Sony's NAPOLEON directed by Ridley Scott starring Joaquin Phoenix (2023) 1 1

[Bosco685]

 

[bentbryan]

Rewatched Joker this past weekend and that really got me looking forward to seeing Napoleon. JP is definitely one of the best actors of our time. 

[1950's war comics]

finally a potentially good movie without having to have some stupid modern day message being crammed down our throats 

[Mr Sneeze]

On 11/15/2023 at 6:35 PM, 1950's war comics said:

finally a potentially good movie without having to have some stupid modern day message being crammed down our throats 

Sounds like you have a sore throat.

Some tea with lemon and honey maybe?

[namisgr]

On 11/17/2023 at 10:00 AM, Mr Sneeze said:

Sounds like you have a sore throat.

Some tea with lemon and honey maybe?

Well, we know at least one angry person who didn't like Cinderella, and all of its 'Prince Charming' messaging.  Or John Wayne movies, what with all of theirs.

Having visited Josephine's ancestral home on the French island of Martinique, and having learned a bit about her complicated life before, during, and after her marriage to Napolean (her second one, her first husband went the way of the guillotine), I'm primed to see this film.

Here's a photo I took of Josephine's family home on the island:

Edited November 17, 2023 by namisgr

[Bosco685]

[Bosco685]

[Prince Namor]

‘NAPOLEON’ & ‘FLOWER MOON’ FLOPPED HARDER THAN ‘MARVELS’ — WHY THE DIFFERENT NARRATIVE?

NOVEMBER 28, 2023 BASILMARINERCHASE 

“The Marvels” is a flop. Narratives as to why greatly differ. Yet when male-directed and led films like “Napoleon” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” perform even worse with similar budgets, they’re lauded as successes. Why is this? Let me quote a writer from two sentences ago: “male-directed and led films”.

Could it really just be that? Aren’t both “Flower Moon” and “Napoleon” part of an Apple TV+ 5-dimensional-chess marketing strategy that’s totally OK with them losing millions? Even if that were the case – instead of being massively overstated as an argument in publications like Forbes and Deadline – it still doesn’t change the resulting box office measure of audience interest.

Let’s dive into a bunch of numbers. They’re fun, I promise:

The Marvels

Budget: $220 million
Opening U.S. weekend: $46 million
Global to date (3 weeks): $187 million
Box Office Narrative: Flop

Killers of the Flower Moon

Budget: $200 million
Opening U.S. weekend: $23 million
Global to date (6 weeks): $151 million
Box Office Narrative: Moderately Positive

Napoleon

Budget: $200 million
Opening U.S. weekend (+Thanksgiving): $32 million
Global to date (1 week): $79 million
Box Office Narrative: Triumphant

All three had very similar budgets after their various tax breaks. “The Marvels” cost a bit more at $220 million to $200 million. It also had double the opening weekend compared to “Killers of the Flower Moon” and a 40% higher opening weekend than “Napoleon”, which got the benefit of an extra day in Thanksgiving.

“The Marvels” performance has spurred a lot of conversation about whether there’s an audience for women in superhero movies. First thing’s first – what I’m about to write isn’t an assessment of the quality of any of these three films. This is about how we measure audience interest and describe a woman-directed and led film as a flop when two others of similar budgets, directed and led by men do worse and are called successes.

Women-Led Superhero Films

Since a sample size of one is pretty meaningless, let’s set the stage with other women-led superhero movies. “Captain Marvel” is the 8th highest earning MCU movie domestically, and 10th worldwide. That means it outpaces 25 other films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe domestically, and 23 globally. This is even more impressive when you consider it has just the 20th highest budget of all MCU films.

To put this in perspective, “Captain Marvel” made more domestically than any single Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange, or Ant-Man movie. Only Spider-Man, Black Panther, and the Avengers themselves have had films that earned more.

“Captain Marvel” is the fourth-highest solo outing in the MCU, and that’s only if we’re really considering “Spider-Man: No Way Home” as a solo outing. It is the second highest debut solo outing after “Black Panther”. Does it ever got talked about this way, or analyzed for its success? Is it referred to as proof that women-led superhero movies make money. Not really.

“Black Widow” is harder to assess for two reasons: It came out during the height of the COVID pandemic, in 2021. It also had a day-and-date release on Disney+, meaning it launched in theaters and streaming on the same day. While it’s a popular target as a failure narrative on social media, it had the fourth highest domestic box office of 2021. It made $183 million in theaters, but its simultaneous online premiere earned it at least another $125 million. This would give it $308 million domestic, or 21st out of 33 films – reasonably average.

Perhaps more revealing is that as a debut solo film, it would be behind Black Panther’s, Captain Marvel’s, Iron Man’s, and Spider-Man’s – if you consider Spider-Man as only debuting within the MCU. It would be ahead of debuts by Doctor Strange, Shang-Chi (which came out the same year but had a dedicated theatrical window), Captain America, Thor, and every single Ant-Man movie. Some of these you’ve got to take with a grain of salt – Captain America and Thor were building a franchise that wasn’t established yet. Others, you’ve got to look at and admit that if 3 Ant-Man movies get Paul Rudd the face of an Avengers sequel, “Black Widow” star Scarlett Johansson should’ve gotten a little more than having to sue Disney for stealing her profit cut.

