4

"Did You Hear His Name?" Side Characters

Despite the fact that this Marvel Cinematic Universe could easily go on for another decade or two, there are a lot of classic storylines and characters that will never get time in the spotlight, much less a whole movie devoted to them. Things like the Ten Rings plotline from Iron Man, or Samuel Sterns' fate after The Incredible Hulk. That dude might never end up turning into the Leader and fighting the Hulk. Tim Blake Nelson is just walking through life with a weird-shaped head. Totally normal guy who goes to Burger King and his kid's piano recital, and everyone in the audience has to shift in their seats to look around his big supervillain noggin.

Universal Pictures

3

A Wave Of Boring Everyman Action Heroes

A major benefit of the superhero genre is that the characters are a part of the spectacle. They're not observers or survivors of whatever giant laser is threatening NYC that day; they're the people creating it and then fighting over said giant laser. Two birds with one spandex stone.

And a great part of classic monster movies is that the main characters were rarely the action-y bros. They were the scientists and the explorers and the businessmen. And yeah, sometimes they delved too deep, discovered aliens from the Black Hole Planet, and had to right-hook their way out of there, but they left most of the tussles to the monsters. If Godzilla is fighting a three-headed space demon, it kind of immediately shoves any human on human-shaped fiend battle into second place.

Toho

Modern monster / horror movie creators seem to think that we need superhero-willed protagonists to complement the Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Kaiju, and it's adding icing to icing. The main character in Godzilla survives countless annihilations of the towns around him, saves a little kid, and ensures that a nuclear warhead gets blown up all by himself. Tom Hiddleston's character in Kong: Skull Island is a grab bag of Indiana Jones attributes, because how is this series of GIANT MONSTERS FIGHTING OTHER GIANT MONSTERS gonna compete with Tony Stark and the Avengers if the main character isn't perfect at everything?

Warner Bros. Pictures

Tom Cruise in The Mummy is literally turned into a superpowered character because, apparently, having a Mummy and Mr. Hyde wasn't enough. The lead now has to gain super strength to compete in this universe, and that plot point isn't resolved by the end of the film, but left open in an "Eh, we probably won't get to this because it lets us barrel over any logic in our path" kind of way.

That means that there are going to be multiple films in the Dark Universe where, in order to bypass the idea that it's hard to team together a Dracula and an Invisible Man, they're going to have Ultra Mutant Tom Cruise and the Invisible Man. You know, that classic Universal Monster Ultra Mutant Tom Cruise. What a joy it will be to watch him duke it out with the Hunchback of Notre Dame in a duel to see who belongs in this franchise less.

Universal Pictures

2

Trying To Frame Sequels Around The Dumbest Things

At this point, the name of the shared universe game is "amass." Amass sequels, and potential sequels to those sequels. Marvel has a lot of sequels, and uses established popular characters to help launch new characters. Other production companies are planning to launch new characters, but they have no foundation to do it from. And so they just begin to amass stuff. Stuff for things that might happen.

Usually, these would be seen as Easter eggs. If Peter Parker sees a WANTED sign for the Kangaroo, it's cute, because I doubt Marvel will ever build a Spider-Man movie around the relentless acclaim of the Kangaroo. But in The Mummy, you see a quick shot of the Creature from the Black Lagoon's preserved forearm and some vampire skulls. Because maybe they'll get to that.

Universal Pictures

One of the first scenes in the original Creature From The Black Lagoon has scientists discovering a preserved arm, but a creature shows up later in that movie. In The Mummy, all we get is "We have his hand for some reason. Maybe you'll get to hang out with him one day. He's obviously not that much of a threat, as again, we have his goddamn hand." Same thing with the vampire heads. If you're going to build up an antagonist, you should probably consider not showing artifacts from their demise being kept in a very safe space by very untalented people.

The Conjuring-verse is firing off in all directions, making an Annabelle 2 and movies about the Nun and the Crooked Man from The Conjuring 2. The Conjuring 2 is not a bad movie. The first 90 minutes has the best use of space and lighting in a horror film since John Carpenter's heyday. But you got the wrong message from it if you decided that it was popular because people were clamoring to see the Crooked Man get his own Babadook-esque solo journey, or if you watched people's reactions to the creepy nun painting/monster and thought "Oooh, they seem to be scared of this scene. I bet they'd want a Nun spinoff, done by an entirely different team with different opinions on how to set up a horror sequence."

Warner Bros. Pictures

1

Constant, Ill-Fitting Pop Music

When Guardians Of The Galaxy came out, blasting a classic pop/rock soundtrack, it seemed like a revelation. "People like music ... THAT THEY LIKE?" And since then, other superhero movies have tried to infuse themselves with pop music, to mixed results. For instance, while it is light and fun, the Spider-Man: Homecoming trailer often sounds like it was produced by someone who would be quick to judge your Spotify account if he saw the slightest hint of Katy Perry on it.

The most notable replication of this was Suicide Squad, which blared Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" in one of many desperate attempts to be liked by the cool Marvel kids.

But that move, along with the choice to arrange Suicide Squad as a series of extended music videos, was largely panned by everyone with ears. DC recognized their gaffe and said "OK, we went too far with that one. We know that now. But how about a version of 'Come Together' that sounds like it's being beaten up in an alleyway by the trailer itself?"