Gatsby77

My guess is Fury knows she's the most powerful superhero Earth has -- a fail-safe for emergencies, like if -- and only if -- the Avengers are defeated. Put another way, she's clearly playing the role Adam Warlock had in the original story. (Or perhaps the role Adam Warlock /Silver Surfer did).

It's way too early, but Rotten Tomatoes critics reviews are solid so far. 86% of the 35 reviews so far are positive (30 positive; 5 negative).

Rotten Tomatoes has never had any credibility for its audience scores. If you're even looking at the "audience scores" there (for any movie) you're doing it wrong.

Umm...this is exactly what Marvel did by licensing half a dozen separate shows to Netflix. And I would argue that, overall, of the 150 or so Marvel Netflix episodes released so far, the average episode is equal to or better than the average episode of Arrow/The Flash/Supergirl/Legends of Tomorrow.

Nah - maybe for Killmonger, but Thanos was simply an environmentalist. He saw the path the universe was on -- massive overpopulation -- and acted to reset the balance by killing off 50% of all the creatures. Sacrificing in the short-term for what he saw as the literal long-term survival of all the species of the universe. And - this may be overlooked - but once he got the time stone he could literally peer into the future to confirm his suspicions of this long-term catastrophe if he did _not_ act.

This is interesting. For good or ill, they've got a point. The reality is millions more people saw X-Men: The Last Stand than have read the Dark Phoenix saga comic books. So arguably the film is the better-known source material. Similar sobering thought - for millions of non-comics readers, thanks to Samuel L. Jackson's portrayal, Nick Fury is definitely black.

Thanks. That doesn't really clear it up for me, though. Multiple skrulls appeared in FF # 2 - not just the Super Skrull. So it makes sense that the race as a whole would be as much a straight Fox property as the term "mutant." Likely has to do with named characters -- hence Uatu (a named Watcher) belongs to Fox while other (unnamed ones) do not. Ditto with the skrulls.

Legit question here. Doesn't Fox still own the Skrulls? So...did Marvel have to pay to license them for this film (a la licensing Spidey's appearance in Civil War)?

Nor do I. And that - all the way along - has been my point. I'm for great _stories_ regardless of the characters. The studios have proven they can make great movies out of C-list characters like Guardians of the Galaxy and Miles Morales, while also screwing up marquee characters with films like Justice League. In 30 years of comic collecting, I've never intentionally bought a comic with Carol Danvers in it. I vaguely recall she may have been in some issues of New Avengers 15 years back, and I think I flipped through Ms. Marvel 16-18 that I picked up as part of a massive collection once just to see how Mystique looked. But I basically know nothing about the character. Hell - the Captain Marvel I grew up with was Monica Rambeau back when she was part of the West Coast Avengers. So I don't have a stake in this one. Still, I find it amusing that this no-name character (or...at least D list one when I was collecting in the early '90s) may have a better opening weekend than Justice League.

So...are we going to call this film a failure if it only does $90M domestic next weekend?

Great question! I had to sell 90% of my collection ~5 years ago when I was unemployed. Of that, there were only a handful of books I knew I would never be able to replace (i.e., would be unwilling to pay even then-current market value for, let alone today's). The flipside is there are plenty of books I sold then that I'd be happy to re-buy at current market values -- 5.0-5.5 copies of Batman 5-10; ~5.0 copies of early All-American Green Lantern issues (18-23 range); 5.5-6.0 copies of Hulk 3-6; Avengers # 1 or X-Men # 1 in CGC 3.0; mid-grade raw copies (raw 7.0) of ASM 129, X-Men 94, etc. That said, here are the books I owned in 2014 but will likely never own again: - Showcase # 4, CGC 3.0 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles # 1, CGC 5.0 - Strange Tales # 110, CGC 5.5 - Star Wars # 4 ($.35 cent), CGC 7.0

Not gonna' lie -- a cute girl was the only reason I went to see Big Hero 6 in the theater. We did back-to-back movie nights: Friday I took her to see Gone Girl and Saturday she took me to see Big Hero 6.

Exactly. I'm guessing middle-aged men who will never get behind any of these movies featuring characters they never collected back in the 70s or 80s. I just hope Captain Marvel is better than Green Lantern -- so far, they're looking really similar to me, and that's not a good thing.

P.S. Please show me a source that states Sony spent $100M on net marketing for this film. That's absurd, as industry standard would dictate more like $50-$60M gross spend, and that number's likely far reduced by the many advertising partnerships (already cited to have $115M worth in ad equivalency value by Deadline). True net advertising on this film is likely to be closer to $20M -- giving it an all-in cost of ~$110M.

