Sean Gadus

With the recent announcements that The Punisher has been cancelled and Jessica Jones will air its 3rd and final season soon, what will happen to the characters featured in all of Netflix’s Marvel shows? There is an agreement that Marvel cannot use the characters until 2 years after the cancellation of the shows. When those two years are up, will we see these characters reappeared for Marvel’s films or the Disney Streaming Service, or will these characters be completely rebooted?

Last week it was announced that the development of Metroid Prime 4 for Nintendo Switch would be completely scrapped due to quality concerns and restarted with Metroid Prime Trilogy developer Retro Studios. The game joins a long line of games have that went through multiple versions and studio changes. This includes monumental failures like Duke Nukem Forever (moving game studios and engines multiple times), or the acclaimed Fall Out 3 (move to Bethesday Studios and completely overhauled). This article could examine the successes and failures of these drastic moves and the merits of changing studios/starting over from scratch.

EA is one of the biggest, if the biggest video game company in the world. The company has an exclusive 10 year deal with Disney to make AAA Star Wars video games. Their run has been marred with controversy and critical disappointment. The 1st Battlefront game was launched with a limited amount of content, which drew negative attention from many critics and fans. Battlefront 2 was mired with an enormous loot box/micro transaction controversy, which contributed to disappointing sales (compared to EA’s expectations). EA also cancelled and closed Visceral Studios and its Single Player Action and Adventure Star Wars Game, an idea many fans were excited about. There is now a rumor that another Star Wars project has been cancelled. Why can’t EA make Star Wars, one of the most profitable brands in the world, reach the massive heights that many expected in terms of sales, game output, and critical reception?

Aquaman has been incredibly successful since its release. While many analysts and critics were skeptical of its chances at success, the film has done incredible business, being the repeat number one at the box office for 3-4 weeks. The film is now DC’s most successful film overseas and has the potential to be a billion dollar films (sits at around 800 million currently). What qualities or circumstances have helped make Aquaman so successful, compared to the lackluster Justice League (which was both critically and commercially disappointing for many fans and critics).

The very short panels first introduced the Wayne’s murder nearly eighty years ago. Despite the changes in comics and society since that time, the core foundation of a murder in an alley by a criminal has remained unchanged. Why has Batman’s origins remained the same while so many heroes have their origin stories and past drastically changed?

The second Fantastic Beast film, The Crimes of Grindelwald, will be released in November 2018. Prior to release, the film has been stirring up fan surprise and controversy. The final trailers revealed that Nagini, Voldemort’s famous snake companion, would be featured as a character in the film (a female women who is slowly devolving into a snake until the effect is permanent). In the past few week, it has been rumored that a young Professor McGonagall may appear in the film. This is an event that may directly contradict Harry Potter lore established in prior Potter stories and world building. Will the fantastic beast series, once thought as a spin off/relatively unrelated prequel, totally alter our perception of the Harry Potter franchise, re contextualizing the entire chain of events in the world’s most famous book series?

Nintendo recently announced that is making DLC (Downloadable Content) for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for Nintendo Switch. And that’s about all the information they gave. The cost per pack (1 fighter, stage, and some music) is 5.99 per pack. There are 5 packs. You can buy it all for $24.99. They did not give any information about what fighters would be included or when they would come out (except sometime before february 2020). What are the business ethics in the video game industry of selling a product to consumers, but not making them aware of what or when it could be released. Article might look at similar cases from Warner Bros or Ubisoft.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has, for better or worse, changed the way that many studios view big budget film making, world building, advertising, and developing film projects. The Marvel Formula, (with individuals films, team ups, and spin offs) has been enormously successful and with Disney’s enormous backing and support, there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight. Will there be a point where Marvel movies will stop being as lucrative and successful as they are now? What possible reasons could contribute to a slowing of this seeming unstoppable engine?