ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - Why Marvel's Plan to DUMP KANG and Re-Hire Robert Downey Jr. is a BAD IDEA - New Rumors EXPLAINED

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

ScreenCrush Rewind tackles all the movie and TV hot topics, offering reviews and analysis of Marvel, Star Wars, and everything you care about right now. Hosted by Ryan Arey, and featuring a panel of industry professionals. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, welcome back to Screen Crush. I'm Ryan Erie, and a new cover story from Variety says that Marvel is considering bringing back the original Six Avengers, including Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, and then also replacing Kang the Conqueror with Dr. Doom. So I'm going to explain why I think all of this is a really bad idea that shows what happens when suits run the creative side of show business. It's a bad idea, right? Now the article goes on to document all the behind-the-scenes problems that Marvel was having in their worst year ever, and I'm going to talk about all of that with our own friend Colton Ogburn

a bit later. But look, just before I get into why this is all horrible, you have to note that this is not all doom and gloom. I actually think Marvel is setting themselves up for a 2024 that is going to be their best year since the pandemic. And I'm going to tell you why just a bit later. But first, let's talk about the bad ideas being floated here. First, let's start with how Marvel is not only going to dump Jonathan Majors as Kang, but they're talking about replacing the character with Dr. Doom is the new big bad of the Multiverse saga. And by the way, according to this variety piece, this discussion started before Majors' legal troubles

when Quantum Mania underperformed at the box office. And look, if you want to dump Jonathan Majors, great, but don't dump Kang. Kang is a great villain in the comics. The Multiverse saga has laid some terrific groundwork for this character with two stellar seasons of Loki. If you drop Kang the Conqueror now, then the legacy of that character is going to be,

oh yeah, that guy that was defeated by Ant-Man, just recast the guy. Please, Marvel, Disney. You can recast people. It's fine. You can recast young Luke Skywalker. You can recast Hans Solo. You can recast Tony Stark. If Paramount can recast Spock and Kirk, then you can recast comic book characters. Now look, Dr. Doom was the villain in the 2015 Secret Wars Comics, which the movie's probably going to be based on. But if they suddenly insert Dr. Doom into the narrative now, then it's going to feel rushed. I mean, Dr. Doom is my all-time favorite comic book villain, and I want the MCU to do him right. You owe me that. Doom should be the loki of phases 7 through 9, but in reverse, he should get more villainous after every movie and he starts off like as a good guy and a victim. Don't ruin him by having a pinch hit for Kang. And the other rumor in this article is that Disney is considering paying really big money to Robert Downey Jr. and the rest of the Avengers to bring them out of retirement. I retire for what, like five minutes and it all goes to shit.

I hate this idea. Like, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say that maybe this is just in reference to like them appearing in Secret Wars, where they would be. be playing like variants of themselves from other realities. Maybe a reality where Natasha stayed an evil spy or where Tony kept drinking heavily. I don't know what they want to do. But if they're actually going to hire these original six to come back like as the Avengers, this is corporate laziness writ large. It's like how when Disney bought Lucas film, they wanted every Star Wars movie to revolve around the era of the original trilogy instead of telling new stories and new eras. I mean, they're finally getting away from that after we've had a decade of OT spinoffs. But their adherence to this story made in the 19th

70s ultimately hurt Star Wars and it's going to hurt Marvel. Or how's there? Well, okay, the Force Awakens was a remake of a new hope. Last Jedi over corrected that and the Rise of Skywalker was just pandering from top to bottom. That's the TLDR. And now I'm afraid that that is going to happen again with Marvel. Look, these original 6th, they're not the only Avengers. They were not even the original Avengers in the comics. Marvel has thousands of characters in their catalog. The Avengers roster has expanded or contracted to tell some incredibly weird, gut-wrenching, fun stories over the years. and Marvel has already introduced new characters that I want to see on a team together. Shehawk, Circee, Black Knight, Captain America, Shang Chi, Shuri, Moon Night, White Vision,

get all those unlikely weirdos in a room together right now. Let's get weird, and let's get weird! If you want a new Iron Man, Rodey is right there. He was Iron Man in the comics during the 80s Secret Wars. Don Cheadle is an incredible actor with an amazing pedigree and he could lead this franchise. Now look, maybe these new characters have not caught on like the originals, but remember this. None of the MCU movies were billion dollar money makers until the characters met in the Avengers. And then Marvel was able to take the audience of five different movies and combine them into one movie.

