Marvel Studios' Black Widow - Official Teaser Trailer

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by marmalade166, Dec 3, 2019.

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  1. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I think the first real Marvel blockbuster was the 2002 Spider-Man film. The 1998 Blade film made $131 million dollars, so it was a big hit, but it pales next to $825M for the first Spiderman movie, which is a blackbuster by any definition.
     
  2. JediJones

    JediJones Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Domestically, Blade was $70m and 29th place. In 2000, X-Men was $157m and 8th place. Spider-Man was $403m and 1st place in 2002. (2002's Blade II just about matched Blade's performance). Spider-Man was a rare mega-hit, but X-Men was a big enough hit to get the ball rolling on other Marvel films. Daredevil and Hulk began filming before Spider-Man came out.

    In today's environment, if X-Men was debuting for the first time, it would get numbers much closer to Spider-Man. I think in 2000, fans just had zero faith that Hollywood would adapt comic book superheroes accurately, and expected the movie to be a disappointment. The series gradually grew in popularity over time, but the inaccurate elements they did put into it hindered its popularity to some degree all along the way. The X-Men series gross peaked in 2014 with Days of Future Past, a movie named directly after one of the most popular comic book runs. And then the related Deadpool movies surpassed that a couple years later, with a dead-on accurate portrayal of Deadpool.
     
  3. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I'm looking at worldwide gross, which is what the studios really examine. Spiderman really did make $825 million in 2002. What's interesting is that 3-4 years before, then-Marvel chief exec Avi Arad had begged Sony Pictures to buy all the Marvel characters for something like $20 million dollars (to bail them out of debt), but they wound up paying less than $10 million for just Spiderman. That's an interesting story, and clearly Sony made billions out of that investment.

    It is true that X-Men came out in 2000 and did very well, grossing almost $300 million for Fox. Black Widow and the ancillary characters have done terrific in film, but I'm very curious to see what Marvel will be doing with the Fantastic Four, which at one time was the biggest comic series they had. But the last few movies kind of put the nail in the coffin, and it was clear that franchise was in real trouble. How the Fantastic Four (and the X-Men, for that matter) will fit in the current Marvel scheme... I dunno. I think we can agree that Daredevil and the 2 original Hulk movies were disappointing at best, and those probably need a reboot for film (or perhaps they could move Hulk to TV).

    Nobody ever talks about The Submariner, which was actually a pretty interesting comic book back in the day. I suspect most audiences are more familiar with Aquaman -- essentially the same character -- but Timely/Marvel's Submariner actually came out first, right before WWII. Universal has had the rights to Submariner for years and done nothing with them, but I'm not sure if Marvel Studios now owns them or not. This article below says that Universal still controls distribution to a standalone Hulk or Submariner film:

    Namor Movie Rights Explained: What Marvel Can (& Can't) Do In MCU's Future
     
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2021
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  4. JediJones

    JediJones Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Yeah, that's why Marvel hasn't done another standalone Hulk film. And their first one ended up being the most inconsequential film in their universe, as they recast the actor for Avengers, and redesigned the look of Hulk. The supporting cast from that film was never used again, including the villain teased to become The Leader, except for William Hurt as General Ross. From the upcoming slate, it seems like Hulk is in soft retirement, along with the full retirement of Iron Man, Captain America and Black Widow. She-Hulk is set for Disney Plus, so maybe Hulk will cameo in that.

    The Avengers was the first time that the studios became convinced that the secondary superheroes could deliver grosses on the level of Superman, Batman and Spider-Man. This also gave a big shot in the arm to Marvel Studios, and after that some of their solo hero movies started performing at or near that level. The Avengers team movie sequels still remained the most massive properties though.

    A Namor stand-alone seems unlikely, but he could easily be used as a Fantastic Four villain. Dr. Doom is the biggest asset to come with the F4 franchise. He could easily be built up to be the next big villain in the films a la Thanos. F4 was already on the wane as a comic book in the 1980s, as the relaunch of X-Men stole its thunder. F4 was popular if it had a popular artist on it, but was never really drawing a big readership based on its characters anymore, and they started playing with putting different characters on the team. There is definitely potential to reboot F4 into a popular film because no one has any real attachment to the previous films. I wouldn't be surprised though if they heavily rewrite the premise and characters to separate it from the earlier films and because they think the concept needs modernizing. The director of the film is supposed to be the same as the Tom Holland Spider-Man films, and those films made the most changes from the source material of any MCU films.

