Gatsby77

He also later admitted that he had no plan for 7-9. It was just something he told people for PR.

Looking forward to this but she's a big step down from Rosamund Pike.

It's arrived at my local $2 theater.

Hogwash. I think the critics just have refined taste & can separate good from mediocre from bad. Case in point: they gushed over Deadpool, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Batman '89, etc. And I haven't checked lately but I'm fairly certain Spider-Man 2 & X-Men 2 are each considered the best of their respective franchises, & with good reason. Here Occam's Razor dictates that maybe the critics (gasp!) recognize quality, regardless of the studio that produced it.

Or, I'm thinking Apollo 13. Really good movie, but we all knew the ending going in. I'm just saying, though -- I personally want to see this echo The Dirty Dozen, with everyone dying but the final one or two -- who sacrifice for the greater good.

I think it will top out closer to $600 million worldwide. I feel this will end up ending its run quickly & with a whimper as the biggest indication of "superhero fatigue" yet. My totally unscientific proof point? I'm a huge X-Men fan & couldn't be roused to see it in its first 10 days of release. - Just really not excited for this film the way I was for all five of the prior ones. And it's weird - how did we get to a point where the X-Men movies are playing fourth fiddle behind Avengers movies, Iron Man movies and Captain America movies? X-Men, Batman, and Spider-Man were the gold standard trio of comic book titles in my youth (late '80s - mid '90s) and yet this latest X-Men film already seems to be fading from public consciousness less than two weeks in. That it seems poised to do less well domestically than Ant-Man boggles my mind.

Yeah - apologies. I misattributed her line re. the Bothans to the planning scene in the original Star Wars rather than Jedi.

Y'all remember the Michael Keaton Batman hate, right? Or the Heath Ledger Joker hate? Or, you know...the Batfleck hate? Why don't we give DC the benefit of the doubt before pre-judging a movie that hasn't even started shooting yet? If anything, the success of the TV version of The Flash should instill confidence that the Powers That Be understand the character and why the TV show works -- so they can make a worthy cinema version.

What are folks's thoughts on the re-shoots? Earlier this week it was reported that it would undergo a month of re-shoots to "lighten the tone." As of this morning, it's rumored to cover up to 40% of the movie! I wrote a blog post with my thoughts on the matter here: http://bit.ly/24mbTyz

I like Brie Larson but I can't shake that she played the au pair in my two favorite episodes of The League.

I loved the Reavers -- first story arc of X-Men I picked up off the shelf. And I loved when they took on the Punisher in Acts of Vengeance too. Wonder if we'll get this iconic image in the movie:

Hah - maybe it was the James Bond role playing game, then. As that was definitely in my role-playing rotation in middle school. And the Q Manual for the game was amazing - a decent encyclopedia of cars and their various attributes, guns & their various attributes, etc. At the end of the day, I'm not nearly the literary purist you are, given that I think Fleming wasn't that great a writer (for instance, the 80s novels by Gardner easily put his to shame). Also, the Cold War's over -- no reason not to update Bond for the times. Hell, today's MI:6 agents are probably more likely forensic accountants and/or computer hackers than assassins. And I also think the film and book universes are different - so an Idris Elba reboot, for example, wouldn't be as out-of-place for me on film. Biggest example of shock I recall was seeing The Living Daylights when I was 11 years old, and he meets up with Felix Leiter to parachute into the wedding. I'd read Live and Let Die already, and knew that Leiter lost an arm & a leg in that story -- so how could he have all his limbs in The Living Daylights?

I can't remember if she's still alive but in the books 008 was a woman. Given that precedent, it's far easier for me to swallow a female Bond-type than a lot of the other PC reboots we've seen lately.

This. And I don't buy the negative-spin-on-news thing, to garner clicks or otherwise. These same critics loved Deadpool; they loved the Nolan trilogy -- they just didn't love BvS.

Huh? But it doesn't matter what question Irons was asked: The end result is the same: Irons, one of the principals of BvS is on record as unambiguously calling the film "very muddled" and "overstuffed." I actually work in PR; I spin messaging for a living. And that quote by Irons is unspinnable.

