David Mouriquand Then there’s the fact that 2023 has been, so far, a blockbuster graveyard Massive budgets Shorter gap between theatrical release and streaming availability Extended universes and...
Exemplary
David Mouriquand
Then there’s the fact that 2023 has been, so far, a blockbuster graveyard
Barbie and Oppenheimer aside, almost all huge movies have underperformed – mostly critically, and definitely at the box office. From Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania to Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, The Flash to Fast X, Shazam! Fury of the Gods to M:I – Dead Reckoning Part One, a great many films have struggled to make a profit.
Massive budgets
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny had an estimated $295 million budget while Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One was also edging towards the $300 million mark.
Fast X, the latest instalment in the seemingly never-ending series, cost a staggering $340 million (€312 million), making it the eighth most expensive movie of all time
To put that Fast X figure into perspective, you could have made Mad Max: Fury Road twice or produced both Frozen and Frozen II with that sum, and still had some change left.
Makes you think – especially considering the piss poor quality of Fast X...
Shorter gap between theatrical release and streaming availability
Movies hit streaming services faster since the pandemic, and that shorter gap between theatrical release and streaming availability not only diminishes the potential for big-screen revenues but seems to have accustomed audiences to wait for the film to come out for home viewing. Even more so if it’s a film they’re not completely sold on.
Barbie and Oppenheimer are exemptions to the rule, purely because they were
a) successfully marketed and
b) sold as an unmissable must-see event, especially if you wanted to be part of the Barbenheimer cultural conversation and not be eaten alive by FOMO.
If there isn’t that incentive, why pay for a cinema ticket? An evening with the family at the talkies is now expensive – alarmingly so if you’re watching in 3D, IMAX or if you’re adding the costs of snacks.
Extended universes and established franchises are becoming tiresome
You can’t keep up with all the narratives if you haven’t watched all the previous instalments – on the big and the small screen. This is especially true with the ubiquitous multiverse storylines that populate most MCU / DC movies at the moment.
Superhero films are particularly guilty in this respect, and it seems like none of them these days can content themselves with a traditional, self-contained beginning-middle-end structure without adding further lore or uniquely irritating sequel baiting.
Who has the time nowadays to watch Vin Diesel show to what extent he has the acting range of a grieving plum? The Fast & Furious franchise is sloppy, repetitive, and also guilty as sin of retconning deaths, meaning that nothing matters and emotional stakes are now non-existent.
Hello, returning Gal Gadot on your submarine. Welcome back - we didn't miss you.
Dead Reckoning also proved that the M:I franchise is showing signs it's running out of ideas. Part One is muddled and bloated (on top of featuring clichéd dialogue and a laughable AI sphincter antagonist), will audiences even want to shell out for the price of a ticket for the sequel?
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts didn’t stir up much appetite, much more baffling was Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. The gap between the films (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was released in 2008 and was considered as the worst in the series) could be an explanation, but the truth is that it simply wasn’t good enough. Despite Harrison Ford’s efforts, the film was further proof that certain IPs should be allowed to rest on their laurels without being milked dry.
House of Mouse with only dollar signs in their eyes and “Remake everything!” on their lips
It wasn’t a good idea when they started in 2010 with Alice in Wonderland, and it’s not a good idea now. Sadly, Tim Burton’s godawful take on the classic was a billion-dollar box office success at the time, and that gave Disney enough incentive to go through their entire back catalogue without much care or thought.
The industrious regurgitating made sense for them: minimal effort, as you don’t have to come up with original stories or characters, and maximum rewards, as the nostalgia pandering seemed to be working. To a point.
Beauty and the Beast, Dumbo, The Lion King, Mulan, Pinocchio – all released like clockwork, and all utterly derivative of the originals. (Read: creatively bankrupt duds that should never have seen the light of day.)
This year’s The Little Mermaid was yet another uninspired (and very ugly looking) remake that had everyone asking the same question after each and every live-action Disney remake: Why waste my time with these when I could be watching the far better original?
The fatigue surrounding these rehashes has morphed into outright disdain through controversy on social media
Rachel Zegler, who plays Snow White is of Columbian heritage, has been subject to racist trolling and her comments about sticking it to the patriarchy in this new version have predictably not gone down well.
There’s also been the debate over the seven dwarfs, who have been dropped from the title and have now been billed as seven "magical creatures".
The backlash against Snow White is ugly, but it does confirm that the tactics used by Disney (gender-flipping, colour-blind casting, faux-progressive initiatives, pandering to current conversations detractors label ‘woke baiting’...) are unsurprising and distinctively risk-averse.
They use the same old methods to only distance themselves superficially from the original - this in turn tarnishes legacies, annoys the fanbase, and betrays a lack of truly original ideas
Sadly, we’re beyond the point of no return, as we’re getting a Snow White - Lion King sequel double-bill next year, Moana, Bambi, and a slew of other remakes. There are even rumours that Disney have learned absolutely nothing from the failure of The Little Mermaid and will announce a second live-action film.
Both Gerwig and Christopher Nolan have given audiences a reason to part with their money, chiefly because their films treat them like intelligent beings who should be rewarded with meaningful experiences in theatres. Something which many blockbusters fail to do.
Barbie provided something fresh with its feminist-fuelled look at the popular toy. It stands at $1.18 billion globally (on a $145 million budget and an even larger marketing tag of $150 million) and is on its way to becoming the highest-grossing release of 2023.
Oppenheimer has also been a resounding success, grossing over $722 million worldwide on a $100 million production budget. Not bad for a 3h+ psychodrama about the invention of the atom bomb that isn't exactly escapist entertainment in the traditional sense. Without a doubt, the film has shown that audiences are moving away from bland blockbuster fare.
If Hollywood want recovery, bums in seats and cash in their pockets, they may have to rethink their long-haul plans for box office domination, as well as come to terms with some simple demands:
Pay your writers
Treat them and the actors with respect >* Don’t be fooled into thinking that audiences aren’t tuned in to the dangers of AI in film production
Give your special effects team the time and the money to actual perfect their craft if you are going to overly rely on CGI; and, above all,
Credit paying customers with enough intelligence not to dish out the same tired dross.
I get tired of hearing about MCU burnout as a thing. When they make good movies like Guardians 3 they fucking explode. When they make duds and turds it’s “superhero burnout.” No man, if the movie...
I get tired of hearing about MCU burnout as a thing. When they make good movies like Guardians 3 they fucking explode. When they make duds and turds it’s “superhero burnout.”
No man, if the movie sucks then nobody wants to see it—this isn’t rocket science.
I'm one of those that echoes the MCU burnout as a thing. It's a function of a few things, in my case; time "required" to consume everything being made, and time available to consume it based on...
Exemplary
I'm one of those that echoes the MCU burnout as a thing. It's a function of a few things, in my case; time "required" to consume everything being made, and time available to consume it based on changes in life.
In short:
Phase 1 = 12 hours, 24 minutes
Phase 2 = 12 hours, 38 minutes
Phase 3 = 24 hours, 57 minutes
Phase 4 = 73 hours, 16 minutes
Phase 5 = 70+ hours
Phase One lasted five years, and consisted of six movies. That's it. One movie per year. No TV shows, no shorts, nothing but six movies. At this point in my life, I had graduated college and was getting started in my career. I didn't own a house, I wasn't married, no kids - so plenty of time available to consume media. Total runtime: 12 hours and 24 minutes.
