The Snap. We should have had an entire series set during the Snap and an entire series dealing with a world post Snap. Captain America and The Winter Soldier touched upon it briefly, but it should have been so much more in depth.

Oh I agree post Endgame they overall fumbled the ball.

The best story we have Wanda. WandaVision Wanda is processing grief but being otherwise villainous. She turns full villain in Multiverse of Madness (which I admit was poorly done since it just sorta happened, but I can fill in the blanks and make it work.) and dies. Then Agatha All Along continues that story and mystery of what happened. It looks like VisionQuest is going to give us the next step. And I fully expect Doomsday to finish this story. That’s a great use of connected characters.

Sam Wilson Captain American? Shield handoff in Endgame was great. They gave him his struggle with the moniker TV series, it had some issues but mostly worked. Then… We finally got his solo film this year but otherwise the character was on the bench. The solo film was just a mash of ideas and while it wasn’t the worst… it wasn’t great.

Hulk? Has a nice little story with his cousin She-Hulk but otherwise absent. Also a kid for some reason. Also She-Hulk meets Daredevil and then nothing. And Daredevil met Echo and nothing. And Echo met Hawkeye and Fisk… But that was nothing in the end.

Ms Marvel! She got the intro TV show, mostly well done. Teased mutants… How many years ago? Then was in The Marvels, a rushed film with a weak villain story wise but she was great. Oh and she’s building the Young Avengers team. Maybe? It’s been years.

Shang CHI!!! Comes out swinging. Excellent film! Where the fuck has he been?

Sure, but none of those are cinematic universes, although some are close.

Stephen Kings Dark Tower

A single standalone film.

the works of H P Lovecraft

No connected films.

Frank Baum’s (the wizard of) Oz stories

Technically with the Wicked films this kinda works, especially since “Wicked For Good” doesn’t make much sense without having seen the original Wizard of Oz. Of course this all happened well after the MCU was established.

Frankenstein Dracula

I know the “Universal Monsters” franchise exists, but I’m not aware of them crossing over much.

James Bond

Each Bond is a new start and even within a given Bond little carries over. Daniel Craig did change this up a bit by being more interconnected with direct sequels, but it’s still just a singular series of Bond films.

Cheers (Fraiser, The Tortellis)

So TV crossovers and spin-offs are where the cinematic universe starts, but with Cheers obviously not cinema.

Star Trek

90s Trek definitely has these moments within the television shows. Most films stick specifically to a single series with maybe a quick cameo, but Star Trek Generations crosses TOS with TNG, so this fits but it is just one film.

Star Wars

The original films have the prequels, so we do see the start of what will become a cinematic universe. Technically we have Droids and Ewoks… But those weren’t serious attempts. Rogue One would really start the overall cinematic universe, but that’s 2016, after The Avengers, so it was after it was established that cinematic universes can work. The Clone Wars came out in 2008, which is a direct tie in. (Also Clone Wars came out as a prequel to Revenge of the Sith.) So Star Wars dipped it’s toes with television tie is.

Dr Who

Just one film. TV series are largely stand alone from Doctor to Doctor, similar to James Bond. If there were more films this would probably fit better.

Warhammer 40k

No films AFAIK.

Dr Seuss

No connecting films AFAIK.

GI Joe

Just films with sequels.

Transformers

Mostly films called Transformers, but a few spin-offs. I think the MCU was first.

The Bible / The Torah / The Quran

Wildly different between storytellers.

Again we can debate the details, and I’m happy to, but the MCU built a world of different protagonists, and put them all together. Technically it’s just adapting the comic books, that’s what they do, but at the scale the MCU did it, they stand first.

I mean the entire concept of a Cinematic Universe is a direct result of the MCU, which largely is a creation of Disney. We can argue about the details but when you hear Cinematic Universe, the MCU is what people think of first.

There are plenty of reasons to hate Disney, and there are plenty of remakes and sequel that are terrible and uncreative, but those are the safety money projects. They get made because people see them.

Fantastic Four was a great film. Was it the third time the IP was launched? Yes. Do comic books get relaunched all the time? Yes. So does the same happen for comic book movies? Yes. No one was upset when Christopher Nolan was planning to put out his Dark Knight trilogy. We already got 90s Batman, why do we need more. No.

But fine, you want an original IP, Thunderbolts. Thunderbolts had never been put to screen before, excellent film.

“I’m in it for my heart. I got this movie on my heart,” he explained. “And yeah, from the outside looking in, you might say, ‘Man, why this fucking dude making another one of those?’ But that’s totally fine, that question makes sense. And it’s my job as a filmmaker to show why.”

