@therealsilvermane

I didn't say Man of Steel was a financial failure. I don't think anybody says that. I said it was considered a minor disappointment. I remember when the movie came out. It had a nice opening weekend, but the hoped for box office legs just weren't there the following weeks. Making only $90 million more domestic over the embarrassing Superman Returns is not a resounding success. The 56% RT score and the fact that a dark brooding Superman who kills his opponent didn't sit well with a lot of people compounded the "minor disappointment." $668M WW is respectable, but MOS was not the fireworks kickoff for the Son of Krypton that WB was hoping for. I think WB rushed on the Batman v Superman movie because they thought MOS was enough of a foundation to build on and couldn't wait to get their own multi-billion dollar cinematic universe up and running.

I don't have time to rewrite for a third time what I've already written, so I found a Den of Geek article from September that points out some of the same stuff I've been saying regarding Shang-Chi. I've excerpted it below: "Yet love or hate Marvel movies, right now the actual owners of cinemas around the world should be very grateful to the company, particularly with the studio’s latest film, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which appears to be calming industry jitters about the viability of theatrical distribution this fall. The point of which was underscored again this weekend when Shang-Chi grossed another $35.8 million at the North American box office. Prior to Shang-Chi’s release, studios were already balking at rising anxiety among moviegoers about the safety of theaters due to the resurgence of COVID-19 driven by the Delta variant and unvaccinated Americans. In August, the National Research Group found that the comfort level index with movie theaters among Americans had dropped to just 59 percent (it was over 80 percent in July), and shortly after these findings, studios began making major moves. Paramount Pictures delayed Clifford the Big Red Dog and Top Gun: Maverick to 2022; Sony pushed Venom: Let There Be Carnage from September to October with rumors suggesting another delay to January 2022 was imminent (Sony denied these reports). Even Disney CEO Bob Chapek signaled that if Shang-Chi underperformed at the box office—as all of Disney’s Disney+ “Premier Access” hybrid releases have done to date—the studio would be open to considering Premier Access for other films in the fall, presumably including Marvel’s Eternals. “On Shang-Chi, we actually think it’s going to be an interesting experiment for us,” Chapek said in August. “Because it’s got only a 45-day window for us. The prospect of being able to take a Marvel title to the service after going theatrical for 45 days will be yet another data point to inform our actions going forward on our titles.” Well, Shang-Chi’s data point sent a clear message to Disney and the rest of Hollywood: You’re leaving money on the table, even with the Delta variant, if you flee another season or crawl toward day-and-date release strategies. Hence Disney announcing last week, directly after Shang-Chi set records, that the rest of the Mouse and 20th Century Studios’ fall line-up would receive exclusively theatrical releases. Yes, Marvel’s Eternals would not follow Black Widow, Cruella, and Jungle Cruise into the realm of box office disappointments. But also sticking by movie theaters is Ridley Scott’s medieval drama, The Last Duel, and Steven Spielberg’s long awaited West Side Story remake. Even Matthew Vaughn’s The King’s Man, a pseudo-superhero and spy adventure that was originally supposed to release in November 2019, will finally see the light of day this December thanks to Shang-Chi. Meanwhile the success of Shang-Chi is also giving other studios the confidence to stick to their guns. October alone looks like the most packed month of cinematic releases since 2019. In addition to Scott and 20th Century’s The Last Duel, moviegoers hungry for new stories have Edgar Wright’s hypnotic Last Night in Soho and Wes Anderson’s seemingly adroit The French Dispatch to look forward to. Horror hounds can count on Halloween Kills coming home for the spooky holiday—although with a bizarre day and date release strategy, which appears to have more to do with NBC-Universal’s streaming necessities at Peacock. Warner Brothers, meanwhile, has every reason to get Dune out in theaters and on HBO Max in time for its Oct. 22 due date. Then there’s that little movie called No Time to Die, which is looking prescient for sticking to its guns for a September/October rollout."

