Court Of Lore
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Court Of Lore
Avengers: Doomsday Annoucement - Epic Comeback or Final Nail? (Ep. 156)
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Marvel dropped the cast announcement for Avengers: Doomsday — and instead of breaking the internet, they broke our brains. In this episode of Meanwhile Back on the Podcast, Frank, Brad, and Rich dive into the most bizarre reveal strategy Marvel's ever attempted: five hours of empty chairs. We break down the full cast list, including some surprise returns from the Fox X-Men universe, and debate whether this signals a bold new chapter… or the end of the road.
Expect a no-holds-barred conversation from three lifelong fans with marketing, storytelling, and industry experience. We talk hype vs. execution, Marvel’s misfires, the state of the fandom, and the deep creative and financial questions this announcement raises.
Also in this episode:
– Our pitch for how they should’ve done it
– Theories about RDJ as Doom
– Is Marvel testing us or just winging it?
– A roast of the entire event (with love)
📩 Let us know your take
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You got books called How to Make Money for Dummies. Right. And instead of reading the book and absorbing the book and internalizing the book, you decided to rewrite the fucking book. What's going on, folks? Welcome back to another episode of Meanwhile Back on the Podcast. We have got a full one for you today. We are going to be breaking down today's big Marvel announcement. We're going to be talking about obviously the actors and the casts and the characters and all that stuff. But we're also going to be talking about how they did it and the timing of it and also kind of where it fits into the grander scheme of Marvel, where things are headed, where things have been. I just want to kind of take a thousand-yard view at this thing because I've got a lot to say about this as somebody that's been working in marketing in PR for 15 years. Um we're going to try and be as charitable as we possibly can, but we're definitely going to be like we're not going to hold back any criticism at this point. Um I want to have an honest conversation about this because I don't know, man. It did not uh it did not land well with me, if I'm being honest. So uh what's the first thing we should talk about, fellas? Should we talk about what we're excited about from it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, I think we should do the sandwich method, right? Positive and then extremely negative and then positive again.
SPEAKER_00Extremely negative. Okay. Well, um the uh the cast is pretty much the Thunderbolts, Fox's X-Men, uh Leticia Wright, Wilson Duke. Um actually, somebody pull up the names and let's just run through them real quick.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I got it. Uh hold on. So if we're going in order by empty chairs, uh Chris Hemsworth, the Aven Chairs. Can I can I just say this reminded me of like um Clint Eastwood's speech at the RNC a few years back where he's talking to an empty chair? Do you remember that? Do you guys remember that? Oh my god. That's a deep cut. That's a deep cut.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we gotta meme that, bro. That's gotta get meme. Hilarious do that for sure. Anyway, I digress. Chris Hemsworth. Wait a second. Wait a second. The Aven Chairs and Chair Mageddon. There we go.
SPEAKER_01Uh all right. So we have Chris Hemsworth, Vanessa Kirby, Anthony Mackey, Sebastian Stan, Letitia Wright, Paul Rudd, Wyatt Russell, and I'm gonna screw this up. Uh Tanakh Huerta Meha, uh, Evan Voss Baccarak, Simu Lu, Florence Pugh, Kelsey Grammer. Glad to see that name. I was shocked. Lewis uh Pullman, Danny Ramirez, Joseph Quinn, David Harbour, Winston Duke, Hannah John Kamen, Tom Hiddleston. Yay! Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, yay. Um, Alan Cummen, another coming, another shocker of a name I wasn't expecting. Rebecca Romain, another shocker of a name I wasn't expecting. James Marston, Shanning Tatum, Pedro Pascal, and to top it all off, Robert Downey Jr.
SPEAKER_02Well I said there might be a traitor around us, you know? There might be a traitor. Okay, guys, you tell me you're watching Traitors is the show that Homecoming does on Peacock. Yeah, yep. It's so amazing. Okay, guys. I have a I have I have uh to say something, guys. All right, I like trashy, stupid competition survival game uh reality shows.
SPEAKER_01I haven't watched Traders.
SPEAKER_02It's really good to get that off my chest, guys. It really does. I like Survivor Traders is one of those that is so fantastic. I have to catch that one. I haven't watched it yet. It's great.
SPEAKER_00I watched Big Brother until I caught them cheating. The producer is cheating, and I was like, I can't watch this anymore.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's it's half scripted. It's like it's like watching the WWE. Like you there's a there's a plan on the house on that where it's gonna go, and they lead you there, but yeah, you know, I'm surprised it'll happen.
SPEAKER_01I'm surprised Big Brother's still on the air, man. How many years has it been? Almost as long as survivor. It's nuts.
SPEAKER_00If they change the format to just being locked in a house with Julie Chen, I would I would be totally totally back in.
SPEAKER_02Dude, Big Brother needs to do like a spouse version and have like one spouse in one house and another spouse in another house, and then like, but but you don't get knocked out until your spouse gets knocked out.
SPEAKER_00I have that's not a bad idea, right? That's not a bad idea, actually. But let's go through these characters one by one. Okay, so Thor, obviously, Chris Hemsworth, right? Vanessa Kirby, uh, the invisible woman from Fantastic Four. Who is the next one? Anthony Mackey. Yep, yeah, obviously, uh Captain America, then Sebastian Stan. Sebastian Stan, so that's Bucky. Yep, Letitia Wright, Letitia Wright, so that's Black Panther, Paul Rudd.
SPEAKER_01I did like the small chair that they showed for Paul Rudd. That was kind of funny.
SPEAKER_00That was clever. That was clever. I'll give it to them there. That was clever. Uh, okay, so Ant-Man, obviously.
SPEAKER_01White Russell, uh U.S.
SPEAKER_00agent, yep.
SPEAKER_01And Tanakh, and I I apologize. If I were meet this guy in person, I'm gonna apologize to him profusely. Tanakh Huerta Meha. Obviously, no more Evan Moss Back Rack, Cousin. Uh, the thing. Yep. Thing. Simu Lu. Yeah, Shang-Chi, Florence Pew Shang-Chi. Yep. And then you got Florence Piu, uh Black, the new Black Widow.
SPEAKER_00The new Black Widow.
SPEAKER_01Kelsey Grammar's Beast. I'm so excited. Beast.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm so glad he's back. He's gonna be great. And they're not doing the the young cast, they're doing the old one. Yeah, yeah. They're doing the the Sony version.
SPEAKER_01Well, I guess we're gonna be able to do that.
SPEAKER_02Nicholas Bolt is too busy being Lex Luther.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Lewis Pullman. I don't remember what character he's got. He's Sentry.
