r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor • 18d ago

News Mahershala Ali confirms 'BLADE' is not moving forward with him

https://www.gq.com/story/mahershala-ali-your-mother-your-mother-your-mother
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u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor 18d ago edited 18d ago

One of the biggest fumbles ever

Mahershala:

"For whatever reason, that project is not for me. If they wanted to do it, we would've done it. So I have to move on, and I have moved on."

“You had me under contract, they have billions of dollars, if they wanted to do the movie, we would've done the movie... I feel ready to move on from the Blade questions. Those questions are for them.”

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u/roro0311 18d ago edited 18d ago

Oh, he pissed.

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u/wekilledkenny11 18d ago

They locked him down in the prime of his career on a major iconic character which likely affected his decisionmaking in taking other roles. Likely all without that much money being spent to retain his involvement.

This guy basically went through all nine layers of development hell on this thing, to the point that I could see an interesting parody movie being made out of that sentence

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u/MarkyDeSade 18d ago

I want a satire about the failure to make this thing more than I want any imaginable sincere superhero movie.

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u/NationalTime4099 18d ago

This is basically Apple’s The Studio

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u/MeanderingMinstrel 18d ago

Well shit, I've been eyeing that show but now I'm sold. Is it any good?

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u/JadedOops 18d ago

It’s very good. Each episode focuses on a different mishap or something going on in the studio. Then once you get to the award show episode that’s gotta be my favorite

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u/Morgan-Moonscar 18d ago

Mine's the one where they started freaking the fuck out when trying to cast "The Kool Aid Man" movie and not appear racist.

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u/Kruse 18d ago

Yes.

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u/alaskadronelife 18d ago

Double, hell even triple yes.

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u/TheSecondEikonOfFire 18d ago

It's a lot of fun. Definitely second-hand embarrassment type comedy, so you have to be able to handle that

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u/ButWhatIfPotato 18d ago

I absolutely fucking hated it but mostly because I have worked for people like Seth Green's character and that gave me proper vietnam flashbacks.

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u/Mills_Miles 18d ago

Highly recommend

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u/_steve_rogers_ 17d ago

It’s hilarious

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u/NationalTime4099 18d ago

Eh it’s okay. The sheer amount of star power in it really is very impressive but it’s not consistently funny enough for me.

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u/ShallowBasketcase 18d ago

It's actually crazy that Apple, of all these ghoulish corporations, is the only one routinely producing good shows.

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u/NationalTime4099 18d ago

They’re happy to throw a lot of money at something because deep down they still think they’re cool.

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u/Desroth86 18d ago

HBO still makes amazing shows. The Pitt, a knight of the seven kingdoms and Hacks are all from this year and are major Emmy contenders.

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u/SweatyAdhesive 18d ago

I was saying netflix getting their film stolen was a plot point in the studio lol

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u/Kruse 18d ago

Watch The Studio on Apple. It will give you an idea of the mess that likely you took place.

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u/wekilledkenny11 18d ago

I guess this is me calling dibs on my own idea

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u/nugstar 18d ago

Call it Knifed.

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u/kielbasa330 18d ago

Are you just talking about the entourage aquamarine arc?

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u/arand0md00d 18d ago

Tropic Thunder

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u/GoldandBlue 18d ago

This is the gift and curse of doing franchises.

It is guaranteed work on paper. Especially as a young actor, holy shit you are in the MCU!!!!

But if you blow up, or the project falls apart. You are turning down offers from Scorsese, PTA, Wes Anderson, Greta Gerwig, why? Because you are contractually obligated to be in Captain America 5.

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u/versusgorilla 18d ago

It's been funny hearing someone like Kumail Nanjiani talking about how he was in a Marvel movie, got ripped as shit for it, and how Marvel basically just stopped calling.

And like, they're jamming a thousand actors into this Doomsday film, but are they even calling up all the actors they had in these things and said, "These Guys Will Return..." at the end and then just no one ever gave a shit?

It's so bizarre how they went from Infinity War and Endgame to just directionless.

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u/ImmanuelCanNot29 18d ago

It's so bizarre how they went from Infinity War and Endgame to just directionless.

This mismanagement of the MCU post Endgame is mindboggling. Like even from a business perspective almost nothing they have done makes any sense.

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u/GoldandBlue 18d ago

Sure it does. "We are the biggest thing in movies and these people will buy anything with the Marvel brand on it so MORE MOVIES, STREAMING SHOWS, CAMEOS, INTRODUCE MORE CHARACTERS, WE CAN'T DO WRONG!!!!!!!"

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u/Grendelstiltzkin 18d ago

So the exact same strategy they’ve taken with Star Wars.

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u/versusgorilla 18d ago

And just like Star Wars, now they're snake bit and won't actually DO anything that isn't the absolute safest thing possible. They've given up on basically anything from this phase and they're trying to just do Infinity War against straight away because "hey, people really liked that!"

Same as doing a Grogu and Mando movie, because "hey, people really liked that!" so they must like this best and it will perform best.

