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They call it showmanship for a reason. Because you’ve got to put on a show. And you’ve got to surprise.
And if as a company you’re reactive, conservative, tight-wadded – one way or another, that’s going to show up on the screen. On the other side, if you’ve got all the money in the world, a willingness to throw it around but no vision or sense of show behind it, the road to ruin is paved with such good intentions.
Let’s put it simply: Marvel President Kevin Feige is the one executive in Hollywood capable of not “doing well” but creating miracles, aka, putting on a show, with an impact that perhaps no executive has had maybe since Irving Thalberg.
His company takes a little story. Nothing to do with their pre-sold characters or storylines…a spin-off, barely. Cast it with unknowns. A non-white story no less! And open it on…Labor Day?
By official accounting, that hits every requirement for a certified disaster. And with no VOD option, there’s not even a fallback revenue stream to weasel out with.
But they did all that and they had a hit.
Contrast that with Sony, scrambling in the wake of this, to move up *Venom 2.* Or Netflix’s latest announcement of whatever 37-dozen movies they’ve signed stars to make that they’ll throw at the wall sometime whenever.
Whatever you say about Disney, with Marvel, they have a group that has a clear vision and confidence, that isn’t looking to hop on the back of anyone else’s success.
Netflix’s Scott Stuber, when he’s not busy showing off his dad bod to the Daily Mail, while “frolicking” with Molly Sims, his model wife on his “Italian Getaway” likes to brag that he built a studio from scratch.
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