SPEAKER_02He's gonna be Sentry in Thunderbolts. That's right. So which is which is interesting. I'm I'm actually kind of surprised that they're actually gonna put Sentry in there because Sentry's a pretty overpowered character. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he's like uh Marvel Superman.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we'll see what they do with him in Thunderbolts. Kind of makes you want to go see. I mean, I wasn't gonna see Thunderbolts anyway, but it kind of makes us see what they're gonna do with him here to bring him back for Doomsday. Uh what's next? Danny Ramirez, the new Falcon. Falcon makes sense. Yep. Joseph Quinn, human torch, right? Torch, yep. Yep. And then David Harbour, Red Guardian. Yep. He's not dying in Thunderbolts. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So no Thunderbolts die. So no Thunderbolts die. Ghost. That's that's first.
SPEAKER_01Ghost isn't gonna do? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00No, she's on the list. Taskmaster?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That's Hannah John Kamen, right? Okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00No, wait, Taskmaster's not on the list. No, Taskmaster's not on the list.
SPEAKER_02Ghost was. That's the one.
SPEAKER_00That's the one Thunderbolt that's not on the list.
SPEAKER_02Okay, well, guess who's gonna die?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, fitting. Probably a good chance.
SPEAKER_01Wasn't a fan of Taskmaster and Black Widow anyway.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02They screwed that character up so bad. Taskmaster should be one of the for one, needs to be in a dare needs to be in uh in Deadpool. Yeah. Yep. But um man, yeah. Taskmaster is good.
SPEAKER_00Needs to be a white dude with a porn mustache and uh balding.
SPEAKER_02Pretty much a need to be the actor that plays the swordmaster in Daredevil.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, right. It could be Duke, yeah, yeah, it could be him too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So we have Winston Duke and Baku. Yeah, Tom Hiddleston, god of stories. Loki, god of stories, yep. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, Professor X, Professor X and Magneto. Alan Cumming, so pumped to see. Man, it's getting crawler. How many years has it been since he's been in the Nightcrawler makeup? That's because I I think I remember reading an interview, him and Rebecca Romaine playing Mystique up next. They hate that was like the worst part of their lives. Like they hated being in that makeup chair for like six, eight hours a day, and then you know, having to act another six, eight hours, whatever. So we got Alan Cumming, Nightcrawler's back, Rebecca Romain uh as Mystique. I was I was kind of surprised. I think Jennifer Lawrence has pretty much wrote off ever playing Mystique ever again. Like, I don't think she ever wants to do it ever again. So that's fair. Yeah. So they brought Rebecca Romain back uh as her James Marston, Cyclops, obviously, uh Channing Tatum, Gambit. Uh so I wonder if they're gonna bring like the romantic comedy gambit back, or are they gonna bring back like a proper, you know, gambit? I don't know. We'll see. Uh I'm kind of surprised Pedro Pascal is so far down the list. I thought he would have been up there with the rest of the Fantastic Four. Um, but obviously playing Mr. Fantastic and then Robert Downey Jr. we got as Dr. Doom.
SPEAKER_00Robert Downey Jr. Dr. Doom.
SPEAKER_01There's your rundown.
SPEAKER_02So no Doctor Strange, no Hulk. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I have a theory. I think that Doomsday, this first Avengers movie, might not even be an Avengers movie. I think that this may be in an alternate reality where Doom is obviously the the ruler, and these are alternate versions of these Marvel characters that live within his kingdom. Kind of similar to kind of similar to the Secret War run in comics, right? Because there's the Thors in the comics, and there's the Invisible Woman, who's his uh who's basically his bride or whatever. Yeah. Um so I think that this is going to be an isolated story, and then they're gonna cross over into Secret Wars with sort of this kind of like collision thing. So I don't know if this is actually gonna be an Avengers movie. I think honestly, I think we may have just gotten the full cast for Avengers Doomsday. I think this is it. I don't necessarily think that it's somebody like I think that these are all alternative versions, these actors are gonna be paying playing alternative versions of their characters. I really think that.
SPEAKER_02You know, there's also no Spider-Man either.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. No, no version of Spider-Man showing up on the show. None of them, yeah. So it it to me, it kind of looks looking at the cast, it's looking like an Avengers versus X-Men movie to me. Um, I don't I I think they meet, fight, and then Doctor Doom's the bigger threat that it's gonna be that trope, you know.
SPEAKER_00Allies fight each other first, and then if they do Avengers versus X-Men with the old Fox X-Men, that is the worst idea. That is not that is not a good idea. I don't think so.
SPEAKER_01I mean how many so how many years has it been since the the Fox X-Men? Like 2000 was the first movie, right? And then by the time night, yeah. I mean, we're talking 20 something years. I don't see Alan coming like flipping off of walls this go around. No, not anymore. Yeah, so I so yeah, I I think a lot of these names will be um cameos. Uh I I don't think they're gonna be like, you know, high up on the call sheet. I I think they're gonna be cameos in some way, shape, or form. Um, but I don't think they're gonna be main character. A lot of them, I don't think a lot of them are gonna be main characters. I think Fantastic Four and the Thunderbolts are gonna be are gonna have a lot of screen time. Obviously, the original Avenger, Avenger, Chris Hemsworth, is gonna have some screen time. I think Shang Chi is gonna have some because dang, we haven't seen him in forever. Um so he's gotta get some screen time in there. But I think um some of the X-Men are gonna just be bite-sized cameos.
SPEAKER_02I think we'll get I think we'll get Gambit because he was so in demand from Deadpool Wolverine. I think we'll get we'll get some decent gambit in there. And there we're gonna get a gambit movie.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, possibly. Possibly. Okay, so um let's zoom out a bit.
SPEAKER_03Sure.
SPEAKER_00Because today was interesting. It was interesting.
SPEAKER_01Are we getting into the negative part of the sandwich now?
