The Marvel/Sony Superhero Movies Thread

[Irish]

And the reason I'm betting that is that it is possible for a director to put his brand on a big studio movie and we've seen countless examples of it. Iron Man 3 was not a good movie but it was distinctly Shane Black-ish.

I think there's a huge difference between putting your stamp on individual details (dialogue, humor), which can vary from project to project, and the overall approach of these films, which doesn't vary much at all.

Marvel films are nothing if not maddeningly consistent. They've started to get flak for it (and on MatchCut, too).

You seem to dislike Gunn and you're obviously entitled to dislike anyone you like. But that is leading you to side with right wing buffoons and corporate hypocrisy over an interesting filmmaker being ostracized for no reason.

"For some reason." LOL, really?

I've disliked him for a long awhile (although I was a huge fan of "Slither.")

But what I really can't understand why anyone would go to the mat for this guy when he's so thoroughly mediocre. His work isn't that good and, on a personal level, he really comes of like a dick.

Like, if you wanna fight for someone, Jesus, fight for someone who's worth it.

[Grouchy]

Nicole Perlman, who was enrolled in Marvel's screenwriting program in 2009,^[98] was offered several of their lesser known properties to base a screenplay on.^[99] Out of those, Perlman chose Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning's Guardians of the Galaxy, due to her interest in space and science fiction,^[99] adding, "I think [Marvel] were a little taken aback when I chose Guardians, because there were ones that would make a lot more sense if you were a romantic-comedy writer or something like that." Perlman spent two years writing a draft, immersing herself in the Guardians universe, and was asked in late 2011 to create another draft, before Gunn was brought in in early 2012 to contribute to the script.^[100] Gunn eventually rewrote the script entirely because "it didn’t work" for him; he would use the film The Dirty Dozen as a reference to convey his ideas of the film to Marvel.^[101] Gunn later explained that Perlman's draft was very different from the script he used during filming, including a different story, character arcs and no Walkman; he stated, "In Nicole’s script everything is pretty different… it's not about the same stuff. But that's how the WGA works. They like first writers an awful lot."^[102] In August 2012, Marvel Studios hired writer Chris McCoy to rewrite Perlman's script,^[103] however, it is unclear what contribution he had to the final script, since he did not receive production credit.

I don't find anything wrong with the WGA rules keeping Perlman's name on the credits. If you spend two years of your life into a project and then the studio takes it into a different direction, I think you deserve on screen recognition even if most of your ideas were scrapped.

But based on this description, your assumption of bad faith on Gunn's part is pretty much unfounded.

[Grouchy]

His work isn't that good and, on a personal level, he really comes of like a dick.

I guess this is the part I don't understand. He doesn't come off like a dick to me anywhere and never has. He comes off to me as an enthusiastic nerd who hit the jackpot with a little known superhero team. And that's the kind of people I want directing superhero movies because I'm a nerd too.

I really loved Slither too. One great Horror/comedy film will make me warm up to a director. Specially when there's nothing else that will make me dislike him.

[Irish]

If you spend two years of your life into a project and then the studio takes it into a different direction, I think you deserve on screen recognition even if most of your ideas were scrapped.

That's not how WGA rules work, either.

She got a co-writing credit, which is a huge deal, especially for an unknown, first time writer. If she had contributed less to the final draft, she would have been given a "story by" credit. And if she contributed as little as Gunn claims, she wouldn't have received credit at all.

ETA: Writing credits aren't participation trophies. The WGA takes that shit very seriously and they have the final word over who gets what. Screenwriters fight over this shit all the time, and landing in arbitration isn't unusual. That neither the producers nor Gunn tried to remove Perlman from the final credits speaks volumes.

[Grouchy]

Well, is Perlman's original script anywhere online so this discussion can make some sense?

Because otherwise, you're just refusing to believe what the people involved in the writing process tell you because of a personal bias. Or has Perlman actually claimed Gunn was lying about his own contributions?

[Irish]

Because otherwise, you're just refusing to believe what the people involved in the writing process tell you because of a personal bias.

Uh, no. I hate saying shit like this, but: I know people in LA who have gone through this process on feature films. When it happened, I had a front row seat and learned a lot about byzantine WGA rules. I'm not, ya know, reading self-serving statements one party made during softball interviews and extrapolating from there or taking them on faith.

