I'm watching The Electric State and it's really not that great.
I started to think about the movie's directors, The Russo Brothers and their non-MCU directorial work.
It turns out their work outside of the MCU has been pretty dismal. Leaving me to wonder if their MCU work was good not because of them, but because of the heavy-handed control that Disney/Marvel exerts on the MCU movies.
Thoughts?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo_br…
#movies #disney #marvel #mcu #netflix
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
steve mookie kong
Unknown parent • • •steve mookie kong
Unknown parent • • •Tom Roberts
in reply to steve mookie kong • • •Their work on Community (TV) combined with those MCU films gave me hope they were really talented.
But yeah, maybe not.
steve mookie kong
in reply to Tom Roberts • • •@troberts
I've never seen Community. I tried Citadel and that was rather meh.
Tom Roberts
in reply to steve mookie kong • • •It had 6 seasons of varying quality. But its high points are some of my favourite TV.
If you are bored one day, it's worth looking up a "best episodes of Community" list and giving it a try.
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kurtsh
in reply to steve mookie kong • • •"heavy-handed control"? You mean the same strict control exerted on such winners as "Secret Invasion", "Quantumania", "The Eternals" & "The Marvels"? 😁
I suspect this was more about the initial treatments & screenwriting than direction or exec notes. It could be a combination but the scripts for all 4 of the above were rly bad to begin with from what I've heard.
kurtsh
in reply to kurtsh • • •steve mookie kong
in reply to kurtsh • • •@kurtsh
Hehe. Good luck. I can see how some will find it an entertaining enough way to pass two hours.
steve mookie kong
in reply to kurtsh • • •@kurtsh
Something happened after MCU Phase Three. All of what you listed is Phase Four and beyond. IIRC Phase Four is when Disney started to really branch out with the MCU and bringing more of it to Disney+ via TV shows. Basically diluting the franchise by producing too much content in the MCU. Still trying to be heavy-handed but spread too thin with all the projects going on.
I get that MCU prints money, but Disney should have given franchises like Indy and Star Wars more love instead.
kurtsh
in reply to steve mookie kong • • •@kurtsh Variety reported that the torrent of content came from a Disney+ & Star Wars strategy driven by then CEO Bob Chapek who was overly-focused on driving Disney's business transformation by generating new revenue streams at Parks & Resorts & building Disney+ to drive down studio distribution & mktg costs.
The big change was consolidating business operations, separating them from creative development which was way cheaper but took delivery away from the content folks.
kurtsh
in reply to kurtsh • • •@kurtsh I don't entirely blame Chapek for Star Wars/Indy. That started w/ Iger & his trust in Kennedy who was a weak custodian of LucasFilms. Dial of Destiny, SW E8 & E9 were objectively weak at the box office.
In fact, I hypothesized that DoD was just a failed cash grab to try to fix LucasFilms' balance sheet. Now, if it's true that Disney's looking to unload LucasFilms, it'll be probably the biggest example in history of killing the goose that laid golden eggs.
steve mookie kong
in reply to kurtsh • • •@kurtsh
Ugh Kennedy.
Wait, Disney is looking to unload LucasFilms??
kurtsh
in reply to steve mookie kong • • •steve mookie kong
in reply to kurtsh • • •@kurtsh
Off to Kagi to search!
I wish Disney had done more with it. I also wonder what happens to Galaxy's Edge if they sell of LucasFilms, license back Star Wars for Galaxy's Edge?
kurtsh
in reply to steve mookie kong • • •If it's true, I'm sure they'll be a licensing clause for P&R/Galaxy's Edge.
The glaring truth is that while Kevin Feige had a clear vision for Marvel's IP & Disney was able to apply their usual content sausage machine:
✅ Parks & Resorts attractions
✅ Consumer Products licensing
✅ Studio distribution/On-demand
✅ Disney+/Online distribution
...Kathleen Kennedy objectively did not & they're still thrashing.
So while Marvel has more than made up for their $4B price tag, LucasFilm hasn't.
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steve mookie kong
in reply to kurtsh • • •@kurtsh
Agreed with treatments and screenwriting too.
As a whole though, I think Marvel and Disney have dropped quality for quantity. Look at the change starting at Phase 4.
Phase 1: 6 movies
P2: 6 movies
P3: 11 movies
P4: 7 movies, 8 TV shows
P5: 5 movies, 8 TV shows
P6: 6 movies planned, 7 TV shows planned.
kurtsh
in reply to steve mookie kong • • •@kurtsh Re: quality for quantity
This exact sentiment was acknowledged by Iger who said as much during the Disney's FY24 Earnings.
I'm going to assume that the counts you provided of productions per phase are accurate (I have no idea other than what Copilot tells me) But what's missing in the list of phases is the timeframes because they weren't all 3yrs long as planned. For example, I recall phase 4 being much shorter than phase 3.