Gatsby77

Yeah - but my takeaway at the time was that the _direct_ versions of basically # 1-3 of the first six Ultraverse titles in a bubble. It simply didn't make sense that newsstand editions were going for 30-50% of their direct sale counterparts (except for books like Prime 2 where the direct version was bagged, the newwstand wasn't). Same covers on books like Hardcase and Strangers, but for the UPC. As for newwsstand variants of Marvel books that I could see legit getting a premium -- when the X-Men books went all expensive and shiny around the time of the Phalanx Convenant. Everyone wanted the shiny direct versions (with the higher cover price) vs. the flat newsstand ones. So I reckon the newsstand ones are far more rare today.

It worked the other way back in the day too, though. Back at Comicfest'93 or '94 in Philadelphia -- weird show. Valiant was on the downswing and it was during the brief six month period when Ultravere was hot. Hottest book at the show was Prime # 2 (bagged) for $12-15. Moon Knight 55 was also red hot at $12 and only one dealer had it -- and he had a pile of maybe 20 copies at that price. But while everyone was trying to stockpile Ultraverse (I think the only issue that had made it to # 5 at that point was Prime) and the incentives (holographic covers, etc.) thinking it was the next Valiant, demand was _only_ for the direct editions. Going rate for # 1 issues of Prime, Strangers and Hardcase was $4-$6 each, while the # 2s went for slightly more. But the newsstand editions of all of the Ultraverse books languished (in bulk) at $2 or less. Only time I've seen that in 25+ years of collecting, and I thought it probably indicated a bubble. Ironic that today -- if anyone cared about Ultraverse, those boxes of newsstand editions are probably far more rare than their direct sale counterparts). * Bubble or not, a few weeks after the show I did probably the worst trade of my life -- I gave up 8 NM issues of Byrne X-Men, including 129, for basically a full set of Ultraverse commons -- maybe 45 books at that point.

I think there's a big difference between variant newsstand covers and simply newsstand books. I don't care about Spawn 1-4 Newsstand. But I *love* my WildCATS # 2 newwstand (which is just non-foil, and not a second print). Likewise, Supreme # 1 newsstand (non-foil) is roughly much much harder to find than Supreme # 1 (gold).

I _really_ wanted to find video of Ron Howard's classic 1982 Saturday Night Live skit when he was hosting to promote his new movie "Night Shift." Eddie Murphy plays the host of a movie talk show sent to interview Howard about the film and instead he just spends the whole time mercilessly mocking him, calling him "Little Opie Cunningham."

Looks like Ron Howard's the new director. Nice.

I'm not so sure they didn't. That also seems to be standard nowadays (example: Jennifer Lawrence's getting a 100% bonus for The Hunger Games after it was wildly successful). Either way, this isn't a Hulk situation -- with JL nearly in the can Gal Gadot's 3-picture at $300k base contract is now up and given her current buzz I think WB needs her to continue as Wonder Woman more than she needs them.

I don't follow your logic -- the articles are discussing what Gadot reportedly was paid to star in Wonder Woman, not BvS. And comparing that ($300,000 base) salary to what Cavill got paid to star in Man of Steel.

Yeah. And The Hollywood Reporter published a piece yesterday that not only confirmed your quote (that Cavill actually got paid a little bit less than $300k as a base for Man of Steel) and also pointed out that Chris Hemsworth only got paid $150,000 for the first Thor movie. It's been interesting to track how the narrative has changed -- Week 1, everybody was praising Wonder Woman. Week 2, the beginning of a backlash, with complaints that casting an Israeli actress = Zionist / anti-Palestinian agenda; along with "movie didn't include lesbians or transgenders." And now Week 3, with "she's underpaid." I think $300k base is right on target, given how little Hollywood actors are typically given for their starring roles. Her escalation will likely mirror that of Jennifer Lawrence (and, whatever you think of her now, Lawrence was paid $500,000 for The Hunger Games only after she'd already scored a well-deserved Oscar nomination for Winter's Bone).

There was a great interview with Kevin Costner about co-starring with Chris Pine a few years ago in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. Costner spoke about being a mentor to Pine because Pine basically was in the position that Costner was in 30 years ago -- good looking 6'1" white guy actor -- a generic leading man of limited acting skill but who would be offered a wide range of leading roles because he "looked the part." Costner related that Pine was essentially aware of this (as shown in the "Chris's" skit on SNL recently), and accepted it, along with some other advice Costner had about successfully navigating a long career in Hollywood. Me? I think Pine's done a great job of aligning himself with talent and stretching himself beyond Star Trek in roles like Wonder Woman, Into the Woods, and Unstoppable.

Weird that it's not opening in Japan until it's essentially left U.S. theaters. The rolling international release makes it hard to judge comparable international totals at the same point in time. Regardless, I'm going to see this again tonight.

This could work. I actually really liked what they did with Limitless - the TV series. And Bradley Cooper made enough appearances reprising his character from the film - esp. in a key arc - that it didn't feel like a cheap knock-off.