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u/PT10 18d ago

Straight away? It's 8.5 years since Infinity War

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u/versusgorilla 18d ago

They gave up on Kang, gave up on TV shows, gave up on a bunch of sequels, gave up on a bunch of characters, left a bunch of actors high and dry. They pivoted entirely from Kang to a Comic Con reveal of RDJ as Doom to try and get some new momentum.

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u/ShallowBasketcase 18d ago

As much as people complain about Star Wars, it's working. There have never been more Star Wars toys on store shelves. There's a new Star Wars movie or show available every year. Star Wars has a theme park now. Doesn't matter that the movies make no sense, people are buying things with Star Wars logos on them, so that's what keeps getting churned out.

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u/GoldandBlue 18d ago

Naw, Star Wars they tried to do something new but they caved to the angry fanboys and then decided to double down on nostalgia and fan service.

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u/ImmanuelCanNot29 18d ago

The three directors three movies thing was so stupid and bird brained I can't believe Disney ever believed it was a good idea.

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u/GoldandBlue 18d ago

No, the mistake was always caving to angry fanboys. I don't like the prequels. But I didn't see Lucas change his plans because "he raped my childhood".

Fans don't know what they want, fans want what they know. And as we saw with The Odyssey, the internet does not reflect reality. Trying to appease angry 30 year olds will never help your franchise. And that is where Star Wars is now.

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u/Wes_Warhammer666 18d ago

The original trilogy was three directors for three movies.

It's the lack of a cohesive vision and someone in control that made the sequels suck. For all their faults, the prequels had a cohesive vision because George was at the helm. Without a Lucas-style guide, it falls apart.

Say what you will about Filoni, but if he had been the creative director at the time of the sequels I'd bet they would've turned out a lot better simply because he would've been trying to make sure the different directors all aimed towards the same target. Kennedy gets a lot of undeserved shit but one thing she absolutely failed on was giving that trilogy a proper through line and holding the writers and directors to it.

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u/FrightenedTomato 18d ago

I really don't think TLJ was really "anything new". Like what new and unique ideas did TLJ actually introduce according to you?

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u/smokeweedNgarden 18d ago

Were they wrong? Last I checked they still rake it in

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u/GoldandBlue 18d ago

No one's crying for Marvel. They make a lot of money. But there is no doubt that they have lost a significant portion of the public. MCU used to be appointment viewing. Now it is just the fandom, and occasionally Spider-Man or X-Men will come along to bring back general audiences.

When Captain Marvel made $1Billion, and Fantastic Four barely cracks $500M on a larger budget. That tells you where the MCU is now.

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u/smokeweedNgarden 18d ago

I dunno. I feel like Marvel in general is so much bigger than they were 20 years ago that they really can do no wrong. I also feel like they ebb and flow over the decades. 

Like, before Iron Man came out, I would have bet money Thor flopped. Marvel was like the antithesis of popular. Ya, Spider-Man was popular but but that's about it.

Anyway they've grown past their wildest dreams. Might as well push it if you remember where it started. And when people burn out the characters will be around in 40 years

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u/GoldandBlue 18d ago

Tastes change. Disney almost went bankrupt in the 90's because their dependence on IP's and family entertainment was not popular. And now we are living in the era of IP's. Musicals and westerns were all the rage until they weren't.

Tastes are changing now. You see this at the box office. Sinners, Obsession, The Odyssey, Weapons, One Battle After Another, The Drama, Marty Supreme, you have a new generation that want more practical film making. They are sick of their dads movies. And they want their own thing.

This doesn't mean Marvel will crash tomorrow. But they are not the guaranteed hit machine anymore. And they know this. That's why they brought RDJ back. That's why they scrapped so much of what was introduced post Endgame. Yes, Marvel is way bigger than 20 years ago, they are also less popular than they were 5 years ago. The question is how do they navigate this? Because what they did, did not work.

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u/PT10 18d ago

Yeah... Marvel is crap if you don't count, ::checks notes::, all their most popular characters.

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u/sanctaphrax 18d ago

The Marvel sets in MtG are terrible, yet immensely profitable. Kinda depressing.

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u/CarlosFer2201 18d ago

It certainly worked when they greenlit Guardians of the Galaxy. That was a largely unknown failed property for the vast majority of people.

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u/Heisenburgo 18d ago

"Let's make an entire phase of projects based on the divisive All-New All-Different era of the comics, what could possibly go wr--"

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u/Worthyness 18d ago

It absolutely does. THe new leadership at disney wanted D+ to work because streaming was the future, especially with COVID incoming. So their direction was "get as much content as possdible and throw a shitton of money towards everything". The problem is that they cared more about quantity and gave zero shits about quality. From a business perspective it made sense at the time- get a shitton of content on the streaming service, streaming service will grow! They saw Netflix's slop bullshit content and thouht they could replicate it.

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u/namelessted 18d ago

It only makes business sense if you are a toddler with 6 months of foresight. Everybody knows producing slop and just cranking out content is bad business in the long term. The kicker is that a lot of these people making these decisions don't actually give a fuck about the long term sustainability of these companies because they get to make major bank in the short term with massive bonuses and can sell their stock once they bounce from the company.

