ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - Will FLASH Replace the MCU? - Marvel's Problems Explained | ScreenCrush Rewind

Episode Date: April 29, 2023

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Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Barry, what are you doing? Our kids are going to want to see this. Hey, welcome back Screen Crush. I'm Ryan Erie. So the first reviews for the Flash RN,

or I guess I should say reactions to the Flash RN, and most people say that it's a pretty great film, including our own Colton Ogburn when we talked to him about it earlier this week. But you know what? These days movies are never as important as their entire franchise. part of. And what Colton and the other online reactions are saying is that this is the first DC movie in years that actually gets you excited for more DC movies. In a little bit, I want to hear from Colton and author Adam Lance Garcia about their thoughts on this, but I want to pose a

question to all of you. Is the MCU about to decline and will the DCU rise to take its place? What do you mean? The MCU's awesome and DC's made such hits as Black Adam and Black Girl. Ooh. Too soon? Sorry. Look, man, I agree. I love the MCU. We cover every second of MCU content on this channel. But you have to admit that it's on a little bit of a downward trend. Maybe not in quality, but definitely in enthusiasm. Why whatever do you mean? Well, let me explain. We all know that for the first 11 years, the MCU redefined Hollywood. They had such a hit streak building this mega franchise, not just in box office, but in quality. And it culminated an Avengers Endgame, which was like a love letter to fans and it culminated the entire Infinity saga.

Avengers Endgame was a miracle. It's amazing. And then a lot of fans were starting. to say that they should have stopped the MCU right there because that movie felt like a natural end. Now, I always thought that was ridiculous because I am a longtime comic book fan. And there's always one rule in comics. Nothing ever ends. After Avengers Endgame, I was still excited for all the stories that Marvel had left to adapt. Heck, they hadn't even touched the X-Men or the Fantastic Four yet. And then, in 2019, Marvel made an announcement at San Diego Comic-Con about what was coming up, and it was an embarrassment of riches. More Taika-Watiti Thor, more Scott Derrickson, Dr. Strange, more Spider-Man, the MCU expanding to premium streaming content.

Marvel lost some big stars in endgame, but they had a few existing heroes who could carry the franchise as they introduced new heroes to the saga. But then the studio, which had an incredible lucky streak up to this point, was hit with some really big snags. In 2018, Disney fired James Gunn for some old disgusting tweets that he made. But get this, the tweets were not even new. When Gunn was hired by Marvel in 2013, he acknowledged the tweets and apologized for them. But still, he was fired and Guardians 3 was shelved.

Now, a year later, he would be rehired by Disney, but Gunn had already missed a year of pre-production work on Guardians 3 and had agreed to direct the suicide squad for Warner Bros. So now Gunn was making movies for the competition and his own MCU franchise would be delayed. Now, this is a big deal because Guardians 3 was originally scheduled to open Phase 4 in May of 2020. Then, in February 2020, Bob Eiger stepped down as president of the Walt Disney Company.

Well, what's that got to do with anything? Well, maybe nothing, but I have a theory that I'll explain in just a little bit. Then, of course, the coronavirus hit. Marvel projects that were finished, like Black Widow, were unable to be released in theaters. And production halted on a number of other projects like Wanda Vision, Loki, Shang Chi, the Eternals, and Falcon the Winter Soldier, all delayed. Marvel's release schedule was changing every single week for like two years. Originally, Multiverse of Madness was supposed to be released a few months after Wanda Vision and not a year later. Look, you get the idea.

