About 45 mins ago, I read that a live-action Hollywood adaptation of Akira has been in the works for more than 20 years, and it was apparently about to move forward.

About 30 mins ago, I read that the rights have lapsed so it's pretty much dead in the water. However, it looks like there was always skepticism for an American version, long before anyone thought to put Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell.

About 15 mins ago, I learned that Spike Lee's Highest 2 Lowest is about to be released this weekend. It's apparently a "reinterpretation" of Kurosawa's High and Low, which I've been meaning to watch but never looked up the trailer to until 10 mins ago. That made me think about how inherent Japanese-ness might be to Kurosawa's work - the pacing, the emotional tension bubbling under the surface, the unspoken contexts - and how much of that is translatable or indeed replaceable. (Also it made me compare the track records of the Akira Kurosawa+Tohiro Mifune combo to Spike Lee+Denzel Washington)

All of that made me arrive at this question - how many worthwhile remakes have there ever really been, whether or not they crossed cultures? I suspect the ratio of bad/mediocre to good/great is weighted heavily to the former. I know of a few famous examples (The Magnificent Seven, A Fistful of Dollars) but I'm counting on you film buffs to broaden my horizons here.

For the purpose of this thread, I want to exclude movies that are second-attempt adaptations of a previously existing IP (e.g. Dune 2021 vs. Dune 1984), unless you feel it specifically aimed to be a remake of the first movie.

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

I'm a big fan of IMDB's Advanced TItle Search but it is kinda useless for finding movies that are primarily comedies. By which I mean films with a main focus on producing laughter or comedic amusement. The problem is that the genre/tag "comedy", while often present, rarely means that a movie is a comedy first and foremost. For example: technically Marvel movies are comedies, but they are really more like action with jokes. There are also many comedy dramas and "dramedies" and that is not what I am look for at all.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is maybe one of the few "almost pure" comedies on TV today.

I miss watching movies that put comedy first even if they are a mix of different genres.

Any suggestions?

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

Nearly two years ago, I made a post titled "On the superhero question" and three years ago I made a retrospective on the box office since theaters closed in 2020.

So I figured it was time for an update.

Re-reading those posts makes me realize how optimistic the theatrical landscape seemed in the wake of Barbenheimer. I don't think I was alone in that; I think the industry felt optimism from that cultural moment as well. That same year was when superhero films imploded, so there was this idea that audiences wanted "real" films. They wanted films by "real" directors, and now there was some discernment from audiences. Grouping both Barbie and Mario, it spoke to the value that other IP now has.

The landscape became much more depressing in 2024. It seems like the idea of audiences flocking to other types of films did not happen. After consistent growth, the box office fell in 2024 from 2023. I remember the panic that the industry felt after both The Fall Guy and Furiosa: A Mad Max Story flopped at the box office. But Inside Out 2, Deadpool and Wolverine breaking out balanced out those disappointments.

Speaking of Deadpool and Wolverine, I remember my prediction of the film being that it would be the lowest-grossing of the Deadpool franchise. Not only that, but I predicted that Joker 2 would outgross it, and we all know how that played out.

Because Deadpool and Wolverine did so well, it delayed the narrative that had been forming throughout 2023, the "superhero fatigue" narrative. It wasn't until now that the narrative is back, and it seems like Deadpool and Wolverine was more of an exception. The film needed 20 years of nostalgia to power it to those numbers. Something under-discussed about D&W's performance is that it was more domestic-heavy than a lot of billion-dollar MCU films (47% DOM split when many of them were in the 30% range throughout the 2010s). Spider-Man: No Way Home also had a split in the 40s, which perhaps was an omen for what was to come.

There were other overperformers throughout 2024, don't get me wrong. Wicked, making over 400M DOM and 700M WW, was not something people were expecting early on. Mufasa: The Lion King still made over 700M WW despite a mediocre reception and a "why would you make this?" issue. But there was certainly a depth issue. Fewer films hit the 100M DOM mark in 2024 than in 2023, and the rest of the top 100 films made less in 2024 than in 2023. It did feel like many films underperformed or did not reach their full potential, which would have helped out the overall box office. Many horror films like Abigail, Night Swim, MaXXXine, could have done better but didn't. Gladiator II would have likely done better if it had been better received. Twisters and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice did well, but didn't get the late legs that would have driven it to 300M totals. Bad Boys: Ride or Die decreased from the previous film. Red One and Bob Marley: One Love didn't crawl past the 100M DOM mark. Little things like that that add up.

So how's 2025 looking so far?

In short, not great. We're currently lagging behind 2024 during the same calendar year. Inside Out 2 and Deadpool and Wolverine contributed over 600M DOM each, while our highest-grossing film this year so far is still A Minecraft Movie, and that didn't even hit 500M DOM (it probably would have if word of mouth wasn't horrendous). We do have three big films left for the year: Zootopia 2, Wicked: For Good, and Avatar: Ash and Fire. All three are potential 500M DOM grossers, although Avatar will be making a majority of its money in the 2026 calendar year. There are also smaller-scale studio films hoping to break out, such as The Running Man, Tron: Ares, and Predator: Badlands.

The issue, though, is that many of these films can underperform, and that's been a common theme this past year. The well-received Thunderbolts could not get in the black, and the much-anticipated Fantastic Four is going to barely break even theatrically. Even Superman, with its great legs, will end up below what many superhero films did during the peak, even mediocre or lesser-known superheroes. It does seem like the box office will continue to collapse since nothing is filling that Disney-sized void. Outside of superhero films, Lilo and Stitch didn't perform as well as it could have and neither did Minecraft.

So it's kind of grim. I mean, in reality, movie-going reached its peak in 2002. It has been declining in admissions ever since. So it was perhaps naive to think that the growth we experienced from 2021 to 2023 would continue. But it really seems like the domestic box office will continue to decline, and the international box office has collapsed for a lot of Hollywood films, specifically comic book films. So we're entering a very different landscape, a much more muted world for films from now on. And it will likely continue to shrink.

Now markets shift, they can shift back up. The international market can be brought up again (Superhero movies used to always play better with domestic audiences). But I'm certainly not as optimistic as I once was.

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

I didn’t expect to be saying this, but Kpop Demon Hunters surprised me.

Going in, I figured it was going to be a niche kids animated movie trying to cash in on a trend, but put it on in the background.

I’m not into Kpop, and nothing about the marketing really pulled me in. But within ten minutes, it completely won me over.

The animation style is great. Same team that worked on Into the Spider-Verse, and it shows, bringing the same kind of energy and attention to detail when it comes to character design and world building. The way they handled anime-inspired expressions and visual effects in 3D actually worked, and it gave the movie a really unique feel.

What surprised me most was how strong everything else was. The plot isn’t an afterthought, the humor lands, and the songs are ridiculously catchy. I had no reason to expect this to be as well-rounded and satisfying as it is, but here we are.

I’m a 34-year-old man with no interest in Kpop, and this is now a comfort movie for me.