Last movie you watched......

Different studio, tho. Every Kevin Feige movie has made lots of money. Bring Fantastic Four into the MCU, and I all but guarantee it will too.

 

Exactly. That's part of the problem with this discussion. We keep drifting back and forth between all comic book movies and MCU. When people want to talk about reboots and bad movies, those outside the MCU become fair game. When the topic turns to quality and repetition, suddenly the focus narrows only to the MCU. It's not a fair and balanced discussion that way.

Take reboots as an example. There has never been a reboot within the MCU. The continuity gets shaky at times, especially now that time travel is involved, but there is still just one connected universe. We've seen actors replaced, but no real reboots.

Sony has rebooted Spider-Man more than once, but only one time in conjunction with the MCU. The X-Men will be rebooted, but the versions that already exist were Fox creations. The same is true of the Fantastic Four.

The MCU can certainly make a bad movie. The Incredible Hulk is incredibly flawed, though I still enjoy it. It was the least successful MCU movie at the box office. Thor: The Dark World is just bad and it is also near the bottom in terms of box office. Then again, Ant-Man and Captain America: The First Avenger are also low on the list in terms of the money they brought in and I thought both were well done in their own way.

If you're going to talk about quality, even cinema, are we just talking about the MCU or all comic book movies? I ask the same question when the discussion turns to the claim that comic book movies are all the same. Sin City, The Dark Knight and Iron Man are not all the same.

 

I don't think Coppola is limiting himself to the MCU. I think he'd be hard-pressed to identify it, at least insofar as it is thought to somehow differ from other comic book movies.

As we said upthread, there was a Spiderman before there was an MCU; there was a Hulk; there were X-Men and the Fantastic Four, etc., ad inf.

That there's been a conscious effort in the last decade to gather all these separate stories into one narrative doesn't nullify the films that pre-date them.

Same for Batman and Superman, et al. That we get Joaquin Phoenix doesn't erase Jack Nicholson. In fact, it sort of demonstrates the phenomenon. For 30 years, Hollywood has leaned more heavily on comic books than at any point in its history.

That said, you sort of make Coppola's point for him by suggesting that Feige is the key to success - that only one person can produce the uniformity necessary for these movies to succeed.

 

Actually, I didn't say Feige was the key to success. Also, it's not just one person. The Russo brothers have had a huge impact, bringing one style of film making. James Gunn took a different approach. Jon Favreau played a significant role in launching things. I dispute the idea that just because the movies are connected that there is uniformity among all of them. It simply isn't true. Again, watch The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy. Are they really the same?

My point is that we can either discuss all comic book movies or the MCU, but shifting back and forth depending on which point you are trying to make is disingenuous. You just did it in your post. You want to talk about uniformity, but that ignores the variety among comic book movies. The Nolan/Bale Batman movies are very different from the MCU in tone and style. Sin City is another example. There are others.

Then you want talk about reboots, which are not an issue within the MCU. If you're going after the business model, it's not a fair criticism at all.

 

Regan MacNeil did.

 

To Coppola?

Sure.

 

Favreau says let Coppola be Coppola.

Scorsese and Coppola have 'earned the right' to criticise Marvel, says Jon Favreau

 

Except you're using words I never said to make your point. I never said anything about uniformity.

Steven Spielberg has made some of the best blockbusters of all-time. Are they all uniform?

 

"Every Kevin Feige movie has made lots of money."

Which makes them uniformly successful at the box office.

Spielberg?

Spielbergian, adj. : Oxford English Dictionary

 

That doesn't seem to me like the version of the word you were using, "can produce the uniformity".

 

Kevin Feige has produced uniformly successful iterations of these Marvel movies.

I think your original point was that simply being a Marvel property - ie, Fantastic Four - was no guarantee of box office success.

Without saying that Feige has a formula, it's safe to say - in fact you said it - that in his hands, these properties succeed at the box office.

 

Yes, I was saying he knows how to make a successful movie. And yes, they are in fact uniformly successful.

But they are not uniform in approach.