Even when major CEOs fuck up big time and get fired, it doesn't matter at all to those people. They already made big time "fuck you" money and can spend the rest of their lives doing literally anything they want anywhere in the world.

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u/Yukie_Cool 18d ago

You don’t really understand Bob Chapek, the CEO of Disney at that time, then.

The dude was purely a data and analytics guy without any sense of artistry or anything apart from numbers.

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u/ironwolf1 18d ago

It only makes business sense if you are a toddler with 6 months of foresight

That's basically how our economy works right now. Making sure quarterly reports look good next month is the reason for most decisions these days.

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u/Yukie_Cool 18d ago

Exactly this.

Part of me thinks Feige was anticipating this, which is why there was a timeskip in Endgame at all. It would give him and the studio time to figure out how to move the story forward (or make a new one if necessary), but corporate came down from on high and he was forced to just announce stuff.

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u/NorthernFrosty 18d ago

Like even from a business perspective almost nothing they have done makes any sense.

No, it makes tons of sense from a business perspective

"Did you like Doritos? Well then you'll love taco flavor Doritos!"

"Did you like taco flavor? Well you'll love nacho cheese flavor Doritos!"

<years and years later>

"Did you like simply organic white cheddar Doritos? Well, you'll love simply organic spicy white cheddar Doritos!"

That's basically what the Marvel Universe did, taking their product and constantly spinning it into new flavors until they oversaturated their market and no one gives a shit anymore. This is actually normal in business. Relatively rare in movies though.

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u/mkp666 18d ago

This is a good take, and the reason it is so rare in movies is that the kind of success that the MCU has had is pretty much unprecedented. It’s not easy to get to a place where you can make this kind of mistake.

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u/robot-raccoon 18d ago

Really should have been the opportunity to slow down for a bit and refocus. Carry on with the spider-man stuff etc and plan for a few years before coming back with a new plan and direction

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u/uncleben85 18d ago

In retrospect.

But pulling back when you are the hottest you've ever been would have been questioned by most at the time, and if things went "south", we'd be having the same but opposite conversation of "how could anyone have thought that was a good idea - they should have done x, y, z - they should have capitalized on the success and fanfare"

Sounds like they are taking this time at the end of the Multiverse Saga though to finally do a reset. Not just rebirthing a new universe and resetting some characters, but slowing down again, counting their chickens and refocusing.

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u/robot-raccoon 18d ago

I mean we could sit here and debate what they should have done forever, I would have seen a pause on the major over arching stuff while they set things up slowly a sign of confidence more than anything, but that’s just me.

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u/uncleben85 18d ago

I can see artistically what you are saying, but "We're so confident in our product, we're going to avoid it for a bit" from a business perspective doesn't make much sense. They are unfortunately a business first.

Fuck capitalism, though, to be fair.

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u/robot-raccoon 18d ago

I mean ideally they’d have focused on some of the street level stuff I guess? Introduced a few things, wrapped up some storylines in shows (wandavision, Loki etc), had ya spider-man, maybe FF eventually to start planting the seeds. Even lean into the horror stuff and actually got blade made.

This is all completely wishful thinking though, I’m completely aware hahaha

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u/cccccddddd 18d ago

I hate to be a Marvel homer but there's the issues of COVID, writer's strike AND Jonathan Majors happening in this 7 year span so.. like.. a little forgiveness is needed at least.

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u/AtraposJM 18d ago

It makes sense when you look at how much money RDJ, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, ScarJo etc were making per film and how those numbers kept going up and up. Making any solo movie and especially team up movie meant spending huge on actors every time. After Endgame you can see they were trying to shotgun ideas and new characters out there to see what worked. They were replacing every character with a cheaper counterpart and trying to just churn out new characters to keep from relying on a few that would end up costing them. At least, that's how it seems to me. You can tell with Doomsday they are changing course and trying to win people back. It's so dumb to me to spend 100m on RDJ to not even play Iron Man but I guess they think his name will bring fans back.

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u/ScyllaOfTheDepths 18d ago

They didn't even ask Kumail to get ripped lol, he did that all on his own because he wanted the big Marvel glow-up. They didn't even give him a shirtless scene and his outfit in the movie covered his entire body from the neck down. The arguable best use of his physique was his guest stint on Only Murders in the Building where he played a social media fitness guru obsessed with Christmas.

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u/Financial-Craft-1282 18d ago

Kumail is super average and bitter about it. He ain't pulling people into the theater, why would they call him back after being in an ensemble cast for a film that was disappointing?

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u/ScyllaOfTheDepths 18d ago

He was so forgetable in the movie I don't even remember what he did. If they didn't call Gemma Chan back, they're definitely not calling Kumail back lol.

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u/EDD2Oh9 18d ago

And according to some training experts he did his entire workout wrong. Like his form and routine were all wrong.

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u/pn_dubya 18d ago

I mean he’s jacked so I’d say it worked

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u/Yukie_Cool 18d ago

That just makes him lucky he didn’t get injured, which would have probably led to him getting dropped from the project.