Like, when Gunn claimed "[The WGA] like[s] first writers an awful lot," the co-chair of the WGA came out and directly contradicted him with, "In the case of an adaptation like 'Guardians,' the rules don't favor the first writer."

Both of those statements are kinda unusual. First, that Gunn tried so hard to kneecap a peer to the press. Second, because WGA dudes don't make public statements about shit like this. It makes everyone look unprofessional.

Or has Perlman actually claimed Gunn was lying about his own contributions?

Perlman was smart enough to keep quiet. Had she done otherwise, she would have fucked her career.

[Grouchy]

Ok, if things went down like you say, this is the first sensible point I've seen raised against Gunn. But again, without reading Perlman's script, who's to say Gunn didn't change it radically?

That article also seems awfully prejudiced. It keeps pushing the point of a "female writer" being tossed aside in Gunn's favor, while I'm pretty sure this sort of stuff happens all the time to people of all genders.

[megladon8]

I’ve never seen anything that made Gunn come across as a dick.

Seems like an incredibly humble and nice guy.

[Irish]

who's to say Gunn didn't change it radically?

The studio and the WGA.

If Gunn did change it radically, then why did the studio submit Perlman as co-writer? If Gunn did a page one rewrite, why wasn't Perlman relegated to a lesser credit or no credit? She was a first timer. And if Gunn believed he was responsible for the entire show, why didn't he contest the credit and ask for arbitration? There would be no reason to award Perlman a high level of credit unless she earned it in pages.

It's a screwy system with the expected level of bullshit and politics, but it's not that screwy.

[Irish]

Anyway, Grouch, Duke --- thanks for responses and allowing me room to get all that out of my system. I've been wanting to spew for the last half-week.

[Dukefrukem]

That's what MC is for . I learned a lot today about writing credits. I always thought it was something negotiated during production. Thanks for your insight.

[Grouchy]

The studio and the WGA.

If Gunn did change it radically, then why did the studio submit Perlman as co-writer? If Gunn did a page one rewrite, why wasn't Perlman relegated to a lesser credit or no credit? She was a first timer. And if Gunn believed he was responsible for the entire show, why didn't he contest the credit and ask for arbitration? There would be no reason to award Perlman a high level of credit unless she earned it in pages.

It's a screwy system with the expected level of bullshit and politics, but it's not that screwy.

I honestly have no idea. You might be right and Gunn misrepresented his contributions to the script. Or, it might be a case where certain key elements of the story were Perlman's but the whole tone and the cast of characters (there are other members from the Guardians to choose from) were Gunn's so the arbitration was tricky. If you dislike Gunn on the basis of that perceived dishonesty, that's fair enough. It's a valid reason to dislike someone.

Regardless, this completely sidetracks the discussion. Gunn wasn't fired over the first movie's writing credits. He was fired over ten-year-old joke posts, at least that's the official reason. That's part of a ridiculous witch hunt and it's a dangerous precedent because it could happen to any of us in any job. I like to joke about heavy stuff and I don't think I deserve to live in fear because of it.

[Irish]

Regardless, this completely sidetracks the discussion. Gunn wasn't fired over the first movie's writing credits. He was fired over ten-year-old joke posts, at least that's the official reason. That's part of a ridiculous witch hunt and it's a dangerous precedent because it could happen to any of us in any job. I like to joke about heavy stuff and I don't think I deserve to live in fear because of it.

6 year old "jokes," but who's counting?

I think Gunn is full of shit or he's deeply, deeply fucking stupid. The whole cycle of this thing proves one or the other.

But I don't know if his situation sets a precedent. People have been fired for publicly embarrassing their employers online since blogs were first a thing. It's not new and it'll happen again.

[Grouchy]

I think Gunn is full of shit or he's deeply, deeply fucking stupid. The whole cycle of this thing proves one or the other.

Because of the jokes? Because of his response? His reaction was pretty moderate - I would have been furious.

But I don't know if his situation sets a precedent. People have been fired for publicly embarrassing their employers online since blogs were first a thing. It's not new and it'll happen again.

