Marvel Cinematic Universe

[GodzillaFan1990's]

https://thedirect.com/article/thor-love ... me-shorter

Reportedly Thor: Love and Thunder will have a shorter runtime then Ragnarok did.

Not counting credits this probably puts it at 1 hour and 50ish minutes.

[Chrispy_G]

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has struggled to hit 50% of the performance of Spider-Man: No Way Home.

It would appear that it wasn't so much Marvel+Multiverse hype as it was "A generation of Spider-Man film characters on screen together" hype, and that's a trick they can only pull once.

Many were certain Doctor Strange would hit $1 Billion, and now it looks like it will barely get close, if it reaches that number at all.

It will be interesting to see how close to $1 Billion Thor: Love and Thunder is able to get. I'm going to wager that 3 Spider-Man > Cameos of Madness > Lady Thor in terms of bringing the masses to the theaters.

Doctor Strange came 5 months after No Way Home, Strange had a huge role in No Way Home and the post-credits scene was a trailer for Multiverse of Madness....it was being pumped up by a $1.9 Billion hit.

Thor: Love and Thunder doesn't have nearly as big of a support system going for it.

[CyberZilla]

Thor Love and Thunder should be able to make a good amount of money just based on the popularity of Ragnarok and having the Guardians and stars like Bale involved. Idk if it’ll reach a billion unless it’s really one of the MCU’s finest outings, but I could see it making a cool 800 million if things line up properly for it.

[GodzillaFan1990's]

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is probably gonna tank a billion though no doubt about it.

[CyberZilla]

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is probably gonna tank a billion though no doubt about it.

I wanna say it’s got a billion in the bag, but a part of me is still unsure. It depends on the word of mouth it’ll get, since it’s gonna be the first BP movie without Chadwick and decides the status quo of many Wakandan characters going forward. Hopefully, it’s able to land itself.

[Chrispy_G]

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is probably gonna tank a billion though no doubt about it.

I'm inclined to think that the first was a bit of a one-of-a-kind and won't be so easily replicated, ESPECIALLY without Chadwick's performance holding it all together. Internationally it didn't pull massive numbers, the 2nd will likely be weaker...and it is hard to imagine this new one striking lightning in North America like the first did.

We shall see though.

Black Panther and Captain Marvel both got a lot of extra shine by being the final films released prior to Infinity War and Endgame, respectively. I think sequels to both of them will really show how much outside factors led to their great performances.

[StreamOfKaijuness]

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has struggled to hit 50% of the performance of Spider-Man: No Way Home.

It would appear that it wasn't so much Marvel+Multiverse hype as it was "A generation of Spider-Man film characters on screen together" hype, and that's a trick they can only pull once.

Many were certain Doctor Strange would hit $1 Billion, and now it looks like it will barely get close, if it reaches that number at all.

It will be interesting to see how close to $1 Billion Thor: Love and Thunder is able to get. I'm going to wager that 3 Spider-Man > Cameos of Madness > Lady Thor in terms of bringing the masses to the theaters.

Doctor Strange came 5 months after No Way Home, Strange had a huge role in No Way Home and the post-credits scene was a trailer for Multiverse of Madness....it was being pumped up by a $1.9 Billion hit.

Thor: Love and Thunder doesn't have nearly as big of a support system going for it.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness isn’t struggling at the box office by any reasonable metric. It’s the most successful Hollywood film since the Covid pandemic began aside from Top Gun: Maverick and Spider-Man: No Way Home. The latter’s $804 million domestic and $1.9 billion worldwide haul is obviously not the new benchmark of success for every Marvel film.

After seven weeks in theaters, Multiverse of Madness has done $407m in domestic business and $537m internationally for $944m worldwide. It hasn’t even played in China, Russia or Ukraine, whereas the original Doctor Strange made a collective $133m in those three countries back in 2016, so that’s the only thing that has kept this sequel from becoming the 11th MCU movie to cross the arbitrary billion-dollar global threshold.

