How Marvel Became the Envy and Scourge of Hollywood | Hacker News Reader

How Marvel Became the Envy and Scourge of Hollywood

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44 pointse15ctr0n47 comments

Am I a dork for noticing the mistake that the second Thor movie wasn't a prequel for The Avengers?

Unless I'm misreading the article, I don't think it says that Thor: The Dark World was a prequel to The Avengers. Rather, it says that the Thor movies were planned as part of the "Avengers initiative." The confusion arises from the phrase "set the stage for The Avengers." I think what the writer means is that all of these movies, including their sequels, were set into development as part of a single initiative, meant to culminate in the Avengers franchise.

Yes, the events of the second Thor movie take place after the events of The Avengers. But that may have been planned well in advance.

I am particularly amazed at the co-ordination of the movies and the TV series Agents of Shield. Way back when I was at USC professor Arthur Knight used to joke about movies "You can know when it will be done, or you can know it will be good, but not both." because of the challenges of managing a movie production schedule. That Marvel could pull off Thor: The Dark World, have it hit theaters when events in the TV series matched up, that floored me.

Yes, they are an incredibly well-oiled machine. An old friend and former colleague of mine is one of their producers and development executives, and I can say without hesitation that he works harder than anyone else I know in that business. Marvel is in a state of continuous production on all of its properties, all of which are centrally coordinated.

This wasn't always the case. Historically, Marvel has had different licensing deals set up at different studios: X-Men and Fantastic Four with Fox; Spiderman with Sony; etc. When it set about creating the Avengers initiative, it realized the logistical benefits of keeping everything under one roof. The Disney acquisition helped with that. The company still does projects under the terms of its legacy deals (see: the Spiderman reboots still being made at Sony, presumably at Sony's request, to exercise and thus keep its deal active). But the magic seems to be happening with the more centrally coordinated projects, like Thor/Iron Man/Cpt America/SHIELD/Avengers.

Not only that, but they did it a second time with Captain America: Winter Soldier.

Your right, not once but twice in a single TV season. That is seriously amazing planning.

I think lots of people would balk at those constraints, but Joss Whedon sees them and thinks "this is awesome!"

Which was the bigger tie-in, as the episode the week before ended with the already-released scene of Nick Fury's car chase, and the episode the week after dealt with the (very significant) aftermath.

For many reasons, it was one of the best moments in the series.

It is amazing but Agents of SHIELD did suffer due to that. Most of the episodes until the Captain America 2 tie over episode was very lackluster. Let's see how they will handle the new season.

How about noticing that the article tossed the tepid Ed Norton HULK film (Marvel film #2) down the memory hole altogether?

It does reference The Hulk in the context of the license to Universal. But Marvel regained the film rights in 2006 and Universal was just a distribution partner on Norton-Hulk. It was much more a Marvel Studios film than any sort of Universal-driven successor to Bana-Hulk.

Nor does it ever mention Agents of SHIELD by name. To omit the name after specifically discussing the TV appearance clauses is pretty poor form for a journalist, particularly one who dedicated so much ink to the "Universe" strategy.

But I guess facing Marvel's mis-steps just didn't fit a "Marvel is unstoppable" storyline.

Perhaps you should not assume shoddy work on the journalist's part. The nits you pick could have been created by editors prior to publication.

You're absolutely right. I was wrong to carelessly specify fault in the journalist, rather than simply faulting the piece.

However: If I had correctly identified that the piece was shoddy, rather than the journalist, wouldn't materially impact the points in my post. That's a nit.

Including Marvel's existing mis-steps would materially impact the points of an article recounting Marvel's lack of mis-steps. That is not a nit.

So far, Marvel is on a roll, like Pixar was for a time, racking up a string of successes. Guardians of the Galaxy seems to be another home run. But how long can they keep it up, and will hype and fan expectations make Avengers 2 an inevitable let-down?

I felt like the first Avengers was a let-down and now I realize why. Joss Whedon is amazing and not someone you put the kinds of restrictions on that Marvel apparently does. I'm kind-of surprised he took the gig but I guess its success worked out for him, so that's good at least.

Joss whedon had written for marvel several times before the avengers, it was probably a part of why they tapped him.

That almost everything he's done involves an ensemble cast.

I'm predicting an entire X-men reboot done more in the style of the Avengers movies. To date, the effects, casting and story for the X-men movies, while fine for the time, have been a big downgrade from the entire Avengers line-up.

> hype and fan expectations make Avengers 2 an inevitable let-down

I'm hoping it isn't. The second Captain America movie was a huge upgrade over the first IMHO, and I thought Thor 2 was at least as good as the first one. The Iron Man movies have been relatively good as well (sure they're going down a bit, but they're at least entertaining).

If the 80s were the action star decade, the 2010s are the Marvel movie decade.

Marvel sold the X-Men rights to Fox, who retains them as long as they continue to make X-Men movies (the same is true for Sony with Spiderman). It's unlikely that Fox will relinquish those rights within the next 10 years.

> like Pixar was for a time

I don't follow the CGI movie industry as close as I used to- is Pixar unanimously considered not to be on a roll anymore?

I think Wall-E was the pinnacle, and was apparently the last of the original ideas they brainstormed up in the beginning. After that was Cars 2 and Brave, which I think were perceived as ok, but not at the level of their previous films.

What's also interesting is there seems to be a desire in the fanbase for Marvel Studios to have more control over Marvel properties. I get the impression from comments in reddit posts and Slashfilm (which might not be an accurate barometer of reality) that fans are chomping at the bit for Sony and Fox to lose the rights on X-Men and Spider-man, so that Marvel Studios can start making movies with them.