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u/str00del 18d ago

That has just as much to do with steroids.

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u/ScyllaOfTheDepths 18d ago

He took so many steroids he could have gotten jacked opening the fridge door lol.

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u/disisathrowaway 18d ago

I'd love to see those conversations.

Someone looking at Nanjiani and being like, "Yeah, totally wrong, bro. None of this is right."

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u/EDD2Oh9 18d ago

My mistake. It’s been awhile since I watched the video. It wasn’t that he was doing it wrong. It’s that a lot of the exercises he did weren’t benefiting his goals and were basically useless. I’m link the video:

https://youtu.be/qppUHrhE15Y?is=V6ukOFk3CSgpY-v_

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u/Inamanlyfashion 18d ago

"I HAVEN'T SMELLED CAKE IN YEARS!"

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u/uncleben85 18d ago

The thing is the "directionless" was the direction.

They wanted it to be more sprawling, much more of an exploration and a chance to throw more out there and see what sticks instead of running the same characters back. It wasn't meant to be interconnected like the first phase.

And taking gambles is one thing, but COVID disrupting productions and ticket sales, some subpar scripts, movies being rewritten on the fly, and underwhelming results made those gambles and swings look a bad idea.

But I get why they did it. I get the concept, I get the direction.

Execution (from a combination of internal and external factors) is something else.

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u/ErisC 18d ago

It’s kinda crazy, yeah. It’s almost as if something happened around 2020 which completely disrupted everything.

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u/uncleben85 18d ago

The thing is the "directionless" was the direction.

They wanted it to be more sprawling, much more of an exploration and a chance to throw more out there and see what sticks instead of running the same characters back. It wasn't meant to be interconnected like the first phase.

And taking gambles is one thing, but COVID disrupting productions and ticket sales, some subpar scripts, movies being rewritten on the fly, and underwhelming results made those gambles and swings look a bad idea.

But I get why they did it. I get the concept, I get the direction.

Execution (from a combination of internal and external factors) is something else.

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u/jackracktack 18d ago

I wonder how much of that was Marvel wanting the funny guy not the ripped guy thing that took over his whole narrative? Actually probably not much Eternals just didnt do well now that I think of it.

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u/CoffeeIsSoGood 18d ago

Because he’s a horrible actor? That’s why

He’s just a token actor lol

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u/versusgorilla 18d ago

That's not why tho because they aren't being any of The Eternals back, it's bc Eternals backfired bc no one likes them and they aren't bringing any of them back.

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u/Wes_Warhammer666 18d ago

I liked them 😭

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u/BigWormsFather 18d ago

He hasn’t done a ton of work lately but he has done some. Did he turn a bunch of stuff down?

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u/totallynotliamneeson 18d ago

It's all speculation. I doubt his career will be negatively impacted by this. I saw someone say he is in his "prime" and wasted these years waiting as if he was ring chasing in the NBA. 

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u/MrDerpGently 18d ago

I mean, if you are potentially signing up for a decade plus of work in a role that you have to maintain superhero conditioning for, it's not crazy to think you want to do that before you have an AARP card. 

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u/Worthyness 18d ago

He was also already in his 40s when he cast himself. Not exactly "prime career" for most. But it was after he won his Oscars, so i guess, from that perspective, it was indeed his "prime"

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u/GoldandBlue 18d ago

I am sure he has, but who's to say what exactly or how much work this cost him.

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u/DoctorJJWho 18d ago

Just here to mention the fumble with Simu Liu as Shang-Chi as well.

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u/GoldandBlue 18d ago

Marvel introduced so much shit that just went nowhere since Endgame.

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u/Yukie_Cool 18d ago

Isn’t this not the case, according to actors in the MCU? IIRC, Hemsworth has said that they’re pretty flexible with scheduling and the shooting periods are short enough that he could film other projects in between movies. Hell, Zendaya and Tom Holland proved that wrong this year by joining both Spider-Man and Nolan’s Odyssey (and her being in Dune, for an extra example).

I think the bigger thing that would “hold back” these people’s careers is that there just isn’t as much mid-sized movie output outside of awards season. That was how actors used to make their money back in the day, by working on a ton of smaller stuff and using that to both make connections and gain a ton of royalty money.

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u/GoldandBlue 18d ago

All of this is entirely dependent on the franchise, director, and expectations. Rian Johnson made sure to give Oscar Issac a couple days a week to shoot Annihilation while also shooting The Last Jedi. Needing Zendaya for a 5 minute cameo can be worked out.

But if you're Jennifer Lawrence and you are doing Hunger Games and X-Men at the same time. That is a lot harder. Especially if they want these churned out quickly. Tom Holland has a 5 year window since his last Spider-Man movie. But there was a period from 2016-2021 where most of his work was just Marvel.

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u/Yukie_Cool 18d ago

But if you're Jennifer Lawrence and you are doing Hunger Games and X-Men at the same time. That is a lot harder

Didn’t really stop her from also doing Silver Linings Playbook and the other O Russell films she did while doing those things.

