bangobango said:
kerrag06 said:
I have no idea how this thread got political with the age and gender and all that. The movies are failing because the casual viewer who only sees the movie sees the preview and goes- who the heck are 2 of those 3 main characters? They haven't seen and probably don't have the time it takes to watch all these series on Disney plus. Or just don't want to. Not to mention the fact the general theme and story line of this "Multiverse" saga is 1000% more complex than 6 colored stones being gathered to erase half the universe. Heck just read the Loki thread.
As someone who watches all the series and highly enjoys everything about marvel, I understand why these movies are making so much less. With the infinity saga all the movies were easy to watch and less complex. And all you had to watch was the movies. One every 6 months or more- no series. Heck only really endgame went off the rails with time travel. Marvel has narrowed their audience way too much with this saga simply based on that- and that alone seems dumb when it comes down to money and profit. I mean, how many casual viewers (no that does not include people posting on this thread) even know there is such thing as "saga".
I have made about 100 jokes to my GF about women power and rolled my eyes during this previews. Did I particularly like captain marvel all of the sudden getting her own movie at the end of the infinity saga and then completely saving the day? not really. It just seemed out of nowhere. But that wasn't going to keep me from seeing the dang movie and having to become a Top 5 favorite movie ever for me.
That doesn't really make any sense to me. How do you narrow your audience by having more content preceding the movie?
It's not like everybody who went to see Iron Man read his comics. I sure as hell never did and didn't know anything about him. Same with Dr Strange, Captain America, Thor, Ant Man, etc. Ironically, Hulk was probably the best known of the original Avengers. People may have been vaguely familiar with the name, but most of the viewers never read the comics or knew the back story, but they still went to see them because the movies looked good to them. Maybe it was like a snowball and they picked up steam as they went, but the early ones that were hits didn't have that advatnage.
So, how is that any different than not seeing a streaming series before going to the movie? If the movie looked appealing to the type of people who like to go see super hero movies, then people who like to go see superhero movies would've gone and watched the movie, regardless of whatever background material they missed out on.
This movies marketing material was heavily targeted towards women. I've seen absolutely no male lead in any of the previews. Women aren't going to see it. That's the take away here. The too much streaming background is just a red herring.
First of all, not having read the comics is WAY different than not having seen an MCU Disney+ series or two. Like, those things aren't even in the same ballpark, in terms of the knowledge needed to understand the overarching story.
But more importantly, before Disney+, the MCU was relegated to one format that pretty much everyone had equal access to - movies. Be them in the theater or at home, it was relatively easy to keep track/watch the vast majority of them, especially when we only had to make that commitment two or three times a year.
However, once Disney+ was introduced, a not insignificant swath of that audience chose not to subscribe for whatever reasons, be it access, additional $$$, etc. It was an extra cost/step, beyond a trip to the theater, beyond a standard cable package, and beyond the streamers people already subscribed to.
There's also the fact that the time commitment necessary to keep track of the MCU rose significantly with Disney+. For instance, in 2017, 2018, and 2019, there were only three movies released each of those years (with roughly only two per year prior to then). At an average runtime of 2h 15m per movie, that's only a
6h 45m total time commitment per year.
Starting in 2021, though (there was no MCU content in 2020 due to Covid), that time commitment jumped significantly…
2021 = 4 movies, 4 live-action series =
29h 25m total time commitment
2022 = 3 movies, 3 live-action series =
22h 20m total time commitment
2023 = 3 movies, 2 live-action series =
15h 45m total time commitment
So it's pretty easy to see how that increase led to a number of people dropping off/not being able to keep up, both in terms of the cost and the time commitment. Add to it the fact that the quality of the content dipped significantly with the advent of Disney+, due to the creatives being spread far too thin, which led to even more of an audience drop off.
Honestly, this is pretty basic common sense, and not at all a "red herring." It's literally THE primary reason for the overall audience drop off.
