@therealsilvermane

First social media reactions to Shang Chi tonight at 12 am EST after the premiere.

I just think Man of Steel is quite possibly the biggest misstep in comic book movie history. Here was WB's big chance to put their planned Extended Universe (to rival Marvel's) on the right foot, and, in this new reality where comic book movies were finally becoming more comic booky (thank you, Marvel), to make a faithful and comic book-like movie featuring DC's flagship character. IMO and I believe in the opinion of many others, WB blew it. In a What If? world, a modern Superman movie should have been IMO bright colors and gleaming American optimism. A pure of heart Kal El raised as Clark Kent by the goodly Kents of Smallville, KS who brings that same American optimism to the "clean streets" of Metropolis, the City of Tomorrow. Yes, there could have been darkness, but not IMO in the heart of Clark Kent. Instead, with MOS we got a dark and depressing Clark Kent who had a miserable childhood in Kansas who was bullied by his classmates and couldn't deal with his super powers. We got weird character development elements like a Jonathan Kent who gives his adopted son strange life lessons like sacrificing himself to a tornado so that young Clark realizes how important it to keep his powers secret but also result in an adult Clark Kent who toothpicks some trucker's mac truck onto a telephone pole just because he was harassing a waitress and kills the main villain in the most grisly way possible. If they wanted a darker Superman movie, make the villains darker, not Clark Kent. Great comic book writers like Frank Miller, Alan Moore, and Grant Morrison understood this in their Superman stories. He's the Great Big Blue Boy Scout. Not another Byronic tragic hero living in a Nolanverse. By putting Superman on the wrong foot, WB put the entire foundation of their new DC universe on the wrong foot. IMO.

I didn't really say they were bad, just really long and slow. Putting on either of those movies past 10 pm works better than NyQuil for me. Dune 3.0 looks like another beautiful but long and slow sci-fi movie from Villenueve. I did like Arrival (if watched in the middle of the day) but I wasn't sure what the point of Blade Runner 2049 was other than to confuse people even more than Scott's many director cuts have already.

Yes, nobody knows if Shang Chi is going to be a good movie until reviews come out and we all see it for ourselves. I'm predicting it will be a good film because the director Daniel Destin Cretton has proven to me he can tell a good story with the two films Short Term 12 and Just Mercy (both featuring Captain Marvel herself). About the cautiousness of the Asian-American community. Not really from what I see. I live in a city with a high Asian-American population and they've been out and about in force. Maybe they all believe in the vaccine. Chinese media has tried to diss the movie earlier this year as racist and stereotypist and whatever, but that's Chinese media, as in it has an agenda. I know D. Cretton (the Asian-American director) and Simu Liu both seem to believe in the movie they've made so I trust them. While the buzz hasn't been Endgame overwhelming, I've seen enough interest on social media like Facebook fan groups or Twitter to get that there is substantial interest among MCU fans to see this film. Yes, he's an unknown. Therefore, Shang Chi is going to have to be very good movie to have good word of mouth to bring in the holdouts. Again, I think Shang Chi is going to be a good movie. Money aint that tight right now. People want to spend their money. They just want to do it safely. I don't think Chapek has written off Shang Chi. He just seems to make a lot of insufficiently_thoughtful_person statements. He should start traveling with a PR assistant from now on. And maybe for Disney C-level statements to the media, maybe Kevin Feige alone should speak for the MCU.

Maybe because Denis Villenueve's last two sci-fi films, while beautifully shot, were both three hour snooze fests.

I mean, Zendaya's character's name is almost literally Chanel...lol...

I see folks over in the Eternals thread dissing on the movie by saying it looks like a Chanel commercial or something. Meanwhile, half the shots in this Dune remake's trailer literally look like they were taken out of an actual Chanel commercial. LOL

What?!? That's an almost insane low estimate for an MCU movie. I get it. Shang Chi is an unknown character. But that doesn't matter. Black Widow made $80 million opening weekend in the U.S. with same day streaming on Disney+. Shang Chi will be theater exclusive. The same people who saw Black Widow will see Shang Chi. Hardcore MCU fans have already decided this is a must-see now movie. Add in the Asian-American community who will go see this. Add in more of the African-American community who didn't bother to see Black Widow will go see this. Shang Chi should clear $60 million easy its opening weekend. Who cares about the pandemic. If it's a great Marvel movie that's a blast to watch (which Black Widow was not), it will have much stronger legs at the theaters, as folks like me will see it multiple times at the theater since that'll be the only way to watch it for a month and a half. I predict Shag Chi will be the highest grossing movie yet of 2021 when its theatrical run is done.

