• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Gatsby77

Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    6,497

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Gatsby77

  1. Gatsby77
    Jesus. In what world would you think that combination of movies would be...good?
  2. Gatsby77
    Except...the Friday-Sunday drop-off is significant. And the CinemaScore grade means general audiences thought it was *bad.* Which means it will likely fall off a cliff next week (down 65%+) and beyond. Plus, these films are lagging indicators. If enough folks felt burned by the mediocrity of Black Widow...then Eternals...they'll likely not show up next time. Not necessarily for Spider-Man - which has distinct charm/fan-base outside the MCU, but for Dr. Strange 2, etc. Which basically just means a reset in box office (and expectations). No longer will average MCU films still hit $600-$800 million box office; they may simply hit $400-500 million. Which sounds great, until you realize all-in spend is ~$250 per ($150 production + $100 marketing).
  3. Gatsby77
    What Bosco said. Hard to spin a "B" Cinemascore (which is audience reviews from those who have seen the films). I mean, "just a tad better than Howard the Duck or Punisher War Zone" - isn't exactly a ringing endorsement.
  4. Gatsby77
    Let’s see: - Sub-50% RT critics score - Horrific “B” CinemaScore among general moviegoers who have seen it - Box office drop off nearly 50% Friday-Sunday - Some on these boards discussing whether it’s better than Thor 2. That’s a lot of data points pointing to total failure - both critical and box office.
  5. Gatsby77
    Yes - exactly. I noted that WB Studios/HBO Max likely cost themselves money by not following the Disney+ model. But you're wrongly inferring I support the Disney+ model or was advocating it. I don't. Never had and never will. Doesn't change the fact that it made Disney money - and would most likely have made the other streaming services money had they adopted it as well.
  6. Gatsby77
    Nice. Way to totally mischaracterize my point. Which was...Black Widow made Disney more profit domestically its opening weekend from Disney+ subscribers who paid $30 to watch it from home than it did from every person in North America who paid to watch it in the theaters. Thus, folks (like JayDogRules) who claimed BW was a theatrical failure and discounted the home theater $30 per takes as merely "ancillaries" - equivalent to licensing fees from toy sales - were not only intellectually dishonest but dead wrong. This was 100% validated by Scarlett Johansson's lawsuit, as her contract was written pre-pandemic, with bonuses benchmarked to theatrical performance. BW's Disney+ Premiere Access performance almost single-handedly changed how performer/director bonus payments will be structured in contracts going forward (although support from Emily Blunt with similar cannibalization of Jungle Cruise's theatrical receipts certainly helped as well). I'm not advocating Disney continue to try to gouge folks with a $30 upcharge; rather acknowledging the business reality that Warner Bros. - and other studios - have left significant money on the table by not doing the same.
  7. Gatsby77
    Umm… methinks you vastly overestimate the power of Rotten Tomatoes. if the bulk of these reviews are true, actual word of mouth will kill this thing in the first few weeks. The Friday to Sunday drop may be very telling.
  8. Gatsby77
    U mad, bro? You’re more defensive of this - a film you *haven’t even seen,* than Bosco was of that flaming dumpster pile called BvS.
  9. Gatsby77
    Now down to 54% positive on Rotten Tomatoes. Approaching John Carter territory.
  10. Gatsby77
    Dafuq? You say that like it's a bad thing. To me, that's a large part of the film's genius. Nolan essentially remade Heat as a Batman film. And it was exceptional. It also goes to my thesis of good vs. bad superhero movies. We're long past the point where the first generation of Marvel films is enough on its own. You know, the basic plot of "origin story / hero gets powers / comes to grips with his newfound hero-ness / fights villain with roughly analogous powers" That was basically the plot of: The Incredible Hulk Iron Man Thor Ant-Man Yes - Black Panther and Captain Marvel followed this template as well, but added layers of plot or other genre elements that made them far better. For instance, each of them had something to say about the nature of power and responsibility. As I've said before, today's superhero films have evolved - they need to be able to nearly stand on their own as genre films in their own right, even if you stripped out all the superhero elements. That's why Captain America: The Winter Soldier was better than Captain America - it was a solid espionage thriller that had something to say about government surveillance and the Patriot Act. Wonder Woman was exceptional because it would have worked nearly as well as a WWI spy thriller even if Diana didn't have her superpowers. Black Panther dealt not just with aspects of racism and colonialism, but broader geopolitical questions of a nation's responsibility to help the world if they have the means, even at the cost of their own identity. And The Dark Knight was a self-conscious homage to Heat, a gritty mob thriller that simply grafted some Batman elements on. I'm hopeful that The Batman follows a similar path, featuring a full-on Silence of the Lambs take on the Riddler, an approach to psychological horror that (appropriately) casts the Riddler as a dangerous psychopath.