You were there. Marvel's biggest loss was the death of Chadwick Bozeman in 2020. In addition to being a wonderful person and a gifted actor, he was the star of the franchise's most promising movie franchise. But in 2021, the MCU came back. The year was great for streaming shows with Wanda Vision, Loki, Falcon, the Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, and What If, all being bangers, or at least really strong. The movies in 2021 were a bit hit and miss, but really solid. Marvel clashed with Scarlett Johansson over the streaming release of Black Widow, but they settled out of court. And of course, that year gave a Spider-Man No Way home, which was awesome and made

us excited for the franchise to come. But even in that comeback year of 2021, cracks were starting to show. Marvel was announcing a lot of new content for Disney Plus. The universe didn't feel as connected because, for instance, the Eternals seemed really random. Like it didn't make sense how a giant guy was sticking out of the ocean and why no one in any other project mentioned this. And the reason for that is because Marvel silos all these projects. The directors and creators aren't always talking to each other. And I think that's in part because the scale of production and the amount of projects

started to ramp up so fast that nobody had time to make sure the universe stayed interconnected. And the quality of the CGI was starting to diminish. See, Marvel's reshoot schedules made visual effects teams work these inhumane hours to meet deadlines. It was the best of times. It was the blurst of times, you stupid monkey. And all through 2022, Marvel put out some really great stuff, but that year was also showing these cracks in the franchise's structure. Multiverse of Madness was a really fun Sam Ramey movie that actually ignored Wanda's arc on Wanda Vision. And it's also rumored that Thor, Thor, the Thunder didn't even have a finished script when they started shooting, which is probably why the movie is filled with unfunny vamping.

I want to feel shitty about you and I meditated. Did you meditate? No, that's so boring. It actually made me more angry. I was actually most disappointed by that movie because my expectations for it were sky high. I mean, it's fine, but it's no Ragnarok. And then there's Ms. Marvel, and that's the show where I think the cracks really started to show in the MCU Phase 4 infrastructure. And believe me, the show has its high points. I loved its depiction of Dacey culture. And Amman Valani is a rookie actor who who really brought the charm. I am the light girl. You're what?

Nightlight. And I also love the way they incorporated text messages into the production design. But as soon as the Jen are introduced in the series, the show started to feel cheap. And it's the first time I watched an MCU show and thought, this feels cheap. Like the Gen didn't have powers,

their motivation was never super clear. They wanted to go home, but we didn't know what home was. And then there's this climactic scene the market, which is totally empty because of COVID-19 restrictions, and this is where you really see what I think is the worst of this series. This is when Kamala is trying to appeal to Najma to not destroy her entire reality just to go back to her own dimension. Okay, here's the thing. Amman Volani is awesome. This was her first acting role. Sometimes it shows. I've heard that after she shot the marvel, she went back, did reshoots for this show, and that, you know,

her performance then was a lot better. But this scene shows us an actor who's dealing with, like, heavy texts for the first time, and a villain who hilarious resolves all the conflict too quickly, in front of a big swirling CGI cloud. Please don't take that from Cromark, too. You're right. It just feels unfinished, like they ran out of time and money. And kind of so does Shehawk. I mean, Shehawk was a solid show.

Had one episode that I hated, but it was a great adaptation from the source material. But the strain put on CGI artists was all too apparent. It breaks this reality to see a character walking around who is the same style animation as the Sims. But the heart was that. there and the show even made fun of its CGI constraints. You are very expensive.

Oh, sure. But wait until the camera is off you, the visual effects team has moved on to another project. But look, 2022 also gave us Moon Night, where I thought Oscar Isaac put on one of the top tier MCU performance, and Wakanda Forever rose up to give us one of the best MCU movies ever made. But then Marvel kept announcing way more shows,

spinoffs of spinoffs like Echo, Iron Hard, Agatha, the kind of stuff were like, I was excited, but I'm also going, geez, that's a lot. of homework to do and then quantumania kicked off phase five to a very disappointing box office now look i think i'm alone here but i really like the movie the cg i was kind of basic and wretched in places but it is my favorite antman movie but it did also seem to make kang look a little weak everybody was hyped for this villain i mean we put him on every thumbnail for a month but then antman gets kind of lucky and takes him down it's it's not like a good look for the new thanos and speaking

of jonathan majors was arrested for domestic assault now it looks like that particular case has been dismissed but other alleged victims have come forward to the DA, and Majors has been dropped by his management from movies, endorsement deals. The MCU's sticking with him for now, and I guess he's supposed to be in Loki, which is coming out this year, but like, none of this is good news. Quantummania was in and out of theater so fast, I've had headaches that lasted longer than its theatrical run. And this is where I think Disney started to panic. In November 2022, Bob Iger returned to Disney, replacing Bob Chapeck as CEO. And here is where, look, I am going to wildly speculate. I think that Chapec, who became CEO in 2020, put the screws to Kevin Feigy to