SPEAKER_00No, it's not gonna be negative. So first of all, let's talk about let's talk about where the three of us think Marvel is right now as far or actually pre- pre this announcement and where they may be right now after. So leading up to this, I felt that they earned a lot of goodwill back with Deadpool and Wolverine, even though I think it's highly overrated. And also with Daredevil, I think that they earned a lot of goodwill back with that. I also think they earned a lot of good goodwill back with Agatha, funny enough, because I don't think Agatha was as bad as people made it out to be. I watched it, I enjoyed it. Yeah, I think it was pretty good for what it was. But I think that Marvel for some reason isn't dealing with the realities of the marketplace, and I think that they are overconfident in what they're doing. I don't think that they understand how fatigued the fan base is from superhero projects, from pretty much anything superhero related, pretty much anything genre-related, especially if it's a bad project. And I don't think that they understand the marketplace either, which is really sad because I don't think that they understand that that because of the internet and because of social media and because of our culture where we're just constantly online, we are inexorably connected with each other all the time. All the time. The minute you say something and you put it out into the world, everybody sees it. And if everybody agrees with it, it gets shared. And if those people that it was shared with agree with it, they share it. And it just trickles it, it just it just compounds and compounds and compounds and compounds. So I think Marvel has done a really poor job of navigating those realities. I think that they, like I said, far too overconfident of what they're doing, and that they're not they're not calculating fast enough or accurately enough to understand exactly what the final impact will be of some of their decisions. I really I really think that they underestimate what the wrong decision can do to the studio. I think that that they're um that they are um that they do not have a good they do not have a good sense of of how bad things can get. Because financially if they okay, so for instance, let me use this as an example. If Daredevil had flopped, if we had gotten the Daredevil that we originally were gonna get, and it flopped, I can confidently say that may have been the death of the studio. Like I honestly think that that would have had that would have had a tremendous effect on the fan base. I think that because we all would have been talking about it, we all would have been talking about it, and we all would have been spreading that information around, and we all would have been sharing our thoughts and our feelings, and we all would have been saying Marvel's lost it, they've lost the plot. And by today's actions, I personally feel that this was confirmation that this company is just being mismanaged from the top down right now. Like they do they do not have a clue on what the fan base is looking for. I don't know how they thought that this was gonna go over well. I really don't. Like, I'm just scratching my head. As somebody that's been working in PR marketing for 15 years, I'm just scratching my head thinking, how did you think that 40 empty seats 13 to 15 minutes at a time for five hours was going to be a positive experience? I think the only people that had a positive experience with this thing are the Marvel like fanboys, like do or die. Like Marvel can do no wrong. Marvel will always do good, they'll never fail. I think those are the only people that said to themselves this was an excellent event. And the sad thing is I think that there are a lot of Disney events and Marvel events conversely that if they had used the same format as those, this would have gone over a lot better. Like this was just poorly thought out, in my opinion. But I want to hear what you guys have to say first, and then I'll go a little bit more deeper. Rich?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's crazy to think that in 2008, Iron Man was just this little independent movie, right? And and you know, so many years later, we're at the behemoth that it's in. Um I I guess I want to talk about the state of Marvel first, and then I'll talk about this event. Um I I think the state of Marvel, I do think that Marvel at the end of the Infinity saga got a little cocky. Um I think that they felt they could throw anything at the screen and we would watch it. Um and monetarily speaking, for the most part, that was somewhat true. I mean, there's some people thought Captain Marvel was horrible, but it still made like a billion dollars.
SPEAKER_00So But it was because it was connected to the Avengers Avengers trailer saga, right? Right. Like everybody went to see that end credit scene. That's that's yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I I think they got complacent with the audience. Um and the multiverse saga is proof of that. I I think they had too many things in the can to course correct uh during the multiverse saga, uh, because I think collectively we can all agree that it's been horrible how they dealt with the whole multiverse thing. Um, and and they tried they're shutting it down as quickly as possible. Um, the course correction we're seeing now are things like Daredevil, are things like bringing the Russo brothers back. I mean, because the Russo brothers, outside of the Infinity saga, everything they made since then has has not been great, critically speaking. I mean, they made Citadel, The Gray Man, some other movies that new Electric State just came out on Netflix. I haven't watched it yet, but I've heard that was horrible. Yeah, panned. Yeah. So they're I mean, I'm speaking as a fan. I have no right to criticize because I have no idea how to make a film. But outside of Marvel, and and given kind of the the parameters of what Marvel is, when they create their own ideas, they're not that great at it. Um, and but they're great at getting in big stars like all Citadel, Grey Man, all those have big name stars, all people connected back to the Marvel universe, and they built that relationship with. So the course correction was okay, we gave you too much, now we're gonna scale back to what is it, three movies, two movies a year and three shows in a year. Um as opposed to the as opposed to the glut of when Disney Plus was first launched, and we're like, give, give, give them everything. We want all the shows. Um so there's that. Um, and then the course correction of bringing Robert Downey Jr. back, uh, even if he's playing Doctor Doom, he's he's bankable. You put his name on a Marvel movie, and people are gonna go see it. So already right there, you got, and I think they're bringing back the original writers, Marcus and McFeely, too, right?
SPEAKER_00Uh for I haven't seen any confirmation of that, but let's let's see if we can find confirmation of that. Because I love Marcus and McFeely. I love both of those guys.
SPEAKER_01They're great. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if if that were the case, but bringing all these people back, and like you were saying earlier um in our Daredevil breakdown, is it's let's let's bring the starters back out on the court, right? That's you got the Chris Hemsworth who's who is willing to play Thor until he's 90. He the man loves the character. Uh, so he he'll he's gonna keep playing Thor as long as he's physically able to.
SPEAKER_00Um and keep Tycho Wattiti away from it from Ross.
SPEAKER_01And he's gonna be, I think Chris Hemsworth and in a sense Tom Hiddleston, those two are gonna be the anchor of this movie, and Robert Downey Jr. Those three names out of that whole list are gonna be the the three things that people are looking for and and seeing how they're gonna interact. Um, so yeah, took advantage of your audience. Um, since then, Marvel's been pretty schizophrenic uh with good projects and bad projects, just kind of left and right. It's almost every other one is like, we're back. No, we're not, you know. Um, so I'm interested in seeing what's gonna happen. Let's talk my thoughts on the event today. Uh yeah, I was kind of like, what are they doing? Um, but I was at like I said, I was at work, I was sitting in my office doing my job, and I had this on my phone playing in the background um because I I play music in the background in my office, and I just kind of glanced at it every so often. It's like, oh, that's a cool name. But as I was watching it, you know, I'm seeing things online of what you're saying, Frank, the the hardcore fanboys just losing their mind over every name that was coming up. Uh, and some live streams of people like pacing the room, like, calm down. Calm down, man.
SPEAKER_00It's there was there was live streams of people pacing the room.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like I was I I happened to come across one on I think it was TikTok. I was scrolling through TikTok. Holy fuck. And one dude was like scrolling through, like doing this, like, and I'm like, calm down, man. It's it's a movie. Just calm down. Oh my god. And and people were playing like the chat on YouTube live was just going nuts. I don't know how you can read it. It was just scrolling so fast. Uh, and people were in invested in seeing what name was going to pop up. And it was the talk of the afternoon today. Uh, so a couple of things that was accomplished. Uh, the big winners, I think, are sites like Gizmod and IO9 of people just refreshing like crazy that couldn't watch this and didn't know that it was like 10 minutes apart. So they're Refreshing like crazy. So they're getting the clicks of seeing which name is going to come up first. And this is, you know, with all the names on here, it's going to give all those news publications that the news cycle now is going to be talking about this announcement for the next day or two. Yeah, but I think if they'd done the names every like maybe five minutes instead of 15, it would have been a little bit more digestible. Five hours is a lot, dude. If I wasn't in my office, I I would have watched the Crims Headhamstore thing. I'm like, okay, they're just getting ready. And then when I saw the next name coming.
