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.

That list has different numbers for a lot of films so it's either inaccurate, or it's irrelevant because Disney is not going to start adjusting figures for their films, years after the fact. Iron Man 3 BOM $1,214,811,252 CNBC $1,216,389,216 The Avengers BOM $1,518,812,988 CNBC $1,519,592,876 LOTR 3 BOM $1,119,929,521 CNBC $1,130,066,051 Transformers 3 BOM $1,123,794,079 CNBC $1,142,427,557 $2,787,965,087 is still the number to beat and the record will be announced once it beats that.

These numbers make absolutely no sense. 😑

I think a lot of people have lost the context about the numbers this film has been making. This film is $298 million away from Avatar. It's something that's far more likely to happen than not. Avatar came out 10 years ago. It was the first film to break the 2 billion barrier, and not only did it cross it, it smashed it by $788 million. Since then only two films have crossed it, an impossibly hyped 30-years-in-the-making Star Wars sequel, and an Avengers film that started the conclusion of 20 films, with dozens of heroes and a villain that was hyped for 6 years. Both of those films came more than $700 million short of Avatar. No film has come even close to Avatar, Star Wars almost made a billion domestically and was nowhere near it. The conclusion to the Harry Potter saga made $1,4 billion less. The notion that Endgame is, in all likelihood, going to beat it, is a staggering achievement. When you're making such impossible-to-fathom numbers, big drops are inevitable, there are only so many people that a) would watch a superhero film b) would watch the conclusion of a 22 film saga. If this had a minuscule chance of missing the $2 billion mark, or beating Infinity War, like it has a minuscule chance of not beating Avatar, i could understand the sighs.,.or the ''disappointments'' about it's drops. Just think about...Marvel would have doubled it's audience in a span of 5 years between Age of Ultron and Endgame. Imagine saying in 2014 after Ultron ended up third Worldwide behind F&F and Jurassic World that the 4th Avengers film would beat Avatar worldwide. Not a single person would have believed it. Enjoy it, folks, box office runs like this don't come quite often.

I think Ultron’s biggest issue was that it didn’t bring anything new to the table. The first Avengers brought the team-up extravaganza, Infinity War brought Thanos, a much hyped villain and Black Panther, Spider-Man, and Guardians of the Galaxy all together with the rest of the Avengers. Endgame followed a great cliffhanger, brought teaming up to a whole different level and it worked as a conclusion to 22 films. Ultron had an evil robot for a villain, and the same team as the first one. The 3 new members of the team made their debuts in the film, Vision, Scarlett and Quicksilver. The first time an Avengers film was fresh, it made 1,5 billion, the second time 2 billion, the third time 3 billion give or take. Ultron seemed like the 6th episode of a 12 episode season and that’s why it dropped down unlike 3 and 4. I like Ultron a lot more than the first Avengers, so it’s not my intention to belittle the film. It was simply stuck between following a formula instead the genuine excitement of the first team-up and it had to use a villain that was going to be dispatched quickly because Thanos was still lurking and casting a huge shadow over everyone else.

We live in a lifetime where i, a huge GoT fan have come to vastly dislike the show peaking with yesterday's episode and came out a crying mess out of Endgame, a finale in a franchise where i've seen all the films and had absolutely no emotional connection to any of them. I'm not sure what's going on. For the longest time, The Dark Knight and Spider-Man 2 were the only two comic book films i've loved, and i've long forsaken the idea of loving another one. All i can say is, thank you Marvel for making this film, it deserves everything it makes.

Mid-week Update: Foreign: $565,789,761 Worldwide: $784,027,927 This is going to come really close to $800 million. A really great run!

The Pro-Moustache movement that has reached a pinnacle with this film. The backlash reached historic levels in The Justice League, where the violent removal of Cavill's moustache was deemed unnatural, ignorant and disgusting.

The problem with your thesis is that you've simply used statistics without any context. 1. They Shoot Pictures 21-st century list. The Dark Knight is currently 77-th Lord of the Rings 1 is currently 61-th Lord of the Rings 2 is currently 129-th Lord of the Rings 3 is currently 70-th What you've curiously omitted is that The Dark Knight has been climbing the list for 5 straight years, with it's ranking being 192-th in 2013 all the way to 77-th. On the other hand, both The Two Towers and The Return of the Ring have had their lowest ranking ever in this year's edition, falling down the list year after year, while Fellowship of the Ring is at it's second worst ranking. At one point Return of the King was ranked 15-th, while Fellowship of the Ring was ranked 18-th. The more new lists and polls are added, the further the films are falling down while the reverse is true for The Dark Knight. The films had tremendous reception and acclaim when they came out and they skyrocketed at the top of the list. BBC's 2016 ''21th Centurys 100 Greatest Films'' poll which polled 177 critics from around the world, placed The Dark Knight at 33. No LOTR films made the Top 100. http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160819-the-21st-centurys-100-greatest-films?ocid=twcul 2. Metacritic's rankings are completely meaningless in any long term evaluation of films. The rankings are prisoner of the moment. Dunkirk had the initial 94 at MC, and yet at the end of the year critics top 10 lists, it was Get Out that was the obvious critics favorite even though the initial reviews were only 83. We're talking about only 7-8 months of re-evaluation. Had Ratatouille been released in 2018, there's absolutely zero chance it would have 96 at Metacritic, but at particular time Pixar was dominating the critics attention. It's MC is only a reflection of the initial opinion of the critics, nothing more, nothing less. As far as historical acclaim, The Dark Knight is at 667-th on They Shoot Pictures All Time Greatest Films list while Spider-Man 2, Ratatouille, Shrek are not even in the Top 2000. Fellowship of the Ring is 656th The Two Towers is 1100th Return of the King is 889-th http://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000_all1000films.htm http://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000_films1001-2000.htm

Another million added this week. $1,366,174,049 / $2,042,165,486 Adding a hypothetical one more million by the end of it's overseas run, $701 million domestic would have been enough for beating both Black Panther domestically and The Force Awakens Worldwide.

It's really unfortunate that it's most likely going to miss both #3 Domestic and #3 Worldwide by not having about $20 million bigger domestic gross. Incredible run either way but it would have been really cool to reach #3 Domestic, #3 Overseas and #3 Worldwide.