"Deadpool and Wolverince" Review and Spoilers PLUS: From Iron Man to Deadpool: The Evolution and Future of Marvel

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome everybody to anotherepisode of Need Some Introduction.
I'm your host, Victor, and onthis podcast, I try to provide
recommendations and review showsthat might be new or new to you.
Usually shows, but sometimes. Movies podcasts music and
other media in today's episode.
I'll be flying solo having justseen the Deadpool Wolverine movie.

(00:25):
I'll give you a high level reviewwith relatively few spoilers
and then many, many spoilers.
All the spoilers.
And after that, I will be walking throughthe MCU, giving you many reviews of each
one of those films, many films, I'm goingto go through all of them, hopefully try
to get through all of them, and provideyou some context to the history of the MCU

(00:45):
and how it became so popular and how ithas wobbled in the most recent years post
pandemic, along with my opinions on howthat might have occurred, and maybe, just
maybe, this is the beginning of a pivot,I'm pretty sure financially it's going to
be because I think this movie The Deadpoolwolverine movie is going to be huge.
A few show notes.

(01:06):
I'm planning to have a mailbag episode.
I have some questions from listeners,relatively few, but I would like
to get even more feedback from you.
So if you want to be heard on the show, ifyou want to give me feedback on any of my
previous reviews, if you want to recommendsomething that you love that isn't
getting enough attention, I will shoutit out for you or answer your questions.

(01:27):
Email me at Need someintroduction at gmail.
com.
And of course, Sona's usually my cohost.
If you have questions for hersame email address, and we will
answer them on one of the upcomingepisodes, follow me on letterboxd.
I've been slacking off.
I said, I was going to writeone, one review per day.
I went on vacation and stopped doingthat, but I have a backlog of reviews

(01:48):
that I plan to publish soon, alongwith ones that I haven't published
yet, but I've already written.
For example, I was planning todo an episode on the Axel F film.
I watched it.
I watched all the BeverlyHills Cops movies.
I even watched 48 Hours again,but never published that episode
because I was on vacation.
But those reviews will be published.
So if you want to get additionalreviews from me, additional

(02:09):
content, follow me on Letterboxd.
The link is in the show notes.
Also, in the next couple ofweeks, expect a review of the
finale of House of the Dragon.
As well as a review of thisjust completed, recently
completed Season of the Boys.
Both seasons that have been very uneven,but in both cases have their positives.

(02:32):
Expect next week a review of the new M.
Night Shyamalan movie, Trap, andmany other big movies and series
that are coming , throughout August.
Industry on HBO, excellent series,hopefully ready to cross over this year.
It's been a pretty minor hit or niche hit.
But I think HBO is pushing itharder than they have in the past.
An excellent show, if youhaven't caught up on it.

(02:54):
A cross between Euphoria, Wolf ofWall Street, and Succession, perhaps.
Furiosa will be premiering onHBO Max this month, and I'll be
reviewing that in the future as well.
And many films still to come, including,just to name one, the new Alien sequel,
which is perhaps setting up the newAlien series, which will be premiering

(03:14):
within the next couple of months as well.
So look forward to all of that,subscribe to our feed so you know
when those episodes become available,and as I mentioned, do reach out to
us, needsomeintroduction at gmail.
com.
Okay, so here comes the spoilerfree review, mostly spoiler free
review, of Deadpool and Wolverine.
So the history of these Deadpoolmovies is pretty interesting.

(03:36):
It's a story in and of all of itsown going all the way back to 2000.
Apparently Ryan Reynolds had alwayswanted to play this character and had
intersected with the Marvel universebeing in the Blade Trinity film.
Now that I'm thinking about that,interesting, maybe I missed it,
but interesting that there isno reference to this character.

(03:56):
Ryan Reynolds in the Blade universein this new film, considering
they threw everything else inthere, including the kitchen sink.
So that's the starting point for this,and he has played, believe it or not.
It wasn't until I started doingthis research now that I suddenly
realized, I don't know how I missedit, that Deadpool and Wolverine have
been in the same movie before, inthe terrible Wolverine Origins film.

(04:21):
I guess it's called XMen Origins Wolverine.
I guess there was supposed to be a wholebunch of Origins films, but not after
the failure of that film, which costsabout 150 million, made over 300 million.
Not a financial disaster, but obviouslyif they couldn't make Wolverine
work, are they really going to makeany of these other characters work?
So they dropped it completely atthat point, but they get Deadpool

(04:42):
in there and just indicative of thecreative decisions there in that film.
This guy's the Merc with the Mouth.
And they sew up his mouth.
So go figure.
That version of Deadpoolhas already been executed by
Deadpool Prime in another film.
So like I said, there are somany tangents here in this
conversation, it could never end.
But let's just say Reynoldswants to play the part.

(05:05):
He's very committed to it for many years.
Plays the role back in 2013.
And then the failure of that film and RyanReynolds in general not being a bankable
star, put the whole thing on hold.
Let's get the Wolverine character outof the way beyond the X Men films.
Jackman, who's played this characterso many times at this point, follows
up that Wolverine film with anotherfilm, the first time he worked with

(05:27):
James Mangold, on a smaller budget,slightly more successful, called
The Wolverine, simply, set in Japan.
Despite only making a little bit moremoney than the last one, it did cost
less and also was critically muchmore well regarded from fans as well.
And then capping things off,killing off the character in Logan,

(05:47):
the first R rated Marvel film.
This is still, by the way,all of this is under Fox.
So we now have a merger, which isaddressed directly in this film
of the Fox and Marvel movies.
Disney properties.
Now that Disney has purchased Fox inthe past five, six years or so, Logan
supposedly is Jackman's swan song inthe role, a huge hit 600 million, and

(06:10):
also a hit with critics and fans.
And believe it or not, the smallestbudget of all of those Wolverine
films with that 600 million gross,a huge financial success for Fox.
Right around the same time as Logan iscoming out, proving that there is an R
rated audience for these Marvel films,I believe it actually came out the year
before the Logan film, was Deadpool,directed by Tim Miller, this story, as

(06:35):
I'm starting to tell it here, is reallyfascinating, and it's going to recur as I
get into the history of the MCU as well.
In general, these type of stories reallyinterest me, where there is a standard
narrative that this guy was a genius, hehad this idea, he had it all figured out.
And then people get surprisedwhen things don't work anymore.
Well, what happened?

(06:55):
The genius, his ideas are no longerworking . When that narrative, that
simplified narrative is a revisionof a lot of accidents, a lot of luck,
and a lot of hard work, of course,that allows these things to succeed.
So for example, in this case, afterthe failed launch of the character.
But still this interest from RyanReynolds, who kept pushing and

(07:15):
pushing to be this character.
They do start working on a script.
During this period of time,directors show up, drop out, writers,
scripts get written and rejected.
And very importantly, Ryan Reynoldsmade a comic book movie, The Green
Lantern, which was a huge financial flop.
Nonetheless, they keptcontinuing to develop the script.
Eventually, in 2014, they offered to giveTim Miller, who had very limited directing

(07:39):
experience, well under a million dollars,to do a test reel, a two minute demo of
Ryan Reynolds as the character, in thecostume, as a test for these concepts.
Fox saw the footage, was uninterested,they offered them a maximum of
40 million to make the film.
Didn't like the script.
Didn't like the concept.

(08:00):
Didn't get the character.
And basically killedthe project once again.
And then the footage leaked.
To this day, no one hasfessed up as to who leaked it.
It leaked during Comic Con, createda huge amount of buzz to the point
where Fox could not deny thatthere was an interest in the film.
They did push back.
They wanted it to be PG 13.

(08:21):
They eventually got it for an R.
They increased the budgetthey allocated to it.
from 40 million up to 58 million.
Still very thrifty when youconsider this was already when comic
book movies were normally goingwell over 100 million in budget.
And the film on a 58 million budgetcomes out with an R rating and
makes 800 million around the world.

(08:41):
One of the most financially successfulfilms of that year and multiple years.
Huge return on investment.
And of course now Fox was all on boardwith expanding the Deadpool universe.
Two years later, we get Deadpool 2.
It makes slightly less money, stillaround 800 million on a larger budget,
but still barely over 100 million.

(09:03):
Once again, thrifty fora big comic book movie.
So again, one of the most financiallysuccessful films of the year.
And this same year is when the acquisitionof Fox goes through, purchased by Disney.
Part of the purchasing of Fox.
by Disney was to unify the MCU.
Disney owned most ofthe Marvel characters.

