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Gatsby77

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Everything posted by Gatsby77

  1. Gatsby77
    This Variety piece is worth reading. It goes to what I wrote above, about Aquaman's failure not being specific to the film (or Warner Bros.) itself, but rather superhero fatigue more generally. Although this author's point can be summarized as "Bring back the A-list characters," he does a good job of reviewing the evolution and cultural impact of comic book TV shows and movies from the 1960s (Batman TV show) to present. https://variety.com/2023/film/columns/fall-of-comic-book-movie-culture-inevitable-superman-batman-deadpool-1235858728/
  2. Gatsby77
    How to Lie With Statistics, an example. Pretend the calendar doesn't exist. Publish international results for a film released during Christmas / New Year's week - and compare those seemingly robust weekday results to those of films that were released outside the holiday season, and then brag about how the former film is outpacing the others. Put another way, basically no chance the international take for this ultimately matches Black Adam's $225 million.
  3. Gatsby77
    Huh. That's a weird spin on "Won't hit $150 million domestic."
  4. Gatsby77
    That was fast.
  5. Gatsby77
    I bet The Rock's going to be popping the bubbly early this weekend. It takes skill to open to less than half of Black Adam - but somehow Momoa and company managed to pull it off. Feel kinda' bad for Patrick Wilson, tho. 1) Been a huge fan of his ever since Hard Candy 2) Physically, he *put in the work* for his role this time around.
  6. Gatsby77
    ? Not a Marvel or DC or Sony thing. But it's absolutely remarkable (historic, even!) that Aquaman 2 only held onto the # 1 spot for *3 days.* Even The Flash managed to hold onto # 1 for 5 days.
  7. Gatsby77
    Not a great sign that it fell below Wonka yesterday, despite Wonka's having been out a full week longer.
  8. Gatsby77
    But some of this is likely not specific to Aquaman 2 itself, but rather general superhero fatigue. I know...I know... But look at the top films of 2023. Barbie and Super Mario Bros. took the top 2 slots, and only 3 superhero films were among the top 10. Plus - the top comic book film of the year (in the # 3 slot) was an animated one, not officially part of either the MCU or DCEU. The Flash and The Marvels fell well outside the top 20, and Blue Beetle and Shazam 2 (and likely now Aquaman 2) fell well outside the top 30. The predictable result? Fewer comic book films we be greenlit going forward and those that are will likely have smaller budgets.
  9. Gatsby77
    Einstein once said, "If you can't explain a thing simply, you don't understand it well enough." I'd submit if you need to spill mountains of ink to make your point - and account for nearly 30% of the posts in a given thread, you may be overdoing it a bit. Aquaman 2's opening weekend was 40% below that of The Marvels. Its Rotten Tomatoes critical score is also 40% below that of The Marvels. Therefore...
  10. Gatsby77
    Another *huge* issue with the Tom Cruise Reacher is that Reacher doesn't drive. And then the trailer for the first film puts him behind the wheel of a car as a major setpiece. Don't get me wrong - both Cruise films were better than they had any right to be (including the resolution to that car chase), but Cruise wasn't the character from the books. Ritchson fits *far* better. I hope he gets a Batman role, or Superman role - or whatever major comic book role is next in the cards...and then knocks it out of the park.
  11. Gatsby77
  12. Gatsby77
    Weird. I remember the critical and theatrical failure of BvS leading to the cancellation of 4 planned DCEU movies (Justice League 2, Cyborg, Ben Affleck's Batman, and Deathstroke). Wherein the catastrophic 69% 2nd weekend drop led to WB panicking, reworking Justice League Part 1 to lighten it up with Whedon, and then - audiences simply didn't show up for it anyway - having already been burned by the prior film. But hey - at least we've still got Ezra Miller
  13. Gatsby77
    No f---kn way this is worse than BvS - also a B. But the critics seemingly prefer this one - 36% positive on RT (vs. BvS's 29%).
