Spoilers The Marvels grade and discussion

[JoeZhang]

Money determines sequels.

I was talking to Tom Hanks last night*, and he was explaining (in the same way that Matt Damon has previously) that VCRs created the gravy train - he said that Bob Zemeckis said to him, "Domestic pays for the film, international takes care of the other costs" and that then home video is where you cleared up. Then, you did a straight-to-video sequel because you already had an audience (The original plan for Toy Story 2).


* In the sense he was talking and I was in the same large room listening.

 

[Guy Gardener]

And that's relevant to your day-to-day life...how?

I've been yelling at my wife for 6 years that she should try the Terminator Movies. A youtube reviewer convinced her last week, but the first one looked too much like a slasher flick, which is really not what she is into, so she begrudgingly started with Terminator two even though she has no faith in really old movies, but she liked it, so she watched One on the strength of Two, and then I had to sneak in Three by educating my best friend that the evil Terminator lady is also from Boy Meets World, her second favourite sitcom after Lizzy McGuire, even if Linda Hamilton skipped town. 4 was a non starter, no Arnold, but I'm screaming Game of Thrones about Five but she is just not feeling it, so after 20 minutes, so she moves on to six to watch... Why? Why did they kill John? Why! Which is when I spitefully lash out "He died in five as well" because I doubt she is going to finish 6. It takes her three nights to watch a movie.

Honestly, I like the TV Show best.

Has something happened to Brian Austin Green?

"I'd spent four and a half years recovering from stroke-like symptoms without ever having had a stroke," Green told Burke.

Doctors diagnosed him with a combination of vertigo and ulcerative colitis, he said, and he was bedridden for three months.

"Then these neurological things started happening after the vertigo," Green said. "I got to the point where I shuffled like I was a 90-year-old man. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t read. I couldn’t write."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/ente...Doctors diagnosed him with a,I couldn't speak.

 

[Noname Given]

How a movie can be one of the top ten highest earners of the year and not break even theatrically is beyond me.

Cleopatra nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox in 1963 despite being one of the highest grossing films in the year it was released due to its budget having ballooned to incredible levels for the time.

Disney and Warner Bros. current problems stem from the fact they expect every genre IP film ( be at the MCU, the DCEU, or Star Wars franchise) to clear 1 billion in worldwide box office just because of the IP alone.

And every time that doesn't happen, they don't really do a production postmortem, and just Soldier on thinking that don't make it all back with the next one.

 

[Noname Given]

No. Rather than admitting a film is--apparently--terrible, with a plot and characters a significant amount of the movie going audience did not want to see / care about, some will employ mental gymnastics / endless excuses...

Wow.... I'm sure unintentionally you just described the entire problem with the majority of the DCEU films starting with Man of Steel.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Since the money doesn't impact our enjoyment, since we are not the beneficiaries of the money, I see no reason to put that up on the pedestal it so often is.

Of course, that belief (also used as a value judgement of franchise superiority) is upended when one of an alleged superior franchise's entries fails, so in comes the 'round-the-clock mental gymnastics trying to pull excuses from every conceivable corner to erase the most obvious reason for The Marvels' woes.

 

[eschaton]

Is it not dawning on anyone that no matter how well it was made it was maybe a movie that not that many people wanted to see to begin with?

The retort to this though is no one was asking for Guardians of the Galaxy either.

Disney was apparently convinced it would bomb. When it was a smash hit, they basically gave Feige green light to develop anything he wanted.

 

[eschaton]

A film can be not terrible (such as this one) and make no money at the same time.

Nothing has to be admitted about the quality one way or another when that's not even questioned before anyone even decides to avoid it opening night.

Dungeons and Dragons was a good movie this year that bombed at the box office for no particularly good reason.

People argue this about Blue Beetle too.

Fact is, not only terrible movies are bombing at the box office these days.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The retort to this though is no one was asking for Guardians of the Galaxy either.

Disney was apparently convinced it would bomb. When it was a smash hit, they basically gave Feige green light to develop anything he wanted.