(09:26):
Sony, of course, owned Spider Man,although they've borrowed Spider
Man, folded them into the Avengers.
But still outside the purview ofthe MCU had been the X Men, the
Fantastic Four, both of whichwould be huge additions to the MCU.
And you can imagine the differentpermutations of stories they can

(09:46):
tell by integrating those characters.
And to a much lesserextent, the Deadpool films.
Deadpool is in the X Men universe, soit's all kind of in the fold there.
But interestingly, when askedabout Deadpool specifically, the
Disney executives mentioned thatthey were committed to continue
to make the Deadpool movies.
But it would probablybe out in its own silo.

(10:08):
Maybe adult films are ratedfilms under a separate umbrella.
or perhaps downgrading it to PG 13.
As a matter of fact, Deadpool 2 was reedited as a PG 13 film and re released.
I believe that's the only versionthat ever got released in China.
And I'm sure that was a pilotto show Disney that, hey,
this can work even at PG 13.

(10:30):
And now, irony of ironies, at that momentin 2018, when the Avengers Endgame movie
was just being released and Marvel seemedcompletely infallible, And then, of
course, the pandemic hit soon thereafter.
But even before then, with the launchof Disney and all this new content,
audiences weren't as interested inthe films, and their quality dropped,

(10:52):
their box office was down, there wasa lot of superhero fatigue, I believe,
not only from Marvel, but from DC.
And for a number of reasons, I'm Marvelseemed to suddenly be on the back foot
and most of their projects were atbest financial disappointments and at
worst like the Marvels losing literallyhundreds of millions of dollars to the
extent that they basically scrappedall the films they were releasing this

(11:16):
year except for the Deadpool film.
And at first it seemed like theywere keeping the Deadpool Wolverine
film this year because it was almostunconnected to the rest of the MCU.
But instead, the fungibility of thisproperty, the fact that Ryan Reynolds
wears this mask and he can be improvisingdialogue until the very last minute,

(11:38):
suddenly made this film the mostimportant of all Marvel properties.
Here was suddenly a way where they canrebrand themselves, pivot away from
the failures they had before, propthis up to be a financial success,
something that I think is going to beeven beyond their initial expectations.
But much more importantly, becauseof the type of character that

(12:01):
Deadpool is, who casually turns tothe camera and breaks the fourth
wall and talks to us in the audiencedirectly from within the contents
of the comic book, a meta narrative.
And of course, for the past threeor four years, no one really cares
about the actual stories that Marvel'stelling, and everyone is so vested
in the meta narrative, the failureof the MCU post Avengers Endgame.

(12:24):
And suddenly, here is this moviemeeting its moment where they
can, Disney collectively, the MCUcollectively through this character
and through this film, can turn to theaudience and do a hard reset and tell
them all, Hey, we're in on a joke.
We get it.
We know what's happening.
And here is just six years after theFox merger, a character where they're

(12:47):
like, yeah, we'll keep making those.
Sure.
They make money.
Yeah.
Why not?
Don't worry.
We'll make a couple more of those tosuddenly being like, this is the most
important film in the MCU I mean,it's the most important MCU film that
has come out since that Avengers endgame to the future of the MCU itself.
So all that preface to the fact thatmy experience of watching this movie.

(13:10):
For the first 40 minutes, perhaps,the audience was electric and I
simply thought, I cannot believe it.
Disney has a 2 billionmovie on their hands.
They have somehow been able to threadthis needle of continuing this incredibly
foul mouthed, Edgy character, like theyhave not pulled any punches here, far

(13:34):
from muting this character for PG 13.
They have cranked him up to 11, andgiving those Deadpool fans exactly
what they want, and simultaneouslydoing exactly what I mentioned before.
Turning to the audience, letting them inon the joke of the multiverse fatigue.
of this reset that the MCU needs to do.

(13:56):
And I was just astounded of the levelof success that they were pulling off
here, the jokes here, there are somany jokes, a joke, a minute or more.
And there are layers to this joke.
There's layers within thecontext of the film itself.
And then constantly this conversationwith the audience as to what is
happening within the MCU itself.
And I could not be more impressedby what they were able to pull off

(14:19):
here for the first 40 minutes or so.
What I'd say beyond that is that onceyou get past that 40 minute mark, there
is a pretty long stretch where theweight of the mechanics of the MCU of
the plot itself and suddenly pivotinginto the actual stakes of the film , and
basically trying to make us care for thischaracter who is continuously telling

(14:44):
us, Hey, I'm just a character in a movie.
That guy's Hugh Jackman.
I'm Ryan Reynolds.
And usually the type of thing thatI find grating, as a matter of
fact, I find it grating even inthe previous Deadpool films, but
it works really, really well here.
Somehow they are able to pull off thatmagic trick of winking at the camera
and simultaneously having us vestedin what's happening within the film.

(15:08):
We have to commit 100 percentto outcomes of these characters.
That pivot is a little awkward.
It's not as successful as thatinitial being shot out of a
cannon early phase of the script.
So it does start to drag and youcould feel the audience was getting
a little antsy compared to theamusement park ride they were having

(15:29):
for most of the beginning of the film.
And you also feel the budget, by the way,that once the film just seems like it's
getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
Then you have a very long sequence whereyou are in one very well appointed, mostly
computer generated locale, which suddenlymakes the production feel a little
cheap compared to what had led up to it.

(15:51):
But then we have apretty satisfying ending.
I think it does land the emotionAnd all the Deadpool movies have to
make this pivot, by the way, right?
They start in your face.
They start very transgressive.
But then by the end, they want youto care about these characters.
And once again, with this one, theyare able to make that pivot at the end.
And the chemistry between Jackman playingthis, uh, you've seen it in the trailers.

(16:15):
It's very much what plays outthroughout the entirety of the film.
The chemistry between , theextremely goofy Deadpool character.
And of course the incrediblyearnest version of Wolverine
that we see here in the trailer.
this film.
So not the complete successI saw or I predicted from the
beginning, but still satisfying.
I think if you love theDeadpool films, this is going

(16:36):
to be another winner for you.
If you just like the Deadpool films, likeI do occasionally, you know, hit and miss
for me, uh, the experience of watchingthose films, I rarely revisit them.
I thought this was a step up not onlybecause of the additional characters.
They spent a lot of money just forthe cameos and stay tuned for all
the spoilers because there's a lotof famous people in this movie.

(16:58):
So the budget is there,the scale is there.
Some of these incredibly bloody actionsequences are very entertaining, very
well choreographed, visually interesting.
And honestly, the comedy works for mein a way that, for whatever reason,
didn't work for me as well withthe previous two Deadpool films.
Maybe they have more material here bybringing in these really entertaining

(17:20):
cameos that help sell the jokes.
But I had a lot of fun withthis, despite it dragging for
quite some bits in the middle.
That middle hour, I'd say, drags a bit,but even there, there are some rewards.
Okay, here come the spoilers.
Spoilers!
I'll walk through the plot in mostlychronological order so you can tune out.
I'll warn you when the reallyheavy spoilers come along.

(17:42):
As you may recall from Deadpool numbertwo, Deadpool has this watch which allows
him to travel through time and throughthe multiverse apparently, and has done
something, once again spoilers for.
Deadpool 2.
I assume this is spoilers sospoilers for Deadpool 2 as well.
He has rescued his fiancée, girlfriend,whatever she was in that film.
And we're introduced to himhere in this new film, trying

(18:04):
to re team with Wolverine.
And he knows Wolverine is dead, aswe all do from watching Logan, but he
decides to dig him up anyway, becausewe know nothing could kill Wolverine.
Hilariously, he digs him upand indeed, Wolverine is dead.
Just some skin and bones.
Of course, it's titanium.
Skeleton.
And this is when the Time VariantAuthority, for anybody who doesn't

(18:25):
know, has not watched Loki, theTVA, is in charge of maintaining
all these different timelines.
So if you haven't caught up onLoki, you may want to catch up
on it before seeing this film.
Although, not essential.
It'll fill in its own blanks.
And during the title sequence, we seeDeadpool killing off many, many of these
TVA agents who are there to prune Deadpoolhimself, or to arrest them, actually.

(18:49):
And there's a very fun titlesequence where we see Deadpool
kill all these people usingWolverine's impervious Skeleton.
Then we get our first semi surprise cameo.
We flash back in time.
What has led to thisconfrontation in the woods?
Deadpool is meeting with Happy.
This is when I believe Tony Stark isstill alive in this version of the world.