    I think the rumor is Feige wants to get Hugh Jackman as Wolverine into the MCU. I don't know if that's the best way to go for bringing the X-Men into the MCU. I think everyone wants Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool in the MCU, but maybe he should be the exception of who they carry over. He is almost a meta character who you can accept it as a joke if he hops universes. But Jackman already has a complete saga as Wolverine under his belt. I'm sure they can find another actor who can play Wolverine, and arguably Jackman wasn't quite as feral and grizzled as the comic book character was anyway. Plus he'll be 55 by the time any movie with him could be slotted in. The X-Men team should probably be given a fresh start. There's also a chance with X-Men that they distance themselves from the past movies by using lesser known characters, or inventing their own, since anyone can be a mutant. But they will definitely have a Wolverine.

    The idea of "multiverse" crossover movies is continually rumored, with Maguire and Garfield's Spider-Men showing up for appearances. So, if they do that, that may be how they bring Jackman in for an appearance. They may still make their own Wolverine later. The Multiverse idea makes very good sense for them financially, because it's another level of team-up to potentially top themselves, after the Avengers movies teamed up all of their own universe's heroes. After that, the next level will be crossing over Marvel and DC, which I definitely believe will happen in 15 years or so. I'm sure Feige as a fanboy would want to see Superman vs. Spider-Man on the big screen, and the studios should realize the box office potential.

    A good way to both do something with Hulk without needing to pay Universal and introduce Wolverine in the MCU would be a Hulk vs. Wolverine movie, which would homage Wolverine's first comic appearance. There would still be something iconic about seeing those two face off. Wolverine really should be introduced on his own and join the X-Men later, as it happened in the comic books. It also helps establish his character as a more independent, reluctant X-Man team member.
     
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2021
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  5. rikki nadir

    rikki nadir Gentleman Thug

    Location:
    London, UK
    Having watched all the Fantastic Four movies, I do wonder if maybe the FF cannot make the jump to the big screen. I love the comic title - some of the Kirby and John Byrne - era stories are among my favourite, most re-visited stories ever.

    But thinking about it, I am not sure how well these stories would translate to a movie - Reed and Sue's wedding, anyone? I am hoping they can work their MCU magic and come up with something to catapult the Fantastic Four into popular consciousness.

    So far, all that has been achieved on a grand scale is to have a dissatisfied audience watching FF movies:

    Seasoned Fantastic Four fan watching FF movies to date: 'That's not Reed Richards/The Thing/Doctor Doom/Galactus, etc...'
    General audience movie-goer: 'This is boring. I hate all these characters. And I have to pretend to like it since I talked the wife out of seeing Wedding Crashers instead.'

    I mean, if time travel existed, one of the drawbacks would have to be visiting my ten-year old self and explaining 'I am from 2021, where Ant-Man is much more widely known than The Thing from Fantastic Four. And there's been a pandemic. Don't cry, on the cool side of things, I own two computers, one sits at home mostly but I carry the other one in my pocket wherever I go!'

    What they need to do is find some way of updating the eternal FF tropes in a way that will satisfy both old fans and a new audience:

    - Reed Richards: brilliant scientist with family loyalty and work-life balance issues, early adopter of 'save the planet' thinking
    - Johnny Storm: maturity and self-confidence issues underlying challenge of meeting alpha male self-image, at times a poor team player
    - Sue Richards: suffers gender-based discrimination and workplace bullying regarding her abilities (especially from super-villains), struggles to define her role as a working parent
    - Ben Grimm: crippling self-image issues impacting his relationship with his disabled partner, while still a key contributor at work

    The problem is no scriptwriters have managed to succeed when answering the query: 'What is the essence of this narrative, if you strip it back? What do you have to have before you add the bells and whistles and CGI and vibrating movie theatre chairs? And once we know what that essential stuff is, how do we make it play to the rubes in Iowa who don't know Victor Von Doom from Doctor Doolittle?'