Phase Two lasted three years, and consisted of six movies. Shorter timeline, but again - that's it. No TV shows or anything else. Granted, they had the idea of trying to tie in TV shows at the time (Agents of SHIELD, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, etc) but those quickly got shuffled off into their own thing, parallel to but not a part of the MCU itself. That made it easy to consume those as their own things, on one's own pace, without feeling like you were going to miss out on something. At this point, I was still living in an apartment, in a long-term relationship but not married and still no kids. Career was well underway, but no significant expectations being leveled on me. Total runtime: 12 hours and 38 minutes.
Phase Three lasted four years and consisted of eleven (11!) movies. Things are starting to get a bit out of control, but I, like many others, was invested by now. I wanted to see how they tied this all up. It finally gets across the finish line. By this point, I was married, had bought a house, and had a child; my free time is rapidly dwindling, and movies are only getting more expensive. Total runtime: 24 hours, 57 minutes, effectively the same runtime of both Phase 1 and 2 combined.
Phase 4 lasted two years and consists of seven movies and eight TV series, consisting of a total of fifty-seven (57!) episodes. By now, many of the characters we followed in Phases 1 thru 3 were basically out of the MCU. Also, now I have two children, a spouse, a house, and a well-established career; what little time is available for watching TV or watching movies is spent with the kids, for whom the MCU is inappropriate viewing at their young ages. When my spouse and I have time for ourselves, we often don't have the energy to watch something that will demand lots of attention and be "required viewing" to understand what's happening in the movies. What's more, it's hard to get passionate about long-form storytelling when there's no clear villain yet. Total runtime: 16 hours, 16 minutes for movies, approx. 57 hours for TV = 73 hours, 16 minutes total
Phase 5 thus far consists of two movies (Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3) and one TV series (Secret Invasion). It will eventually consist of a total of seven movies and seven TV series, consisting of a total of 54+ episodes (Echo's episode count is TBA). At this point, my kids are entering grade school and have extracurricular activities, on top of my own career demands. My spouse and I aren't getting any younger; it was easy to binge several hours of TV and/or movies at a time when the MCU got rolling, but that was fifteen years ago. Now we've supposedly got a villain (Kang), but we also know the actor playing Kang is mired in some pretty problematic issues that makes one wonder how long they can stick around in the MCU. Total runtime: 4 hours, 34 minutes for movies, approx. 6 hours for TV = 10 hours, 34 minutes released to-date. Likely final runtime of over 70 hours of media once everything is released
I waa blown away by the first Iron Man movie which got me to go to the library and check out the affordable “Essentials” collection of B&W comics from the Stan Lee era, even bought a few. Up until...
I waa blown away by the first Iron Man movie which got me to go to the library and check out the affordable “Essentials” collection of B&W comics from the Stan Lee era, even bought a few.
Up until Guardians of the Galaxy I watched them all and I loved Guardians but then I fell out of the Marvel habit. I have copies of some newer MCU movies on home video but I have so many other things to watch I just never get around to watching them.
I can’t say they did anything wrong or I had a bad experience, I just fell out of it. I’m not sure if my son growing up has anything to do with it because he’s old enough to drink now and we still took him to see Barbie.
Definitely agree that good MCU movies still make money. But I disagree otherwise, firstly because burnout/fatigue won't happen overnight. Secondly is that movies that were widely considered bad...
Definitely agree that good MCU movies still make money. But I disagree otherwise, firstly because burnout/fatigue won't happen overnight. Secondly is that movies that were widely considered bad (or at best mediocre) used to make insane amounts of money, Thor 2 for example made nearly $700M at the box office which certainly would not have happened today.
That is why I believe burnout/fatigue is happening. Because audiences want higher quality now - they no longer settle for run of the mill MCU movies.
It's also why Aquaman made so much money for DC. It is by no means a great movie but it made a billion dollars - it was simply lucky that it was released around the height of comic book movie hype surrounding Endgame. Different studios and universes, yes, but audiences were hungry for more at that time. Now though, I really doubt Aquaman 2 is going to be successful at all.
General audiences just no longer consider it worth the price of admission to watch the next mediocre CBM. They want quality, meaning standards are a lot higher, which I believe is definitely a sign of burnout or fatigue
I think so too. The phase(s?) since Endgame has not exactly been their best work - bad releases used to the exception, whereas they have now become the rule. I also think taking a look at DC is...
I think so too. The phase(s?) since Endgame has not exactly been their best work - bad releases used to the exception, whereas they have now become the rule.
I also think taking a look at DC is CBM burnout but condensed. From '16 onwards, they were all in on speed-running financial gain and getting to the Avengers level box office. Of course, they never even came close to reaching it, instead imploding on account of loss of interest and yes, way too many mediocre and bad movies. The Flash was pretty good, and Blue Beetle is too, but they have ruined goodwill with audiences through years of mismanagement.
DC has failed to steer their ship in the right direction and I won't lie, I'm not holding my breath for Gunn's onboarding and helming to fix anything at all. They need several good releases in a row to right the wrongs and gain trust back - and until they have that trust, I believe their movies will continue to disappoint and/or underperform. And since studios operate on short-term gains, they are probably not going to have the patience required to give their new-ish DCU an actual chance.
I think Marvel are still able to course correct though. They already said that they pumped out too much content and are going to adjust accordingly with fewer releases. While I do think there's too high a volume of MCU content, your point about quality is definitely still true. If everything they released was good, nobody would be complaining about more good quality content. But most everything is bad, so people get real tired.
Around the time of the fifth or sixth Harry Potter film, Terry Gilliam said in an interview that he wouldn't direct one if asked (which came up because he was the author's original preference)...
Around the time of the fifth or sixth Harry Potter film, Terry Gilliam said in an interview that he wouldn't direct one if asked (which came up because he was the author's original preference) because it was a "factory job," since the basic atmosphere had been nailed down and the films had become box-ticking for decisions made by a committee.
And, in retrospect, it definitely shows. The post-Goblet of Fire films (and certainly the Fantastic Beasts ones) are much more same-y and formulaic, with a defined (bland and grey) style that didn't change much between films.
That's what's wrong with the MCU and Disney Star Wars: it's rare for them to back off and let someone like Taika Waititi mess around. They have committees that set the plan, and they have a factory line that makes the product to spec. There's no room for directorial vision: it's just a refined process to stamp out another Marvel Film. Something like Thor Ragnarok or Guardians of the Galaxy 3 is an anomaly, usually driven by some metrics-observer panicking about wanting interest from the last batch of formulaic releases and finally letting someone take a risk.
The problem is that the MCU used to put out duds and people still went to see them. Now people are only turning up for "the good ones". At least, that is what I have observed anecdotally among...
The problem is that the MCU used to put out duds and people still went to see them. Now people are only turning up for "the good ones".
At least, that is what I have observed anecdotally among myself and my peers. The turning point was the Disney+ series. It used to be that I would go see a dud simply because I wanted to stay caught up on the story for the next "good one". Now that they've flooded the MCU with a bunch of TV shows that I just don't want to watch, keeping up with the universe has become nigh impossible and I no longer have a reason to go see 1 or 2 mediocre MCU movies every year.
