I think most of those rumors have been squashed for the most part, at least for now. The film at this point from what I read is rumored to be the launching of the Midnight Sons, but was focused on Blade in this initial movie.
Since Disney had committed to a R-rated Deadpool since day one I don't see any reason why you think they would be hesitant with a R-rated Blade movie. The rumors have been this would be R-rated.
I agree… I know Disney had originally said Deadpool would be their only rated R movies…however I would not be surprised if that is the reason for the reworking… It seems Disney might be willing to go rated R these days if the material works better as R…. As evident by Echo getting TVMA
Agreed, though I don't remember them ever saying that Deadpool with be their "only" R-rated movie in the MCU, but could be wrong.
They may not have… I think I read that somewhere when it was confirmed that Deadpool was rated R…but it could have been assumed in the article…. There is a lot of false assumptions that people run with these days
Agreed, too many just see "Disney" and assume the whole company isn't willing to do anything non-family friendly. All along not realizing that the company has a long history with creating non-family friendly content.
See though I think this is why you see the complaints of there not being an overall vision for the MCU right now. So we now have the Midnight Sons (honestly had to look up who they were), the New Avengers, and the Thunderbolts (think that's what they are called) as groups running around, on top of the characters that have come over from Phase 4. And that's not even including the Fantastic 4 and eventually the X-Men who are already being teased. I honestly could see the appeal of the Midnight Sons as people love Anti-Heroes, but I think you need to at least let one other group you've created play out first. They just have too much going on, and things don't come out fast enough for it all.
Don't forget the Young Avengers and the Eternals and the new Guardians of the Galaxy team! Maybe even Marve's Defenders from Netflix (Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, etc.) might make a comeback.
So what should they do, not introduce new characters and just stick with the same old characters for the next 20 movies?
Not at all, but I think I would slowly introduce them, and give them a bit more time. I think you are mistaking me for one who doesn't think they could ever move on from characters. But I think we are at a point now where it's throw everything at once, and it's just too much to follow. For example, I like how they started the setup with the Thunderbolt group with introducing them through more established characters. But I would have preferred we run with that a bit before moving on to 2 other new groups. I mean, we saw all of them at the beginning of Phase 4, and now we've gone through what, like 15 movies/shows since any one of them has shown up? It feels like there should have been more to establish that group before leaving them for so long. In the meantime, we've built up this Young Avengers group, who it looks like we are doing the same thing to. Now we are talking doing the same thing with Blade. To me, it'd make more sense to spend some time on each one of these groups with some meetups before diving into a bunch of other stuff. Not that they can only have a phase with like the Thunderbolts, but I think there needs more of a middle ground. And to me, that would mean holding off on creating ALL these groups at the same time. Get the Thunderbolts movie away before having Kahn start setting up the Young Avengers. Get them a big meetup before having the Blade group start going.
The problem with what you're proposing is that it would take too long before introducing new characters/teams. For example you want them to work with the "Thunderbolt" team for awhile before introducing a new team. Ok, so that would be at least a 5-10 movie arc over at least a 5-10 year period (more if you go based on past MCU Phases). That is too long to wait for another team to be introduced. That would mean for example you're not getting X-Men until 2035 at the earliest.
Well the problem is you lose the mass appeal if you don't have that massive franchise-wide cross over event. So while they might be less interesting from a story line perspective they are the major money makers of the MCU.
I mean, you can if you don't need to have all the different characters and just make less more of a focus. But, I don't think you need to complete an Arc before introducing more either. But I do think you need to establish a bit before moving on. Have a movie. Have a bit more crossover as you go. What made the MCU get as big as it did was how it all came together (and I know, it didn't start that way, but that doesn't negate what it became). I see it as a mistake trying to take a ton of branches that aren't really connecting. Keep in mind, this is from a non-comic follower who got into the MCU later, so much more of a casual follower, which I would think is who they really need to get on board.
Why do you think they can't all come together for an event type of film if they have multiple teams going at once? This is exactly what they do in the comics, they have the different comics for the individual story arcs and then have event cross-over comics for the major events.
Variety is the spice of life, its that "fluff" as you call it to me that is what adds the contextual elements to the overall story.
