Marvel Cinematic Universe

[Dacey]

Yes. The GOTG movies only got made to explain who Thanos was. How silly of us to assume otherwise.

And Disney started production on a $100 million+ movie with an all-star cast and then went “whoops!” once they started shooting, because that’s how Hollywood works.

And Eric I guess was present for all of Marvel studio meetings AND has watched an early version of the film, which would be the only way he could know any of this.

[EricJ]

And you, of course, know how contracts work--
You would be amazed at the movies studios go through with, or even "stubbornly" insisted on releasing in '20 pandemic theaters, because they "whoops!" HAD to.

(...Btw, when is that Black Widow movie coming out?)

[Dacey]

There’s no evidence whatsoever to suggest that Disney would move forward with a “pointless random movie” in the biggest film franchise of all time because they “had to.” Just because you’re apparently rooting for this to fail doesn’t make whatever form of speculation this is coming from accurate.

And Black Widow opens in July. You know that.

Anyway, moving on please...

[gaastra]

We have our kraven the hunter?

https://www.thewrap.com/aaron-taylor-jo ... ain-movie/

[Ben]

You would be amazed at the movies studios go through with, or even "stubbornly" insisted on releasing in '20 pandemic theaters, because they "whoops!" HAD to.

Explain.

[EricJ]

Some really, really BAD movies (ahemf4ntastic) are made simply because the studio contractually had to make them before a deadline date of losing their contractual rights.
Some make them because it would cost MORE to shut down production or not pay actors who had contractual clauses that they would be.
And the list goes on (including the abovementioned reasons why WW84 kept hoping theaters would reopen). It's a dirty business.

In "Okay, this was going to be our big idea five years ago" Eternals' case, it's possible they thought they had something that could still grab a seasonal weekend by itself, and work out the details later. Like, after Dr. Strange 2 later.
And I have to assume you know all this already and are just trolling, but I was just taking a break on the keyboard anyway.

[Dacey]

For what it’s worth, WB can only be but so unhappy with Wonder Woman 1984 considering they’re moving forward with a third film...

[Ben]

I love hearing about what Eric thinks he knows.

If you only knew how long it takes and how many parts have to be in place to even get a film rolling — let alone get anywhere near production — and then fall apart sometimes weeks before or days into shooting... Or even, in a case on a movie shooting currently, some pretty drastic crew changes because, to use the old joke, first day in and they were already three weeks behind schedule...

Honestly, I would love to just sit back and watch any of you — and one of you in particular — try and mount a proper film, even a microbudget one, let alone a huge tentpole that you think is all plain sailing because they have money and studios and, yes, contracts behind them. If only you really did know...

[droosan]

I think I've said here before -- having worked on VFX & 'pre-vis' for multiple TV & film projects, from super-low budget DTVs to multimillion-dollar features -- it's a wonder to me that even a tenth of them turn out to be entertaining, at all.

Every movie/TV production is a bewilderingly complex undertaking .. with near-infinite variables at every step. All I can do is try my best to make my little part of it the best it can be .. but even that can be a constant 'soul-wearying' battle, sometimes.

[Ben]

It’s always fascinating to me that the ones that can sometimes feel like pulling teeth turn out to be the ones I can often watch more like an audience member, and enjoy more...! But it’s less fun when something that was a blast to work on, and make good relationships from, turns out to disappointing, sometimes majorly so. You just never can tell. As you say, we just try to keep it light between our immediate crew, despite the constant changes, updates and redos. It does surprise/frustrate/annoy me how many people don't seem to know what they’re doing, or what they want, and is it me or do there seem to be more and more getting like this as every decision is second and third guessed, and then goes back to something resembling the original choice anyway...!!?!??

[Daniel]

Nothing like getting back to the basics!

[Daniel]

Final trailer for Black Widow:



July 9. One month to go!

[Ben]

Still tremendous underwhelmed for this. It’s all too Salt and Red Sparrow-ish, along with a whole bunch of those kinds of films, and the lack of superhero thrills and awful dialogue ("You can’t win", really?) plus the fact we know she has to live by the end to meet her fate in Endgame, made the whole thing feel old even when it was going to come out last year, let alone in another few weeks...

[Randall]

Yeah, pretty "meh" even now. Not that I won't watch it later this year, of course. It must be watched. But so far, I am not excited. To make this relevant, it really has to be setting up something new, and there is really no hint of that. Still, we might be surprised.

[EricJ]

Still tremendous underwhelmed for this. It’s all too Salt and Red Sparrow-ish,

Yeah, Red Sparrow didn't sound ANYTHING like "Black Widow", did it?
Good thing they avoided confusion by using the exact same "ballet school" cover story for the KGB assassin program!

(If more people had read actual Marvel comics by now, the producers would have their hinders sued off.
But no, once again, it's the geeks who must play Cassandra, while every one else says "Oh, no, it's a completely original idea!")