was happening was happening, and that there would be a crossover. The DCEU and Dark Universe strategy would've been to announce, "And we're also gonna do Gamera, and the Cloverfield monster's gonna be there, and then Ultraman, Gypsy Danger, Voltron, and the Megazord are gonna team up to fight them! And then in phase 2..."
Most importantly, the movies themselves have just focused on being solid standalone giant monster movies. Godzilla 2014 and Kong: Skull Island aren't perfect, but they're still reasonably enjoyable, and whatever flaws they have aren't caused by the movie coming to a screeching halt halfway through to show the audience advertisements for future movies-- I mean, do some worldbuilding. Outside of the Monarch connection and Kong's post-credits teaser, the two movies are basically completely standalone. Instead of repeatedly telling the viewer how awesome it would be to see Godzilla and Kong punch each other, they just made Godzilla and Kong punching things look awesome and let the viewers think about how awesome it would be if the things they were punching were each other.
funny thing is del toro could actually make his own universe with all the pacific rim robots and the aliens precursors.. and hopefully they fight clover.
Because most Studios that are trying to catch-up with Marvel Studios, are rushing without a good plan and as a result they make lousy movies.
Marvel Studios, with the help of Kevin Feige, has been doing this for 10 years now.
Van Helsing was a cinematic universe team-up without the need of a cinematic universe! 😂😂😂
I think the king Kong and Godzilla universe will work. The made some good movies and like you said, only after the movie paid off did they announce they were connected and hinted at future movies.
Plus, Godzilla movies were always connected in the first place.
it is working basically. they already planned movies where they fight.
which will be great!
I still remember being 15 in '08 when _Iron Man_ first came out, we had all thought it was just another usual Marvel movie, but one that did exceed expectations thanks to the passion that was put into the film, along with Downey's performance, at the time me and my Pops had seen it as Downey's "phoenix moment" as an actor, but when it hinted at an Avengers film, it was a huge surprise even to me, this was before I had ever heard the term "cinematic universe", and so when I had seen _The Avengers_ four years later, it felt like those four years of investment was worth it, and it had left me super-excited for more MCU movies. It still amazes me, to think that it has now been ten years since the MCU had started, and it is still going strong, especially now that _Avengers 3_ has come out and blew up the entire world. If you had met me in '08 when I was 15 and told me that _Iron Man_ would be launching a massively successful Marvel Cinematic Universe that would last for the next ten years to come, I'd probably have never believed you, and yet here we are now.
The Godzilla shared universe seems to be doing well though.
If anyone plans on making a cinematic universe based on existing properties. Let's use a hypothetical "Super Smash Bros" Universe as an example. Don't just make each movie puzzle pieces for a Smash Bros movie. Make a good Mario movie, Make a good Zelda movie, Make a good Metroid movie, focus on the main character's stories and add the connections later into the production, don't focus on the connections first off.
People are over reboots. The Universal Monsters are classic for a reason. They need to ADD to the universe, build on it. The way Monster Squad did. These reboot can't take the concept too serious...
They should try making some NEW monsters, as there must be some horror novels that have never been adapted into movies. I also wish they would treat them as continuations of the old 1930s movies. Make a shared universe that simply picks up from where the classic films stopped. If Star Trek, Star Wars, and Doctor Who can do this, why not Universal Monsters?
Cinematic universes that aren't Marvel so often fail because they try to make the universe in 3 movies or less. Marvel knew that something of that scope would take years. So they built a 10 year plan and started to interconnect them. Other attempts try to get to that same stage in 3 films or less. They are so worried about the NEXT movie in the chain that they forget about the movie they're currently screening. Even movies that are looking to make simple trilogies are now too often guilty of this. They are so busy setting up the next film that they completely forget to do anything with the preceding film. The plot is muddled. The scenes are scattered and all over the place. They try to shove too much too fast. It's not organic.
DC for example, could've easily made a very successful DCEU if they had just taken their time to do so, following Marvel's plan of 10 year slates. Start a narrative. Introduce characters. Introduce plots. Interconnect everything. Allow it to grow organically. For example, a Justice League movie should've been the 5th or 6th film in the first slate. A Superman movie to kick it off. A Batman movie to follow it up. A WW movie next. A GL movie (or another Supes/Batman). A Flash movie (or another Supes/Batman). And THEN a team up movie. That movie could also introduce other characters in it that will soon have their own solo outings (like Aquaman). Then on to the second slate. This way they have people roped in for the long haul. Like Marvel managed to do.