(19:12):
This is a very funny conversationbetween Deadpool and Happy.
And apparently he's beenrejected by the Avengers.
He's been rejected by Tony Stark himself.
And then we jump ahead the six years,I believe, to present tense, where he
is a car salesman with a toupee stapledonto his head, kind of hilariously.
He has a best friend at the cardealership, Peter, played by Rob Delaney,

(19:36):
which will be important later in the film.
And what we see is that he is so dejected,he has surrendered his Deadpool persona.
He still lives with BlindAl, played by Leslie Uggams.
And in his apartment,they're having a party.
I think it's a birthday party.
And you just see the mundane lifethat he has surrendered himself to.
It's pretty funny, there's X Men there.

(19:58):
Vanessa is there, by the way, anddespite him resurrecting her to
some extent, they are not together.
We find out later on thatit is mostly because he has
become this shell of himself.
And when he steps out intothe hallway, he encounters the
TVA agents for the first time.
He's brought to the TVA wherehe meets with Matthew McFadyen,
famous , from Succession, of course.

(20:19):
And he's playing a character called Mr.
Paradox, and he's trying to get WadeWilson to become Deadpool again.
He's got a new mission for him.
And he shows snippets from previousMarvel films, which, of course,
in this moment also works as thisway to remind MCU is right now.
There are many jokes made at thispoint about the acquisition by

(20:41):
Disney of the Fox properties.
Please.
And as I mentioned before, thisis all pretty seamless here.
A lot of fun at this point.
This seems pretty dry theway I'm outlining it here.
The plot itself is, sounds evendepressive maybe, but it's not.
These jokes are coming a milea minute, fast and furious.
There's an image here, a scenethat he's not supposed to see.
Apparently it's only going tocome a long time in the future.

(21:03):
where Deadpool is dying inThor's arms, and they're like,
you're not supposed to see that.
So perhaps we will see this sceneat some future point in the MCU.
At that point, he's convinced.
He's back in on it again after avery funny re costuming sequence.
He says, I am ready to save the timeline.
So basically the timeline hecomes from, that this particular

(21:25):
Deadpool comes from, is dying away.
Dying away because Wolverinedied in this timeline.
What we saw in the movie, Logan, heis the anchor being in this universe.
And in the old days, they wereable to just prune these timelines.
Once again, go check out season two ofLoki if you want more context on that,

(21:45):
but that's not acceptable anymore.
But Mr.
Paradox has built a device thatwill prune instantaneously.
And in his mind, this is the kinderthing to do rather than letting
a timeline slowly shrivel away.
But of course, the Deadpool characterIn this film and maybe throughout
its history, I don't know the comicsvery well, wants to be a hero.

(22:08):
That's his whole thing.
He is not qualified to be a hero.
He has the superpower of beingable to regenerate infinitely.
He cannot die, but he'snot really hero material.
And that's what he keeps hearingover and over and over again.
So suddenly hearing that, no,you're here because you're going
to help me prune your timeline.
You are very morally questionable.

(22:30):
You're the hero I can turn to atthis moment that would comply.
Some of these other people wouldhave too many moral quandaries.
But Mr.
Paradox has calculated incorrectly.
Maybe if it was another timelinehe would be on board with it.
But because these are the few peoplehe actually loves in the world
are in this particular timeline.
He refuses, steals this TVAcontrolling device that lets

(22:51):
him move through the multiverse.
Once again, series for moreinformation on all that.
And he escapes.
And that's what leads to theconfrontation we saw in the
woods during the title sequence.
And since the wolverine in histimeline is truly dead, he starts
moving between multiple timelineslooking for a replacement.
And this is very funny.

(23:11):
We see Hugh Jackman inmany different variations.
Famously, by the way, Wolverine is veryshort, not tall like Hugh Jackman is.
And we see a very short versionof Wolverine here, very funny.
We see another cameo here, ahugely jacked up Henry Cavill.
There are some jokes here.
Oh, , come to the MCU, Henry Cavill.
We'll treat you well.

(23:32):
Not like those other guys down the street.
Dig at The DCEU, and eventuallyhe finds an equally depressive
and non compliant Wolverine.
What else do we see here?
This is probably comic book Easter eggs.
We see him crucified on thisgiant X with skulls everywhere.
He's in this alleyway in anotherpost apocalyptic vision of the world.

(23:54):
There's a lot of variations here.
Once again, this probably coincides withdifferent versions from the comic books.
The only thing I got was thewhole Henry Cavill reference.
I'm not a comic book reader, so I'msure many of you out there listening
know what those things reference.
Just to say that Even if you don'tget all the jokes, it's still funny.
He drags this depressive Wolverinewith him who has the original X Men,

(24:16):
the yellow and blue combination.
Very funny at one point whenDeadpool is making fun of him
for dressing like an LA Rams fan.
He's in the yellow and blue,the original X Men outfit.
They returned to the TVA andDeadpool still is trying to say,
look, I have Wolverine now, Ican save the timeline, right?
If he was the missing componentto save this timeline, well,

(24:38):
we now have a Wolverine.
Of course, that's not their intention.
They want to prune, it's,this is once again, Mr.
Paradox, and he prunes both of them.
Once again, if you've seen Loki seasonone and two, you know that when you
get pruned, you go to end of time orforget what it's called, where there
is a giant monster called Goliath.
That eats everything.
Little by little, eats whatevergets pruned, deposited there.

(25:01):
And that is where Deadpooland Wolverine end up.
And this is when theyfight for the first time.
Very entertaining.
They're both invincible.
Stabbing and shooting each otherand Wolverine spitting out bullets.
Some great visuals here, by the way,one of the things that have been pruned
is the old 20th century Fox logo.
Once again, speaking to the factthat Disney has purchased Fox.

(25:22):
And while they're fighting, a noble voicecalls out, if you fight against each
other, you can't fight against them.
And who's rolling up?
We have some Mad Max jokes here.
It very much looks likea Mad Max type movie.
Mad Max, by the way, notwithin the Fox or Disney.
So they're just borrowing that IP orreferencing it anyway, winking at it.

(25:42):
And who is this noblevoice calling out to them?
At first, it looks like it could be Dr.
Doom actually, but ohmy god, it's Chris Evans!
A double twist here.
When he dropped his hood, everyonewas so excited and Deadpool cannot
wait for him to say, Avengers unite.
It's like, he's going to say it.
He's going to say it.
And what does he say?
This is a great joke thatI did not see coming.

(26:04):
He says, flame on.
He is not Captain America.
This is Johnny Storm from the FantasticFour, which is also now within the
MCU, thanks to the Fox acquisition.
Very funny, deep cut,and very entertaining.
There's a very funny Furiosa jokehere, and they eventually end up
at this encampment where mostlythe evil X Men characters from the

(26:28):
past are all holed up together.
Many of these recognizable, at least intheir powers, recognizable as characters,
if not the actual actors themselves.
And their compound, amazingly, iswhat appears to be just the Ant Man
costume, which then, when the maskopens, turns out to be the actual
bones of Ant Man within this skeleton.
So just to speak to the fact that manyalternate heroes and villains from the MCU

(26:52):
have been pruned and exist in this world.
In some cases, multipleversions of the same character.
A great joke here when the skullis revealed under the Ant Man mask.
Deadpool says, Oh, soPaul Rudd finally aged.
And who's running this compoundat first they think it is Dr.
Xavier, but it is not.

(27:12):
It is.
A bald Emma Corrin playingCassandra Nova, Dr.
Xavier's twin sister, who apparently wasso problematic in all of the timelines
that she did exist in, that she wasrelegated to this wasteland, even
as a baby, and grew up here with Dr.
Xavier.
No parental supervision, maybe a themehere of belonging and family, and

(27:37):
she's a complete and utter monster.
I'm not sure how her powers work.
She seems to have not only mindcontrol powers, but she can , flay
people with a blink of an eye.
Or I can understand making someonehurt themselves like we've seen
Xavier do, but I do questionthe extent of her telekinetic
powers here and truly telekineticDeadpool gets Johnny Storm killed.

(28:01):
It's a very funny sequence.
It is an interesting thing that happensin all these Deadpool movies, by the way,
that Deadpool seems to be the only onewho knows he's inside of a movie, where he
turns to the camera or turns to Wolverinewhen Wolverine says, you got him killed,
you idiot, for, cause you're a big mouth.
And Deadpool goes, do you know whatthe, his salary was doing to our budget?
Meaning Chris Evans bringinghim out of retirement.

