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In this week’s episode of The Discourse, host Mike DeAngelo reloads to discuss “John Wick: Chapter 4” with director Chad Stahelski (“John Wick” 1-4). The fourth installment of the beloved action franchise follows Mr.

In this week’s episode of The Discourse, your host Mike DeAngelo and Playlist Editor-in-Chief Rodrigo Perez, jump on the mic to talk with Joanna Robinson, one of the writers on the new book “MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios” co-written by Dave Gonzales and, Gavin Edwards. READ MORE: ‘The Marvels’ Box Office Flops At $47 Million, Marvel’s Lowest Grossing Opening Film Ever Given everything that’s happened/happening to Marvel this year, this fall and this weekend—the flop of “The Marvels,” the studio’s lowest-grossing opening ever and their first major failure in, well, forever—the book and the conversation, is timely.

Though the general consensus is that “Thor: Love and Thunder” is a disappointing entry in the franchise, the film still earned more than $760 million globally. Given the disastrous start for “The Marvels” and Marvel’s recent woes, perhaps ‘Thor 4’ will be getting a bit of revisionist history soon enough, and that might mean the studio would be interested in calling up Taika Waititi to see if he’s ready for yet another Asgardian adventure.

There’s no other way to put it. It’s not a good day for Marvel Studios as their third film of 2023, “The Marvels,” opened to just $47 million at the U.S.

With the SAG strike finally over, it’s time for studios to put their release schedules for upcoming movies back together. But in the case of Disney and Marvel Studios, it means more maneuvering in a year full of release date shuffles.

Four years ago, before “The Rise Of Skywalker” came out, a bombshell hit Hollywood: Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige would develop a “Star Wars” movie. The man who made the MCU in a galaxy far, far away? Fanboys were ecstatic or furious with little in-between.

If you haven’t watched it by now, the Happy. Sad.

Filmmaker Nia DaCosta isn’t a stranger to stories about the power of vengefulness or forgiveness. Her directorial debut “Little Woods” sees its protagonist (Tessa Thompson) trying to create a life when local vengeance gets in the way, while “Candyman” sees artist Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) get ever closer to folklore’s Candyman, the vengeful spirit of a wrongly murdered man who can overtake your life if you whisper enough times into a mirror.

There was a time—not that long ago, in fact—where a new Marvel Studios release fell into a bit of a routine. The film would get marketed all over the place, box office analysts would try to figure out which records it would break, and early reactions would praise the studio and the characters as invincible.

When it was announced that “Blade” would be getting remade and put in the MCU, fans were concerned about a number of things. Would it be largely connected to the various ‘Avengers’-level events or would it exist in its own horror-filled world? And would it be R-rated like the original Wesley Snipes-led films? Well, we’re not quite sure about that first question, but we finally have an answer for the second.

In one of the recent big articles that aimed to show the disarray behind the scenes at Marvel Studios, there was a quick note about the upcoming film, “The Marvels.” This is a film that has been delayed numerous times, been the subject of many reports about reshoots and changes, and is expected to debut with a fairly low box office total (not helped by the SAG strikes preventing A-listers from promoting work).

Despite being listed towards the bottom of many MCU diehards’ list of favorite films, “The Incredible Hulk” really isn’t all that bad. Hindsight being what it is, we can nitpick various things, including the casting of Edward Norton, but honestly, given what we’re seeing with Marvel films as of late, Louis Leterrier’s ‘Incredible Hulk’ is pretty fun.

When people think of the origins of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, they go back to 2008’s “Iron Man.” And that’s a fair beginning. But, often, people tend to forget 2008 also saw the release of Marvel Studios‘ second film, “The Incredible Hulk,” directed by Louis Leterrier.

2023 has not been a great year for Marvel Studios. That’s a bit wild to say considering the studio has released at least one film, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.

Next January, no bad good will go unpunished when Marvel Studios‘ latest Disney+ series “Echo” premieres. Subscribers to the streamer will already be available with Alaqua Fox‘s antiheroine from the 2021 series “Hawkeye.” But “Echo” is a standalone series for Lopez, seeing Echo take center stage as she squares off against Vincert D’Onofrio‘s Wilson Fisk, aka: Kingpin.

With poor box office predictions for “The Marvels,” the Marvel TV reckoning, and the ongoing “crisis at Marvel,” it’s clear that the most lucrative studio in Hollywood history has hit a rough patch creatively and otherwise.

It’s been a difficult year for Marvel Studios in 2023, and a “Marvel In Crisis” is about to take hold (you just watch). You had the big underwhelming box-office gross on “Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania,” and “Secret Invasion” savaged by critics (it’s the lowest-rated Rotten Tomatoes Marvel property).

Between the Marvel TV reckoning, the new “MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios” book, which details a lot of Marvel’s 2023 and post-‘Endgame‘ issues and this new “Crisis At Marvel” Variety article, it really does feel like that the “Marvel is in trouble” narrative is starting to take hold. READ MORE: Marvel’s ‘Blade’ Halts Production Until WGA Strike Is Resolved According to the new Variety report, one of the biggest signs that there is trouble afoot is the development of the “Blade” film.

If you’re a fan of comic books and superhero storytelling in that medium, you know that “dead” doesn’t actually mean “dead.” Just because you see a hero like Captain America “die” in one issue, he could definitely be back several issues later. So, even though it might come as a surprise to some that Marvel Studios is reportedly considering a return of its original “Avengers” cast for an upcoming film, it actually does make a bit of storytelling sense.