Really? People browsing the internet history of someone looking for weapons for character assassination is a fairly new phenomenon for me. Maybe I've been living under a rock.

[Irish]

Because of the jokes? Because of his response? His reaction was pretty moderate - I would have been furious.

The dude wallowed in rape culture and pedo jokes for years. Even reddit thought it was weird. It's not easy to defend him on the merits or rationalize what he said. Few do.

Most of his jokes aren't jokes because they have no punchline. They're weird, shocking shit for the sake of being weird, shocking shit. They aren't really "funny" by any wide definition. And they're coming from a guy who was, at the time, a professional writer, and one who still prides himself on his ability.

But let's look at the timeline:

July 2012: Marvel announces "Guardians of the Galaxy" at ComicCon. Gunn had to know he was up for the job, but he's still tweeting "jokes."

September 2012: He gets a job with the world leader in children's entertainment and still thinks publicly making pedophilia jokes is funny. He continues his little twitter hobby for months after he's hired.

November 2012: GLAAD calls him out for material on his blog. He quickly issues a "heartfelt apology": He's not that kind of person, he says. He cares deeply about these issues, he says. He's still learning and growing, he says. But does he reconsider the insane shit he's tweeting? Nope. He keeps right on doing it, even during the same month, and only stops when "Guardians" begins shooting.

October 2017: Bill Cosby is still on trial. The Harvey Weinstein story breaks. #MeToo begins to trend. Does Gunn pause for a second and think, "Shit, man, I publicly tweeted a ton of rape jokes. Maybe I should delete those." Nope. Not even as a mercenary action, as pure CYA. He doesn't do shit.

May 2018: He opines that ABC doesn't need to keep funding "Roseanne" if Barr's words are considered abhorrent.

July 2018: He tells crazed "Star Wars" fans that they should go to therapy.

July, 2018: Alt-right goons dig up his old tweets. Disney immediately fires Gunn, who quickly offers another apology, similarly worded to his last. He's not the kind of person anymore, blah blah. He's growing and learning, blah, blah, blah. And then he finally he deletes 10,000 tweets from his timeline.

So given that sequence of events, either he's really fucking dumb and spent most of his life in a perfectly preserved bubble ... or he knows the score and his lame attempts at earnestness are bullshit.

I don't particularly believe his apologies. What I find more disturbing about his behavior, though, is his demonstrable lack of empathy and imagination. How do you get past 40 --- having grown up in the era he did and having lived in the places he did --- and never connect with a gay person, a rape victim, an incest survivor? Or, I dunno, a woman? On any level that might make you think twice about posting hundreds of shitty jokes to a public forum that literally anyone in the world can read?

How are you so clueless that you get a job with Disney, off all studios --- not Fox, not Sony, but Disney --- and just keep doing it?

How do you consider yourself a creative or an artist yet so obviously lack what would seem to be requirements for that job: Empathy, imagination, and self-awareness?

Or hell, how do you reach your mid-40s and lack basic common sense and a desire for self-preservation?

Really? People browsing the internet history of someone looking for weapons for character assassination is a fairly new phenomenon for me. Maybe I've been living under a rock.

Heh, no. That part is a new gamergate-style wrinkle. I was thinking of cases from the early 2000s where workaday people said or did stupid shit online --- in what they thought was a personal space --- and were fired for it.

[Grouchy]

Most of his jokes aren't jokes because they have no punchline. They're weird, shocking shit for the sake of being weird, shocking shit. They aren't really "funny" by any wide definition. And they're coming from a guy who was, at the time, a professional writer, and one who still prides himself on his ability.

Eh, I disagree. They're funny to me. But whatever. I don't find Big Bang Theory funny, but I don't want the show banned because of it.

November 2012: GLAAD calls him out for material on his blog. He quickly issues a "heartfelt apology": He's not that kind of person, he says. He cares deeply about these issues, he says. He's still learning and growing, he says. But does he reconsider the insane shit he's tweeting? Nope. He keeps right on doing it, even during the same month, and only stops when "Guardians" begins shooting.

I don't remember this episode so well, but wasn't it something about a superhero hotness contest? If so, I could never figure out what was wrong with that either.

