Tom Hanks Says ‘We’ve Had 20 Years’ of Comic Book Spectacle but Now Moviegoers Are Asking: ‘The Story Is What? The Point of This Movie Is What?’
variety.com
Tom Hanks says moviegoers are no longer interested in VFX spectacles and are returning to good storytelling.

Tom Hanks says moviegoers are no longer interested in VFX spectacles and are returning to good storytelling.

  • MerrySkeptic@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1552·
    4 days ago

    Audiences have always been interested in good storytelling. The reason the MCU took off was because it told good stories. The problem is that the stories have become too formulaic or half-baked.

    People showed up for Deadpool and Wolverine, so the issue isn’t about comic book movies.

    EDIT: My comment about D&W isn’t meant to hold it up as an example of good storytelling. As I said, the stories have become formulaic. My mentioning of it is meant to point out that many comic book movies succeed despite mediocre storytelling. You can’t say “audiences are tired of comic book movies” when many are still clearly successful.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
      714·
      4 days ago

      Ah good, a Marvel movie! I wonder what will happen?

      • Super cool opening number showing how awesome it is
      • Baddy makes huge entrance and introduces themselves to the protagonist
      • Who is this guy? Let’s get some backstory
      • Funny cameo
      • First fight with baddy, which is lost
      • Self reflection, pump up talk, You’re the god of thunder not the god of hammers, I’m taking the suit back, etc etc
      • Huge baddy fight which is awesome, optional expensive background music
      • Quick wrap up with slight cliffhanger for sequel

      Ah that was fun, did it feel similar to <<insert any other recent marvel movie>> though?

      (And I say this as someone who loved the marvel movies, up until endgame, but everything since phase 3 has followed this pattern very closely)

        • Zahille7@lemmy.worldEnglish
          102·
          4 days ago

          I hate how we can’t just have villains anymore. It’s either a future corrupted version of our current hero, or we spend about a third of the runtime making our villains relatable so people can be upset when the consequences finally catch up to them.

          Imo we don’t need relatable villains, which is ironic because I used to think being evil for the sake of being evil was annoying, until it went away.

      • InverseParallax@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        4 days ago

        IW killed it, it broke us completely.

        Endgame was expurgation, but we’re still so overloaded, I think the only thing even remotely interesting to me has been loki. And that’s just because tom h is the most charming thing to exist.

        • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
          3·
          3 days ago

          I loved IW and even endgame. But looking back, even it followed the same pattern, just in longer form. IW ends with the first fight with baddy, which is lost. Once you see the pattern you can’t unsee it

    • edric@lemm.eeEnglish
      392·
      4 days ago

      I’d say hype and seeing Hugh Jackman again was what carried D&W, not really the storytelling. When you peel away the character hype and humor, the story was actually pretty bland.

    • okamiueru@lemmy.worldEnglish
      163·
      4 days ago

      Are you suggesting that Deadpool vs Wolverine is an example of good storytelling?

      Edit: I found it to be entertaining enough, I expected only fan service, and I’m glad I kept it at that. But story wise? I cannot think of a marvel movie that was worse in that regard. It didn’t need to, of course… I just did a double take at this being used as an example for a good story. The borderline omnipotent and omniscient antagonist wants to destroy the universe because someone relatively unimportant didn’t keep their word? groan.

      • partial_accumen@lemmy.worldEnglish
        102·
        4 days ago

        In context of this conversation Deadpool vs Wolverine would be storytelling of storytelling. Great examples are all the breaking of the forth wall and exploration of tangential stories or actors that had short lives or never made it off a writers page. It was less a single cohesive story and more a moving about storytelling.

  • Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    30·
    4 days ago

    I just have to chime in to say that Godzilla Minus One is a masterpiece in terms of story telling and VFX. You don’t have to be a fan of Godzilla or anything in particular, this movie is 10/10 in all categories. Blew my fucking mind!

  • Empricorn@feddit.nlEnglish
    141·
    3 days ago

    I feel like quality is severely underestimated here. Everybody now has 1-tap access to aggregate reviews from seasoned reviewers and regular audiences. When a movie sucks, everyone finds out and your marketing budget suddenly means nothing.

    Good movies aren’t guaranteed to make a profit, but in 2024, bad ones are pretty much guaranteed not to. This is completely independent of a single element like VFX.

  • IninewCrow@lemmy.caEnglish
    252·
    4 days ago

    I like VFX … what I don’t like is the monotonous repetitive stories from comic book movies

    • intro of hero
    • hero is attacked by villain
    • villain wins and is more powerful
    • hero fights back but loses
    • villain is winning
    • hero fights back again … wins at the last possible moment
    • everyone lives happily ever after
  • fubarx@lemmy.mlEnglish
    152·
    4 days ago

    One of the prime rules of storytelling is that the hero has to have a flaw.

    Superman is super. He can’t lose. That’s why the writers introduced Kryptonite. Captain America is a super-soldier, but is still mortal. Thor is a god, but can lose his hammer and his powers.

    The problem with Superhero movies is that they all got so much power they became invincible, and boring.

    Good, classic storytelling beats VFX 10/10.

    • grayhaze@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      4 days ago

      I’d argue that they still meet the criteria, even the seemingly invincible characters, by making their flaw caring about someone close to them. Villains these days often present a danger not because they’re capable of killing the hero, but because the hero has a close personal attachment to someone that isn’t invincible.

  • b34k@lemmy.worldEnglish
    142·
    4 days ago

    But we can just have AI write the stories now. I’ll be much faster and cheaper than hiring writers. And I’m sure it’ll be just as good.

  • roofuskit@lemmy.worldEnglish
    123·
    4 days ago

    Funny how someone always talks shit about comic book movies after one of their movies gets bad reviews.

      • Empricorn@feddit.nlEnglish
        4·
        3 days ago

        Lol the term “Marvel movie” didn’t even exist back then! And they didn’t start making movies until 4 years later…

  • snooggums@lemmy.worldEnglish
    112·
    4 days ago

    He is right, but overlooking a major detail when it comes to flops.

    Spectacle movies have consistently flopped when the story sucks. The early Marvel movies were fairly solid and built up the brand, Nolan’s Batman trilogy was pretty solid, and even Snyder’s DC fare was doing ok even if it would have been far more popular by not rushing overstuffed BvS and Justice League.

    But Green Lantern flopped in 2011, and like the newer movies that are flopping the massive budget was the main issue. Spectacle on its own was never enough to draw in enough butts in seats to make a $200 million dollar budget movie profitable. Even more so now that there are multiple movies with $200 million dollar budgets competing for the same viewing audience.

    So yeah, the story side has been dragging down the more recent comic book movies overall but the real killer is the massive budgets. Deadpool didn’t actually need to trade the spectacle for story, but they did need to aim for a reasonable amount of spectacle.

  • taiyang@lemmy.worldEnglish
    33·
    4 days ago

    Did Tom Hanks just watch Agatha All Along? Jac Schaeffers MCU work seems to be the only one carrying post phase 3. That and Loki at least.