More importantly for Doctor Strange as a film franchise, this sequel is soaring far above the original film, which already did an impressive $232m domestic and $445m internationally for a $677m worldwide total. Compared to its predecessor, Doctor Strange 2 has improved +75% domestically and +20% internationally (even without China, Russia or Ukraine), putting it +39% above Doctor Strange worldwide. That kind of growth is uncommon for blockbuster sequels but this is just the latest example of Marvel Studios pulling it off.

Even though the interconnected nature of Marvel’s movies generates the most online buzz, the MCU has never played as a singular film franchise to general audiences. It’s a conglomerate franchise, made up of multiple film franchises that play to their own audiences without requiring viewers to keep up with everything else. Even the Avengers films don’t require viewers to have seen everything leading up to them. That’s been the key to the MCU’s success from the very beginning and it’s something that other Hollywood studios have failed to understand as they’ve fallen over themselves trying to replicate Marvel’s success with their own cinematic universes.

After Iron Man rocketed to $318m domestic in 2008, Marvel didn’t panic when The Incredible Hulk topped out at $132m later that same Summer, nor were they alarmed when Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger each fell short of $200m domestic in 2011. Different characters will draw different levels of interest from the public, and rather than treat their heroes’ standalone franchise films as giant advertisements for their inevitable crossovers, Marvel has leveraged the popularity of the Avengers films to boost audience interest in their characters’ subsequent star vehicles.

Iron Man as an audience draw went from $318m domestic toward $585m worldwide with his first film to $312m/$623m for Iron Man 2, and then jumped to $409m/$1.214b for Iron Man 3 after he co-starred in The Avengers (along with being the first Iron Man movie with 3-D ticket premiums). Captain America went from $176m/$370m for The First Avenger to $259m/$714m for The Winter Solder after he was in The Avengers, and then to $408m/$1.153b for Civil War after Age of Ultron (along with having Robert Downey Jr. co-star as Iron Man). Ant-Man’s $180m/$519m led to his prominent guest appearance in Civil War and then to Ant-Man and The Wasp’s $216m/$622m.

Now Doctor Strange is the latest of Marvel’s superhero franchise characters to get a big boost in audience demand for his newest headlining adventure after having guest roles in Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: No Way Home. Of the 28 films in the MCU to date, Multiverse of Madness is only the 10th to top $400m domestic and only the 6th outside of the Avengers films. It’s on the cusp of topping both Captain America 3 and Iron Man 3 in North America.

Likewise, Thor as an audience draw went from $181m domestic toward $449m worldwide for his first movie to $206m/$644m for The Dark World after he co-starred in The Avengers, and then to $315m/$853m for Ragnarok after he was in Age of Ultron. Maybe the Thor series did peak in general audience popularity with Ragnarok. Based on precedent, though, after Thor’s roles in Infinity War and Endgame, it seems like Love & Thunder could be primed to take the Thor film series even higher. Doctor Strange 2 pulled it off without leaning on China at all, so maybe Thor 4 can too.

[darthzilla99]

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has struggled to hit 50% of the performance of Spider-Man: No Way Home.

It would appear that it wasn't so much Marvel+Multiverse hype as it was "A generation of Spider-Man film characters on screen together" hype, and that's a trick they can only pull once.

Many were certain Doctor Strange would hit $1 Billion, and now it looks like it will barely get close, if it reaches that number at all.

It will be interesting to see how close to $1 Billion Thor: Love and Thunder is able to get. I'm going to wager that 3 Spider-Man > Cameos of Madness > Lady Thor in terms of bringing the masses to the theaters.

Doctor Strange came 5 months after No Way Home, Strange had a huge role in No Way Home and the post-credits scene was a trailer for Multiverse of Madness....it was being pumped up by a $1.9 Billion hit.

Thor: Love and Thunder doesn't have nearly as big of a support system going for it.

