And that’s why the Marvel world is floundering and won‘t recover. The story was revolving around Iron Man, and it ended with him.
Which is what happened with X-Men and Wolverine, too. Bringing Jackman back now is good for his career and his bank account, but it is a sign of surrender and vanishing credibility. The third Deadpool film will be a massive financial success because there is nothing else like it out there now, and the worst aspect of it will be more sequels to that.
But for the downturn of the Marvel films there also may be this reason: the kids and teens which flocked to these movies are now adults.
Which is (broadly speaking) a more feminine genre, while the the comic book world (again, broadly speaking) is a more masculine environment, and maybe the more feminine genre can better deal with retconning and discontinuities that the masculine genre. As the article notes: “the lingua franca of the comic book nerd [is] continuity.”
If continuity is missing or adulterated, the artwork may then be judged to be faulty. Continuity is raised to the level of a formal property of a work of art, with the work judged successful (in part) on its the level of continuity fidelity it achieves.
This is not exactly ‘news’, just a background piece on the upcoming Academy Awards season. The interesting angle here is, two of the contenders have been championed by some fans for the Bond role - while the youngest, Craig, had it. Goes to show how the part can influence actors’ careers even if they don’t end up getting it.
Maybe not as glamourous and not for most of us here, but in case we happen to have frequent visitors from southwest Germany…
A rare opportunity, Bond movies on the big screen:
Saturday, November 2nd: Dr No
Monday, November 4th: Thunderball
Saturday, November 9th: OHMSS
Monday, November 11th: Live and Let Die
Saturday, November 16th: The Spy Who Loved Me
Monday, November 18th: For Your Eyes Only
Saturday, November 23th: The Living Daylights
Monday, November 25th: Tomorrow Never Dies
Saturday, November 30th: Casino Royale
Congratulations to Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.
Nice award speeches. My only quibble is that they mentioned nearly every important person in the early years that made significant contributions to the series (producers Harry Saltzman & Albert R. Broccoli, director Terence Young, cinematographer Ted Moore, screenwriter Richard Maibaum, production designer Ken Adam, stunt coordinator Bob Simmons, composers Monty Norman and John Barry, main titles designer Maurice Binder, and actor Sean Connery as well as future 007s George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig). However, they failed to mention two other people that were vitally important to the series’ early years that I think deserve special mention as well–editor Peter Hunt and special effects engineer John Stears. They, and their efforts, as well as all of those mentioned previously, are the solid foundation and cornerstones that the monumentally successful James Bond series was built on. Without any one of them and their key contributions, the series simply would not be the same.