How do we know he's misquoted if we weren't there? I may not be the best at reading comprehension but I thought the given quote is clear: "Deservedly so. I mean it took £800 million, so the kicking didn’t matter but it was sort of overstuffed…" He went on to add, "It was very muddled." So he: 1) Admits it received a kicking by the critics (which it did; this is a fact) 2) Says it deserved the kicking because it was "overstuffed" & "muddled" (his opinion) and notes 3) it ultimately didn't matter because it made a ton of money at the box office (while he overstates the amount by a third, that may just be a typo -- the sentiment remains the same & is based in fact) Am I missing something? What is unclear or misquoted?

So...quotes don't (or shouldn't) count if a reporter asks their subject a leading question by first presenting...facts? It's not like Irons (or Affleck, or Snyder) are not aware of the film's negative reception and underperformance. Also, it's a bad quote to begin with: Irons states the film made "£800 million." It did not. It made ~$830 million, or about £600 million.

I like Dalton as well. And "The Living Daylights" was the best book-to-screen adaption. Granted, the entire short story took only about three minutes of screen time in the film, but the entire story was there & complete. It would have been great to see an in-his-prime Dalton in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, as that's probably my favorite of the books. If Connery had played the role rather than Lazenby, hands down it'd be considered the best Bond film.

I thought Fleming wanted David Niven for the role -- one of the original film producers is on record as saying Fleming even wrote Casino Royale with Niven in mind.

You realize that polls on a comic book message boards (ie., the most diehard comic fans on the planet) have _zero_ bearing on a film's actual quality and/or public reception, right? Like -- I'll defend the Watchmen movie to the end of days but it was doomed to critical & commercial mediocrity from the start because the story itself isn't meant to appeal to the masses. As a comic book geek, I _loved_ it, but there were few, if any, non-comic fans I could recommend it to because of its message and overall worldview. He made a film for the diehard superhero fans, but in so doing nearly definitionally alienated the public at large. The reason I don't feel the same way about BvS is that with a few easy tweaks Snyder could have made a film that was leagues better in quality _and_ far more commercially and critically successful. It boggles my mind how he could have been given such a no-fail concept and a) messed it up so thoroughly and b) been allowed to do so by those in charge at Warner Bros. Luckily, with the creative shuffle and appointment of Geoff Johns, perhaps DC can prevent such an egregious misfire with the Justice League, etc.

Agreed. I got to a work trip to Cuba back in 1997 (we traveled on a religious / humanitarian exemption) and it was amazing. All the cars (even the non-U.S.) ones dated from before the embargo. So you'd see 1950s-60s Chevys (like, right out of the movie Grease) everywhere, and they were still running. We traveled to the work site every day in a 40 year-old Mercedes truck. Amazing educational system too. I would trust any doctor or dentist trained in Cuba because they learned their craft without the aid of state-of-the art equipment.

Agreed. With what they're purportedly spending on Suicide Squad it's going to need at least $650 worldwide to break-even, and $800 million or more worldwide to be a "hit." That's a _huge_ step up from GotG and a much bigger gamble.

1) What JayBuck said. BvS being outdone by Civil War, let alone (domestically) by Deadpool is like me playing pick-up basketball against Kobe Bryant and only losing to him by two points. 2) For me, the core piece of the Forbes article is the last sentence. Yes -- BvS expectations were $1 bn. or more worldwide, and it didn't hit that. And we live in a world where that is both fair & will become more the norm. If either Rogue One or the next PoTC similarly fail to hit $1 bn. they will be seen as similar failures. Why? Because the last few films in those franchises hit that mark (as did the last two Batman films.) 3) From that list, I think we'll see Through the Looking Glass, Rogue One and Finding Dory hit $1 bn. easily - I'm less sold on Independence Day. If it is critically maligned, it could top out at just $800-$850 mill.

Yeah...um...posting poll results drawn from ~200 frequent posters to a comic book message board is not exactly an unbiased view. We are the comic book geeks. We, more than anything, want these movies to succeed. And many of us have thousands of dollars bet on their success. The general public is far less biased, and they soundly rejected BvS, especially after the first weekend, when pre-sales finished and actual word-of-mouth got out. Had it been any good, that would not have been the case.

You're not wrong, but it's not such a systemic change since 2011 (when Captain America came out) as you're implying. For instance, it's worth noting that Deadpool is still (barely) playing in U.S. theaters whereas BvS is not, and it came out a full five weeks earlier. Heck -- even Ant-Man lasted three more weeks in the theaters than BvS.