The only reason Multiverse of Madness hasn't hit the billion mark is because of not playing in Russia, Ukraine, China, and Middle East (because of American Chavez background). I think Thor Love and Thunder, unless it has obvious lbgt characters preventing it from playing in those countries, will likely hit the billion mark. If it doesn't play in those countries, it will do as well as Multiverse of Madness. Of course it might play in the middle east since it has non-middle Eastern religious characters.

[Mac Daddy MM]

Finally got around to Dr. Strange: MOM and thought it was pretty good. I'm still utterly infuriated how this was the debut of Professor X and Mr. Fantastic in the MCU, but everything else was pretty cool. I did legit laugh at Black Bolt's death, however. That was just hilarious. LOVED the classic Evil Dead-ish vibes sprinkled throughout and absolutely GUSHED over Bruce Campbell's cameo. I didn't know Zombie Dr. Strange was actually the REAL one dream walking in the trailers, so that was a nice lil change up.

But Wanda... oh Wanda. I fear there is no way she can be possibly redeemed. I understand her pain and suffering... But as with other characters in similar roles, that is not an excuse to embrace the darkness and go on a war path that kills innocence. I'm going to have a real trouble buying into that if she's proven alive. I also don't understand why she went THESE lengths for the kids... Instead of tracking down white Vision and, you know...

Make them again.
But for real.

[CyberZilla]

But Wanda... oh Wanda. I fear there is no way she can be possibly redeemed. I understand her pain and suffering... But as with other characters in similar roles, that is not an excuse to embrace the darkness and go on a war path that kills innocence. I'm going to have a real trouble buying into that if she's proven alive. I also don't understand why she went THESE lengths for the kids... Instead of tracking down white Vision and, you know...

Make them again.
But for real.

Her redemption would have to include legitimate regret and trouble coming to grips with what she did. I think it’s possible (maybe even inevitable) that they give her a redemption arc, but it’s gotta be done right to be accepted. She’s not gonna be forgiven by everyone, like I don’t expect Chavez to forgive her, but even still, there’s so much potential for her character to return to heroics that I hope they handle that with the care and attention it deserves.

Wish Vision got acknowledgment in the movie as well, I felt that that wasn’t explained properly, but a future redemption with White Vis involved could help patch that.

[Mac Daddy MM]

But Wanda... oh Wanda. I fear there is no way she can be possibly redeemed. I understand her pain and suffering... But as with other characters in similar roles, that is not an excuse to embrace the darkness and go on a war path that kills innocence. I'm going to have a real trouble buying into that if she's proven alive. I also don't understand why she went THESE lengths for the kids... Instead of tracking down white Vision and, you know...

Make them again.
But for real.

Her redemption would have to include legitimate regret and trouble coming to grips with what she did. I think it’s possible (maybe even inevitable) that they give her a redemption arc, but it’s gotta be done right to be accepted. She’s not gonna be forgiven by everyone, like I don’t expect Chavez to forgive her, but even still, there’s so much potential for her character to return to heroics that I hope they handle that with the care and attention it deserves.

Wish Vision got acknowledgment in the movie as well, I felt that that wasn’t explained properly, but a future redemption with White Vis involved could help patch that.

And while I LOVE the MCU, I don't see it happening. At least for very real or very long. Almost every major traumatic event is laughed off or shrugged off after a minute or two of crying. I could legit see her in convo with someone like Spder-man, mentioning bad stuff happens when she's sad, other character goes "Huh?" and Dr. Strange goes "Yeah, she's an absolute monster when upset."

Hahahahahaha.

[Chrispy_G]

Before MoM came out, people were actively throwing out expectations comparing it to No Way Home. $1 Billion wasn't considered a tall order, after No Way Home it was considered a formality.

It isn't a box office failure, but it isn't as big as many expected...and the box office drops after the first weekend indicate that audiences didn't love it as much as Disney/Marvel would have liked. There is a big difference between "it will blast past $1 Billion" and "It probably won't hit $1 Billion"

Funny that people are comparing the Box Office results to Iron Man 3, after nearly a DECADE of ticket price inflation. Worth considering that MoM opened quite a bit bigger than Iron Man 3, but is going to finish with about the same domestic total...again, indicating weaker box office legs, indicating weaker word of mouth.