I disagree, burnout is a real thing. I used to love the MCU in phase 1 and 2, then it got insane, everyone tried to do a superhero thing. I'm done with it. If I see something superhero related I'm...
I disagree, burnout is a real thing. I used to love the MCU in phase 1 and 2, then it got insane, everyone tried to do a superhero thing.
I'm done with it. If I see something superhero related I'm not going to bother with it, no matter how good people claim it to be. I loved Guardians 1 and 2, but I'm never going to watch 3, despite people saying that's it good because I just don't care.
It's the same with Zombies before superheroes. It became popular and corporations only see dollar signs and make waaaay too much of it to the point where people don't care anymore.
Movies, shows, video games, comics, they all try to capture trends and inevitably beat them into the ground until people don't care anymore.
I loved the zombie genre until it became too much much like superheroes.
I don't understand why people claim burnout isn't a thing because it absolutely is. Maybe not for you, maybe not for some, but it absolutely is a thing.
I know I'm not alone in saying that I'll never watch another MCU movie again, regardless of anything. I'm done with it.
Especially with the writers strike on this all reeks of trying to find any excuse to ignore the obvious. The scripts/writing sucked, the movies sucked. There's not a high bar for marvel films, but...
Especially with the writers strike on this all reeks of trying to find any excuse to ignore the obvious. The scripts/writing sucked, the movies sucked. There's not a high bar for marvel films, but it's higher than "i can't tell you! There's no time!" repeated over and over like ant man.
Marvel struck gold by finding the right mix of "ignore the source material/be faithful to the source material" and having just the bare bones of decent writing above it's natural competitors like Transformers and Ninja Turtles. It is clear though that they're phoning it in.
DC wise...i mean when have they not phoned it in. They kinda sorta know how to do a batman film and are otherwise flailing on 70% of their releases.
I'd go over the non comic book stuff but it's more of the same? Again, marvel figured out that if you take strong name recognition and do a decent job with it, you get to print money. Indiana Jones was yet another "probably enough people will see it based on name alone" train wreck, and MI is in the same boat.
You want to make lots of money, write a decent script and follow it. Stop taking some junk action script and draping whatever current name brand is over it. It's never reliably worked.
I agree on the idea of writing but I do believe this issue has more to do this the institutional decline of small studios. Thinking back to the heyday of summer blockbusters, there were tons of...
I agree on the idea of writing but I do believe this issue has more to do this the institutional decline of small studios.
Thinking back to the heyday of summer blockbusters, there were tons of studios with dozens of projects in the work at any time. Directors, writers, actors, the massive supporting crews and even the studios were working for the next hit because they needed to survive. A hit means future work, name recognition, investment and most importantly, residuals that can keep people going through dry spell and even retirement.
Right now the super studios have passed out all of the experienced decision makers and now it feels like rich people throwing money around an IP stock market. There's no real appreciation for the people, craft or even the ip itself. Just blank cheque + beloved franchise = profits, until test screenings bomb so there's a second blank cheque, reshoots and a new script.
Reading into the strikes, it seems like writers are being isolated from each other and the production process; to the point of exclusive online meetings and not even being called to rehearsals and shooting days. It looks to be blocking essential collaboration and mentorship. Directors hate the idea of promising projects just being forgotten on a streaming platforms content pile because of no marketing. Entire industries like practical effects and voice acting are being bled dry. Actors are threatened with their likenesses being property of the studios. With less and less residuals, there are fewer people working more jobs for less money. Don't even want to imagine the hell thats currently being developed with Large-data-models.
I know theres a lot of promising studios and interesting projects out there. But with titans like Netflix and Disney dominating the industry and setting the tone, it gets a little hard to be excited.
I completely agree. I guess there was a brief moment where it felt like streamers were throwing money at interesting filmmakers and letting them do whatever, but those days are done. Stuff coming...
I completely agree. I guess there was a brief moment where it felt like streamers were throwing money at interesting filmmakers and letting them do whatever, but those days are done. Stuff coming out of big studios is really getting pretty rough (on average) and I think you're right — I don't really have high hopes for things improving any time soon.
I don't think we'll run out of great movies though. Technological development really has made movies easier to make — it's more doable than ever for a small group of people to make a feature for very little money. It's also made movies way easier to watch, with small productions and things from overseas actually being able to find audiences. I think few of the next great filmmakers will come out of the traditional Hollywood system, and many of them may never work for big studios.
Exactly. For the example you made at the beginning, it's just lazy writing doing what they did with Janet. How long does it take to tell your family Spoilers for Quantumania "Hey, in the quantum...
You want to make lots of money, write a decent script and follow it
Exactly. For the example you made at the beginning, it's just lazy writing doing what they did with Janet. How long does it take to tell your family
Spoilers for Quantumania
"Hey, in the quantum realm there's this guy Kang, he's a genocidal time traveling monster that is so bad that's been trapped there by his other multidimensional selves. Don't try to open portals to the quantum realm or you may give him a way to escape and wreak havoc"
? Your daughter and son-in-law helped saving the universe from Thanos, aren't they able to assess the severity of such a threat?
Also, I just realized, weren't they making experiments with the quantum realm at the end of Ant-Man and the Wasp?
Barbie made a lot of money not only because of the marketing or the big name, but because they wrote a great script that worked with the rules it set. AND it played with the viewer's expectations, sometimes subverting them, sometimes fulfilling them, but never treating the viewer like an idiot.
I'm not quite sure I can fully agree with the thesis to begin with unless we arbirtuarily limit it to July/August theatre. There were many over-budgeted, underperforming movies but it's also a...
I'm not quite sure I can fully agree with the thesis to begin with unless we arbirtuarily limit it to July/August theatre. There were many over-budgeted, underperforming movies but it's also a pretty decent year as well, all things considered. if we shift the window 3 months: We had the Mario Movie be one of Illumination's best performers, Spider-verse of course smashed box office and critical expectations, and even Elemental had a surprise comeback surge thanks to the international market. John Wick 4 seemed to do decently well, but we may be leaving the "blockbuster" budget by that point.
I'll admit I'm not someone who was a heavy movie-goer even pre-pandemic, but I feel like it's inevitable that there will be a decent number of blockbuster flops any given summer. Maybe it's simply the same economic uncertainties that hit the rest of the world and theatres (for obvious reason) need more time to re-adjust.
I'm by no means an expert either, but I know that summer is typically the "main" season in the eyes of movie studios. They usually time their biggest releases and blockbusters for summer releases....
I'm by no means an expert either, but I know that summer is typically the "main" season in the eyes of movie studios. They usually time their biggest releases and blockbusters for summer releases. A lot of people agree it started with Jaws in 1975. I don't know how much is due to factors like schools being out and thus more people with time to see them, and how much is just due to them timing their best films for summer and thus making it an "artificial" loop. The summer season has been a thing for years.
So studios DO pay special attention to how releases do over the summer, and this one definitely feels like it's had a lot of big flops compared to usual. That said, you can find this sort of criticism most years. This year feels like it's worse than usual to me, but it could be a case of recency bias.
