VintageComics

I for one can say I'm happy that you're back to your normal function as the village clown (and that's a compliment). Genuinely. You're so much funnier when you're being yourself.

That may actually be part of the problem. The last few years we've neutered humor, horror, drama, sex, literally everything and have quite literally cut off our noses to spite our faces. By removing the ability to draw emotion out of people (good AND bad), we've removed artist's ability to create compelling content. Anger, offense, aggression, insult - those things all serve a purpose in the real world and if you completely erase them, you erase the contrast that helps us appreciate the good. Give me a good George Carlin joke any day over something soulless from the last 5 years. People need to face their fears, not avoid them or they will not only stop growing, they will start regressing.

Now that is a GREAT point. Thanks for sharing it! My first thought is that it's an angle I hadn't considered. My second thought is that it seems that downloading would affect the entire industry and not just one movie house. So my third thought is curious as to how the MCU is doing compared to any other movie houses, relatively speaking. @jaybuck43 ?

Less is DEFINITELY more in this case. I've been saying that for years. Just pull your foot back off the gas a hair and shoot forward a mile. It's like that in racing when you do it right. In racing, when you're tucked in behind a competitor and get in under their airstream you actually have to back off on the gas a bit because the car in front of you is pulling you along in their wake. That leaves LOTS of extra throttle to overtake at the right time. If you're full throttle all the time, you'll just run out of fuel and not even finish, so smart long distance drivers use the fuel of the car ahead of them as often as possible and when the time is right, the "drop the hammer." No. Can you please confirm where on this graph below you fall? Asking for a friend. Let me add that it's the same in my world: with 3 daughters, a step daughter and two ex-wives and 'only' two boys (and myself) I was personally responsible for dragging 6 women to the theaters and 2 men. And those women went to many moves they likely wouldn't have gone to the theaters to see without me. But the boys would DEFINITELY go alone without me. You can't change nature. @jaybuck43 Let's do a deep dive. You're the pro and are way better at searching info in your field than I am. How many men have taken their wives and daughters to the MCU movies? How many daughters and wives have taken their husbands to MCU movies? Two very poignant, simple and yet revealing and important questions to the discussion that will help us understand this graph better.

I obviously jumped the gun when I used the word NO, because even my own daughters enjoyed the MCU movies. @Zonker even made the point in the Barbie thread and I acknowledged that sometimes I exaggerate my points to make a point but the gist of the point stands even if the exact numbers don't. I'm willing to acknowledge that. I should have said women have FAR LESS INTEREST than men, and yes, Disney tried to fit square pegs into round holes (or rather, tried to fit a round hole over a square peg) by catering to women to a far greater degree than they did to men, and THIS is the reason that the box office is faltering. The perfect parallel is women's sports vs men's sports. People don't want to watch the WNBA in the same numbers they want to watch the NBA and the reason is obvious: Men are faster, stronger, jump higher and more aggressive and men are attracted to these things while women are not. Women may even be better shooters, because they are more disciplined but Ray Allen, who is one of the best shooters in the history of the sport never got nearly as much publicity as Vince Carter because Ray Allen was like Hawkeye while Vince Carter was Thor. Now try to argue to me that Hawkeye is a better seller than Thor? Or that the WNBA is just as popular as the NBA. Or that losing the male market (and be extension the female market that came along with that male market) didn't make a sizeable difference? Ugh. For the very reason that graph proves: There are MORE MEN GOING TO MCU MOVIES THAN WOMEN, and so logically more men will drag women, than women will drag me to the movies. Remember how everyone keeps telling me singular anecdotes aren't evidence? Yeah, that rule applies here too. I will agree that fatigue is a problem but fatigue is secondary. If you miss your target market, excelling at these points can make a mediocre movie great and people will still see it. But if you miss your target market AND you have these problems, you're done. You can all of these points accomplish a 10 / 10 and if you miss your audience it's all going to the trashcan. Nobody stated, or better said MEANT that Disney is going bankrupt because of the MCU. Everyone knows it's not the entire portfolio. When people say "Disney" is having trouble in an MCU thread, they MEAN "Disney's MCU wing is having trouble. It's just shorthand for Disney's MCU. So, jots and tittles aside, the point still holds that Disney missed the mark. Even you have admitted it has. Disney itself has now admitted it lost it's focus. What did Disney admit to? Straying from their strong IP. That's code for the ESG thing didn't work out. ----------------------------------- Did you want to touch on the ESG thing? Because John's point about Universal doing well while Disney not doing so well is a good example of that.

Evidence is the only thing that makes a difference to anyone, and you SHOULD give evidence from a different perspective if you have it. Why even bring it up if you're not going to share it?

We've proven that outside corporate involvement has forced Marvel to lose it's direction. Disney has even issued a statement saying exactly this. Bosco posted it today, FOR GOODNESS SAKES. My apologies. It was alexgross.com that posted it.

Imma go on record and say Daredevil was the best Netflix story they did from the MCU realm and I am really looking forward to this. Whatever magic they captured, they need to make sure they can get their shizzle together and match or repeat it because people's patience is wearing thin. If Marvel doesn't bounce back they'll be done for good. They have a few strings left to pull and besides X-men and FF, this is about the only one left that can really make an impact. Call me on it in 2 years.