That’s the MCU. For The DC Extended Universe, “Wonder Woman” remains the highest earner by a wide margin at $412 million domestic. It’s third in global earnings behind “Aquaman” and “Batman v Superman”.

“Birds of Prey” is a favorite to bash on conservative social media. It places 10th in the DCEU with $201 million globally. Sure, its run was truncated by the beginning of COVID, but it’s still not great…until you consider it had the smallest budget of any DCEU film at $82 million. Only “Shazam!” had a similar budget at $85 million – everything else has cost $120 million+. The smallest budget doing better than several other films, including two that cost 50% more and released this year? That places it higher than expectations, at least by a small margin.

“Wonder Woman 1984” is the worst performing DCEU movie, but came out mid-pandemic. HBO Max (now Max) argued that the movie accelerated its subscriber forecast to hit goals two years ahead of their forecast. Hold on to that argument, it’s going to become important in a minute.

But It’s a Marketing Strategy, Babe!

Where are we going with this? Women-led movies in the MCU have demonstrated that they can at the very least hold par with male-led ones. They have had successes. They have had average performances. Does “The Marvels” undo all of that as a failure? Let’s apply that logic across the board: if under-performing to the extent of “The Marvels” indicates women shouldn’t lead superhero films, then two films under-performing to the extent of “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Napoleon” should also indicate men shouldn’t lead historical epics. It’s the same logic, double the sample size.

But that’s a ridiculous argument? Yes, that’s the point. It’s all a ridiculous argument. Let’s get into how ridiculo–

BUT WAIT – Apple TV+ made both “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Napoleon” as part of a marketing strategy of original content with a theatrical window where it doesn’t matter if they lose money so long as they something else goes here no one can tell me what exactly.

I’ll let Anthony D’Alessandro at Deadline carry the water:

“Wake up to the fact that Apple and Disney’s goals couldn’t be more separate. One is a tech business with a streaming service, and the other is a content-driven conglom that extends into travel lifestyle and merchandising. Two very different businesses. Film finance sources tell me that a $200M production cost on Killers of the Flower Moon is literally an advertising expense for Apple, and its P&L is different from the way that The Marvels would be assessed. At the end of the day, it’s not Apple’s goal to make money in the theatrical business. They don’t care about profit in TV and motion pictures. Disney’s goals and plans are similar to Max, Paramount+, Peacock, etc., and they’re beating the aforementioned.

“However, all streaming services associated with the majors are still losing money. For Apple, theatrical is a bonus on Killers of the Flower Moon, and they didn’t make the movie for theatrical, rather, locking people into their ecosystem. This compared to the fact that Disney institutional shareholders demand short-term profitably from their OTT service and content.”

He loses sentence structure at the end there, but the passion is evident. If you’re looking for a precedent that’s similar to Apple’s approach here, consider what Epic Games Store started doing within the gaming industry in 2019 by providing games to consumers at a financial loss in exchange for building market share. That storefront has yet to turn a profit. In fact, there was one organization that hated the strategy so much they once argued in court that sacrificing profits for market share on a digital platform was dishonest and a dealbreaker for business partners. That baby’s name? Albert Einste- I mean that organization’s name? Apple Inc. So they’re hypocrites. Of course, that’s not big news. It just amuses me.

But you know what, it’s a beautiful November day outside, let’s just let ’em have this one. Let’s pretend producers don’t care about making money and corporate loss projection is a replacement for box office when measuring audience attendance. What? Yeah, let’s just do it anyway. If you accept all this at face value, then you also have to consider the two shining examples of it: what “Black Widow” did for Disney+ and “Wonder Woman 1984” did for HBO Max. If you excuse “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Napoleon” for doing far worse despite the pandemic being a lesser obstacle at the box office, then you’ve got to include these two as triumphs and yet further demonstrations of the success of women-led superhero films. Making more would be one of the biggest no-brainers in film history. You cannot argue this is the strategy for this year’s films while ignoring the two films that best succeeded with that strategy.

Now, the argument that’s made about “The Marvels” is that it proves a lack of audience interest. How would “Flower Moon” and “Napoleon” not prove the same while having worse numbers? People are not deciding to see or not see a movie in the theater because Apple’s marketing strategy might be OK with a loss.

“Oh babe, I’m sorry, I don’t feel like seeing ‘Napoleon’ cause Apple’s OK with a financial loss as a marketing expense.”

Date says that, tell them you forgot to return some videos. It’s a red flag, they’re a psychopath, get a cat. No one makes a movie-viewing decision that way. Audiences make viewing decisions based on – get this – whether they want to see the movie.