Meanwhile, Top Gun opened weeks after MoM, opened smaller, has shown incredible box office legs AND has eclipsed MoM domestically and worldwide with plenty of steam left to go. It might return to being the #1 film in its FIFTH weekend of release.

Top Gun is basically pulling the numbers that MoM was being expected/positioned to pull in.

[Chrispy_G]

Love and Thunder spoilers

Spoiler:

I am a little shocked more "fans" aren't accusing Marvel of being sexist and "Fridging" female characters in Phase 4

Black Widow given a movie after her character has already been killed off even though fans had been asking for one for half a decade

No Way Home giving Aunt May a meaningful role only to kill her off

Wandavision and Multiverse of Madness putting Wanda front and center only to make her a villain and kill her off.

Thor: Love and Thunder empowering Jane only to kill HER off at the end.

Makes me wonder what fate awaits Shuri in Black Panther 2 or any of "The Marvels" in that film

[StreamOfKaijuness]

Before MoM came out, people were actively throwing out expectations comparing it to No Way Home. $1 Billion wasn't considered a tall order, after No Way Home it was considered a formality.

It isn't a box office failure, but it isn't as big as many expected...and the box office drops after the first weekend indicate that audiences didn't love it as much as Disney/Marvel would have liked. There is a big difference between "it will blast past $1 Billion" and "It probably won't hit $1 Billion"

Funny that people are comparing the Box Office results to Iron Man 3, after nearly a DECADE of ticket price inflation. Worth considering that MoM opened quite a bit bigger than Iron Man 3, but is going to finish with about the same domestic total...again, indicating weaker box office legs, indicating weaker word of mouth.

I don’t know who predicted that Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was a lock for $1 billion worldwide, or that it would perform comparatively to Spider-Man: No Way Home at the box office, but I’d be skeptical of anyone who ever made either of those claims because they evidently don’t follow box office numbers as a hobby. In general I’d be skeptical of anybody fixated on the $1 billion mark as if it’s any movie’s threshold for success.

Regarding domestic legs, Doctor Strange 2’s $187.4m opening weekend was 45.65% of its current $410.5m total, a 2.19x opening-weekend-to-total multiplier. While that does make it the MCU’s most frontloaded movie to date*, it’s just barely more frontloaded than the likes of Captain America: Civil War (which did 43.89% of its total domestic business on opening weekend, a 2.27x multiplier), Black Widow (43.76%, 2.28x), Eternals (43.24%, 2.31x) and Iron Man 3 (42.57%, 2.34x). Eternals is the only one of those that was meant to launch a new franchise, while the other four all starred heroes who were already known quantities to moviegoers.

*(Give or take Spider-Man: Far From Home, the only MCU movie to open on a Tuesday. It grossed $185m domestic through its first Sunday, which was 47.38% of its eventual $390m domestic total, a 2.11x multiplier from its six-day opening weekend.)

Weaker legs are typical as film franchises go on, even when their total audiences continue to grow. The first film in a series tends to be the one with the most potential to become a breakout, word-of-mouth hit with audiences who weren’t sold on it from the outset. Sequels tend to play to the converted, to audiences who are already fans of what came before, and fans tend to be the first to rush out and see the newest entry in a series. It isn’t a problem for ongoing film franchises to play increasingly to their fans and less to the unconverted as they go on, as long as they’re still drawing enough audiences to justify their expense and keep the series going.

Iron Man pulled a 3.11x opening-to-final multiplier, then Iron Man 2 had a 2.43x multiplier, which led to Iron Man 3’s 2.34x, but the third film still drew the most business of the three by a lot. Guardians of the Galaxy’s 3.53x multiplier (still the leggiest MCU movie to date) led to 2.66x for Vol. 2, which wasn’t a problem because Vol. 2 still did +16% more total domestic business than the first. Ant-Man’s 3.14x led to Ant-Man and The Wasp’s 2.85x, but the sequel still did more business both on opening weekend and overall.