Not really free. Black Widow was Premium Access $29.99 on Disney+ and you had to be a subscriber to HBO MAX, which isn't free, to see Kong v Godzilla.

The stock figures I gave were from middle September after Shang-Chi's second weekend. Prior to Shang-Chi's release, none of the big summer releases since Black Widow two months prior, like Space Jam 2 or Free Guy, got over $30 million their opening weekends. Black Widow and F9 did not produce a wave of continued success at the box office. Movie theaters were in a slump for most of the summer, a victim of the coronavirus Delta surge and the rise of day and date streaming. After Shang-Chi's opening weekend, there were no big releases until Venom 2 on October 1st. So, Shang-Chi was basically released on a movie schedule island with no real competition in the weeks before and in the month after its release. It was the only real game in town. Again, you have to consider the industry sentiment in the month or two before Shang-Chi's release and directly after Shang-Chi's release. Before the movie's record breaking weekend, the sentiment was doom and gloom surrounding the industry, as I stated. I believe you were even sounding the death knell here of movie theaters and that Shang-Chi would get no better than $35-55 million. For an example of industry sentiment in the month prior to Shang-Chi's release, here's a link to a Deadline article discussing how day and date streaming may be the new entertainment model for movies: https://deadline.com/2021/08/warnermedia-hbomax-nbcuniversal-peacock-streaming-box-office-home-entertainment-covid-1234812482/ Bob Chapek, the Disney CEO, a known fan of the streaming model, infamously called Shang-Chi a 45 day experiment. Shang-Chi's successful 1st and 2nd weekends and their effect on the movie industry are absolutely quantifiable and on record, as I laid out in my previous post. Again, I don't mean box office receipts, as that's a given. Without Shang-Chi's record breaking Labor Day weekend, Sony doesn't move Venom 2 up two weekends and several movie studios including Disney don't verbally commit to their theater exclusive release dates. This produced a domino effect on the stock prices of every U.S. movie chain seeing a substantial increase in their price. This then caused the CEO of nearly every movie chain to tweet out the praises of Shang Chi. By Shang-Chi's second week, all talk of day and date streaming taking over as the new venue for movies was dead. 20 or 30 media articles flooded the internet and newspapers proclaiming that the movie theater industry was on the rise again. In the weeks following Shang-Chi's release beginning with Venom 2, box office weekends have hovered regularly in the $100 million range. While 2021 movies like Kong v Godzilla or QP2 helped keep the industry afloat as well theater chains adjusting their business model like offering viewing parties and such, it was Shang-Chi and Shang-Chi alone that produced the domino effect I described in the above paragraph. Not Godzilla v Kong. Not F9. Not Black Widow. Not Free Guy. It was Shang-Chi.

I don't think the MCU in particular ever goes away and I think it stays in the upper echelon of pop culture indefinitely. First, if Star Wars and Star Trek can stay in the hearts and minds of generations of moviegoers going on 50 years, I see no reason why the MCU can't. Second, Disney won't let the MCU go away. They'll figure out a way to evolve the brand with the shifting sands of audience taste. Disney has been doing this game successfully for almost a hundred years. If the Mouse has anything to do with it and they do, Marvel is going nowhere. Third, since 1963, generations of pop culture fans have never tired of Spider-Man, Hulk, etcetera whether it's in comics, live TV, cartoons, or the movies. Why should they tire of them now? Fourth, Kevin Feige gets it. I daresay he is the most important person in Marvel history after Stan Lee. As long as that guy is in charge, Marvel Studios will be just fine. And even when Feige gets too old or whatever for the job, I trust him enough to pick a worthy successor. Victoria Alonso maybe...

I don't know how many times I have to explain that it's not Shang-Chi's box office receipts that's saved the movie theater experience but the chain reaction of behavior, attitude, industry moves, and continued uninterrupted bigger profits that it caused in its wake.