That an amazing quote from Coogler. I get that you’re skeptical, but my job is to make a cool movie that you still want to see.

So Cap has a baby. Thor is praying (to his father) about protecting his child. The post credits of Fantastic Four is Doom interacting with the child Nathaniel Richards.

So there is a theme of fatherhood, parenting and/or children.

Doom, as a Tony Stark variant, looking for Morgan Stark?

A parent looking for their child, Wanda?

Children being the key… Young Avengers?

It’s not even a rivalry. Ever since Barbenheimer people are looking for the next double feature merger event.

I stole it from the article :)

But also late December is a weird exception to standard box office rules. So opening weekend is more opening-weekend-but-also-Christmas-and-some-other-days-depending-when-Christmas-is.

I didn’t realize Dune 3 had already been shot and was in post production. I thought Villeneuve had another project in line before Dune 3, but I guess not.

If Avengers is going to move dates they better do it quick. The marketing has a countdown and it will be weird if you have to adjust that timer.

I don’t see a “Dunesday” trend happening, both films are probably 2.5+ hours and people just aren’t going to see them back to back in December.

My guess is Dune moves up a few weeks.

My guess is some Doom backstory will be revealed in these comics.

Also while comics are great, I’d love to see the animated comic treatment of these comics, with actor voice overs.

For those wondering this was the leaked trailer from about a week ago. The trailer played before Avatar starting last week. This week a new trailer is playing before Avatar. (Thor will return) We have two more short trailers then everyone speculates a big one.

In terms of Steve Rogers Captain America returning, that’s exciting. The timeline of Cap at the end of Endgame is a little fuzzy. He returns all the infinity stones, ignores all of history, then just shows up as old man Cap to give Sam the shield. The story Cap doesn’t tell Sam is possibly the events of Doomsday.

I’ve taken now three cognitive tests

The final question of the test, written on he back of the paper, is “Don’t go on TV and tell everyone you aced a simple cognitive test”. That’s why he has to keep on taking them.

I plop on my couch and put a throw pillow on my lap and put the Steam Deck on the pillow. So I’m not really holding it. My arms do still get tired, but only after playing for hours at which point I should probably take a break anyway.

I skimmed the video, but given the choices of TOS, TNG & DS9, Giamatti chose DS9, TOS, then TNG.

I mean we already saw old man Cap, so we know this to be true.

Spectre tried to have a lot of twists, none of which worked.

Spoilers for Spectre going forward. First the film pretended that Waltz wasn’t Blofeld, he was some other character. He looked like Blofeld and acted like Blofeld, but he was someone else entirely. Then the movie happens and guess what… He was Blofeld. Second, they made Blofeld his secret brother for some reason. I think everyone enjoyed Skyfall and it was a fun little peek behind the mysterious “James Bond” figure, but it was also a risk. Skyfall was just so well told that it largely worked. So they tried again, but it was just silly. Remember James? Your long lost secret adoptive brother that you forgot? It was like a soap opera. Finally we’re going to recon all the previous films and say that Blofeld did it all. Maybe if they had told that story better it would have worked, but it just came out silly.

I think if you want to do Blofeld, especially as the Craig serries was full of origin stories, you have to introduce or hint at him much earlier.

That’s already where I’ve been watching it. Clips pop up, give them a watch if they look interesting, otherwise read the highlights.

They’re all ads, and different kinds of ads for different people.

For example exclusive ads appear during the Super Bowl. It’s one of the most watched events in TV every year. I don’t give a flying fuck about football. It used to be if I wanted to see that trailer, I had to watch the game. But nowadays I can jump onto YouTube and usually see it the day before.

But do they still play it during the Super Bowl? If course, because that’s the trailer for that audience.

Several months ago the Marvel YouTube channel hosted a Livestream of chairs that slowly revealed actors in the film. I watched that video, it was for me.

These trailer leaks are for specific people. Are they leaks or “leaks”? The takedown creates hype. I want to see the trailer. I can’t see it. When it is posted online properly in a week I’ll be excited to see it.

What I do find crazy is the trailer before the trailer. Some trailers do a quick 5 seconds of trailer just before the trailer. But I know that’s just another way of building hype. It those 5 seconds reveal something, people might keep watching.

Looking online it seems the leak was potato quality, but is difficult to find at the moment. There are some AI recreations that I found on Twitter which look similar to the leaked footage, but are just AI versions.