  11. Gatsby77
    Oh wow - seems on point: Vice: It Is Possible for 'Eternals' to Be Both Diverse and Bad
  12. Gatsby77
    Works the other way too, though. For every catastrophe like Josh Trank or Carl Rinsch, you've got success stories like Jon Watts (Spider-Man: Homecoming) and Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman). I'd say I'll reserve judgment but at this point I'll likely skip Eternals in the theater. Sounds like the critical consensus is overly long, pretentious & boring. Besides, I've got Dune on the docket to see with a large group this weekend. Saw it at home but looking forward to catching it on the big screen.
  13. Gatsby77
    Again - this is borderline wildly_fanciful_statement. 1) The Dark Knight is almost universally acknowledged as a better film than Black Panther. Because it is. 2) Without The Dark Knight - which *absolutely* led to the Best Picture expansion to as many as 10 nominees per year - from 5, there's slim (ahem! Zero) chance Black Panther gets nominated. Full stop. This is like bragging about getting a 1400 on the SAT post the 1994 re-centering, which effectively boosted everyone's score by 100 points. Congratulations - you're a B student, but we'll give you the A just because you tried hard.
  14. Gatsby77
    And that, my friend, is exactly why you miss the point entirely. The MCU has a villain problem. Specifically, that most of them suck donkey toes. Most are just analogues of the hero - with roughly the same powers, but like, evil. Every single one of the films you list above would have been far stronger with a better (or more developed) villain. Credit to Black Panther - Killmonger was not only a developed character, but he had a point - there were points in the film where you could easily root for him, or at least understand why he was doing what he was doing. Ditto the Joker in The Dark Knight. And yes - Loki is basically "evil Thor" but he's been written well enough, with nuance and character growth - over the years that he's evolved into a far more interesting character than he was in the Silver Age books. But even the Red Skull - who was a fairly flat fascist character in every comic I've read with him in it - almost to the point of parody - could have been stronger given better writing. The best thing they've done with him? His appearance in Endgame. In fact, the villain is one of the reasons I still defend Iron Man 3. Because it's really hard to write a solid solo Iron Man story that doesn't end in him battling another dude in an Iron Man suit. At least here, Killian was different and had different motivations - and all the sweeter because he was a villain of Tony Stark's own creation - when he was ignored that night on the roof. Also, p.s. Batman's *always* been defined by his rogue's gallery. It's another reason I'm excited for The Batman - The Riddler's easily his most terrifying villain - and that's been shown in such classic comics stories as Dark Knight, Dark City (Batman 452-454) and Hush (Batman 608-619). Yet he's never been given a solid movie or TV treatment that really shows his depravity and psychosis. I'm cautiously optimistic that The Batman changes that.
  15. Gatsby77
    What the ever-loving Chr-st-on-a-cracker is this? Sure, and: "Without Gal Gadot's Diana, Wonder Woman isn't that great." "Without Daniel Craig's Bond, Casino Royale isn't that great." "Without Christoph Waltz's Hans Landa, Inglourious Basterds isn't that great." "Without Anthony Hopkins, Silence of the Lambs isn't that great."
  16. Gatsby77
    What @Oddball said. This is a perfect example of something that's technically true but missing a metric ton of context - therefore basically a worthless statement. The Dark Knight was so good the Academy basically apologized to voters and doubled the number of films eligible to be nominated for Best Picture. Again - The Dark Knight was so good the Academy changed the entire Best Picture category. Then, the year Black Panther was nominated, it was one of 8 Best Picture nominees; whereas The Dark Knight barely missed the cut-off when the max was just 5. You really trying to say Black Panther would have made the cut if only 5 nominees were allowed? Really??
  17. Gatsby77
    Look on the bright side, Bosco. Dune's 62.1% 2nd weekend drop isn't nearly as bad as BvS's 69.1% drop.
  18. Gatsby77
    ? The ownership split has nothing to do with whether the film is profitable enough to warrant a sequel. Even $120M domestic / $300M international ($420M worldwide) is basically just break-even theatrically - and that now looks like a best case scenario. If anything, the Legendary / Warner Bros. split makes it worse. Given this weekend's drop-off, the only thing that makes sense is if Warner Bros. was using this (and the promise of Chapter 2) as a loss leader to help gain more HBO Max subscriptions. Which (as I've said before) makes sense. Well, and the prospect of a Dune film dynasty that could prove profitable long-term.