Not really. Yes, Shang Chi did well. It got great word of mouth, made money, and seemed to revive hope in the theater going experience. But it's also the subsequent reaction to that immediate success with things like Sony moving up Venom 2 and Disney MGM and other studios publicly proclaiming they will stick to their theater exclusive release dates that made movie theater chain stocks like IMAX and Cinemark go up. I don't know how many times I have to explain that it's not Shang-Chi's box office receipts that's saved the movie theater experience but the chain reaction of behavior, attitude, and industry moves that it caused in its wake.

I don't care how much or how little money U.S. movie theaters took home from Shang-Chi. That's not my argument. What Shang-Chi did was start a chain reaction of increased attendance and profits to U.S. movie theaters that continued through Venom 2, James Bond, and Halloween Kills. It prompted Sony to move up the start date for Venom 2 a whole two weeks which helped continue the the subsequent weekends of high theater attendance and good box office. It essentially showed, while there was talk of doom and gloom for theaters due to the success of day and date streaming, that if you make a movie that's good and take away the home viewing option, then people will flood the theaters to see it just like they did before the pandemic. What Shang-Chi did was alter behavior and attitudes concerning movie theaters. That's how it saved the movie theater industry. You can argue against that point all you want but then you'd be arguing against media and industry pundits who also proclaimed that Shang-Chi rescued movie theaters. Again, not because of its profits alone, but because it changed the hearts and minds of theater goers, studio heads, and theater chain CEO's regarding the movie theater experience.

Yeap, AMC was one of the Meme stocks, and it's pricing made no sense compared to the current profits. Market report following the second weekend of Shang-Chi: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings grossed $35.8 million in its second-weekend follow-up, keeping the film on a record pace even before plans for a release in China (a big market for Marvel). Between the impressive Shang-Chi follow-up and a boost from Disney's theatrical vote of confidence, key theater stocks are higher today. AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC) is +1.2%; Cinemark (NYSE:CNK) +7.7%; IMAX +6.9%; Marcus (NYSE:MCS) +6.6%; Reading International (NASDAQ:RDI) +1.5%; in-theater advertising firm National CineMedia (NASDAQ:NCMI) +8.1%.

As much as I like taking pot shots at DC’s failed attempt at a viable crossover movie universe, my earlier post you referenced was still being objective as far as facts go and the influence that RT scores have on a movie’s perceived success and sometimes its success at the box office. Man of Steel’s $660 million WW box office was seen as a minor disappointment in the wake of the billion dollar takes of the two previous Dark Knight films, the Avengers, and Iron Man 3. That coupled with its 56% RT score and mixed word of mouth made MOS a minor disappointment both critically and financially. I’m not just being negative, that’s a fact, and it again speaks to the influence that RT scores can have on a movie’s perceived success, whether that RT number is an accurate picture or not.

Industry backed tweets and articles still don’t affect the fact that Venom 2 moved its date up, that studios verbally committed to their theater exclusive release dates, that theater chain stock rose, that theater chain CEOs cheered, that the bluster of day and date streaming as the future quietly died, and that weekend box office receipts are all up in the wake of Shang Chi’s unexpected success.

I just said RDJ, Chris Evans, and ScarJo. The others are still around. I also didn't say they were completely forgotten. I said "practically forgotten" which isn't as serious a statement. Anyway, I don't recall anybody here, there, or anywhere, lamenting the absence of Tony Stark or Steve Rogers during the success of WandaVision, Loki, Shang-Chi, or even Falcon and the Winter Soldier. In Black Widow, the big positive takeaway from the movie was that Yelena Belova, Natasha's future Widow replacement, stole the show.

From Deadline. Less of an opinion. But all media is subjective to one degree or another. Imax CEO Rich Gelfond Calls ‘Shang-Chi’ Boom “Answer” To Studios’ Day-And-Date Streaming Experiment According to Imax chief executive Rich Gelfond, the box office power of Disney/Marvel’s Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings should lay to rest the question of moviegoers’ willingness to return to theaters. “The studios said, ‘This is an experiment.’ I think there is an answer to the experiment. We release it in the theatrical window and if it’s a good movie people are going to come in pretty good numbers — for Shang-Chi, record numbers,” he said on CNBC in an interview Wednesday. Shang-Chi’s $94 million-plus four day domestic cume combined with Sony moving Venom: Let There Be Carnage up to Oct. 1 from Oct. 15, and MGM/UA holding the Oct. 8 release date of the next James Bond No Time To Die are great news for the industry.