Sure, Man of Steel was profitable with $665 million worldwide against a $225 million budget. But when you compare that against Iron Man 3's $1.2 billion box office that year and The Avengers' $1.5 billion and The Dark Knight Rises' $1 billion the previous year, it was very very disappointing against what was hoped for. Heck, even Hunger Games Catching Fire made more money than MOS that year. Add a 56% rotten score at Rotten Tomatoes, and Man of Steel was considered a minor disappointment. Of course, a few years later, Batman v Superman says "hold my beer..."

With the exception of like IH and Dark World, the MCU has captured lightning in a bottle with almost every movie since Iron Man 1, and that includes Black Panther, Thanos, the Disney+ shows, etcetera, etcetera. People also wanted to know who this new character "Captain Marvel" was and how she would affect the MCU. The same newcomer effect could be what happens in the case of Shang Chi and the Eternals, pandemic effect aside. "Nothing will save marvel phase 4. It was going to be a turkey even without Corona." So, was the movie industry in general going to be one big turkey even without Corona? Was WW84 always going to get like $20 million domestic regardless of a pandemic or not? No. Why? Because the coronavirus pandemic is what's causing not only the movie theater industry to be down, but also the convention industry, the catering industry, and a lot of other entertainment industries. Fantastic Four isn't a surefire cinema hit for anybody. Three strikes on the big screen proves that. And we're not going to be seeing mutants in the MCU for a while. Marvel Studios is putting a lot of effort into Shang Chi and Eternals and is counting on them to be successful.

I believe about every week there are new movies released without any super-heroes in them. That's a statement by a person who looks down on comic book culture and is trying to blame all their life's troubles on the MCU.

Disney Hints at Regret: Too Late to Change ‘Shang-Chi’ Theatrical-Only Release Plan “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” was announced months ago as Disney’s first MCU title of the pandemic era to get a theatrical-only release — but that’s not the decision the studio would make today. On Disney’s August 12 Q2 earnings call, CEO Bob Chapek hinted that releasing “Shang-Chi” only in theaters is not a move the studio would make now, citing the “unfortunate” COVID resurgence that the studio didn’t see coming. The COVID delta variant surge means that a delay for “Shang-Chi” is not possible, the studio confirmed. Chapek cited the pandemic as the main reason the studio created simultaneous release windows for their theatrical features in 2021. “On Shang-Chi we actually think it will be an interesting experiment for us,” says Chapek because it will be the first Disney title to have a 45-day window before arriving on streaming. “That title was planned on being [released] in a healthier theatrical environment,” he said. Disney touted the shared-platform successes of “Black Widow” and “Jungle Cruise,” adding that Disney+ now boasts 174 million subscribers. Revenues hit $17 billion, up from $11.8 billion in the year-ago quarter, while Disney posted a profit of $995 million.

40+ male comics collectors hardly read Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, or Captain Marvel, either. And I remember the good old days when Dr Strange would just fly off the newsstands faster than an X-Men comic. Going by your logic, no time is a good time to release Shang-Chi or Eternals. Pandemic era September and November are perfect times to release these "riskier" Marvel properties (whatever that means, every property besides Spider-Man and Hulk turned into a movie by the MCU is based on little known risky characters). Christmas time is a perfect time to release the next Spider-Man movie.

As a film, SS 2.0 was a plus for DC whereas SS 1.0 was a minus, so a definite upgrade including Bloodsport as a better Deadshot. Shark was a better Croc, Harley was a better Harley. Just a better cast of characters overall. Also, SS 2.0 was legitimately weird whereas SS 1.0 was more “we’re weird cause we shop at Hot Topic”.

After watching Suicidal Squadron 2.0 twice now, I’d say the movie is okay and counts as a plus for Universe of DC (or whatever they call it) along with Wonder Woman, Joker, etc. It really does help if I think of this whole thing as one big convoluted multiverse. Thanks, Loki. Besides seeing these really obscure DC characters brought to life, I appreciated seeing James Gunn’s twisted cleverness on display. I’m not familiar with Gunn’s stuff outside Guardians, but it was (a lot) like Guardians on Earth and without the Disney filter. For me, that’s not necessarily a good thing. The movie’s overt ugliness leading to the over sentimental resolutions ( a James Gunn thing apparently) got gratuitous at times. For instance, I’m not sure what was the point of Peacemaker and Bloodsport having a freedom fighter mistaken identity body count shoot-off other than being an ultra violent joke. Or what was the point of Harley’s whirlwind romance montage with Luna only to have her just shoot him five minutes later other than to show how depraved(or honorable) she is? Killing Luna served the plot no real purpose. I just didn’t see a point to a lot of the ugly other than this is what you get when you give Gunn relatively free reign.