create more and more and more and more content for Disney Plus. Remember, Disney Plus was a new streaming service at this time, and they wanted to compete with Netflix. So this watered down the output of Marvel Studios because they had to rush production to get all these shows out. And I think this is the case because when Iger came back in, almost immediately the MCU scales back. We're getting two, maybe three shows released this year when the original number was supposed

to be seven. Now, I think that overall, this is very good for the MCU. Scale back a bit. Focus on quality over quantity. here we'll wait but for some fans maybe the magic is already gone there has been so much MCU content that maybe they're ready for something new or like rasterns no look i you know what I hate when critics talk about superhero films going the way of the westerns people are still going to watch superhero films superheroes have been around for almost

a hundred years and we finally have the technology to make them work on film now the type of superhero film might change like for every Logan there's a blue beetle but they are here to stay. I mean, like, nobody ever says, oh, are war movies ever going to go away? Superhero movies are awesome, and I love them. And, like, that's kind of my point, though. I think that fans might get excited over something new. The DC Extended Universe had a myriad of problems. It was tonally bleak, had inconsistent quality, and then inconsistent tones. Warner Brothers publicly humiliated Zach Snyder by hiring Joss Whedon to reshoot his movie, and they only succeeded in making a bad movie and pissing off hardcore fans. They tried to appease these fans with

the recut of Justice League, and then those same fans won't stop asking for James Gunn to be fired for showing Henry Cavill the door. It's all a mess. And this brings us to James Gunn, who directed my favorite DC-EU film, The Suicide Squad. It's your mom! And then he created a kick-ass peacemaker's show. When she said, I don't love you anymore. So then Warner Brothers trusted James Gunn to be co-head of DC films, and now he spends a lot of time fighting with fans on Twitter. But they do finally have a plan. To paraphrase Gun, Warner Brothers was tossing IP at any director who showed them a little leg, but now they are creating a consistent universe. Gunn is a massive comic book fan, and I think they are going to do this right. And by every account, the Flash is a perfect send-off to the

old DC-EU and makes fans excited for what's to come. And look, guys, I got to make this clear. I am not crappin on the MCU or even taking sides, because this debate is silly. There are no sides. I am rooting for great movies about the characters that I love, but I do wonder if the box office balance of power might be about to shift. Now, that's all the background information. I have two really big gets here for me today. We have Colton Ogburn, who has actually seen the Flash, and we have Adam Lance Garcia, who is a producer, and actually just about to be a published Star Wars author and a certain point of view from Return of the Jedi. So we're really excited to talk to both you about this. Colton, first, I want to start with you. So you have actually seen the

flash. And there's a million things you cannot tell us, spoiler, reviews, stuff like that, based on your reactions, do you think that the flash is like a really good start to this new DCU? Does it pivot away from the DCU well and make people excited for the next thing? Well, this film felt nothing like a DCU movie. It felt like something new, something fresh. And I think it's important to keep in mind, you know, this film was made long before James Gunn and the new DCU or DCU were announced. So I think that's important to keep in mind. But yeah, I can tell you that there are some things in this film that personally made me say, that was James Gunn. So as the new, you know, CEO or co-CEO of DC Studios, I definitely think that he had a hand in the final cut, like maybe

saying, let's do something here, do something there. This is the perfect opportunity to help reset this universe for what I've got coming up with my film. So I'm really glad that they took advantage of that. And what's most important, like, regardless of this resetting the universe, which they've said it does in the trailers and stuff, and yes, I can confirm it does reset the universe. What's most important is it's good. Forget resetting the universe. Forget all of that. It's a good movie. It's if this was just like a subpar movie or oh, yeah, it's fine, you know, something like that. I don't think that would have been good. I mean, yeah, they could have got past it and still reset, but I think they are so fortunate that this film was such an amazing movie because it gets people excited for what's to come.

