ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - Disney KILLS Eternals 2: Iron Fist Returns, and the End of the Feige Era?

Episode Date: March 22, 2024

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Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Welcome back Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Airy, and according to a new leak, Disney is cracking down on Marvel Studios, canceling expensive, risky projects, and banking on reliable franchises instead. Now, on the one hand, this sounds like Marvel is getting back on track, producing quality over quantity. But I'm conflicted, because if Marvel never took risk, then we never would have gotten this. A little later, I'm going to be joined by Screencrush's Colton Ogburn and Dave Gonzalez, co-author of The Excellent Book, The Rain of Marvel Studios.

But first, let me explain exactly what's going on here. But first, I have a huge announcement to make at Screencrushmerch.com, where we design all the merch ourselves. We are unveiling these new X-Men parody t-shirts like The X-Men Nighthawks by comic book artist Mark Spears, Doug As Wolverine, and the X-Fist Club parody of the Breakfast Club. We are running a one-week sale for 15% off, so get yours now before time runs out. And thank you all so much for supporting our channel and being part of the team. you guys.

So where are all these rumors coming from? Well, Daniel RPK, a very reliable leaker with scoops from Marvel Studios, has said that Disney is forcing Marvel to shift toward less risky projects and focusing more on guaranteed box office winners. I mean, yeah, and isn't that what movie studios always do? Yes, and that's part of the problem. In fact, a little later, I'm going to explain exactly why this can mean the end of everything great about Marvel Studios, but first let me talk about what the actual leak said.

I want you to know. The rumor states that sequels like Eternals 2, Captain Marvel 3 and Ant Man 4 are all about to be canceled. Now, this aligns with the story from last week where Disney's CEO Bob Iger said that Disney was already quietly canceling Marvel projects. So this led us to believe that maybe they were planning to not even stream shows like Ironheart, or that they were canceling the long gestating Armor Wars movie. Now look, Ant Man 4, I get. Quantummania underperformed, and like maybe it's time to move on to a new star like Shang Chi or even introduced Ghost Rider and tell a different story. And even though the Marvel's was fun, I liked it.

It's box office ran smack dab into Fan Abathy. And we've talked to. at length on the channel about how former Disney CEO Bob Chappick forced Marvel and Lucasfilm to create too many projects on an accelerated schedule leading to a loss of focus and quality. What do you mean? I mean, like, you can tell if like Boba Fett and Shehawk were the only Disney Plus shows released in 2022, then the VFX would have been better and had a more focused story. If Secret Invasion had a stronger creative focus, it wouldn't have been such a mess. So I do think that pairing back is a bit of a good idea.

But the question is, who now gets to decide what Marvel projects move forward? Will it be Kevin Feigy, the visionary genius who trusted in the source material in creatives like the Russo brothers to create the most successful franchise of all time? Or will these decisions be made by the moneymen, the bean counters, sullen, uncreative loners who judge stories based on balance sheets and not on their characters and ideas. Now, I want to explain what I mean by that, but first, I want to thank the sponsor of our video, Better Help. I've been pretty open on the channel about the darker times in my life when I went through depression, and I had some thoughts that really spiraled down and took me into some very dark places. And I'm here to tell you guys that if you're hurting, therapy can help. Therapy can also help you learn positive coping skills, how to set boundaries, and how to live an all-around happier life. So if you are thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try.

It is entirely online, very convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. All you have to do is fill out a short questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist, and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Screencrush today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Screencrush. Now, back to what I was saying. So the interesting part about this leak is that Feigey apparently still wants Eternals 2 to happen. That movie set up a huge cliffhanger, introducing Harry Stiles and Patton Oswald as Star Fox and Pip the troll.

I'm Eros. This is Pip. We also ended with half the Eternals kidnapped by the Celestials and the other half on a quest to find their friends. And I was so jazzed for this setup. Like, I love these cosmic characters. I thought the Eternals was an underrated movie with a unique visual. style, and I wanted to see these characters move on and tell a different story, a grander story. Now, I should note, though, that the Eternals had a middling box office and poor critical

reception. I personally stand by the film, and I think it deserves a sequel. Feige apparently also wanted a sequel, and he wanted it to go bigger and more expensive to tell a true cosmic story. And remember, guys, Marvel has a plan, right? They map out their projects 10 years in advance. Now, they may not know the nuances of every single movie, but they know what it's heading toward. Now obviously the arrest of Jonathan Majors and his firing have caused their plan to change as they are apparently shifting away from Kang Dynasty and more toward like X-Men versus Avengers or something like that. But like if Feigey wants Eternals too, it must be because those characters were meant to be essential to the plan going forward. And see, this is