The original Star Wars also falls into the same boat. Conventional wisdom was that it was expected to fail, and there were many turning points during production when a different, inferior film might have been produced. But such wasn't, and it didn't. What came out at the end was a movie that people wanted to see.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

The original Star Wars also falls into the same boat. Conventional wisdom was that it was expected to fail, and there were many turning points during production when a different, inferior film might have been produced. But such wasn't, and it didn't. What came out at the end was a movie that people wanted to see.

That's right. 20th Century Fox put all of its money on 'Damnation Alley' to be the big hit of the year and instead it flopped spectaculary.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Over on Apple Plus Carol just finished a TV Show about being a Chemist with Autism in the 1960s, who has to take a job as a TV Chef to make ends meets and combat sexism.

Lessons in Chemistry.

 

[JD]

Of course, that belief (also used as a value judgement of franchise superiority) is upended when one of an alleged superior franchise's entries fails, so in comes the 'round-the-clock mental gymnastics trying to pull excuses from every conceivable corner to erase the most obvious reason for The Marvels' woes.

Just to be clear I'm not asking this to start a fight, I'm honestly curious. Are you saying The Marvel's is terrible just because nobody is seeing it, or have the reactions you've seen actually been that overwhelmingly bad? Most of the reactions I've seen have been good. You are literally the only person I've seen call it a bad movie.

 

[Noname Given]

The original Star Wars also falls into the same boat. Conventional wisdom was that it was expected to fail, and there were many turning points during production when a different, inferior film might have been produced. But such wasn't, and it didn't. What came out at the end was a movie that people wanted to see.

I'm old enough to remember the original 1977 reviews for the film when it first came out, and the majority were honestly not good. Those reviews were redone by the same reviewers a couple weeks later when they saw that the public at large was really enjoying the film

 

[fireproof78]

I'm old enough to remember the original 1977 reviews for the film when it first came out, and the majority were honestly not good. Those reviews were redone by the same reviewers a couple weeks later when they saw that the public at large was really enjoying the film

Well, what do you expect? It was a stupid kid's movie.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

I'm old enough to remember the original 1977 reviews for the film when it first came out, and the majority were honestly not good. Those reviews were redone by the same reviewers a couple weeks later when they saw that the public at large was really enjoying the film

I remember the reviews in '77, and some were quite positive, with some critics finding it (as a sci-fi film) refreshing after many (certainly not all) of six years' worth of 70s sci-fi movies having a sameness about them (whether the alleged sameness was being cheap and/or too nihilistic and/or small in scope for the story it was trying to tell, etc.). A few believed the film should be successful, but did not predicting its phenomenal, record-breaking earnings.

 

[Tuskin38]

o. Rather than admitting a film is--apparently--terrible

According to who?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

According to who?

Yeah, just because people do not want to go see a movie, it does not follow that they think it's bad or that they think they'd find it bad if they sat through it. I mean, beyond the question of how not having even seen it they could know it the first place, there could very well simply be competing priorities for them that won out over going. All it means is, they didn't want to go. The assumption that therefore it's bad, or that therefore they must think it's going to be bad, it's just than an assumption that easily may not even hold in most cases.

The question of what is it that huge audiences want to go see at the movies is a very different question from whether it's a good film.

 

[JD]

What happened with my mom and I this week was a perfect example of that. Earlier in the week, we had talked about going to see it yesterday after an appointment I had, but yesterday morning we decided to pass on it because money is tight right now, and we agreed we wanted to see Migration more, and then a week or two after that is Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.

 

[UssGlenn]

Its, by most accounts, a fun movie going experience. There's just no reason to go see it right now. I'll stream it when it hits Disney+

 

[JD]

Oh yeah, I'm definitely going to stream it as soon as possible once it's on Disney+.

 

[theenglish]

I really think this film will be fondly remembered once it finds its streaming audience. Despite its song and dance routine--an attempt to be cute and fun that is a little flat (pun intended) for me--it is a really fun movie and is not as hokey as Love and Thunder if that movie wasn't your thing.