And now this movie can be viewed as essentially the first film in this rebooted DC universe. So it's very exciting. and I think it's really great, really great for what they've got coming. So, Adam, having heard that, I want to know why you're excited for The Flash and just for, like, D.C. in general, I know you're a big Shazam guy. We don't have to quite touch on the last movie, but just in general, why are you excited about D.C.? I think what's exciting about just the James Gunn of it all. I'm very excited. I think there's some interviews that he's done that I think speaks to what I'm excited about and what I've kind of missed in a lot of the MCU films, which is a focus on characters and, making sure that these films work as films first and then sort of the meta-narrative second. I think that was a big mistake that the DC-EU made, which was focusing on the larger meta-narrative

first and then kind of like, you know, it was all leading to the Justice League and they sort of retrofitted it to make that happen. I'm looking forward to just based on the trailers and based on what I've heard other people say about the Flash is that it's a good movie for these characters. It's a good Flash movie. And when we even talk about the multiverse aspect of it, it all works in relation to who the Flash is and what he knows. You know, you see he has a relationship with Batman, and then he meets another version of Batman, and that is my cat agreeing with me. Then there's the aspect of like meeting a different version of himself, meeting a Supergirl, meeting Zad. These are all

all the characters that he knows. So when he goes through this journey and this adventure, it's about him and about his journey, where I think a lot of the DCU films and a lot of the MCU films recently are more about this larger thing. I think what didn't work with the Slatter films was it's about Darkside and we have to build a Justice League. And that was all came first and the characters kind of came second. Now, that's interesting because I know Colton is a defender of Man of Steel.

As am I. I am not. I am not. I'll go to the mat with people on that. I've had in several videos. But I would say the Man of Steel, you know, for all of its perceived flaws for me,

did put character first. Oh yeah, it's the exception. Yeah, and then when you get to Batman v. Superman, obviously we're throwing, you know, Lex Luther not only has the Justice League members on his laptop,

but he's designed a logo for each of them, which is always one of my favorite touches in that. But see, that sort of thing is okay in a universe that's more tonally like Marvel, more comedic. And I think we did get into like a lot of imbalance with the DC films.

You had these people who are taking themselves super seriously and then Shazam would come out, you know, or even have the two Suicide Squad films. So Adam, just to briefly circle back to D.C., like we've seen basically several different D.C. universes happening all at once, right? And I'm not just talking about the multiverse. I'm talking about Black Adam, Shazam, and the Suicide Squad, right?

Three fairly different movies that felt like they were in three completely different universes. So what is it about James Gunn's emphasis on character that you saw in the Suicide Squad that are you excited to become like the overarching drive for the new DCU? Well, it's interesting because I think DC, you know, let's, you look at the initial version of it, which is like Snyder's vision. And then they tried to course correct and sort of over course correcting by, you know, making Shazam and making Aquaman very tonally different. But sort of like you had to sort of retrofit them into the. Justice League of it all. What I've come to really look forward to based on what Gunn is saying is that they're going to sort of go to the comic book approach, which is make sure that every

film can stand upon its own, that it has a certain artistic style, that it has a certain artistic vision that can loop back into the main universe. Where I think that with these sort of double back on DCEU was that they start with Snyder and it was one holistic vision and then they try to break away but sort of like retrofitted in whereas now they're just like hey let's we

have a guiding principle but each film will have a specific artistic vision and we can sort of make sure that they all work in accordance with each other without losing sight of the characters what I'm looking forward to is kind of what Gunned deal with Guardians of the Galaxy

he made at least two of the films that I've seen so far in the holiday special, they feel like James Gunn movies. But they also fit into the larger universe. He plays fair in the sandbox, but you look at them and they feel like a James Gunn movie. That's, I think, what's been missing for the DCU because everyone was trying to either be like Snyder or run away from Snyder. Yeah, we had a lot of desaturation and a lot of slow motion, even in Black Adam, which is several years removed from Snyder. So it would be interesting to see directors, like, take their own artistic vision and start to apply that. The Black Adam at all, I think, and this is a similar problem with the MCU,

