Gatsby77

No -- that's just evidence of excitement that a) it was different (for a superhero film) and b) it featured some cool characters we've not seen before (Deadshot, Harley Quinn) for the first time. My hatred for the film lies in its missed opportunity. It would have been _so_ easy to make this into a ridiculously good $1 billion dollar blockbuster. Instead, we get a great first 20 minutes, followed by an hour of walking around a burnt-out cityscape at night, occasionally fighting lame zombies. It played like a weak mash-up of the final 15 minutes of Edge of Tomorrow crossed with a weak-sauce PG-13 version of Judge Dredd. And that's before we get to: - the lame CGI lava man villain - inconsistent pacing (pointed out by a review that noted, correctly, "most scenes could be put in a blender without noticeably affecting the story") - the need for the Suicide Squad in the first place, given that they were always accompanied by a platoon of soldiers - Zero notable power plays from half the squad (i.e., Slipknot, Boomerang, and Rick Flag) - ridiculous finale where Harley Quinn takes out the Enchantress Just because it's been fairly popular doesn't mean it's good. And the most frustrating thing is how easily they _could_ have made it good.

Umm...Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen did more than $400 million domestic & an additional $400 million internationally. And, like Suicide Squad, it still sucked donkey balls.

a) I'm pretty sure the general public doesn't watch a YouTube series called Super Power Beat Down either. b) Lack of awareness by the general public hasn't stopped major movies featuring Blade, Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant Man, etc. There are other ways to test the waters. This isn't one of them.

Wait -- so instead of the 2017 Sony-produced feature film we're getting full-length YouTube fan fiction?

I've always like Ben Affleck, even though you pretty much have to ignore his 2001-2005 filmography (aka, his "dating J-Lo" period). He's was only OK in Mallrats to me, but he was Matt Damon-solid in Chasing Amy, Boiler Room, Bounce, & Good Will Hunting -- as well as latter day films like Hollywoodland, State of Play, The Town, and Gone Girl. He was _perfectly_ cast in Gone Girl from the jump -- the book describes Nick Dunne as "having the smug type of face you just want to punch." The thing is so many people just remember his tabloid fodder days of 2001-2005, where he hadn't quite made the leap from pretty boy of the moment to serious dramatic actor. He's paid his dues and I think reestablished his credibility as a director. And I think he's going to knock "The Accountant" out of the park.

Who's saying this? Actually, there was the rumor this weekend that DC has pulled the plug on the solo Cyborg movie that had been slated for 2020. Given that Marvel nixed Inhumans and DC's nixed Justice League II (waiting to see how the first one does, at least), I wouldn't be surprised if they're adopting a bit of a "wait and see" attitude until they know how the next 5 films perform first.

Finally? It's already lost 1/3 of its screens. But yes - I reckon that with its finishing outside the top 3 this weekend, and with 3 mid-level new releases (Snowden, Blair Witch & Bridget Jones 3) coming out, we'll see a large theater drop-off as theaters make room & it drops outside the top 5.

I just discovered tonight that Season 1's now on Netflix streaming.

I saw Star Wars: Episode 1 the night it premiered in Shinjuku. 2.5 hours waiting in line, crazy 40 page glossy Japanese Playbill. The Japanese take their genre films seriously.

I disagree here - I thought both the modern remakes of 3:10 to Yuma and True Grit were superior to the originals. _Maybe_ the cinematography in the original 3:10 to Yuma was better, but in terms of acting, pacing and story, I found the new one to be far superior. Not saying this film will come close to the original Magnificent Seven (again, as I said -- it needs just a bit more acting firepower to even come close) but it could still make for a fun Saturday afternoon.

Scott Mendelson has written more negative than positive about DCEU, even when his fellow contributors are saying the exact opposite or even dinging DCEU slightly compared to his 'strong views'. Did the Batman 3 and Batman 4 movies keep people from coming back to see Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises? Nope. So why would Affleck's Batman be the death sentence on the overall DCEU? And what about Wonder Woman and Justice League? Umm...did you not read the article? He goes into great depth about the impact of Wonder Woman, Justice League, Flash and even Aquaman on the DCEU before Batman even hits.