These new Avengers, they need that room to breathe, to grow, to interact. They need a team-up movie. Where is my Shang-Chi sequel, for God's sake? Like if Marvel just dumps all of this groundwork and reverts back to what worked before, then they are cutting off their future. It's trading the cow for a glass of milk. Oh, but that's some tasty, tasty milk person. It sure is.

Now, look, this is not an official announcement that Marvel has made. It's a leak of something they've considered after their Palm Springs retreat this year. I actually think that 2024 is going to end up being a big rebound year for Marvel, and I'm going to explain why. I have my reasons. But first, I want to talk to my friend Colton Ogburn about this. So, Colton, we both read this article from Variety. What are your thoughts on this? It's a lot to digest.

Yeah, it is a lot. My main thought would just be, it's unfortunate. It's sad. I mean, for the longest time, Marvel Studios, the MCU, they were the pinnacle of, you know, Hollywood filmmaking. They achieved so much, you know, with the box office, with what they're able to do with various genres within the superhero genre. So to see what we've long suspected with like these leaks of like confirmation of different dramas going on behind the scenes. It's not surprising just based on what we've seen with various projects, like I'll pick on secret invasion. It wasn't surprising to learn that Feigey has been stretched thin. It wasn't surprising to learn that they've been really reactionary with, you know, changing, you know, directions in the middle of a production or in the middle of a script or something like that. So while not surprising, it's still just unfortunate. Well, you know, one of this was covered in the book.

we keep talking about on this show because a friend of the channel Joanna Robinson co-wrote it. This book, The Rain of Marvel Studios, talks about how foggy began to be stretched then. The pandemic, it's a mustery, talks about all that. There was also the Hollywood Reporter article from a couple weeks ago about Daredevil being retooled and how Marvel is like kind of redoing their television, right? Which was all, I think we can agree very good that they're like taking a more traditional approach and they're focusing on making good product. So with this, though, there's a lot to digest in this variety article like I talked about,

earlier. First, let's talk about the idea of majors, okay? And just you know, where do you go with him? Is he, you know, we've talked in here before, we agree, he's great. I'm trying to withhold judgment on everything, but a lot of people

seem to be coming out of the woodwork. Where do you think they go with the character of Kang and with majors after this? What would you do? Well, I'll be clear. If he did what he's accused of having done, you know, screw him. You know, I hope, yeah, I hope that, you don't deserve a career, go away.

Or, you know, get rid of him, for sure. But as I've said in other talkbacks, like when we talk about Star Wars or, like, recasting, like, original characters or, like, how we talked about with Tachala. I'm big on recast. I don't think, if Jonathan Majors did what he did, I do not think that that should affect Kang. That should not affect what Feige's plan was for the MCU. I think they should just push forward and recast the character. And in some ways, Kang is kind of an easier character to do. If you're that concerned about, oh, well, he was our main guy,

and now he's going to look different, just write it in. Does it have him be like a slightly different variant or something? It's the multiverse, right? Right. But even then, like, I don't even think the only major recasting we've seen in the MCU is Don Cheadle, right? Don Cheadle, when he shows up, says it's me, I'm here, deal with it, which is kind of like a meta thing about the Terrence Howard recast. It's me. I'm here. Deal with it. Let's move on.

Fine. I don't even think they need to do that. You know, it doesn't matter. People get recast. There's been a million James Bond. There's been a million Batman. Some of them even existed in the same universe. It's fine. You know, the idea that, like, I think that the idea that we're tied to movie stars is a little, it's not really of the franchise era, if that makes sense. I think that we can definitely get on board with new faces, new people, new interpretations of characters. As long as the quality remains good, and like this article talks about, the quality. has not remained good throughout a lot of what we've seen here. And also regarding majors, there's this idea of bringing in Doom, which I think, it was just like speculation. You know, this is all coming from like leaks from the Marvel Palm Springs retreat, which by the way, they have that every year. And it used to be you would never get a leak from that unless it was intentional. So I do wonder if this is like Marvel cracking or if some of this is them floating these options to variety to kind of see how the public reacts. Dr. Doom is, of course, the main villain of the Secret Wars comic. Like he's the one who

fixes the incursion and creates battle. Both, yeah, well, yeah, both. I'll say both, right? So it is one of those things where, like, you know, when we watched the Infinity War, we were like, ah, but Adam Warlock's not in it. It's like a big change from the comic, and now we kind of have that opportunity to put Doom up as this new guy, but I'm kind of looking at it and going, well, look, Doom

would have only at this point, presumably been in the Fantastic Four movie, which, by the way, I hope that he's not. It's kind of like Magneto having to be in every X-Men movie. Sometimes you just got to build up, like how Joker wasn't in Batman begins, you know? But I don't think that's enough buildup for Doom to suddenly be God Emperor Doom on Battleworld. And after he's got Emperor Doom on Battleworld, where the hell do you go from there? You know, there's no place to go but down. So I, as like the biggest Dr. Doom fan, I've got like Dr. Doom stuff over.

