Gatsby77

Yup -- see Adam Sandler's career. Even before Pixels' flop, he'd contracted to have his next 4 movies (including the much-criticized "Ridiculous Six") to be Direct-to-Netflix. Wesley Snipes had his Direct-to-Video period, but that was directly due to his tax evasion troubles. Stallone's the more interesting one, with three direct-to-video flicks in a row between "Driven" and "Spy Kids 3." Both of these actors would have likely gone Direct-to-Netflix today, and we'll see such moves resuscitate the careers of more than a few flailing stars going forward.

Thank you -- that was brilliant. However, it missed Big Hero Six, which also had the Marvel banner (& was a Marvel/Disney production).

1) Days of Future Past had the Marvel banner too. 2) The general public doesn't care whether it's Disney/MCU. It's still a Marvel Comics film. As long as it washes the bad taste of FF1 & FF2 out of my mouth, I'm good. Still weird to think that FF1 did as well as the first X-Men film given the marked difference in quality.

I don't think any of the three released FF films has been good. Sure -- let's take away Roger Corman's debacle, but I didn't particularly like FF 1 & I _hated_ FF 2 -- thought the only good parts were some scenes with Chris Evans & the first intro / chase with the Silver Surfer. Given that, and my profound belief that FF just won't translate well to film no matter who produces it, I'm ready to give this totally new take a shot. After the last two, I think they've got nowhere to go but up. Predict opening weekend of $48-$50 million.

Yeah -- Hard to see how it's not a disappointment for Marvel. Here's the box office mojo rankings for "Marvel, Phase 2" movies in terms of total (all-time domestic) 7-day gross: Iron Man 3 -- # 9 Thor 2 -- # 66 Cap 2 -- # 60 Guardians -- # 48 Ant-Man -- # 148 The reality is, we minority of intense comic book fanboys don't count. Example -- folks hated on Iron Man 3 for the Mandarin twist (which I, for one, _loved_) and yet it still made $175 million domestic on its opening weekend & went on to more than $400 million domestic. That Ant-Man started with comparisons to Thor 2 and now has been downgraded to box office comparisons to the Incredible Hulk (sans 3-D) & The Wolverine is not good. Yes, it's doing better than Green Lantern, having already passed GL's total gross, but my takeaway is these lesser-known hero flicks (i.e., Black Panther, Ms. Marvel) need to cost more like $90-110 million to do well.

I wonder if folks would hate on it less if it were actually called "Ultimate Fantastic Four?"

But so far it _is_ Incredible Hulk bad in terms of numbers. The films are precisely tied for inflation-adjusted domestic grosses after 15 days of release. Hulk had a harsher drop its second weekend but it also started higher, opening to $70 million in 2015 dollars vs. Ant-Man's $57 million.

Absolutely! My point was rather that (as I predicted), MI:5 is going to far outstrip the $40 million opening expectations. And by that rubric, a reminder that Ant-Man's doing far worse than The Incredible Hulk. Both movies are now tied at $109 domestic after 15 days (in equivalent 2008 dollars), but Hulk didn't have the 3-D ticket price bump. So many fewer folks have gone to see it. If anything, you can't compare the international grosses of those two films (or frankly, any 2015 films to ones produced prior to 2010) because the number of international screens has increased a ton as new territories (particularly in Asia) have opened up to the US market.

The previous installments didn't do significantly better than $40 million, so it's a safe conservative call, the type you've got to make with so much money on the line. Part 1 made $45 million, 2 made $58 million, 3 made $48 million, and 4 made $13 million. Part 4 had a very limited release and probably would have made 55 to 60 million if released widely. Here's the Box Office Mojo list of Impossible Mission films that shows opening weekend performance: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/search/?q=mission%20impossible Looks like MI: 5 did $20 million on Friday alone (counting $4 million from Thursday night). That + the rave reviews = it's gonna' do a lot better than $40 million this weekend.

I like both Miles Teller & Michael B. Jordan. That Awkward Moment showed they had good chemistry together. Teller's an arrogant in interviews, but it's deserved, as he was phenomenal in Whiplash last year. And I liked Jordan in The Wire, Friday Night Lights and Fruitvale Station. Don't get the hate about him, really. He's paid his dues with consistent good work over more than a decade, which is more than I can say for most new Hollywood it kids. Anthony Mackie did too. Folks remember that he got hot after The Hurt Locker, not that he got his start years earlier as the nemesis in Eminem's movie 8 Mile.

I think it's interesting that so much of this is perception colored by expectations. For instance, MI:5 is getting rave reviews & yet the studio is only "expecting" it to do $40 million this weekend, which it will almost certainly surpass by a wide margin. Meanwhile, Ant-Man was seen, at best, as a sobering reality check for Marvel Studios after it fell short of its $60-$65 million expectation. I think Paramount's playing it very safe by calling for MI:5 to have such a modest opening for what could be a decent action blockbuster. But calling for it to do fully 30% less than Ant-Man strikes me as odd.