The Dark Universe could've worked too, but like the rest, they are trying to make a full universe in 3 movies or less.
They have a brilliant array of characters to use and the universe is one that people would LOVE to see unfold. But it has to be done right. Dracula Untold wasn't a smash success, but it laid a groundwork that could be used. Follow it up with a Frankenstein film. This ties the first two together. Then drop a Wolfman movie. Then a Mummy movie. Then another Dracula movie that maybe has another character in a smaller role, but more than a few lines. Then a team up/mash up film. Then on to slate two. The Creature, The Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll. And so on. Again, this universe could work if done right and if they are ready to commit to a long haul and not just a few films and BAM universe. That's not how that works.
I think that might be the first thing I've heard Amy Pascal say that isn't complete rubbish.
5:00
Hammer wasn’t licensed by Universal. In fact, Universal tried to shut them down but couldn’t convince the British court that there was enough overlap.
The only Universal Monster created specifically for that franchise was the final one- The Creature From the Black Lagoon. The closest Hammer came to remaking it was The Reptile.
By the time Horror of Dracula was released (1958), the copyright on Bram Stoker’s novel had expired. In fact, most film historians agree that Tod Browning’s Dracula is more of an adaptation of the stage play than the original novel, and Hammer was allowed to release in America after the Hayes Code expired.
Hunchback of Notre Dame, Phantom of the Opera, and Frankenstein were all Public Domain by this point as well. They even supplemented with other public domain stories (the Karnstein trilogy and references to it are straight from Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla).
Hammer was allowed to make their own adaptations on the merit they were closer to the original and didn’t use any imagery that wasn’t found in it. Dracula’s cape was in the book, the bolts on Frankenstein’s monster were not, which is why the former appears in all the sequels but the latter only appears once. Seriously, the only character to recur in Hammer’s Frankenstein movies is Peter Cushing’s Baron.
While I appreciate the work you do, at least try to do your horror homework before talking about beloved monster movies. While Hammer has a niche audience, that audience can be feral.
Pressed play, heard Andre's voice, pressed pause, danced a happy dance, pressed play, not disappointed!!
rushaholic I felt a little ping of happiness when I heard him say the word “Frankenstein”. Dunno why. 😆
The accent and proper pronunciation are killer. It's like hearing someone properly say "Notre Dame" instead of "no-terr day-me."
And of course, because Andre is Andre, and Andre is just awesome.
(Smiles) man's already the heart and soul of this channel, while the collaboration of his partners adds to the discussions held here on a weekly basis!
OMG yas. Anyone else in love with their theme song playing in the background. It's addictive
Spot on. I think some of these announcements are made mainly to please shareholders rather than to appeal to fans. But in an age of the Internet, how to talk to fans and shareholders at the same time?
Whenever I see a pic or vid of Amy Pascal, I get the sensation of garlic and farts permeating through my screen.
You hit the nail on the head.
"You can't create demand where there isn't any."
Why did the monsterverse only get a passing mention? Godzilla 2014 and Skull Island have been sucesses in their own right. I look forward to Godzilla vs King Kong in 2020.
As always André, spot on mate!
Here a great tweet i found on twitter.
"Evertone wana make their own cinematic universe, but nobody wanna make Iron man"
As a fan of the Universal Monsters, I do agree that Universal should not try to make 4 quadrant, action-horror movies, out of the monsters. However I don't think they should make them into gothic period pieces. If you look at the films, they were sort of a hodgepodge of Victorian gothic, but also modern times, and that should be the goal of bringing them into the modern era. Outside of that great video.
They need to make them horror.
But I think these monsters are a better fit set in Victorian Era, Maybe cause they were created around that time...?
Johnny Skinwalker true and I heard that some of the films for The Dark Universe would take place in the past like Frankenstein, Bride Of Frankenstein, and The Wolf Man to have them lead up into modern times.
stainshield - that is what they should do.
Kevin Smith created the connected universe a decade before Marvel
This is true
Tarantino's universe is as well
H.P. Lovecraft created the expanded universe storytelling format before anyone else.
Greek mythology
The Marvel Universe started in 1966. How old is Kevin Smith?
The most important aspect to building an interconnected cinematic universe is to HAVE an interconnected universe you can tap.
A lot of people forget that Marvel started the type of universe building they're famous for way back when that phoenix shape appeared in X2. Back when mutants were still part of it(sort of).
Marvel HAS a massive universe that is being adapted--we really haven't yet touched anything new. Every one of these movies has been leading up to the Infinity War. It's, as noted, chapters that can be read to get to the next story--and NEXT is important.