(28:23):
But the Wolverine characterdoesn't even acknowledge this.
It's as if he is not in on the joke.
By the way, if this actually happenedand Deadpool has this power of being
able to see that he's being watched bythe Watcher, for example, he really is,
basically, has the power of a Watcher.
It's just a use within thecontext of an MCU, by the way.
That's a nerdy digression.
Maybe I'll get into it with someonewho knows the MCU much better

(28:44):
than I do, or the Marvel comics.
Cassandra sees wolverine as a prizebecause apparently the wolverines are so
noble they don't end up pruned that often.
And she goes, well thesedeadpools are a dime a dozen.
She does want to get into his headto find out what he knows, to
manipulate wolverine in some way.
She has a very creepy trick of beingable to put her hands inside your

(29:06):
brain Literally, and read your mind.
And this is when we see this revelationto some extent, which you kind of already
knew that Deadpool, after being rejected,being told he's not hero material,
is still really stinging from that.
For a moment, it looks like they have theupper hand on her, but she, of course,
is basically impervious, the queen ofthis entire realm, and leaves everybody

(29:29):
out to be consumed by the darkness.
But of course, Deadpooland Wolverine escape.
We're probably in the midpointof the film here and things
are still moving pretty well.
There's another whole batch of humor here.
We see Deadpool falls in love withthis really ugly Deadpool dog and
he meets a very handsome versionof Deadpool with long flowing hair.

(29:51):
Also played by Ryan Reynolds.
He's a nice version of Deadpool andlends them his car, his Honda Odyssey,
and they're on the lookout for someother noble Marvel characters who have
teamed up somewhere in this wasteland.
Now, importantly, Wolverine has been luredinto assisting Deadpool because Deadpool

(30:11):
says, Hey, I know how the TVA works.
We can change history so we can fix whatyou did in the past, the details of which
we find out later on, that he was out.
getting drunk, not taking things seriouslyin his version of reality, when the
powers that be came and killed all ofhis closest X Men friends, and then he

(30:33):
went on a murder spree, killing not onlythose people responsible, but killing
anyone even tangentially related andprobably loving the killing he was doing.
Which of course turned everyonein his reality against the X Men.
They just saw them asbrutal, murderous monsters.
That is revealed later on.
But at this moment within the car ride, orduring the car ride, Deadpool accidentally

(30:53):
says, If I can put things right with you.
Deadpool goes, What do you mean if?
And he says, Well, I don'tactually know how to do this.
I'm just assuming there's a way to do it.
Wolverine loses it.
And starts mocking Deadpool as a loser.
He'll never be a success.
He'll never amount to anything.
And this leads to a very entertainingdragged out fight within the Odyssey

(31:17):
as they nearly decimate the car,although it still runs at the end.
Someone finds them after thisfight, drains them of their
energy, and drives away.
When they wake up, who is it?
Who has rescued them andtaken them to their hideout?
Well, it's Elektra!
Speaking of rejected characters thathave been pruned from their series,

(31:38):
Jennifer Garner has returned in herElektra character from that much
maligned, disastrous film from acouple decades ago at this point.
Still looking great.
She has friends.
Oh boy, Wesley Snipes is here as Blade.
There's a very funny joke later onwhere Wesley Snipes says, I'm the
only blade and I'll always be the onlyblade, which of course gets a fourth

(32:01):
wall breaking look from Deadpool.
And who else is here?
There were many years of speculationthat Channing Tatum would play
Gambit in a standalone Gambit filmwhen the X Men were owned by Fox.
And despite a decade of rumors,that film never actually happened.
But here we have Channing Tatum playingGambit with a ridiculous New Orleans

(32:25):
accent that is completely indecipherableand made fun of constantly by Deadpool.
And we even get Laura back from Logan,the same actress playing X 23 here.
And this is when that pivot happensthat I mentioned of trying to take the
material in a more serious direction.
So we have seen up until this point,this is a very Deadpool heavy, snarky

(32:48):
winking version of a Deadpool movie.
And then we have this heartto heart between this damaged
Wolverine and alternate Wolverineand this conversation with X 23.
And she's telling him Wolverinewas always a damaged person, always
made bad decisions, but then alwaysdid the right thing at the end.
So here's this weird balancing actthe film is trying to do of making

(33:09):
both things true at the same time.
And for the most part, as Imentioned, it is kind of working.
The pivot is working.
The stakes are increasing.
And of course, they're trying to getthis group of folks together to go
back and battle against Cassandra.
They want Magneto's helmet,which doesn't exist anymore.
But maybe Juggernaut's helmet willstill protect against her powers.

(33:31):
So that's the plan.
And can they get everybody on board?
Everyone is on board, exceptfor Wolverine, who can't step
back into that hero role.
Not yet, anyway.
So, piling into their car, they'reon their way to confront Cassandra.
We've discovered along the way that theTVA is aware of what's happening here.
Cassandra and them havesome kind of an agreement.

(33:53):
Not sure exactly the details of this.
Bye.
And this motley crew of rejectedsuperheroes goes in, and there's a
huge battle Deadpool and Wolverinego in to confront Cassandra.
She immediately disposes of Deadpool, andthen sinks her fingers into Wolverine's
mind This is when we see her starting toseduce him, trying to say, I can fix you.

(34:15):
I can quiet all those voices,all , the pain you have in your mind.
Oh, I forgot to mentionthat Wolverine was there.
Of course he was in the trunk.
So anyway, Wolverine's there.
He did come in the end.
And that's what leads to thisconfrontation with Cassandra.
It's a very good scene, by the way.
Uh, Jackman doing a good job here.
Meanwhile, we see this reallyfun battle going on with all
of the heroes and villains.

(34:36):
Gambit is crushing it, likekilling people left and right.
They overpowered him a littlebit or maybe wanted to let Tatum
have some fun with this role.
X 23 is able to So, remove the helmetfrom Juggernaut and send it up into
this giant skull where Cassandraand Wolverine are mind melding.
Deadpool of course is notdead, can't be killed.

(34:58):
And as he's resuscitated, takes the helmetand puts it onto Cassandra's bald head.
This is fun here.
We have Toad shows up.
I think it's Toad.
One of these bad guys who is tired ofliving this way, who's under her thumb,
they're arguing, I'm not going to takeher helmet off because then she's the
only one who can send us back to the TVA.
But if I take the helmetoff, she's going to kill us.

(35:20):
So this is back and forth, back and forth.
And that's when this othervillainous character turns up and
just shoots her multiple times.
Now that she has the helmet on,it's knocked out immediately.
And of course, now she's dying.
She couldn't fix herself.
Once again, I'm not surehow this telekinesis works
that she can heal herself.
I don't think Charles ever had that power,but Wolverine decides to do the noble
thing as they take the helmet off, takesthe helmet off, she doesn't kill them.

(35:43):
She asked some questions about Charles.
Would he have really cared?
And she goes, Charles is thetype of person that would
have looked for you forever.
And you think it might bewarming her heart in some way.
And she does make a littlegame of it saying, Elioth
is coming to kill all of us.
But a magician came here, an amateurmagician, I think he, she calls him.
And of course, that killed him.
But he did have a little trinketthat you might find interesting.

(36:05):
And of course, it turns out it's Dr.
Strange's rings that cancreate those portals.
And of course, Eliothcomes and eats everybody.
Not before Deadpool and Wolverine escape.
Deadpool ends up back in his universe.
Oh, it's Pyro, by the way, the fire guy.
He's the one who's the onewho betrayed Cassandra.
Cassandra uses Pyro's communicationwith the TVA to meet up with Mr.

(36:29):
Paradox.
And she decides that she'snot trying to save one of the
universes or anything like that.
What she's going to do instead is tonot only prune Some of the timelines.
She's going to use this machine that Mr.
Paradox has built to trim all thetimelines, every single one of
them, so that everybody in all thetimelines will end up in , her world

(36:53):
where she's the ruler of everyone.
The only one that can stop them, ofcourse, is Deadpool and Wolverine.
She says, I have somethingso big, it'll keep them busy.
And at first, it looks like maybeAlioth is going to come through the
portal, but that's not what it is.
It's all of those rejected Deadpools,hundreds of them, hundreds of
them, and they have to fighttheir way through all of them.
And this leads to areally entertaining story.

(37:15):
Uh, very bloody and just veryentertaining, um, battle sequence
where that long haired pretty boyversion of Deadpool, it gets killed
brutally, but of course that meansthat pool inherits his dog, which
he loves also inherits his guns.
Gold plated Wolverine Don's hismask, by the way, the traditional

(37:36):
comic book mask with the wings onthe side, but the first time ever,
I think in this entire franchise.
And this visually is very interestingworking across the frame as Madonna,
uh, like a prayer is playing on the, Ithink Madonna's like a prayer is going
to get a big boost, uh, on the Spotifyplays considering how heavily it's used
here at the end of , this film and howbig this film is probably going to be.