If everyone wants I can take the blame for this.

If there is evidence, what is it why hasn't it been presented yet? We've proven that Superhero movies are more attractive to men than to women. You can't argue with nature. It's unequivocal. Even Jaybuck's attempt to overturn the conclusion proves that. We've proven that the movies are flopping. You can't argue with the math. 8 Billion people know it. We've proven that outside corporate involvement has forced Marvel to lose it's direction. Disney has even issued a statement saying exactly this. Bosco posted it today, FOR GOODNESS SAKES. So which part of the debate isn't over? The one where people can't agree with immutable facts and would rather bend reality to make their own beliefs fit? Weird. Either make a point or stop trolling me.

Which one of my posts disagree with my statement? Even though a debate is over, it still doesn't stop others from being wrong so I'm here for the rest of you now, not for me.

The entire discussion is centred around why the movie is flopping, so it is directly related to the movie.

You're actually an expert in media from what I understand so this conversation would be right up your alley, right? So that's why half formed rebuttals like this seem disingenuous. Is this subject to peer review? Your graph obviously confirms what I've been saying all along, that the audiences are male dominated, but his discussion isn't about sheer numbers. It's about WHO the target audience is and WHY the movies aren't reaching the target audience and that graph answers neither of those questions. How many women who saw those movies were dragged by their spouses or partners? How many women independently went to see the MCU movies? How many men independently went to see the MCU movies? If the majority of men are driven to see these movies, and they drag their partners to see them are the women still the target audience? Those questions tell the story behind the graph and you'd have to dissect those points to establish the one you're trying to make. Tell you what, you invest in the coming women's superteam and I'll invest in the X-men and we can compare notes in 5 years. Do we have a deal?

That's over 1/3 of people giving a poor movie a 10/10 Does this happen very often with movie reviews in your experience?

Don't argue with me about arguing.

You lied. Mods notified.

And WOLVERINE AND THE X-men. This is what it has all been building towards since the $97 Billion purchase.

We live in a world where the average Joe can better understand what people want than the "experts". All the "experts" have done is ruin everything lately. Time to scale it back a bit and use human input rather than algorithms and focus groups and "experts".

This brings up an entirely new discussion about what people think makes a movie "good" and what doesn't. And it dovetails directly into the discussion we had about AI, where eventually most people aren't able to tell between what's real and what isn't real. You don't find it concerning that people will not be able to tell between reality and fantasy? That's at the heart of overarching philosophical discussion in all of this, that being that people are becoming increasingly unaware of being unable to make that distinction. The MCU is peddling corporate designed art and trying to pass it off as real art, much like when a band signs a label, the label gets involved and the band sells out to do the bidding of the label. We all know that nobody wants that done to their music, so why don't the same people defend this art form the same way? Food for thought.

I'll send a facebook clip via IG like a grandma... Well that explains the stalking.

I used to go every week pre-pandemic with Louise. Sometimes two movies on a Sunday. That tapered off as life got busier. Over the pandemic I went many times. Sometimes with my kids, sometimes with my exes and sometimes with friends. The last movie I went to with my kids was the last Suicide Squad movie. We were actually in LA visiting and saw it in Grauman's Chinese theater. After 45 minutes, my kids all turned to each other and said "Can we walk out of this? It sucks." and we did. Quite literally. We still laugh to this day how bad it was. The last 2 times I went to a theater, I went to a little boutique place we have that curates good movies but I haven't watched a Superhero movie in theaters since 2021. I usually catch them all on long flights when they're free or on television while working. So yeah, I was one of those people that the theaters banked on. Popcorn, drinks, meals and drinks in the VIP theaters. We gorged on movies for years but they've lost me as a customer.

You can send me all your thoughts via text like you usually do.

Ironically, everyone likes math and charts, right? Check out Comcast's (who owns Universal Studios) ESG score and compare that to Disney's ESG score. Comcast is listed as a "higher risk company" to invest with because they have a lower ESG score. But their movies are doing better than Disney's. The net perspective is that the ESG movement would have you believe the Universal movies should be doing worse. This is the ESG movement in a nutshell. This is what is happening in the real world. There is a MASSIVE disconnect between reality and theory, as we have all witnessed in real time over the last few years in every aspect of life. I don't understand how anyone can argue this anymore. It's just plain silly now. https://www.sustainalytics.com/esg-rating/comcast-corp/1008051587

You're actually twisting not only my words, but EastEnd1's as well. EastEnd1 didn't say it wasn't "new and revolutionary". He said it didn't affect the end product, which is now proven wrong. I also said nothing about controlling the world. You did. You are twisting the argument and stating things nobody has said. Stop it. I said it is controlling ECONOMICS, and that fact is immutable. I've proven it. But, IF YOU CONTROL THE ECONOMICS YOU CONTROL THE WORLD. This fact is immutable too. NOBODY will disagree with it. Not even my worst enemies. So STOP fabricating things to shift the discussion. There's been enough of that. If you want to have a discussion, don't paraphrase and move the goalposts. Quote people directly and reply directly to those points AND STOP misrepresenting what people said. The rest is not even worth replying to.