Gatsby77

$7.3 million domestic yesterday. Or...more than $10 million less than Rogue One did on its Day 5 / first Tuesday.

Disney's stock is down 9% from a year ago today. Comic book movies aside, it's been a rough year. ESPN lost 500,000 subscribers last month alone -- it's down 1% overall from a year ago; ABC's # 1 TV show (that'd be Roseanne) was just cancelled; Solo's underperforming... May not be the best time to pursue a very expensive merger, even if the IP could assist in the long run...

Actually, my response is to your whole post. Kennedy's record is just fine. A solid 3 wins to 1 loss. And some of those firings were easily justified. Josh Trank would have been a disaster (and btw, he was fired primarily because Simon Kinberg saw his behavior on FF first-hand -- and he went to Kennedy with the recommendation to make a change). I like Colin Trevorrow, but Tony Gilroy is a genius -- and Rogue One's final 20 minutes (purportedly the bulk of the film's re-shoots) were perfect. My fear -- all the way along -- was that Disney would chicken out on killing the team off (not "family-friendly-Star-Wars" enough). That they didn't...and then ended with the most bad- Vader scene of the series -- spoke volumes. Rian Johnson took risks and subverted fanboy expectations. I loved it. I've especially never understood the fanboy hate for Luke's throwing away his lightsaber. His action reflects the worldview of experienced Jedi masters. - Having seen (and felt) the Dark Side, he's retired and shut himself off from the Force. Makes sense, and fits perfectly with what Yoda told him in Empire "Wars not make one great." True Jedis are pacifists -- they avoid war and violence whenever possible. - Luke previously threw away his lightsaber in his final battle with Vader in Jedi. - Kenobi doesn't throw his away, but he clearly gives up in his battle with Vader in Star Wars -- essentially the same thing. So...there's precedent; just like there's precedent for Luke drinking the blue milk in Star Wars.

Another brief flash from the '90s -- Sword of Azrael mini. _Great_ self-contained story with solid Quesada art. After Knightfall hit # 1 alone was a $45 wall book. Last month I passed on a set of # 1-4 for $12.

Interesting. Which means the plan is for this film to have a budget literally 1/4 that of the 1997 movie. That said, I have full faith in Jason Blum. He's going to be this generation's Harvey Weinstein -- not in terms of sexual harassment, but in terms of being a super-producer able to get literally any project he wants made given his ridiculously solid track record. I believe that of 70+ films so far only 9 haven't been profitable. And his biggest hits were so profitable that it doesn't matter: Paranormal Activity: $15,000 --> $193 million gross The Gallows: $100,000 --> $43 million gross Split: $9 million --> $278 million gross Get Out: $4.5 million --> $255 million gross

Yeah - I just ran the numbers factoring in consistent (and very generous) 40% drops for the next 12 weeks. Still puts it at just under $680 million domestic -- $670-$675 million is more likely. Insane that Infinity War will end up grossing less domestically than Black Panther, but there we are.

$84.8 million for Solo's first three days is remarkably bad. Consider that Justice League did $93.8 million over the same time frame. I'm in shock -- figured anything Star Wars was bulletproof at least for the first ten days. I was going to see this next weekend; now, I'm not so sure... Why? I wanted a surprising, heist flick -- perhaps even something akin to Serenity. From the reviews, doesn't sound like that's what we got.

Cinema Score always skews up. Like, an A- is equal to a B, and a B is equal to F. In other news, Han Solo brought in less on Friday (including Thursday night previews) than Justice League did...

I don't think Deadpool 2 is doing that badly relative to Deadpool 1 -- it's only doing badly vs.movie pundits' expectations. After 8 days, Deadpool 2's made $176.8 million vs. Deadpool's $196.6 million -- or 89.8% of the first movie's take at the same point. _Very_ few sequels make as much -- let alone more than -- their initial chapters. And pacing as high as 90% of the original after 8 days is really unusual. Just like The Last Jedi didn't really underperform -- as every "chapter 2" in the Star Wars saga clocked in at just 68-75% of their predecessor -- Empire vs. Star Wars; Attack of the Clones vs. Phantom Menace and The Last Jedi vs. Force Awakens. Historically -- it performed exactly in-line.

For those keeping score, $35 million for day one Friday (including the Thursday night previews) is off more than 50% from Rogue One's $71 million. I know nobody asked for this film, but...damn...