SPEAKER_00That's what I thought. As soon as I saw the Hemsworth chair, I was like, okay, it's gonna be a Thor announcement. Okay, Hemsworth is gonna walk out from that hangar door. Yep, yeah. He's gonna sit in the chair. The camera will pan around him. He'll start talking. Fuck no. Yeah. Like I'm an hour in and I'm just watching fucking chair after chair. I'm like, what the fuck is going on? Yeah. And then somebody, somebody commented, somebody commented, wait, they're all gonna come out together. And then somebody else commented, I just think it's chairs. And then and then we're and then somebody else commented, like, just chairs. Like, are you fucking serious? Just gonna show us chairs. And these people, like, it was it was just nuts. Yeah, so it was just crazy.
SPEAKER_01By the time this Vanessa Kirby's chair came out, I'm like, oh, this is it. This because you know, live streams never start on time, right? So I was like, okay, they're just they're just setting up, they're getting us ready. But by the time Vanessa Kirby's chair came up and nothing happened, I was like, okay, this is this is it. And then I just kind of set my phone down to the side. I'm like, oh, I got nothing to do. It's middle of the afternoon. I got I'm working. So I just played it. But yeah, I I didn't, I mean, I didn't know what to expect. I didn't even know there was gonna be a live announcement today at all until you told me about it. And then I started Googling it. So there, I don't think there was any anticipation built because nobody knew this was dropping on a random Wednesday afternoon. This isn't like Comic-Con. This isn't D23. This isn't, you know, there's there's not a built-up anticipation of what's going on. And honestly, I think we knew most of the cast anyway. I mean, there the the surprising names to me were the amount of X-Men that were were being shown.
SPEAKER_00That was the only surprise to me.
SPEAKER_01That was the only surprise to me were all the X-Men, although no Halle Berry, you know, yeah, all that, no Rogue.
SPEAKER_00No Hugh Jackman.
SPEAKER_01No Hugh Jackman. But the rest of them, all the MCU Femka Jansen. No Femke Jansen, right? Uh, but the MCU names, not a huge surprise to me. Obviously, the Fantastic Four is going to be in there after releasing this summer. Um, they're not gonna leave them on the bench. So yeah, so no big surprises. Um so yeah, I mean, it's it was fine. I didn't I didn't really care, but it it was it was long, drawn out, like honestly, this could have been like a press release, right? Or it could have been Fige coming out on stage saying, hey, you know, here's here's what's coming up.
SPEAKER_00Or or I've actually got a couple of ideas on how they could have approached it and made it far more entertaining, but we'll wait until after I hear from Brad. I want to hear what Brad's thoughts are.
SPEAKER_02All right, man. So my thoughts on the state of Marvel is is so with with the Infinity saga from the get-go, we knew that there was a direction that it was going, right? I went the second we saw Nick Fury and everything like that, and then once after Endgame, it lost direction, and everything was going in so many different areas, and you know, this was this, and did it connect and whatever, and and all the fan all of us fans got into like okay, well, I want to know how this is gonna go fit into the bigger picture, which is in the puzzle of what is now the Marvel, and they didn't have a picture, and they don't have a puzzle, or they're the or there is like several different puzzles that they're trying to put together with the wrong pieces. And there is some decent stuff, and then there is some bad stuff. The current Marvel reminds me of the current Star Wars, is that is that you we had a bunch of different people, and the projects, not all are bad, but they're not all good either. And there is no singular direction that they're going. And hopefully they can course correct that. I personally like the direction of like Daredevil. Like that, I love the street level. We don't need, we don't need like honestly, I don't Secret Wars is is the give me, right? Because we know we're gonna get a Secret Wars. I think Doomsday is gonna be fantastic as well, just because of everything that's gonna happen, but we'll talk about that in a second. But um Marvel has had a lot of luck, like Agatha was better than it should have been. I mean, you know, uh Daredevil, I think they're I think they're doing it the right way, but then they make bad decisions with the this Marvel event because they come out yesterday and be like, we're gonna break the internet tomorrow and blah blah blah blah. And I'm like, I give two flying fucks, whatever. Um my thoughts on the event, man, like I was at the doctor's office with my wife, and I had like errands, and I had to take my kid to the doctor and everything, so I I had no time to even look at it online, so I didn't really care. One way the other, I thought it was really stupid. I'm like, when you were telling me it's just the chairs, and I'm like, that is so stupid, and then like I even Googled it a little bit, and I'm like looking at I'm like, I cool, all the people that we know is gonna be there, and then we got the X-Men, you know, we got uh we got we got Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, and I'm like, oh, that's cool. This is breaking the internet, this is what's breaking the internet. Now, if they were able to get all those actors to sit in those chairs with their names on the back and not even and then pan around to see their faces, that would have been something cool, and that probably would have broke the internet. But man, like don't come out and say we're gonna break the internet tomorrow and not break the internet tomorrow. Cause like, I mean, I didn't care.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it would have been it would have been cool if they showed the names and then had like um what do you call it? Like uh clips of their former of their movies. Like if they showed James Marston and then showed like a best of Cyclops, like you know, 10 second, 15 second clip each one, that would have been pretty cool. That would have got me nostalgic about oh yeah, the old X-Men are coming back. And but just and I get why they didn't show anybody there except RDJ. The scheduling of all those people would probably have been near impossible.