The argument against women-led superhero films is based on a lack of audience interest in “The Marvels” as measured by box office, the same metric that shows worse performance for the similarly budgeted “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Napoleon”. If the lack of audience interest is true because of a metric, it’s not solely true for the one film where you want it to be true, but no others. It’s either an accurate metric, or it isn’t. Box office is the most accurate metric we have for paid audience attendance.

If audiences don’t attend “The Marvels”, and that one statistical outlier is an argument to not make women-led superhero films, then its doing markedly better than two male-led historical films of similar budgets is also an argument to not make male-led historical films. Both arguments are ridiculous, but they are consistent with each other. If you think both kinds of films shouldn’t be made anymore, I disagree, but at least you’re consistent. If you make the first argument and excuse the second, you’re just playing pretend.

The Streaming Side

I’d add that “The Marvels” also feeds into Disney+ and is going to sell a lot more branded content than “Flower Moon” or “Napoleon”. Its indirect profits will be exponentially greater.

In terms of streaming, it’s not even a contest. It’s estimated that globally, Disney+ has about 150 million paid subscribers. Apple TV+ has about 25 million paid. Those numbers both expand when including free promotional subscriptions, but even with this, Apple TV+ numbers pale in comparison to those of Disney+. That means in the end, a lot more eyes are going to see “The Marvels” than “Flower Moon” or “Napoleon”.

If just 10% of Disney+ paid subscribers watch “The Marvels”, that’s 15 million subscribers. To equal that number, 60% of Apple TV+ subscribers would have to watch “Killers of the Flower Moon” or “Napoleon”. If 20% of Disney+ paid subscribers watch it, Apple is incapable of matching that number. So what are we using to gauge lack of audience interest in “The Marvels” that isn’t also true for the two historical epics? More people have seen “The Marvels” in the theater. It’s had a much better opening weekend. It’s made more globally than “Flower Moon” in half the time. Both its U.S. and international totals outpace the others. Far more people will see it on streaming.

Matthew Beloni puts it bluntly on Puck:

“Will Killers of the Flower Moon help bring people to Apple TV+ when it debuts there? Sure, though that service has only about 15 to 20 million subscribers in the U.S., according to Parrot Analytics. In all likelihood, The Marvels will also be very meaningful to Disney as a Disney+ title because it will satisfy the Marvel fans who subscribe for exactly this kind of content. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the most recent Marvel “flop,” debuted at No. 2 on Nielsen’s streaming top 10 for movies when it dropped on Disney+ in May; it was top 5 overall that week. Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 debuted at No. 1 on the film chart, and No. 3 overall. The Marvel movies do really well on streaming, and arguably do more to add value to Disney+ than a Scorsese limited series masquerading as a movie will ever do for Apple TV+, given the greater scale of Disney+ and the importance to its bottom line.”

So what measure are we using to judge “The Marvels” as failing in a way that “Flower Moon” or “Napoleon” won’t? By extension, what measure are conservatives using to argue women-led superhero movies shouldn’t be made, that wouldn’t count double for male-led historical epics. They each cost about the same. It’s not audience attendance, where “The Marvels” outpaces both. It’s neither domestic nor global take, where “The Marvels” outpaces both. It’s not streaming viewership, where “The Marvels” will enjoy an enormous advantage. Where is the argument that it uniquely lacks viewer interest in a way the others don’t?

If “Flower Moon” and “Napoleon” perform worse, how can you argue that women-led superhero movies shouldn’t be made if we still believe in male-led historical epics?

But we’re measuring superhero films – which are currently much more popular – against historical epics, whose heyday has passed? That’s not the flex they think it is. The argument’s based on audience interest. Reminding us that women-led superhero films tend to have a higher ceiling than male-led historical epics runs counter to the idea that we should make fewer women led-superhero films.

Other Films We Shouldn’t Make, I Guess

I’ll mention again I’m not judging the quality of any of these films, their genres, or these streaming services. I tend to like historical epics better than superhero films. I tend to think Apple TV+ is a much better value than Disney+, their original content has much more consistency, and my series of the year last year was “Pachinko”, one of their originals. But we’re talking about numbers, how those numbers define our narratives of success, and who is offered opportunity as a result of those narratives being accurate or inaccurate. My point is that treating measurements like they’re teams instead of measurements is ridiculous. Doesn’t matter if I like one better than the other – my preference doesn’t magically change numbers.

What numbers indicate doesn’t change based on how we want to feel about them. I’m talking about how numbers represent audience interest, and the justifications being used to argue against one type of film – and thus argue against who makes or leads them. We haven’t even addressed those historical epics having the added advantage of household names like Martin Scorsese and Ridley Scott behind them, or A-list stars like Leonardo DiCaprio and Joaquin Phoenix leading them. They are names and selling points in a way “The Marvels” director Nia DaCosta and star Brie Larson aren’t yet – and those bigger names and selling points are performing worse.

You don’t say this audience’s lesser attendance magically doesn’t count as a negative, but this audience’s greater attendance does. You’re not going to stop making male-led historical epics because of two flops any more than you should stop making women-led superhero movies because of one. They are all flops. Either that indicates something for all of them, or we look at all the other precedents we have and decide it’s a bit soon to overreact based on an infinitesimal sample size.

