Had the day off so went to see this today and was surprised to see a pretty packed theater for a Tuesday matinee and a crowd of like 70% female.
STID "tracking" for $85-90 million opening [U.S. box office]
- Thread starter RAMA
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Star Trek is a 50 year old cult TV show associated with 'nerds, geeks and people living in moms basement' now morphed into a big-budget hollywood blockbuster. IM and MoS are movies tailor-made for mass audience with zero baggage! No need to console myself, yes I was disappointed it didn't do Iron Man business but I now realise it never can! So will Paramount. Too many people put off by stereotypes, stigmas & baggage. They assume they wont like it or they don't want to like it or be associated with it. ETC
^^ Zero baggage? Ever seen Comic Book Guy?
I'd say it is less the baggage (I agree Trek holds a certain stigma in the mainstream) and more that the Superhero movies are the "in thing" right now in pop culture. A great actionfest superhero movie franchise is gangbusters right now.
And I give props to Disney for making The Avengers a must-see superhero movie franchise on par with Batman and Superman.
And I give props to Disney for making The Avengers a must-see superhero movie franchise on par with Batman and Superman.
Yeah, I doubt most people knew the Blade was from the comics. Is he even a "superhero" since his origins are in a horror comic? (Tomb of Dracula)
Actually I think Blade started it, and X-Men kicked it off. Other movies have increased the genre's success later.
This. Exactly.
I've been following this thread since the beginning and see everyone asking why it wasn't as successful domestically as we would liked to have seen. The above is the answer.
I'm an engineer. I work with other engineers. We are all smart guys. 25% of us like Star Trek and have gone to see the film. The other 75% don't and haven't but have gone to see MoS and IM3.
This franchise has BAGGAGE. And a lot of it. And stigma. And a lot of that. I'm scared to tell people I'm a fan due to fear of losing my Man Card. That's the way its is. Regardless of whether you like JJ Trek or not, he made two good movies. If these movies weren't damn good and critically acclaimed, do you really think the box office would have even been close to what has been achieved? Hell no because Star Trek doesn't sell well to mainstream audiences. An excellent movie that can be enjoyed by anyone does. That's what these guys have done and I applaud them for it.
The original X-MEN only made about $150 million in domestic box office. And what was "Blade's" box office take?
"Spider-Man" made $400 million, really ushering in the superhero blockbuster.
It is still running in my local theater in Germany. But is demoted to a 3pm death slot.
I guess just the next week and then it's gone.
I guess just the next week and then it's gone.
Round these parts 1 showing at 2 theaters, don't think it'll make July 4, but oh well... looking forward to the next one.
And if work permits, I'll have a farewell viewing on Friday.
And if work permits, I'll have a farewell viewing on Friday.
That wasn't Dream's original claim, though. And your response didn't mention blockbusters. You said "kicked it off", which I took to mean "was the first popular outing". Well X-Men was rather popular.
Blade was exciting when it came out and I think it demonstrated how to present comic book material onscreen and make it palatable and sucessful to a wide audience. I think it easily could have been the blueprint for the Marvel movie era.
Well if that's the claim, it's still wrong. There had already been four Superman movies, and the fourth Batman film had come out a year before Blade. I don't think that "Blade," which didn't even do $100 million domestically, and was R-rated, really "kicked off" modern comic book movies.
There have been three waves of comic book movies since 1978. Superman in 1978 kicked off the first (small) wave. Batman in 1989 kicked off the second (bigger) wave. That second wave was faltering in the late 1990s, especially with the failure of Batman & Robin in 1997.
Blade, which was released in 1998, wasn't perceived by most moviegoers as a superhero film, but it played an important function behind the scenes, acording to Avi Arad, in that it strengthened Marvel's hand in getting studios more interested in their properties, which helped lead to X-Men in 2000, which is the film that I would say kicked off the third (much bigger) wave that continues to this day. Spider-Man in 2002 kicked things up to an even higher level, demonstrating that superhero films could be worldwide mega-blockbusters (the genre had tended to be much stronger domestically than internationally prior to that).
Blade, which was released in 1998, wasn't perceived by most moviegoers as a superhero film, but it played an important function behind the scenes, acording to Avi Arad, in that it strengthened Marvel's hand in getting studios more interested in their properties, which helped lead to X-Men in 2000, which is the film that I would say kicked off the third (much bigger) wave that continues to this day. Spider-Man in 2002 kicked things up to an even higher level, demonstrating that superhero films could be worldwide mega-blockbusters (the genre had tended to be much stronger domestically than internationally prior to that).
The Superman and Batman movies had become a joke in the early 80s and early 90s, respectively. The Superhero genre had failed to take off prior to Blade and X-Men. The fact of the matter is that those two movies paved the way to the modern Superhero genre. I'm fully aware that more successful ones came later, but that's not how I understand the claim made in this thread.
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