Written by Luke Barnes

This piece will talk about how or indeed if Marvel Studios can pull themselves back from the brink. As many of you will be aware Marvel is in somewhat of a bad state at the moment, yes Deadpool and Wolverine will be a success but outside of that what else will be? Will Brave New World or Thunderbolts break 1 billion it is highly, and I do mean highly, unlikely. Many people view Marvel Studios as being in a perpetual decline since Endgame with a few hits here and there, mainly Spiderman related, and undeniably that’s true.

My question here is how do we get back to the hight of Endgame, in my opinion there are 4 key steps that need to be taken in order to right the ship, some will be popular and some won’t be, but all are needed.

Firstly, Marvel needs to stop making things for niche audiences, they made a show like She-Hulk not for general nerds or fans of Marvel but to try and lure in the Fleabag crowd, with the idea that oh they can keep their male audience and then bring in a new or growing female audience at the same time. This as Sony has learnt is not possible, doing things like this lessens your inherent male nerdy viewer base, and though it may increase demographics slightly doesn’t change the fact that superhero content is mainly enjoyed by guys so should be aimed at them. You cannot force an inherently male franchise into all these different moulds to try and get in different groups who likely will just watch that one thing and tune out the rest. You can see this as well with the low numbers of things like Ms Marvel, again it was made for a specific audience and the general Marvel crowd didn’t turn up, the Marvels again it was made for a specific audience and it didn’t perform well, do I need to spell it out anymore?

Secondly, they need to wipe the slate clean and start over. Now I don’t mean a reboot what I mean is give up all this multiverse stuff that has so far left audiences cold, Kang is gone so come up with a new threat and have it be set in 616, or whatever Marvel calls their universe, and leave the multiverse for another day. As well as this you want to focus on your well established and liked characters, I am talking about your Fantastic Fours, your X-Men, hell even a Midnight Sons with Moon Knight, Blade, Dane Whitman, Werewolf by Night and Ghost Rider, not Agatha and the coven of who cares, or rip-off Iron Man, or even Wonder Man, who is coming in way too late. Here is the bit that will get some people upset, I believe that Marvel should copy WBD and scrap these projects even if they are done and ready to go for the tax write off and go okay we made a mistake with these projects on characters people don’t know or in the case of Riri people actively dislike, and just let it go down the wayside.

Thirdly, stop it with Disney +, there shouldn’t be any series coming out on Disney + every time they release something like the soap opera dross that was Echo all they are doing is diluting the brand and creating homework for people. When you just had to watch the movies to know what was going on things were far more accessible, marathoning a few movies is far more enjoyable, especially as many of them were good, then sitting down and watching hours upon hours of frankly mediocre Disney + fare so that you can understand a reference in the Marvels. The level of homework that is expected of audiences at this point is just ridiculous. If it were me I would use Disney + for two reasons, firstly to spot light and introduce new characters, White Tiger appears in the next Spiderman film give her an hour long special on Disney +, not a series. I would also use Disney + as a bridge, by that I would use hour long specials to fill in gaps in the world or between films to again set up ideas. Basically I would do 4 or maybe 5 of these type of events a year and nothing else, they would each be about an hour long and that’s it.

Oh and I’d keep the animation stuff going on Disney + as that is fairly inconsequential.

Finally, if things were getting really bad, which I have a feeling that by the end of next year they will be, I would bring back Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans and any other dead character that would get fans to care again, but I believe that this should only be done if they can’t save it any other way as it would create its own problems.

Ultimately Marvel seem hellbent on hacking themselves to death, the Silver Surfer casting news and the fact that we aren’t getting the version of the Surfer most fans would want shows that they are continuing down an identity politics, subversion sort of direction and mark my words they will pay for it, as audiences won’t come back. Perhaps the issue is Fiege himself, much like with Lucasfilm Marvel would benefit from someone new at the helm as Fiege and his masterplan seems to be a thing of the past at this point, unless the plan said to make a bunch of low quality Disney + shows and damage the brand.