By the way, what was the film already in its second weekend that “Napoleon” couldn’t beat in its first? The Rachel Zegler-led action movie “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes”. But that’s an established franchise? Sure, and it cost $100 million to make, or half the budget of either “Flower Moon” or “Napoleon”. And Zegler is hardly as household a name as DiCaprio or Phoenix…or Scorsese or Scott for that matter.

For that matter, Hunger Games will easily turn a profit while Indiana Jones and Mission: Impossible struggle to break even this year. By the logic being applied to “The Marvels”, I guess that means we should only make action-adventures with women leads from now on.

Every argument about how “The Marvels” proves audience disinterest in women-led films fails to hold up. The best performing movie of the year is “Barbie”. “Captain Marvel” and “Wonder Woman” are among the best performing superhero films in their respective universes. If you’re going to excuse under-performance by “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Napoleon” as part of a marketing strategy to accelerate streaming subscriptions, then the effect “Black Widow” and “Wonder Woman 1984” had on Disney+ and HBO Max are the shining examples of that marketing strategy succeeding, and must be considered further examples of the success of women-led superhero films. If you’re going to consider the singular failure of “The Marvels” as overriding that mountain of previous evidence, then you must also consider double the number of similarly budgeted, worse performing films as evidence that male-led historical epics can no longer succeed and shouldn’t be made.

If you’re going to use a measurement, apply it consistently, not just when you feel like. If you cannot do that, what point does your argument have? If you cannot make an argument without replacing evidence with your feelings, what good are you? I am sick of this wildly_fanciful_statement. It may only be box office narratives, but that gives men more public shielding to keep handing off larger budgets to other men regardless of terrible performance. That impacts who has opportunities, the art we get to see, and the art that shapes our cultural and political norms.

We pretend like this doesn’t matter, after 20 years of seeing ESPN debates about dudes’ feelings overriding evidence, a presentation format that then overtook 24 hour-news networks so they do the same, so the country does the same at the voting booth. Then we scratch our heads wondering how it happened, as if this nonsense doesn’t test in entertainment circles where there’s little consequence before being mainstreamed everywhere else. The extensive testing of social media brigading and disinformation campaigns through Gamergate. They always test normalizing this mess on movies, on games, in sports, in the places where they think others are least likely to push back. When it’s mainstreamed in these places, it’s easy to then mainstream in the news and in politics. Then we’re shocked and wonder how it’s so sudden when we had plenty of warning and just ignored those early chances to push back.

Why write 3,000+ words about it? Why write these articles pushing back on these narratives multiple times a year? Because if the argument is that women can fail only once, and that’s it, that’s their chance, we shouldn’t give them work anymore – and men can fail harder and repeatedly but be praised and rewarded for it and given more chances – then we are shutting out half of our talent in any field – filmmaking, engineering, governance, whatever it might be. That narrative has no place anywhere. Imagine shutting out half your possible talent and thinking you can make progress in this world. What a narcissistic theft of the things we could accomplish.

I should wrap this up in a more streamlined way, end on some kind of high note, but that’s it, that’s the sentence. That’s the everything I can say about these constant narratives that seek to dismantle the opportunities for so much talent in this world: what a narcissistic theft of the things we could accomplish.

[Bosco685]

Brevity failure for "leave my MCU films alone" with the assumption included streaming is where all the money will be made disregarding the revenue model is now heavily questionable leading to the studios having to rethink their previous deep commitment.

Fun times!

[VintageComics]

On 11/17/2023 at 10:00 AM, Mr Sneeze said:

On 11/15/2023 at 6:35 PM, 1950's war comics said:

finally a potentially good movie without having to have some stupid modern day message being crammed down our throats 

Sounds like you have a sore throat.

Some tea with lemon and honey maybe?

I've actually spoken to people who have seen the movie, and being a huge Ridley Scott fan, I was excited to see it but I may no longer see it in the theater. 

The one film critic I would listen to is a friend of mine who is a long time movie fan and collects movie memorabilia and he was disappointed that the movie was neither historically accurate nor did it represent Napoleon as he was historically represented. 

For example, from what I've read there is no record that Napoleon fired on the pyramids. 

And from what I've gleaned about the movie and about Napoleon, he's portrayed as a dark, brooding figure in the movie while historically being a much more charismatic figure in real life. 

I'm on the fence at this point. 

[conan09279]

I was looking forward to this and it was a disappointment.  It was disjointed and skipped around, spending less time on Napoleon and his exploits and more on his relationship with Josephine, which was a bit bizarre.  Phoenix grunted more than he spoke actual lines.  I also though the battles scenes, which are usually dynamic in a Scott movie, were less than thrilling.  At well over two hours, I found this to be a bit of a slog. 

[VintageComics]

On 12/3/2023 at 9:42 PM, conan09279 said:

Phoenix grunted more than he spoke actual lines. 

That's what I heard as well. 

Napoleon would have been better served to have been more charismatic and outgoing, the way Maximus was toward the end of Gladiator. 

