Welcome to the main discussion thread for the Marvel Cinematic Universe! This pinned post is here to establish some basic guidelines. All of the Media Forum rules
still apply.
- This thread is for talking about the live-action films, TV shows, animated works, and related content that use the Marvel brand, currently owned by Disney.
- While mild digressions are okay, discussion of the comic books should go in this thread
. Extended digressions may be thumped as off-topic.
- Spoilers for new releases should not be discussed without spoiler tagging for at least two weeks. Rather, each title should have a dedicated thread where that sort of conversation is held. We can mention new releases in a general sense, but please be courteous to people who don't want to be spoiled.
If you're posting tagged spoilers, make sure that the film or series is clearly identified outside the spoiler tagging. People need to know what will be spoiled before they choose to read the post.
Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
I don't want to disappoint all of you, but it seems Kit Harrington is barely in the movie. He did not film that much for it. His character will probably be teased and used later in another project.
PS I added my Ikaris=Big Bad bet to WMG. Anyone else willing to participate in the guessing game?
Edited by Asherinka on Aug 18th 2021 at 10:59:54 PM
Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous.I feel it's not that different from the ways actors like Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Elizabeth Olsen, Brie Larson, etc. were often Acting in the Dark during their movies.
Okey Dokey!Aside from a few instances, the true power of the MCU lies in its casting and its acting. Which is why it's frustrating to see them so often treated like this, yet also an indication of just how talented they are that they can still give fantastic performances even when Acting in the Dark.
They have a lot of practice. A ton of actors have admitted that in the age of greenscreens and CGI, they legitimately don't know if the movie they're in will be good or not, or if their acting choices even make sense, as they often don't know what the set looks like, their props look like, or even what their co-stars will look like.
Yep. They're talented in that, when given next to no context, only being informed of things right before filming, or outright being given falsified scripts to work off of, they still give powerhouse performances. Sebastian Stan's acting during Bucky's goodbye scene with Steve in Endgame is so good for something he had less than an hour to prepare for. Or Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany's acting in Infinity War when Wanda kills Vision, something they had to pretty much improvise on the spot.note
In general, I find it kinda insane the lengths directors and studios have gone these days when it comes to protecting spoilers (this isn't an MCU-exclusive thing). I get it, they don't want their product spoiled, but...seriously, guys, trust your actors enough to let them have a general idea of what's going on in a scene (I'm looking at cases like how Anthony Mackie didn't even know about his Ant-Man cameo until he got the paycheck for it, Brie Larson not knowing whether she was filming Captain Marvel or Endgame at times, or Gwyneth Paltrow on record saying she doesn't even know which movies she's in).
Edited by dmcreif on Aug 18th 2021 at 5:44:50 AM
Okey Dokey!I must say I agree, and I hope we can get some stronger pushback going against that sort of thing. I get trying to protect to keep spoilers from getting out, but getting the strongest film you can is far more important.
I imagine that they're worried about leaks impacting their profit margins, but is there any evidence that this is the case?
Oh God! Natural light!It does help that a lot of the actors have genuine enthusiasm for the characters they play, to the point that they continue to think about the characters and continuously come up with backstories for them offset to inform their performances. I do applaud the casting directors for choosing the kinds of people who are clearly Doing It for the Art over those who come in just for a paycheck and don't put much effort in otherwise. But I do think these actors deserve to be allowed to actually flex those muscles to the farthest extent they can.
The last time the actors collectively spoke up against bullshit practices (comically measly salaries for appearances in billion-dollar blockbusters), they had RDJ as a juggernaut to rally behind. Not so sure what they can do now. I don't think they have any singular stars powerful enough to threaten to walk if Disney doesn't comply, not when Disney owns so much that they can easily replace them (and Mackie is unlikely to be that guy, as there seems to have been some kind of Sword of Damocles hanging over his head here).
The best Marvel films are the ones whose twists come with a high level of Rewatch Bonus and thus their spoiling only enhances the film (e.g. TWS, Black Panther), or ones for which spoilers are mostly inconsequential (Thor Ragnarok, Ant-Man). The dedication to protecting one's film from getting spoiled tends to say more about the plots' lack of value outside of said twists.
Edited by AlleyOop on Aug 18th 2021 at 6:03:53 AM
It should be noted that different actors have different levels of access to scripts and knowledge of the future of their characters, though. Cumberbatch and Hiddleston, for instance, both knew what will happen to their characters years in advance.
I wonder how the studio determines "trustworthiness".
Edited by Asherinka on Aug 18th 2021 at 1:18:13 PM
Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous.Thinkpiece on 'Black Widow', 'The Suicide Squad', and 'Shang-Chi'
about how following a combo of the pandemic + the streaming wars + upcoming slates of films being more B-list and C-list heroes, superhero box office might actually be fatigued, and Shang-Chi will be a health check.
[...]
"You don't go from $133 million [for Black Widow] to $26 million [for the Suicide Squad] — there's other factors at play than the pandemic," Bock says. He points to title confusion, the film's R-rating and explicit violence, and — especially — a cast lacking any A-list DC characters (all due respect to Harley Quinn) as other major culprits. "I just think we've come to that saturation point where audiences are sort of tired of these superheroes films, especially if they're superheroes that they've never heard of."
I think it's possible but I also think it's too early to tell. The US is vaguely starting to ride out the pandemic, but a good chunk of the world (including some pretty big markets) is still knee-deep in it. Hard to check for it as a worldwide phenomenon.
My thinking for the "health barometer" of superhero box office would actually be Doc Strange II, by which point I'm expecting the pandemic to be more in control, but that's almost a year from now (what can I say, I don't have much faith in the world getting its shit together against COVID any time soon).
Edited by Gaon on Aug 18th 2021 at 3:50:52 AM
"All you Fascists bound to lose."

Whitman makes the best human hero for connection to the Eternals through his link to Sersei.
In the comics, as well as in this it seems, she is the one most appreciative of and connected to humanity. That's part of why she joined the Avengers in the comics, which is where she and Dane met.