    Meet that challenge and you have another Mighty Marvel blockbuster, one that gets that Panther guy who posted above into the cinema and issued a warning from staff to stop whooping and remain in his seat until the movie's over.
     
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2021
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  6. Jim B.

    Jim B. Senior Member

    Location:
    UK
    The essence of the FF is the family and their different powers working together. And in essence that has already worked brilliantly in The Incredibles.

    My fear is they won't be able to resist changing the sex or race of the FF, and then it won't be a family. Don't make Sue Storm adopted ffs. Cast an all-white cast like the comics, treat the source material with respect and with a good writer and director this could be massive, given the rogues gallery and adventures the FF have had.
     
  7. JediJones

    JediJones Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    The rumor has been that a black actor would be cast as Dr. Doom. I'm not sure that makes all that much sense for a ruler of an Eastern European country. But the real correct way to do Dr. Doom would be to not show the actor's face at all, a la Darth Vader, at least for several movies. The genius of Doom's character, as I think written by Kirby as a concept and brought into the comics later, is that he's a perfectionist who keeps his face covered because he says it's horribly scarred. When he is eventually unmasked, we learn he only has one small scar. But this is what gives him his inferiority complex that makes him feel the need to conquer the world. There are obviously other incredible elements to the character, his armor and gadgets, his duplicate Doombot drones, his use of magic, his conquering of his home country. But the scar thing would make a great reveal after his character gets built up. They certainly could play the Darth Vader angle too, where his voice under the mask is not the same as his unmasked voice, due to speech-altering technology. So they don't need to decide what actor will play his unmasked form right away. But I'm sick of movies saying they need to show an actor's face for the audiences to connect with that character. It obviously was not true for Vader, or Boba Fett for that matter.

    What really made the Fantastic Four team feel fresh in the '60s was that they were the first superhero team who bickered and squabbled with each other. This is what made the fans love them. But that angle is old hat now. And, ironically, they now seem like a symbol of old-fashioned superheroes who treat each other like family and are less full of angst. Although Ben Grimm has retained more of the angst, and no doubt that's what helped keep him more popular than the other team members over the years. But the idea that you can make the Fantastic Four more edgy than other modern superheroes seems impossible now. And, as they lost that angle over the years, they also declined in popularity as a comic book. All I can suggest is to develop each individual character in a strong way with their own points-of-view and motivations, and let the team dynamics just happen on their own. If the audience only sees them as having relevance as a team, the whole movie is going to seem flat.

    X-Men's hook was that the characters deal with prejudice. I don't know if that was there in their first, failed 1960s comic book, but it came right in with the 1970s relaunch. Obviously, the movies used this angle to some degree, and the MCU would no doubt still see it as relevant and continue with it. I think they should think big and develop the X-Men like they did the Avengers. Give each major character their own movie first, and then 5 or so movies later, get them together as a team. Have Prof. X recruit them like Nick Fury recruited the Avengers. This will help overcome the problem with the Fox X-Men movies in that there was never enough screen time to develop each character. Origin films for Wolverine, Storm and Rogue would be high on the list. Not to mention, because they have Captain Marvel as a character now, they can actually go back to the original Rogue origin where she absorbs Carol's powers.
     
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  8. Holerbot6000

    Holerbot6000 Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    If they want to add cultural diversity to the FF why not make Ben Grimm African-American? Ben's whole arc is about how being transformed into the Thing makes him an outsider and feel ostracized and derided. Seems like fertile ground for some metaphorical exploration of prejudice and the human condition. Maybe it hits too close to home. I dunno.
     
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  9. rikki nadir

    rikki nadir Gentleman Thug

    Location:
    London, UK
    This is the reason I fear the re-re-reboot from MCU is already doomed to failure. Taking issues of racial composition of the cast into consideration is fine, starting out with 'solutions' to such issues baked into the picture development is a recipe for yet another disaster.

    I am not criticising your post btw - merely stating my fears that it reflects genuine thinking that is involved in the actual making of the movie.
     