'Dark Napoleon' doesn't work. 

[Gatsby77]

On 12/1/2023 at 3:23 AM, Prince Namor said:

‘NAPOLEON’ & ‘FLOWER MOON’ FLOPPED HARDER THAN ‘MARVELS’ — WHY THE DIFFERENT NARRATIVE?

NOVEMBER 28, 2023 BASILMARINERCHASE 

“The Marvels” is a flop. Narratives as to why greatly differ. Yet when male-directed and led films like “Napoleon” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” perform even worse with similar budgets, they’re lauded as successes. Why is this? Let me quote a writer from two sentences ago: “male-directed and led films”.

Could it really just be that? Aren’t both “Flower Moon” and “Napoleon” part of an Apple TV+ 5-dimensional-chess marketing strategy that’s totally OK with them losing millions? Even if that were the case – instead of being massively overstated as an argument in publications like Forbes and Deadline – it still doesn’t change the resulting box office measure of audience interest.

Let’s dive into a bunch of numbers. They’re fun, I promise:

The Marvels

Budget: $220 million
Opening U.S. weekend: $46 million
Global to date (3 weeks): $187 million
Box Office Narrative: Flop

Killers of the Flower Moon

Budget: $200 million
Opening U.S. weekend: $23 million
Global to date (6 weeks): $151 million
Box Office Narrative: Moderately Positive

Napoleon

Budget: $200 million
Opening U.S. weekend (+Thanksgiving): $32 million
Global to date (1 week): $79 million
Box Office Narrative: Triumphant

All three had very similar budgets after their various tax breaks. “The Marvels” cost a bit more at $220 million to $200 million. It also had double the opening weekend compared to “Killers of the Flower Moon” and a 40% higher opening weekend than “Napoleon”, which got the benefit of an extra day in Thanksgiving.

“The Marvels” performance has spurred a lot of conversation about whether there’s an audience for women in superhero movies. First thing’s first – what I’m about to write isn’t an assessment of the quality of any of these three films. This is about how we measure audience interest and describe a woman-directed and led film as a flop when two others of similar budgets, directed and led by men do worse and are called successes.

Women-Led Superhero Films

Since a sample size of one is pretty meaningless, let’s set the stage with other women-led superhero movies. “Captain Marvel” is the 8th highest earning MCU movie domestically, and 10th worldwide. That means it outpaces 25 other films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe domestically, and 23 globally. This is even more impressive when you consider it has just the 20th highest budget of all MCU films.

To put this in perspective, “Captain Marvel” made more domestically than any single Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange, or Ant-Man movie. Only Spider-Man, Black Panther, and the Avengers themselves have had films that earned more.

“Captain Marvel” is the fourth-highest solo outing in the MCU, and that’s only if we’re really considering “Spider-Man: No Way Home” as a solo outing. It is the second highest debut solo outing after “Black Panther”. Does it ever got talked about this way, or analyzed for its success? Is it referred to as proof that women-led superhero movies make money. Not really.

“Black Widow” is harder to assess for two reasons: It came out during the height of the COVID pandemic, in 2021. It also had a day-and-date release on Disney+, meaning it launched in theaters and streaming on the same day. While it’s a popular target as a failure narrative on social media, it had the fourth highest domestic box office of 2021. It made $183 million in theaters, but its simultaneous online premiere earned it at least another $125 million. This would give it $308 million domestic, or 21st out of 33 films – reasonably average.

Perhaps more revealing is that as a debut solo film, it would be behind Black Panther’s, Captain Marvel’s, Iron Man’s, and Spider-Man’s – if you consider Spider-Man as only debuting within the MCU. It would be ahead of debuts by Doctor Strange, Shang-Chi (which came out the same year but had a dedicated theatrical window), Captain America, Thor, and every single Ant-Man movie. Some of these you’ve got to take with a grain of salt – Captain America and Thor were building a franchise that wasn’t established yet. Others, you’ve got to look at and admit that if 3 Ant-Man movies get Paul Rudd the face of an Avengers sequel, “Black Widow” star Scarlett Johansson should’ve gotten a little more than having to sue Disney for stealing her profit cut.

That’s the MCU. For The DC Extended Universe, “Wonder Woman” remains the highest earner by a wide margin at $412 million domestic. It’s third in global earnings behind “Aquaman” and “Batman v Superman”.

“Birds of Prey” is a favorite to bash on conservative social media. It places 10th in the DCEU with $201 million globally. Sure, its run was truncated by the beginning of COVID, but it’s still not great…until you consider it had the smallest budget of any DCEU film at $82 million. Only “Shazam!” had a similar budget at $85 million – everything else has cost $120 million+. The smallest budget doing better than several other films, including two that cost 50% more and released this year? That places it higher than expectations, at least by a small margin.

“Wonder Woman 1984” is the worst performing DCEU movie, but came out mid-pandemic. HBO Max (now Max) argued that the movie accelerated its subscriber forecast to hit goals two years ahead of their forecast. Hold on to that argument, it’s going to become important in a minute.