From some internet article following Shang Chi's successful second weekend: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings grossed $35.8 million in its second-weekend follow-up, keeping the film on a record pace even before plans for a release in China (a big market for Marvel). That brought its cumulative domestic box office to $145.6 million (the fastest film to a domestic $100 million in 2021), good enough for fourth-best of 2021, passing Jungle Cruise. Worldwide, it's grossed $257.6 million (and again, that doesn't yet count China). Between the impressive Shang-Chi follow-up and a boost from Disney's theatrical vote of confidence, key theater stocks are higher today. AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC) is +1.2%; Cinemark (NYSE:CNK) +7.7%; IMAX +6.9%; Marcus (NYSE:MCS) +6.6%; Reading International (NASDAQ:RDI) +1.5%; in-theater advertising firm National CineMedia (NASDAQ:NCMI) +8.1%.

I'll post one article from the Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/10/movie-theaters-needed-hero-marvel-delivered/ Opinion: Movie theaters needed a hero. Marvel delivered. The fate of movie theaters remains very much up in the air, given continued concern over the coronavirus pandemic. But Disney and Marvel’s decision to make “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” exclusive to theaters paid off in a big way this past weekend. The film shattered Labor Day weekend records, demonstrating that folks will still show up if you give them something worth seeing — and take away the option to watch it immediately at home. That’s good news, and not only for the theaters that have struggled through some 18 months of closures and shifting mandates. It’s proof that American viewers still understand that there is something special about seeing a movie on a big screen — something distributors are also coming to understand in an age of at-home viewing where they can track how people watch movies. First, the numbers: “Shang-Chi” grossed $75.4 million in U.S. theaters over its first three days and $94.7 million over its first four days. This is more than triple the four-day total of the previous record-holder, Rob Zombie’s “Halloween” reboot. These would be good totals at any time for a movie about an unknown character, even one with the Marvel Cinematic Universe stamp of approval. But this is not any time. We remain in the midst of a pandemic, one that has seen a resurgence in caution as the delta variant has ripped through states across the country. The pollsters at National Research Group (NRG) have been tracking movie audience comfort since the beginning of the pandemic: Just 19 percent of regular moviegoers said they were very or somewhat comfortable going to theaters in April 2020, a figure that had recovered to 81 percent before the delta wave hit and reduced comfort levels again. As of this weekend, 67 percent reported feeling comfortable heading back. Theaters are in a tight spot, given that they’re being forced to compete against cost and convenience, best highlighted by Warner Bros.’s decision to send its slate of 2021 films to HBO Max and theaters simultaneously. That’s why AMC Theatres is rolling out a $25 million ad campaign featuring actor Nicole Kidman to tout the benefits of seeing movies in a theater. But theaters are also being forced to contend with the idea that they aren’t safe. Hence Forbes writer Paul Tassi’s lament: “I Want To Pay Disney $30 To Watch ‘Shang-Chi’ Safe At Home, But I Can’t.” Never mind the fact that the activity one engages in in a theater (namely, sitting quietly among other people, all of whom are facing the same direction and many of whom are masked the whole time) is not conducive to the spread of the disease, that theaters themselves (because of their high ceilings, recent upgrades to air filters, and the fact that most auditoriums in a multiplex have a dedicated air conditioning unit) are actually quite safe spaces, and that vaccination virtually guarantees you won’t be hospitalized if you do happen to catch it: People remain concerned. For movie theaters to survive, owners need to do more than convince people that their venues aren’t fetid covid dens. They also need to do what they did in the past and give people something they can’t get elsewhere, week after week. “For the box office to continue advancing toward pre-pandemic levels, there needs to be a consistent stream of big-event movies across all genres reaching multiplexes,” said Ray Subers, a vice president at NRG. “We are making progress in that direction, though the slate through the end of 2021 is still a bit thinner than in a typical pre-pandemic year.” There are still blockbuster titles in the offing: “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” got moved up to the beginning of October following the impressive “Shang-Chi” debut, and Marvel has “Eternals” hitting theaters in November. We’ll also have a “Spider-Man” sequel at year’s end. These are currently slated as theatrical exclusives, at least for 45 days. But other big movies such as Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” will have simultaneous releases on streaming platforms. That’s a problem not just for theater owners and not just for the director who loves theaters — but for viewers as well. Look, here’s the thing: People pay less attention to a movie when they’re watching it at home. This isn’t idle speculation or projection; it’s an annoyance folks in distribution have whispered about and one reason they’ve been a bit stingier with screener links for films playing at festivals. Studios can track when a viewer pauses and when they rewind via a link. They can track when a movie runs to 100 percent completed, which suggests the person “watching” it watched through the whole credits, which in turn implies the viewer had kind of zoned out and just let the thing run because no one watches through the whole credits. If you want to see a movie — if you want to say you’ve really seen it as opposed to had it on in the background while you’re tweeting about the vaccine or football or whatever — you need to see it in a movie theater. Maybe you don’t owe it to the artists, and maybe you don’t owe it to the theater owners. But you do owe it to yourself, assuming you have any love for the medium at all.