Here's a bobblehead that you got me actually, and there's a Dr. Doom statue over here on the shelf with the videos. I love Dr. Doom. And I don't see, yes, you did. And there's an action figure there. I go, I like Dr. Doom. Ah, you got me. I twist my arm. He's my favorite villain, and I don't want to see him basically used to pinch hit for Jonathan Major. So I want him built up, you know, his own thing, you know?

I want to see acts of vengeance in phases 7 through 9. I want to see all the Magneto and everybody team up together and everything. Not this. This is not the way to do, Dr. Doom. What do you think about it? Would you want to see Doom sub out in Secret Wars? No, I'm right there with you. I love Dr. Doom, and I sincerely hope that. regardless of what ends up happening.

I hope that Dr. Doom is the main, the Thanos, the King of the next saga, like the Mutant Saga or whatever it ends up being. I think he's definitely the villain to do. No, I don't want to see them shoehorn in Dr. Doom because of some behind-the-scenes drama regarding Kang. And like in that article, I saw they also mentioned that even before this drama with Jonathan Majors, they were considered. considering shifting away from Kang just because of the, I guess, poor reactions to quantum

mania. That seems so reactionary to me. It really does. Yeah, I have a hard time believing that Feige would do that. But to answer your question. Marvel's more reactionary than you think, but please go ahead. Yeah, yeah, apparently. Thor, like Thor Ragnarok was going to be, when they unveiled the first logo for Thor Ragnarok, it was like a dark brooding. It was going to be a dark brood. Like Age of Ultron said it, the dark brooding. And obviously, say they shifted course sorry go ahead shifted yeah um well just to answer your question no i i i do not want to see doom just shuffled in to replace king now if the original plan was hey we're going to do king dynasty and then secret wars we're going to have uh this doom character come in and like

kill all the kings that sounds awesome go for it but then that does open the door for okay well where do you go with doom after that if you have him on this big level at secret wars at i'm fine with that, but I don't want to jeopardize his development as a villain going in for like the next 10 years of Marvel after Secret Wars. I don't want to jeopardize the next 10 years just to save what has been a, you know, a difficult saga for the multiverse saga. I'm concerned that what they're doing is to just, oh, let's do this, let's do that, let's do that. They're just moving around to. I think they just need to stop, focus, take a breath. And that seems to kind of be what they're doing, like with the report you mentioned with Daredevil.

So I hope that cooler heads prevail and that Feige can get in there and say, okay, let's take a breath, relax, let's do this right. And I trust Kevin Feigey. I think he has been spread thin, as this article suggested. We've seen what he was able to do with the Infinity Saga. And I think he can save the Multiverse saga if he's given the opportunity. Yeah, it's a shame because the idea of the multiverse really does offer a lot of creative outlets, but a creative possibilities, but it also has a lot of creative limitations. And periods like, you know, death doesn't matter anymore because we can always bring in

another one. And that's kind of where I'm out with this, the Robert Downey Jr. potential and Scarlett Johansson coming back, right? So like I talked about earlier, I love the original Avengers. Who doesn't love the original Avengers? They're iconic, right? But the Avengers comic books shifted the membership around and they made it work. Yes, you know, the team tended to work better when some of the core members there. But you could also, the Avengers was such a strong book. You could have Black Knight, C.R.C. Dr. Druid. You could have all

those B-listers, and it'd still be a great book if the people writing it were good. And I think audiences would show up for those characters. But what's your opinion on the originals coming back to at least like maybe mentor or like hold the hand of these younger guys? Well, I've always thought that Secret Wars

would have Robert Downey Jr. show up again as Iron Man, have Scarlett Johansson come back as Black Widow. Maybe not as the main characters. What was that? As variants? Yeah, or yeah, as variants or, yeah, something to that degree. Because, I mean, Secret Wars, I would think everybody is going to be in Secret Wars.

