I'm right there with ya. I started suffering Marvel-fatigue around Guardians 2. I don't think the MCU will do poorly going forward, but I also think Endgame was the peak of the MCU and it's just gonna be a slow downward spiral from now on.

 

I could see myself watching more MCU in the quiet of my home, once the yarrr sites have an HD version, but not all of them and probably only when it involves a character I like. Same for any of the Disney+ stuff.

The only MCU thing I'm really looking forward to at this point is the What If series that'll be on Disney+, apparently an anthology of peeks into alternate timelines at key divergences in the MCU. Depends on how they show it though. If they bring back RDJ for an episode to show, say, what happens in the MCU if he doesn't reveal he's Iron Man in 2008, or Cap doesn't go in the ice. But if it's something like "we'll talk about these characters but they won't ever show up because RDJ wanted 20 mil for a 60 minute episode so we'll just have Agents of Shield characters talk about Stark" -- then I'll skip it.

 

I have no idea what the situation is, but it occurred to me this morning that a souring relationship between Sony and Disney might affect any planned sequel to the recent Spidey game, which would probably upset me more than him leaving the MCU to be honest.

 

Official Sony's statement:

In other words just a PR talk. I suspect that Sony feels more secure about their decision because Venom was a surprisingly big success for them with $856m worldwide. The next big test for them will be Morbius in 2020. If it doesn't perform well, they may change their position. The problem is if it will be before or after the next Spider-Man film starts production.

But if Disney doesn't make next Spidey movie, at least we will get a hard numbers on how much, if anything, MCU elements and Marvel Studio involvement add to these films, both in the box office and general opinions about their quality.

 

I wouldn't be massively optimistic about Morbius. Venom is at least one of the more recognisable of Spidey's rogues/supporting cast, but Morbius is C-list on a good day. Maybe it's just my echo chamber, but I haven't seen anyone remotely interested in it.

 

If nothing else, I hope the MCU memes live on forever.

 

I mean, they're not the same calibre, but Iron Man wasn't exactly A-tier when the first movie came out. Ditto Guardians.

 

Iron Man wasn't A-Tier but he was at least known by even casual Comic Book fans and was a somewhat recognisable name. Plus he made some appearances in some 90s/2000s cartoons. I used to be more of a DC guy but I read just as much Marvel and I had to search up Morbius to find out who he is.

One of the reasons Guardians did as well as it did is because it had the goodwill of the rest of the MCU movies up to that point. If that was released anytime before the first Avengers movie then no way would it have succeeded as much.

 

It'll be animated. So, maybe they'll get voices. But honestly, that all by itself makes me less interested in it.

 

Marvel stars are weighing in, starting with Jeremy Renner.

In terms of Disney v Sony I'm honestly mad at both. They're both ridiculously profitable companies and need to make a fucking deal so the MCU can continue on the path it's on. I am more mad at Sony though, because yeah 50/50 for the Spider-Man movies was probably not gonna happen, but why would they just walk away from the table instead of trying to get a larger percentage of the MCU movies that Spider-Man appears in in exchange or something.

Just walking away reeks of them having been looking for an excuse and wanting to not share the rights at all now that they got their booster shot.

 

According to the updated Deadline article, Sony came back to the table with other configurations, but Disney disagreed. I'm not mad at Sony in this one, it just reeks of Disney being greedy as usual. Going for a 50/50 co-financing deal while you also retain a 100% of merchandising profits, if that's not greed I don't know what greed is. https://deadline.com/2019/08/kevin-...nter-soldier-tom-rothman-bob-iger-1202672545/

To the people in this thread arguing that Disney does the heavy lifting, Sony is the one financing and distributing the movies, and they retained final creative control over them (according to Wikipedia). Yes Feige was involved, but it seems to have been Sony doing the heavy lifting on the Spider-Man movies. In what world would Sony ever give up 50% of the Spider-Man movies, their most profitable franchise, to Disney of all companies? That would be the worst possible thing they could do, especially in terms of profit.

 

Tells you something about how pissed people are at Sony that they're standing up for Disney, that poor underdog.

 

Then I'm back to hating both equally. Figure it the hell out and get my MCU back on track.

 

I think the core issue is that 5% of first dollar gross and the merchandising profits (for officially licensed movie merchandising by the way, not any and all spiderman products), was not enough to recoup what Disney was putting in, in terms of both dollars and time.

And I can understand wanting to get paid for the work you do. It's just 50% of first dollar gross (off of like... a billion) for any spidey film they were involved in was way too big of an ask.

They both should have settled for keeping the current financing arrangements, but do something like 80% Sony / 20% Disney returns for any Spidey film Disney makes for Sony, and then like 95% Disney to 5% Sony for any Disney team-up film Spidey appears in, just essentially to pay for the character.

 

I could get behind the theory that 50% was Disney's opening bid, which they expected to get negotiated down from to maybe 25% or so. That's not based on any evidence whatsoever, though.

 

Apparently Disney wanted 30% and it wouldn't be a bad deal for Sony. Both sides are greedy, but at the moment it appears that it's Sony that once again is going to destroy Spider-Man franchise.

 

MCU Spider-Man sucks, so maybe we'll get a good incarnation again out of this.

(EDIT: Okay, his scenes in Civil War aren't so bad.)

 

So I'm burning a witch tonight, anyone wanna join?

 

I love Spider-Man, but I highly doubt I'm going to go buy tickets to see the fourth incarnation at this point.