SPEAKER_00See, people were commenting that, but here's the reality of it, right? You can pre-plan things like that, and I don't think that that was shot live. I think that it was I think it was recorded at a previous date, and I think it was just uploaded so it would stream live. Like it streamed live 100%. Yeah, but I think that the video content itself was shot beforehand. I do not believe that that was streamed live at all. I don't um I want to go back to what Brad was saying about the direction and and and and uh and uh Rich, I want to take your temperature on this too. So I've had this theory about the last couple years of Marvel for a while. Personally, I feel that the last uh after pretty much everything after phase three has been one giant marketing test campaign. That's that's how I see it. And the way that I uh rationalize that is that not only hasn't there been any sort of interconnected story bringing everything together, but all the new characters that we've been introduced to are just another version of the original characters. There's so many different versions of the original characters that I just feel like they were just testing the waters to see who had marketability and who didn't. Because everything felt really, really phoned in and this lack of cohesiveness, this lack of this cohesive storyline to connect everything together, just kind of signals to me that they didn't give a shit. They were more worried about the character's marketability. That's the kind of sense that I get. I feel like we've been bar we've been part of the biggest test marketing campaign ever in the history of marketing. Like I really feel like that is the case. Because if you really think about it, it makes a ton of sense. Like we got a new Thor, we had a new Iron Man, we had a new Black Panther, we had a new Captain America, um, we had new shrinking people. Right? And I don't know, man. It just it just seems very conspicuous the way that they did it. Like why okay, so he so here's the other thing in Loki they plan this multiversal breakdown, right? Like this multiversal catastrophe. But there's no follow-up to it. Like there's no actual follow-up. Like, if it was me running that studio, every story would have been built off the back of that event. Like every story. We would have gone into House of M, we would have gone into all these different alternate realities. That's the way that you do that. But we didn't get any of that. There's no interconnectivity whatsoever. So I feel for so I feel like for some reason they've been phoning it in just because they wanted a test market, because they wanted to bring out new merchandise, because they wanted to they basically didn't want to spend as much like I think it I think part of it is they didn't want to spend as much money as they did in the first three phases not having their their first stringers on the court. I think that's part of it. I definitely think that's part of it. Um and going back to this event, I want to talk to you guys a little bit more about the event because I've actually got some data that we can go through. So Grace Randolph, who's uh a content creator and uh film reviewer on YouTube, she put up on her Twitter what do you think of this Avengers Doomsday live stream reveal? The options were it's amazing, keeping an eye on it, fun at first, please never do it again. Please never do it again, 42%. Fun at first, 17%. Keeping an eye on it, 26%. It's amazing, 15%.
SPEAKER_01I thought the 42% is kind of low.
SPEAKER_00Well, you could go, you could probably you could probably dovetail fun at first and please never do it again a little bit, right? You get a little kind of crossover there. Number of votes, 10,607 votes. It's a pretty nice sample size. I think honestly, I think downstream, this is gonna have catastrophic effects. I really do. I I know that you know what I was saying about marketing and the internet before, like we are inexorably connected, everything happens in real time, every thought, every every sentiment, every utterance happens in real time on the internet, right? And there are commentators with millions of followers who are champing at the bit, champing at the bit to shit all over Marvel and DC or Disney to shit all over Marvel and Disney. It's what they do for a living. Like that's literally their income, that's their income stream to shit on Disney and to shit on Marvel. And I feel like with this event, Disney and Marvel just handed these guys a jumbo box of X Lacks and an undercooked chicken.
SPEAKER_02That was mighty specific there, man. That's that's good. There's good there's a story behind that uh behind. I agree, I think so.
SPEAKER_00No, seriously, I'd like I think that's what's taking place here. I do not think that this like the normal cast of characters are going to run to the wall with this. I I wanted to follow the fallout's gonna be huge.
SPEAKER_01I wanted to be in the room of the pitch meeting of the marketing team that pitched this, and just I want to hear the pitch. Imagine we Japan from seat to seat for five and a half hours. What do you think?
SPEAKER_02Rich, that's amazing. Holy shit! Why didn't I think of that? Write me the check. What was the pitch? What was the pitch? I don't understand. I don't know, man.
SPEAKER_00How okay, how did this idea not get vetted down?
SPEAKER_01I mean, it had to go through like how many panels of people, right?
SPEAKER_00But how? But how did it get through? Like, the only thing I can think of, the only thing I can think of is it was somebody from an uppers uh upper underrepresented group that came up with the idea and they were scared to tell them that it was a bad idea.
SPEAKER_01Whoa, come on, man. Come on. I'm serious, dude. A white guy is just as capable of coming up with a bad idea as any underrepresented person.
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Wait a second. Wait, wait, hold up, hold your horses. You are conflating two different things. I'm not saying that a white guy can't come up with an idea that's stupid. I'm saying that for somebody from an underrepresented group, there's a little bit more protection and a little bit more buffer zone for them to operate in these days, especially at Disney. Especially at Disney. Okay? That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. White guys come up with dumb ideas all the time.
SPEAKER_02I'm living proof of that, man. I probably have a few of them a day. I I've got my my assistant at work. I I gotta be, I'll say a couple things, and she's like, no, Brad. No, no.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. No, man. Like, okay, so if it was me, if I was a part of this marketing team, well, one, if I was, I'd be quitting. I'd be hanging my head in shame right now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, or get violent.
SPEAKER_00But if I was but if I was there to pitch my idea to try and save this this catastrophe, it would have been very simple. Okay? Do the dolly thing, do the chair thing, but have people in the chairs. That's it. That's one. That's one. And you can coordinate to get everybody there. You just have to plan ahead. That's it. Right? And let the person talk to camera for a couple seconds, a minute, whatever, and move on to the next person. Do not make us wait fucking 13 minutes for the next dolly shot. Just go. Right? Then have a big group shot at the end. That makes total sense to me. I would have been all for that. That makes total sense to me. The other way you do it, you bring in three actors, probably Robert, probably Chris, and probably one of the uh probably one of the female characters, so maybe Vanessa Kirby, because she's new. And you basically have like a whiteboard and there's like cards flipped over on it. And it's like random. You give them like and there's like some sort of there's some sort of host or some sort of coordinator there. And he's like, okay, Vanessa, it's your turn. Go grab a card. Who do you got there? Right? That would have been cool. That would have been fun. Dude, that would have been exciting.
SPEAKER_02A Deadpool breaking the fourth wall, talking about all this shit, even though that Ryan Reynolds' name isn't on it.
SPEAKER_00That would have been cool.
SPEAKER_02Would have been really cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02That would have been cool. Right. And just talk in the Deadpool outfit. Didn't Ryan Reynolds. And I think right now Ryan Reynolds could probably use a little good press.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But yeah, that would have been awesome. I would that would I would have dug that a lot.
SPEAKER_01I mean, they could have easily they could have easily done this, like they announced the Academy Award nominees at five o'clock in the morning Pacific time, right? And just stood behind a podium and go, we have an announcement to make. Here's the cast. And along with us three, or these people, and and it would have been fine because I don't know. I mean, Fige had to approve this, right? I mean, he's a control freak.
SPEAKER_00He had to I don't know. Maybe maybe he didn't.
SPEAKER_02I mean, he did say he was relinquishing his authority.
SPEAKER_00I mean, yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02You know what else would have been cool is if it was a Fantastic Four thing as well. And it was just like Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby in character.
SPEAKER_00Whiteboard jives right there, right? Like he's the scientist that jives.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that would be and he's the smartest person in Marvel.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Jonathan Majors wasn't in there either.
SPEAKER_01I think Wong should have just been I think Wong should have just sling ringed all the characters in there. That would have been cool.