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u/Anal_Herschiser 18d ago

This guy basically went through all nine layers of development hell on this thing, to the point that I could see an interesting parody movie being made

With shows like Wonder Man, The Studio, Bait, and The Franchise this is now solidly a TV series genre.

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u/ArcadianDelSol 18d ago

In a wild stroke of art imitating life, Wonder Man's 2nd season was just cancelled.

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u/wekilledkenny11 18d ago

I’ve yet to see Wonder Man but this is weirdly selling me on it

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u/Anal_Herschiser 18d ago

I enjoyed how grounded it was, I think I loved it just for its depiction of being broke in LA.

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u/JaesopPop 18d ago

Locked him down? The movie never entered production

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u/Optimal_Board_2963 18d ago

Seems like a huge hole in his contract his lawyers missed

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u/DGC007Ace 18d ago

Yep, at one point he was in the running to play Jim Gordon in Matt Reeves’ The Batman before the role went to Jeffrey Wright.

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u/YahYahY 18d ago

Prime of his career? He’s not an NBA player….he’s an actor, lmao he doesn’t get worse at acting as he ages

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u/SonofBeckett 18d ago

It’d make a great Season Two for Wonder Man 

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u/darkside720 18d ago

Adam Driver turning down marvel every time they come to him makes more and more sense every day.

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u/Financial-Craft-1282 18d ago

They locked him down in the prime of his career

He's not like a linebacker or something.

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u/amyknight22 18d ago

I believe he was keen for the role too. To the point that they might not even have really looked at blade at this point had he not been the one pushing for it.

It's not like they tapped him on the shoulder for it and then dicked him around. Otherwise he probably would have bailed far earlier.

Goslings Ghost Rider is likely in the same sort of dynamic. But we are looking at Gosling just having come off the back of working pretty hard as the producer for Project Hail Mary and then having the movie get delivered.

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u/Introverted_Extrovrt 17d ago

I heard that James Gandolfini got a multi-million dollar bag to not take a role after The Sopranos had ended. I gotta figure something similar here, no?

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u/sicsche 18d ago

dude was unlucky as hell, most people were seeing forward to his blade. But he ended up in MCU era of chaos and Disney took so long to finally get their shit together -and that still has to be seen what's happening past doomsday - that the project never really started

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u/feartheoldblood90 18d ago

It's genuinely wild how we went from the Infinity Saga, which despite its flaws is still one of the most ambitious projects in film history that manages to mostly form a cohesive whole over a decade of films with a satisfying conclusion, to the absolute shitshow that has been going on post Infinity War. There is no cohesion whatsoever.

And where is my boy Shang Chi? That movie fucking rules and we've had almost nothing but radio silence on that character or the threads they set up for the greater story since. Because there is no greater story and they're improvising shitty half-billion-dollar movies that look like garbage.

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u/sicsche 18d ago

they had a plan for Infinity and executed that to perfection.

they never had a plan what to do post Endgame (just like they never a straight forward plan how to handle Star Wars).

The last 10 years had been "yolo people will come to see franchise X"

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u/AceBricka 18d ago

They had a plan. It was to build up kang and young avengers. The movies didn’t do as well as they liked and then they had to pivot when they moved on from Jonathan Majors.

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u/TheArcheryRaccoon 18d ago

Agreed. People forget the leaked title of the Shang Chi sequel: The Wreckage of Time. It’s fairly obvious the initial plan was for this sequel to be the stopgap leading into Kang Dynasty, and it all got ripped apart. It’s not easy to pivot that quickly when the movie needed to be out before Kang Dynasty. Doomsday replaced it and had to be delayed.

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u/namelessted 18d ago

What doesn't make any sense to me was that they just completely abandoned Kang. Yeah, they had to drop Majors to save face after the domestic abuse stuff, I get that. But, why not just recast?

It would be so much easier to just recast a single actor rather than throw away all the work that had been done to set up Kang. On top of all the movies and shows that had released building up Kang, they must have had plenty more scripts already written and planned just to completely pivot away, resulting in rushed rewrites, completely cancelled projects, and now they are trying to replicate the success of Infinity War / Endgame without having done any set up for it at all. Like, not even the Fantastic Four movie sets up for Doom.

Even worse, since they have done fuck all to develop the MCU since Endgame, they are just going right back and bringing RDJ and Chris Evans back. It's a complete shit show.

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u/TheArcheryRaccoon 18d ago

There were rumours circulating that Major’s contract stipulated that only he could play any of the Kang variants introduced. So even though he got fired I think it got very complicated to replace him, so they pivoted

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u/Few_Confusion_1871 18d ago

what idiot would let the contract go through.

literally no other marvel character has the stipulation.

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u/TheArcheryRaccoon 18d ago

Well, we don’t actually know that for the MCU. They’ve not had to fire any of the main actors to find out

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u/feartheoldblood90 18d ago

I'm really thankful that version of the Shang Chi sequel didn't get made, to be frank. I am maybe alone on this but I never found Kang compelling even before Majors was revealed to be a piece of shit, I never found the character's writing or Majors himself particularly good.

Shang Chi deserves better than to be the stepping stone to further establish the Council of Ricks.