Showcase Comics in Bryn Mawr, PA (suburban Philadelphia). I first walked in around age 11-12 in the summer of 1989. The new issue racks were dominated by that summer's Marvel Annuals (Atlantis Attacks) and the premiere wall books were Batman 426-429 (Death in the Family) along with The Cult and Dark Knight Returns. I was a weekly regular there for the next 7 years, attending signings by Al Williamson, Rick Leonardi (for Spider-Man 2099 # 1), Bernard Chang (Valiant's Deathmate tour), and others. Memorable purchases included a beat-up copy of Daredevil # 1 for $4, a 9.0 copy of ASM # 129 for $100 during that period in the late '90s when he wasn't popular, and hundreds of new issues, including Man of Steel 18 (x 6), ASM 361 (x 3), Superman 75 (x 13), New Mutants 95-100, X-Men # 1e (x 5 - d'oh!) and all the early Image books (Youngblood # 1 was "limit 5 per customer"). 1989-1996 was a great time to ride the comics wave, from the summer of the Batman movie, through McSpider-man, Image, Valiant, Ultraverse, Comics Greatest World, to Stephen Platt. There was a Detective Comics # 27 in the showcase that the owner sold around 1992-'93 to purchase a 2 million-comic warehouse that allowed him to open one of his other stores (either the one on South Street or in the Granite Run Mall -- I forget). Both of those stores are long gone, but the flagship Bryn Mawr store's still around, and it's still owned by Mike.

The first time Punisher fought Wolverine (in PWJ 6-7) "Runt gave me a sawed-off shotgun..." Also loved Batman vs. Superman in Batman 612.

The bottom line is Star Trek lost it's mojo. Who would have thunk Deadpool and Suicide Squad would trounce it? This is Star Trek. An iconic franchise. It shouldn't have to limp into 300 million world wide. Imagine if Star Wars couldn't get to 300 million? I liked the latest Star Trek,but apparently the rest of mainstream didn't care to go see it. What's surprising is how bad it did box officewise in America. Could it be the demographics? The millenials don't seem to care for Star Trek. Star Trek is now a 50 year old franchise. You are making it sound like this is some new revelation. Have you seen the box office returns on some of the previous Star Trek movies? There is a reason there is a 7 year gap between the last Star Trek movie and the reboot. Exactly. When I was growing up Star Trek 3-7 were incredibly niche. The only "blockbuster" was Star Trek IV. And yeah, prior to the reboot Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) did less than $70 million worldwide. And that's with Tom Hardy

Good point about Iron Man. He (and Captain America) were definite B-list comic characters before the movies (vs. the A-list of Batman, Wolverine, X-Men, and Spider-Man). Ant-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy and Suicide Squad for definite C-list. Heck, I don't even know many comic collectors who were fans of Guardians of the Galaxy or Suicide Squad. While a few folks I know had a nostalgic spot for Silvestri's early 90s run on Guardians and I loved the first few issues of Ostrander's Suicide Squad, no one actively collected these characters. To the point that, pre movies, I knew far more fans of New Warriors and Darkhawk, than either of the above. Ditto - Deathstroke was popular (due largely to his 90s solo series), whereas Deadshot was C-list.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, my response to both you & Bosco on the better inflation numbers is this: Regardless of the true consumer inflation rate, we _can_ actually approximate the measure of how much people want to spend their discretionary income on a movie. Here's how: - Iron Man was one of only 3 films released in 2008 to break $300 million domestic. - It was the 26th movie _ever_ to hit that number. - Since then, the number of films to break $300 million domestic has more than doubled, to 64. - 15 of those 64 (i.e., nearly 25%) have been released just last year or this. And (as rjrjr noted), Suicide Squad is the _8th_ film to break that threshold this year alone (avg. 1 per month). - So clearly hitting $300 million is now becoming commonplace for blockbusters, whereas it was still a rarity back in 2008. - We've gone from 3 films a year in 2008 and 2009 to (now) 7-8 films a year (2015-2016). So...while Iron Man's doing so in 2008 wasn't unique, it was a hell of a lot rarer and thus, far more successful, than Suicide Squad's being the 8th film to do so in just 8 months.