(37:58):
They massacre all these Deadpool.
It's a very cool visual here as they justbloodily work their way across the frame.
But of course, most of them, most ofthem, not all of them, are indestructible.
So they all resurrect themselves.
And then a very convenient Peter XMachina shows up, the Rob Delaney
character shows up in the Deadpool suit.

(38:18):
And apparently in every single version,every multiversal version of the Deadpool
story, they always have a buddy, Peter.
So they all gravitate to him.
And while they're distracted by this,Deadpool and Wolverine go down the
subway station to try to preventthe annihilation of all timelines.
Even though this matter and antimattercrossover that would be required

(38:41):
to blow up this device wouldannihilate Deadpool or Wolverine.
Deadpool decides to be thesacrificial lamb, trapping Wolverine.
And then of course, with seconds to spare,as the timelines are shrinking down to
90%, 80, 50, 20, 5, 2 Almost gone andDeadpool just can't reach across to create

(39:02):
this short circuit between the matterand anti matter Wolverine has busted out
of his cage grabs Deadpool's hand andthen with his claws Closes the circuit
and as Madonna plays on the soundtrackonce again short circuit this device They
flash back on all the things that matterto them Wolverine's shirt gets blown off.

(39:24):
And, um, Deadpool looksat his abs appreciatively.
Nod heads at each other.
And as the device explodesand Cassandra is destroyed.
Oh, I forgot to mention thatHunter B 15, Uwunmi Musaku from
the Loki series, has been alerted.
There's something going onon one of these timelines.

(39:44):
She shows up to ask Mr.
Paradox, what's been going on here?
And he comes up with thestory that, You told me!
Cassandra was contained.
My dear friends sacrificedtheir lives to save us all.
And then of course it turns out Deadpooland Wolverine are not dead, which of
course he's not happy to find out.
The truth will be revealed.

(40:05):
And off camera they arepruning all the Deadpools.
But this one gets to stay ofcourse, because this is his world.
Turns out not only has hesaved all the timelines.
Somehow, whatever they've donehas rejuvenated this timeline.
So it's now growing back again.
It won't just shrivel up and die.
This is going to be athriving timeline from now on.
Maybe what it means is thatDeadpool has now become the

(40:29):
prime being in his timeline.
He is Jesus Deadpool.
Peter shows up here onceagain, defend Deadpool.
And Hunter B 15 is very attracted to him.
So maybe there'll be a littlesomething going on in future films.
And yeah, Wolverine's herein the alternate timeline.
There's a few scenes here at the endwhere they buddy up to each other.
They now have adopted this dog.

(40:49):
And Wade, aka Deadpool, has invitedhim to hang out with him, to
live with him and his roommate.
And we see another gettogether at the house.
All the same usual suspects as before.
Wolverine, aka Logan, seems tobe connecting with Laura, X 23.
And Wade seems to have reignitedhis romance with Vanessa.
And that's the end of the film.

(41:11):
A lot less jokes about the futureof the MCU or the current state
of it here as you move forward.
And the ending is much weaker thanit is at the beginning, although
the stakes are obviously higher.
It turns into a much moretraditional comic book movie.
But I have a feeling this will,just for the speed of the jokes and
for some of the very funny cameos.

(41:32):
It'll probably have a decentamount of repeat business.
This will be big.
I don't think, and now here's mybox office predictions, I honestly
was thinking at the beginning whenthis film started, Oh my God, this
is going to be a 2 billion movie.
They did what they did with theSpider Man movies, but with an R
rated film, who would have thought it?
And as the film progressed, I'mlike, no, they didn't quite nail it.
What I thought they were going to do.
I was so impressed with the first40 minutes, 50 minutes of the film.

(41:55):
Even maybe the first half.
So no, it's not going to do that.
Well, it probably won't catch insideout, which is now approaching one
and a half billion dollars, but thisis going to make a billion dollars.
And it'll make, I say over 500 millionin the U S maybe 600 and bigger overseas.
So let's say 700, 1.
3 billion.
What a comeback for The MarvelCinematic Universe, if that's the case.

(42:19):
I'm recording this on Thursday, sothere is no box office numbers yet.
But by the time I publish this onFriday afternoon, I think is when I'm
going to publish this, there shouldbe some early box office numbers.
So I think we'll start getting a feel forhow, just how big this can possibly be.
And as far as bonus scenes go, um,nothing that is consequential to the MCU.
There is a very funny joke, a payoffto something that was seeded earlier

(42:43):
in the film with featuring Chris Evans,but And then some behind the scenes
kind of, uh, retrospective on the FoxMarvel run, uh, little odd featurette
there as part of bonus material.
And that's the film.
And that's it until we get toCaptain America Brave New World.
That's it for the MCU, cinematicallyanyway, in movie theaters,

(43:06):
for the rest of the year.
There are at least one more TV series.
But after a quiet year, intentionallybumping films out to make way for
only Wolverine to, I guess, buildup some anticipation, by the way,
to not flood the market with films.
Next year, if this holds up,we will have four, four films.
Starting in February withCaptain America, Brave New World.

(43:29):
Followed up in May with the Thunderbolts,a Fantastic Four film, which is
getting a lot of press recently, avery excited fan base for this one.
If it completes on time, July 25th,and now the much delayed Blade
film, supposedly now on track tocome out on November 7th of 2025.
So four films in 2025, if theymaintain these release dates

(43:51):
and an Avengers film in 2026.
Which is rumored to be thereturn of the Russo brothers to
directing here within the MCU again.
By the way, I forgot to mention, uh,Lady Deadpool, which was a big deal on
the internet, is played by Blake Lively.
She only speaks one or two lines ofdialogue and is never unmasked in
the film, but in the credits, BlakeLively, as many people speculated.

(44:13):
Okay.
As context for this walk throughthe MCU films and series, I want
to mention a book called MCU, thereign of Marvel studios by Joanna
Robinson and Dave Gonzalez, whichprovides a huge amount more context
than what I'm going to provide here.
Uh, it's on Spotify, by the way,if you have a prime membership on

(44:33):
Spotify, And you can hear audio books.
It's available there to stream.
So do check it out if youare curious about this topic.
For me, the most refreshing revelationhere, and indicates the fact that
rather than people thinking, howcould the MCU put out bad movies?
How could they have had recentlysuch a bad batting average?

(44:54):
is more to think the miracle thatthey were so successful for so long,
and it's borne out in the book.
I'll put some of the detail in here,but I can't possibly go into all
that detail, but I will bring it out,bring it up here at the very start.
Okay.
The first proper MCU film, of course,is the Iron Man film from 2008.

(45:15):
This came out through Paramount evenbefore Disney had acquired, Marvel.
They weren't even owned byDisney at this point in 2008.
And reading that MCU book, it'sreally fascinating that Iron Man,
which seemed like this perfectfilm that had no production issues,
they got it so right, right away.
And it is undeniable that if thatfilm had flopped, this entire

(45:39):
MCU project would have gone in acompletely different direction.
Disney probably wouldnot have purchased them.
And the history of this, a very failedattempt to launch these characters
for decades leading up to 2008.
It's a really interesting production onthat first film and so important that
so many things had to line up right.

(45:59):
One of them was Robert Downey Jr.
They wanted him.
Some of the producers, Jon Favreau,wanted him, but they were worried.
He obviously had a reputation for beingunreliable, for his addiction issues.
People were concerned, butbeyond that, Favreau was also a
difficult person to work with.
After bringing on Robert Downey Jr.,

(46:21):
they would rewrite the script thenight before, would have new pages
the next day, and it wasn't just thedialogue Which obviously they wanted
to spruce up this Tony Stark character.
But for, if you remember the film,there is that whole sequence in
the cave, which is a very bigchunk of the beginning of the film.

(46:42):
They shot the entire thing and thennearly at completion, Favreau decided,
you know what, I think this is too long.
I don't want to use it in the movie.
And at this point theyfinally put down their foot.
And the producers basically toldhim we have already spent a lot
of money on building these setson shooting this production time,
paying salaries, you're going tohave to work with what we have here.