is that for a time, things were way too siloed. Like, there's a version of, like, making sure that you have a standalone artistic vision that can fit into the large universe, but I think you have the Rock making a Black Adam movie that he wants to only be like his little corner of the universe at the detriment of other films, at the detriment of the Shazam Fear of the Gods at the detriment of Superman, you know, and the Justice League and the Justice Society. He wanted to have his own little corner,

and it hurt the film. It hurt the whole universe. So, Colton, you and I've been on the channel a lot, and I'm somebody who can, like, I cherry pick the MCU. I just talked about, like, how I was disappointed in Thor, Love, and Thunder, and a few other things in the past phases.

But overall, like, I am a defender of the MCU, unlike Adam. And I think you are as well. Like, you've been pretty, front with phase four being the weakest phase but you know not necessarily like bad outright so what are your thoughts on phase four and five I guess the start of it but more importantly what are your thoughts on the MCU going forward phase four like you said yes it's weak but there's a lot of great stuff in there and I think the sheer fact that there has been so much they have been pumping out so

many shows, so many movies. It's become very oversaturated. And I think what people are failing to do is really look at phase four of the MCU and acknowledge like, well, hey, that was pretty good. That was pretty good. They're focusing too much on the bad stuff. And that's, you know, I guess if you're a glass half full, glass half empty kind of person, I'm a pretty, I'm pretty easy to impress when it comes to Marvel stuff. But I've enjoyed phase four. And I, I think that now with Bob Iger being back at Disney and putting Marvel Studios more back in the hands of Kevin Feige and creatives to do what they feel is best to make a great MCU, I think that's a good thing. I think that before Feige may have been being pushed to make way too many things and he was in his hands on, and that definitely, definitely has shown in phase four. And another thing, if you look at every show and every movie that has come out in phase four, I don't think any of them were bad.

I think that with a tighter edit and maybe just a few tweaks here and there to different scripts, they could have had a really great phase four. But there were just too many hands on it, not enough oversight by Feige himself and the people that made phase one through three great. And I think that was the issue there. But with this course correction, in terms of Feige now being able to have his hands on each project and not put out as many, I do think that Marvel can bounce back. I can actually follow up to that because I think what is interesting about the MCU phase four was that for me, it's highlighted all the problems I was having with the MCU, basically beginning with Infinity War. And I know I'm sort of a pariah in my dislike for Infinity War and preference for endgame. But I think what's happened with Phase 4 is it's a few things. It's, again, the over-reliance on the meta-narrative, the focus on what's the next big thing.

I think they started focusing too much on what the audience wants and not what the character needs. you know, because there's that great moment in Endgame where all the characters show up and it's such a great and wonderful, thrilling moment because it's all been building to that moment, that you have all the characters coming through the portals. And I think that the MC was trying to recreate that feel in every film. I like Spider-Man No Way home, but it put the audience ahead of the characters, just sort of like comparing it to, again, sight unseen to the Flash. And I've sort of insinue this before.

In the Flash, he knows Batman, he knows who Zad is. He knows who his, he knew, he know who he is. He knows his parents are. This multiverse aspect all works in relation to him. As much as I enjoyed Spider-Man no way home, who was Doc Auk to this version of Spider-Man? Who was electro to this version of Spider-Man? It was all, it was fun and it was cool, but these characters didn't mean anything ultimately to Peter Parker. The other part of it is, is that because they're focusing so much on the larger meta-narrative,

and they're trying to, to your point about, like, trying to produce as much stuff as fast as possible, they over-saturated the market. There's not enough focus on making sure that the quality of each story is as strong as possible, the way they did in the earlier phases. And also, they're producing things without finished scripts. They're producing things that, and this is sort of public knowledge at this point, they keep on changing their mind. So they'll go into production without a finished script,

and then they'll, like, completely reshape the story because of the whims of edit. A good example is how James Gunn recently spoke about the ending of Endgame, having Thor be a part of the Guardians of the Galaxy wasn't part of his plan, but they decided to change it in edit for whatever reason at the end of end game, and they had to sort of write Thor out in the beginning of Thor Love and Thunder because it wasn't going to work in Gardens of the Galaxy. And then you have the other aspect of, even though they're focusing on this larger narrative, that they're not allowing the other writers to talk to each other.

