Gatsby77

That was...unexpected. Huh.

Actually, the show surpassed the source material towards the end of Season 6, so Season 7-8 = up to Benioff and Weiss. Benioff's one of my favorite writers of the last 20 years, for his book The 25th Hour, which he wrote while working as a bouncer. But I'm still shocked by both their creative decisions and the brutal fan reactions to the last two weeks of GOT episodes, which were a betrayal of the personalities of at least four characters we've come to know over nearly a decade.

And yet...Twitter's going a bit crazy actually criticizing this news, given how horrible this week's episode of Game of Thrones was. Pretty funny to see the tides turn that quickly, even if D&D somehow manage to turn it around next week. Even the comments so far on that Verge article itself are pretty damning...

I think Craig's tenure as Bond will be seen as a necessary evolution -- particularly after the abject cheese of the Brosnan era. The fact is the horrible invisible car / CGI wind-surfing / Madonna / laser / face & race - swapping Die Another Day was one of the worst Bond films out there, and laid the series bare as a cartoon that was rendered instantly obsolete when The Bourne Identity was released. I'd also argue that Craig's tenure has produced two stone cold classics (so far): Casino Royale and Skyfall. Skyfall was easily a Top 5 Bond film -- and may be Top 3 (after From Russia With Love and On Her Majesty's Secret Service -- I go back and forth on whether it's better than Goldfinger). And for reference - I've read all the Fleming books and short stories, 90% of the John Gardner ones, and half of Raymond Benson's.

This is good point. Related: I'm pretty sure that the last episode of M*A*S*H will forever hold the record for most-watched scripted episode of television in the United States. First aired on Feb. 28, 1983, nearly 106 million Americans tuned in. That was 45% of the entire U.S. population at the time. But that was also back in the day when there were only 7-8 non-cable TV networks. Today, with 150+ channels - plus Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc. media fragmentation has done its thing. For comparison's sake, only ~17 million Americans watched Game of Thrones' Season 8 premiere.

Yeah. He's also playing Spawn (if that ever sees the light of day).

Interesting that, after adjusting for inflation, the average movie ticket costs ~10% less today than it did in 1969.

Harrison Ford was in Cowboys & Aliens

Y'all need to up your movie game. Al Pacino was in D--- Tracy. As was James Caan. Robert DeNiro's in Joker (forthcoming) Jamie Foxx was in Amazing Spider-Man 2 Ethan Hawke was in Valerian & the City of A Thousand Planets Daniel Craig was in Cowboys & Aliens Vin Diesel was Groot (& soon, Bloodshot) Sean Connery was in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Amy Adams was in Man of Steel The Rock was in GI Joe 2 Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington were in 2 Guns Keanu Reeves was in Constantine Bruce Willis was in RED Sylvester Stallone was Judge Dredd Tom Hanks was in Road to Perdition I'd argue Johnny Depp counts for Lone Ranger And in addition to the Thor films, Natalie Portman was in V for Vendetta

What intrigues me most about this chart is lines 30 and 36 (for Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War). These films' adjusted grosses -- from 2018 -- are actually deflated today. The implication is the average theater ticket costs less in 2019 than it did in 2018, leading to adjusted grosses for those films being lower. Could this be due (in part) to subscription services like MoviePass? Or simply that there are a greater percentage of "normal" screens vs. more expensive "3D" ones? Or did a major theater chain actually lower its prices?

To say nothing of Knightfall, Warriors of Plasm and everybody holding their breath for the forthcoming Neal Adams/Todd McFarlane Spawn / Valeria the She-Bat crossover that never actually happened. Day-um was that a good show.

I can't hate on Leap Frog because of what Bendis did to him -- used him as the lynchpin for his first-ever Daredevil story, "Wake Up." It's Daredevil (vol. 2) # 16 - 19, and it's a straight masterpiece -- one of the best Daredevil stories ever done (and yes - I'm including both of Miller's runs).

Too many windows open.

Yeah - or that the general public loved Iron Man 3 far more than the minority of comic book geeks. With nearly 700,000 votes, it's rated at 7.2 -- the same as Captain Marvel, and (appropriately) higher than Iron Man 2 (a mere 7.0), Thor, or Thor 2. Here, again, more than 50% of users rated it a 7 or an 8.

Yeah - and any time it doesn't follow a bell-curve is evidence of a concerted voting campaign, or dishonest voting. Notice that twice the number of people have given Captain Marvel a "10" as have given it a "1" -- but that the rest of the votes are clustered around 6-9, while very few voted it a "2" or a "3." Gives credence to the view that many of those who voted it a "1" simply want to see it fail. Very few films are as legitimately polarizing as say..."Mother!" or "Passion of the Christ" where clusters at either end of the extremes are understandable. Otherwise, when you see such an obvious outlier, it likely means there's something disingenuos afoot... Likewise, looking at the user scores for "The Last Jedi" show it's true score is around a 7-8 (which I think is about right) -- with more than 40% of scores being one of those numbers. Then you've got very few ratings of 2-4, before seeing 6.6% of votes giving it a 1.

I've been saying this all along - and for a very specific reason. IMDB has a much greater incentive to verify data and keep it accurate -- because it sells that data to IMDBPro users. It's far harder to manipulate the audience numbers there than on RT.

2011 - I set out to build a "Word's Best Silver Age" set on a beer budget. That knocked out most of the Marvel and mainstream DC titles. I went with Gold Key Magnus Robot Fighter. Fits because I started collecting Valiant with Unity in the early '90s. Took me six years but by last year I'd completed it: Magnus # 1 - 46 (1963 - 1977) in average CGC 9.6. 15 of them are 9.8s. Only book below 9.4 is # 37.