Regardless of the official spin, I believe the Deadline article that says Trank was fired from the new Star Wars film due to his "erratic" behavior on FF. It claimed that FF writer/producer Simon Kinberg basically had to step in to save the FF film during editing, and then warned Kathleen Kennedy at Disney not to rely on this guy for a Star Wars anthology film (which Kinberg is also writing & producing). It's bad news when the screenwriter (who has a proven record of success & thus, clout) revolts against the director. Either way, I won't blame Trank for the writing or "changes" to the FF, as Kinberg is a solid writer, as is Mark Millar -- if anything, it was their decision to go the Ultimate FF route, not Trank's.

Check the 2008 listing on this Wikipedia page on "Movies based on Marvel characters." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_Marvel_Comics It notes that three Marvel Studios were produced that year (Iron Man, Incredible Hulk & Punisher: War Zone), although all were distributed by different studios. Notably, both Punisher: War Zone and (later) Ghost Rider: Spirits of Vengeance, while both Marvel Studio films -- were released under the "Marvel Knights" banner, thus are not considered part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Ghost Rider: Spirits of Vengeance is interesting in that it was co-produced by Disney/Marvel, whereas the first Ghost Rider film was strictly Columbia Pictures. This indicates there was at least a partial rights reversion in the interim & bodes well for Ghost Rider appearing in future Netflix productions like Daredevil. Also notable is that Disney/Marvel has since bought the continued distribution rights for its early phase 1 films, including Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Captain America, etc. So it's simply taken time for Disney's Marvel Studios to grow to the point where they could both produce & distribute their own IP, whereas for much of Phase 1 they needed to co-finance with other studios (via distribution deals).

Huh? Yes -- _of course_ Warner Bros. owns Green Lantern. But they wouldn't list it among the 10 announced films they have green lit unless they thought it (as opposed to other, cheaper options, a la Suicide Squad) could make money. If anything, Cyborg looks like the weak link among DC's announced movies, not Green Lantern. And no -- GL doesn't "have nowhere else to go" -- as proven by the Marvel situation, DC could just as easily license out their own properties to other studios for production or distribution. As many here have argued, Punisher War Zone should be disavowed & not be considered a true Marvel Studios film (which it is) simply because it was distributed by Lionsgate. That logic fails because many early Marvel Studios films were distributed by Paramount (incl. Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, & Captain America), Incredible Hulk was distributed by Universal.

Umm...they have greenlit another Green Lantern movie. It's on Warner Bros.' docket for 2020. And all three of those movies (FF, FF2 & X-Men) would have far large international takes today simply because the international market is far far larger than it was 10 years ago.

Well, good movie or not, recall that FF 1 did as well at the box office as X-Men 1 did in terms of hard numbers (not inflation-adjusted): Fantastic Four: Cost: $100 million. Domestic take: $155 million Total Worldwide: $330 million X-Men: Cost: $75 million Domestic take: $157 million Total Worldwide: $296 million No way Fox doesn't make another FF movie after this, because it's not like it had ASM 2's $300 (!!) million budget. If anything, they could go the route that Sony took with Ghost Rider -- where they made the sequel for literally half as much as the first one, thus retaining the rights and (barely) eeking profitability out of a little-seen & universally reviled sequel.

Word of mouth isn't going to give Ant-Man legs. The fact that it was # 1 its second week was a fluke due to Pixels bombing. Going into the weekend, Ant-Man was expected to be third, behind Pixels & Minions. Yes -- it's doing very well relative to its budget -- about as well as The Wolverine (with a similar budget). But it will drop off very quickly in the coming weeks, as MI 5 takes a lot of its screens this week, and FF siphons more of its demographic audience next week. The major difference between Ant-Man and Guardians, let alone Avengers, is it's not the type of film folks are going to see more than once, whereas the better Marvel films (even Winter Soldier) were.

I dont think either, necessarily. I believe creators have had input on the X-Men franchise but I can't remember anything said about assistance on any of the FF films, and though I'm probably mistaken, same with Spidey. It's idiotic to believe that Fox wouldn't consult actual comic book creators for this film. Comic book writer Mark Millar is listed as a creative consultant on the FF movie. You know, Mark Millar who wrote the first story arcs of Ultimate X-Men, The Ultimates, and (with Bendis) Ultimate FF. He then wrote the primary FF title for ~20 issues or so in 2008-09. He also wrote Marvel's Civll War and Old Man Logan storylines, and created/wrote Wanted, Kick- and Kingsman: The Secret Service. Filmwise, he's served as a creative consultant on the first Iron Man, as well as the film adaptations of his properties (Wanted, Kick-). He's also serving as creative consultant on X-Men: Apocalypse and (duh) Wolverine 3 (since he wrote Old Man Logan). You can prematurely hate on the FF film because they're adapting Ultimate FF, but at least they brought in the dude who literally established half the Ultimate line for this movie. And a guy who has had no fewer than six of his comic book creations turned into major studio films (including the forthcoming Cap sequel).

Did they not already do a Blade TV series? And was it not righteously terrible?