So you have instances, like, for example, with Wanda Vision, how Wanda was portrayed in WandaVision having her arc, sort of have her realize, oh, I've messed up, and then having her basically reset in Multiverse of Madness because the writers and directors of that film were not allowed to see what was going on on a show featuring the main character in their film. Exactly. And see, before, in the early days of the MCU, that wouldn't have been a thing. I envision a white, board that Kevin Feige personally has where everything connects and everything that happens is not like a and this happens or and that happens. It's a therefore this happens. That's how Feige used to run things. And now Face 4 just seems like this happens. Oh yeah. And then this happened. And that's not connected. And oh, well, that contradicts. So we'll just undo that. So I completely agree. Adam, I take your point about No Way Home, for example, because when you rewatch that movie outside of a movie theater. It's weird because there's applause breaks built into it and you're just in

your house watching Andrew Garfield go. Okay. You know, Adam, you are dead on about Marvel changing their mind, which is why the visual effects are so rushed and unfinished. It's part of the reason. But, you know, when you read that history of Marvel Studios, that big double volume, it talks about Thor Love and Thunder, sorry, it talks about Thor Dark World and how that movie was a mess when they finished it. So they had to do all these massive reshoots. And they were proud of themselves for doing that until they realize this isn't normal, but it has become the norm. I think Marvel learned the wrong lesson, the best and worst lesson from Iron Man, which was

going to a movie without a script, figure out as would they go and edit it together. And the one thing they did right, but they haven't really done since, is they knew what the VFX were going in. They built their movie around the big action pieces. So it all felt a little cohesive. What, and since Iron Man was so successful, even Dark World was so, I was relatively successful financially, when you look at how they've been making these movies today, they go in to a film without a script, they shoot as much as they can, they figure it out as they go, they put it

to edit, they realize it doesn't work, and then they reshoot it spending millions of dollars, you can see it in Thorne Love and Thunder, you can see even their TV series. It's why Falcon, the Winter Soldier didn't. work. It's why even Shee Hulk was completely rejiggered to take the finale and put it into the like the penultant episode and put it in the premiere. It happens all the time. And that's again why I'm excited by the DC, the new DCU, because Gunn goes in with a finished script. That's why his films are so much better and more consistent because he has a script that he goes in with and it's done. And that's what I hope to see from the DCU.

Well, and that's because Gunn, he's a filmmaker. He's, you know, he comes from indie film. And when you come from indie film, and I'm not a, you know, an indie filmmaker, I've done a few amateur things here and there. And when you're going in to make an indie film, you don't have the budget to go back and redo something. When you're done shooting, you're done shooting. What you've got is what you've got. Marvel and other studios probably, they've gotten too cocky in the sense that, oh, we've got the budget.

to just throw all these popular IPs in here, we'll shoot it, we'll make it cool, we'll throw effects on it. If it doesn't work, we'll spend another few million and just try to construct something together that we know people are going to come see. But that doesn't work. If it's not good, people are not going to stick around to see it. And that's what they need to understand. And that's why DC is in a good place with James Gunn. I do admit, though, Marvel has a track record of hiring indie directors.

You could say that Joss Whedon, or actually John Favro was their first indie director hire that worked out really well. even though they'd done Elf and things like that first. I mean, Tycho Wattiti, Anna Bowden, Ryan Fleck, John Watts, some of the people who they've handed, like, their biggest franchises to, started off with, you know, a couple kids in the woods with a car and a camera. And John Watts's case, you know, with cop car. So... But to that point, it's only...