If you enjoyed this piece, then please head over to my Patreon to support me, I offer personalized shoutouts, customised film recommendations to suit your personality and tastes, the ability for you to pick what I review next and full access to my Patreon exclusive game reviews. Check it out!

https://www.patreon.com/AnotherMillennialReviewer

Written by Luke Barnes

This piece will talk about how cinemas are putting themselves out of business and how the coming downfall could have been prevented.

So as some of you who follow me on X will know this cinema issues article is inspired by something that happened to me recently. I have a cinema card meaning I can go as often as I like for a monthly fee, and I had booked to see a film at the start of the week which I had to miss due to an emergency of sorts and go later on that same day at the end of the week. Now remember as I had to get another lot of tickets they got more of my money not less, yet the next day I got an email telling me that I was getting a strike for missing a film and if I get three of them there will be some arbitrary consequences. I challenged them on this and they said it was done to make sure the most amount of customers could view the films. Know I am not an expert on what audiences will do but I don’t think in either of the screenings I booked it would have been sold out, and I don’t think there is that mad a rush to go to the cinema anymore that there is ever a chance a screening will sell out. Which gets me down to the brass tax of what this policy is, it is a means for cinemas to attack some of their most loyal customers as in there misguided and deluded way they think that is the problem.

Cinema attendance is rapidly falling, check any number of stats and data elsewhere for proof of it, it dropped off in the pandemic and hasn’t returned, the one two three four punch of rising ticket prices, preaching, streaming and the ever increasing popularity of anime meant more and more people are staying home. Now what are cinemas to do in order to keep the lights on? They think they can sell themselves as premium luxury destinations serving food and cocktails as a means to stay afloat, if people couldn’t afford five pounds for a cinema ticket, more like eight dollars American, how can they afford to wine and dine? They think they can sell the fact that oh they have the best tech, it is the way the filmmaker wanted you to see it, no one other than the purists care about that and a lot of people have good home cinema setups now so again that isn’t getting folks in the door. They can try another tirade against piracy which won’t change or effect anything as with VPN’s its easier than ever to pirate any film you like. They are trying to police those that still come as though they are expecting a mad rush to suddenly come in as one of the cinema owners goes back in time to assassinate the founders of Netflix in utero therefore preventing the streaming future, yet all there policing does is make me not want to go to the cinema anymore. They can put on better films cater more towards anime films or niche interests that might result in new people coming or large groups for an event film, but ultimately they can’t control what gets made.

There is only one logical thing they can do, but they won’t do it. They need to lower costs, I saw something the other day from a exhibitor who said that they should charge the same prices for cinema tickets as they do live sports or concerts, raising cinema prices into thirty to six pounds a go, add about three quarters of the overall amount to that to work out the dollar price, this would kill cinema dead. Concerts and live sports are in the moment events that cannot be replicated again you can rewatch a film at home, moreover these events have a sense of community and fandom in a way the cinema doesn’t, these are activities that are milestones are major events in people’s lives, going and watching the latest Melissa McCarthy film where she poos herself falls over and it smears down her face isn’t that and it never will be.

Yes, if they lowered costs they might initially lose money however, once going to the cinema became more affordable for families or individuals they would be more likely to go more often to get the kids out of the house, they would be more likely to try new films, they would be more likely to be in the building so you could sell them some merch or food. Ultimately whether we can agree on the cause or not cinema is dying, and by that I mean audiences going to the cinema to watch films, the idea that things might one day go back to pre-pandemic levels is increasingly proving unlikely, and the one thing that won’t save cinema is to hike up ticket prices.

If you enjoyed this piece, then please head over to my Patreon to support me, I offer personalized shoutouts, customised film recommendations to suit your personality and tastes, the ability for you to pick what I review next and full access to my Patreon exclusive game reviews. Check it out!

https://www.patreon.com/AnotherMillennialReviewer