JUSTICE LEAGUE: PART ONE (11/17/17) 5 5

[Bosco685]

 

[piper]

I saw JL last night.  I give it a 6/10.  The acting, characterization, and FX were solid.  I was underwhelmed by the story, as I think they tried to jam too much into 2 hours.  Something felt odd about the movie editing.

I also felt that the villain was underwhelming.

I would have preferred that they use the Marvel formula to build up their cinematic universe with origin films.

It was ok, but could have been great.

[ComicConnoisseur]

23 minutes ago, piper said:

I saw JL last night.  I give it a 6/10.  The acting, characterization, and FX were solid.  I was underwhelmed by the story, as I think they tried to jam too much into 2 hours.  Something felt odd about the movie editing.

I also felt that the villain was underwhelming.

I would have preferred that they use the Marvel formula to build up their cinematic universe with origin films.

It was ok, but could have been great.

They say they could have made 2 JLA pictures with all the cuts! 

[CBT]

5 hours ago, Bosco685 said:

From reading multiple Feige interviews, including his presentation at the Richard Donner recognition, it sounds like part of the Marvel secret sauce is a director indoctrination program. When he talked about one movie everyone is required to watch is 'Superman: The Movie', it sounded like they drive home the point what works and why with story content, character development and audience expectations. It's a smart move when trying to remain consistent and linked throughout all these films.

If you look at what happened with Ant-man its a good overview of the limits.

They are willing to let a director do his things, but they still have final oversite and say, and will pull you if you dont work within the rules.

[CBT]

5 hours ago, fantastic_four said:

So untrue.  Stick Robert Downey, Jr. into a Zack Snyder film and it's not going to change the fact that it's a Zack Snyder film.  It'll be a little bit better, but it'll still have a bunch of problems.

Mark Ruffalo does well as Hulk because Hulk is dead-simple to play.  He screwed up on Bill Maher's show back in 2012 and openly admitted that he hates superhero movies.  I'm somewhat surprised Feige didn't fire him, but he already had a contract at that point, so I'm not sure it was an option.  Probably doesn't matter anyway since it doesn't take much to play a CGI character.

Wrong.

A badly written film cant be saved by Snyder.

Further, It's not RDJ in a movie that makes it good, its RDJ as Tony Stark that is brilliant.  If Dwayne Johnson was Tony Stark, neither good writing nor directing could save it.

A director can only make lemonade from lemons.  Casting and writing are the lemons, if you start with turnips, your lemonade is going to end up as turnip juice, no matter how good the juice maker is...

[VintageComics]

6 hours ago, CBT said:

I honestly believe the executives at the top of WB/DC basically think/thought this"

1.) Our Heroes (Superman & Batman) are better and more famous than the ones Marvel is making big bucks with.

2.) Superhero movies are a fad, we need to get our team-up movie out there ASAP because we dont want to miss the boat.

 

6 hours ago, CBT said:

DC's biggest problem in my opinion is trying to rush things. 

This and the fact that there is no true cohesion between movies is what I'm seeing.

What made the Marvel universe so unique in 1961/62/63 was the cohesion between characters.

The same stands true for the movies - I called it the Golden Age of comics all over again a few years ago. And it is. If it's done right.

[fantastic_four]

12 minutes ago, CBT said:

A badly written film cant be saved by Snyder.

Not by Snyder, but it can by Nolan.  He'll either rewrite what's bad about it himself or give it to his brother or David S. Goyer to rewrite into something good.

Same applies to Scorcese or any other really good director.  They're the gatekeeper that prevents the bad stuff from getting in.

[F For Fake]

4 hours ago, Bosco685 said:

And yet if the box office doesn't pick up in Week 2 and 3 (and beyond), you could be slightly right.

They won't pull back on Aquaman (it's finished filming). They will continue with Shazam (ramping this up), and Wonder Woman 2 will move forward. It may end up the rest of the slate gets shuffled slightly. Though the producer and Ezra Miller said Flashpoint is moving forward.