(47:05):
But the script was changing in real time.
There was a lot of contentiousnessbetween Favreau and the producers.
But in the end, of course, theyhave this massively successful
film, a film that I Absolutely love.
I remember seeing it in the theater.
Honestly, , in retrospect, now theopening sequence in the cave is a little

(47:27):
too long, although it is interesting.
It becomes the foundation toTony Stark rejecting his might is
right mentality, but the dualityof that as well, considering how
he uses his might to be right.
It really sets up so many themes MCU.
It's all a by product of this filmthat was being shot on the fly.
And this is something that'sinteresting in the successful

(47:50):
films versus the unsuccessful ones.
The more pre programmed it is,the more overthought it is, the
less successful the films are.
And the more they were improvisingand using what they were doing
well, that really is the foundationto the success of the MCU.
But despite its issues, itdoesn't have a great villain,
doesn't have a great finale.

(48:10):
It drags a bit at thebeginning, just a little bit.
I think the beginning is veryimportant to the entire project.
But of course, what do they get right?
A, Robert Downey Jr.
Absolutely killing it in this role.
And B, just the sheer joy of thoseflying sequences, for example,
capturing the thrill of being in thesuit and having these superpowers.

(48:32):
The joy of being a superhero,something that is forgotten so
often, for example, in The Man ofSteel, where being Superman is awful.
There's never a sense that any of thatflying or any of that is fun for him.
And for everybody who thinks, andMarvel never missed until recently,
the very second film in 2008, ifyou remember this one, was The

(48:53):
Incredible Hulk with Edward Norton.
This film did not make money, it'sa flop, not a very good film by
the way, followed up by Iron Man 2.
Also a film that has not.
It's held up that well.
It made more money than the firstIron Man movie, but was still
considered a disappointment.
First of all, because itwas extremely expensive.
Second of all, because it wasvery clunky and how they tried to

(49:14):
introduce these new Marvel characters.
Definitely not as much funas the first Iron Man film.
I kind of have a soft spot for thisfilm because it was the first MCU
film that my daughter gravitated to,believe it or not, despite the fact
that she was so young at the timewhen she started watching this film.
So it's both better and worse thanI remember it being not a good
villain, a big problem with MCU films.

(49:36):
And they really are trying tomake Tony an unlikable character
here by the second film already.
The first Thor movie neverreally worked for me.
, was not a huge hit in theU S but a big hit overseas.
Didn't make much money by the way.
Once again, this thought thateverything was perfect until recently.
This film also did notmake a lot of money.
But of course, very importantly withall these films early on, the casting.
Because I think peopledidn't really love Thor.

(49:59):
But they loved this big, goofy Thorcharacter, Chris Helmsworth, not
even playing the full comedy that hewould become so good at later on, but
already just something really charmingand guileless about his performance,
something very hard to pull off.
And people loved this Thor character.
A film I love, by the way, isthe next one, Captain America.

(50:20):
The First Avenger.
But I've heard a lot of peoplereally not enjoying this film.
I really like Joe Johnson's directionhere, doing some of what he did with
the Rocketeer, of using the lookof World War II propaganda films.
This is a lot of fun for mefrom a design point of view.
Most people don't really likethis film to be honest, but once
again, they love Evans in the role.

(50:41):
And then this culminated with thefirst unabashed massive hit since
the very first Iron Man film in 2012.
We're at now with the firstAvengers film, which performed
way beyond anyone's expectation.
It made one and a half billion dollars.
The biggest hit of this entirecycle had made around 600 million.
And that was the Iron Man film.

(51:03):
And even Iron Man 2, which madeabout the same amount of money,
was not considered very successful.
This really upped the stakes.
And by the way, it was abig deal for Disney as well.
This is the first film that cameout under the Disney banner,
previously under Paramount.
So Disney's happy at this point.
They followed up with Iron Man 3, a filmI really like, because it's written and
directed by Shane Black, and it has thatwhole lethal weapon, the last Boy Scout.

(51:28):
Film noir aspect to the dialogueand some of the plotting.
I like how subversive it isin some ways where Downey Jr.
did not want to be in the suit.
So we have an Iron Man moviewhere , Downey ., is hardly
ever in the costume itself.
I find that entertaining.
Some people really felt like, really?
This is the Iron Man movie we get?
It has a terrible ending, granted.

(51:49):
But that's where I feel, once again,when these films start to get bad,
it's when there's a lot of, the studiohas done the special effects work,
they've pre visualized big chunks ofthe film, and then they're bringing
the talent in, the writer, director,and actor, to fill in the blanks.
And that begins to shift from, That firstIron Man movie where it's 80 percent

(52:10):
improvised and they're trying to cobbleit together at the end as best they can
and filling in the blanks 20 percent ofthe time with the MCU requirement stuff
as opposed to we've done 80 percent ofthe work and we're giving you 20 and as
that balance shifts the films get worseand worse and you're going to see it here.
Iron Man 3 is maybe the first timethey've attempted this to say,

(52:31):
well, we've done half the movie.
All the special effectssequences are done.
Now we're going to bring in Shane Black topartner up with his buddy, Robert Downey
Jr., and fill in all the other sequences,which is still the majority of the film.
So I think that balance is there.
The very next film, Thor TheDark World, a terrible film in
my opinion, I barely remember it.
They bring in a TV director, Alan Taylor.

(52:52):
Taylor, who directed some of the biggestepisodes of Game of Thrones, but he
doesn't have enough of a force ofpersonality to make it anything other than
feeling like it is just the Marvel bits.
And it really starts to feel likethey're producing television here.
Extremely high budget television, whichbecomes a template for the way TV is
made today, by the way, which is partof the problem that everybody's having,

(53:14):
not just Marvel, but everybody's havingin overpaying for these incredibly
lush productions that have no personaltouch, no personality even to them.
Next comes Captain America Winter Soldier.
This is the first time that they handthe reins over to the Russo brothers,
whose biggest thing at that point wasdirecting an episode of Community.

(53:36):
Obviously had not worked withsuch a large budget before.
But this recipe, thiscombination, for whatever reason,
works really, really well.
The Russos post MCU notimpressed me almost ever.
But this is a really sharp conspiracythriller, which takes this Captain America
character, which did not impress mostmoviegoers previously, and elevates him to

(53:59):
some of the best of all the Marvel films.
And develops the Winter Soldier, ofcourse, but also allows for the first
time, maybe that the MCU can make films inother genres that are also MCU properties.
Also very important, bringingin James Gunn on their very next
project in Guardians of the Galaxy.

(54:20):
Gunn, unlike some of these otherfilmmakers, has a very strong POV.
Much of Guardians of the Galaxy, somethingthat kind of bothers me in this first
film, is that there is so much Marvel.
associated world building thatneeds to be done, that it gets in
the way of some of the really JamesGunn y parts of the film, which I

(54:41):
think is what people love about it.
And that is the found family, theselosers coming together, something
that is thematic in almost all ofGunn's films, this found family,
where they find place in the world.
So it's edgy and gritty andunconventional and yet heartfelt.
But once again, a week.

(55:02):
villain and all that marvel, uh, giantship descending on a city for a completely
gratuitous and inconsequential 40 minuteaction sequence at the end of the film.
All of that stuff is just tedious.
When of course the real payoffin that film is that they're able
to contain that power source whenthey all hold hands together.

(55:25):
So that's James Gunn's real concern there.
And that's where the film works.
The best, the giant.
City invading sequence, which iscompletely generic and could be
swapped in for Thor the Dark WorldFor example is not as impressive.
Then came the, I think not as bad aseverybody says it was, Age of Ultron I

(55:46):
think the Ultron character is importantto think about this thing that Tony
Stark is Battling in his own mind allthe time and how that over vigilance that
over policing could have catastrophicConsequences So I think that there's
something interesting thematicallywith , what they do with Age of Ultron.

(56:07):
And it's not as bad aseverybody says it is.
I want to call something else out herethat this is Joss Whedon again, directing,
speaking to the accidental developmentof this world building of the MCU.
Another big mistake with the recentMCU versus the original cycle of films.
Some of these films are good, someof these films are bad, but we care

(56:28):
about all the characters, even inthe films we don't really care about.
We don't care about Thor 2, butwe care about Thor, so we watch.
Another thing is that, yes, there isthe whole Infinity Stone saga beginning
In the background, it's in the bonusscenes, it's not baked into the plot.
And the more it gets baked intobig chunks of the film proper, the

(56:50):
less interesting the films become.
So the more they start to createthis assembly line production
of these series and these films,The worst the product becomes.
The end of this phase two, by theway, after Age of Ultron is the
first Ant Man movie, which onceagain, I have a soft spot for.
First of all, I thought it was smartfor them to try to make a family film.