So why pass up that opportunity to have, you know, a variant Tony Stark like say hi to Peter Parker? Maybe that Tony Stark lost his Peter Parker. You know, it writes itself. There's really cool stuff that you could do with that. I love the original six. It's what that movie was able to do. original Avengers and with Age of Ultron, Infinity War, taking B-list characters, you know, like Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, all of that.

People forget that, absolutely. Yeah, I'd say really the only A-lister on that team was Hulk, maybe, like the big known character. So what they were able to do that now we are talking about those six heroes being these iconic characters that would definitely get the audience interested again, very impressive and i'd love to see it sure i'd love a movie with the original six avengers i was talking the other day um about how cool it would be like maybe 20 years from now the original six reassemble for some like elseworld story or something i thought that would be 80 true yeah that's a good point

that's a good point yeah i guess like the comics already that's what keeps getting me about this like i i get that marvel's huge now right and that it's not just nerds but i'm sorry nerds we we know the answer we've seen the answer it's you get different artists on a book a character looks different there have been so many other ironman like rody is right there rody is your new iron man we don't need to bring in iron heart and all and these other things like he's your guy we love rody instead they shoehorn him in secret invasion into this oh god oh oh geez person yeah Doug you're doing it again sorry man you're stop dog doesn't usually show up and talk backs thanks buddy high five I just wanted to add, though, that as much as I would love to see the original six-back,

I do not want to see them back as, like, some kind of, like, retcon, like, oh, let's backpedal. This new stuff isn't working. No, commit. I want you to commit. Like, take, like, the Late Night Wars, for example. I know this is, like, a weird example, but, you know, like when Conan replaced Leno as the host. And then he, like, six months later, they give Linno a show. like before Conan's show, just completely kneecapping, you know, his transition as the tonight

show host. I think that's the same thing that would happen here. If we bring back Robert Downey Jr. and Black Widow and all the original Avengers, I feel like you're kneecapping, you're set up for what's supposed to be this new team. So, I mean, I really don't want them to give up on what they've built so far by bringing back in the original crew. And I think that could be. something they risk. And there's so many promising characters in here. Like, I think that Yelena Bolova is in a lot of ways more interesting than

Natasha ever was. Sam Wilson, I find fascinating because he has no powers. This is a normal guy going out there just with some wings and a fancy shield, you know? Even in the Falcon the Winter Soldier, when he practices with the shield, we can see it hurts him to catch it. You know, that's a great character. There's so many

characters like that that have not had their time to shine. Shehawk comics are way better than the Shehawk show. And I agree with you. It's also kind of what a lot of sports teams have done over the years that have higher budgets like the yanke the yankees in the 2000s started to sell off their young talent for these like older veterans who helped them win short term but it sacrificed the success long term and that's what i meant when i compared this to like when disney bought star wars it just feels like corporate decisions that doesn't ring to me as like creative decisions where people are excited about characters

it's them looking at cue ratings it's like when marvel actually does start to become the boys yeah well and and what happens okay say say they do bring back the original six for a movie okay and then what what do you do after that yeah yeah they're backing themselves into a corner i think especially since as we've talked about many times on this channel why was there not an avengers film in phase four why even bother to call it phases i still don't understand the creative reasoning behind that i've heard excuses um oh you know there's already team ups and things like happening, but like, especially when you have massive stories like Secret Invasion, kind of just wading in the wings, or even Gore the God Butcher, or anything like that could have been

elevated to an Avengers-level threat. I don't know. Some things in this article, too, didn't surprise me like Blade. You know, there's been rumors about Blade being having bad writers and things like that for a long time. The fact that they tried to tease Blade and the Eternals without actually showing Blade was kind of a very odd choice for Marvel where we would at least usually get like Thor's Hammer, you know, to tease a character. You know, and that's really the one thing about Marvel we used to be able to rely on. You know, they would take these obscure storylines or even major storylines from the comics and adapt them so well. Like Civil War was not the big crossover event, but it was done so well and adapted so well for these characters, right?