Avengers: Age of Ultron’s 2.39x multiplier was nearly identical to Avengers: Endgame’s eventual 2.4x. The difference was that Age of Ultron also had a slightly smaller opening weekend ($191m) than The Avengers (a then-record $207m which it proceeded to triple), so its 2.39x multiplier led to a significantly smaller domestic total ($459m) than its predecessor ($623m). While it was still objectively a colossal hit, its smaller total combined with its weaker legs indicated that Age of Ultron was less crowdpleasing than The Avengers. Conversely, Endgame obliterated the opening weekend record ($357m), so its 2.4x multiplier led to $858m total and put it at #2 on the all-time domestic chart after Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Even with their near-identical box office legs, Endgame was clearly a much more crowdpleasing movie than Age of Ultron.

For tentpole franchises, the bigger and more dedicated the total audience is, the less legs matter. Legendary’s 2014 Godzilla was infamously frontloaded, with a $93m domestic opening weekend toward a $200m total. That 2.15x multiplier was only a bit more frontloaded than Multiverse of Madness’ 2.19x but the problem for Godzilla was that it was intended as a reboot, the first Godzilla movie for a new generation of moviegoers. Godzilla needed to catch on with audiences in the first place and its 2.15x opening-to-total multiplier indicated that it failed. Still, if Godzilla had pulled an identical 2.15x multiplier but with double the audience, which would have meant a jaw-dropping $186m opening weekend toward a $400m total, then that frontloaded 2.15x multiplier wouldn’t have been a problem at all. If $400m worth of North American moviegoers would turn out for a Godzilla movie, it wouldn’t matter whether 25% of them or 50% of them rushed out on opening weekend.

That’s where Marvel’s Doctor Strange film series finds itself as of the second entry, because Doctor Strange as played by Benedict Cumberbatch is now very much a known quantity to audiences after appearing in his first flick, the last Thor movie, the last two Avengers films and the latest Spider-Man adventure. If Multiverse of Madness had failed to match the first Doctor Strange’s total audience, then its weaker legs would be a cause for alarm, but it has instead brought in +76% more business in North America and +21% more internationally (even without playing in China, Russia or Ukraine) for a worldwide total +40% higher than the first flick. Doctor Strange has become one of only a handful of Marvel- or DC-based superheroes to headline a $400m+ domestic hit, joining the elite ranks of Batman, Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, Iron Man, Captain America, Black Panther and Captain Marvel (and Christopher Reeve’s Superman when adjusted for inflation).

Meanwhile, Top Gun opened weeks after MoM, opened smaller, has shown incredible box office legs AND has eclipsed MoM domestically and worldwide with plenty of steam left to go. It might return to being the #1 film in its FIFTH weekend of release.

Top Gun is basically pulling the numbers that MoM was being expected/positioned to pull in.

Top Gun: Maverick is on track for a domestic total in the same ballpark as The Avengers ($623m), and with a still-growing 4.45x opening-weekend-to-total multiplier, it already has much stronger legs than any of the 28 MCU movies. I don’t know who was expecting Doctor Strange 2 to match The Avengers at the box office or to have the strongest legs of any MCU film to date but I wouldn’t pay attention to any box office analysts with such misinformed expectations.

Top Gun: Maverick is a rare kind of box office miracle, as was Spider-Man: No Way Home, and those are the only two Hollywood movies from 2020 to the present that have done more business in theaters than Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

[Chrispy_G]

The Marvel Cinematic Universe - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_M ... erse_films

Films produced by Marvel Studios and released or confirmed for release through the end of 2023 - 33

Spider-Man: No Way Home, by way of the multiverse, made 3 Tobey Spider-Man films, 2 Garfield Spider-Man films, and 2 Hardy Venom films canon to the MCU on at least a multiverse level - That brings the total up to 40

Multiverse of Madness featured a multiverse variant of Reed Richards and Professor X...with the latter being portrayed by Patrick Stewart from the original X-Men franchise.

