Marvel Cinematic Universe POD ideas thread

I have a bunch of different POD ideas for the making of the MCU from time to time and I know everyone else has these occasional thoughts as well.

Here's a few to start us off:

No Phase 3 announcement

In late 2014 (seems so long ago!) Kevin Feige announced the full slate of films for the MCU's Phase 3. While at the time it was compared to Apple 1984 (and was a very good thing for Marvel at the time) it has since become a boon for Marvel as they are constantly shifting things around: Inhumans might be canceled, Black Panther and Captain Marvel keep getting pushed back, Spider-Man and Ant-Man and Wasp both pushed other moves back, etc.

One has to admit that the public nature of this makes the trouble they are having with certain properties very obvious. Would there be any immediate ramifications of not making an official announcement like that? Besides the PR, of course.

Robert Downey Jr. does NOT re-sign for Avengers 2 & 3 + Cap 3

Immediate following Avengers and then Iron Man 3, RDJ's future in the MCU was not entirely certain. He had only signed a four(?) picture deal which had concluded with Iron Man 3. In mid 2013 he finally re-signed onto the franchise. This one's a bigger - Iron Man's character is very important to the events of Avengers 2 and Captain America 3.

My idea for Marvel's response to it is this: a panic attack that results in a rushing of the Ant-Man's (famously troubled) production. Perhaps an earlier resignation of Edgar Wright or he stays on and pushes through. In terms of what's in production only Hank Pym can fill (most) of the roles that Tony Stark traditionally occupied in the MCU films post-IM3.

I'm imagining it as a sort of trilogy of Hank Pym films (which would necessitate a three picture deal with Michael Douglas): Ant-Man (more amped up than OTL), Avengers 2 (with Pym as the creator of Ultron and Ant-Man replacing Iron Man), and Captain America: Civil War (once again Hank Pym replacing Stark and going full villain). It could be seen as a sort of descent into madness for Douglas's character and I think he would have fun with it.

Alternatively nix the Civil War entirely and just keep Douglas for Ant-Man and Avengers 2. That of course throws the entire production of Cap 3 off as they scramble for a new plot and also throws into question the usefulness of acquiring Spiderman from Sony (since they don't have a big crossover movie until Infinity War in 2018).

Joss Whedon doesn't return after Avengers

I can't find the blamed article for it right now, but Joss Whedon was initially very skeptical of returning to the director's chair after the original Avengers movie. He apparently (once again, lost the article) had a big hand in the overall direction of Phase 2 and frequently visited other sets and advised on other movies in a capacity much like Kevin Feige.

IIRC he recommended both James Gunn (GotG) and Edgar Wright (the original Ant-Man director) and who knows how much service he provided on other films like The Winter Soldier. His influence on Phase 2 in particular would be a massive divergence and who knows how things would have turned out. Who would be a likely candidate for Avengers 2?

At this point Marvel was already in the stage of hiring lower-budget TV directors like Joss Whedon (Firefly) & the Russo Brothers (Community, IIRC). But I'm not very well versed on TV directors - who would they pick? How would they shape the MCU.

Earlier addition of Spider-Man

Not even going to bother with the articles now: apparently Avengers tower was supposed to show up in The Amazing Spiderman that we got a few years back. Also, Joss wanted Spidey (and Captain Marvel) to show up as apart of the Captain America Avengers line-up seen at the end of Age of Ultron.

Fair play with Spidey might also affect the death of a certain character Ben Urich on the Daredevil TV show (although I think it was good for the stakes of the show). This could be good - or bad, if TASM 2 tanks like it did in OTL.
 
Guardians of the Galaxy is of course ridiculously easy to butterfly. It was a gamble anyway; a different set of eyes (or an earlier acquisition of LucasFilms) and it likely never even makes it to the conceptual stage.

Not sure what the in-universe effects will be (although the Infinity Stones would almost certainly be treated differently if they even appear as a unified concept).
 
No Phase 3 announcement

In late 2014 (seems so long ago!) Kevin Feige announced the full slate of films for the MCU's Phase 3. While at the time it was compared to Apple 1984 (and was a very good thing for Marvel at the time) it has since become a boon for Marvel as they are constantly shifting things around: Inhumans might be canceled, Black Panther and Captain Marvel keep getting pushed back, Spider-Man and Ant-Man and Wasp both pushed other moves back, etc.