(57:12):
It shows that they don't have toonly appeal to this older audience.
I think it's the onlyPG rated film of these.
And also because my daughter lovedthis one as well when she was younger.
So it's just something wewatched over and over again.
I liked the whole dynamic between,well, Rod and his daughter.
And for me, they keep succeeding here.
Captain America Civil War.
I know a lot of peopledon't love this film.

(57:34):
I love this film.
I think that that battle inthe airport is fantastic.
I think there's real stakes here.
I like how low key the battle is atthe end The stakes are that this
friendship is ending, and how it couldbe cataclysmic for these characters, even
though the stakes are relatively small.
And Anthony and Joe Russo directing again,so they know how to make these films.

(57:57):
They haven't had a great track recordsince leaving the MCU, but they worked
really well under the Marvel umbrella.
And I also like the next film,Doctor Strange, which was
another financial success.
I think it was the highestgrossing, at the time, standalone
superhero, non Avengers film.
And once again, I think there'speople who don't like this one.
I loved the trippy,psychedelic visuals of this.

(58:21):
I like the villains, multiple villainshere at the end of the film itself.
I like how Dr.
Strange resolves thisimpossible situation at the end.
I love the effects where time is travelingbackwards and forward at the same time.
Some objects are travelingbackwards, some are forwards.
It's so cleverly designed.
Really check out the lasthalf hour of this film if you
haven't revisited it in a while.

(58:42):
I think we don't get anything that cleverin any of the most recent Marvel products.
But as I mentioned, people love it.
are ding both of these projects,even though I'm big fans of them.
But then Guardians of the Galaxy2, most people don't like this.
I don't like it.
I think this was a prettyterrible movie, to be honest.
There's, I don't, just fromscene to scene, I don't know what
they're introducing new characters.

(59:02):
They might get spin offmovies they never did.
, there's this old space force andsome drama going on with them.
And, uh, you know, we have thereunion reunion of, um, Peter and
his dad and that kind of works.
But I mean, other thanintroducing some new.
Fun characters most of this is terriblelike really one of the worst for me of
the Marvel films But it made a lot ofmoney, by the way This is just to speak

(59:25):
to the fact that at this moment even whenpeople complained that Doctor Strange
wasn't great Even when people didn'tlike Guardians of Galaxy 2 as much as 1
they were still making hugeAnd then another film I really
love, Spider Man Homecoming.
I love the villain in this film.
Great villain.
I love the final confrontation.
I like these personal stakes.

(59:46):
I like making it feel like a JohnHughes film very intentionally.
I love this Spider Man, thisversion of the character.
I love this film.
So I think Homecoming is a realclassic and anyone who complains
about it, I think some peoplestill do think it's not that great.
Just think of what a huge boonthis was because when they
culminated this on No Way Home.

(01:00:07):
They have a, one of the highestgrossing films in history, right?
, and it all started here.
This is a terrific film, in my opinion.
Thor Ragnarok follows thatup, and this is a really heat
streak they're going on here.
Thor Ragnarok, a huge hit, the biggestof the Thor films, a lot of fun.
Once again, allowing themselves to get asweird as they want, hiring a very unique

(01:00:28):
voice, and giving him a lot of control.
And, uh, And the film is a hugefinancial success, but not as big a
financial success as the next film,which is Black Panther, which makes 1.
4 billion, 1.
4 billion, an enormous successand a great villain in this one.
Great world building, uh, AcademyAward winning costume and an art

(01:00:53):
direction, understandably becausethis is very convincing that
technology and how this world worksis so well and cleverly defined.
The hits keep coming.
Avengers.
Infinity War makes well over $2 billion.
A shocking ending there, althoughwe know it's a cliffhanger.
The Russo Brothers back again, and atthis point things are going so well that

(01:01:14):
even weaker projects do have some prettymassive grosses, Antman and the Wasp.
Not very good film, nonetheless,makes around 700 or $800
million somewhere around there.
And then Captain Marvel, which Ithink is a pretty terrible film.
The first one.
And let's not even talk about thesecond one yet, but the first one.
I think it's pretty terrible.
It made over a billion dollars.

(01:01:35):
Anything they put the Marvelbrand on, was a huge hit.
And then this cycle ends with AvengersEndgame, which for a period of time was
the highest grossing film of all times.
Once again, eclipsed by Avatar,thanks to one of its reissues.
And then Spider Man Far From Home,, which for my money is not a good film.
As much as I loved Homecoming,this is exactly the type of project

(01:01:57):
where I feel like there is toomuch connective tissue in the film
trying to build it into the MCU.
And there's no clean, rivetingcentral story to pull you through.
The villain is pretty goodhere, I'd have to say, but this
film should have been better.
And so much, this is the whole last halfpractically of this film, all of these

(01:02:21):
giant battle sequences and destroyingthese landmarks, which is so generic
at this point, just is not impressiveanymore and not convincing oftentimes.
The actual special effectsthemselves don't look that good
oftentimes, maybe because they'rejust churning out so many films.
But so much of these films just stophaving any personal character or
any compelling reason to, for youto watch, for me anyway, to watch.

(01:02:45):
But oh, things wereabout to get much worse.
Three huge things happened here.
First, the pandemic, which makespeople wary of going to theaters,
and that disrupts this loveaffair with Marvel to some extent.
The second thing that happensis that Marvel starts to produce
TV shows on Disney plus as well.
The focus really becomes Disney plusand growing the streaming service.

(01:03:07):
And there's such a fixation with takingthings that were supposed to be movies
and putting them onto TV and vice versa.
Some of these things become moviesthat were developed for TV and then
they feel like TV in real life.
the movie theaters.
So that's a huge problem.
But beyond that, the expectationsthat the franchise, these films are
going to continue to make 2 billion,when it was the buildup to that

(01:03:29):
culmination point, the infinity warcycle was built up a little by little.
And as I forgot to mention earlier thatThanos himself had been introduced, the
infinity stones were introduced as a joke.
Practically Joss Whedon, Joe shot thebonus scene with Thanos without even

(01:03:49):
telling Marvel he was planning to do it.
He's like, I'm going to just throwthis in there as an Easter egg.
And then Feige was saying, Oh,Kevin Feige, the head of the marvel
brain trust head producer, butlike, Hey, let's build on that.
Let's bring in the infinity stones.
And then as they kept adding theseEaster eggs, , they put the Easter eggs
first and then they how are we goingto connect these things to each other?
And then they started to developthis broader story, but it was always

(01:04:12):
happening in the background whenthere was already a predefined script.
But then as they got closer to culminatingthe storyline, Those things started to
become more and more central to the plot,mostly only in those Avengers films.
And then they wrapped up that storyline.
And as I mentioned, the pandemichits, they are now out of

(01:04:32):
ideas with the infinity stones.
Let's pivot to a new storyline,the multiverse, perhaps.
And then of course, it's going to bethe Kang storyline, which of course,
disastrously, that didn't pan out.
We'll get around to that in a moment.
They're spreading themselves too thin.
Simultaneously, if the special effectsalready were starting to look shoddy
when they're making two or threemovies a year, now they have to churn

(01:04:55):
out many, many hours of television.
And the movies as well.
They're spreading all theirtalent too thin, all their
writing staff, all this plotting.
If you are going to make the storylinecentral to the TV shows and the movies
and baking them into the plot so tightly,you're expecting that everyone's going

(01:05:16):
to have a Disney plus subscription.
I mean, that would be great if youcould predict that, but especially
internationally where Disney plus wasn'teven available for a period of time.
How do you make it essential to watch ashow that most people can't even watch?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then expect that they're goingto follow along these movies.
They were too cocky in their planning.
And most importantly, the Avengersfilms were massive because

(01:05:38):
we love these characters andwe'd known them for 10 years.
We had spent 10 years with thesecharacters, watching these stories.
And all of a sudden.
We are losing most of the core Avengersare gone and the remaining ones, the
two that remain primarily are onlywilling to have limited appearances.

(01:05:58):
I'll star in one movie and I'lldo cameos in two others, but the
Avengers as a unit don't even existanymore because most of them are dead
or out of the franchises at least.
And somehow they're going toconvince us to spend two billion
dollars on new characters that aregetting introduced in the moment?
All of this is a massive miscalculation.

(01:06:20):
And it shows in the box office results.
Coming off the pandemic, theyput out a Black Widow movie.
They are so out of ideas to a large extentthat they are basically making a prequel.
And what short shrift for Black Widowto finally give her a movie when her
characters passed away from the franchise.
Spoiler alert.
They have a, for me, veryentertaining Shang Chi film.