Because the word isn't 'chapters'--it's 'issues'. Each movie IS a few comic books--a comic book story arc. The post credits scenes are the last page--the one that sets up the next issue
DC is not doing as well because they're not really getting this--even though they have it too. They're trying to make interconnected movies--movies with sequels, instead of issues. And it shows. Worse, you can see, in the movies, their frustration that it's not working.
They try to ape the Marvel films. And it shows as bad as Superman's mouth.
You can't just announce a universe, you've gotta plant a seed and hope it grows.
So funny no one talks about the TOHO shared universe. Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, ect? Those guys? They been sharing universes and still around, going strong 50 years later.
No respect.
Son of Frankenstein (1939) is quite good (if you ignore the squeaky kid) it has Lugosi's last great role as Ygor, and is generally considered to be the last great movie of that era. Dracula's Daughter (1936) was critically well-received and is an early example of a Hollywood lesbian exploitation flick. I think you're referring to the movies that came after SoF. like the House ofs and the monster 'meets' monster flicks of the 1940s.
They didn't acquire the discipline to attain it.
concord327 And That's true of anyone I've ever heard talk up how they'd love to do something creative without following all the way through. Discipline separates the pros from the amateurs.
The really funny thing is the The Mummy already launched a cinematic universe! The first Mummy remake, I mean. There was (1) The Mummy, (2) The Mummy Returns, (3) The Scorpion King, (4) The Mummy; Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, (5) The Scorpion King II, (6) The Scorpion King III, and (7) The Scorpion King IV. So, as of now, the Mummy Cinematic Universe (MuCU) has more installments than the DCEU, and only one less that the Star Wars universe....
wow i didnt realize that. does mummyverse connect to the ones with rachel weiss? im wondering if they scrapped the previous mummy.
Isn't that a movie series rather than a shared cinamatic universe?
The tite of this video 😂😂 spot on
Thanks for another great upload guys
Amy Pascal doesn't represent Hollywood on a whole though. As a representative example sure, but only for Sony in the grand scheme.
Aside from failed cinematic universes like Dark Universe & Ghostbusters (and hopefully Transformers) you forgot to mention that it seems oddly convenient that Disney jumpstarted the Star Wars series again with LucasFilm and now there's a Star Wars film once a year now.
yup its star wars churn out movies machine. its kinda annoying since rogue one had an extremely boring first half. it feels very cash grab. i liked the original trilogy.
Guns Up Gameplay Official See I actually liked Rogue One, dare I say preferred it as one of my favorite Star Wars films.
Yeah it's not the original trilogy nor Force Awakens, but it still hits the beats of what an action / sci-fi is. Better than the prequels by far and I agree the first third is just stuck in the mud. But by God that finale was a how a Star Wars should end. Fanservice? Yes it's fucking porn for Star Wars. Not smartly thought out, but that's all it needs to be like Pacific Rim or ID4 (arguably) and what Transformers SHOULD HAVE been and not the cynical monster machine that it is now.
Amen!
I have nothing substantial to add to your video. In summery you hit the nail on the head: Hollywood has a tendency to learn all the wrong lessons. The cinematic universe was one of many.
Hey, I mostly agree with everything you said, but I think you forgot a very important point.
Ahem.
Hollywood.
STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM ALEX KURTZMAN, ROBERT ORCI AND J.J. ABRAMS!!!
I mean, at the end of the day, Marvel has what the greatest emperors had; the smartest people in the room. I mean, Kurtzman and Orci are trashlords and even in interviews, people like Zach Snyder and Amy Pascale just come across as complete tools. Marvel just knows how to read people well. Why do the creators of Lost (which I don't like) have so much pull?? Seriously, Hollywood, this isn't hard, or are you THAT divorced from reality that you can't delineate between people that know how to work with people and aren't just using connections?
Rant over.
ahem didnt jj direct force awakens and will direct the third in the new series? that is a universe. i agree with everything else.
This video is pretty insightful. I had never thought about it like that, but it makes perfect sense.
You guys didn't talk about the MonsterVerse, the one involving King Kong and Godzilla.
Andre? before the madness of Star Wars: Episode VIII: The Last Jedi comes by next month, you and the team please try and do vid on: On how to; Save/Repair the DCEU Cinematic Universe? Once enough of us have gone to see Justice League this weekend and our reactions to it come in more heavily as the first 2 weeks go by. Research everything and include Warners past and current successes with DC related movies, the success of their DTV (Direct To Video) animated features.