I was going to say to that point, like, of all those directors, like, do any of them actually have their artistic stamp on these films the way that Gunn did? Even though there's aspects of Sam Ramey, in Multiverse of Madness, but it's, when it comes in, it's brief and kind of goes away real quickly. Again, that's what I'm so excited about the mentality moving forward, the new DCU, because I can still have my Matt Reeves Batman, and it's going to feel like a Matt Reeves Batman, and I'm going to have the Brave and the Bold, and that's going to feel very different,

and it's going to have a unique vision, and I'm really excited about Superman Legacy because it's going to feel like a James Gunn film. Like, that's my favorite part of The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker. They felt like gun pieces. That was the one best thing that happened sort of the Post-Justice League era was that we got this diverse things. I'm not the biggest fan of the Joker, but at the same time, it feels like, it felt unique. It felt different. It didn't feel homogenized.

I think that's, yes, the MCU has been hiring a lot of indie directors, but they don't really let them have their individual flair that made them that great directors, with the exception of, like, Chloe Zhao and James Gunn. Even then, Chloe, I think Chloe Zhao was a little bit buried in some of the snappy dialogue in the Eternals. What's this even made of? Vibranium. Oh! Fall Collection.

Ikea. The Eternals, if, look, this is another talkback topic, but I really think the Eternals should have just been in the multiverse. That should have just been a different. planet and a different thing because it's become such a weird pariah among all like the story points we had a brief mention of the the the celestial team that coming out of the ground and she hawk like on a web page but other than that it's kind of been ignored which speaks to everything you're

saying adam about the structure how everybody siloed and they're not even able to communicate together because things are happening there's so many plates spinning at once and i want to be clear again i am not rooting against the mc u i love the mc u i love mcc i love mcc movies i want to see these movies and shows be great. Colton, what about you? Where are you with the MCU and the DCU? And what are your like hopes and expectations for what's about to come? As far as the future of the MCU and the DCU, I don't think it has to be a versus. I mean, sure, they are competitors. But I think they both will benefit from both doing very well. And I envision a world where DCU and MCU can be very successful franchises that, you know, benefit the other. You know, you just saw this really great

Marvel movie and now the next great DC movie comes out in a month. You're very pumped to see that and vice versa. I think they can really help one another. And I'm really excited for what they both have to offer. James Gunn was mentored by one of the greatest producers in Hollywood and Kevin Feige and I think that the two of them together are going to usher us in to a next great decade of Super movies and I think it's important we've heard about superhero fatigue for years and it's never comic book movie fatigue and it's never come until now maybe so maybe maybe they need to start revisioning what a superhero or comic book movie can be Adam what about you what are your final thoughts here are we going to see the fans come you know is fan enthusiasm waiting for the

MCU and can fans like you come back? I, fans like me, can definitely come back. I think to the Colton's point about superhero fatigue, I think James Gunn has, and I've mentioned this before, the right attitude. It's about the characters. It doesn't matter whether or not it's a superhero movie. As long as the movie is good, people will show up. What I think we've seen was Shazam Fear of the Gods and Black Adam,

Ant Man the Wasp, is that the films are just not special. that we've seen these stories before you know even this even though i am a defender of susan fear of the gods we've seen that movie before it's just a new paint shop um we've kind of seen ant man in the was quantum media before we kind of saw that in loki you know there's nothing about these films that feel unique whereas from what i've understanding from what colton has said today is there's something special with the flash there's something that we need to look forward to because of the story that's being told in that specific film. So I don't think it's necessarily a superhero fatigue.

I think it's just mid-fatigue. We're just tired of films that don't feel as well-baked as they should be. All right. I'm going to let you have last word there. Colton, where can the people find you? You can find me on Twitter for now at Colton Hogburn and videos here on Screencrush. Adam, where can the people find you and your work?

Well, you can find me basically on every social media platform at Adam Lance Garcia, and you can watch some of my work on Vanity Fair or Teen Fogue, those YouTube channels. And on September 5th, you can read my very first Star Wars story, which is the coolest sentence I've ever gotten to say, and it is the best. And we are, you know, you've been coming on for years now, and I've told you on Twitter and in person, but just congratulations on getting it. I know it's a lifelong dream come true. But we want to hear from all of you guys about the DCU and the MCU.

Let us know what you think down in the comments below or at me on Twitter. And if it's your first time here, please subscribe, smash that bell for alerts. For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie.