Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase 4 & Beyond (and a chance to change your vote)

wonder MAN? will this woke nonsense never end???

https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Simon_Williams_(Earth-616)

iirc a graft of Wonder Man's brain is what gave Vision his personality. Then when Vision was reset he refused to let the Avengers use his brain again because he'd fallen in love with Wanda.

Sounds like a movie to me!

I really really like Wonder Man. As strong as Thor, but super super insecure…his friendship with the Beast in the late 70s/early 80s was really fun…

Yeah, I remember all that nonsense - you forgot the part where Wonder Man died, then they used his brain, THEN of course he came back to life and was like "THAT'S MY BRAIN!"

It's really bad daytime soap opera shit for kids which to be fair I enjoyed in grade school, but once I got older and discovered other things in life (or rather everything else in life), that shit got really boring really fast.

I thumbed through a trade paperback that collected the old wanda/vision stories from back in the day, hoping to see some of what was in Wandavision. Eeyuck, put it right back. Later I found the recent Vision in the suburbs miniseries which was great.

I was way into wonder man as a kid. Green suit with goggles heavily preferred over leisure suit with shades

Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn are the Fantastic Four. Out 7/25/25.

Reed Richards, Susan Storm, Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm, respectively, it appears.

We’re doing this!

Can't wait to see who they cast as the Moleman

Dr. Doom NEEDS to be in this movie, if only for like a minute.

that mole man casting in full

https://assets.mycast.io/actor_images/actor-hans-moleman-172526_large.jpg?1612448416

aghast all over again, if course, that john c reilly remains uncast as the thing

Can only hope for a Yancy Street Gang series on Disney+=

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GGTy458bAAAf6ol?format=jpg&name=large

can assume from the vibe of this that they’re going for a throwback alternate universe from which the ff will be rudely yanked by kang the beyonder and/or doctor doom into the mcu?

Who's going to play Aunt Petunia

Not seen the casting but assume that's Pedro Pascal?

Happy Valentine’s Day from Marvel’s First Family! Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Joseph Quinn are The Fantastic Four.

Marvel Studios' #TheFantasticFour, in theaters July 25, 2025. pic.twitter.com/skPZLqu21h

— Fantastic Four (@FantasticFour) February 14, 2024

fans ‘baffled’ by vanessa kirby’s casting as willie lumpkin

No Wyatt Wingfoot, no credibility.

fucking nerds are weeping because the Office guy isn't playing RR

lol Pascal is a MAJOR upgrade

Richie Bear as The Thing rules IMO, terrific casting

I know it's not MCU, but Madame Web predictably flopped, making it the latest in a string of underperforming superhero movies. However, all those movies were also, by many accounts, pretty bad. So the question is, have they been flopping or underperforming because people are sick of superheroes, or mostly just because they are bad? Has there been a particularly good superhero movie that flopped yet?

I guess we can test this out in a few years when someone makes a good superhero movie again

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/madame-web-bomb-killed-sony-franchise-1235829471/

“We’re not going to see another Madame Web movie for another decade-plus,” quipped one industry veteran. “It failed. Sony tried to make a movie that was a different type of superhero movie.”

https://tenor.com/view/dumb-and-dumber-lloyd-theres-a-chance-jim-carrey-gif-11098164

All the Sony Spider-man spin-offs have been stinkers (if not flops), while all the Marvel Spider-man movies have been solid, so at a certain point it starts to seem like maybe Sony is the problem.

I had never heard of Madame Web before this movie. I'm not sure people are going to go see any old thing tangentially related to something they like.

<i>have they been flopping or underperforming because people are sick of superheroes, or mostly just because they are bad?</i>

The recent films, would say they're just bad (or charitably, hit or miss). There's a mix of "let me be the first to condemn it unseen" fanboy pile-on and actual viewing word of mouth contributing to performance. Ideally, everyone buys a ticket before critiquing it.

Just watched "The Marvels", and would give it a C+. While lots to criticize (songs, casting, scene transitions...), the chemistry among the three women is fun and mostly steady. The Kamala Khan actress was the best part for me, radiating the "it's a blast to be a superhero" vibe of early TV Flash.

Venom(s), Morbius, Madame Web (and Shazam 2 & Blue Beetle on the DC side) suffer from all sorts of issues like inauthentic humor, poor casting (ymmv), intrusive music, bad plots, etc.

Seems like every superhero movie now has to justify the genre's existence, so there's no latitude for a substandard film.

