Gatsby77

Not quite. $75 million x 2 = $150 million. Current (estimated) total: $146.42 million. $146.42 < $150

No - the context (and obvious point) is that Morbius's 1.68x budget multiplier after the second weekend was nowhere close to 2x, a point driven home by its still not hitting 2x after another full week, which included a strong holiday weekend. And The Batman has (indeed, as predicted) squashed Suicide Squad's worldwide total - surpassing $750 million worldwide. Which is a moot point, because it passed Suicide Squad's domestic total long ago. You're right - Suicide Squad was a horrible film. But it was also a Batman/Joker/Will Smith/Harley Quinn film that was a huge box office success. Full stop. And ultimately, the numbers will likely show The Batman not only outperformed it, despite a comparable budget - but was more profitable to the studio- given the much higher domestic take and split. And that's even with Warner Bros. intentionally cannibalizing potential theatrical profits by releasing it to HBO Max early.

Noting for the record, that after 3 weekends, Morbius has still not reached that 2x multiple. #MathIsHard

I'm cautiously optimistic about Kraven. First - JC Chandor is a phenomenal writer and solid director. While he didn't write Kraven, his screenwriting experience should help inform the film. Second, while I'm ambivalent about Aaron Taylor-Johnson, the supporting cast of Ariana DeBose and Russell Crowe are (frankly) better than the film deserves. Especially if they go with the twist that Crowe's playing not just Aaron Taylor-Johnson's father but the *real* Kraven. We'll see...

I watched episode 2 and half of episode 3 last night. While I'm enjoying Oscar Isaac's performance (and Ethan Hawke's), the overall show is unexpectedly unsatisfying. I can't say "bad" per se, but the overwhelming feeling I get is it's a C-list show befitting a C-list character (which, frankly, Moon Knight's always been). Wish I still had one of my copies of the 1980 # 1 to re-read so I could review his standard identities (are we up to 3 now?), but overall...I'm not feeling compelled to finish this. Last night, it even occurred to me that it'd be more interesting to be watching a Deathstroke show instead (based on the early 90s Zeck run).

Jonah Hex would like a word: 3 Starred two major Oscar winners and ultimately grossed $10.5 million domestic against a $47 million budget. And this was in 2010, well after the release of such comic book films as Iron Man and The Dark Knight.

Well - Ezra Miller clearly has some longstanding problems. And the assistant police chief in Hilo, Hawaii is on the record as noting folks had called the police re. Ezra Miller's behavior 10 separate times in just three weeks (March 7-March 30) before his actual arrest and the restraining order issued against him. Not sure where you live, but where I come from 11 incidents in three weeks takes skill.

Your weekly reminder that The Batman has out-performed "Still Less Than 2016 Suicide Squad With No China" weekend by weekend -- and week by week -- across nearly every metric so far. Not only is its domestic total well above Suicide Squad's, but its worldwide total currently stands at 98.4% of Suicide Squad's -- with some gas left in the tank. And it will surpass that sometime this week. *Despite* being available to watch on HBO Max in less than 2 weeks. So either they're both successful (true) or they're both embarrassing failures (false).

73.9% drop this weekend. And a C+ Cinemascore. Put a fork in it (err...a stake)...it's done.

Little did we know then that Ezra Miller wasn't doing much acting in We Need to Talk About Kevin...

It's Friday afternoon, yo. Let's all raise a glass to celebrate this week's marking the sixth anniversary of this thread - for a solo Flash film that's still (at best) more than a year away.

No comment on the above, but an observation: 15 months is more than enough time to re-cast and digitally replace him.