The current CW TV universe of DC comics and how it compares to WB's ongoing theatrical DCEU films! (with Black Lightning and the Krypton series coming up next year and all) And possibly bring up, discussion points on what the upcoming trouble DC films like; The Batman and Flashpoint will have to do in order to save the DCEU films. And what expectations are expected of; Shazam going into production early next year (Finally) and what long time former Batman film producer Michael E Uslan role might be in regards to Shazam, if it finally gets off the ground. He's always tried to produce a Fawcett's Captain Marvel/Shazam based movie? Wonder if he'll be producing the upcoming one from Warners as well is all!
And of course Aquaman talk? As we'll all possibly be talking about Justice League's aftermath of storylines next week in the spoilers. And how it all relates to further DC films from Warner Brothers in the near future. As the future king of Atlantis will be the only sole DC based film in 2018 against a whole horde of Marvel property based films like; Black Panther (MCU), New Mutants (Universal Studios), Avengers: Infinity War (MCU), Deadpool 2 (Universal Studios), Ant-Man And The Wasp (MCU) and X-Men: The Dark Phoenix (Universal Studios). Think this discussion of Cinematic Universes has only just begun.
Cheers and congrats on a great video. Keep'em coming!
MGSBigBoss77 We will probably deliver on much of that in the not too distant future...
Who needs the dark universe when we have the penny dreadful tv show
Peter Kirkbride really liked that series
Good point. TV arguably has better shared universes than the movies, with DC in particular proving far more successful on the CW.
Same, quite sad it never reached a larger audience but that would've needed it to be diluted like the dark universe. Still think that it was planned for longer than the 3 seasons we got despite what we were told.
I missed that show... :( too bad we got just 3 seasons.
The funny thing is, you'd think Universal would understand this whole idea, since they themselves followed it when creating the original monster movies. As said in the Nostalgia Critic review of the Mummy, the Universal monster movies were the original cinematic universe. They started with individual films about certain monsters that told good stories on their own, then started moving towards a shared setup with multiple monsters per movie later on.
If they'd just done that again (and made a good standalone Mummy movie to start things off), it could have worked well. But no, they decided they wanted to set up the shared universe thing right from the off, and it backfired horribly.
Others fail do to poor planning and a lack of understanding of core character canon. And also from studio heads butting in (Ike Perlmutter VS Joss Whedon) during the making of Avengers: Age of Ultron. The people in charge of writing and making the movie should have a joy of understanding the characters they are bringing to the screen. People are not bored with cinematic universes people are sick of failure of other studios.ua-cam.com/video/sCFk9Rg4J6Q/v-deo.html.
Spot on Andre. Another issue I would argue is when setting up connections to future plot points becomes more important than the self contained narrative of the movie being watched. This was something Marvel did very well in phase 1 - and the Conjouring! i.e. ensuring a film works well as its own movie regardless of connection to a wider narrative. The same complaint can be made of films relying on sequels to tell a complete story - the more recent Alien films for example.
Improper planning, incompetent writers/directors who had no love to the original source material & big named actors/actresses who were hamming their performances rather than low-key actors/actresses who were on-point to their characters.
Mixey Boy couldn't agree more
do you think mamao, cavill, and the guy who played the flash have no love for the story? or zack snyder? im curious.
Snyder for he hated the original depiction of SuperMan, Cahill's wooden performance, Mamoa for being almost gnarly as a surfer dude; & Ezra Miller as almost a carbon copy of Spider-Man, right to his awkwardness
You nailed it, Andre. While I would love to see an update of Creature from the Black Lagoon, I do not want to commit to watching a bunch of other films that have little or nothing to do with him. I am also the one who for more than 2 years (since the announcement that Aquaman would be morphed into Aquadude in what is thesedays called, 'race bending' at least since they started saying that White washing was a thing and did not like the words black washing) have been predicting that JL would fail.
Monsterverse is doing fine so far.
My thoughts? Blood simple...the producers of now-aborted "cinematic universes" thought they could use Lysol like it was Miracle-Gro. Marvel and the Conjuring succeeded by a)doing it organically film by film and b)refusing to tip their hand too early. I always find it ironic when Marvel gets accused of making movies that are adverts for other movies. Love 'em or hate 'em, NONE of them EVER needed an "Ultimate Edition" to get the story to feel whole.
Don't know...im Still excited for a MonsterVerse (Godzilla Universe)
It has a Lot of similarities with both Universal Monster movies and Marvel so who knows how it will go.
From what I can tell most people don't seem to care about it but most don't HATE the movies either...so yea
yeah arent there like 5 or 6 universes that are actually good?