where the problems start. Like back when Disney bought Pixar and then Marvel, Bob Eiger promised to leave the creatives alone, which they did at first. Disney did not want to interfere with what was already working. But over the years, they pressed those studios for more sequels, more shows, more characters to sell more toys. And Kevin Feigy, who is a good soldier, did what he was told. Good soldiers full of orders. And now it sounds like he's being punished for obeying orders, because now he's being forced to change the plan. And this, frankly, pisses me off. And I'll explain why just a little bit later. But first, I want to talk to Colton Ogburn, the guy who's trapped eternally in our television, but he doesn't know. So, Dave Gonzalez, you know Marvel better than just about

anybody I know, at least behind the scenes, you were co-author of The Rain of Marvel Studios. Great book. Everybody should check out. What do you think about this rumor? Like, do you think Disney forcing Marvel to be more risk-averse is a good thing in the long run? Where are we at here? I'm interested to see how it plays out, because I would say that Marvel Studios' primary magic and the magic they were able to develop and get Disney interested in them in the first place, wasn't necessarily chasing what people wanted from superhero movies, but taking IP that

most of Hollywood viewed as valueless and making people interested in it. In terms of like when 2008 everything started, Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America were not the most known Marvel characters, and there was a lot of various assumptions about them, and Marvel was able to take that and adapt them to the cinematic universe in a way that sort of taught people to like them. So even though I can believe that we aren't getting sequels directly titled after these, you know, sort of non-successful movies, I do think we'll end up seeing those characters again. They just, hopefully, my hope is, the worst-case scenario is they're chasing the title that are going to bring people in. They're chasing

the Deadpool and Wolverine, and the story can still be, hopefully, whatever the story is, including whatever characters they need to include. So, Colton, I want to play devil's advocate and bounce off what Dave just said. We're in the fourth year post-end game. We've seen a lot of Marvel projects that worked really well that were continuations of stories, Wanda Vision, Falcon Winter Soldier, etc. But there's some logic in what Disney is doing here and saying like, you know, nobody, for instance, asked for a Shehawk show or a Moon night show. Instead, they would have rather seen, I don't know, in my case, Armour Wars, you know, the continuation of these stories that we've already been told or what happened to Wanda,

things like that. Do you think that Marvel is doing, or that Disney is doing the right thing with Marvel and like kind of cutting its branches a little bit and making it focus? on what works? Well, they've definitely needed to dial things back. So I'm glad to hear that Iger is, of course, aware of the fact that there does need to be a course correction. Now, I don't know what that course correction is. I'm sure that he and Kevin Feigy would know much better than I would.

But the thing is, I really hope that we're not going to see a situation like with Bob Cheapek or Bob Paycheck, I like to call him, and how he was running. Oh, my God. Doc and Ed, cheering now, good one. How he was running things. You know, he was very, he would put executives where creators needed to be. And he really, you know, stomped on, you know, allowing creators to have their voice and do things that, you know, we would actually enjoy instead of just, you know, looking at the money. Now, the money is important, but you, in order for that to work, you have to have the business mind, but you also have to have the creative mind.

And I think that's something that Bob Iger and Kevin Feige together, they can accomplish. So I don't want to see them arguing or Iger forcing Fagy to do anything he doesn't want to do. I hope that they do need to trim some branches, though, to get back to your question. There definitely needs to be some things that get cut. I think that Fagie has been spread way too thin. I've said that before. Go ahead. Out of the things that we've seen from Marvel the past few years, what would you have cut?

Well, you know, in hindsight, it's easy to, you know, Monday morning quarterback it and say what I would have cut. The low-hanging fruit, I guess, would be something like Secret Invasion. It just wasn't executed well. But, you know, looking back on it, I'm not saying that I would have cut something like Secret Invasion, had it had the proper attention and story and dedication to the comics. That particular show just was not made. made well. So I think that kind of goes back to my point of it's not any particular show needing to be cut. It's just the sheer amount of shows and movies. I think they need to dial back

so that they can produce quality over quantity. And I think one person that might agree with you is Dave Gonzalez, who again, co-author of The Rain of Marvel Studios, great book, check it out in bookstores. Now, Dave, you know, in the book, you guys specifically had a passage where you said that Kevin Feige has had achieved creative control, but not necessarily quality of control. Me and Colton are guessing here. We're pointing a lot of fingers at Mr. Paycheck and Iger and executives.