October 2017: Bill Cosby is still on trial. The Harvey Weinstein story breaks. #MeToo begins to trend. Does Gunn pause for a second and think, "Shit, man, I publicly tweeted a ton of rape jokes. Maybe I should delete those." Nope. Not even as a mercenary action, as pure CYA. He doesn't do shit.

Huh... What? Bill Cosby drugged and raped women. Harvey Weinstein pressured actresses into having sex with him in order to get roles. They both got caught after doing it for decades. What does any of that have to do with Gunn's tweets?

May 2018: He opines that ABC doesn't need to keep funding "Roseanne" if Barr's words are considered abhorrent.

Well, I disagreed with that too. I hate sitcoms but I don't think it's fair for Roseanne to lose her show either. No double standards here.

I don't particularly believe his apologies. What I find more disturbing about his behavior, though, is his demonstrable lack of empathy and imagination. How do you get past 40 --- having grown up in the era he did and having lived in the places he did --- and never connect with a gay person, a rape victim, an incest survivor? Or, I dunno, a woman? On any level that might make you think twice about posting hundreds of shitty jokes to a public forum that literally anyone in the world can read?

How are you so clueless that you get a job with Disney, off all studios --- not Fox, not Sony, but Disney --- and just keep doing it?

How do you consider yourself a creative or an artist yet so obviously lack what would seem to be requirements for that job: Empathy, imagination, and self-awareness?

Or hell, how do you reach your mid-40s and lack basic common sense and a desire for self-preservation?

Well, if I had to publicly apologize after having done nothing wrong and no harm to anyone it might come off as unconvincing too.

Who's to say Gunn doesn't empathize with people? You? Based on shock comedy tweets? In real life I empathize with people on a case-by-case basis. It's like if you asked me: "do you like gay people?" Well, no. I like this gay person. This gay woman is my friend. But I don't like or empathize with large collectives of people I haven't met.

You're basically advocating hypocrisy and calling it maturity.

Heh, no. That part is a new gamergate-style wrinkle. I was thinking of cases from the early 2000s where workaday people said or did stupid shit online --- in what they thought was a personal space --- and were fired for it.

Having read that Ellen Simonetti story I knew nothing about, I empathize with her. She should never have been fired.

[Dukefrukem]

I dont see the difference between jokes on twitter and jokes in a stand up act. The only difference is one is free and the other costs me money. We praise comedians all the time for those kinds of jokes.

[Irish]

Gunn is a comedic writer but he's not a comedian. He doesn't do stand-up and his actions shouldn't be judged by those standards. Stand-up requires wide latitudes because it means working the craft in front of a live audience. That wasn't what Gunn was doing and it was never his intent.

Even if we want to embrace the analogy, this isn't solely about one or two off-color jokes. It's about Gunn's thematic relentlessness. We're talking several hundred tweets about sex with children posted over a period of years.

That's weird. It's fucking creepy. Stack them next to each other, like Cernovich did, and context ceases to matter. The whole thing becomes grotesque.

[Irish]

Huh... What? Bill Cosby drugged and raped women. Harvey Weinstein pressured actresses into having sex with him in order to get roles. They both got caught after doing it for decades. What does any of that have to do with Gunn's tweets?

It's reading the room. Anybody with half a brain would have deleted that shit the day the Weinstein story broke.

Gunn either wasn't smart enough, or didn't care, to see how agitated people were around issues of sexual assault, connect that with his own twitter history, and understand how his "jokes" might eventually come back to bite him in the ass.

I see that as either a lack of empathy or a lack of common sense. And this is a guy who worked in major media for over a decade.

In real life I empathize with people on a case-by-case basis. It's like if you asked me: "do you like gay people?" Well, no. I like this gay person. This gay woman is my friend. But I don't like or empathize with large collectives of people I haven't met.

How exactly does that work? Everybody in your social circle is cool, but everybody else is outta luck? Like, if you personally don't know a disabled person then you don't care about their access to goods, services, and locations?

You're basically advocating hypocrisy and calling it maturity.

How so?

[Grouchy]

It's reading the room. Anybody with half a brain would have deleted that shit the day the Weinstein story broke.

Gunn either wasn't smart enough, or didn't care, to see how agitated people were around issues of sexual assault, connect that with his own twitter history, and understand how his "jokes" might eventually come back to bite him in the ass.