The Captain Marvel sequel was a flop too but three other MCU movies were in the domestic top 10 - I'd say it has less to do with cape burnout or a decline in quality than unfamiliar Marvel characters not selling.

I didn't read comic books as a kid but I knew of the X-Men and Spidey and various Avengers. Not a clue about Captain Marvel/Ant Man/Madame Web or individual X-Men names outside of Wolverine. Guardians of the Galaxy is an outlier there but that came at the perfect MCU hype moment and had an adorable raccoon star.

Sony's whole MO here is just so cynical. They're making movies of whatever Spider-Man related IP they can scrounge up regardless of whether anyone in the world gives a single fuck about it. Madame Web is like a quaternary character at best that AFAIK hasn't even really been used in forever. Literally just pissing money away. And yes, I did mean literally. I don't know how they got the money in there or how it's making its way out of there but it's what they're doing.

And yet they're also responsible for the Spider-Verse flicks. What the what.

milo don’t you (or didn’t you) have some stake in some comics/games store at some point or am I thinking of someone else?

I still work/99% run two stores.

Parallels to comic books - Marvel had a good thing going when they got the Star Wars rights and were selling one or two Star Wars titles. Then they started pumping out miniseries and titles focused on characters non-die hards didn't know/care about and it wound up hurting the numbers on the core titles because people get fed up with having to buy 10 $4.99 comics to keep up with the Star Wars comic universe vs. 1-2.

Madame Web sounds awful, but my preteen nieces really wanted to see it for some reason, and loved it… lol

There were only three MCU films last year - are you thinking of Across the Spider-Verse?

“It failed. Sony tried to make a movie that was a different type of superhero movie.”

This from all reports and all evidence is just demonstrably not true, but sure as shit is something a clueless self-exculpatory studio exec would say.

And also, the fun YMS review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOAZjbumc2E

I hope they don’t kill the Spider-Woman movie that’s reportedly in development (unless maybe it’s for the best…).

I don't know if it has ever been discerned that the fan boy base will not support a super hero movie if its deemed unfaithful to the source material, but i believe there is only one version of madame web to have appeared in marvel comics, and she is an elderly invalid precog, created in 1980, not, notably, a very comely 30something woman. If some sony functionary thought, "lets use this IP for the kind of character we want to make a movie about," well, the fanboy base does not like that. Maybe make the movie you want to make about the kind of character you want to involve, and use your own original IP instead of concepts created 40/50/60 years ago.

What I also don't understand is that Sony keeps making and marketing movies based on Spider man affiliated IP, but the Spiderman character only has appeared in MCU shit for nine years now. so do these Sony films, like this one or morbius or venom, make reference to Spider-man? and you never see him? they most certainly do not reference any MCU shit, right?

Young me as infatuated with the classic spider-woman. That was a badass costume.

“It failed. Sony tried to make a movie that was a different type of superhero movie.”

The Microsoft error message - YOU have made an error and the computer has now crashed.

All the Sony Spider-man spin-offs have been stinkers (if not flops)

I like the Venom movies, they are dumb and entertaining, and I think they did ok?

the venom movies are great. they should just be making more venom movies

They did very well - 7th biggest film each year. Probably a combination of a character introduced in the earlier Spider-Man films, Tom Hardy having a good old time, and body horror (Michelle Williams' wigs)

Yeah, sorry, I meant they (these Sony movies) were *not* all flops, but imo they were all stinkers, though I guess ymmv with "Venom" movies, because I don't think they are necessarily "good," though it can be argued that makes them better.

What I also don't understand is that Sony keeps making and marketing movies based on Spider man affiliated IP, but the Spiderman character only has appeared in MCU shit for nine years now. so do these Sony films, like this one or morbius or venom, make reference to Spider-man?

My understanding (and I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong) is that "Sony's Spider-Man Universe" is a shared universe in which Peter Parker hasn't been introduced yet; although apparently Madame Web makes a clumsy effort to allude to Uncle Ben & baby Peter, which may be why it's set in the early 2000s. I guess you see this universe briefly in Across the Spider-Verse, when they universe-hop into the Venom convenience store or whatever.

I will probably watch all the MCU movies and tv shows until they stop making them, even if I recognize it’s been diminishing returns the last few years. The completist in me will… complete this universe.

But I have absolutely no interest in the Sony-verse, and I’ve also stopped watching all the DC movies since Justice League. Never looked back.

Don't sleep on "The Batman"! (it's not a "DCEU" movie, obv)