Take heart, Jaydog - two folks here have said Morbius was better than Carnage. But you know…that’s like saying Steel was better than The Spirit. At a certain point, it’s all just a black hole of suck…

Wait - there's a Morbius deleted scene on the Blade DVD??? And yes - there's a big difference between a straight-up bad comic book movie (New Mutants, Suicide Squad, Jonah Hex, BvS, ASM 2, Punisher War Zone) and a truly terrible "so-bad-it's-good" comic book movie you'd watch (or re-watch) when you're drunk (Superman 3, both Ghost Rider films). What makes the Ghost Rider films amazing is that everyone involved (esp. Nic Cage) *knows* it's ridiculous - and leans in anyway. The first film scored amazing points for the scene that reveals Sam Elliott's character is Carter Slade - and then they ride off together to "Riders on the Storm." It's terrible, but *so good* at the same time. And Spirits of Vengeance gives you not just Cage, but Idris Elba, Christopher Lambert and Dan Ketch as a demonically possessed pre-teen. The film transcends bad to reach a type of nirvana of truly terrible.

Counterpoint: No. There were plenty of reasons to dislike this film well before seeing it. That the final project ended up being about as bad as foreseen isn't some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy - it's merely predictable. The reasons? 1) This project was suspect from the beginning - because Morbius is such a minor character in the Marvel (even Spider-Man) mythos. It can be done (see Blade) - but that's the exception, not the rule. Venom? Sure. He was one of the most popular comic book characters of the '90s - and that popularity endures. Morbius? Not so much. He's the Marvel equivalent of if DC opted to do a tragic Shakespearean solo film about Man-Bat. 2) The trailers for this were laughable. 3) The lead. Jared Leto is an actor I actually like, but who has damaged his reputation with his over-the-top method acting over the last decade, well-deserved Oscar or no - AND (separately) gained the scorn of comic book fans at large for his off-key Joker portrayal. 4) The massive delays - which weren't just Covid-related, but also so they could juggle the release so this came after Spider-Man: No Way Home - and shoe in a very late-in-the-game reshoot after-credits sequence that would only make sense post-No Way Home. There was *plenty* of reason to pre-judge this film - and that pre-judgement seems validated by the critical response. That smacks of New Mutants - knowing you had a turd on your hands but had to release it eventually.

Man, this franchise has been on ice so long that the Crow 4 starred Dennis Hopper - and he died over a decade ago.

I haven't kept up with the Moon Knight books from the last 20 years. My memory from the first series is he had four different identities. Is that still canon - or has it now been expanded to "as many as the writer wants?"

Nah - Jonah Hex is still the worst DC movie. And arguably features career worst acting from both Michael Fassbender *and* John Malkovich. Plus - inexplicably, Megan Fox isn't believable playing a prostitute.

Now 18% with 84 reviews in. Still a ways to go to catch Jonah Hex.

Rotten Tomatoes is currently at 20% based on 66 reviews. That's worse than Batman v Superman's 29%.

But didn't you hear? Aquaman lost money theatrically

Exactly. It's not a close comp to virtually any other film released since the pandemic (although...Top Gun: Maverick may be close due to the similar multiple marketing pushes over several years). In addition, No Time to Die had at least $20 million in interest carry costs from the nearly 2-year delay.

In a word - yes. But...let me elaborate anyway. $150 million is still a *ton* to spend on P&A - especially for a film that was originally budgeted at just $100 million total. Avengers: Endgame had only $150 million global P&A - and that was not only a much bigger film - but costs have gone *down* since then as digital advertising has largely supplanted traditional TV advertising Due to the pandemic, we're looking at drastically diminished out-of-home (billboards, bus signage, etc.) The Suicide Squad was a new property - unknown to non-comic collectors. So it *needed* a huge marketing push in the way the 10th Batman film (and 4th Batman film appearance in 7 years) did not. Everyone knows who Batman is, so the marketing isn't a heavy lift.

The New York Times cites $150 million: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/movies/making-suicide-squad-a-smash-despite-withering-reviews.html Deadline cites $156 million: https://issuu.com/pmcderek/docs/no_10_suicide_squad No Time to Die is not a relevant comp because of the significant studio delays and interest carry costs. Depending on the source, somewhere between $50 million - $66 million in marketing costs were purely wasted because they were spent against the April 2020 release date - and the film didn't end up in theaters until late 2021. The Batman didn't see anything close to those delays - just a shutdown of a week or two when Robert Pattison reportedly got covid. The point? We'll eventually have an accurate ballpark accounting of The Batman's P+A costs. But right now your guesses are just .