  19. Gatsby77
    That's not the point. The point is you're arguing Warner Bros., the 30% shareholder - wouldn't have *any* voice in Rotten Tomatoes' incredibly suspicious - and extraordinarily rare, if not unique - decision to hold back the critics' score for Justice League until more than 24 hours after the review embargo lifted. Of *course* the 70% shareholder has the final say. But the 30% shareholder has a *ton* of power as well. Again - the news was big enough to make The Washington Post as well as Wired Magazine - not the usual suspects for unfounded film conspiracy theories. You're also acting like Fandango (which sells theater tickets) wouldn't also benefit from this decision.
  20. Gatsby77
    Ugh. So best case scenario is now Terminator: Genisys numbers? ($90 million U.S. / $440 million total worldwide)? Hopefully the HBO Max numbers are strong enough that we still get the sequel. (I know it's been announced, but...like, Justice League 2 was announced as well.)
  21. Gatsby77
    I love how you focus on the Gordon Gecko quote (which is fictional) but ignore the fact that the minority interest conflict actually made the news in The Washington Post - to say nothing of the other reputable news publications (I didn't even link to the pieces in Variety or Wired). I didn't make this up - I'm merely reminding you what many publications reported at the time: that Warner Bros., a 30% owner in Rotten Tomatoes, clearly masked and delayed the release of the critics score for Justice League because they knew it was horrible. Also, perhaps you're just ignorant regarding business but you're dead wrong that "it makes them the majority so they dictate the terms." Again, a primary reason companies from Berkshire Hathaway to KKR to BlackRock seek significant minority control isn't just money, but to influence the corporate policies directly via board seats and (increasingly) proxy battles. A "significant minority stake" could be as little as 5% but still be used to directly influence policies. There's a whole raft of hedge funds and private equity funds that do exactly this.
  22. Gatsby77
    Why would you think a 30% shareholder couldn't occasionally dictate terms? That happens *all* the time and is the main reason companies build strong minority stakes - it gives them board seats and the precise ability to do just that. And this has been a known thing for 30 years - see the Gordon Gecko quote from Wall Street: "Now, listen, Jerry - I'm looking for negative control. Okay? No more than 30, 35%. Just enough to block anybody else's merger plans and find out from the inside if the books are cooked." More importantly, many reporters picked up on how rotten it smelled when Rotten Tomatoes refused to release the critics' score for Justice League until the 11th hour: See The Washington Post: "The movie-review aggregator waited more than 24 hours to post a poor critics' score for the new Warner Bros. film "Justice League," breaking with tradition of posting right after a studio-imposed ban... "Fueling the fire: WB parent Time Warner owns a 30 percent stake in Rotten Tomatoes...." “I think we need more transparency and equality on Rotten Tomatoes,” said Guy Lodge, a critic who writes for Variety. “An aggregation site should practice absolute objectivity. You mix Time Warner into it,” he added, “and it becomes very confusing.” "Warner Bros is a minority owner of Rotten Tomatoes' parent company. I respect a lot of people who work there but this is a BAD bad look," Katey Rich, a VanityFair.com editor, tweeted before the Facebook segment aired." Other articles at the time discussing the suspicious timing and ownership conflict of interest: Forbes Vox
  23. Gatsby77
    Umm...How about common sense, and the fact that I've worked in PR for 20+ years? Can't prove the agency that did the work (which means they're doing their job - typically if their name appears in the press, the jig is up), but as of this summer, NBCUniversal employed at least 40 different PR and marketing agencies, the bulk of which specialize in digital, social media and "guerilla" campaigns. Neither it nor Comcast has a publicly official "Agency of Record" listed (used to be Edelman; but that's not been true for 3-4 years now). Interestingly, a quick Google search reveals that one of the (several) social media / guerilla marketing agencies employed to promote Fast 6 was 10 Squared.
  24. Gatsby77
    My understanding is that Comcast (i.e., NBC/Universal) owns Rotten Tomatoes, with Warner Bros still retaining a minority stake. And why do you keep on about Disney supposedly having this unique, Illuminati-like hold over critics because of proven isolated incidents from 5 years ago? More to the point - like Disney is the only studio who tries to manipulate / sway both critical and social media opinion prior to release? They may be the most *effective* at it, but it's hardly their exclusive purview. Examples include: 1) the proliferation of Fast 9 Vin Diesel "family" memes on social earlier this summer - absolutely studio driven. 2) Rotten Tomatoes deliberately withholding the critics score for Justice League until the last moment, because they knew it was a turd. Absolutely driven by RT minority owner Warner Bros.
  25. Gatsby77
    A Quiet Place Part 2 would like a word. $297 million global on a $61 million budget.