One has to admit that the public nature of this makes the trouble they are having with certain properties very obvious. Would there be any immediate ramifications of not making an official announcement like that? Besides the PR, of course.

I'd argue the real purpose of the announcement was to secure favourable release dates for their movies, and warn off the other studios from challenging them on those dates. If you look it as a corporate strategy move the PR was just a bonus, and the negative PR from moving things around has been very minimal since only movie and Marvel folk care, the great big audience that turns out for the films follows that news very little.

So the obvious ramification of that is WB, Universal, et al secure better release dates for themselves and/or Disney just fills in the blanks with "unnamed Marvel film" which is much less of a deterrent vs going up against named films. Post-GoG and Ant-Man "unnamed Marvel film" is probably enough of a deterrent but before that nobody was sure if minor Marvel characters could see that level of box office success.

Joss Whedon doesn't return after Avengers

IIRC he recommended both James Gunn (GotG) and Edgar Wright (the original Ant-Man director) and who knows how much service he provided on other films like The Winter Soldier. His influence on Phase 2 in particular would be a massive divergence and who knows how things would have turned out. Who would be a likely candidate for Avengers 2?

At this point Marvel was already in the stage of hiring lower-budget TV directors like Joss Whedon (Firefly) & the Russo Brothers (Community, IIRC). But I'm not very well versed on TV directors - who would they pick? How would they shape the MCU.

The 10 best working directors in TV

Tim Minear perhaps? Close Whedon friend, generally does good work. Edgar Wright would turn down Avengers 2 flat, I have no doubt, but James Gunn would probably do a better job than Whedon on Avengers 2 (though that means GoG might go anywhere from cancelled to terrible to pushed back a year).
 
An idea for an alternate Iron Man 2 :

Make it very Pawn Sacrifice -esque where Tony Stark is paired against the Mandarin. Keep in the stuff with the government wanting the Iron Man suits, and have the Mandarin play up the similarities between the two as agents/representatives of their respective countries. Stark doesn't agree and we find out that the Mandarin also doesn't want to work for China but they are holding someone important to him hostage out of fear that he would go rogue.

Play up the awesome power of his rings and how his plan involves finding one of the Infinity Stones. Maybe this involves finding the Tesseract which leads to the discovery of Captain America? In the end the Mandarin has his rings removed and perhaps the US government takes them?

Either way, the Mandarin ends up in custody.

Iron Man 3:

So a side plot in the above IM2 would have involved Hammer Industries trying to replicate the Iron Man suits for the US government and at the end being given the Mandarin rings to make an awesome weapon for them. Here we see that Hammer is driven by an inferiority complex to Stark and is slowly going crazy perhaps even locking himself in his own experimental Iron Man suit ( a program he was supposed to stop so he could make Mandarin ring weapons).

The Mandarin weapons would basically be what Extremis was, with the various agents using them being corrupted by their respective ring (ala Ultimate Marvel) and Stark has to talk to the Mandarin in jail to figure out how to track down the rings (and ultimately face Hammer who's become a giant technological abomination). Stark ends up taking Extremis (but not using the rings) and basically gets rid of the rings (somehow)? Maybe the smart thing ends up being to give the Mandarin the rings back as only he can control them. Bonus points for the Stark saving the Mandarin's person in China so that he doesn't have to work for them anymore. Either way the Mandarin gets to escape.

At some point, he gets captured by Thanos and we find out that all Ten Rings (which have been built up together and separately as immensely powerful) form one of the Infinity Stones giving the audience a clearer picture of how powerful Thanos' gauntlet will be.

Regarding Spider-Man:

He's actually pretty easy to incorporate earlier on. There was a fake alternate ending to Avengers 2 that had a guy washing windows and whistling. In the background is Avengers tower. The guy turns and screams and we see Spider-Man chilling on a building behind him then we smash to black. Make this a real ending but tagged onto the end of Avengers 1.

Then keep the (planned IOTL) inclusion of Avengers Tower in The Amazing Spider-Man. Not sure where to go from there but it's a pretty easy fit.
 
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