What do you do when the products you are making aren't popular, but you won't (or can't) change how you make them? Market them differently! This is the approach embraced by James Gunn for his upcoming (2025) Superman film. Do I believe him that it will be a four-quadrant film that will appeal to everyone? Absolutely not. Why don't I believe him? Because the venture capital that pays for his films (BlackRock etc) want entertainment to be like Phase Four. Gunn also continues to be haunted by his Henry Cavill decision, as I think it plays a part in why Ben Affleck recently said he will not direct for Gunn--that he doesn't like the direction he wants to take DC. Whatever one thinks of Affleck, that rejection is not a good look. This awkward bit of marketing is a tepid effort to paint roses on a chamber pot, but we know Gunn doesn't know how to make it work (as evidenced by The Suicide Squad bombing). I can only imagine how eagerly Zaslav wants to dump this problem on another company.
I knew Ant-Man 3 was a bomb, but in my wildest dreams never imagined it wouldn't even make the original Ant-Man's box office. Nearing the end of its theatrical run it's only made 453 million, a piddly amount that barely beats Shang-Chi. What a waste of Michelle Pfeiffer and Michael Douglas (even of Paul Rudd). I have no idea why they wanted Evangeline Lilly to look like a recovering cancer patient, but it doesn't help. I don't think this film is any worse than any other Phase Four effort, but Feige doesn't 'get it' so we're going to get more of this throughout Phase Five (with a high five to Bob Iger's emergency reshoots--I guess those extra jokes didn't help!).
Speaking of the MCU, back in October I guessed that the delays for Blade were due to the star being unhappy with the script. This has now been echoed by Jeff Sneider and this can only help the film improve, although I have no idea how good Ali is at gauging scripts. The fact that Marvel's original ideas were terrible are clear from every Phase Four and Five film thus far (one can argue about Spider-Man 3, but that's co-produced with Sony so a different animal). I doubt Brie Larson's meddling with The Marvels guarantees a similar positive effect (given what Captain Marvel was like).
As expected, Willow season two is not happening. The show isn't radically worse than anything else that's appeared on D+, but with Bob Iger in the midst of pulling back the amount of productions Disney is making, losing money on another season of Willow is not in the cards. This is not a sign that the company is re-evaluating its creative process, as future shows will still be terrible, it's just that there will be less of them. As for the IP itself, I think it's dead for now. A remake of the original in 5-10 years is possible, but as a cult film it's an iffy proposition.
Speaking of things that went up like a flaming fart, what about the attempted re-birth of Dragonlance? As I went over back in August, the IP had fizzled out long ago (after the animated film bombed in 2008, the writing duo hadn't released a novel since 2011). After settling a lawsuit with WotC regarding the rights (out of court, so we don't know the specifics), they put out a new novel in August (Dragons of Deceit), which is now papering landfills across the continent. WotC's 5e book arrived in December to little fanfare (none of the people I play with know what Dragonlance is or care about the setting). The bump it got from 5e was larger than from the book (which is no surprise--Weis & Hickman haven't had a hit book in decades), but still anemic. The only way forward for this IP, I think, is a largely faithful adaptation of the original book on screen, but that's impossible in our era (the creators themselves would oppose it).
This article was written by Peter Levi
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