Possibly now with Liam Neeson as well... http://variety.com/2018/film/news/liam-neeson-men-in-black-spinoff-1202819038/

Wow. I take the polar opposite view. Comcast has the money to spend -- and needs the Fox IP to compete far more than Disney does. For Disney, Fox is icing on the cake -- for Comcast, it's the meal, the cake and the ice cream. Similar to Verizon's buying Yahoo but on a _much_ bigger scale.

Yeah - great stuff. Kudos to the NYT reporter (and editor) for the story!

Have you seen The Nice Guys? It's not as good as Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang but it's still absolutely brilliant. And showed Ryan Gosling can do comedy with the best of them.

Yes - all of this. He understands action movies (and how to subvert expectations by deconstructing them) in a way very few screenwriters do.

This list is correct. I was disappointed by the teaser trailer. On the one hand, it's giving off too much of a Predator 2 vibe. On the other hand, I've never seen a Shane Black movie I didn't love -- and he probably knows Predator better than anyone.

I could see this working well. Then again, as much as I loved Mia Sara as Harley Quinn, there's no way this could be worse than the TV show.

Yeah - really? First I've heard the theory that Copolla shadow-directed his daughter's films. If you're going that rott, why not also put The Virgin Suicides on the list? It was a bit too arty for my tastes, but still decent.

While as a comic book fan, I'd prefer to see the Fox-Disney deal go through, the reality is Comcast needs Fox a hell of a lot more than Disney does. And Comcast could still sell/lease back some of the Marvel characters.

Can't speak for $9,500 and I'm not a huge original art fan, but -- had I seen this, I would have bid ~$4,500 for that page, easily. Why? Of the 600 or so issues of Batman/Detective/etc. I've read, it's my favorite. I even told Neal Adams as much at a convention here in DC last month. I have _no_ idea how readily available other pages from that issue are on the open market. It's got an unremarkable (albeit Adams) cover, but one of the best Batman stories ever. Based on this, the marquee page -- of Grayson in the car leaving Wayne Manor to head off to college -- would probably go nuts -- maybe $15-$20k. Why? Because the story stuck -- never really returned to his full-time role as Robin, rather just marked time in some back-up stories in Detective before re-emerging later as Nightwing. And the mystery that drives this issue (One Bullet Too Many) is superb.

Bosco -- I'm confused. If you're using the above article as the source for your stated budget of $321.2 million for Infinity War, why are you not also updating your budget for Age of Ultron to the article's stated cost of $495.2 million? Is it a reliable source or not? If it's not reliable, why are you trusting the stated budget for one and not the other?

Bigger problem than his age is that Coppola hasn't made a watchable movie since 1997 (The Rainmaker), or a truly great movie since the '70s (the last being 1979's Apocalypse Now). Ridley Scott may be the king of "hit-or-miss" but at least he still tries. I've not met anyone who can even name any of the five movies Coppola's directed this century.

Agreed. Age of Ultron was a huge let-down. Especially after the majesty that was The Winter Soldier.

I always assumed that Captain Marvel will take the place of Warlock in the next movie. Even though he was directly referenced in Guardians 2. Given that he wasn't mentioned at all here, he'd be too much of a deus ex machina to intro and be given such a pivotal role to in Part 2 alone.

So...Infinity War's made more in its opening weekend than Justice League did in its entire domestic run? Also, James Cameron needs to stop with the superhero hate. First, he hates on Wonder Woman purely because she was not unattractive... Now he's hating on the Avengers films because this one (and next year's) are likely to surpass his Avatar sequels at the box office. Cameron was one of the best directors of his generation and had an absolutely unimpeachable record through Titanic. And then he just stopped -- opted to make literally just one more movie in the next 21 years. Say what you want about Spielberg's output over the last two+ decades (since his high water-mark of 1993 w/ Schindler's List & Jurassic Park) -- at least he's kept at it, experimented & continued making movies without the burden of every single one _having_ to break box office records. I hope the next Avatar film crashes and burns just so Cameron can take a step back and realize it's okay to make non-animated films again. To see the genius behind such films as Rambo, Aliens, True Lies, & Titanic whining about superhero fatigue when it's clearly just box office jealously is one thing -- but the greater sin is his depriving us of all manner of solid sci fi films, thrillers, etc. over the last two decades while he (supposedly) concentrates exclusively on his Avatar universe.