"What's behind the box office flops?" Lists sequels and remakes as majority of output The only sequel I feel could earn a pass would be a Mission Impossible movie, to be honest. But people are...
"What's behind the box office flops?"
Lists sequels and remakes as majority of output
The only sequel I feel could earn a pass would be a Mission Impossible movie, to be honest. But people are tired of the rehashing and extended universes I think, and even M:I isn't immune to that.
And, as mentioned, shorter theatrical runs affect the largest revenue stream and are a compounding issue.
I think the studios are doing it to themselves. Yeah, people are reticent to go see movies, but we don't have amything new and interesting happening in the mainstream either except a toy movie that will likely lead to another cinematic universe and a biopic.
I don't mean to be cynical or rude about it, but since COVID I just have felt disaffected with what is generally on offer. I saw Avatar, Barbie and Oppenheimer, and don't see anything else coming soon to get me in a theater, and I love dumb popcorn movies.
You summed up my thoughts particularly well. I was a Marvel fan since the 80s when I started reading X-Men comic books. Marvel was at its best when it was making genre movies that happened to have...
You summed up my thoughts particularly well.
I was a Marvel fan since the 80s when I started reading X-Men comic books. Marvel was at its best when it was making genre movies that happened to have superheroes in them. Ant-Man was a heist film that happened to have a hero in it. WInter Soldier was a spy intrigue file that happened to have a hero in it. Thor Ragnarok was a odd couple/buddy cop movie that happened to have heroes in it. They were also loosely connected by after credit scenes.
Now they're seemingly CGI fests that exist solely to promote some big bad. They've introduced the Dark Avengers, the Celestials, incursions, Kang and possibly whatever Shang Chi's rings were calling as the "big bads" of the current phase. Imagine if instead of just Thanos the early movies setup Galactus, the Beyonder, Knull, the Annihlation Wave and Thanos?
I think Disney's current problem is they're trying to make all the moneys right now. Between the movies and Disney+ shows they're going 100 MPH cranking out material. There's no time to digest the content and mull over any implications of the plotlines. The stories aren't allowed to simmer in our imaginations because BAM here's a new series released immediately after it.
The live movie remakes are the same thing. Before the writer's strike, Disney has slated 3 live remakes in the next 2 years according to wikipedia. Since 2015 there has been 1-2 a year with 4 being released in 2019-- that's 15 live action remakes in 8 years with another 11 planned.
It's hard to argue with why they do it: they've made over $10 billion off of a little over $2.7 billion in budgets. Looking at the Box Office Performance part of the same wikimedia page seems to show a slowdown in returns. Before Mulan most of them had nearly tripled their budget at minimum. Since then, 1 bombed and the next 2 barely doubled their budget.
Disney's performance also dabbles into the political ramifications if their movies start to do poorly. The "anti-woke" crowd claims every Disney downturn/"failure"1 as a victory and then they're emboldened for another news cycle. I'm seeing more and more slanted articles appearing in my Discover page on my phone's Chrome browser. Sensationalist headlines with variations of "Disney Parks are a ghost town!" or "Park closing, guests kicked out!" that when you actually read the article it is talking about how there are fewer people going to Disney in August when the heat index is routinely around 110 between thunderstorms or how it is a planned renovation that they scheduled years in advance. As a Floridian even we don't go to Disney in parts of the summer and anyone who's been to Disney repeatedly can tell you they are always renovating some part of the park.
1Even with Hollywood accounting I wouldn't consider the $566 million box office of the "The Little Mermaid" remake on a $250 million budget as a "failure" when you add in things like toys, books, clothing, pencils, pens, coloring books, etc etc etc.
I agree. A series is a contiguous sequence of movies, and if at some point it occurs to you that Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull wasn't that good, or the latest Marvel stuff isn't that good,...
I agree. A series is a contiguous sequence of movies, and if at some point it occurs to you that Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull wasn't that good, or the latest Marvel stuff isn't that good, or Transformers was never really that good, then you fall off the train.
And if you aren't on the Marvel train, what's really the selling point of "AntMan and the Wasp"?
I feel the same way. Other than Barbie I pretty much avoided all new releases because I just didn't care. I'm not interested in crossovers, multiverses or whatever else dreck Hollywood tries to...
I feel the same way. Other than Barbie I pretty much avoided all new releases because I just didn't care. I'm not interested in crossovers, multiverses or whatever else dreck Hollywood tries to convince us we love so they can keep making a billion dollars every film. I want to see good stories with good characters that don't feel like they roll off an assembly line.
I had no idea a new Mission Impossible came out before reading this, I feel like before COVID I definitely would have gone to see it in the theater. But these days, I'd rather just wait until my...
I had no idea a new Mission Impossible came out before reading this, I feel like before COVID I definitely would have gone to see it in the theater. But these days, I'd rather just wait until my local library has a copy on Blu-Ray. I just have no desire to deal with spending $30 on theater tickets and $20 on terrible concessions.
M:I was legit good, dunno why it struggled. Tom Cruise is one of the last greats who has the pull and the skill to make any movie they want along with people like Spielberg and Cameron. But the...
From Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania to Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, The Flash to Fast X, Shazam! Fury of the Gods to M:I – Dead Reckoning Part One, a great many films have struggled to make a profit
M:I was legit good, dunno why it struggled. Tom Cruise is one of the last greats who has the pull and the skill to make any movie they want along with people like Spielberg and Cameron.
But the rest were just enough off to drop them from an 8-9 (rewatchable in my book) to 6 or a 7.
Quantumania shoved in too much plot and not enough plot (action sequences way too long) at the same time.
The Flash wasn't bad, but I want my superhero movies to be a part of a larger world and the Gunn reset is just around the corner, so why should I care? Also the star of the movie is a horrible human being in their actual life, for the first time I couldn't ignore it while watching.
I watched Fast X. Can't remember a single scene from it, maybe some bits with John Cena? Also ends in a cliffhanger, why?
Dial of Destiny was like Picard Season 3 - 100% nostalgia bait. But at the same time it was what Crystal Skull should've been.
Shazam! - oof. All the other bits were good, but Zachary Levi was either phoning it in or was written really horribly. Grace Caroline Currey was the breakout star in that one.
You know, I was pleasantly surprised by The Flash. I thought that the plot was good, and Ezra Miller's acted quite nicely. But I also kept thinking about how big of a piece of shit he is as a...
You know, I was pleasantly surprised by The Flash. I thought that the plot was good, and Ezra Miller's acted quite nicely. But I also kept thinking about how big of a piece of shit he is as a person, and it detracted a bit from my enjoyment of the movie.
Ditto. I was genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed The Flash. Keaton was awesome. Miller was funny. But also ditto about being unable to stop thinking about how terrible Miller is as a person....
Ditto. I was genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed The Flash. Keaton was awesome. Miller was funny. But also ditto about being unable to stop thinking about how terrible Miller is as a person. Jonathan Majors, Kang in the MCU, has a similar effect on me.
Jonathan Majors's crazy face made him fit the role of Kang fantastically. Just his face is so damn scary, there's something in the fact how he can turn off all emotion in his eyes but still emote...
Jonathan Majors's crazy face made him fit the role of Kang fantastically. Just his face is so damn scary, there's something in the fact how he can turn off all emotion in his eyes but still emote with the rest of his face.