Are we correct about the structure of how things actually work at Marvel Studios, or are we being delusional here about how the studio actually is put together and who makes the decisions? I think you're pretty close. Kevin Feigey's definitely been non-confrontational in his outward. appearance, so mostly the only peaks that we get into the current era of how him and Bob

Iger are interacting or through rumors like this. But I do think there are two people that have extreme respect for each other and also the knowledge of the billions of dollars that they are eventually responsible for in terms of making a good company. I think Bob Iger is very much focused on shoring up Disney and finding. a replacement that could finish him out and sort of bring Disney into whatever its new air is going to be. And I think Kevin Feige

remains primarily someone who would like to make good movies. And so hopefully with the reduction in necessary output, both on Disney Plus and in theaters, that's going to allow Kevin Feige to focus on making better movies. Ultimately, he's a I want to have good movies guy that taught himself about Marvel and business after that.

Sure. But he likes movies first. So just to refocus the question then, going through like the infinity saga, phases one through three. I've read your book. I've also read the excellent like history of Marvel Studios book, the official studio history they put out.

In that book, it makes it seem pretty clear and in your book that it was Feigey and his like his producers, you know, great producers, Brad Winderbom, people like that, who were shepherding these projects and making the decisions of what got made. Would you say that was accurate

pre-end game and pre-end game? Yeah, up until about Civil War, there was a little bit more back and forth with corporate interests. But in terms of, like, phase three, that was basically Feige and his core group of producers. Yeah, and that's, I should also say,

like, I did mean phase three. Like, I didn't mean when they had the creative committee and Marvel corporate and all that, because I'm more focusing on, like, post-Disney acquisition, where you have to admit, like, you know, Bob Eiger backed Kevin Feigy in a big way, you know, when he basically cut out

Eich Perlmutter. Okay. Now I want to just pivot to what the main part of this is, right? The main part of this rumor. There's a really, cool one about Shang Chi we'll talk about in a second a Shang Chi sequel, how that's definitely going to happen. But I want to hear what

you guys think about just the actual Eternals sequel. It was a movie that had a pretty direct setup. It underperformed. The question was, well, are they ever going to pay that off? Are they ever going to mention the statue coming out of the ocean? Colton, what do you think? Do you actually think, like, given limited resources

and a free focus, that the Eternals 2 is the right way to go? Well, look, I am not the biggest Eternals fan. I know you personally you love the film and I don't like the film in any way yeah but don't go throw in the l word around wouldn't go that far wouldn't go that far I really like it no I mean I love parts of it yeah yeah yeah I would say you're definitely one of the more vocal defenders of the movie that I've heard like I personally I guess my opinion on it is it it didn't offend me which is you know not a great

you know opinion to have you know for movies in Marvel studios wanting to have quality films and so as far as an Eternals 2 goes, look, if I'm, you know, the executive, if I'm in Bob Iger's position, Eternals 2 is definitely something that I'm looking at cutting. I'm happy that they greenlit the first one. I'm all for taking risks. As Dave mentioned earlier, it's important to take risks. That's what Marvel Studios was from the jump. I would even venture to say the first Avengers movie was a bit of a risk. They didn't know that it was going to be the box office takeover that it was going to be and this just juggernaut of a franchise they didn't know that going in guardians of the galaxy is the same same thing so i'm glad that they took the risk with eternals

but right now with the current state of marvel studios the current state of disney i don't know that eternals too is a risk they want to take however i feel that kevin figgy has earned my trust so if they want to trim some branches and he fights hard for eternals too not to be one of those branches that gets cut. I have faith in Kevin Feigy. So if he really wants to do Eternals too, I hope that Bob Eiger lets him do it. You know, Dave, the other thing here is it's part of the plan, right? Like when the Marvel, you know as well as I do, they don't map out every single movie. They can't. Then it would give directors and writers no freedom whatsoever, even less than they have right now. But they clearly wanted to do something with the Eternals. They clearly wanted to do something

with Star Fox that was going to influence later on, and they want to pay that off. So, you know, that and the fact that we want to see the plan pay off, what are your thoughts on Eternals, too? I would say they put themselves in an interesting position where, I guess, the example I always go back to is when the original Star Wars trilogy were the only three Star Wars movies that we had, and I'm dating myself, but picture a world where this happened. And because of that, the fandom was able to, the fandom and the expanded universe was able to sort of find the stories in between the actual movies. and, you know, enjoy the characters and enjoy the world building.

