821

The only way to focus on a big ensemble cast is a mini series

Even then characters become lower end

822

What I’m saying is if First Class had been the start of an ACTUAL reboot, DofP wouldn’t even exist because they wouldn’t have needed a time-traveling sequel to fix a continuity that isn’t relevant anymore (the first trilogy). The Apocalypse fight shouldn’t be happening as fast as it is.

Since Singer wanted both trilogies to be connected, they needed a reason to fix the continuity problems that would arise from such, so they used DofP. Nothing big has really happened in Singer’s second trilogy and yet the “real” first class’ first big baddy is gonna be Apocalypse. It’s like going from My Easy Bake Oven to Hell’s Kitchen in a day. It makes no sense other than Fox has chosen to do this as fast as they possibly can with no planning whatsoever for the sake of HOPING they can get Marvel money as fast as they possibly can.

@“Dangerous J”

If X-Men were completely removed from the Marvel universe, it could function competently and flawlessly without even missing a beat. To have such a huge section of Marvel that’s so self-contained, with so many great characters and events and yet you squander that shit is like complete and utter incompetence. How not a single person has stepped in to lead and show them exactly how Marvel is doing what they’re doing is beyond me. As long as Fox has the X-Men license I don’t ever see it having any sort of cohesion; its gonna always be a patchwork of dreams about what could be.

823

Yeahp. Fox is cheap and lazy, that’s it. May not be the best universe, but I still liked DoFP and I hope I’ll like the next movie too, but yes, it does feel like there’s an awful lot of missed chances.

824

Its like smashing a nigga head into a window over and over again saying “You see this?? Do that. Don’t do THIS. Do that.”

Yet they just don’t listen

825

But you seem too cloistered in your comic book fanboyism to realize MOST OF PEOPLE have no problem with the X-Men film series, in fact it’s a well liked franchised by general audience and acclaimed by critics. So, it isn’t such a “big problem” for Fox.

To be fair I do think creating a more streamlined world like what Marvel Studios does is doing would bring more money to the studio, however I’m not a financial analyst and I have no idea if it’s worth the risk and what would happen if they don’t deliver. Right now, the movies are still liked, making money and they’re in a comfortable place. Mediocrity? You could call it like that, but that’s just the studio decision, the movies themselves are sometimes excellent.

826

Well…this got out of hand, I see. And people said I was being silly wanting X-23 in that upcoming third Wolverine film, lol.

827

Thing is, everything tells us its still a problem for Fox. Everything Fox does shows us they aren’t satisfied with what they’re doing. The train wreck that is F4 showed us this. The reason why the mediocrity of X-Men’s continuity hasn’t doomed it is because the X-Men name sells itself and the mediocrity of action movies has always been something the general public has always been comfortable with, including myself. So the X-Men movies being so serviceable and absolutely better from an individual standpoint will always keep it from the F4’s fate unless they do something absolutely stupid.

I guarantee you Fox will never be comfortable no matter what they do unless they can split mind-share with Marvel and make Marvel money. People would think Marvel’s phase plan is strictly beneficial to just fans like us. All the Comic-Cons and Marvel Events, trying to bring fan-favorite characters that the masses don’t even know, the arc planning, trying to get fans like us to be just as invested in the MCU as we are in the comic universe. None of that is for the average viewer; they do that to please us first and make a good movie for the masses second because thats all they care about. That hype bleeds down to them and they fucking eat it up. They’re pleasing both audiences and its a no brainer for them to do it.

They took an absolutely obscure franchise to the public in GotG and in 2 hrs had everyone and they momma wanting a dancing Groot toy. They chose James Gunn and while he was director there’s always an overarching plan just like every movie and it guides the MCU. They knew what they wanted, they executed with both fans and casuals in mind and now the world is Marvel crazy for all merchandise. That’s the kind of mind-share for money Fox will continue to pursue but never get. Even with Marvel constantly trying to undermine the X-Men cinematic universe, smart marketing, advertising and planning does wonders and Fox does none of that.

You couldn’t tell me Marvel would be in the same standing with the general public as they are now if they ran the MCU the way Fox works. Fox wants that kind of success while skipping steps and expecting the same results.

828

“Everything”? I don’t think so. They seemingly acknowledge X3 was a disaster, but that would be it.

They have reasons to be dissatisfied with F4 but those were production issues mostly, nothing else.

X-Men movies are far FAR away from being mediocre. In fact they’re some of the most highly esteemed superhero movies by critics, that are never tired of praising the social themes Singer address in the movies. Check some reviews and then tell me.

Mediocre would be things like all those 2003-2007 superhero movies like Ghost Rider, Blade Trinity, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, etcetera. I go to say things like Incredible Hulk and Thor movies are way more mediocre than X-Men, sometimes not in the level of production quality, but X-Men movies tend to be more ambitious in their storytelling and themes.

Why do you keep saying Fox is not comfortable with the X-Men? Do you have any source of evidence of this?

I agree with that. But keep in mind Marvel Studios is EXCLUSIVELY dedicated to produce MCU thing, while Fox has many other movie franchises and TV subdivisions and all that to take care of. They can simply not see X-Men as a priority as to build a complete detailed world for them because that would take much more many money, personal and effort. They just see it as another one of their movie franchises (with seldom produced spinoffs).
I’m not saying that’s right or that they shouldn’t create a more organic and consistent universe, but I can understand the reason why a corporation like Fox isn’t willing to.

Don’t forget one big difference is that Fox doesn’t own the merchandising rights for X-Men, so they can’t financially benefit from anything else than the profit of the movies themselves. Hell, they don’t even had permission to do TV series without Marvel’s involvement. I’m sure that’s just another reason to discourage investing too much on the movie series. They just can’t never be as financially succesful as Marvel because of that…

Meh, I don’t like that character. Could be a good device to reintroduce a some sort of “Wolverine replacement” now that Jackman’s retiring from the movies. I loved X2’s version of Lady Deathstrike, by the way, Laura could be a version of her in this new continuity…

829

Everyone saw what Marvel can do with a property big or small be it a shared universe, over arching story or just damn good story telling in those 90 + mins. Fox just slow on the up take and risk taking. Granted X-men 1 was my first comic book movie i saw in theaters that i have fond memories of.

830

fox been slow since the very beginning. they are rushing the movies now, trying to make mad bank just like marvel studios. fucks up franchises and everything else in between with all of their half-assed efforts. coughfant4sticcough ahem

831

Nah Magegg, I wasn’t a fan of how they did Lady Deathstrike. I’d certainly hope they don’t just try to make Laura into some alternate version of her or whatnot, since I think that’d just take away from both of them rather than add to either of them.

832

Ppl who are comfortable don’t rush, which is why I say Fox isn’t. They were trying to get a F4/X-Men crossover off the ground before F4 was released and even proved its worth. We obviously see that’s off the table now. Its clear they fast-tracked the second X-Men trilogy to get to its climatic fight quicker; words don’t need to be said to see that. The actions speak for itself.

Also I said mediocre continuity and cohesion. They’re fine individual movies, but continue to do what Fox always does which is little to no characterization for anyone other than a few. They’re FAR better as individual movies.

Its not merchandising I’m referring to but the demand for such. Of course they get none of the money for merchandising of a Marvel product, but simple demand for it would validate the mind-share they want. There isn’t one character from the new trilogy that the masses are clamoring for when it comes to merchandising except for Wolverine. That’s to be expected considering he’s the only character they’ve pushed since 2000 by a country mile. Which is why I brought up Groot. The character doesn’t even need to be known; you just need to make the masses care. Fox has SO many well known characters and they don’t even do that. Why should we TRULY care about anyone else in Apocalypse except for Xavier and Erik? They sure ain’t made me give a fuck about anyone else.