SPEAKER_00Sling ring reveal. There you go. There's another one.
SPEAKER_02Then it wouldn't have had to be in the same place.
SPEAKER_00That could have been fucking cool.
SPEAKER_02You could have even got the guy from uh from Spider-Man No Way Home to do it. You didn't even need Wong or Madison.
SPEAKER_00No, I don't want that guy.
SPEAKER_02No, Wong and Madison.
SPEAKER_01Oh what you could have done too is had like Tom Hiddleston in sitting on this throne and like pulling strands out of the air. Oh, that would have been freaking badass.
SPEAKER_00And then it's so dope.
SPEAKER_01And then like, you know how the Marvel logo kind of shows like action set pieces as the Marvel logo is forming? It could have been that like you pull you pull a string from this universe and it's like the X-Men, right? And then they show Psyclops and Nightcrawler and back in the back in X-Men 2, right? And then he pulls another string and it's the Fantastic Four. And you pull another string and it's C movie.
SPEAKER_00That would have been so good. That would have been so good.
SPEAKER_02They could have also done the just the Marvel like opening credit scene, you know, where it's cycling through all the comic books, but only different scenes of the person that they're talking about, right? So starting off with uh different scenes of Chris Hemsworth, and then you know, uh whoever was next, and then next, and then just let that thing run for five minutes and then switch over to a new Marvel, just cycling through that character, moving on to the next one. That would have been pretty cool, too.
SPEAKER_01And then he and then Loki pulls both, you know, from both sides and then sits back down on his throne, right? That would have been dope.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Okay, so now let's come up with a list of ridiculously, ridiculously bad ideas that would have been better than this idea. Let's come up with that list. Okay. Kevin Feige's at in and out eating French fries, and you just have a camera on him, and he's just saying, okay, we're gonna have this person, this person, this person, this person, and this person. That would have been better than watching chairs for five and a half hours.
SPEAKER_01Agree. Avi Arad makes a comeback and swivels around from a desk chair and says, somehow I have returned, and I brought all these people with me.
SPEAKER_02Um they they have, I don't know, any anybody coming out with a big freaking hat and a bunch of names in there, and somebody like they go around to random people in an audience and pick a name. That person will be in doomsday, and they reach in. All right, it is Chris Hemsworth. And the crowd goes, and then it's like, oh, it's Wong.
SPEAKER_01And Frank goes, fuck you.
SPEAKER_00That would have been better.
SPEAKER_01It would have been could have done a Harry Potter crossover with a sorting hat.
SPEAKER_00There you go. Yeah, yeah. You know what would have been really cool if they had done a set tour, just like in the back, like where the trailers are, right? Yeah, like, oh, you know, we're good, we're going in this person's trailer. Okay, cool. Who is it? Oh shit, it's Chris Hemsworth. Thor's in this movie. Awesome. They go to Kelsey Grammar's trailer, right? That would have been fucking cool. Um, another bad idea that would have been better than watching chairs for five and a half hours.
SPEAKER_02Uh, I'm thinking cardboard cutouts of each character. Where so you have all the chairs lined up, and then you just have some like random the janitor from the Spider-Man movie, which was Stan Lee, of course, but you know, like uh we see uh no, we don't see G.I. Stan Lee. I'm sorry. Hey, you just have a random person coming up and taking their their their chair, moving it and taking a cardboard cutout of their character and putting it in their place.
SPEAKER_00Jeffrey Wright. Jeffrey Wright would have been great. Yeah, the watcher. Oh, Jeffrey Wright would have been great.
SPEAKER_01No, I think it would have been cool if Michael Pena came back and was like, let me tell you the story. Of like Doomsday or whatever. And and like the synopsis of Doomsday, but like naming all these characters in his traditional fashion, and and then all the characters like talking in Michael Pena's voice would. Have been that would have been great.
SPEAKER_02And it lasted five and a half hours, and Michael Penyan just dies after that. Like, and he dies a hero.
SPEAKER_01Or Patton Oswald, like when he did his like Star Wars Marvel thing. Was it was uh Parkson was it Parks and Wreck? I think it was Parks and Rec, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Recreating that scene, but with this this cast of characters. I mean, I got we got a ton of these, man. Where's my money?
SPEAKER_00Write me a check.
SPEAKER_01Write these Marvel. We know you're listening.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, this would not have been tough for us to do a better job. That is clear. Yeah. Um, so so do you guys want to know what I posted on Twitter today in response, and I'll tell you some of the metrics on it. It's pretty pretty bad. Okay. So my uh my most damning post thus far was whoever thought this format was a good idea should be fired in the next 30 minutes. 64,000 point two views, seven retweets, seven comments, two point one thousand likes, nice, and two saves. And uh yeah, basically a lot of people clearly agree uh with me. Um what was the other one? Oh, my first one was kind of like it got a lot of views. It didn't get a lot of it got got a lot of views, got a lot of got a lot of comments too, but I said uh worst reveal ever in capitals. Like, do it like call H. Have them come out one by one, build the suspense. Don't have us staring at empty chairs for 30 minutes. This is when it was 30 minutes. You don't have that kind of goodwill with us anymore. Who thought that this would go over well? Like, this is just oh man, it's a fucking catastrophe.
SPEAKER_02We should do a 24-hour stream, but only our chairs, and just write our names on the back of it, and then just like check in every five and a half hours and just let it all go. It's just a live stream, live stream on everything, and it's just our chairs.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god, that is that is hilarious.
SPEAKER_02I kind of really want to do that.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god. Um and and you know, you know what one thing we didn't talk about enough? They frame this as a bigger announcement than RDJ.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, right? Yeah, it's a pissing.
SPEAKER_00They frame this as a bigger announcement than RDJ. And we got chairs, and we got fucking empty chairs.
SPEAKER_02So that's just them being cocky. That that's them, that's literally them thinking that they can just do what yeah. I mean, look, after Guardians of the Galaxy, they're like, we got people to love a talking tree and a talking raccoon, man.
SPEAKER_01We can do whatever we want.
SPEAKER_00Oh man.
SPEAKER_01I love Marvel though. I I love Marvel. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00Man, um by the way, the whole RDJ thing. So I've got I've got two takes on that. One very cynical and one very very charitable, to be honest. So I've got two two ways I'm looking at the RDJ thing. Cynical is this will be one of the worst creative decisions ever in the history of comic book movies. My most charitable is that the writing team, the creative team, have worked out this brilliant, this brilliant legendary way of of of bridging these two characters, Iron Man and Doom, to be able to tell this story in a way that's just gonna blow us all away. And they had to cast RDJ for this. That it wasn't this Hail Mary, because that's the way that like that's the cynical thing for me, is like it's a Hail Mary fan service, like we gotta win you guys back type of shape. That's my cynical point. But my charitable thing is that the creative team dreamed up this insane story, and they went to Kevin and they were like, we have to have RG our RDJ back because we have this, and if we don't have him, this doesn't work. That's my most charitable take. And I'm hoping, I'm hoping, I'm hoping that the charitable one is the right one. I really do. But I don't think I but I don't know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So so quick fact check on Marcus and McFeely. I was looking that up. So um McFeely is in. Marcus is not.
