Originally posted by @pap
Originally posted by @TedMaul
Itâs right though KRG
Iâve been up since 4.30 am (thanks Gary Monk!) and had a shitty day.
Marvel/DC comics and Star Wars franchises (Now owned by Disney Corp) all look for their âproductsâ to have exhibition dominance. Put out films and build a fanbase that squeezes out smaller Independant films from being shown at all. Or funded really.
Marvel and DCâs dominance did little to diminish other people from making comics. The market is huge, and thereâs a great deal of respected stuff that falls well outside the two camps, and they were trying to do exactly the same thing there; keep you in their universe. Besides, the vast majority of stuff hitting the silver screen at the moment is an adaptation of some kind or another. The comic book universe has been barely or poorly mined, considering how vast it is.
The other thing I think youâve got the wrong way around is why these films make as much money as they do. Itâs got little to do with building a fanbase, and more to do with having the technology to make films and shows that existing fandom has been anticipating for years.
Itâs a complete reduction in creativity. Marvel/Disney Corp are interested in market share and dividends and moniterising. There will be a Star Wars product every 12 months from now, Marvel have rolled out their product launch (each franchise must cross promote another) until 2021.
Edgar Wright had the audacity of writing and making a unique movie within this constraint and gave up.
I thought you were a socialist mate 
Thisâll be Edgar Wright, that makes a load of geeky movies, spends time on Twitter promoting comic book stuff and bigging up his mates that have appeared in comic book movies. That dude read a lot of comics growing up, and as such, probably isnât the best example to use of how comics are stifling creativity.
Iâve also seen Ant-Man. After the way Wright went on, was expecting a total pile of shite. Was pleasantly surprised.
How many of these âsuperheroâ films will appear in the top 100 films of all time and other such lists?
Personally, they bore the fucking shit out of me.
edit: though I love Birdman-possibly an anti-superhero film though 
Quite a few sit in IMDBâs top 50, and there are already anti-hero movies out there. Iâve only really got a couple of complaints as a fan. The first is that there are too many origin stories in the movies. The second is the labyrinthine contract negotiations which prevent people in the same comic universe appearing in the same movies.
Beyond the licenced beginning, how different is your average superhero movie from your average movie featuring a bog standard hero? Theyâre all the bloody same; layman discovers he or she has a special gift or purpose, before entering a world of mystery, Fuck, the Harry Potter films have identical structures until Hogwarts starts getting fucked at the end.
Of course, the really amusing thing is that this discussion was prompted on shows that the critics havenât even seen. Hold your nose up if you want, boys. The first season of Agents of SHIELD had a fully armed and operational Bill Paxton in it. Youâre missing out 
Gotham, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Agents ofâŠ
I stand by it, youâre over doing it.
Also, I think the defence of âwell they are all the same as all the other things that are the sameâ isnât a great one.
Which youâve probably not seen a single episode of. What are you working off, KRG? Show titles?
Seen a couple of episodes of Agents, half the series of Dd, and a few of Gotham.
None of them did it for me. I was poking fun at you, but I think the point stands. Thereâs far too much of this now. It was alright when there was an occasional superhero film.
A Spiderman every few years, but now thereâs about 5/6 a year, every year. Itâs overkill, and itâs entirely flooding the market. Boring as hell.
That said, a lot of these films help keep my Step Brother and his gf in work. So, I probably shouldnât complain.
Interesting that Birdman grossed a little over $100m dollars at the box office whereas Avengers: Age of Ultron grossed nearly $1.5billion.
I have seen both films and yet am struggling to remember any plot, scenes or notable performances in the Marvel abomination.
Taste eh?
Itâs interesting, but not that difficult to explain. Different budgets, different marketing strategies. To be fair, I agree with you. Birdman will probably be the more affecting film for me, but it was over-hyped by the critics to the point where it was mildly disappointing, and I suspect that much of the praise was down to the film actually acknowledging the role of the critic in the industry. An âooh look, weâre on TVâ type thing.
I thought it was scathing of the critic but heh. Itâs a film that Iâm still thinking about, months after watching it. I forget about most Marvel/superhero films before Iâve got to the shitter on the way out.
Explosions and CGI is responsible for the higher grossing films, not the question of superheroes or no superheroes.
Or maybe it says more about the American psyche? Our âheroicâ military canât stop Tom, Dick and Mustapha flying into our buildings and Big Clint canât keep our kids safe from automatic weapon wielding nutcases. What we need is some cunt in tights.
You, Me & The Apocolpyse was good and well worth watching. They didnt wimp out at the end either which was a pleasant surprise. Lots of loose ends too so there may be a second series.
All you really need is Watchmen, Sin City (the first) and V For Vendetta.
For me, most other comic book-based films fulfil an âOh, thatâs on is it? Worth a puntâ role at the box office and Iâm happy to keep it that way. Perhaps itâs the same with the TV spin-offs? Pick and choose the odd one to work through when thereâs nothing else you fancy. Having watched a couple of episodes of Jessica Jones I think itâll fit nicely into that for me.
I do reckon itâs a risky strategy to saturate the market so. Could breed familiarity - and thus contempt - with an entire generation. Still, they can always just reboot all the characters⊠again.
Correct. For me, the advent of decent CGI merely enabled these movies, and a lot more. People have been trying to put superheroes on the screen for decades, but havenât really had the techniques or the commercial environment to pull it off. Even Tim Burtonâs Batman, correctly lauded at the time, feels a bit shonky now in comparison.
I think another thing that people forget is that on TV at least, shows about super-powered people have been on the air for years. Theyâve just not been labelled as such (Buffy, etc) or havenât had the full licence to do it, so go with something thematically similar, but not actually the real thing.
The only comics I read as a kid were Shoot! and Anglerâs Mail.
Where the fuck are my big screen adaptations with huge story arcs eh?
You had Jossyâs Giants, Dream Team and the Goal! movies. What the fuck are you complaining about?
Fair point. They were all better than Age of Ultron.