But It’s a Marketing Strategy, Babe!

Where are we going with this? Women-led movies in the MCU have demonstrated that they can at the very least hold par with male-led ones. They have had successes. They have had average performances. Does “The Marvels” undo all of that as a failure? Let’s apply that logic across the board: if under-performing to the extent of “The Marvels” indicates women shouldn’t lead superhero films, then two films under-performing to the extent of “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Napoleon” should also indicate men shouldn’t lead historical epics. It’s the same logic, double the sample size.

But that’s a ridiculous argument? Yes, that’s the point. It’s all a ridiculous argument. Let’s get into how ridiculo–

BUT WAIT – Apple TV+ made both “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Napoleon” as part of a marketing strategy of original content with a theatrical window where it doesn’t matter if they lose money so long as they something else goes here no one can tell me what exactly.

I’ll let Anthony D’Alessandro at Deadline carry the water:

“Wake up to the fact that Apple and Disney’s goals couldn’t be more separate. One is a tech business with a streaming service, and the other is a content-driven conglom that extends into travel lifestyle and merchandising. Two very different businesses. Film finance sources tell me that a $200M production cost on Killers of the Flower Moon is literally an advertising expense for Apple, and its P&L is different from the way that The Marvels would be assessed. At the end of the day, it’s not Apple’s goal to make money in the theatrical business. They don’t care about profit in TV and motion pictures. Disney’s goals and plans are similar to Max, Paramount+, Peacock, etc., and they’re beating the aforementioned.

“However, all streaming services associated with the majors are still losing money. For Apple, theatrical is a bonus on Killers of the Flower Moon, and they didn’t make the movie for theatrical, rather, locking people into their ecosystem. This compared to the fact that Disney institutional shareholders demand short-term profitably from their OTT service and content.”

He loses sentence structure at the end there, but the passion is evident. If you’re looking for a precedent that’s similar to Apple’s approach here, consider what Epic Games Store started doing within the gaming industry in 2019 by providing games to consumers at a financial loss in exchange for building market share. That storefront has yet to turn a profit. In fact, there was one organization that hated the strategy so much they once argued in court that sacrificing profits for market share on a digital platform was dishonest and a dealbreaker for business partners. That baby’s name? Albert Einste- I mean that organization’s name? Apple Inc. So they’re hypocrites. Of course, that’s not big news. It just amuses me.

But you know what, it’s a beautiful November day outside, let’s just let ’em have this one. Let’s pretend producers don’t care about making money and corporate loss projection is a replacement for box office when measuring audience attendance. What? Yeah, let’s just do it anyway. If you accept all this at face value, then you also have to consider the two shining examples of it: what “Black Widow” did for Disney+ and “Wonder Woman 1984” did for HBO Max. If you excuse “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Napoleon” for doing far worse despite the pandemic being a lesser obstacle at the box office, then you’ve got to include these two as triumphs and yet further demonstrations of the success of women-led superhero films. Making more would be one of the biggest no-brainers in film history. You cannot argue this is the strategy for this year’s films while ignoring the two films that best succeeded with that strategy.

Now, the argument that’s made about “The Marvels” is that it proves a lack of audience interest. How would “Flower Moon” and “Napoleon” not prove the same while having worse numbers? People are not deciding to see or not see a movie in the theater because Apple’s marketing strategy might be OK with a loss.

“Oh babe, I’m sorry, I don’t feel like seeing ‘Napoleon’ cause Apple’s OK with a financial loss as a marketing expense.”

Date says that, tell them you forgot to return some videos. It’s a red flag, they’re a psychopath, get a cat. No one makes a movie-viewing decision that way. Audiences make viewing decisions based on – get this – whether they want to see the movie.

The argument against women-led superhero films is based on a lack of audience interest in “The Marvels” as measured by box office, the same metric that shows worse performance for the similarly budgeted “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Napoleon”. If the lack of audience interest is true because of a metric, it’s not solely true for the one film where you want it to be true, but no others. It’s either an accurate metric, or it isn’t. Box office is the most accurate metric we have for paid audience attendance.

If audiences don’t attend “The Marvels”, and that one statistical outlier is an argument to not make women-led superhero films, then its doing markedly better than two male-led historical films of similar budgets is also an argument to not make male-led historical films. Both arguments are ridiculous, but they are consistent with each other. If you think both kinds of films shouldn’t be made anymore, I disagree, but at least you’re consistent. If you make the first argument and excuse the second, you’re just playing pretend.

The Streaming Side

I’d add that “The Marvels” also feeds into Disney+ and is going to sell a lot more branded content than “Flower Moon” or “Napoleon”. Its indirect profits will be exponentially greater.

In terms of streaming, it’s not even a contest. It’s estimated that globally, Disney+ has about 150 million paid subscribers. Apple TV+ has about 25 million paid. Those numbers both expand when including free promotional subscriptions, but even with this, Apple TV+ numbers pale in comparison to those of Disney+. That means in the end, a lot more eyes are going to see “The Marvels” than “Flower Moon” or “Napoleon”.