SPEAKER_00What?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that's from a collider article from October 2024. So it's a few minutes. Somebody needs the Marvel money than the other one.
SPEAKER_03I'm sure there's still cash in the Marvel.
SPEAKER_01That's the only way RDJ's back, man. They had to throw a boatload of money at him to come back.
SPEAKER_02Well, that the budget of R hasn't had anything like really big since he left Marvel. I mean, Dr. Doolittle, he was trying to make a Dr. Doolittle franchise, and that didn't go over very well.
SPEAKER_01Well, he doesn't really have to do anything. He's living off that Marvel money, residuals and all that. So you know they had to throw a boatload of money for him to come back.
SPEAKER_00Okay, final thoughts, gents. I want to know where you guys think, like, what's the aftermath of this?
SPEAKER_01Uh, I think exactly what we're doing right now, people are gonna be talking about it one way or the other. Because, you know, what you were saying earlier that bad press is is, you know, there's no such thing as bad press, and that misnomer is no longer true. Uh, but I think the opposite of of love isn't hate, it's indifference. People are people are talking about it one way or the other. The the worst thing that could have happened is everybody just do a collective shrug and just moved on about their day. But look, we're we're doing a we're doing a whole podcast about it.
SPEAKER_00So fair, fair, but we live in an era where everybody is just looking for opportunities for snark and for memes. Right? Yeah. Like we're looking to be screwed, like we're looking to scrutinize. That is our default now in the world of the internet. Like we don't you know, we don't let anybody get away with really anything anymore. It's not a thing, right? You either get memed or you get snarked or whatever. Like that is that is the default. So that's where I think that you're miscalculating on that part. Like you're giving too much grace to human beings to be human beings. Because I think we're done being human beings, like I think that's pretty much over with.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, I'm still gonna be in line for the pre-orders, so I'm still gonna see the movie, obviously.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm still going. Shit.
SPEAKER_01Like this announcement doesn't really affect my belief in the whole Marvel machine. I'm I'm just pre-wired to like it. Even the bad stuff I liked. I liked She-Hulk. I I didn't not I didn't hate it. I didn't think it was the best thing that they they came up with, but yeah, moments of it were good. Um, I didn't hate Moon Knight. I thought Moon Knight was good. So I I'm I'm pre-wired to like it. It's it's really got to do a lot to make me not like it. There hasn't been a Marvel movie that I absolutely detested or hated. I like them all to varying degrees.
SPEAKER_00Um okay, but okay, but Rich, you know I'm not talking about whether we like it or not. I'm I'm I'm gonna like Marvel to the day I die, right? It's like my hot, you know, it's like me being a Lease fan, right? Like we haven't won the fucking Stanley Cup in Jesus Christ. You know what I'm saying? But I'm never gonna abandon the team. What I'm saying is more of the overall impact, right, on the industry and on the studio itself. There's too many there there's too many Marvel fans and too many Marvel fanboys who think that Marvel is immune to economic factors. I don't know why you guys think like that. Like, I don't know where you guys get the confidence. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't exist. Not in Hollywood, not in fucking Hollywood, that's not the way it works. Like, if it gets to a point where Marvel's not making any money and it's not profitable anymore, a publicly traded company has a non-profitable business unit, that business unit will go the way of the dodo faster than uh you can even imagine. Right? And what I'm saying is is that these types of events signal signal to people on the outside that there is a huge mismanagement issue within the company. For somebody to think that this was a good idea is a huge mismanagement issue. Okay and that's the problem for me. It's not about liking it, it's not about it being cringy or turning me off. It's about the fact that they're not taking the steps that need to be taken to ensure the longevity of the company and ensure the longevity of the studio. They're not taking well thought out steps to ensure the longevity of the studio. That's my problem, that's my issue is I want to see Marvel in 10, 15 years. I do. And uh like you, I will watch all the shows, I will watch the movies, etc. But if they don't start taking the right steps, the financial health of the company in the state that it's in right now is not in a good place. And I think people are overestimating how financially healthy the company is. I think one of the reasons we got all empty chairs is because they couldn't afford to bring them in at the last minute. That's another thing people are not considering. Right? And and I don't want to wake up one day and find out that the studio is going down the fucking tubes because the fans weren't, you know, c courageous enough to stand up and say, hey, you guys are shit in the fucking bed. Like, let's get things back together. Because I think they are shit in the bed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, yeah, the marketplace will determine that, right? Dollars, dollars matter more. When this thing makes two billion dollars, we're all gonna look back at this empty chair thing and laugh. And and and then, you know, then we're we're right back where we are, and and Marvel can just print money. So yeah, I I mean I agree with you that somebody had to approve this and that somebody was wrong, and that is that is definitely a mismanagement thing. But at the end of the day, this if this thing makes money, it won't matter.
SPEAKER_00Fair enough. But I think I'm getting to the point where I don't trust them to make the creative decisions that are needed to make to optimize for the highest profitability. That's where I'm at with these guys. And this was a perfect example of that to me. This was them mismanaging that, right? I don't think that the Avengers movies are gonna do as well financially as people think they are gonna do. One people loved the old Avengers, loved them, loved them, right? They were heroes, they were icons. These have not earned that same reputation yet, right?
SPEAKER_02And I I just think I just think this it was just so stupid, and I could care less either way. I mean, like, really, uh If the fact that they thought that they could be like, hey, this is gonna be better than the RDJ Doom reveal, and it was just chairs. Like it was like what do you think I'm that stupid? I mean, like, I think that's the thing that pisses me off more than anything. I'm like, I didn't care about watching it.
SPEAKER_00It's insulting as hell.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's like I am not like okay, uh empty chair. I don't care like the act, oh Letitia Wright, what has Letitia Wright done since since Black Panther, you know, Wakanda Forever. I mean, like, I'm sure she's done a couple things. I mean, like, a lot of these actors, they're only famous for that one character. I mean, we were not getting any super, they didn't come out and say a new casting, they didn't say like Tom Cruise is gonna be superior Iron Man in something, you know, or anything, or something like that, man. Like, it I don't know. I didn't learn anything really, because that you could speculate on yourself, right? No, we could have sat around and did a podcast and we could have speculated everything that came out there about Doomsday and gone over situations of Avengers Doomsday, and we were like, dude, we're gonna get cameos from you know the real Fox X-Men and what I mean. Like, we the three of us would have got there. I mean, it would have been take five and a half hours.