(01:06:41):
But honestly, as compelling as thatfilm is, the action sequences are great.
The family dynamic is terrific.
The special effects are pretty impressive.
The mythology, the comedyin it, all pretty strong.
Shang Chi is the leastcompelling aspect to it.
No shade on Simu Liu, but theydidn't do a great job of making

(01:07:03):
me want to think that he could bethe next Tony Stark, for example.
So maybe that will develop over time,but Where are the next class of Avengers
that we're going to be cheering for?
They're definitely not in thenext film on our list here.
The Eternals, an utter disaster.
Oh, and I want to call out that DestinDaniel Cretton, who directed Shang

(01:07:24):
Chi internally, they were so happywith the success of that production
that he was at one time going todirect the next Avengers film, which
of course ended up not panning out.
Now it may be the Russo Brothers again,the very talented Chloe Zao makes the
absolutely terrible eternals other thanthis movie looking absolutely great.
What a mess.
This script makes no sense at all.

(01:07:46):
And again, where are theygoing with this new storyline?
All is forgiven momentarily when SpiderMan No Way Home comes out, which I
have some issues with the ending ofthat film, some logical issues there.
But what an enormous financial success,and it's one of the highest grossing
films of all times, playing on theaffinity for the new character plus the

(01:08:08):
nostalgia for the previous Spider Man.
They follow that up with Doctor Strange.
In the multiverse of madness, a filmthat I enjoy because it feels like a
Sam Raimi movie, and I'm a fan of SamRaimi, but for people who don't like Sam
Raimi and don't like horror, they feltturned off by this film, a film that
nonetheless made almost a billion dollars.
So lest we forget that thesefilms are still very successful.

(01:08:30):
At least at that momentthough our love thunder.
Also, I feel like it was rejectedby audiences a little too harshly.
I don't think it was as good asthe previous one, but I didn't
think it was terrible either.
And still, once again, very successfulwith over $800 million at the box office.
But obviously people werestarting to sour even as they
were continuing to see the films.

(01:08:51):
And we see that again withanother tragedy that strikes.
They had been so lucky for so long, theMCU, that these projects had come in
mostly on budget, mostly succeeded at thebox office, and the highs were so high.
And now they start to feel likethey're missing not only Dr.
Strange, audiences not so happywith that one, Thor even more

(01:09:12):
so, and then Black Panther, whichthe sequel, Wakanda forever.
Which I think is an absolute mess, isexactly the type of thing I'm complaining
about, that there are some reallyinteresting ideas in this film, there are
some really interesting action sequences,uh, some of the battle sequences
are the absolute best in the MCU.

(01:09:33):
And then you have this, let's just cut toWashington DC and this intermarital drama
that's going on, because we're tryingto introduce these villainous, super,
Powered people and what is going on?
How are they trying to shoehorn this intowhat should have been a slam dunk sequel?
And of course beyond anyone's controlis the fact chat Chadwick Boseman dies

(01:09:59):
and if you're going to have a newAvengers post the Avenger cycle your
absolute most popular hero and probablygoing to be a And the cornerstone or
one of the most important characters inthat new Avengers team up and he dies.
And now we have to make a sequelto this incredibly , popular

(01:10:19):
film without the lead.
Basically there's no Black Pantherin the Blank Panther movie.
It's like more about the , mythology, and picking the next Black Panther.
, but there's this gaping hole inthe center of the film itself.
And once again, this is something theycould have controlled, but it doesn't
help that they cannot get a clean winon any of these films in this cycle.

(01:10:39):
Oh, but it gets worse because now they'regoing to go build up to the Kang dynasty
as they're culminating Avengers film.
And that begins with introducingKang in Ant Man and the Wasp,
which is not successful.
Doesn't make money.
Doesn't lose money either.
Basically breaks even.
But to kick off this new supervillainthat's going to be the new Thanos and

(01:11:03):
people barely turn up for the film,this spoke to how fatigued people
were with comic books at this moment.
This is in 2023, the beginning of 2023.
This is around the time that, forexample, Shazam, the first film, had
made 500 million The follow-up made $150million, and also in the DCU Aquaman,

(01:11:24):
for example, had made $1.1 billion wherethe follow-up made only 300 and change.
So the fatigue around the comicbook properties was everywhere.
And of course it impacted Marvelas well, but there were still
highlights, guardians of the Galaxy.
Volume three last year was a financialsuccess and a strong film, mostly

(01:11:44):
because it has barely any connectivityto any future plans for the MCU.
And all for the better.
And the film was a huge financialsuccess as well, by their
standards at this point anyway.
But not so much with the final film here.
We'll discuss The Marvels, whichwas an absolute financial disaster.
A film that presumed thatthe audience had all seen Ms.

(01:12:07):
Marvel, a series that Ienjoyed, by the way, and Ms.
Marvel played by Iman Valani is by farthe most entertaining aspect of the
film, but the assumption that people weregoing to know who these characters were,
characters that had been introduced ordeveloped in their TV properties, this was

(01:12:27):
an incredible act of hubris, assuming thateverybody was on board for all of this.
And I think they paid the price.
The film was a disaster.
It has some fun parts, the powerswapping, and some of the really fun
aspects of the film, to imagine that theyhad spent well over 200 million on this,
to be successful, it should have been astraight to Disney Plus feature, uh, film.

(01:12:51):
Like one of these specials they did,like Werewolf at Night, which is a lot
of fun, by the way, or the Guardiansof the Galaxy Christmas Special,
which is also very entertaining.
It should have been something likethat, and should have been done on
a budget was equivalent to that.
To spend well over 200 million, and thenwith marketing and advertising around
500 million on this film, which is soslight, uh, it was just another disaster.

(01:13:17):
And it showed the peoplejust didn't turn up.
And of course, the overall fatiguewith, you know, Comic books and,
and the MCU in general didn't help.
And that's not even to speak ofthe TV series, which, honest, which
honestly, other than Wand Vissionwas a hit, a huge hit and a success.
Most of the, it was a successfrom my point of view.

(01:13:37):
And then Loki, which at leastin season one, was excellent.
Season two.
More uneven but ended very stronglyand by the way was where they wrapped
up the Kang story they probablyneeded some reshoots here given the
fact that once again bad luck strikesagain Jonathan Majors was so important
to this entire cycle of films wasarrested and found guilty , of assault.

(01:14:02):
Their luck ran out.
Fortuitously, to an extent, JonathanMajor's situation allowed them to put
the brakes on the Kang Dynasty plans.
They reshot a lot of the projects thatwere in place that Captain America film
has been reshot at least twice at thispoint and pushed out an entire year.
But maybe they're lucky.

(01:14:22):
Now they get to just tell stories.
This Wolverine film, in a way, is amoment to completely reset and pivot
away from what they were doing before.
And as I mentioned at the start ofthis whole entire monologue, it's
interesting that this project thatwas so inconsequential, on the page
has now become incredibly important.

(01:14:44):
It needs to be a hit and it almostcertainly will be, but it also
allows the MCU to pivot, bring inthe mutants and the fantastic four
characters from the box propertiesalong with the Deadpool character.
It's just quite a fascinating turnof events for this entire franchise.

(01:15:04):
And maybe now, also, a lot ofthese TV series, by the way,
which have been very unsuccessful,aside from Loki and WandaVision, I
mean, holy cow, secret invasion.
What an absolute.
An utter catastrophe of one of the worstthings I've seen on TV in a long time.
And just the fact that that isgetting produced and they can't

(01:15:27):
prevent it from coming out.
Like how did they not know that was nota complete another fiasco and rather than
Disney pushing them to put out more andmore and more content and it's costing
more and more and more to make thisproduct and it's failing their failure
in a way allowed them to hit the brakes.
and reset.
So this could all be for the best.

(01:15:47):
And, um, I actually feel like this,they are going to be smart enough
to be able to reset now , afterthis Deadpool Wolverine film.
And they have characters thatare fantastic for an X Men
that comic book fans and justpeople in general really love.
Maybe while they develop thisnext class of Avengers, they can
develop this Fantastic Four andX Men side franchise as well.

(01:16:11):
I look forward to it.
I would love to see them haveanother high point like that
Avengers Infinity Cycle culmination.
All right, that's my long discourseon the MCU, and I have more comic book
related things to say in regards toThe boys, the finale of season four
and how it teases big, big happenings.
Finally, I think on that show, becausefor me, it's been dragging on for

(01:16:34):
a couple of years now, but some bighappenings, I'm very intrigued by
what is to come in the next season.
And I'll have that commentary sometimenext week until then, take care.
I'll talk to you soon.

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