And would that have been a wise choice to release two MCU Spider-Man movies theatrically back to back?

Did they, though? In a What If? universe, Black Widow would have kicked off Phase Four to a theater exclusive run shortly after Endgame and would have made much better box office numbers than the actual, obviously. Then Disney+ shows would have kicked in starting with FWS. Instead, we got a global pandemic giving the world a one year break from any new MCU content. Then Marvel kicked off Phase Four with WandaVision, FWS, and Loki which have all have all been qualified verifiable mega-hits for Disney+. Black Widow, box office wise, has simply fallen victim to the same issues WW84 and Suicide Squad have, day and date streaming during a pandemic that just won't quit. Given that, kicking off Phase Four with those three Disney+ shows was a fine way to begin Phase Four in this new reality. Back to the the What If? scenario, storywise, Black Widow works fine as an epilogue to Endgame/Phase Three and a prologue to Phase Four (kinda like Far From Home). BW gave Natasha a proper send-off and introduced the first new MCU theatrical Marvel super-hero, Yelena Belova, as Natasha's replacement. I think Disney's strategy was sound, either way. Sure, Black Widow could have been a better movie, but last spring seemed like a proper time to finally release her solo movie on the heels of Natasha's ultimate sacrifice in Endgame. Releasing Black Widow this summer was probably the best case scenario for the movie's release sans the legal mess with ScarJo. In 2019, nobody considered a global pandemic was going to turn human civilization on its head.

Laughing at the Eternals hate in these boards. This November however, Marvel's least favorite immortals will have the last laugh, kinda like in the trailer.

Captain Marvel is nobody's replacement. She's her own thing. She will however be splitting Avengers leadership duties with Sam Wilson very soon though. Our universe will need it against Kang et al. I do believe it was a variant of Kang a la Immortus/Marcus who raped Carol Danvers in the storyline from Avengers #197-200.

I say this little lawsuit by Marvel's own Mata Hari isn't necessarily a great look for either side. Sure, Disney should have renegotiated some kind of day and date streaming deal with SJ when the decision was made, but SJ's attorneys also can't really dismiss the influence of a worldwide deadly global pandemic on many a movie studios decisions. Ask people on the street and it might be half and half on who looks greedier here, especially after Disney disclosed her intitial BW salary. $20 million is a lot of money for one movie. Maybe SJ realizes, as someone in her late 30's whos isn't really this generation's Meryl Streep, this is her last stab at any real money for her acting career. But even though this is making entertainment headlines, I don't think anybody really cares. Disney and Mata Hari will most likely settle out of court to avoid any more public spectacle (it's not a great look for either) and put this behind them, we'll all forget about it, and the MCU train will continue chugging on. I'm a little puzzled (not puzzled) by the few but loud voices in fandom calling for the demise of Disney. News flash, it's Disney's backing of Marvel Studios that we can credit for our favorite hobby being at the top of pop culture. Yes, those first few MCU movies did good, but it was the creative and financial might and marketing of the Mouse that put Marvel on top of the mountain. Without Disney, the MCU isn't where it is today. I know there's a lot of DC diehards in these boards, but post Nolanverse, DC has been doing everything it can to bring comic book culture from the top of the mountain. Thankfully, the MCU, backed by Disney, keeps giving us compelling interesting stuff to keep superhero comic book culture in the top tier of pop culture and to continue sending our comic collections values to the moon.

I think James Gunn's world is that of the anti-hero and the misunderstood. Anything else and I think he's not making an honest film. The Fantastic Four movie needs to be more pure of heart than Gunn might be comfortable with. I think this John Watts guy might be a good fit for the First Family. Nothing fancy, just get the characters right. They're explorers and they're a family. Visually, however, the Fantastic Four poses problems. How do you make a stretching guy not look silly in real life? How do you make a woman who turns invisible visually compelling? How do you make the Thing not look fake? This movie has to nail the Thing. A lot is riding on this Fantastic Four movie. The MCU needs them. I think Marvel gets it right or at least comes a lot closer than what's come before.

Shang Chi is apparently flying and wearing the Ten Rings at the end of the trailer. It looks like Shang Chi will be super-powered, or at least will have the ability to channel Chi energy, like in the comics.