Ever since the first tease of “The Marvels” way back at the end of the first season of “Ms. Marvel,” we were shown that the film would be a bit of a bodyswap adventure.

As Matthew Vaughn makes the press rounds to promote his upcoming movie “Argylle,” in theaters next February, he’s talked about all sorts of topics, from his burgeoning spy cinematic universe at MARV to time working on the “X-Men” series. So how does Vaughn weigh in on the apparent superhero movie fatigue that’s permeating moviegoing recently? In a new interview with ScreenRant, the director stated that “maybe we all need a little bit of time off from” superhero films, at least until somebody makes one that gets audiences truly excited again.

We’re already into Phase 5 and Marvel’s The Multiverse Saga, which began with “Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quanumania” and goes all the way to 2027 with “Avengers: Secret Wars.” This means that eventually, we’ll likely end up seeing “Avengers: Kang Dynasty” (2026) and ‘Secret Wars’ become massive ‘Endgame‘-level events that allow dozens and dozens of heroes to face off against the main antagonist Jonathan Majors’ Kang The Conqueror.

“Superhero fatigue” can be a loaded phrase that generally raises the hackles of fandom. For one, it’s been weaponized, used, seemingly for years, like a Cassandra in the streets foretelling doom, to no avail—superhero films have ruled the box office for nearly two decades now and have rarely shown signs of slowing down (the pandemic box-office hit, notwithstanding, but everyone took a beating there).

There’s a lot of upheaval at Marvel Studios of late. Amid an ever-rearranging theatrical release schedule and months of VFX backlash against the studio, there’s also Marvel’s emergent TV Reckoning.

With the entry to the X-Men into the MCU, there’s been plenty of rumors of who would play a new rendition of the fan-favorite Wolverine. Sure, Hugh Jackman returns to reprise his role as Logan for “Deadpool 3,” but that may be a one-off.

As the SAG-AFTRA strike nears 100 days, many wonder how long the guild and the AMPTP will be at odds and how badly it will affect next year’s theatrical release calendar. Only a handful of Fall 2023 releases got pushed to 2024 so far, the big one being Denis Villeneuve‘s “Dune: Part Two,” but it’s 2024 releases halted mid-production that are most concerning.

If you read the trade report earlier this week, which we are dubbing the Marvel TV Reckoning for shorthand—the gist being Marvel scrapped their “Daredevil: Born Again” series, are starting over, and in general, are finally conceding that their method of making TV is not working and are going to try the traditional route, with showrunners, show bibles and all the elements they attempted to do without—this new The Watch podcast from The Ringer is a must-listen and excellent additional context.

OK, hopefully, you’ve just read our article on Marvel’s “Daredevil: Born Again,” which is going through a massive creative reboot/rethink/overhaul, etc., because Kevin Feige and the Marvel powers that be have decided the show—which was supposed to be a whopping 18 episodes long—wasn’t working. READ MORE: Marvel’s Plans ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Creative Reboot & Massive Overhaul Of Half-Finished Season One of the biggest takeaways from the original article, however, the bigger picture is Marvel’s ego.

Scott Derrickson is part of a tiny group of filmmakers who were chosen for a Marvel Studios project but actually backed out. After massive success directing the first “Doctor Strange” film, Derrickson was quickly asked to come back to helm the sequel, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” However, after quite a bit of development, Derrickson and Marvel Studios decided to part ways, citing creative differences.

Where did franchise television go (almost immediately) wrong? Marvel television was supposed to enrich character stopgaps between blockbuster movies—a place to spend more quality time with your favorite supporting character who doesn’t get enough airtime. Disney+’s MCU TV strategy was supposed to be the salve.

Scott Derrickson is part of a tiny group of filmmakers who were chosen for a Marvel Studios project but actually backed out. After massive success directing the first “Doctor Strange” film, Derrickson was quickly asked to come back to helm the sequel, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” However, after quite a bit of development, Derrickson and Marvel Studios decided to part ways, citing creative differences.

It’s been a little over two years since “Loki” Season 1 ended. And that ending is still one of the most surprising in recent MCU history, introducing He Who Remains (played by Jonathan Majors), one of the various variants of Kang the Conqueror.

With a new deal between the WGA and the AMPTP in place, writers may once again pick up their pens for upcoming projects. And that also means studios may start meeting with writers again for open assignments in the pipeline.

When it was originally announced that Disney was purchasing Fox, and thus, Marvel Studios would gain control of the characters that were licensed out, such as those in the “X-Men” franchise, fans were excited by the prospect. But how would Marvel Studios integrate the “X-Men” characters into the MCU? Well, a full reboot, obviously.

A theme running through most recent (within the past five years or so) interviews with Martin Scorsese is about how the filmmaker laments the current state of the film industry. Particularly, the legendary filmmaker isn’t pleased with Hollywood filmmaking and the content being produced—mostly comic book films and franchise projects.

A new Vanity Fair piece charts the behind-the-scenes work of Marvel casting director Sarah Halley Finn and the castings that might have been. For instance, Daniel Craig was an early candidate to play Thor for Kenneth Branagh‘s 2011 film, as was Charlie Hunman, Alexander Skarsgård, and Joel Kinnaman.