I don't recall anybody here, there, or anywhere, lamenting the absence of Tony Stark or Steve Rogers in WandaVision, Loki, Shang-Chi, or even Falcon and the Winter Soldier. In Black Widow, the big positive takeaway from the movie was that Yelena Belova, Natasha's future Widow replacement, stole the show. If the MCU moves on from those characters, the fans will too.

First, when I say movie theater industry, I mean the North American movie theater industry, and mostly the U.S. industry, so oversea box office is irrelevant. At the same time, how much more money a single movie made over another during the pandemic isn't what this is about either. It's not about immediate box office receipts. It's about its viability. The movie theater industry slump was due to several factors, mostly the coronavirus pandemic and public fear. The rise of day and date streaming during the pandemic then introduced another fear that movie theaters might become obsolete, especially after Black Widow's success on Disney+. Movie theater stocks were also mostly down. The North American box office success of F9 and Quiet Place 2, while it helped keep theaters afloat, did not solve the factors that were plaguing movie theaters. While those two movies produced attendance spikes upon their release on two of the biggest movie release weekends of the year, Memorial Day weekend and July 4th weekend, they were still isolated spikes that didn't cause the needed chain reaction of continued success at the theaters. They didn't alleviate fears that day and date streaming was still going to make AMC and other theater chains dinosaurs one day. It did little for movie theater stock. Movie theater attendance would drop like a rock in subsequent weekends. Black Widow was an important film that movie theaters had marked on their calendars along with the feeling that America was finally coming out of the pandemic as summer went on. Instead, the situation got worse with Black Widow's Disney+ success as Studio heads began publicly stating the value of day and date streaming. BW's relative failure in subsequent weekends at the box office compounded the drum beat for day and date streaming's viability. Actors and directors protested and/or filed law suits. Theater chain CEO's lamented the day and date streaming plan that studios suddenly found value in. The Delta surge also made headlines in the week following Black Widow's release making people stay home again. It was a mess. Even here in the CGC forums in the month following Black Widow's opening weekend, folks were posting about the impending demise of the movie theater chain. You remember that, right? On the internet, it was the entertainment topic of the moment. In the weeks leading to Shang Chi's opening weekend, doom and gloom was the feeling around movie theaters and Shang Chi was predicted by pundits to open between $35-55 million. Even the vaunted MCU they were saying wouldn't be enough to pull theater chains out of their funk. Instead, due to the strength of the MCU and good word of mouth, Shang Chi shattered those muted expectations making $94 million over the usually forgotten Labor Day weekend. In the week following that record breaking weekend, you could see and witness the change. Sony moved up the release date of Venom 2 two weeks to October 1. Disney committed to a theater exclusive release for Eternals and other studios did the same for their upcoming movies. AMC stock went up. Theater chain CEO's tweeted good thoughts. By the time Shang Chi's equally strong second weekend at the box office was over, all the talk of day and date streaming being the future of movies was dead. Shang Chi revived the viability of the movie theater experience. A few weeks later, Venom 2 also beat industry expectations. James Bond did well. Halloween Kills is killing it at the box office. Eternals is currently outpacing Black Widow and Shang Chi in advance movie ticket sales. The domino effect, the avalanche of goodwill surrounding the movie theaters as a safe entertaining needed experience and as a viable economic industry was back. All that started with the unexpected meteoric success of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings at the movie theaters. If you like, I can also post the twenty or thirty internet and industry articles proclaiming Shang Chi the savior of the movie theater industry.