Oh yes! Most definitely! The CGI was downright terrible in some place, especially during the "time travel" sequences. It did detract from my experience as well.
Oh yes! Most definitely! The CGI was downright terrible in some place, especially during the "time travel" sequences. It did detract from my experience as well.
I really enjoyed the Dial of Destiny and I went in ready to hate it. It had all of the charisma of an Indiana Jones movie while gracefully handing off the mantle. I'm not sure how they could have...
I really enjoyed the Dial of Destiny and I went in ready to hate it. It had all of the charisma of an Indiana Jones movie while gracefully handing off the mantle. I'm not sure how they could have done it better.
SPOILERS: I really enjoyed the beginning... but some parts were awful (the tuktuk chase, the SCUBA Eel scene) and the actual time travel... I understand Harrison is reallly old and that needed a...
SPOILERS: I really enjoyed the beginning... but some parts were awful (the tuktuk chase, the SCUBA Eel scene) and the actual time travel...
I understand Harrison is reallly old and that needed a lot of CGI to help w/ it... but it was too much at points.
I feel like this is one of those that a "fan edit" could make it better... remove some scenes entirely, fix some CGI and i feel like a C+ film could be a B
I think we may just have different taste, really enjoyed the tuktuk scene. It was definitely campy, but kind of like how the motorcycle scene is in the Last Crusade. It reminded me a bit of the...
I think we may just have different taste, really enjoyed the tuktuk scene. It was definitely campy, but kind of like how the motorcycle scene is in the Last Crusade. It reminded me a bit of the tintin chase. I thought Antonio Banderas was an absolute banger of a cameo so I forgive the weird scuba scene.
I agree about the time travel, it felt like a way for them to shoehorn in Nazi's again. Though I guess it's not much weirder than opening up a box to... heaven? hell? Still not entirely sure what the arc was supposed to be.
It was as good as it could've been. The MacGuffin was a bit over the top for Indy in my opinion, but it was good nostalgia bait with a possible handover to the next generation. (Just not the...
It was as good as it could've been. The MacGuffin was a bit over the top for Indy in my opinion, but it was good nostalgia bait with a possible handover to the next generation. (Just not the generation we expected...).
Pretty much like S3 of Picard, the old cast is comfy and safe and got to have their last adventure and the new crew is ready for their spin-off =)
Haven't seen it yet so no spoilers please, but I am almost 100% sure the reason it struggled is because Barbie and Oppenheimer came out 1 week after M:I so it had no chance at competing....
M:I was legit good, dunno why it struggled. Tom Cruise is one of the last greats who has the pull and the skill to make any movie they want along with people like Spielberg and Cameron.
Haven't seen it yet so no spoilers please, but I am almost 100% sure the reason it struggled is because Barbie and Oppenheimer came out 1 week after M:I so it had no chance at competing. Barbenheimer for some reason just had an amazing campaign behind it, like at the point that it's one of the greatest achievements of movie advertising in decades
Speaking of which, anyone else surprised movie ticket prices haven't gone up much more since COVID and over the last year or two when the prices of everything skyrocketed? Went to see a movie and...
Speaking of which, anyone else surprised movie ticket prices haven't gone up much more since COVID and over the last year or two when the prices of everything skyrocketed?
Went to see a movie and was amazed when the person behind the counter said $12.95. Granted, this was a daytime showing on a Wednesday. Maybe weekend evening/night showings are more expensive.
In our town we have an “independent” cinema downtown which has lately been showing blockbusters since the company that owns the multiplex at the mall is struggling with bankruptcy and we’re not so...
In our town we have an “independent” cinema downtown which has lately been showing blockbusters since the company that owns the multiplex at the mall is struggling with bankruptcy and we’re not so sure how long that theatre stays open. I saw Barbie there and saw a lot of trailers for independent films, really none of them connect with me, I think the last small picture I saw was Robot and Frank but despite looking what is there I don’t see enough interesting movies to keep me in the habit of looking at the schedule every week. When I have been in that mode, whether it is the cinema at the college, the multiplex at the mall or a tiny cinema in a tiny town, I have watched a lot of movies. I haven’t been. there for a long time.
Exactly, it's a big problem with any kind of recorded media. I am always discovering new "old" music (lately Information Society from the 2000s, Yellow Magic Orchestra from the 1970s and 1980s,...
Exactly, it's a big problem with any kind of recorded media. I am always discovering new "old" music (lately Information Society from the 2000s, Yellow Magic Orchestra from the 1970s and 1980s, Super Furry Animals, etc.) that I don't feel a lot of need to search out new "new" music. In my pod we recently had a wave of being into silent films, so at least far as home video is concerned anything new competes with 100 years of cinema history.
I have not. I saw the name and thought for a minute that you were talking about The Presidents of the United States of America, which is a completely different band.
I think the earlier band is much better if also much more obscure, see also the first few early Frank Zappa albums like Absolutely Free and We’re only in for the money which are as different from...
I think the earlier band is much better if also much more obscure, see also the first few early Frank Zappa albums like Absolutely Free and We’re only in for the money which are as different from the later Zappa as the early Floyd is different from the last Floyd. (I could swear there must have been a crackdown on psychedelic rock)
David Mouriquand
Then there’s the fact that 2023 has been, so far, a blockbuster graveyard
Massive budgets
Shorter gap between theatrical release and streaming availability
Extended universes and established franchises are becoming tiresome
House of Mouse with only dollar signs in their eyes and “Remake everything!” on their lips
The industrious regurgitating made sense for them: minimal effort, as you don’t have to come up with original stories or characters, and maximum rewards, as the nostalgia pandering seemed to be working. To a point.
The fatigue surrounding these rehashes has morphed into outright disdain through controversy on social media
They use the same old methods to only distance themselves superficially from the original - this in turn tarnishes legacies, annoys the fanbase, and betrays a lack of truly original ideas
Both Gerwig and Christopher Nolan have given audiences a reason to part with their money, chiefly because their films treat them like intelligent beings who should be rewarded with meaningful experiences in theatres. Something which many blockbusters fail to do.
I get tired of hearing about MCU burnout as a thing. When they make good movies like Guardians 3 they fucking explode. When they make duds and turds it’s “superhero burnout.”
No man, if the movie sucks then nobody wants to see it—this isn’t rocket science.
I'm one of those that echoes the MCU burnout as a thing. It's a function of a few things, in my case; time "required" to consume everything being made, and time available to consume it based on changes in life.
In short:
Phase One lasted five years, and consisted of six movies. That's it. One movie per year. No TV shows, no shorts, nothing but six movies. At this point in my life, I had graduated college and was getting started in my career. I didn't own a house, I wasn't married, no kids - so plenty of time available to consume media. Total runtime: 12 hours and 24 minutes.
Phase Two lasted three years, and consisted of six movies. Shorter timeline, but again - that's it. No TV shows or anything else. Granted, they had the idea of trying to tie in TV shows at the time (Agents of SHIELD, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, etc) but those quickly got shuffled off into their own thing, parallel to but not a part of the MCU itself. That made it easy to consume those as their own things, on one's own pace, without feeling like you were going to miss out on something. At this point, I was still living in an apartment, in a long-term relationship but not married and still no kids. Career was well underway, but no significant expectations being leveled on me. Total runtime: 12 hours and 38 minutes.