Your stats about Iron Man are wrong on three counts: 1) Iron Man took in $586 million worldwide. Adjusted for inflation, that's $746 million in today's dollars. Call me when SS reaches that number. 2) Iron Man took in $318 million domestic, which is $384 million in today's dollars. Ditto. 3) Even given those numbers, as Bosco's charts have shown, it's impossible to compare worldwide totals from 8 years ago to those of today, as the international box office has hugely expanded over that time. True adjustment for inflation would be well less than your numbers. And the expansion of theatres is more than offset by China. How so? Seems to me we've been using BoxOfficeMojo for Suicide Squad's reported numbers. So I used their numbers for the inflation adjusted numbers as well - that the average movie ticket cost $7.18 in 2008 vs. $9.66 today. (via their handy -- put today's gross in 2008 equivalent dollars bar). What numbers would you use? The actual U.S. GDP deflator? Either way, there's zero chance that Suicide Squad reaches the equivalent of Iron Man's domestic gross. Ditto goes for the vastly different international landscape today. Iron Man was a far bigger relative hit (and more profitable for the studio) in 2008 than Suicide Squad is today. For instance, was the second biggest earner of 2008; Suicide Squad won't even make the top 5 for this year, and it's only September. The movie's a hit, but don't pretend it's on the same level as Iron Man. That's just not true.

Your stats about Iron Man are wrong on three counts: 1) Iron Man took in $586 million worldwide. Adjusted for inflation, that's $746 million in today's dollars. Call me when SS reaches that number. 2) Iron Man took in $318 million domestic, which is $384 million in today's dollars. Ditto. 3) Even given those numbers, as Bosco's charts have shown, it's impossible to compare worldwide totals from 8 years ago to those of today, as the international box office has hugely expanded over that time.

They weren't just superfluous - the Batman-Deadshot scene was straight-up dumb. We literally _just_ saw Deadshot make a complicated bank shot that establishes his marksmanship genius, and then two minutes later he doesn't take a much easier single bank shot against Batman, point blank?? Ridiculous. The movie set us up precisely for that resolution, and then doesn't follow through.

Not blame China's leaders for being afraid of witchcraft and Japanese flag symbolism in a movie? Interesting. Not at all. China and Japan _hate_ each other and have for more than a century, having fought two major wars in addition to countless other territorial conflicts. They're basically the two major powers in East Asia, and between 1850-1950 each tried to annex the rest of the surrounding countries every decade or so. Rather than this boiling down to a thread about world powers and political control of people (we know where that will go), let's take this back to a situation where a market with much restrictions leads to studios having to be extra cautious what they release. Hogwash. First, you brought up the "Japanese flag symbolism," and I was simply trying to be helpful in explaining exactly how offensive that flag is for folks who may not know the sordid history of Sino-Japanese relations. I happen to know a bit about it, having majored in Japanese in undergrad, attended a Japanese university for a year, and subsequently worked for the Japanese government for a few years. Second, my fear is the exact opposite of "studios having to be extra cautious what they release." My fear is that from here on out, every would-be Hollywood blockbuster includes a gratuitous China tie-in just to try to make it more palatable to that market. Kudos to both Fox and Warner Brothers for having the stones to release hard-R versions of both Deadpool and Suicide Squad this year, full well knowing they were leaving ~$100 million on the table due to the lack of a Chinese market. God forbid if four years from now literally every Hollywood film has been neutered specifically to appeal to Chinese government censors, and/or contains a ridiculous China tie-in. Another example: I _hated_ how both the book and movie of The Martian had what seemed to me to be a gratuitous China tie-in designed specifically to cater to that market (which it did -- $94 million). Whereas, 20 years ago Contact had the exact same plot point (except the duplicate rocket was built in Japan, not China) and it did not seem at all forced.

Not blame China's leaders for being afraid of witchcraft and Japanese flag symbolism in a movie? Interesting. Not at all. China and Japan _hate_ each other and have for more than a century, having fought two major wars in addition to countless other territorial conflicts. They're basically the two major powers in East Asia, and between 1850-1950 each tried to annex the rest of the surrounding countries every decade or so.

And I think Suicide Squad's got another solid 10 days at the theater. Sully's the only major release next weekend, but it's going to get a massive drop in theater screens on the 16th with the release of Blair Witch, Bridget Jones and Snowden. But that puts it, at best at ~$316 million domestic or so. No way that's not a success, as it's within spitting distance of BvS.

Or, if it were a Disney/Marvel movie, maybe they would have hired some decent writers and it would have been _good_. Whine about Jesse Eisenberg's Luthor all you want, he was lightyears ahead of Zombie-CGI-LavaMan.

How come I see Bloodshot 7s in the $.50 to $1 bins everywhere but never Bloodshot 6?

Not for nothing, but I'd never heard of Max Steele before watching the trailer yesterday. Forcibly reminded me of X-O, so much that I'm worried that if it fails, it might kill the near-term prospects for an X-O movie.