Fox essentially is trying to do a Nolan with his Batman trilogy; its compact but its very neat. X-Men is not anywhere near as neat. Batman is the titular character, in X-men its an entire team. Its never felt that way though; it seems like Erik vs. Xavier feat. everyone else. You can’t do something like that with a property where the draw is a cauldron of characters.

The best piece of overall X-Men work might possibly be their upcoming Hellfire show simply because they’re gonna be forced to explore more characters if they want to be a competent show. They don’t seem to understand that at all as it pertains to their movies.

833

You’re acting like Marvel doesn’t do the same. They were talking about this Defender crossover series before DD and the other series were released.
As for Fox’s idea I think it’s the same as Marvel: Crossover done in the comics, crossover can work in the movies. But that thing about the F4/X-Men crossover didn’t came as an official announcement, they weren’t bragging about that or anything, it was just a script they were working on and some website brought a scoop of that, that’s all.
It’s not like Sony and Mark Webb openly talking about their “huge plan” of connected Spider-Man movies that went all to the toilet because they couldn’t even get their main series right. The F4/X-Men was nothing but an idea they were toying around as well as a possibility, they didn’t rushed to announce a big crossover or anything.

I mostly agree on that.

Dude, money is everything, it’s not like Marvel doesn’t act like that, they’re not producing individual Hulk movies (when there are great chances they could develop the character even better and audience would thank that), simply because they don’t own the distribution rights and so they can’t get the maximum profit.

I agree on that.

Anyway, what I really want to see is an X-Men movie set in Savage Land. X-Men vs Dinosaurs FTW, and have Mister Sinister as a villain, explaining about mutations, genetics and evolution, I mean, come on, it could fucking rock.

834

The difference with the Defenders is that Marvel planned on all the shows working together from the start. Everything in DD/JJ/Luke Cage/Iron Fist will be done with the intent to bring everyone together in the end. Bullet points on how to bring the team together, how everyone interacts is done before the shows even get off the ground. The only thing that wasn’t expected was how popular Daredevil would become necessitating a second season far sooner than they likely had expected.

The problem with basically everyone else is that they decided to do crossovers and shared movie universes AFTER the fact. Man of Steel/The Amazing Spider-Man/X-Men were not created with shared universes in mind but when the MCU proved to be such a damn hit, Sony/Fox/DC dropped everything to immediately try their best to latch on to that success and it shows. No actual planning at all other than “Well, Marvel’s doing it, let’s just plan to do 8 movies in the next few years and plug them in with random dates. What, an overarching idea? Nah, don’t need one the people won’t care, just throw them together.”

835

I agree on that.

Deadpool is hopefully going to do well but it’s still going to be very removed from the X-Men storyline and mythology. I don’t think Gambit will bring ANYTHING to the table. And Wolverine 3, well, there are no reasons to believe it’s gonna be any good.

As for the announced New Mutants saga, my theory’s that they’re going to set that in current days with (obviously) new mutant teenagers as their main characters, and have the old cast (Marsden, Janssen, Berry) to cameo as mentors, and maybe eventually some more important roles.

836

Wolverine 3 has the same director, James Mangold, as 2.
IMO There is some chance of it being decent.

837

The past Wolverine movie had its moments, but it also had some very stupid stuff.

838

@Magegg

Eh, the Marvel situation isn’t the same. ANY studio with a Marvel property won’t ever touch merchandising profits will they? I mean when you’re licensing the rights of another company’s property is merchandising profits ever part of the deal? Is that even discussed?

Also I been fucking hoping for the Savage Lands in an X-Men movie.

839

Sony used to share the rights for merchandising profits from Spider-Man movies with Disney, apparently the deal was 50/50 profits for both studios, both from films and merchandising. They were later renegotiated by Disney:

840

I figured if there was one it would have been Sony with Spiderman.

I’m guessing nowadays that wouldn’t even be in discussion considering how much money there is to be made off of it. Everyday I see some commercial pertaining to some Avengers toy.