Phase Three lasted four years and consisted of eleven (11!) movies. Things are starting to get a bit out of control, but I, like many others, was invested by now. I wanted to see how they tied this all up. It finally gets across the finish line. By this point, I was married, had bought a house, and had a child; my free time is rapidly dwindling, and movies are only getting more expensive. Total runtime: 24 hours, 57 minutes, effectively the same runtime of both Phase 1 and 2 combined.
Phase 4 lasted two years and consists of seven movies and eight TV series, consisting of a total of fifty-seven (57!) episodes. By now, many of the characters we followed in Phases 1 thru 3 were basically out of the MCU. Also, now I have two children, a spouse, a house, and a well-established career; what little time is available for watching TV or watching movies is spent with the kids, for whom the MCU is inappropriate viewing at their young ages. When my spouse and I have time for ourselves, we often don't have the energy to watch something that will demand lots of attention and be "required viewing" to understand what's happening in the movies. What's more, it's hard to get passionate about long-form storytelling when there's no clear villain yet. Total runtime: 16 hours, 16 minutes for movies, approx. 57 hours for TV = 73 hours, 16 minutes total
Phase 5 thus far consists of two movies (Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3) and one TV series (Secret Invasion). It will eventually consist of a total of seven movies and seven TV series, consisting of a total of 54+ episodes (Echo's episode count is TBA). At this point, my kids are entering grade school and have extracurricular activities, on top of my own career demands. My spouse and I aren't getting any younger; it was easy to binge several hours of TV and/or movies at a time when the MCU got rolling, but that was fifteen years ago. Now we've supposedly got a villain (Kang), but we also know the actor playing Kang is mired in some pretty problematic issues that makes one wonder how long they can stick around in the MCU. Total runtime: 4 hours, 34 minutes for movies, approx. 6 hours for TV = 10 hours, 34 minutes released to-date. Likely final runtime of over 70 hours of media once everything is released
I waa blown away by the first Iron Man movie which got me to go to the library and check out the affordable “Essentials” collection of B&W comics from the Stan Lee era, even bought a few.
Up until Guardians of the Galaxy I watched them all and I loved Guardians but then I fell out of the Marvel habit. I have copies of some newer MCU movies on home video but I have so many other things to watch I just never get around to watching them.
I can’t say they did anything wrong or I had a bad experience, I just fell out of it. I’m not sure if my son growing up has anything to do with it because he’s old enough to drink now and we still took him to see Barbie.
Definitely agree that good MCU movies still make money. But I disagree otherwise, firstly because burnout/fatigue won't happen overnight. Secondly is that movies that were widely considered bad (or at best mediocre) used to make insane amounts of money, Thor 2 for example made nearly $700M at the box office which certainly would not have happened today.
That is why I believe burnout/fatigue is happening. Because audiences want higher quality now - they no longer settle for run of the mill MCU movies.
It's also why Aquaman made so much money for DC. It is by no means a great movie but it made a billion dollars - it was simply lucky that it was released around the height of comic book movie hype surrounding Endgame. Different studios and universes, yes, but audiences were hungry for more at that time. Now though, I really doubt Aquaman 2 is going to be successful at all.
General audiences just no longer consider it worth the price of admission to watch the next mediocre CBM. They want quality, meaning standards are a lot higher, which I believe is definitely a sign of burnout or fatigue
I think that’s an accurate take, burned out on mediocre MCU movies.
I do think if duds weren’t the norm for the MCU we wouldn’t be talking burnout.
I think so too. The phase(s?) since Endgame has not exactly been their best work - bad releases used to the exception, whereas they have now become the rule.
I also think taking a look at DC is CBM burnout but condensed. From '16 onwards, they were all in on speed-running financial gain and getting to the Avengers level box office. Of course, they never even came close to reaching it, instead imploding on account of loss of interest and yes, way too many mediocre and bad movies. The Flash was pretty good, and Blue Beetle is too, but they have ruined goodwill with audiences through years of mismanagement.
DC has failed to steer their ship in the right direction and I won't lie, I'm not holding my breath for Gunn's onboarding and helming to fix anything at all. They need several good releases in a row to right the wrongs and gain trust back - and until they have that trust, I believe their movies will continue to disappoint and/or underperform. And since studios operate on short-term gains, they are probably not going to have the patience required to give their new-ish DCU an actual chance.
I think Marvel are still able to course correct though. They already said that they pumped out too much content and are going to adjust accordingly with fewer releases. While I do think there's too high a volume of MCU content, your point about quality is definitely still true. If everything they released was good, nobody would be complaining about more good quality content. But most everything is bad, so people get real tired.
Around the time of the fifth or sixth Harry Potter film, Terry Gilliam said in an interview that he wouldn't direct one if asked (which came up because he was the author's original preference) because it was a "factory job," since the basic atmosphere had been nailed down and the films had become box-ticking for decisions made by a committee.
And, in retrospect, it definitely shows. The post-Goblet of Fire films (and certainly the Fantastic Beasts ones) are much more same-y and formulaic, with a defined (bland and grey) style that didn't change much between films.
That's what's wrong with the MCU and Disney Star Wars: it's rare for them to back off and let someone like Taika Waititi mess around. They have committees that set the plan, and they have a factory line that makes the product to spec. There's no room for directorial vision: it's just a refined process to stamp out another Marvel Film. Something like Thor Ragnarok or Guardians of the Galaxy 3 is an anomaly, usually driven by some metrics-observer panicking about wanting interest from the last batch of formulaic releases and finally letting someone take a risk.
The problem is that the MCU used to put out duds and people still went to see them. Now people are only turning up for "the good ones".
At least, that is what I have observed anecdotally among myself and my peers. The turning point was the Disney+ series. It used to be that I would go see a dud simply because I wanted to stay caught up on the story for the next "good one". Now that they've flooded the MCU with a bunch of TV shows that I just don't want to watch, keeping up with the universe has become nigh impossible and I no longer have a reason to go see 1 or 2 mediocre MCU movies every year.
I disagree, burnout is a real thing. I used to love the MCU in phase 1 and 2, then it got insane, everyone tried to do a superhero thing.
I'm done with it. If I see something superhero related I'm not going to bother with it, no matter how good people claim it to be. I loved Guardians 1 and 2, but I'm never going to watch 3, despite people saying that's it good because I just don't care.
It's the same with Zombies before superheroes. It became popular and corporations only see dollar signs and make waaaay too much of it to the point where people don't care anymore.
Movies, shows, video games, comics, they all try to capture trends and inevitably beat them into the ground until people don't care anymore.
I loved the zombie genre until it became too much much like superheroes.
I don't understand why people claim burnout isn't a thing because it absolutely is. Maybe not for you, maybe not for some, but it absolutely is a thing.
I know I'm not alone in saying that I'll never watch another MCU movie again, regardless of anything. I'm done with it.
Especially with the writers strike on this all reeks of trying to find any excuse to ignore the obvious. The scripts/writing sucked, the movies sucked. There's not a high bar for marvel films, but it's higher than "i can't tell you! There's no time!" repeated over and over like ant man.