Now what I'm kind of getting is that instead of doing that, instead of saying, hey, you know, the multiverse, what if we really stretched that out? They're kind of going, oh, no, people were tired of the multiverse. We've got to wrap the shit up. We've got to do this now. It's just bringing Doom. Everybody wants Doom anyways. Whereas like if I'm going to bring in Dr. Doom right, if I'm going to do Dr. Doom right, I'm going to have a Dr. Doom movie. I'm going to have a, I'm going to have Dr. Doom as like a poor, poor kid in a caravan camp whose family is like being pursued by the forces of the government. I want to do Dr. Doom story right. Give people the Dr. Doom story that they've never gotten to have in the same way that the MCU gave us

the Captain America movie that we always wanted that we never got to have, you know? Now they're just taking all these stories, like Gore the God Butcher is one of the best arcs I've ever read in the comics. Jason Aaron's Thor run, 100 issues is fantastic. And they turn it into basically a gag movie, the secret invasion, this amazing concept and story from the comics distilled into the worst MCU show. With the multiverse saga, there's this opportunity to do Secret Wars. The first version is better than the second one, but like Secret Wars has all this amazing potential. And I can tell, you can just see that all Marvel's Trump. trying to do is just get to the finish line where Wolverine and Toby McGuire share the screen

together. But is that enough to sustain a franchise? It's not. And I think they, I was surprised when they announced Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars so early. Was that, did it seem early to you? Yeah, it was in like 2021 or 2022. Yeah. And they said it's going to come out in 2020. And now even later, it just felt so odd. Like after endgame, I really thought Marvel would take a second, have some fun, do an Avengers movie with Tom Holland, Spider-Man, and, yeah, Falcon and She-Hull. As actual Avengers again, which we haven't had since 2015, yeah. Just rebuild the team. They could have so easily just copy and paste the first Avengers movie and put in those new.

New, fun, exciting characters. Yes. Yeah. And people would care. People'd be interested. People would know who they are. Right now, people are so checked out of Marvel. It's insane.

And it's just so disappointing. That's really my overall take, I guess, on this whole topic. It's just disappointing. Well, it is disappointing short term. But there are a lot of reasons to be incredibly optimistic that I'm going to tell all of you guys about right now. Thank you so much for joining me. It's been a pleasure as always. As a reminder, everybody, Colton is the guy who lives inside of her television, but he does not know it because he's trapped there eternally, so please don't tell him. And you can find his social and mind below. Colton, thanks a lot.

Now, to be optimistic about this, the article talks about how all of this started in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a mandate to help boost Disney stock price with an endless torrent of interconnected Marvel content for the studio's fledgling streaming platform Disney Plus. According to the plan, there would never be a lapse in superhero fair with either a film in theaters or a new television series streaming at any given moment. Yeah, gee, I can't believe fans didn't want an endless torrent of content that sounds amazing. Why would they do that? And now, guys, that endless torrent has stopped. Bob Eiger is back.

The brakes have been pumped. Feigey is back to having quality control. Marvel has realized that fans don't want an endless torrent of content. We want stories about characters. Marvel has heard us. So assuming that the strike is resolved and production gets back on track. for next year's films, we should be very excited about the Marvel movies next year. Deadpool 3 is finally going to bring a Fox X-Men character into the main MCU timeline.

And it's also going to show incursions happening, which is going to finally give real weight to the Multiverse saga. And we're also getting the movie I'm most excited about next year, Captain America Brave New World. Harrison Ford is Thunderbolt Ross, the return of the leader. That movie's going to be huge. I always thought Falcon and the Winter Soldier was an underrated show, and I can't wait to see that story continued on the big screen. And I am so excited for the Thunderbolts.

We finally have a team-up movie that we should have gotten back in phase four. And on the TV side of things, Marvel has taken their foot off the gas. They're reworking shows like Ironheart and Agatha, taking their time with what if in X-Men 97. Echo is also coming out. The focus has now shifted from quantity to quality. We're going to look back one day on 2023 and say, oh, yeah, remember that bad year? That was really bad, but it's good again now. Maybe you're not so bad after all, brother.

And ultimately, Marvel's long game is Secret Wars. You know, we're going to see Toby McGuire and Hugh Jackman team up, and Nicholas Cage Ghost Rider, the Fantastic Four from that other couple of movies. Hopefully all this team-up stuff is going to happen, though, while Marvel tells a story driven by the incredible new characters that they have introduced in Phase 4 and 5. Because look, Avengers Endgame didn't work because there were a lot of characters at the end. It worked because we cared about those characters.

If Marvel gets back to telling character-driven stories about broken weirdos that are forced to interact together, then Phase 6 is going to blow your mind. Also, we have the Young Avengers coming, and I am like really excited to see all those kids together in the same space. But what do you guys think about all this? Do you want to see Robert Downey Jr. return? Do you want to see Kang replace with Dr. Doom?

What is the problem with Marvel? And what are you optimistic about? Let me know your thoughts down in the comments below or 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. Thank you.