I've expressed dismay many times here at TFE that what the internet mostly wants is rumors and future film nonsense rather than discussion of actual films that exist and that people can see. (Bet you ANYTHING that the word count on Star Wars "stand-alone" films that don't exist and won't for years is higher than the word count on Ex Machina which does exist and is amazingly worth discussing.) The Daily Beast has a current piece about rumors that seem to have erupted from actual facts (Marvel cancelling some series, toys, and retconning some characters including The Scarlet Witch -- all things that have always happened before billion dollar movies were involved and also within series where no billion dollar movies are involved). The piece suggests that Marvel is sabotaging Fox's efforts on X-Men and Fantastic Four. It's frankly a bizarre claim, even though it is more than obviously true that Marvel would want the rights back to these properties.
It's a bizarre claim because, let's face it, the only people that can actually sabotage a movie are the people making it and distributing it (producers, filmmakers, studio powers-that-be, actors, marketing department). All that really matters for Fox is whether or not their movies are hits and whether or not their movies are any good (these are not interdependent outcomes).
A good counterpoint example is Sony & Spider-Man. Marvel (sort of) got the rights back to Spider-Man -- albeit in an extremely limited and then internet exaggerated kind of way. But this wasn't because Marvel successfully sabotaged anything but because Sony made one terrible decision after another with the franchise. Finally, it probably looked wise to them to involve Marvel since they couldn't figure out what they were doing wrong. (Here's a clue: messing with Sam Raimi's immensely popular vision in the first place)
But Marvel cannot sabotage anything that they aren't involved with and hurting the reputation of two of their most valuable products isn't exactly good for long term business either.
Batman is now 76 years old
Weird fact: comic books do not sell in huge numbers despite superheroes ruling pop culture. Structurally they were the embryo of a billion dollar movie empire but, trust, if Marvel stopped making comic books altogether The Avengers would still sell tickets in movie theaters. According to Comichron The Avengers is currently selling less than 70,000 copies per issue and it's generally among the top 15 or so Marvel titles per month. At $5 a pop that's around $350,000 a month or about a million dollars less than what Age of Ultron made this past Wednesday alone. Comic books are still a foundation of course, but the reality is that most of the characters that created the billion dollar movie profits we're now seeing are self-sustaining as brands through merchandise and movies and television and have been for a long long time now. DC's Big Three Superman & Batman & Wonder-Woman and Marvel's Captain America will all soon be octogenarians (all were created between 1938 and 1942) and the bulk of today's mega-popular characters from The Avengers, Spider-Man, and X-Men franchises have already turned 50 having been born in the early to mid 1960s.
This part of the article in particular, discussing trouble with the new Fantastic Four and rumors of Matthew Vaughn reshooting parts of Josh Trank's Fantastic Four, really upset me because it proves how much the internet prefers discussing rumors to anything factual.
Consider the wording here:
A source with Fox told The Daily Beast that “while Vaughn was a producer on the project and involved in the production” the rumors of him taking over directorial duties during reshoots are “untrue,” although declined to comment further on the rumors.
It's the last part of the sentence that stings. So if I'm reading correctly, the source they contacted said bluntly that 'the rumors are untrue' and then The Daily Beast throws a little shade by adding 'declined to comment further on the rumors.'
What exactly should someone in the know say about rumors after they've already said they're untrue. Should they go on and on about them and pontificate about what the rumors might mean if they were true but they're not?
No, that's the internet's job.
P.S. I have no solution about getting the internet -- and thus the world or vice versa -- to care about actual movies more than they care about rumors about movies. And god help me, I still care about superheroes and superhero movies, despite the glut. (I blame it on my youth and my general love of "spectacles" which general are superhero movies nowadays since action movies are often colorless and they make too few glitzy musicals.) But for whatever reason I fret about this "we only care about movies that don't exist yet" problem and how to solve it all the time. If you have a solution please save the world / movie culture by sharing it in the comments.