This. This is the patent falsehood my post disproves. Industry standard for "profitability" is "makes 2.5-3.0x its production budget in worldwide box office." The 2.5 vs.3.0 disparity is because some films make the bulk of the revenue in the U.S. (higher studio takes = can be a lower multiplier, i.e. 2.5x) vs. some films (like Aquaman) make far more internationally, so it needs 3.0x to recoup. Marketing expenses are irrelevant because studios offset them via post-theatrical licensing, digital/DVD sales and (yes) advertising partnerships and toy/ancillary licensing. This is industry standard. The fact that Spider-verse is already at 4.0x its budget means its profitable. Full. Stop.

Sigh... Let's see. "Spider-verse flamed out at the box office." No. Flaming out is a film like Justice League -- which made 40% of its entire domestic run in its first weekend. Spider-verse did the exact opposite, making less than 20% of its total domestic take its first weekend. Per Forbes' Scott Mendelson, its 5.29x (so far) opening weekend multiplier makes it the leggiest comic book film since Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles back in 1990. Which means? People liked it, and word-of-mouth continues to drive people to see it, even 12+ weeks later. "Lowest-grossing Spider-Man movie" is irrelevant because a) animated films are different beasts and b) it's budget-to-gross revenue is solidly in the top half of all the Spider-Man films. Bosco's chart clearly shows this, that its percentage profitability is far higher than Spider-Man 3, Amazing Spider-Man and Amazing Spider-Man 2 -- even moreso when you consider that more than half of its take is domestic, meaning the majority of the revenue goes back to Sony. "Overblown marketing budget" -- first, I've seen (and you've provided) no source for your assertions on the marketing budget, and it's *highly* unusual for a studio to spend 100-120% of a film's budget on marketing *unless* it's a cheap Blumhouse horror production, where they spend $20M to promote a $4.5M film like Get Out. More importantly? I provided a source that showed major worldwide brand sponsorships for the film totaled $115M in value. Even if the brands didn't specifically *pay* $115M for that advertising, they certainly paid millions, which (obviously) off-sets the marketing expense. Finally, It's already profitable from theatrical alone. Any other take isn't just hyperbole, it's just wrong.

Will make at least $50M more in home sales/DVD/streaming licensing.

I will never understand how David Ayer - the writer of Training Day - the bed so badly with a concept as rich as Suicide Squad, and how DC somehow let him get away with it.

Ya' think? The first one was inexplicably bad, with Smith's performance being one of its few bright spots.

Boom!

Yeah - I just re-watched Civil War last weekend. It's not nearly as good the second time around, and the airport scene looks surprisingly low-budget. Other than the Spider-Man and Giant-Man reveals, it's weak-sauce.

Here's a reliable source noting a global marketing budget of $115 million for Into the Spiderverse. https://deadline.com/2018/11/nike-ebay-mcdonalds-spider-man-into-the-spider-verse-marketing-campaign-1202511158/ Oh wait, never mind. It cites $115M worth of worldwide branding paid for by top-tier advertisers, including McDonalds, Synchrony Bank, the Ad Council, Genting Cruise Lines, Nike, General Mills, eBay, Hasbro, Tencent, Vodafone, Garmin, Adobe, and more. #MovieMathIsHard

Curious how anyone could think this *under-performed* since its budget-to-sales revenue is higher than more than half the live-action Spider-Man films. It's Sony Animation's top domestic earner ever (besting Hotel Transyvania and Hotel Transyvania 2). It beat another kid-friendly holiday release -- Mary Poppins Returns -- by every measure. And, like Wonder Woman, more than 50% of its take so far has been domestic, so the studio % revenue will be higher than had it made most of its money overseas. Sure, they likely spent a lot on marketing. But given the amazing critical, awards, and audience reviews, it will also do at least another $100 million on home release. Will it make the cut-off for Deadline's 2018 reporting? Probably not. But to suggest that a film budgeted at $90 million is *barely profitable* at 4x in theatrical alone (and counting) and is setting both studio and awards records - is absurd.

Wait... So this film is already more profitable than Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3 and both Amazing Spider-Man films?? And it's nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Film? But...I thought this cartoon would have been a better option for pay-for-view...you know, to minimize the chances of financial failure and damage to the Spider-Man brand...

Just finished Season 2 today. Thought it started off better than Season 1 (first three episodes were _amazing_) but then slowed down considerably thereafter, bouncing among the Schultzes, the doctor, John Pilgrim, and Russo as villains. Would have preferred more Frank + Amy roadtrip action, with her taking her under his wing a la The Professional. Bernthal, however, was amazing throughout. He's come a long way since his guest appearance on that first episode of "How I Met Your Mother."