You know, now we know the name of every alien in the most icely canteena through some sort of, like, weird side project. We don't have to necessarily pick up with all the Eternals' cliffhangers to see those characters come in again. Anytime we want another Marvel movie about yelling at God, about how God's wrong, like, Thor Love and Thunder was already moving in that direction. So if they want, like, a fourth Thor movie that includes the Eternals, or even just some of the Eternals in some way,

I could see the characters coming back. So even though their direct sequels canceled, Marvel also, when they're in writers' room for Disney Plus or they're writing movies, basically have a list of characters you could use. They're like, I need a scientist, and maybe Darcy comes in. Like, those sort of things are possible.

So I think all the Eternals, if there's not Eternals, too, they just go on that list. And there are possible threads that can be picked up by writers to use as they need in whatever the actual movies are going to be. Yeah, and in the book, you did a great job discussing that and how they'll pick, how Kevin Feigy in particular doesn't like to leave things like that, like he's revisiting the leader. He revisited Thunderbolt Ross. So he doesn't sit well with failure. So I definitely think we'll see them again. The problem is we'll be in a project where people had to have seen the Eternals first.

Sorry, Colton, go ahead. I was just going to say, if I could add, I think Eternals would be much better served by a Disney Plus series. I think that's a, yeah, that's a roster of characters that I think would really benefit from long-form, you know, television-type content. 100%. We have a video we've been gestating for a while on that very topic here on ScreenCrush. Make sure you subscribe, like, and hit the bell for alerts so you don't miss it. So the other part of this, remember, like, we've talked about all of the depressing stuff, and in just a little bit, I am going to give you guys my feelings on this

and how, like, I think this is truly terrifying news that could actually end Marvel Studios as we know it and turn it into, like, the remnants of Pixar that we are stuck with today. But first, I want to talk about some good news in this, annual RPK leak, which, by the way, it's a leak, not confirmed. I don't know anyone who's confirmed this. The Shang-Chi rumors. There's two rumors about Shang-Chi, which is a movie I really enjoyed, and I've been wanting to see announcements of a sequel. The two rumors are, one, that it will be a time-travel story, fun, fun, ties it into the multiverse saga, and two, that Iron Fist will be a character, which makes a lot of sense because Daniel Rand is not the first Iron Fist. It's a mantle

that's been passed down for thousands of years. So I'm pretty excited about that that idea. Dave, what do you think? What are your thoughts on if that's actually going to happen and what you'd like to see from it? Yeah, it sounds great. And it honestly sounds very balanced for, like the first Shang-chi, for what I think a Shang-chi sequel should be, which is you have some sort of fantastic mystical elements, your dragons fighting each other and your, you know, rings. But you also have a solid basis for some hand-to-hand combat scenes, so we don't all devolve into, you know, lasers being shot on the volume in post-production. So I'm very excited to hear about it.

I've been waiting to see what we first hear about Shang-chi, too, for a while, and being able to go back and, like you were saying earlier, sort of rescue the reputation of Iron Fist and bring them into the MCU proper. It's going to be very interesting. Colton, what do you think? Shang-Chi? Are we excited? Time travel, Iron Fist?

Fink. Yes. Thank God. I am so excited for Shang Chi, too. That was one of the earlier films in phase four, post-end game. And I just remember it being this time when we were curious what Marvel was going to look like post-end game. And so when Shang-chi came out, I just felt so relieved that Marvel seemed to have this bright future with new characters and, you know, forming this new team of Avengers. I was excited to see a new Avengers movie with a new team. And there's just been no word on it, no word on a sequel, that they act like he may not even be in the Avengers movies. I have been so irritated by the fact that we haven't heard anything about Shang Chi. And he's a character that I go back to a lot when they're introducing all of these new characters. I'm like, could we pay a little bit of attention to this awesome character you already introduced before we move on to even more? So I'm very excited. I'm also

excited for Iron Fist. Did they say in the report that it's not going to be the actor from the Netflix series, or did they leave that kind of ambiguous? I would be shocked if Finn Jones reprised his role as Iron Fist. My guess is if they're going to travel back in time, he's going to meet his dad and the origin of the 10 Rings and we'll have a different actor. It's a shame to lose Colleen Wing. I think you're exactly right. That's probably what is going to happen. And that's probably the right choice but i did not like iron fist okay it was awful i don't think fin jones was the problem with that series necessarily so i think in the right hands he could be an interesting character i could see him having good chemistry uh in that series with shang chi i think

their two characters would work well together so with them bringing in you know all of this netflix stuff into the canon i wouldn't dismiss it quite yet uh him being a part of the movie Yeah, and I just want to say, like, when it comes to these movies not getting, like, Ant Man not getting an Ant Man 4, I mean, it's fine. Not every movie got its full trilogy, and that's okay. Iron Man didn't get an Iron Man 4. Iron Man became a supporting character in all the Marvel movies, and I can see Carol Danvers going on and having a very similar role. Dave, I got one last question for you.