The thing is, if they'd scale back the production costs on these superhero movies, instead of continuing this needless escalation, we could get ALL of those movies, and more, and probably pretty good ones to boot.

There seems to be a mindset with these tentpole superhero flicks at this point, that they have to reach $1 billion in order to be a success. So, they have to spend $200+ on the production and another $200+ on marketing, which means, after theaters take their cut, they're going to need to make $500-600 or so to break even. Which is crazy, crazy money.

So, Justice League makes $94 million opening weekend, which is an INSANE amount of money, but because it's not going to make a drop in the bucket compared to what they spent on it, the flick is a disappointment.

I've been saying this for years: Hollywood needs to make cheaper movies, so that the stakes don't have to get impossibly high.  When they don't reach those unrealistic markers, it's time to shutter the whole genre, which is unfair, because there clearly are many fans of these films. You can make more economical movies that will make a lot of profit IF you don't spend so much money on them in the first place.  Not every superhero is built to be in the Billionaires club.

Make the movies cheaper. Make them better. And maker fewer films, as well. Never happen, but I can keep dreaming.

[revat]

1 minute ago, F For Fake said:

The thing is, if they'd scale back the production costs on these superhero movies, instead of continuing this needless escalation, we could get ALL of those movies, and more, and probably pretty good ones to boot.

There seems to be a mindset with these tentpole superhero flicks at this point, that they have to reach $1 billion in order to be a success. So, they have to spend $200+ on the production and another $200+ on marketing, which means, after theaters take their cut, they're going to need to make $500-600 or so to break even. Which is crazy, crazy money.

So, Justice League makes $94 million opening weekend, which is an INSANE amount of money, but because it's not going to make a drop in the bucket compared to what they spent on it, the flick is a disappointment.

I've been saying this for years: Hollywood needs to make cheaper movies, so that the stakes don't have to get impossibly high.  When they don't reach those unrealistic markers, it's time to shutter the whole genre, which is unfair, because there clearly are many fans of these films. You can make more economical movies that will make a lot of profit IF you don't spend so much money on them in the first place.  Not every superhero is built to be in the Billionaires club.

Make the movies cheaper. Make them better. And maker fewer films, as well. Never happen, but I can keep dreaming.

well fox has gone cheaper and been successful, with Logan and Deadpool.  Those movies thankfully chose a focused lane, and stuck to them.  New Mutants doesn't look like it cost a ton of money either, and also appears to be quite focused.  Admittedly Xmen Apoc was a bit of a mess, but hopefully the lessons learned from FOX can be spread out to some extent.  For DC, I'm not too sure if they can scale back now.  They haven't really had a ton of success with lesser budgets when it comes to their comic movies (though I'm not sure how the old superman movies stack up with budget).  They could try it with the Sirens movie maybe?  I actually think it would be cool to make a cop movie about a catching a serial killer, but the cop just happens to be Nightwing.  That could be cool and moderately low budget.

[Gatsby77]

6 minutes ago, F For Fake said:

The thing is, if they'd scale back the production costs on these superhero movies, instead of continuing this needless escalation, we could get ALL of those movies, and more, and probably pretty good ones to boot.

There seems to be a mindset with these tentpole superhero flicks at this point, that they have to reach $1 billion in order to be a success. So, they have to spend $200+ on the production and another $200+ on marketing, which means, after theaters take their cut, they're going to need to make $500-600 or so to break even. Which is crazy, crazy money.

So, Justice League makes $94 million opening weekend, which is an INSANE amount of money, but because it's not going to make a drop in the bucket compared to what they spent on it, the flick is a disappointment.

I've been saying this for years: Hollywood needs to make cheaper movies, so that the stakes don't have to get impossibly high.  When they don't reach those unrealistic markers, it's time to shutter the whole genre, which is unfair, because there clearly are many fans of these films. You can make more economical movies that will make a lot of profit IF you don't spend so much money on them in the first place.  Not every superhero is built to be in the Billionaires club.

Make the movies cheaper. Make them better. And maker fewer films, as well. Never happen, but I can keep dreaming.

Preach.

Logan's a perfect example of a smaller film that prioritized storytelling over spectacle. 

And gets to be called a success because it clocked $226 million domestic on a $97 million budget. (Compared to budgets of $150 million and $120 million, respectively, for the first two Wolverine solo films).

Rather than go bigger as the films progressed, Logan won by going smaller.

Given yesterday's $7.5 million take for Justice League, Scott Mendelson's now estimating it to do $250 million domestic/$750 million worldwide. That's possibly break-even, but also possibly not.

[Gatsby77]

Just now, revat said:

 I actually think it would be cool to make a cop movie about a catching a serial killer, but the cop just happens to be Nightwing.  That could be cool and moderately low budget.

I *love* that idea.

[Comicopolis]

9 hours ago, bane said:

How the other half live eh? 

I hate people eating popcorn next to me in the cinema. If I saw somebody having a meal I'd probably spontaneously combust.

[Comicopolis]

5 hours ago, bane said:

Bad Screenplay, Great Director = Alien Covenant, top 10 of worst film candidates for 2017.

Spielberg... well its a pity he couldn't work any magic into the utterly terrible War of the Worlds, so was that a bad screenplay ??

Excellent points. Alien Covenant is that bad it's worse that Alien 3.

[Comicopolis]

5 hours ago, fantastic_four said:

Ridley Scott is an OK director.  The best directors are also capable of being a screenwriter, but Ridley Scott isn't a writer at all and has never written a single screenplay.  Spielberg is similar in that he's also not a writer, but he's better than Scott at fixing problem on the fly.

There would be no point in discussing the relative quality of War of the Worlds because you don't trust anyone's opinion on films except your own and people you know.  All I can say is that I enjoyed that film and so did most critics, but as you've repeatedly stated that means nothing to you.

Spielberg's War of the Worlds is utter bilge in every single respect. How he managed to take HG Wells' excellent original epic and turn into some annoying bloke and his even more annoying kids running around some dull looking locations is impressive. 

[Chip Cataldo]

14 minutes ago, Gatsby77 said:

Preach.

Logan's a perfect example of a smaller film that prioritized storytelling over spectacle. 

Rather than go bigger as the films progressed, Logan won by going smaller.

 Well, not for nothing but the budget/story can be smaller for that movie because of what Wolverine is. He doesn't need the kind of budget/effects that say, a solo Silver Surfer movie would need or the vast story/spectacle that Infinity War needs.

I don't want the whole genre pigeonholed because they need to restrict what characters they use due to only telling smaller stories and using smaller budgets.

[fantastic_four]

9 minutes ago, Comicopolis said:

I hate people eating popcorn next to me in the cinema. If I saw somebody having a meal I'd probably spontaneously combust.

 

2 minutes ago, Comicopolis said:

annoying bloke and his even more annoying kids running around some dull looking locations is impressive. 

If you need help getting your Crusty Old Fart card, I recommend printing out some of your posts from these forums.  You're an absolute shoo-in.  

[Comicopolis]

Saw it at the weekend and loved every second of it - much more enjoyable than Wonder Woman.

I thought the movie managed to correct most of the mistakes from the abomination which was BVS but then they ruined it with the second after credit scene. If that's the way they intend to take the franchise then I predict only disaster.

[Comicopolis]

2 minutes ago, fantastic_four said:

 

If you need help getting your Crusty Old Fart card, I recommend printing out some of your posts from these forums.  You're an absolute shoo-in.  

I bow down to your obvious experience with farts.

[Batman]

3 hours ago, Rodey said:

Saw the movie the other night. It was...entertaining. But one thing still bothered me:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Superman/Clark Kent were dead. Flash and Cyborg dug up Clark's body. At the end of the movie, nobody in Smallville is shocked to see Clark walking around?

 

Spoiler

He's Clark Kent... I doubt anyone noticed he was gone in the first place.

 

[Batman]

5 hours ago, Marwood & I said:

That is not a $100 seat.