  10. Holerbot6000

    Holerbot6000 Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    I getcha - I think I am just coming from the standpoint that consideration of cultural diversity is now inevitable so why not make it make dramatically provocative or interesting also? Maybe it's bad form to even call it out though. I realize that. Like I said, might be too on the nose.
     
  11. jbmcb

    jbmcb Forum Resident

    Location:
    Troy, MI, USA
    I guess this thread is as good a place as any for what I came up with:

    The Rules for Superhero Movies:

    1. Keep the character count down. One superhero and one supervillain is plenty. Heck, one superhero vs. incredible odds is usually more than enough. If you are doing an ensemble, do it after a bunch of movies. The Avengers got this right.
    2. Spend a lot of time on the villain/villains. They need arcs, backstory, a clear motivation and a clear purpose. That takes time, so don't dink around with a lot of pointless action scenes.
    3. Your superhero needs to be vulnerable, and you need to show them loosing. If they are all-powerful and indestructible, people will loose interest, quickly.
    4. Show, don't tell. Exposition is the momentum killer. Having the heroes figure something out for themselves is much more rewarding than a plot device character regurgitating information at them.
    5. Every action scene needs to be integral to the plot. If the plot doesn't move forward significantly after the end of an action scene, you've just wasted precious screen time.
    6. Your film needs to have a memory. Remember that horrible terrorist attack on Washington DC at the beginning of the film? Everything is NOT going to be back to normal two days later, so you had better not show the villain strolling through a packed Ronald Reagan airport with no additional security. Remember that important gadget the villains had in the first film? There better be a damn good reason they aren't using it in the sequel.
    7. Pace out character development. If your hero is an incompetent mess at the beginning of the film, they can't be fighting interdimensional super-gods at the end of the film.

    End of rant :)
     
  12. JediJones

    JediJones Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Ben Grimm's ostracization is based on the fact that he had become ugly. And I guess he was an athlete and maybe a ladies' man before that. His race or his pre-mutated appearance doesn't matter all that much. But it would mess up his story if there was backstory that said he was already an outsider before he became The Thing. The whole point of his angst is that, while the superpowers helped his friends out, he drew the short straw and got powers that took things away from him. So you wouldn't want him in a position to say, "This isn't such a big deal, I already know what it's like to have people treat me badly based on how I look."
     
  13. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    Well, that's just great, @Maggie. Thanks for helping me once again justify my unseemly post-adolescent fascination with superheroes. I was almost out of the woods. :laugh:;)
     
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  14. MekkaGodzilla

    MekkaGodzilla Forum Resident

    Location:
    Westerville, Ohio
    I thought Black Panther was the first real Marvel "Blackbuster"? :shrug:
     
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  15. Maggie

    Maggie like a walking, talking art show

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    That's an interesting idea, but in the comics the character is explicitly Jewish and Marvel would be opening themselves to criticism if they erased that (considering the MCU currently has no Jewish characters that I'm aware of, and considering how deeply Jewishness is embedded in the Marvel world).

    There are Black Jews, so it wouldn't be impossible that Ben could be both, but I think it's more interesting to have either Reed or Sue be Black (as, indeed, has been done).
     
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  16. vince

    vince Stan Ricker's son-in-law

    Boom....
     
  17. JediJones

    JediJones Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Reed and Sue's looks are iconic in their human form. Doom, Thing and Torch all have their most iconic looks in non-human form. But messing with the iconic look of characters is never a good idea, and in this case it depends on their skin and hair color. Changing those characters' appearances would be alienating to the fans and would impact the well-known visual iconography of the F4 team.

    The Thing was not revealed to be Jewish until August 2002, 40 years after his creation. Stan Lee said in a podcast that he did not intend him to be Jewish, or any religion per se. Personally, I'm skeptical of any redefining of a character's identity after such a long time. If you already have a complete character that's functioning well, why try to add more biographical details to him, especially ones that almost certainly would've come up in his stories before if they were true?