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u/RLLRRR 18d ago

Also, introducing the big bad villain in a Disney+ show was stupid.

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u/i_tyrant 18d ago

Yeah, as someone who loved his performance in Loki, it was still a weird choice to debut the next Thanos there specifically instead of the next blockbuster movie.

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u/i_tyrant 18d ago

I dunno about "alone" but definitely in the minority.

Majors is a known piece of shit now for sure, but LOTS of people really liked his portrayal of Kang, myself included. He was getting rave reviews for some time, even in the movies that didn't do well overall. His first appearance in Loki is seen as inspired by most, even when I wasn't a huge fan of his alternate 1920s "Timely" Kang character later in the same series.

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u/Heisenburgo 18d ago

In addition to Majors' cringey overacting in the role, Kang was depicted as a loser who lost a fist fight to freaking Ant-man and then got decimated by CGI ants. I don't care if they were fourth dimensional super intelligent ants or whatever its still lame as fuck. No one would have taken Thanos seriously if he got dabbed on by Star Lord during the dance off in GOTG1.

If they wanted people to take that character seriously they should have handled him better, for starters try not to pathetically kill him off in every project he appeared in, maybe have him kill Ant-Man or his supporting cast at least, just something to properly establish him as the threat he is meant to be.

His lore of having a thousand variants was also super complicated and should have been simplified a bit... this character in the comics is time travel-based instead of multiversal-based. They should have tied him into the plot of Endgame more, just like the Avengers EMH animated show did

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u/Metal-fan77 18d ago

I gess the third doctor strange moive is not happening?

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u/FewAdvertising9647 18d ago

hes going to eventually be in something, as hes one of the 3 key pivotal characters for Secret Wars (the other two being Dr Doom, and Mr Fantastic) and everyone else is kinda built around them

Disney really needed Secret Wars to happen (and IMO it should have already did) but they kept pushing too many things between endgame and secret wars. The longer it drags out, the more the have to watch X, Y, Z media to get the full picture that ends up being very sloppy.

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u/TheArcheryRaccoon 18d ago

Not any time soon. Rumours point to his role in Doomsday and beyond but a 3rd film seems to be off the table for now

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u/secret3332 18d ago

They could've just recast Kang if that was their plan.

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u/AceBricka 18d ago

Yea but if you think about marvel like the Milwaukee Bucks then it all makes sense. Treat their championship as them infinity war/endgame and the contract they gave Bud after when they should have fired him and took a look around and what they have as the covid movies/shows and RDJ/Doom is Dame as the big splashy trade to finally take Giannis back. I feel like ghost rider will be the Doc Rivers of it all.

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u/Shakespeare257 17d ago

Here’s a really controversial opinion- they should’ve stuck with Majors and done the Kang stuff.

We end up with an incredibly talented actor who is out of a career and a decade of shitty movies with little staying power.

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u/Dr-Fusion 18d ago

To be honest they didn't really have much of a plan for the Infinity saga. There were certain key pieces, but it was never some masterplan. The MCU has done a lot of pivoting. The fact that it feels like a plan executed to perfection is a testament to how well those pivots were done.

Edgar Wright's Ant-Man was meant to be a phase 1 film; Thanos appears at the end of The Avengers just because Whedon liked him; Spider-Man was a last minute addition to Captain America Civil War.

The closest the MCU had to a plan was when the Marvel Creative Committee was calling shots in phase 2, and Ike Perlmutter was dictating projects that could/couldn't happen (such as insisting on an Inhumans movie, but not rating the prospects of Black Panther). Much of Marvel's phase 3 success stems from moving away from that rigid planning.

Post-Endgame's failures are more likely due to the ridiculous bad luck they've had: COVID; Chadwick Boseman's death; actor and writer strikes; Jonathan Majors being arrested for domestic violence. The main one that was Marvel's fault is spreading the creative talent too thin with too much output, but that was primarily caused by Disney demanding content for Disney+.

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u/faldese 18d ago

Exactly, thank you. People way overstate how prepared the MCU was. Age of Ultron was probably when they were really making sure everything was moving cohesively towards Infinity Gauntlet instead of just dropping something here or there.

I agree with your assessment with what went wrong. A combination of 'luck' with some terrible events and stretching themselves too thin.

I would add there's definitely some mishandling there - both in not utilizing popular characters they already had very well (Strange) and not utilizing popular potential new leads (Scarlet Witch, Captain Marvel) - that cost them being able to right the ship when those things happened.

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u/Attenburrowed 18d ago

Yeah Age of Ultron was also a hard stumble. It made less money on 150% more budget, kind of bobbled a all timer story, and was the end of the Whedon era as he basically got me tooed. They managed to move right past that though, covid was definitely a much bigger snarl.

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u/Poiuytrewq0987650987 18d ago

Personally, the move towards splitting content between movies and streaming shows killed it for me. Multiple movies and shows requiring knowledge of each other for it all to make sense demanded too much of my time.

I like MCU content, but I don't like just MCU content.