Those fans want to see cross-overs. They want to see Spiderman on The Avengers. They want to see the Hulk duke it out with Wolverine.

The likelihood of this happening when multiple studios control the characters in question is slim to none.

And I haven't seen a single one of those movies. Are they worth it for someone not into comics at all and a slightly dislike for superheroes. Of course I saw most of the trailers for the movies but the only one that looked appealing to me was the trailer for the second Captain America movie. Can this movie be watched without having seen the other moviews? I also read good things about the S.h.i.e.l.d series.

> Are they worth it for someone not into comics at all and a slightly dislike for superheroes.

Iron Man is okay standalone, in the same way the first Spiderman movie was okay. Everything else is a skip.

They are very well done summer popcorn flicks. Do you like blockbuster action popcorn movies? If yes, then yes they're worth it. If no, then probably not.

If you're not into comics and dislike superheroes, it's pretty hard to imagine what you'd get out of a superhero movie based on a comic book franchise.

Eh, I'm pretty apathetic to superheros have a dislike (possibly disdain) for comic books. I still enjoyed those of those movies that I have seen. (I liked the first Iron Man the most; and thought that The Avengers was quite good but nevertheless incredibly overrated).

imo, the dark knight is a good movie despite it being a comic book superhero movie. v for vendetta too.

You'd think that until you look at sales stats and see how few people buy comic books compared to the number that watch the movies:

http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/2014/2014-06.htm...

Disclaimer: I'm a comic reader.

Agent's of S.H.I.E.L.D. starts out pretty bad. Very flat characters, often cheap plots. About half way through it became good though. It's low-power, so no worries about super heroes.

Capatain America 2 you need to watch for the last third of the show to make sense ;)

Guardians of the Galaxy will be the first comic movie I'm really looking forward to. It's not a superhero comic at all and the main characters have a personality closer to the firefly crew than anything else (That's assuming they are staying close to the comic).

Watched GotG yesterday; I'd rate it an 8.5-9/10. It is easily the funniest one of the Marvel franchise so far in a laugh out loud way, but yet the characters are often subtle making snarky comments rather than outlandish humour (although there is some of that too).

I didn't find the CGI distracting, nor is Rocket treated like Jar Jar Binks (he is actually one of the more "serious" characters). Although I will admit that Groot (the tree) has some Jar Jar Binks style moments, but it isn't as distracting/jarring as Episode 1.

The last movie I laughed this hard at was The Avengers. However much like The Avengers this too might have weak re-watch value as you'll know the jokes are coming.

I am looking forward to the sequel and want to watch it again as soon as it is out on DVD/digital.

It has like 90% on Rotten Tomatoes and 9/10 on IMDB. Safe to say this is another smash hit and another feather in Marvel's cap.

"I didn't find the CGI distracting, nor is Rocket treated like Jar Jar Binks (he is actually one of the more "serious" characters). Although I will admit that Groot (the tree) has some Jar Jar Binks style moments, but it isn't as distracting/jarring as Episode 1."

It's really sad that the star wars prequels may have hampered the adventure/scifi genre for the better part of a decade.

I have no problem with the gimmicky, comic-relief character if there's some actual substance there.

The Phantom Menace came out in 1999. That's a decade and a half ago.

I think you're safe watching Iron Man, the Avengers, Captain America 2, and maybe GOTG (I haven't seen it yet, but I've heard good things). I would skip SHIELD. It's just a B sci-fi series that's inflated by its association with the Marvel universe.

I would stay away from the lot. They are like bad Michael Bay movies with costumes.

I watched Avengers and thought it looked old - a 1940s Hollywood vibe but with 2010s CGI. RDJ has made a brilliant career out of rebooting Errol Flynn.

I'll give GOTG a go out of interest.

The sad thing is how welcoming people are of being duped into spending their money on that crap.

Mostly just ok flicks, fun distractions.

I'd say skip them and watch Watchmen from 2009 and/or V for Vendetta (both DC graphic novel adaptations). Both are written by Alan Moore, much more heady/thought provoking than the Marvel offerings.

Also, indirectly 'Comic Related', the excellent BBC show Utopia is worth checking out (it's slate to be remade for HBO coming in 2015 with David Fincher at the helm).

Watch the first Iron Man movie. Branch out from there if you enjoyed it.

I'm not into comics but still saw The Avengers anyway and thought it was... OK? It passed the time on a flight but I honestly don't understand the excitement over it. I actually found the X-Men movies far more interesting because they deal with topics like prejudice, segregation, etc., while still having the explosions and action pieces you expect from a summer blockbuster.

Edit: and the recent Batman trilogy. Untouchable by comparison.

I watched most of the Marvel movies and I have the same opinion, Avengers was one of the worst IMO, I enjoyed most of the X-Men ones, "First class" in particular.

My favorites super hero movies are not Marvel, I would put The Dark Knight at number 1) and Watchmen at number 2).

Funny how a Disney subsidiary can be seen as independent mavericks.

Disney bought them after the first Iron Man movie.

Or that tech geeks get enthusiastic over Disney products despite Disney's recurring efforts to lock-down the Internet.

There is some serious marketing magic happening here.

It's not always about marketing "magic". They have a killer product. Marvel and Disney produce superior entertainment, despite their politics.

People, especially children and young adults will always be interested in super heroes, Marvel will have a long and successful run.

It's true; I feel like I can't go to any entertainment news site without being inundated by Marvel news.

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