    The Jewish Thing | On the Media | WNYC Studios

    (on the transcript tab):

    STAN LEE: [LAUGHS] You know I didn't-- intend for him to be [LAUGHS] Jewish. I wrote the Fantastic Four for the first hundred issues or so, and then years ago I gave it up and there have been many, many writers who did it aft--after I had left the series. So recently one of them decided to make Ben Grimm Jewish, which is fine. The reason I didn't -- I never made any of the characters of any specific ethnicity or religion because I wanted them to be-- enjoyed by people all around the world of varying faiths and so forth, and-- I tried to keep everything kind of neutral. But I guess the guys thought it might be fun to make him Jewish, and that's, that's fine with me.

    STAN LEE: No, no I-- I wanted to write four superheroes -- one was a girl, one was a handsome guy, one was a teenager, and I wanted the fourth one to be something different, and it occurred to me I would try to make him sort of a tragic figure. I would turn this guy into somebody ugly. I never thought for a minute what their religions [LAUGHS] were.
     
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  18. GregM

    GregM The expanding man

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    His backstory is based on the childhood of Jacob Kurtzberg, aka Jack Kirby. So if there's one character in MCU they shouldn't alter, you'd think this would be it. Benjamin Jacob "Ben" Grimm's childhood was supposed to be an homage to Jack Kirby.
     
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  19. Isaac K.

    Isaac K. Forum Resident

    I still think the only way Fantastic Four would work is if they set their first film in the 1960s and give it a Mad Men feel, then maybe time travel them forward like they did with Captain America. The whole reason the other movies failed is that they tried to update it when at its core its entire concept is horribly dated.
     
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  20. PH416156

    PH416156 Alea Iacta Est

    Location:
    Europe
    :laugh:
     
  21. GregM

    GregM The expanding man

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    Seems possible. X-Men First Class takes place in 1962 and Days of Future Past also made good use of time travel to reinvent the characters in the early '70s. Not sure why Marvel is having such a hard time making the Fantastic Four work.
     
  22. ampmods

    ampmods Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boston, MA, USA
    I agree that Fantastic Four is a difficult thing to bring into the modern movies... but I personally think the answer is to make them their original 1960s versions. Really play up the Mad Men era they come from.

    Either by multi-verse/time stream stuff or even possibly just the quantum realm itself... bring them here like Captain America was brought into the 60s comics.

    Imagine Reed Richards is a scientist in 1961 working on the same sort of technology that Hank Pym was but independently from SHIELD or the military. After a couple successful solo experiments into the quantum realm, Reed discovers that he can use this technology to time travel (decades before Tony Stark and with 1960s tech). Then either because he asks or they insist on joining him on the time travel journey, the other 3 and Reed embark on a mission to futuristic 1962!

    But the mission goes badly when in the quantum realm they encounter a cosmic radiation storm that strands them and their time machine. Luckily Reed is able to improvise and return them all... but instead of 1962... they arrive in modern times... and with their famous powers due to the cosmic storm.

    The thing that could be attractive about that to me is that they could be the original characters they were in the comics. Maybe even exaggerated to show how out-of-time they are. Really old fashioned ideas on everything.

    They hide themselves from the rest of the world initially as they try to figure out how to get back to 1961 and how to deal with their powers. Somehow their presence is discovered... maybe by a Kang lead TVA even... and they have to use their powers to survive which results in a big fight scene that makes them known to the world.

    It would be fun seeing Reed seeing the modern world and maybe even inventing some things that have long existed. Or Sue either being surprised at how far women have come or disappointed. Thing maybe calling Captain Marvel 'babe' or something. And Johnny totally embracing all the modern breaking from traditional mores.
     
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  23. ampmods

    ampmods Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boston, MA, USA
    I just long-windedly said the same thing. :)
     
  24. BeatleJWOL

    BeatleJWOL Senior Member

    Tim Roth's Abomination was recently spotted in the Shang-Chi trailer, and will also be appearing in She-Hulk alongside Ruffalo reprising his role.
     
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  25. Isaac K.

    Isaac K. Forum Resident

    But I really wouldn't change a thing about their origin, which I also think is part of the problem with the remakes. 60s Race For Space is a great backdrop and reason for setting it in that era.
     
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