Marvel Cinematic Universe Movies and Streaming Series Discussion

Also, to add... I STILL think an X-Men show would work. Say what you will about people not wanting to have to sit through a show to learn about characters before they see a movie, but I think if any team could prove that wrong it's the X-Men. And really, aside from that, having all the backstory before jumping into a movie is overrated anyway. How many people loved Star Wars in 1977 without the benefit of the prequels? I would argue Thunderbolts gave plenty of explanation for who those characters were and what their current damage was. A lot of people apparently, unfortunately, just didn't care enough about those characters to see their movie, no matter where they originated. X-Men is a totally different situation, and like I was saying yesterday (I think), the depth of their characters and plots deserves to really be explored in a longer format than a trilogy of movies can yield.
 
I mean... at its heart the X-Men are a soap opera. They are inherently too big, too cast-rich, and too long-form storytelling for a film script to really capture them. I'd rather they get a TV series with a Game of Thrones budget, but that's not how Marvel does live action, so I know that's a pipe dream. We'll get a big messy trilogy and a bunch of smaller shows about like, the Hellions or the Morlocks.
 
And that's a problem with movie adaptations of books and other stuff, usually. The goal is to cut out as much of the source material as you can while still getting the flavor of it. What do we HAVE to keep, because we need this under two hours to get an extra showing in every day. Some stories, I'd really rather chew on at length damnit.
 
I think embracing the soap opera aspect and the school aspect would make for a good "Prof Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters" series, and actually save the "let's put on costumes and save the world" stuff for the feature films.
 
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Ru1977 said:
And that's a problem with movie adaptations of books and other stuff, usually. The goal is to cut out as much of the source material as you can while still getting the flavor of it. What do we HAVE to keep, because we need this under two hours to get an extra showing in every day. Some stories, I'd really rather chew on at length damnit.
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Also why I wish you could make a living as a writer without film adaptations, because film is by its nature a highly limited structure. I was actually giving a talk at a college back in April I think? And a kid asked if when writing books you should think in terms of acts or beats. I said that my books work that way BECAUSE I was a working screenwriter first, so I think in terms acts / calls to action scene structure, but if you're writing a novel you don't NEED to do it that way, and this goes even more so for comics which can really be an experimental testing ground for breaking rules.

But it's also why comics are so hard to adapt to film. They're written piecemeal over the course of decades at the hands of whole teams of writers and editors and artists with different visions, many of whom are natural rule breakers, and then you try to stuff all that magic into a 120 minute shaped box so that the Hollywood suits can "understand" it and basically the transition is as delicate and tidy as stuffing a body into the trunk of a Fiat.
 
I trained as a screenwriter as well, so that way of breaking a story is still my approach when writing a novel. I don't get super rigid about it, but it's still inherent. But you're right about it being limiting. That and my creative control-freakness is why I went with novels instead. My first screenwriting teacher actually told me my scripts were too novelish.
 
Ru1977 said:
I trained as a screenwriter as well, so that way of breaking a story is still my approach when writing a novel. I don't get super rigid about it, but it's still inherent. But you're right about it being limiting. That and my creative control-freakness is why I went with novels instead. My first screenwriting teacher actually told me my scripts were too novelish.
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Yeah, scripts are all about tricking the director into doing what you want rather than writing it right in front of them.

Comics really are uniquely challenging to convert. A book you can hack down, it's one creator, one timeline, one iteration. Comics? "Hey, here's 80 years of this character, how do you wanna do this?"
 
Ru1977 said:
Eyes of Wakanda was moved up four weeks. All four half-hour episodes will be on Disney Plus 8/1/25.
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Is it me or are they REALLY under-promoting a beautiful animated series with Ryan effin' Coogler involved?

My plan to see F4 this weekend fell through and my partner, who knows nothing about the F4 other than that there are four of them, just suggested dinner and a movie. Nothing like having someone around who supports your nerdiness and also knows you don't like going to the movies alone. (Although I think she's particularly interested after having loved Superman last weekend - funny how non-grimdark takes on superheroes can draw in new folks, innit?)
 
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