Y'all are punks. Seriously? No one's willing to come forth with some spectacular speculation fails? Okay. Here's the one's that sting (for reference, I'm in my early 40s but started collecting in 1989 w/ the Batman movie). I'm primarily a fan / collector, but here are my most memorable speculation fails: Episode I: Comicfest '93 in Philly -- the beginning of the bust. With $50 in my pocket, I'm stuck with a decision. Do I buy: a) I, Lusiphur # 1 in 9.0/9.2 for $45 (keep in mind Poison Elves # 1 is a $20 book) b) All-Star Western # 10 in 9.0/9.2 for $45 c) Bone # 1 in 9.6 for $50 Tough choice, but I bought the All-Star Western for $45. Sold it 8 years later for $260. Buyer was happy. Turns out CGC couldn't encapsulate it though, due to an overhang. It later sells (still raw on eBay) a few years later for just $131. I'm the under-bidder, and I kick myself for not reacquiring it. As it turns out, Drew Hayes dies and Poison Elves (thus, demand for I, Lusiphur) with him. I told my buddy to buy the Bone # 1 for $50. Instead, he goes all-in on Ultraverse (hottest thing at the show, the next Valiant). Bummer. Episode II: Three months later or so. Ultraverse is still red-hot (the next Valiant). I trade said-buddy 11 NM 9.4-ish copies of Byrne X-Men (including 129-134) for 47 issues of Ultraverse. #fail. Episode III: Death of Superman. I go all-in from the jump. Buy 8 pristine copies of Man of Steel # 18 off the shelf, half of them newsstand. Fast forward 20+ years. The trailer for BvS hits. I fail to sell. April 2019 - I still have those 8 pristine copies, although the bags haven't been swapped out in 15 years now. They've got to be worth money someday, baby! Episode IV: 2003. The Wolverine title gets rebooted. As Wolverine's my favorite character, I go all-in. Pre-order 50 copies at $1.81 apiece shipped (vs. $2.25 cover price). Later wholesale them off for ~75 cents apiece to KPR Comics in a large storage unit purge in 2014. #Fail Episode V: 2007: I'm back at Wizard World Philly, and looking for the best copy of Hero for Hire # 1 I can find. Because John Singleton (RIP) is all about directing the movie with Tyrese. There are _zero_ graded copies to be found. I end up paying double-market $110 for a raw 9.0, as well as a few copies in the 5.0-6.0 range. And...nothing happens. For _years_. Pretty sure KPR Comics got 3 copies of Hero for Hire # 1 in the aforementioned purge of 2014. #Bummer Episode VI: 2007. Timing Fail. I sell a raw NM 9.6 ASM 300 on eBay in early December, right before Christmas and six months before Venom appears in Spider-Man 3 (well before we'd know it'd suck). It gets lost in the shuffle and sells for an Overstreets guide price of $30. Note: the pain from this is largely muted by my sale a few days later of a raw 9.8 Ultimate Spider-man # 1 (red) for _$260_. A then-record for a raw book. And the buyer was happy. Episode VII: 2008. Being a long-time Wolverine fan, I decide that the first film just _has_ to feature Silver Samurai as the villain. And the book (a Daredevil comic from the '70s -- # 110) seems surprisingly scarce in high-grade. I buy five copies, the best of which is a CGC 9.4. Silver Samurai is not in the first film. Worst yet, Silver Samurai _is_ in the second film. And I. Forget. To. Sell. #Grr... Episode VIII: 2016. I _got_ this. Beta Ray Bill, son! He's gots to appear in Guardian 2. No-brainer! Buy myself five copies, including a CGC 9.2 and CGC 9.6. Spoiler: He doesn't appear. Except as maybe a skull. I forget. At least I still have these copies. Maybe in 2020 as a guest on the Hulu New Warriors TV series as a dude who takes down Squirrel Girl. #HopeSpringsEternal. Episode IX: 2019. Katherine Langford is cast in Avengers: Endgame. And she has red hair. And her role's a mystery. I think it's a sneak appearance by Firestar. And buy a few copies, including a 9.6. Of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends # 1. (Gag!) Spoiler: She doesn't appear. Like, she's not in the movie after all. As any character.

Cool - another $1 bn. worldwide and it will break even! #JayDogMath

Yeah - With it's Fox buy-out, Disney now owns 60% of Netflix & Comcast owns 30%. AT&T did own the other 10%, but recently exited -- my understanding is they haven't yet finalized the split, but the gist is Disney owns 60-70% of Hulu. Which means they can also shuffle premium material from Disney+ to Hulu at will, supporting that platform.

And with that, Captain Marvel's officially passed Wonder Woman domestically. So much for "Doctor Strange numbers."

Waiting patiently for TwoPiece's review...

Fair. Captain Marvel's not even the top 100!! Right now it's sitting at # 140 -- ahead of Iron Man, Toy Story, 2001: A Space Odyssey and four of the eight Harry Potter films. It's also on track to pass an additional two Harry Potter films by next weekend. But no way does it gate event to # 120 (Toy Story 2 / Shrek territory). Because... #mediocre #divisiveactress #mcguffin

I was glad to see Sif in Agents of Shield as well. Haven't seen Blindspot but it's not like she's been at home twiddling her thumbs since.

Blast! Sorry I missed the Conan 17!