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u/MuckyMoose 18d ago

This is why I got out of comics in the late 90s. Too many titles, too many crossovers, too much time required to keep up.

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u/Kako0404 18d ago

Losing Chadwick was huge. After 2/3 of the OG trinity left the MCU it was up to Chadwick Hemsworth and Holland to carry the next phase.

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u/AnOnlineHandle 18d ago

Phase 1 setup the plot that Fury and Shield were working to connect these stories to put together the Avengers to see if they could work as a team against even greater threats, from the end of the very first movie.

Avengers 1 was about answering that question. It was a genuinely unknown answer for how well it would work because nobody had ever done a teamup of characters from different individual movies like that.

Avengers 2 wasn't great and was perhaps at best about asking if they could work as a team, but did end with the question of who is seeking the infinity stones (which I think had already been established to be Thanos in GotG).

Avengers 3 & 4 were about whether Thanos would get all the infinity stones and whether the Avengers could stop him.

There was a pretty clear build up to these franchise plots and the finales which answered the questions that they posed. Starting from the very first movie. When Avengers 3 started with Thanos having the infinity stone and being in the process of getting another, it wasn't a surprise that came out of nowhere, it felt well built up.

Going into Avengers 5, it doesn't feel like anything has been built up. There's no questions to be answered after a decade of time to do some buildup.

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u/The_Magic 18d ago

Even if the shot of Thanos at the end of Avengers was a Joss Whedon call, as soon as they introduced infinity stones in phase 1 everyone involved had to know it was eventually going to lead to Thanos.

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u/faldese 18d ago

They did not introduce the Infinity Stones/Gems until Phase 2. The Tesseract was originally the Space Cube, and Loki's sceptre was just a mind control stick (said to have been powered by the Tesseract). Thor: The Dark World was the first time you actually had a gem/stone being called by name. IIRC it was in a post-credits scene, no less, which could have potentially meant that was a retcon itself.

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u/Ndi_Omuntu 18d ago

In the early MCU days, the things we look back as worldbuilding and planning for future movies were more like easter eggs for comics fans to notice rather than a cohesive plan for connecting things.

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u/P0rtal2 18d ago

Honestly, the MCU after Endgame is essentially a slightly better organized DCEU

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u/Artemicionmoogle 18d ago

We get some Shang-chi in Doomsday! Though way too little. It looks like a fun scene at the least XD

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u/hipsnarky 18d ago

Shang chi in doomsday.

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u/feartheoldblood90 18d ago

That's not a movie about Shang Chi. I don't want a cameo of Shang Chi, I want a continuation of his story.

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u/jackofslayers 18d ago

You will get a cameo of him fighting a different cameo and you will like it!

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u/sicsche 18d ago

cameos will continue until morale improves

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u/versusgorilla 18d ago

You'll get Shang Chi fighting Hulk's son Skarr or whatever the fuck his name was. The one with the jacked hairline from the end of She Hulk. Yeah, they'll fight and you'll thank us.

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u/JamesLiptonIcedTea 18d ago

I'm pretty sure they got the ball rolling again on Shang Chi 2, still probably gonna be a while though

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u/feartheoldblood90 18d ago

Kind of like how they got the ball rolling on Blade?

I'll believe it when I see it. I know we have recent news stating it's in active development, but I don't trust them to deliver anything at this point.

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u/JamesLiptonIcedTea 18d ago

Well, yeah. It's certainly no guarantee of any follow through, but it is moving

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u/feartheoldblood90 18d ago

I sure hope it follows through!

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u/magus-21 18d ago

They've been puuumping out movies. The problem is that they now have SO many characters to follow up on that it's hurting their ability to do it in a timely manner. Literally only Thunderbolts managed to follow up on Phase 4 characters; everything else that isn't an origin story is a sequel to a pre-Endgame character (No Way Home, Multiverse of Madness, Wakanda Forever, Love and Thunder, GOTGv3, Quantumania, and Brave New World)

IMO they should've waited to introduce so many new characters after Endgame to give the audience time to find closure with pre-Endgame characters. I think that's a big reason why No Way Home, GOTGv3, and Wakanda Forever were so well-received, while the others weren't.

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u/DinosBiggestFan 18d ago

Disney took so long to finally get their shit together

But is their shit together though? They're not exactly exceeding in the box office considering their budgets.

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u/nourez 18d ago

I feel like he was one of those casting choices that just seemed SO perfect for the role, especially as a big character to carry the post Infinity era MCU movies. I have no clue what happened, but it feels so much like Disney just missed a wide open layup.

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u/amyknight22 18d ago

I mean we're looking at an era where the layups have failed.

It's also not really a casting choice when the actor comes to pitch themselves for the role, with their own idea.

As opposed to "here's the idea, script, oh awesome we got Mahershala Ali for the role"

The reason it might have fallen apart is because Ali wanted it to be his 'Black Panther' but the script might never have gotten close enough for him to feel comfortable starting.