Well, there are 3 previous Fantstic Four films(that were actually released) and that would bring the total to 43 movies.

In total, the "X-Men Universe" spanned 13 films. So now we are at 56 movies.

Morbius, which features references to Venom and an MCU character....57 movies.

Factor in the new Fantastic Four movie, the new Blade movie, the new Deadpool movie...that's 60.

Kraven, Madam Web, Captain America 4, Shang Chi sequel, Thunderbolts - 65 films.

Venom 3 and the animated Spider-Verse films - 69 films

That isn't even touching the literal HUNDREDS of episodes of television that are canon to this franchise. Nearly 500 episodes by my best guess.

This franchise is spoiled goods. This is basically at the level of One Piece or Star Trek, where there is SO MUCH that it is going to start becoming a very weird barrier to entry. This much content that requires this much time, investment and dedication basically works in reverse of the franchise being "mainstream". But at least with One Piece it is as simple as "start from episode 1 and just keep watching until you don't want to" and you don't need charts, graphs, and image maps to navigate the ocean of content.

By making it this hard to access and making it carry this much...they are going to actively block and push "normies" away and keep your film from truly reaching the mainstream. You are going to "re-niche-ify" your brand and property.

[Major sssspielberg!]

I have to say Dr. Strange's MOM is sticking with me more than I expected. I watched like two thirds of it yesterday. The little Sam Raimi touches, even if they're somewhat superficial, help make it stand out of the crowd a little for me. The Oingo Boingo dude doing the score helps too (god forgive I don't know why I can't remember his name at the moment).

[CyberZilla]

Thor: Love and Thunder is a decent movie, but in some ways is a step down from Ragnarok. If you like the direction Taika took Thor, you’ll probably enjoy this one. If you like most of the MCU, you’ll probably like this one.

Spoiler:

Jane had a beautiful arc, but I admit that illness storylines speak to me the most due to personal experiences. As far as Thor’s arc, I think it was good, but the resolution with him being a dad felt undercooked, since it wasn’t hinted at. I accept it because he was trying to find himself and his purpose again, but I wish they had set it up more cleverly. As for Gorr, I wish we could’ve seen more of him, the morsels we get are awesome. Wish Valkyrie got more attention, too, because she had a similar arc to Thor, without a true resolution.
The whiplash tonal issues are probably the biggest weakness of the movie, even Ragnarok gave more time and attention to the quiet emotional moments, while Love and Thunder only goes farther in making light of the serious moments. It wasn’t enough to make me uninvested, but it did dampen certain moments for me.
Visuals and score were awesome, especially the shadow planet showdown. Some janky SFX, like the intro’s god sequence, seem to show how the MCU’s quantity each year is catching up to it, but that’s a discussion for a different post.

Overall, worth a watch, cute and fun romp with cool fights, didn’t expect much else and got a lot of what I came for.

[Legion1979]

Crispy, give me a break. You don't HAVE to watch ALL that in order to get the most out of the MCU. You're trying way too hard here. All the X-Men movies, all the Fantastic Four films....come on now. I haven't even seen every Disney/Marvel produced film in the MCU and still get a lot out of these movies.

"Spoiled goods"? Dude, just stop it.

[UltramanGoji]

I think I've fallen victim to the dreaded "Superhero Fatigue" thanks to Thor: Love & Thunder. What a bad movie; just not good form from any of the parties involved, especially Taika Waititi in both the writer's and director's chairs. I've cooled off a lot on Ragnarok but still find it to be a good balance of mythological action and set piece with the more quirky, cosmic-focused humor of something like GOTG. But this movie just takes the dial up to 11 in the worst possible way.

It was honestly so bad that it kinda soured me on a franchise I was already having trouble keeping up with. I enjoyed the first episode of Ms. Marvel a lot but didn't bother keeping up with the rest and honestly never felt the need to do so since. I'm sure something might change with Black Panther 2 or Ant-Man 3's release but for right now, I'm just kind of "eh" on the MCU.

[LegendZilla]

^Disney's gonna be throwing a fit over flop after flop