Haven't they rebounded with the Netflix show, though? I'd imagine that a _lot_ of "artist" runs have fallen since 2002, back when CGC was still comparatively new and no one knew how common 9.8s would be (see Jim Lee X-Men, Byrne X-Men, etc.). To say nothing of the then pre-movie speculation on the forthcoming Ben Affleck movie.

Maybe - but after 10 days Wonder Woman lags Civil War by 50%. I'd _love_ to see it hit $400 million domestic, but I don't see that math happening. I'm just happy that they did right by the character and (finally) gave her a solid solo outing. I also think that what we got from Patty Jenkins and crew is far better than what we would have gotten from Joss Whedon 7 years ago.

I thought Civil War had its moments and was definitely better than Age of Ultron, but it was a definite step down from Winter Soldier. Take out the superheroes, and Winter Soldier was a better espionage film than Jason Bourne, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, or Spectre.

Fair, but this one's really worthy. Also, while neither of them holds a candle to Wonder Woman, both Civil War and Doctor Strange are now on Netflix streaming.

It's now closed 50% of its gap with Suicide Squad since opening weekend. Meanwhile, I'm more astonished by how badly The Mummy is bombing domestically. It pulled in >$10 million less than what Brendan Fraser's first Mummy outing did back in the '90s, and that's without adjusting for inflation.

I forgot about Palmetto. _Great_ movie. And the argument that the era of a single movie dominating for weeks or months is over doesn't hold with me. Sure, we may never have another Beverly Hills Cop (13 consecutive weeks at # 1) but Avatar fit the Titantic pattern as well in fairly recent memory -- 7 consecutive weeks at # 1. I'm not saying WW will hit this by any stretch - it *may* be able to pull a Suicide Squad and do 3 consecutive weeks at # 1 -- but there will definitely be another movie that will capture the collective unconscience and rule for weeks and weeks.

Once a surefire bet for a box office hit, Cruise’s bankability as an action star has dwindled as the movie industry continues to shift around him. He remains, however, steadfast in his convictions, fronting genre entry after genre entry despite the domestic under-performance of recent films like Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, Oblivion, and Knight & Day. I don't doubt that The Mummy will bomb, but to blame it primarily on Cruise is specious. Also, that list of "recent films" is cherry-picking like a . 1) Oblivion came out more than 4 years ago and ignores his successes with Edge of Tomorrow and Rogue Nation that are more recent. 2) Knight & Day came out nearly 7 full years ago. The writer had to work really hard to ignore literally half of Tom Cruise's movies of the last 8 years to write that sentence.

Fair. Looks like WW could absorb a 57% drop this weekend and still beat SS's 2nd weekend. So it would have to play more like Guardians of the Galaxy or Winter Soldier than Captain America 1. My guess is it will - because Wonder Woman's a bigger star than Cap (traditionally) and the film's far better reviewed. In fact, I think Guardians is the best comp here - went from an under $100 million opening weekend to a $333 million domestic cume.

Sure. WW clearly has ground to make up. My argument is that it will. In fact, it's already started. Compare their respective domestic Day 5s (both a Tuesday): Suicide Squad: $14.26 million Wonder Woman: $14.34 million That's a minuscule difference, but remarkable that WW's already pulled ahead on day 5, given that SS's day 1-3 cume was >30% larger.

Here's where I disagree - it won't catch Guardians but it can _certainly_ hold better (and stay in theaters longer) than SS. Because that movie sucked donkey balls. Also, there is zero chance that WW won't repeat at # 1 this weekend, smoking Tom Cruise's The Mummy.

I agree. As you say, the movie sets up that Ares will always exist, because he merely gave humanity the tools -- but it was human's inherent nature and greed that led to the constant war. He created the environment, but mankind's natural tendency toward violence took off within that environment entirely on its own. But I thought it did explicitly state that - that even if she entirely defeated Ares, mankind would continue on its path of violence requiring her protection.

Apparently 'The Mummy' is so bad that it's literally now a trending topic on Twitter with all sorts of critics (who've seen it) and mortals (who haven't) lambasting it. Worth checking the feed: https://twitter.com/search?q="The Mummy"&src=tren

Yeah - I got that. But just because he's my favorite Forbes reviewer doesn't mean he's right in this case. I mean, at this point comparing 2017 releases to 2008 releases (esp. the international markets, which are not at all comparable) is ridiculous without adjusting for inflation. Otherwise, when does it end? Just because Batman v. Superman made more than $330 million domestic doesn't mean it made more than Batman (1989)'s $251 million. And I disagree about the deflation calculator - we're not talking about the GDP deflator, but about ticket prices -- and I used Box Office Mojo's tool - which compares avg. ticket prices of $8.84 today to avg. ticket prices of $7.18 in 2008 - hence $83.9 million.

Who cares if it topped Iron Man? I mean - I loved Wonder Woman and would be glad if it did, but It. Didn't. Top. Iron. Man. Adjusting for inflation, Wonder Woman would have clocked in at only $84 million in 2008 to Iron Man's $102 million, despite playing on 60 more screens than did Iron Man.