SPEAKER_01Like, if they would have done the chairs with names that have not appeared in any Marvel project, that would have been interesting. Then like if I saw Tom Cruise's name flash across screen, I'd be like, whoa, yeah, what is Tom Cruise doing in a Marvel movie? And then this this might be a whole different discussion. Um, you know, some of those casting rumors back during the multiverse days, right?
SPEAKER_00So you know. But yeah, the biggest the biggest flag for me is this, okay? The biggest red flag is this. This was an easy event to be successful with.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Very easy. Very easy. Like it's like it's like somebody wanting to land a plane and then saying, I'm gonna do a loop-de-loop first before I land the plane and they end up crashing it. That's what this is like. This should have been my opinion.
SPEAKER_01This much this should have been much more cinematic, I think.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like put some effort into it. Like put some absolutely, you know, and and make it worth make it worth my time. If I'm playing it in the background as as white noise, you've failed. Like I should have the the announcement should have came out. I should have looked it up on YouTube, and I should have stopped working.
SPEAKER_03Exactly.
SPEAKER_01And been like on my conference call, I gotta go. I need to watch this trailer, or whatever the case may have been. But it wasn't. It was it was just white noise, which is not great.
SPEAKER_00All the and all the pushback is from Marvel fanboys that just have their blinders on and they don't want to they don't want to deal with the reality of the situation. And maybe maybe it's just my Asperger's, but I see through the bullshit. Like I just have this way of seeing through bullshit, and this was bullshit. This was bullshit, and it just something something has to change. Like for the longevity and the health of the studio, something has to fucking change.
SPEAKER_02You know, in in another thing that I don't even think we've even touched on is the normal fan that's not to the level of us, right? The the that knows more about Marvel than the normal person. The normal guy that's just gonna go watch the movies, they would have easily been like, yeah, that makes sense. These are all the people that I've been watching in the movies lately. Of course, they're gonna be in the movie. Like, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Can you imagine can you imagine a casual fan sitting through that? Right. What is Patrick?
SPEAKER_02Who's Patrick Stewart? What is Patrick Stewart doing to this? Like, or like some like 17-year-old, like he was Professor X before I was born, you know?
SPEAKER_00Like, what the fuck? Oh my god.
SPEAKER_02I don't know, man. Like, I I just don't think I I I yeah, they just definitely missed the mark. I I it could have been cool, and Marvel, we just gave you ideas, you know, let us know and you can pay us if you want. But I expect a producer credit at some point, right? Absolutely, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but yeah, it's it's it's just an exemplary of what they've done with the studio over time. When you bought Marvel, when you bought Star Wars, you basically got how how to make money, like how to make money for dummies. You got books called How to Make Money for Dummies, right? And instead of reading the book and absorbing the book and internalizing the book, you decided to rewrite the fucking book.
SPEAKER_02But Disney can't even recreate their very first the the project that built them, Snow White. They can't even do that right. So, like, what makes us think they could do the project the the things that they bought? And I actually didn't even mind Snow White, but like that's a whole nother podcast. That's a whole nother podcast about Disney live action remakes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Sorry.
SPEAKER_02Scratch, scratch that, scratch that. Okay, okay, we'll have to get into that another time.
SPEAKER_00No, but when but when you get a franchise like Marvel and you get a franchise like Star Wars, like it's not a hard landing. No, it's not a hard landing, right? Like we're talking about the kitty diving board. That's what we're talking about. Yeah, we're not talking about the intermediate diving board, we're not talking about the difficult diving board, we're talking about the intermediate diving board to make money with Marvel or Star Wars. This is fucked it up.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, this is why it hurts my heart so much with this multiverse saga, is the you're talking about rewriting the book. The way they did the Infinity Saga was literally rewriting the book. And they did everything right. Like they could do no wrong. Uh, and and then they learned nothing from that, and the multiverse saga was was was made. And they learned none of the lessons, learned none of the lessons from the Infinity Saga and what made it great. What made it great? Characters and the the arc of these characters over multiple movies, uh, and and the the interconnectedness of it all, and then they just didn't do it in this one. I mean, nobody's even addressed the the frozen celestial in the middle of the ocean until Brave New World. We we finally got a skull reference or scroll reference in Daredevil Born Again of all places.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, yeah. You know what? We we didn't even talk about that in the episode. You guys weren't you get you guys, yeah, we passed that over. Yeah, I completely missed that one.
SPEAKER_01I thought totally, yeah, until you brought it up too. Man, but they just didn't learn the lessons from of what made the infinity saga so good and and why so many people have tried to emulate that and have failed. Now they're they're it's now it's almost like they're a parody of themselves trying to copy what they did and failing, like the dark universe and the DCEU and all that other stuff. So anyway.
SPEAKER_00Yep. And you know, there's been some bright spots, right? Guardians sure was a bright spot, Deadpool and Wolverine was a bright spot, I thought Eternals was a bright spot. Um, you know, they've had some they've had some victories, but for some reason the victories are coming from other directors outside their system. So there's something internally wrong as far as Marvel's Marvel goes. And also, you gotta look at all the staffing changes of you know, you know, as recent too. Like Victoria, Victoria Alonzo, or yeah, Victoria Alonzo's gone. Um, there's a couple other people that left, like that are you know, big higher ups and stuff. And yeah, anyways. Um, we gotta go. Uh, but listen, guys, thank you so much for tuning in for this episode. And meanwhile, we hope you enjoyed it. We tried to come at this subject from all points of view. We'd love to hear your thoughts. So hit us up on Twitter at meanwhile underscore pod or just comment underneath the the video or send us an email or whatever. You can find us at solo.to forward slash meanwhile pod. Uh uh, you'll get the uh, or is it me? Yeah, it's meanwhile pod. Uh you'll get um our contact stuff there. And uh to be continued, I'm Frank McGuire.
SPEAKER_02Black, paper, scissors.
SPEAKER_00No, you just can't just say it. Okay.
SPEAKER_02All right, uh, I am the Emperor of Awesome Bradley View 10, and I'm Rich Rare.
SPEAKER_00Cool. All right, peace. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcast. And if you feel so inclined, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Podcaster Sticker or Podcast. As much as we appreciate the views, the best way to support the show is to tell your friends and family about Mean Model Back on the podcast. Head over to solo.io for mean mile podcast. There you can sign up for a newsletter, follow us on all your favorite social media platforms, and find the newest and latest episodes, contents, and giveaways.