Yes, 100,000 toxic trolls review bombing Captain Marvel's RT score a month before the film's release was just a bunch of honest-to-goodness fans who didn't care for Brie Larson's performance or the movie's story before they saw the movie. Alt-right troll Jack Posobiec creating and promoting the Alita Challenge, asking the legion of trolls to skip Captain Marvel's opening weekend and see Alita instead, was just an honest-to-goodness well meaning move expressing the desire for a better product with cancel culture. Survey says [XXX]. While the hate train isn't nearly as bad as it was leading up to and in the wake of the Captain Marvel movie, I still see toxic hate for the good Captain and some of these same people freely admitting that the hate stems from Brie's extracurricular social activism and anti-woke culture that's spread through our country like a cancer as pop culture has become more accepting of diversity.

Your honest prediction, you mean. An actual assessment of Phase Four of the MCU beginning with WandaVision shows the MCU is as popular as ever. All of the live action Disney+ shows were #1 in TV ratings. WandaVision was a global and internet phenomenon. Shang-Chi is among the highest grossing theatrical films of the pandemic not counting for China and, one can argue, is the savior of the movie theater industry. As long as Marvel keeps telling us interesting stories, people will show up and show out for the MCU with or without RDJ, Chris Evans, or ScarJo. They're practically forgotten at this point.

Sure, but I think a better ROI might be stocking up on the first appearances of the actual characters you think will make up the MCU team because I don't think the team on screen is going to resemble the one from Hulk 449. A real world example: the first appearance of the Guardians of the Galaxy in MSH 17 isn't worth nearly as much as the first appearances of the characters who make up the team in the MCU ie Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, etc. I think it's a good guess that Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine is recruiting "heroes" for this team, so John Walker and Yelena Belova might be a good start. On the other hand, maybe it will really be Marvel's answer to the Suicide Squad and we'll see former MCU villains comprise the team starting with Zemo and Taskmaster.

And they've been doing that with WandaVision (the Scarlet Witch, Spectre/Photon, the twins, Agatha Harkness, White Vision), FWS (John Walker, Sam Wilson Cap, Zemo to hero), Loki (Kang, Sylvie, Mobius M. Mobius), Black Widow (Taskmaster, Yelena Belova), and Shang-Chi.

Right?

There is no issue. The MCU is doing just fine without RDJ, Chris Evans, or ScarJo.

It's almost a scientific and statistical fact at this point that a very large portion of the toxic hate directed at Brie Larson and Captain Marvel is for reasons other than the quality of her movie. If a movie's quality generated such hate, then there should be equal hate directed at Iron Man, Thor, Hulk (IM3, IH, and Thor 2 are the worst MCU films), and the Wasp (because Captain Marvel is a superior film to Ant-Man and the Wasp). But there isn't. That's because most of the CM hate is agenda driven. And frankly, that's gross. Being a clean freak, I like to try and clean up gross things. To say that some of that grossness doesn't somehow find its way into these threads is to put blinders on.