If just 10% of Disney+ paid subscribers watch “The Marvels”, that’s 15 million subscribers. To equal that number, 60% of Apple TV+ subscribers would have to watch “Killers of the Flower Moon” or “Napoleon”. If 20% of Disney+ paid subscribers watch it, Apple is incapable of matching that number. So what are we using to gauge lack of audience interest in “The Marvels” that isn’t also true for the two historical epics? More people have seen “The Marvels” in the theater. It’s had a much better opening weekend. It’s made more globally than “Flower Moon” in half the time. Both its U.S. and international totals outpace the others. Far more people will see it on streaming.

Matthew Beloni puts it bluntly on Puck:

“Will Killers of the Flower Moon help bring people to Apple TV+ when it debuts there? Sure, though that service has only about 15 to 20 million subscribers in the U.S., according to Parrot Analytics. In all likelihood, The Marvels will also be very meaningful to Disney as a Disney+ title because it will satisfy the Marvel fans who subscribe for exactly this kind of content. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the most recent Marvel “flop,” debuted at No. 2 on Nielsen’s streaming top 10 for movies when it dropped on Disney+ in May; it was top 5 overall that week. Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 debuted at No. 1 on the film chart, and No. 3 overall. The Marvel movies do really well on streaming, and arguably do more to add value to Disney+ than a Scorsese limited series masquerading as a movie will ever do for Apple TV+, given the greater scale of Disney+ and the importance to its bottom line.”

So what measure are we using to judge “The Marvels” as failing in a way that “Flower Moon” or “Napoleon” won’t? By extension, what measure are conservatives using to argue women-led superhero movies shouldn’t be made, that wouldn’t count double for male-led historical epics. They each cost about the same. It’s not audience attendance, where “The Marvels” outpaces both. It’s neither domestic nor global take, where “The Marvels” outpaces both. It’s not streaming viewership, where “The Marvels” will enjoy an enormous advantage. Where is the argument that it uniquely lacks viewer interest in a way the others don’t?

If “Flower Moon” and “Napoleon” perform worse, how can you argue that women-led superhero movies shouldn’t be made if we still believe in male-led historical epics?

But we’re measuring superhero films – which are currently much more popular – against historical epics, whose heyday has passed? That’s not the flex they think it is. The argument’s based on audience interest. Reminding us that women-led superhero films tend to have a higher ceiling than male-led historical epics runs counter to the idea that we should make fewer women led-superhero films.

Other Films We Shouldn’t Make, I Guess

I’ll mention again I’m not judging the quality of any of these films, their genres, or these streaming services. I tend to like historical epics better than superhero films. I tend to think Apple TV+ is a much better value than Disney+, their original content has much more consistency, and my series of the year last year was “Pachinko”, one of their originals. But we’re talking about numbers, how those numbers define our narratives of success, and who is offered opportunity as a result of those narratives being accurate or inaccurate. My point is that treating measurements like they’re teams instead of measurements is ridiculous. Doesn’t matter if I like one better than the other – my preference doesn’t magically change numbers.

What numbers indicate doesn’t change based on how we want to feel about them. I’m talking about how numbers represent audience interest, and the justifications being used to argue against one type of film – and thus argue against who makes or leads them. We haven’t even addressed those historical epics having the added advantage of household names like Martin Scorsese and Ridley Scott behind them, or A-list stars like Leonardo DiCaprio and Joaquin Phoenix leading them. They are names and selling points in a way “The Marvels” director Nia DaCosta and star Brie Larson aren’t yet – and those bigger names and selling points are performing worse.

You don’t say this audience’s lesser attendance magically doesn’t count as a negative, but this audience’s greater attendance does. You’re not going to stop making male-led historical epics because of two flops any more than you should stop making women-led superhero movies because of one. They are all flops. Either that indicates something for all of them, or we look at all the other precedents we have and decide it’s a bit soon to overreact based on an infinitesimal sample size.

By the way, what was the film already in its second weekend that “Napoleon” couldn’t beat in its first? The Rachel Zegler-led action movie “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes”. But that’s an established franchise? Sure, and it cost $100 million to make, or half the budget of either “Flower Moon” or “Napoleon”. And Zegler is hardly as household a name as DiCaprio or Phoenix…or Scorsese or Scott for that matter.

For that matter, Hunger Games will easily turn a profit while Indiana Jones and Mission: Impossible struggle to break even this year. By the logic being applied to “The Marvels”, I guess that means we should only make action-adventures with women leads from now on.

Every argument about how “The Marvels” proves audience disinterest in women-led films fails to hold up. The best performing movie of the year is “Barbie”. “Captain Marvel” and “Wonder Woman” are among the best performing superhero films in their respective universes. If you’re going to excuse under-performance by “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Napoleon” as part of a marketing strategy to accelerate streaming subscriptions, then the effect “Black Widow” and “Wonder Woman 1984” had on Disney+ and HBO Max are the shining examples of that marketing strategy succeeding, and must be considered further examples of the success of women-led superhero films. If you’re going to consider the singular failure of “The Marvels” as overriding that mountain of previous evidence, then you must also consider double the number of similarly budgeted, worse performing films as evidence that male-led historical epics can no longer succeed and shouldn’t be made.

