There are great directors who I wouldn't blink an eye at working in the MCU. Christopher McQuarrie, Leigh Wannell, Rian Johnson, Brad Bird. But like I said in the entertainment forum recently after watching Welcome II the Terrordome, Disney actually has a monopoly on mainstream American sci-fi movies. Inherently, there will be little room for the kind of brilliant things people like Ngozi Onwurah and Paul Verhoeven did in the 80s and 90s. And as good as the best Marvel movies are, there will always be a place they won't be able to go, so for truly bold filmmakers, I hope they spend as much of their time outside of the MCU as they can, personally. I love Black Panther, but after two franchise films in a row, I can't say this is what I might have hoped Ryan Coogler's career would turn into when I came out of the theater after Fruitvale Station (granted Coogler is very young and hopefully has plenty of time to do more adventurous stuff).
On one hand this news is overwhelming, but on the other I kinda dig how the MCU will be be more “comic book” feel in the way so many different stories will be told across both film and tv with the option to “tune in” to get more perspectives on an overarching story. We’ll soon have like 5 shows and 4 films a year. It’s like looking at a comic book shelf.
Literally nobody in this thread has said it's a good thing that Disney is as big as it is. Marvel should absolutely be its own separate company, as should Lucasfilm, and Fox. But this is the reality we live in sadly.
I'm all for getting the best possible directors for these films. Idgaf if people think it's a waste of a film maker's talent. It's better than having severely underwhelming crap
This. We just want to watch the characters and universe expand but we can’t do anything about Disney owning it.
because the more creative output Disney controls, the less interesting the film landscape is. It is a bad thing for movies for Disney to be what it is. I am happy for Barry Jenkins and Ryan Coogler to be able to play in a Disney toolbox and hopefully secure capital that will help them continue to be the directorial voices they are, but I will always hope that the franchise/IP dominated cinematic era we're in (as far as mainstream American cinema goes) will fade and, for lack of a better phrase, auteur cinema can hopefully rise back to the mainstream in a way it hasn't held the national attention in decades. Because as I see it, Disney's strategy of acquisition of literally everything they can buy combined with the decline of theaters and the questionable future/intentions of streaming services* leads to a bad place that I hope will be avoided. * - I recognize that streaming services are largely what's currently funding the sort of original, auteur works that I'm pining for, but while I appreciate that, other practices they employ worry me about where film as a medium may end up trending
Sorry, didn't mean to be a wet blanket. Been feeling more cynical than usual lately. I'm sure some of these will be fun and I hope you all get a lot out of them.
We all pretty much have the same concerns to an extent, but there’s nothing we can do about it. We’re invested in these characters so we want to continue watching them and hope that we just get quality stories in the process, even if the ever-growing control it gives Disney isn’t in our favor.
But why can’t these creative directors do both? Also, it will stop when people stop watching the Disney movies. But they don’t. It just keeps going up and up. It’s gotta come down at some point
Watts has done a fantastic job with the Spider-man films. The last one actually made Spidey actually feel like Spidey, so I have faith Watts will be more than fine for F4. Also, content overload? Oh no, some TV shows and films were announced with only a couple of trailers. How shall I live?! Sorry, y’all can get back to moaning now.
I wanna say this is the only place I see his Spidey films get a bashing, but I’ll no doubt be told that “loads of people elsewhere on the internet don’t like them either” or some shit.
I trust Watts to understand the family aspect of F4 better than either of the other directors who've tackled the property so far.
I’ve enjoyed Watts’ Spider-Man films as well. I agree this is the only place I really see a handful of people dislike them.
So to also say something nice about the new Spidey films, I think Watts does a great job with the characters of Peter, Ned, MJ, and both Vulture/Mysterio, which makes me excited for the characters we’ll see. My only issue with the movies is just the plot around those characters has been weak and too focused on Stark is all. When the foundations have been really good and the potential for greatness so high, it’s just a little disappointing to see the movies turn out to only be good fun and not something really special.
It’s not an uncommon take amongst passionate Spider-Man fandom, like on Twitter & Reddit. Though, passionate fandom in those regions of the Internet (from Zack Snyder stans to Kevin Feige stans) are always... something else. Also not that uncommon amongst, like, “film Twitter” & tangentially related corners of the Internet who enjoy certain kinds of movies.
My lack of excitement with Watts helming Fantastic Four really has nothing to do with my opinion on MCU Spidey (again, I like those movies a lot, especially compared to some of the other people on here). More that literally nothing he’s done has made me go “Oh yeah he’s the right pick for Fantastic Four”. Of course he could surprise me like the Russos did with their movies, but I’m very skeptical
TBF, considering how poorly FF has done with the previous studio, this should be a free hit for Marvel. Giving it to Watts is a safe bet. If it's successful (and depending on the Spidey situation at the time), they could hand the sequel onto someone with a bit more stature.
Watts has done no better or worse than any of the other middle-tier directors that have worked in the MCU. At the very least the F4 movie will be competently made. I’m disappointed because I would rather them have given the movie to someone new that hasn’t worked on a Marvel film yet. I will say, though, that it’s pretty funny/telling that Watts is jumping ship from Sony to do F4 instead of a fourth Spider-Man but is still eager to work with Marvel.
Yeah, don't get me wrong, I really liked Homecoming, but I have some criticisms I was let down by. Far From Home had some really cool scenes, but was kind of disappointing to me overall. It had parts that made me cringe, like that agent telling Peter to strip and the classmate taking a picture, or the several minutes of generic, evil exposition from Mysterio to the other villains. The end fight with Mysterio was incredible, but the writing felt weak overall. Hate the Tony Stark focus.
The God Butcher being in the new Thor just....phew. Necrosword will lead to Knull as the big bad of the end of whatever the next several years of films will be. Really really need Sony to give up Venom.