The Marvel Cinematic Multiverse

[fishbowlhead]

Vaughn: Make Better & Fewer Marvel Films - Dark Horizons
Having been away from the genre himself for some time now, Matthew Vaughn says that he hopes that Marvel will slow down their output with a greater focus on quality and less reliance on VFX. He has hopes for the DCU now that Gunn is in charge and says that his biggest shocker has been The Flash which he really enjoyed and is somewhat staggered in how it failed at the box office.

Has everyone seriously forgotten about Ezra kidnapping a child and going on the run? Has this all just been swept under the rug now?

[Neon Ignition]

Pretty much. Since going in 'recovery' there haven't been any more dramas to report on, the kidnapping case went nowhere also because the girl involved is slightly older now and still maintains support with the kidnapping claim resting on the parents who seem to have largely gone quiet on it. The film underperforming made less of a story and from what I can gather Miller has had no work since the stories broke with nothing lined up so it's seems to be considered to be very brushed away. Focus will likely already be moving on to how much Heard is or isn't in Aquaman II.

[Neon Ignition]

"Spider-Man" Disney+ Inclusion, Filming Rumor - Dark Horizons
Spider-Man: Homecoming 4 could begin filming next year

[Neon Ignition]

"The Marvels" Rumors Swirl, Runtime Set - Dark Horizons
Rumbles of a cameo being added to The Marvels last minute and that Larson may want to stop playing the Danvers character.

[Neon Ignition]

"Daredevil: Born Again" Gets New Showrunner - Dark Horizons
The showrunner for Netflix's The Punisher has been hired to take over control of the struggling Daredevil: Born Again

[Neon Ignition]

Time to get our Nerd on:

"Deadpool 3" Director: "'Logan' Is Canon" - Dark Horizons
Unlike previous reports that had the Wolverine in Deadpool 3 be a new variant, akin to how Xavier's appearance in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was not the version known from the XCU, Levy has has now confirmed that Logan is now canon to the events of Deadpool 3. A wrinkle in that might yet be if rumours about a cameo that might exist in the upcoming The Marvels pans out as to which one of the numerous X-Men related timelines might make the most direct link in the end but it seems as though the standalone Wolverine farewell film is in.

This is without the consideration that Garner's Elektra is confirmed for the film also bringing it's own MCU expansion possibilities

[Brad]

The timelines stuff is utter nonsense and has basically wrecked my enjoyment of the entirety of marvel. If the comics have timeline stuff in as well I don't care because I don't read them. This is insane. I watched 1.5 episodes of season 2 of Loki and had to switch off.

[Neon Ignition]

It feels like part of the issue has been that Spider-Man went "Here, other characters you care about are joining in the fun" and that was fine but since then the use of the multiverse has felt very inconsequential yet has been ever present. It's been nearly five years since Endgame and whilst we've seen and heard a lot about the multiverse we've not seen any reason to care about it. When the danger is that the multiverse can diminish the stakes of the main universe it means there needs to be some counterbalance and there's none.

For all the drubbing it gets, The Flash handled it better in one film than the MCU has across around a ten by now. In that you have the multiverse but traversal comes with a price meaning you negate things like audiences not caring about a character death under the assumption a variant can step in - because doing that will carry a larger cost - giving it stakes.

Once they've gotten the planned Avengers films out the way, they need to return the MCU back to a focus on everyday heroing.

[Brad]

Agreed.
The Flash was better than 80% of Marvel's output for me.

[Neon Ignition]

This is pure me - but - if I were Marvel * * I'd draw a line under adding many new characters to the MCU here on out for a long while. I feel there's a desperate need to focus on developing and promoting the ones that they already have which ties into the whole Captain Marvel problems discussed previously. Back when the MCU was defined by Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Captain America it was all much clearer. It's fine having lots of characters but they should focus on less central characters rather than having a ton of them lead films and series.

Say I was a teen who loved Shang-Chi, for all I currently know I could be a parent myself by the next time the character appears let alone gets a sequel. Too much character creation, not enough world building.

Genuinely, who is in the current Avengers team?

[Dogg Thang]

I have a feeling some of what we have seen has been reactionary. Yes, they tend to plan these so far in advance but they can also adapt and I think there was messiness with Shang-Chi that delayed a sequel, if one was in the works. The Eternals clearly wasn’t received the way they’d like so I imagine that had to have changed some plans internally. Couple those with some leftover messiness after Endgame, where the next phase wasn’t quite all new and wasn’t quite all established, and it’s all just gone off the rails a bit.

But I’ll always say this - to their credit, I expected this about 5 movies in. They constantly delivered what I thought was the impossible. But who knows where it can go from here.

[Brad]

Incredible run up to and including end game. After that, not so much. I much prefer the DC output. I know I'm a minority.

[cutmymilk]

The latest episode of South Park critiques the multiverse well. Lazy writing. Chaos for the sake of it is always boring. It reminds me of watching Doctor Who. The world is ending and BLAM, Sonic Screwdriver saves the day. Somehow.

I also think The Flash handled multiverses better than Marvel. I still wish they hadn't bothered associating themselves with the Sony films. Having distinct versions of Marvel is a good thing.

[Dogg Thang]

I agreed with you until I actually saw it and found that No Way Home is probably the best Marvel movie post Endgame.

[cutmymilk]

Well I enjoyed it definitely but it has created a mess. They could have created the multiverse without using the Sony designs. Now Sony films going forward are kind of part of the MCU but not really? It's not worth trying to make sense of, which is unfortunate.