If you’re going to use a measurement, apply it consistently, not just when you feel like. If you cannot do that, what point does your argument have? If you cannot make an argument without replacing evidence with your feelings, what good are you? I am sick of this wildly_fanciful_statement. It may only be box office narratives, but that gives men more public shielding to keep handing off larger budgets to other men regardless of terrible performance. That impacts who has opportunities, the art we get to see, and the art that shapes our cultural and political norms.

We pretend like this doesn’t matter, after 20 years of seeing ESPN debates about dudes’ feelings overriding evidence, a presentation format that then overtook 24 hour-news networks so they do the same, so the country does the same at the voting booth. Then we scratch our heads wondering how it happened, as if this nonsense doesn’t test in entertainment circles where there’s little consequence before being mainstreamed everywhere else. The extensive testing of social media brigading and disinformation campaigns through Gamergate. They always test normalizing this mess on movies, on games, in sports, in the places where they think others are least likely to push back. When it’s mainstreamed in these places, it’s easy to then mainstream in the news and in politics. Then we’re shocked and wonder how it’s so sudden when we had plenty of warning and just ignored those early chances to push back.

Why write 3,000+ words about it? Why write these articles pushing back on these narratives multiple times a year? Because if the argument is that women can fail only once, and that’s it, that’s their chance, we shouldn’t give them work anymore – and men can fail harder and repeatedly but be praised and rewarded for it and given more chances – then we are shutting out half of our talent in any field – filmmaking, engineering, governance, whatever it might be. That narrative has no place anywhere. Imagine shutting out half your possible talent and thinking you can make progress in this world. What a narcissistic theft of the things we could accomplish.

I should wrap this up in a more streamlined way, end on some kind of high note, but that’s it, that’s the sentence. That’s the everything I can say about these constant narratives that seek to dismantle the opportunities for so much talent in this world: what a narcissistic theft of the things we could accomplish.

Interesting article.

I mean - the math doesn't lie.

Napoleon was obvious Oscar bait, and instead it:

• Opened to # 2 over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend
• Received an atrocious B- CinemaScore
• Dropped out of the top 5 in its 2nd weekend
• Did less in 10 days domestically than The Marvels did in 3.

At this rate, it'll be available for streaming by New Year's Eve.

[Bosco685]

[Bosco685]

NAPOLEON AND GROUCHY: THE LAST GREAT WATERLOO MYSTERY UNRAVELLED

Quote

One of the enduring controversies of the Waterloo campaign is the conduct of Marshal Grouchy. Given command of a third of Napoleon's army and told to keep the Prussians from joining forces with Wellington, he failed to keep Wellington and Blücher apart with the result that Napoleon was overwhelmed at Waterloo. Grouchy, though, was not defeated. He kept his force together and retreated in good order back to France.

 

Many have accused Grouchy of intentionally holding back his men and not marching to join Napoleon when the sound of the gunfire at Waterloo could clearly be heard, and he has been widely blamed for Napoleon s defeat.

 

Now, for the first time, Grouchy's conduct during the Waterloo campaign is analysed in fine detail, drawing principally on French sources not previously available in English. The author, for example, answers questions such as whether key orders did actually exist in 1815 or were they later fabrications to make Grouchy the scapegoat for Napoleon s failures?

 

Did General Gérard really tell Grouchy to march to the sound of the guns ? Why did Grouchy appear to move so slowly when speed was essential? This is a subject which is generally overlooked by British historians, who tend to concentrate on the actions of Wellington and Napoleon, and which French historians choose not to look at too closely for fear that it might reflect badly upon their hero Napoleon.

 

Despite the mass of books written on Waterloo, this is a genuinely unique contribution to this most famous campaign. This book is certain to fuel debate and prompt historians to re-consider the events of June 1815.

 

But in spite of these persistent denials, there was a written order, dictated by Napoleon himself, and written, in the absence of Soult, by General Bertrand (which fact accounts for a copy of it not being found in the archives of Marshal Soult, the chief of staff), and received by Marshal Grouchy on the afternoon of the 17th. 

 

It seems impossible that Marshal Grouchy should in 1819 have forgotten this dispatch. There is not, however, in the memoirs written by his son and grandson, a single word of explanation of the absolute denials by the marshal, which we have just read, of the existence of any such order.

 

However we may account for it, this order remained concealed or forgotten for nearly thirty years.

 

[Rodey]

This movie vexes me.

[Bosco685]

On 1/16/2024 at 2:56 PM, Rodey said:

This movie vexes me.

I somewhat felt the same at first. But if anything it made me go off and do further research. There were many elements that were factual. Like Napoleon's generals constantly having to deal with him wanting to lead from the front at the risk of his own life leading to many injuries.

I do want to see the longer version that is going to play on streaming.