Marvel struck gold by finding the right mix of "ignore the source material/be faithful to the source material" and having just the bare bones of decent writing above it's natural competitors like Transformers and Ninja Turtles. It is clear though that they're phoning it in.
DC wise...i mean when have they not phoned it in. They kinda sorta know how to do a batman film and are otherwise flailing on 70% of their releases.
I'd go over the non comic book stuff but it's more of the same? Again, marvel figured out that if you take strong name recognition and do a decent job with it, you get to print money. Indiana Jones was yet another "probably enough people will see it based on name alone" train wreck, and MI is in the same boat.
You want to make lots of money, write a decent script and follow it. Stop taking some junk action script and draping whatever current name brand is over it. It's never reliably worked.
I agree on the idea of writing but I do believe this issue has more to do this the institutional decline of small studios.
Thinking back to the heyday of summer blockbusters, there were tons of studios with dozens of projects in the work at any time. Directors, writers, actors, the massive supporting crews and even the studios were working for the next hit because they needed to survive. A hit means future work, name recognition, investment and most importantly, residuals that can keep people going through dry spell and even retirement.
Right now the super studios have passed out all of the experienced decision makers and now it feels like rich people throwing money around an IP stock market. There's no real appreciation for the people, craft or even the ip itself. Just blank cheque + beloved franchise = profits, until test screenings bomb so there's a second blank cheque, reshoots and a new script.
Reading into the strikes, it seems like writers are being isolated from each other and the production process; to the point of exclusive online meetings and not even being called to rehearsals and shooting days. It looks to be blocking essential collaboration and mentorship. Directors hate the idea of promising projects just being forgotten on a streaming platforms content pile because of no marketing. Entire industries like practical effects and voice acting are being bled dry. Actors are threatened with their likenesses being property of the studios. With less and less residuals, there are fewer people working more jobs for less money. Don't even want to imagine the hell thats currently being developed with Large-data-models.
I know theres a lot of promising studios and interesting projects out there. But with titans like Netflix and Disney dominating the industry and setting the tone, it gets a little hard to be excited.
I completely agree. I guess there was a brief moment where it felt like streamers were throwing money at interesting filmmakers and letting them do whatever, but those days are done. Stuff coming out of big studios is really getting pretty rough (on average) and I think you're right — I don't really have high hopes for things improving any time soon.
I don't think we'll run out of great movies though. Technological development really has made movies easier to make — it's more doable than ever for a small group of people to make a feature for very little money. It's also made movies way easier to watch, with small productions and things from overseas actually being able to find audiences. I think few of the next great filmmakers will come out of the traditional Hollywood system, and many of them may never work for big studios.
Exactly. For the example you made at the beginning, it's just lazy writing doing what they did with Janet. How long does it take to tell your family
Spoilers for Quantumania
"Hey, in the quantum realm there's this guy Kang, he's a genocidal time traveling monster that is so bad that's been trapped there by his other multidimensional selves. Don't try to open portals to the quantum realm or you may give him a way to escape and wreak havoc"Barbie made a lot of money not only because of the marketing or the big name, but because they wrote a great script that worked with the rules it set. AND it played with the viewer's expectations, sometimes subverting them, sometimes fulfilling them, but never treating the viewer like an idiot.
I'm not quite sure I can fully agree with the thesis to begin with unless we arbirtuarily limit it to July/August theatre. There were many over-budgeted, underperforming movies but it's also a pretty decent year as well, all things considered. if we shift the window 3 months: We had the Mario Movie be one of Illumination's best performers, Spider-verse of course smashed box office and critical expectations, and even Elemental had a surprise comeback surge thanks to the international market. John Wick 4 seemed to do decently well, but we may be leaving the "blockbuster" budget by that point.
I'll admit I'm not someone who was a heavy movie-goer even pre-pandemic, but I feel like it's inevitable that there will be a decent number of blockbuster flops any given summer. Maybe it's simply the same economic uncertainties that hit the rest of the world and theatres (for obvious reason) need more time to re-adjust.
I'm by no means an expert either, but I know that summer is typically the "main" season in the eyes of movie studios. They usually time their biggest releases and blockbusters for summer releases. A lot of people agree it started with Jaws in 1975. I don't know how much is due to factors like schools being out and thus more people with time to see them, and how much is just due to them timing their best films for summer and thus making it an "artificial" loop. The summer season has been a thing for years.
So studios DO pay special attention to how releases do over the summer, and this one definitely feels like it's had a lot of big flops compared to usual. That said, you can find this sort of criticism most years. This year feels like it's worse than usual to me, but it could be a case of recency bias.
"What's behind the box office flops?"
Lists sequels and remakes as majority of output
The only sequel I feel could earn a pass would be a Mission Impossible movie, to be honest. But people are tired of the rehashing and extended universes I think, and even M:I isn't immune to that.
And, as mentioned, shorter theatrical runs affect the largest revenue stream and are a compounding issue.
I think the studios are doing it to themselves. Yeah, people are reticent to go see movies, but we don't have amything new and interesting happening in the mainstream either except a toy movie that will likely lead to another cinematic universe and a biopic.
I don't mean to be cynical or rude about it, but since COVID I just have felt disaffected with what is generally on offer. I saw Avatar, Barbie and Oppenheimer, and don't see anything else coming soon to get me in a theater, and I love dumb popcorn movies.
You summed up my thoughts particularly well.
I was a Marvel fan since the 80s when I started reading X-Men comic books. Marvel was at its best when it was making genre movies that happened to have superheroes in them. Ant-Man was a heist film that happened to have a hero in it. WInter Soldier was a spy intrigue file that happened to have a hero in it. Thor Ragnarok was a odd couple/buddy cop movie that happened to have heroes in it. They were also loosely connected by after credit scenes.
Now they're seemingly CGI fests that exist solely to promote some big bad. They've introduced the Dark Avengers, the Celestials, incursions, Kang and possibly whatever Shang Chi's rings were calling as the "big bads" of the current phase. Imagine if instead of just Thanos the early movies setup Galactus, the Beyonder, Knull, the Annihlation Wave and Thanos?
I think Disney's current problem is they're trying to make all the moneys right now. Between the movies and Disney+ shows they're going 100 MPH cranking out material. There's no time to digest the content and mull over any implications of the plotlines. The stories aren't allowed to simmer in our imaginations because BAM here's a new series released immediately after it.
The live movie remakes are the same thing. Before the writer's strike, Disney has slated 3 live remakes in the next 2 years according to wikipedia. Since 2015 there has been 1-2 a year with 4 being released in 2019-- that's 15 live action remakes in 8 years with another 11 planned.
It's hard to argue with why they do it: they've made over $10 billion off of a little over $2.7 billion in budgets. Looking at the Box Office Performance part of the same wikimedia page seems to show a slowdown in returns. Before Mulan most of them had nearly tripled their budget at minimum. Since then, 1 bombed and the next 2 barely doubled their budget.
Disney's performance also dabbles into the political ramifications if their movies start to do poorly. The "anti-woke" crowd claims every Disney downturn/"failure"1 as a victory and then they're emboldened for another news cycle. I'm seeing more and more slanted articles appearing in my Discover page on my phone's Chrome browser. Sensationalist headlines with variations of "Disney Parks are a ghost town!" or "Park closing, guests kicked out!" that when you actually read the article it is talking about how there are fewer people going to Disney in August when the heat index is routinely around 110 between thunderstorms or how it is a planned renovation that they scheduled years in advance. As a Floridian even we don't go to Disney in parts of the summer and anyone who's been to Disney repeatedly can tell you they are always renovating some part of the park.
1Even with Hollywood accounting I wouldn't consider the $566 million box office of the "The Little Mermaid" remake on a $250 million budget as a "failure" when you add in things like toys, books, clothing, pencils, pens, coloring books, etc etc etc.
I agree. A series is a contiguous sequence of movies, and if at some point it occurs to you that Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull wasn't that good, or the latest Marvel stuff isn't that good, or Transformers was never really that good, then you fall off the train.
And if you aren't on the Marvel train, what's really the selling point of "AntMan and the Wasp"?
I feel the same way. Other than Barbie I pretty much avoided all new releases because I just didn't care. I'm not interested in crossovers, multiverses or whatever else dreck Hollywood tries to convince us we love so they can keep making a billion dollars every film. I want to see good stories with good characters that don't feel like they roll off an assembly line.
I had no idea a new Mission Impossible came out before reading this, I feel like before COVID I definitely would have gone to see it in the theater. But these days, I'd rather just wait until my local library has a copy on Blu-Ray. I just have no desire to deal with spending $30 on theater tickets and $20 on terrible concessions.
M:I was legit good, dunno why it struggled. Tom Cruise is one of the last greats who has the pull and the skill to make any movie they want along with people like Spielberg and Cameron.
But the rest were just enough off to drop them from an 8-9 (rewatchable in my book) to 6 or a 7.
Quantumania shoved in too much plot and not enough plot (action sequences way too long) at the same time.
The Flash wasn't bad, but I want my superhero movies to be a part of a larger world and the Gunn reset is just around the corner, so why should I care? Also the star of the movie is a horrible human being in their actual life, for the first time I couldn't ignore it while watching.
I watched Fast X. Can't remember a single scene from it, maybe some bits with John Cena? Also ends in a cliffhanger, why?
Dial of Destiny was like Picard Season 3 - 100% nostalgia bait. But at the same time it was what Crystal Skull should've been.
Shazam! - oof. All the other bits were good, but Zachary Levi was either phoning it in or was written really horribly. Grace Caroline Currey was the breakout star in that one.
You know, I was pleasantly surprised by The Flash. I thought that the plot was good, and Ezra Miller's acted quite nicely. But I also kept thinking about how big of a piece of shit he is as a person, and it detracted a bit from my enjoyment of the movie.
Ditto. I was genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed The Flash. Keaton was awesome. Miller was funny. But also ditto about being unable to stop thinking about how terrible Miller is as a person. Jonathan Majors, Kang in the MCU, has a similar effect on me.
Jonathan Majors's crazy face made him fit the role of Kang fantastically. Just his face is so damn scary, there's something in the fact how he can turn off all emotion in his eyes but still emote with the rest of his face.
The CGI was awful, Michael Keaton was the best part by far
Oh yes! Most definitely! The CGI was downright terrible in some place, especially during the "time travel" sequences. It did detract from my experience as well.
I really enjoyed the Dial of Destiny and I went in ready to hate it. It had all of the charisma of an Indiana Jones movie while gracefully handing off the mantle. I'm not sure how they could have done it better.
SPOILERS: I really enjoyed the beginning... but some parts were awful (the tuktuk chase, the SCUBA Eel scene) and the actual time travel...
I understand Harrison is reallly old and that needed a lot of CGI to help w/ it... but it was too much at points.
I feel like this is one of those that a "fan edit" could make it better... remove some scenes entirely, fix some CGI and i feel like a C+ film could be a B
I think we may just have different taste, really enjoyed the tuktuk scene. It was definitely campy, but kind of like how the motorcycle scene is in the Last Crusade. It reminded me a bit of the tintin chase. I thought Antonio Banderas was an absolute banger of a cameo so I forgive the weird scuba scene.
I agree about the time travel, it felt like a way for them to shoehorn in Nazi's again. Though I guess it's not much weirder than opening up a box to... heaven? hell? Still not entirely sure what the arc was supposed to be.
I thought the Tuktuk chase was too long, but I liked the eel scene and loved the entire third act (time travel included).
It was as good as it could've been. The MacGuffin was a bit over the top for Indy in my opinion, but it was good nostalgia bait with a possible handover to the next generation. (Just not the generation we expected...).
Pretty much like S3 of Picard, the old cast is comfy and safe and got to have their last adventure and the new crew is ready for their spin-off =)
I totally misunderstood the Picard reference, that sounds like a perfect parallel.
Haven't seen it yet so no spoilers please, but I am almost 100% sure the reason it struggled is because Barbie and Oppenheimer came out 1 week after M:I so it had no chance at competing. Barbenheimer for some reason just had an amazing campaign behind it, like at the point that it's one of the greatest achievements of movie advertising in decades
Personally I am so sick of Tom Cruise and his scientology connection. No way am I going to see a MI movie until he is out.
Speaking of which, anyone else surprised movie ticket prices haven't gone up much more since COVID and over the last year or two when the prices of everything skyrocketed?
Went to see a movie and was amazed when the person behind the counter said $12.95. Granted, this was a daytime showing on a Wednesday. Maybe weekend evening/night showings are more expensive.
This is in Virginia by the way.
To take more risks and not rely on rehashing things and trying to milk its viewers nostalgia.
In our town we have an “independent” cinema downtown which has lately been showing blockbusters since the company that owns the multiplex at the mall is struggling with bankruptcy and we’re not so sure how long that theatre stays open. I saw Barbie there and saw a lot of trailers for independent films, really none of them connect with me, I think the last small picture I saw was Robot and Frank but despite looking what is there I don’t see enough interesting movies to keep me in the habit of looking at the schedule every week. When I have been in that mode, whether it is the cinema at the college, the multiplex at the mall or a tiny cinema in a tiny town, I have watched a lot of movies. I haven’t been. there for a long time.
I haven't been to a theatre in years. There's plenty of old films I've never seen waiting to be discovered.
Exactly, it's a big problem with any kind of recorded media. I am always discovering new "old" music (lately Information Society from the 2000s, Yellow Magic Orchestra from the 1970s and 1980s, Super Furry Animals, etc.) that I don't feel a lot of need to search out new "new" music. In my pod we recently had a wave of being into silent films, so at least far as home video is concerned anything new competes with 100 years of cinema history.
Information Society is pretty great. I've been listening to a lot of psychedelic rock from the 60s and 70s.
I went through a phase of that. Have you heard
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_United_States_of_America_(band)
?
I have not. I saw the name and thought for a minute that you were talking about The Presidents of the United States of America, which is a completely different band.
I think the earlier band is much better if also much more obscure, see also the first few early Frank Zappa albums like Absolutely Free and We’re only in for the money which are as different from the later Zappa as the early Floyd is different from the last Floyd. (I could swear there must have been a crackdown on psychedelic rock)
I tried out some of their music (the band you initially mentioned) and they're not bad. It's a shame they only seem to have ever put out one album.