I see that as either a lack of empathy or a lack of common sense. And this is a guy who worked in major media for over a decade.

It might also be that he didn't realize that he could be in danger of anything since he hadn't done anything harmful to anybody. And he really wasn't until a far right extremist used it to damage his career out of spite.

Besides, the connection is feeble at best. Weinstein didn't rape schoolkids, for fuck's sake.

How exactly does that work? Everybody in your social circle is cool, but everybody else is outta luck? Like, if you personally don't know a disabled person then you don't care about their access to goods, services, and locations?

I have no idea how you could have come up with this conclusion from what I wrote. You're assuming that because he makes off color jokes he has never felt a human connection with basically any person that isn't a straight white male. I don't think that's true at all. I have a pretty diverse cast of friends but I didn't bond with them based on that, like if I was putting together a Power Rangers show. There are people I relate to and people I don't relate to and people I realize are awful people even while politically correct horseshit comes out of their mouths on a daily basis.

Being part of a minority group gives you a different, maybe harsher set of experiences but it does not on itself make you a better person. Here's Bill Cosby as proof.

How so?

Well, you're basically saying Gunn should have pretended to have a different, tamer sense of humor to blend in more easily with the blandness and family friendly rethoric of Disney. Never mind that we all know that rethoric itself is hypocritical. But, ironically, it was Gunn's background as a Horror and comedy filmmaker that gave Guardians the edge it had and made it stand out amongst the Marvel universe. Disney employed his talent and then stabbed him on the back because some right-wing nutjob was having a fight with him on Twitter. I don't know how you can possibly spin that into something positive. The only explanation I can find is that you hate his guts because of the screenplay credits thing.

Can you not feel the climate of fear hanging over everyone? How can you not realize how shitty it is? The Dan Harmon thing, now it appears that Rian Johnson deleted his own Twitter account... Blacklisting people left and right is not a healthy way to keep up any work environment. And it's not like women are off the war zone either. There was some ridiculousness calling Lena Dunham a sex offender because of a passage she wrote on her own autobiography.

I don't want the world to turn into a gigantic college safe space because one of the things that keeps drawing me to culture is the diversity of voices and experiences I can incorporate from it. And the Internet Spanish Inquisition can only be harmful to culture and diversity. The whole world can't develop a homogenous, harmless speech. People are too unique for it. If it happens it will be as a result of oppression and fearmongering.

[Wryan]

Didn't Dunham basically admit to sexually assaulting her [sibling?] tho? And then later swatted away criticism as if it was totally ridiculous?

Anyway, I think a big problem with all of this lately is that everyone has their own threshold for this kind of thing, and you simply cannot accommodate everyone's threshold nor set a line that will work for every situation at once, yet you've got people on all sides thinking it's eminently clear where the line is and where it's not. Look at Charlottesville. You would have thought that neo-Nazis gathering in a literal, intentional show of white power (especially one that ended in someone's death and other injuries) would have been a state that fuck-all everyone would have been on board with criticizing, yet even that wasn't the case. Trying to decide if this or that humor or treatment is Not a Big Deal or Out of Line seems to be one of the big new cultural battlegrounds, and people are getting ever more ossified in their stances. Since there's no way to establish a rule that absolutely everyone will agree with (one side says every topic is fair game for humor; one side says no, there is context), it seems we'd just have to approach situations on their own terms each time and determine what's right based on individual context (yet also being aware of larger movements and changes in culture? it's a bit hard).

Something mentioned earlier about humor caught my interest. I think one of the big defenses these days, as to why it's okay to say this or that on such and such platform, is the "stand-up" defense. Comedians do it--why can't I? The problem I see is that stand-up work is performative, whereas sharing a meme on Facebook/Twitter (essentially open to everyone) or a dark joke in your circle of friends (essentially limited to people who know your intentions) is...not, really. I feel it's different and shouldn't be compared directly. I extend more latitude to comedians because they represent a valve release of political, social and cultural tensions that everyone feels now and then but often can't express. They are a way of exploring the issues we feel with ourselves and with one another in a relatively "safe" environment (bit of a loaded word, not meant in quite the "safe space" way)--a way of getting away with it, in a sense. I don't really extend the same latitude to a dude on a street corner tossing out a sexist joke, especially if I don't know him enough to know if there's real malice tucked inside that comment. And that's part of the problem too, knowing the intent of strangers.