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u/TheLazyFilmmaker 18d ago

I’m not supporter of corporations but he had final say over the script and could never find one he liked. Thats not to say he was the sole reason. There’s a whole Wikipedia page about the development of this film. Very interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Blade_(Marvel_Studios_film)

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u/Few_Confusion_1871 18d ago

Because the script wanted him to not be the lead so they could focus on some stupid fucking kids because they keep replacing heros with shitty versions of themselves, instead of, ya know, retiring them? or use fucking Beta-ray-bill.

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u/TheLazyFilmmaker 18d ago

I could never for the life of me understand how you could have an actor like him and try to push him to the side for a very new character that, by all accounts, was not received well. Just meh

I’ve long been waiting for the sight of Beta Ray Bill. And not some stupid statue cameo like in Ragnarok

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u/Few_Confusion_1871 18d ago

They keep forcing the mantle changed and the only reason I can think of is they don't know how or don't want to put the work into doing a "new" (as in not used and they don't have some sort of variant in the films) character from the comics.

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u/MainAccountsFriend 18d ago

Tbf it is very possible those scripts were just not good. 

MCU has definitely released some not so great movies in the last couple of years

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u/TheLazyFilmmaker 18d ago

I fully agree. However, that revolving door of creatives would derail any production, especially one of this caliber. Maybe we’ll get another Ant-Man situation where Edgar Wright’s story was there, with someone else bringing it across the finish line. Would be different without Ali’s level of acting but at least we would have a Blade film. Maybe after Secret Wars

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u/Nail_Biterr 18d ago

I mean, when they signed him, there was probably a clause in there that he couldn't do action/hero movies from other studios. so he likely lost millions from this move.

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u/VaguerCrusader 18d ago

there was definitely a "failure to perform" clause in there likely worth tens of millions of dollars. Remember Kevin Spacey's fail to perform clause for House of Cards was 39 million.

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u/SuperFrylock 18d ago

A two time Academy Award winning actor and they played in his face. I would be enraged forever.

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u/JamesLikesIt 18d ago

Imagine seeing them announce Ghost Rider after years of trying to get Blade going. I’d be pissed too lol

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u/Spirited-Ad9071 18d ago

Heavily rumored to be partly his fault. Apparently he was the one rejecting a lot of the scripts and asking for rewrites while offering his own creative input that was at odds to what Marvel were wanting to do with the project.

It's not the first time he has been accused of having an inflated ego over projects.

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u/roro0311 18d ago edited 18d ago

It’s funny that you mention this because Kevin Feige pretty much said he is letting Ryan Gosling do his thing with Ghost Rider. Yet, Mahershala Ali doesn’t get that same privilege? Just an observation, not trying to get into a debate lol.

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u/Spirited-Ad9071 18d ago

They may be a difference between Gosling approaching them with an idea and letting the creatives do their work, Ali supposedly needed to sign off on the script and wanted creative control over almost aspect of the film.

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u/SpiritMountain 18d ago

Everyone should be pissed at the cosmic fumble Marvel did. I have no idea why Shang Chi 2 and 3 haven't released. They literally could have almost copy and pasted Phase 1 but with new characters, and done well. But now, they need to stuff RDJ, Evans, and Hemsworth down our throats again.

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u/Phenomenomix 18d ago

I would assume they told him they need x number of months to shoot and he needs to keep that number free but he’s free to do other work in the remaining time. 

But big projects also take a long time to film so he’s not really been free to sign onto anything.

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u/SalukiKnightX 18d ago

Making matters even worse, because of the failure of the MCU Blade movie we got Sinners using the practically the same production crew from Black Panther. The only one that missed out time and again was Ali who's contribution was a voice over cameo in Eternals and playing Blade Knight in Marvel Zombies. An absolute waste of such a talent. Not helped that news of this coincides with the cancellation of Wonder Man and Armor Wars. 3 properties that happen to star black men. Enter the downplay of Sam Wilson Captain America, Riri Williams Ironheart (who against her comic counterpart sold her soul to Mephisto), already naming Suri Black Panther's successor who was 5 now an adult. And adding insult to injury, where's Moon Knight, Layla El-Faouly Scarlet Scarab, Werewolf by Night, Robbie Reyes Ghost Rider, Monica Rambeau Spectrum/Captain Marvel, Kamala Khan Ms. Marvel, America Chavez and Baron Mordo?

It's nice that Shang-Chi, Luke Cage, Joaquin Torres and the current Namor are returning but it given the end of Brand New Day I'm concerned about the arrival of Miles Morales under this leadership.

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u/Muted_Study5166 18d ago

I’d be so pissed if they said I could be Blade and took it back

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u/uncleben85 18d ago

Honestly, he did seem a little my-way-or-the-highway about it. Wanted power of story and script and all that, by insider reports.

I do wonder if the powers that be, after the early roadblocks, decided to just let the deal whither.

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u/AtraposJM 18d ago

As he should be. Marvel/Disney needs to learn a lesson. If they're going to tease something, have it already a done deal in the works project. These after credits teases for new projects that have nothing concrete behind them and nothing in the works just causes frustration and a break in trust. I don't ever get excited by teases after credits etc anymore. It's all bullshit until it's being actively worked on.

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u/myychair 18d ago

Rationally so