The Dark Samurai

The awards season so far: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse - 115 points 28 wins - Atlanta, Michigan, NBR, DC, Vegas, NY Online, Phoenix (PCC), Indiana, Boston Online, St. Louis, Phoenix (PFCS), North Texas, Southeastern, Black, Online Female, Oklahoma, Central Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, DiscussingFilm, Utah, HCA, Capri; Hollywood Film Fest, Austin, Denver, Hawaii, North American 5 RUs - Boston, Toronto, Dallas, San Diego, New Mexico 21 noms - Chicago, GG, CC, Florida, Utah, Satellite, London, Greater Western NY, Columbus, San Francisco, Portland, Chicago Indie, North Dakota, Music City, ADG, CAS, Houston, Paris, Annie, PGA, CSA’s Artios The Boy and the Heron - 73 points 12 wins - NYFCC, LAFCA, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, San Diego, Florida, New Mexico, Great Western NY, GG, San Francisco 4 RUs - Toronto, St. Louis, Georgia, DiscussingFilm 29 noms - Michigan, HCA, Vegas, DC, North Texas, Indiana, Phoenix (PCC), CC, Utah, Satellite, Online Female, London, North Carolina, Columbus, Austin, Seattle, Denver, Hawaii, Portland, Chicago Indie, North Dakota, Music City, ADG, CAS, Houston, Paris, Annie, PGA, North American Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem - 36 points 2 RU - Boston, Central Florida 32 noms - Michigan, HCA, Chicago, Vegas, DC, St. Louis, North Texas, Phoenix (PCC), CC, Florida, Utah, Satellite, Online Female, London, North Carolina, Greater Western NY, Georgia, Columbus, Austin, Seattle, Denver, Hawaii, Portland, Chicago Indie, Music City, ADG, CAS, Houston, Annie, PGA, CSA’s Artios, North American Robot Dreams - 33 points 3 wins - EFA, Toronto, Nevada 5 RUs - LAFCA, Boston, Indiana, Philadelphia, Utah 14 noms - Chicago, St. Louis, Florida, San Diego, Satellite, London, Georgia, San Francisco, Hawaii, North Dakota, Music City, Houston, Paris, Annie (Indie) Elemental - 27 points 27 noms - HCA, Vegas, DC, St. Louis, GG, North Texas, Phoenix (PCC), CC, Satellite, Online Female, North Carolina, Greater Western NY, Georgia, Columbus, Austin, San Francisco, Denver, Hawaii, Portland, Chicago Indie, North Dakota, Music City, ADG, CAS, PGA, CSA’s Artios, North American Nimona - 19 points 1 Win - Columbus 16 noms - Michigan, HCA, DC, Indiana, CC, San Diego, Utah, Online Female, North Carolina, Greater Western NY, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago Indie, North Dakota, Houston, Annie The Super Mario Bros. Movie - 10 points 10 noms - Michigan, Vegas, GG, North Texas, Indiana, Denver, ADG, CAS, PGA, North American Suzume - 10 points 10 noms - HCA, GG, Indiana, Florida, Satellite, London, Austin, Seattle, Paris, Annie No other film has more than 5 points.

Nimona will replace Super Mario at the Oscars and those will be the final 5.

What a great category, if only Elemental wasn't a shoe-in due to Pixar's reputation and strength. The Boy and the Heron, Spider-Verse, TMNT, Robot Dreams, Nimona, Suzume... Pixar has no business being in contention this year. My only solace is that it won't be blocking a TMNT nomination which could have been the case if Wish and Chicken Run 2 had a lot better reception that they were/are getting. I'm really glad the critics have judged the film on it's merits and didn't thumb their noses because the franchise has been a critical disaster historically. Seeing a TMNT film nominated by the Chicago film critics and a runner-up by the Boston film critics is incredibly satisfying.

Washington Film Critics Association Best Animated Film: The Boy and the Heron Elemental Nimona Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem Top 4 as usual, with Nimona as the fifth. It would be a great line-up ignoring Elemental/Pixar's guaranteed spot no matter what they dish out.

Las Vegas Film Critics Society Best Animated Film: The Boy and the Heron Elemental Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse The Super Mario Bros. Movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem So far, The Boy and the Heron, and Spider-Verse have been dominating, TMNT hasn't missed a single nomination and the power of Pixar will push through Elemental even with milding reviews. Even though it's a bit too early, i think those 4 are pretty much ahead of everything else. The fifth place is up for grabs with Wish being a disastrous commercial and critical bomb.

This re-release stuff is terrible as a box-office fan. Endgame sold more than a 100 million more admissions, it took 10 years and a perfectly build universe of films to take the number one spot, and a re-release of a film that has been re-released several times will become number 1 again. It was something special to become number one. This? Thoroughly anti-climactic and silly. I don't care what anyone says, re-releases should not count on the All-Time lists. Otherwise there's absolutely no point in comparing films or follow a films run when it can be beaten by endless re-releases like in this case.

This is what happens when you give the franchise to a plagiarist who’s incapable of creating something original and his best idea for a sequel was to make a remake, and a pompous director who couldn’t care less about the past or the future of the franchise fooling everyone that he subverted anything when in reality the only thread he left open for SW 9 was EVIL Kylo vs GOOD Ray for the third straight film. Everyone from Iger and Kennedy to JJ and Johnson are at fault for the forgettable mess this trilogy ended up being. It’s only legacy, destroying the original films and the entire impact of Episode 6 by the first 5 minutes of TFA. Shame on Disney, shame on Iger and Kennedy, shame on JJ and Johnson.

Endgame was at 381,7 million admissions, having made 1.916B overseas. Considering it made $20 million more since and it made more domestically as well, i think it’s fairly certain that 385 million was reached. What a staggering number that is! Hopefully Charlie can confirm!

One thing that's very interesting and certainly in contrast to the average blockbuster is that the 3 biggest films of the last 30 years are all longer than two and a half hours. Titanic 194 minutes Endgame 181 minutes Avatar 162 minutes The notion that audiences don't have the required attention span for longer than 100 minutes is just a myth. The ability for the aforementioned films to immerse their audiences into their respective Worlds is far more important than the running time. Most films simply don't go all-in in their conviction to tell a story. Whether it's a budget issue, studio meddling, unrealized ideas, or something else, it's peculiar how many films have been butchered to oblivion just so they can be packaged under 2 hours and yet, the true Mega Blockbusters are sprawling and feel just as their creators imagined them.

That's not true at all. Avatar's 3D was the selling point, it wasn't the quality of the film, it wasn't the performances. Kudos to Cameron for what he did, the 3D was fantastic but before Avatar, 3D was a complete non-factor. A few months after Avatar, Alice in Wonderland made over a billion. A few months after that Toy Story 3 made over a billion. Avatar came out in December 2009, Alice came in March, Toy Story in June. Once every film had the same artificially inflated high ticket price advantage that Avatar enjoyed, the billion became a lot easier to achieve.

I knew that a lot of people would have a hard time accepting Avatar going down but the level of ridiculously desperate excuse making is certainly eye opening. Avatar sold 110+ million tickets less than Titanic, then sold 100 million tickets less than Endgame. I love how being sandwiched between two films selling 100 million more tickets is getting completely ignored because it doesn't fit the narrative. Avatar had all the advantages over Titanic that Endgame supposedly has over Avatar and yet it sold 110+ million tickets less. Not to mention that the gimmick with which it made it's money would never fly today. I love that Avatar's selling point of 3D and CGI would have the exact same effect in 2019 where TV shows like GOT have better CGI nowadays and 3D is all but dead. The arguments are now boiling down to the same nonsense a boxing/MMA P4P list would do. You would compare a 135 pound fighter with Mike Tyson and claim that if his relative speed and power carried proportionally to 225 pounds he would be better. Which makes perfect sense....in an Ant Man movie. The 135 pounder would lose all of his speed advantage when he packs 70 pounds on a 5'6 frame, the ability to take a shot would go down the drain, and his power would be silly compared to an actual Heavyweight. ''He would also be 6'1 in this scenario'' Aaaaa ok, so now a 5'6, 135 pounder would become 6'1, 225 AND retain all the advantages he would have as a small fighter. That's what Avatar's rebels (Save The Dream!) are doing. Having all of the pros of 2009, and there are a LOT of them, including a ridiculous ER (Endgame would have made $3,5B with it) coupled with all of the pros of 2019 (like a bigger China market) but having none of the cons that 2019 would bring. The reality is simple....Endgame made more money despite having a a lot worse ER and it sold 100 million more tickets. Take China out and it's still over 60 million more tickets. Everything else is sour grapes.

1. Titanic 2. Endgame 3. Everything else

The inflation argument only makes sense if one film sold more tickets but grossed slightly less. The argument goes that due to inflation, an illusion is created by making more money but selling less tickets. Endgame sold FAR more tickets than Avatar. It sold more tickets in the USA, it sold far, far more tickets Worldwide. The estimates by our resident Demigod, Charlie, are that Endgame sold approximately 100 million tickets more. People like Campea have absolutely no idea what they're talking about but this is 2019, so of course they have to share their uninformed opinion about it.

It's not, no one cares about that number and no one is going to report on that number. The 2,788 number is the number that widely circulated by every website, and once it's surpassed, Disney will announce that the record has been taken. Whether you care about that number is up to you. For the official record, it's not going to matter even though Endgame will surpass it not long after, so it's an irrelevant number either way.