[Irish]

It might also be that he didn't realize that he could be in danger of anything since he hadn't done anything harmful to anybody. And he really wasn't until a far right extremist used it to damage his career out of spite.

Besides, the connection is feeble at best. Weinstein didn't rape schoolkids, for fuck's sake.

"Harm" is debatable because I don't know how anyone can think that pumping out this volume of material is purely harmless. And FFS, he also posted a shit ton of pure rape jokes.

Even if Gunn thought it was harmless, how did he not realize how bad it would look? The guy works in media. In Hollywood. He had to have some awareness of PR and bad optics.

I have no idea how you could have come up with this conclusion from what I wrote.

Because you literally said, "I don't like or empathize with large collectives of people I haven't met." I still don't know how that works.

With Gunn, I don't understand how someone could grow up in the middle of the AIDS crisis, live in New York City when ACT UP was at its height, and say shit like, "Laughter is the best medicine. That's why I laugh at people with AIDS" and somehow think it's funny. And I don't understand how someone could, theoretically, have gay friends and think that that sort of humor is harmless.

Well, you're basically saying Gunn should have pretended to have a different, tamer sense of humor to blend in more easily with the blandness and family friendly rethoric of Disney.

Yes. Because anyone who works for a major corporation and is not a complete idiot does that every damned day.

Of course Disney threw him over. Corporations are not people and will never act like people. They have no sense of loyalty. They are not your friend. They'll never behave other than how they do. Anyone who has worked for one and isn't myopic or naive knows this.

I don't want the world to turn into a gigantic college safe space because one of the things that keep drawing me to culture is the diversity of voices and experiences I can incorporate from it.

Why is it too much to ask that grown ass adults don't behave like vile dickheads in public?

[Irish]

Anyway, I think a big problem with all of this lately is that everyone has their own threshold for this kind of thing, and you simply cannot accommodate everyone's threshold nor set a line that will work for every situation at once, yet you've got people on all sides thinking it's eminently clear where the line is and where it's not.

Good post.

I disagree with this chunk right here, though. Because the bar seems to have dropped to the ground doesn't mean reasonable people shouldn't pick it right back up.

Goons carrying torches and chanting "blood and soil" will always be wrong in any context.

[Grouchy]

"Laughter is the best medicine. That's why I laugh at people with AIDS"

See, Wryan is right. My threshold is different than yours. I hadn't read that one, I read it, I chuckled. And you seem to think it's an unforgivable insult or something like that.

I agree stand up comedy is kind of on its own vacuum, first because people usually know what kind of comic they are going to watch and second, because the guy usually leads you towards laughing at horrible things with the entirety of his speech. It's different than an isolated joke sent via Twitter or shared with a group of friends.

Because you literally said, "I don't like or empathize with large collectives of people I haven't met." I still don't know how that works.

It's simple. I think everyone should have the same rights and be judged in the same way regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation / identity, money, beliefs, etc. But I only like individual people I meet and I think anyone who claims to like others is lying.

Yes. Because anyone who works for a major corporation and is not a complete idiot does that every damned day.

Of course Disney threw him over. Corporations are not people and will never act like people. They have no sense of loyalty. They are not your friend. They'll never behave other than how they do. Anyone who has worked for one and isn't myopic or naive knows this.

I agree corporations are not people. Doesn't mean I can't wish they didn't do shitty stuff. I mean, it might be naive to expect Disney to respect its employees, but if we surrender those rights that easily, what's left? It's an exaggerated example, but after all, why are we complaining that Monsanto sprays agrochemicals that harm people? It's a corporation. What do you expect?

[Grouchy]

Didn't Dunham basically admit to sexually assaulting her [sibling?] tho? And then later swatted away criticism as if it was totally ridiculous?

She basically said that at age 7 she was morbidly fascinated by the vagina of her 1-year-old sister and often touched it. She was 7 goddamn years old. Anyone who calls her a sexual abuser because of that has mental issues of his own, I think.