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Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness cost less than $200 million, but The Gray Man cost more than that. The Gray Man is an action-y spy thriller starring Ryan Gosling, Ana de Armas, and Chris Evans, and is directed by the brothers Anthony and Joe Russo. It was intended to succeed and succeed. The movie was the most popular film on the service. This is the kind of thing Ted would like to see.

It's obvious that the company wants more.

A sequel to The Gray Man was already in the works less than a week after the film's premiere. The company said they were part of what they hoped would become a major spy franchise.

There is never a good reason to complain about having more Ryan Gosling in your home. The Gray Man is a good movie, but it is not the kind of movie you will want to watch before you fly. It just had the words "Mission" "Impossible" or "Bourne" in the title. There will never be a lot of spy thrillers, but they don't have to be part of a franchise. The Old Guard and Atomic Blonde should be the first ones to get a sequel. Do you think it would be a good idea to have a fight between Theron and Gosling?

This isn't about the quality of the franchise, it's about having a franchise at all. It needs more of its own cinematic universes now that it is losing access to established ones. If it wants to compete with the likes of Disney+ and HBO Max in the future, it will have to have properties that are similar to those of those services. "We want to have our own version of Star Wars or our own version of Harry Potter, and we're working very hard to build that." The Brooding Gosling Cinematic Universe is related to this.

Gos isn't the only one. A series of Knives Out movies is being made by Rian Johnson. The Three-Body Problem is the first book in the sci-fi trilogy. There is a list going on and on. Will all of these be terrible? It is not possible to say yes. Some will be pretty good. They will pay a monthly fee just to have access to the franchise for a long time. Brian was talking about this when he referred to Disney+ as a "juggernaut" on the day it launched. If it wants to be around long enough to build it, it needs customers now.

The game is played by more than one person. The Lord of the Rings show is a result of this strategy. There are hints of it in Apple TV+. Amazon and Apple aren't the only businesses that produce streaming video. They might not need a cinematic universe to stay afloat. That's right, it does.