I appreciate the box office numbers -- particularly because people around here have such an irrational anti-Fox bias -- but the financial success (or lack thereof) of some of those movies is in no way indicative of their quality. Fact: New Line (with the Blade franchise), Fox (with X-Men & X2, as well as First Class & DOFP) and Sony (with Spider-Man 1-2) all made high-quality Marvel movies that paved the way for Disney's acquisition of Marvel and its subsequent universe building. So this irrational "it will all be fixed if Disney just gets the rights back" nonsense is ridiculous. We wouldn't _have_ Disney Phase 1-3 if not for the high quality (and financially successful) Marvel films trailblazed by the other studios.

But that's not true, as shown by X-Men, X2, and First Class. Fox hasn't figured out how to make _FF_ films yet, but as far as we know, neither has Disney. It's a team that's inherently hard to do well in live action.

Agreed -- by that rubric there's no way that Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Man, or even Blade would have done as well as they did. In the end, quality trumps "brand recognition" -- just ask the folks involved with Batman & Robin or Superman Returns. Ditto, your premise is incorrect: in 1968 Fantastic Four was the best-selling Marvel outside of Amazing Spider-Man, and both books were outsold by Tarzan. In 1973, FF was still 2nd to ASM among Marvels, and Thor, Iron Man & Hulk all out-sold Avengers.

So then you have read Ultimate Fantastic Four? The cast didn't have to read it, so neither should I. Ultimate FF is the source material... You can't say it's disrespectful of the source material if you haven't read it. The overall source, is of course, the original Fantastic Four. The Ultimate FF wouldn't exist without the Original. The Ultimate FF is based on the original FF. It is a perverted version of the FF. Trank made a perverted version of a perverted version. Which makes him a insufficiently_thoughtful_person. If somebody reads two chapters from some dingleberries interpretation of Lord of the Rings, and That's ALL, then decides to make a movie about it, tells the cast not to bother reading any of it, including the original source material, adds a bunch of characters not originally in it and the director's OWN interpretation of what little he had read - people would go ASB. The 'B' stands for Ballistic. There'd be a mutiny. Because literature is respected. Comics aren't. At least not by Trank. And you could argue 'but it wasn't from the SOURCE material', but the way I see it: If Bilbo Baggins is in a story, I know what it should be based upon. I feel the same way about Reed Richards. First, it will have to work really hard to be worse than FF 2. Second, what's wrong with using Ultimate FF as source material? The books were really good, and arguably the best thing to happen to FF since the Byrne run 20 years earlier. Besides, we've already gotten Ultimate Nick Fury in the movies and that's worked out fine. As others have said, I'll withhold judgment until seeing the actual movie, which looks like a fun popcorn flick -- and far better than the latest Terminator or Mission Impossible sequels.

Not that I want to disrupt your valiant defense of Ant-Man. Just pointing out... Captain America: The First Avengers has the second lowest revenue ratio of the past 11 movies, only surpassed in less profit by The Incredible Hulk. Where a 2.5 means a movie achieved a level where a studio can claim enough was made to cover all expenses, and have enough left over to be considered proft, Cap1 was a 2.6X. But as you know, the Avengers jumped the entire franchise forward to new heights, and all movies since have been consistently strong revenue generators. Even a movie like Thor: The Dark World. I realize Cap didn't set the world on fire but no one called it a bomb. And it had the advantage of massive relative name and fan recognition. The Ant-Man defense is a reaction to people shocked that it didn't make $100 million in the opening weekend when only 4 Marvel Studios movies achieved that and 2 of those were Avengers flicks...and all 4 featured Iron Man. Basically, there's the analysis applied to Downey movies and then everything else. Amazing to me that Ant-Man has done as well as it has. Yeah -- it's not shock that it didn't make $100 mill. It's more chagrin that it didn't even hit the $60-$65 mill. projected but rather made less on Saturday last week than on Friday (w/ Thursday evening incl.) and then even less on Sunday. That type of front-loading isn't good. Especially given that it was only the # 1 movie 5 of its first 10 days of release, and lost to a holdover no-less. It came in 2nd to Minions last Saturday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. To those of you who think it "has legs," don't be surprised to see it drop to # 3 or 4 next weekend. And it's not just MI 5 this weekend, but FF the following week that will push it down precipitously. Further, even Ghost Rider managed to open to $45 million back in 2007 (comparable to Ant-Man, given inflation and no 3D), and -- as critically maligned as it was -- had a smaller % drop 2nd weekend.

Umm...yeah. That's a nice spin attempt, but "better than average drop-off" when you start from 1/2 as much doesn't mean much. The reality is this is the worst-performing "official" MCU film by far (although among Marvel Disney releases, Punisher: War Zone was in its own league). Again, it's facetious to say Ant-Man's doing better than The Incredible Hulk. Adjusting for inflation, The Incredible Hulk did $70 million its opening weekend, vs. Ant-Man's $57 million. And that's not including the 20%+ bump it got from 3-D ticket prices. Even without the 3D bump, The Incredible Hulk did $97,055,430 in domestic in its first 10 days (i.e., two weekends) of release. Adjusted for inflation (and _with_ the 3D bump), Ant-Man's only made $93,795,400 over the same time period.