  14. Gatsby77
    Rollin' an impressive 1 for 24 among Rotten Tomatoes' Top Critics.
  15. Gatsby77
    God D*** are the critical reviews for this bad. And - at 23% positive, its Rotten Tomatoes score is even worse than that of BvS. Even for Snyder, that takes skill.
  16. Gatsby77
    Don't see why this project would succeed... Given it's only been a few years since the last attempt at The Wolfman (ahem, "Wolf Man"). The last version had a script co-written by Andrew Kevin Walker and a cast that included Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt and Anthony Hopkins. It still bombed.
  17. Gatsby77
    Interesting article. I mean - the math doesn't lie. Napoleon was obvious Oscar bait, and instead it: Opened to # 2 over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend Received an atrocious B- CinemaScore Dropped out of the top 5 in its 2nd weekend Did less in 10 days domestically than The Marvels did in 3. At this rate, it'll be available for streaming by New Year's Eve.
  18. Gatsby77
    Yeah - all of this. I love John Woo - but his moralizing about superhero movies when he made A Better Tomorrow and Face/Off? To be clear, Face/Off is one of my favorite films of the '90s - and among my top 10 all-time action films, but it's almost a cartoon. And with few tweaks, it could have been a really good Punisher movie. Ditto - I can respect Jodie Foster not wanting to appear in superhero flicks, but I'd much rather see her as a one-off character in a superhero project (a la her colleagues Annette Bening, Glenn Close, Sigourney Weaver, & Amy Adams) than in some of her own past misfires (like Nell). You can't headline a mediocre episode of Black Mirror on the one hand and then write-off an entire genre of film on the other without absolutely drowning in hypocrisy.
  19. Gatsby77
    Sure - but that's not what the original looked like at all. This is the 2009 reproduction of the original 1965 doll.
  20. Gatsby77
    Re. b) I'd disagree with the "in recent years" bit. Barbie has been showcasing wide-ranging aspirational careers for women (beyond just teacher or nurse) for decades, since near its inception. Astronaut Barbie is a perfect example - the first Astronaut Barbie doll was released in 1965, years before the moon landing.
  21. Gatsby77
    Gitesh is not necessarily right, tho. Steel also dropped 78% in its 2nd weekend. Have to wait to see weekend actuals to determine if it actually bombed harder than Steel.
  22. Gatsby77
    Where is Silvermane in all this?
  23. Gatsby77
    Yup - this looks like another Sony Spidey-adjacent flick. I mean - looks better than Morbius, but I was more excited to see New Mutants than I am this. Although I also have zero exposure to Madame Web. May have mentioned it before but my only exposure to her was in the 1984 text-based Incredible Hulk Questprobe video game. I'm pretty certain I've never read an actual comic in which she appeared...
  24. Gatsby77
    This. I was (and am) a *huge* fan of the first Captain Marvel movie - primarily because of the script, but also due to the performances of Brie Larsen, Jude Law and Annette Bening. And I likely won't see this one in the theater...because having watched a few of the trailers, I have no idea what it's about. Who is the villain? If I can watch two separate trailers for a film and not have a clear understanding of the villain or threat, you've lost. I mean - I can *guess* it's some combination of Kree or rogue Skrulls, but the first movie made it's purpose 100% clear, even with the ultimate villain misdirect. See also: Shang-Chi Thor Love and Thunder Neither of these presented the villain clearly in the trailers either - and I skipped them. Sure, I vaguely knew that the Thor villiain was Bale's character, but the trailer placed more of an emphasis on comedy than his threat (or purpose). At least with Doctor Strange 2 we knew exactly who the villain was - an unhinged Wanda, fresh off of WandaVision and ready to destroy nearly everything in her quest to save her kids.
  25. Gatsby77
    I'd love to see her as Dazzler - and think shed kill it. This is one of my favorite SNL skits of the last 5 years: