Rest In Peace MCU

Even the mainstream entertainment media shills are finally waking up to the fact that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been systematically driven into the ground by Disney. The investment media/financial analysts haven't gotten that far. Though they have had to take note of the proxy fight initiated by Nelson Peltz of Trian, they still seem to think that Disney can recapture its glory days.

From Variety: Crisis at Marvel: Jonathan Majors Back-Up Plans, ‘The Marvels’ Reshoots, Reviving Original Avengers and More Issues Revealed.

Disney/Marvel in general, and Kevin Feige and Bob Iger in particular, have made a series of disasterous decisions about the MCU. The worst decision was listening to the mob of "activists" on social media and not the people who actually spent money to go see the movies Spider-Man, Iron Man, The Avengers, and more in theaters. The other mistake they made was thinking that story telling and character isn't important. I guess they never watched any of those early movies.

There is a lot of detail in that article linked above, but let's just look at what they were trying to do to the remake of Blade.

Case in point: the “Blade” reboot. With Mahershala Ali signed on for the eponymous role of a vampire, things looked promising for a 2023 release date. But the project has gone through at least five writers, two directors and one shutdown six weeks before production. One person familiar with the script permutations says the story at one point morphed into a narrative led by women and filled with life lessons. Blade was relegated to the fourth lead, a bizarre idea considering that the studio had two-time Oscar winner Ali on board.

I'm not sure why studios feel the need to remake movies. I guess it is because they have no creativity in 2023. The 1998 movie staring Wesley Snipes is almost perfect. It does suffer from some script problems, and it probably could have used a slightly larger budget, but it is a classic superhero/antihero movie and is completely watchable today, even with the outdated special effects.

But if you are going to remake or "reboot" Blade, then the movie should be about the character Blade. They tried to do something else with Blade: Trinity, making the movie more about Whistler's daughter. It didn't work as a film, and I don't think it made back its production and marketing budgets at the box office

There have been many YouTube videos created on this topic, and a fair few on this Variety article, but The Critical Drinker covers it in short and eloquently. And I mostly share his apathy for the MCU. Marvel - Final Desperation

The MCU is dead, and Marvel killed it.

Apathy is the end-state of an entertainment franchise. Of a lot of things actually. I saw the 2002 Sam Raimi movie Spider-Man in theaters with friends. Like everyone else in the theater I cheered the first time we saw the Marvel Studios logo. Now I don't care. I am just saddened by the state of things I loved for so long.