I talk about the plan, capital letters, the plan. Is the plan real at this point? Like, they're throwing Kang out. They're replacing him with a file with a photo. in it. They're throwing Kelsey Grammer at the end of the Marvel. What's going on? Is there a plan? Give us some hope. I think one of the things while researching the book is when I went into writing the Marvel book, I was like, this is going to be, you know, like what I always wanted with Lost, but I'm going to actually find a group of creatives who know exactly where they're going

and know every step along the way. And then what I learned is it's not that complex. complexly thought out because they want to have wiggle room to discover things. Basically, a whole bunch of how Marvel Studios continues to make movies is based on the first Iron Man where Robert Danny Jr. and John Favro basically threw the script out every day. It would be like, okay, what are we doing today? Let's set some rhythms. The sort of talent they've been able to show in creating a cinematic universe, not only with the Avengers teams, but is writers remembering something that they could pull forward and make use of later on.

And those are all decided pretty much individually with a movie. So you will have things with like, I'm pretty sure everybody who is involved with Dr. Strange of the Multiverse of Madness knows that Wanda's, you know, back out there. They did put that little red flash. Do they know where she is or where she's going to show up again? No, that's somebody else's problem in the future. So I would love it if there was like a plan, plan.

But also, I don't think necessarily, I think that would just make everybody feel better. I don't think that would change the reaction to their movies. Because they are coming out, you know, like every four or five Comic-Cons and being like, here's what we're doing for two years. And we've started to see they're going to start dropping and rearranging that and be a little bit more reactive. So a plan is good in theory, but isn't always great in execution. Sure. And as long as they're, my thing is, as long as they're giving the leeway to the creators

and not to the business people, I'm fine with that. This is where I think we could really be getting in a lot of trouble here, which I'm going to explain to you guys in just a second. Dave Gonzalez, thank you for joining me. Colton Ogburn, the guy who's trapped eternally in our television but doesn't know, so please don't tell him. Guys, thank you very much. You can find everybody's social links below. The problem is, this is a studio that is built on risk. Let's just presume for a second that Disney always owned Marvel Studios and was pressuring them from its inception. They never would have cast a felon like Robert Downey Jr. to be Iron Man. Captain America First Avenger would have never been set in World War II. They would have never approved a weird little movie about a talking tree and raccoon making friends with the guy from Parks and Rec.

When you put the creatives in control, they give us the Avengers, they give us Black Panther and Thor Ragnarok. But whenever CEOs and accountants start planning out the movies, we end up with this. I'm not sure how I got here. It has to do with Spider-Man, I think. Or this. He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died. Or God help us, this. You're a fraud, Spider-Man!

And look, I'm not going to say that every creative decision at Marvel has worked out over the past few years. It hasn't. But I don't think it's the writers and directors and actors and the artists who are to blame. It's the studio. The studio has forced creatives into corners, changed their minds at the last second, ordered massive VFX changes and reshoots, and the studio has vastly overspent on these projects. Secret Invasion had a $250 million budget.

I mean, I understand the studio now wanting to be more careful with its money, but I'm looking back at this pattern over the years. Disney forcing Toy Story sequels and spinoffs, Disney forcing many Pixar sequels while relegating great films like Turning Red to Disney Plus. And what I'm seeing here is that this studio is increasingly afraid of free thought. The studio, by being risk averse, is green lighting remakes and sequels that no one ever asked for. And you want to see how this turns out? Look at Disney's box office last year. You cannot expect fans to get excited with endless sequels and remakes that repeat the same stories over and over.

We want characters to care about, ideas that are fresh. and we want to see a cinematic universe with the same depth and weirdness that we love from the comics. But that will not happen if you put the moneymen in charge of the plant. They will strip this franchise for parts and member bury it into oblivion just like they did Star Wars. Please, just make Eternals too. It sounds like it'd be a lot of fun. I want to see where they go with this thing. It's really strange and weird, and I never get to see weird and strange adaptations of comic books that I love.

Well, guys, that's just my thoughts. Big thanks to Colton and Dave for joining us. Let us know you can find our socials down below what you think of all this, or you can at me on Twitter. and if it's your first time here, please subscribe and smash that bell for alerts. For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie.