Harpospoke

Not to mention the flawed idea that a movie could make over 600m and 2.1 billion worldwide because "teenaged girls bought 10 tickets". If that were true, High School Musical would gross 600m. Titanic brought in EVERYONE. It got me because I'm a bit of a history buff over the Titanic. Cameron made a movie that appealed to me too. You would see people from all age groups in the theater. There was something for everyone. The Titanic is one of the all time great stories so it had that going in. Sure Cameron added a love story...but he also made the audience feel emotion for those 1500 people who died that night.

It was the same in the US. You couldn't get away from that song (I like it...screw the haters). Titanic owned popular culture that year in ways we probably won't see again. That scene with the musicians saying goodbye to each other is still powerful. Loved the movie despite Leo's acting. That's marketing coolness on the same level as Deadpool.

Oh yeah...the Deadpool jokes would be worth the deal all by themselves. I don't agree that we are used to any "continuity" in Fox movies though. They rarely stick with it more than one movie. Characters die and return ...Prof X twice now. I could see it being seen as quite different to acquire super powers through happenstance vs being born with them. Kinda like people don't resent a lottery winner as much as someone born into wealth. Especially factoring in that "We are the next step in evolution" thing where the human race is on the way out. That would really freak people out. Right side of the screen for me.

I've got a 3/4 width page thing going for some reason.

I was wondering that too. Who is that? Is there a crossover we don't know about? Sony is pretty sneaky.

I agree with all that. But don't agree that a single film has zero effect. It doesn't go from zero to a hundred after a certain amount of unliked films. If 5 films means "it's in trouble" that means that each film had a negative effect. Star Trek fans vs Star Wars fans invented everything. X-men films about the X-men instead of Wolverine. 17 years later and we are still waiting for Fox to get around to Storm (unforgivable sin), Rogue, Cyclops, Colossus, Iceman, and Angel. They only briefly featured Jean and Nightcrawler. Another benefit is a studio that wouldn't butcher some of the greatest storylines in comics history like Dark Phoenix and Age of Apocalypse and which knows how to maintain a reasonable continuity from film to film. Oh...and a studio that won't epic fail with FF and doesn't waste great characters like Dr Doom, Galactus, and Silver Surfer. edit: And maybe best of all a studio that is not contractually FORCED to release movies. Marvel would have the ability to NOT make X-movies. There have been 9 of them in 17 years...that's overkill for any franchise. It's not really taking a big chance when you lower the budget. Money is the risk so a lower budget makes it the same risk as the others. If you are talking about Deadpool then there is no way Disney is going to ignore numbers like this: WW gross: $783,112,979 Budget: 58 million They'll just release it the same way they've always released R rated movies.

Well now I'm curious how you think the CBM genre got so big if you think individual movies don't have an effect. Do you think this only works in one direction perhaps? What is your theory for how a movie genre fades away?

I hope you are right but I also know why the CBM genre got big. It's not because one studio made loved movies while other studios made hated ones. It got big because Fox, Sony, WB, and finally Marvel hit home runs with the public. (Fox to a lesser extent) That's how all genres get popular. The flip side is when genres fade away. It's because movies come out that turn off the public to the genre. This can be movies that don't entertain or movies that appear to be repeating a formula. So I'm not saying one disliked movie will kill the genre, but it does have a negative effect the same way a loved movie will have a positive effect. A BP movie will do better today than it would have done in the 90s for a reason. The genre was made popular by a series of loved movies. The opposite is also true. So I don't buy the "won't effect BP one bit" thing. It might very well be a small effect...but zero effect?

Gotta admit it's funny, but a better gif would be both companies being punched by JL, BvS, and SS. (and Fan4suck and AoA) Would be much better for both companies if they both were hitting it out of the park. Imagine how pumped the public would be if they had just loved TWO CBMs? Thor 3 followed by a loved JL would be an incredible boost to the genre. What's the next one? Black Panther. Are people going to buy more or less tickets to the next CBM because of JL? It's a simple question we all know the answer to. That's an interesting point. Is WB doing the shared universe because they believe in it or is it just chasing Avengers money? Certainly looks like the latter. That's not to say art can't be produced in pursuit of money. See Mozart, Michelangelo, and Shakespeare for proof. McCartney and Lennon sat around writing songs actually trying to write hits. So you can do both. But the WB rush job in this smells like the product of dollar signs in eyes. "Want money now!" The thing is, I think they were right about Superman and Batman. They don't belong in the same universe. Both are better without the other. It "works" in comics because writers twist logic around and make Supes into an idiot when Batman is in the room. Do that in a movie and you end up with BvS. The Matt Reeves Batman movie will probably be awesome while ignoring the presence of Superman. Maybe the translation is wonky, but that sounds like he is saying "Let the comics be your guide! It's all there!" for DC but "See...they ignored the comics and it works!" for Marvel.

Marvel would have already done some female centric movies if they had X-men. Storm, Rogue, Jean, and Kitty have been in the spotlight most of the time in the comics over the years. Fox turned it into Wolverine and Friends and wasted all those great female characters. Not to mention that FF has a strong female lead character. Pretty safe bet Marvel would have done that one better (who wouldn't?).

Interesting how no one ever complained about WB owning so much media in the past. Now it's suddenly a problem when Disney buys stuff.

Good point. It would be a GREAT thing. Finally the Star Wars films would be together and maybe we get the original theatrical versions on home video. Finally getting good X-men films where Cyclops, Storm, and Rogue aren't minor characters and it's not Wolverine and Friends.

Another one we forget. People have been calling for "super hero fatigue" since the mid 00s.

But IM being a big breakout success gave them breathing room to be more aggressive. If it grosses 130m then they are running a much tighter ship and that's when people get nervous and change plans. Even WB does that every time a DCU film doesn't break out like it should...and that's Warner freaking Brothers who are in no danger of going under if a CBM fails. Imagine a brand new studio with no deep coffers from years of success to back them up in case of a failure. So they may have ditched the entire idea of a shared universe Avengers thing if IM had failed. Suddenly smaller budgets would sound a lot better. I doubt this thread would exist today since there would be no "war". Pretty much everything Marvel has done has been risky. They didn't have much choice for the reasons you mentioned with their biggest characters unavailable. I suppose they could have started small ala Blade/Punisher type movies...but they went for it with a B list character and even hired a risky actor to lead the new franchise. They pretty much crossed their fingers and cast RDJ. Emboldened by the payoff from the first risk, they then went for it with the whole Avengers idea and then put out all those movies that were supposed to be their big failures like GotG, Ant-Man, and Dr Strange. Of course we forget how much people doubted those properties before they were released now. Hindsight makes it look like it wasn't risky at all....only because the risk worked. So easy to forget what shaky footing they were on at the beginning.

I mostly agree but I also think there are differences in certain movies. I just happen to be reading the autobiography of Dick Van Dyke (yes..weird) and he talks about the differences in making Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The former was a labor of love for him, the cast, the songwriters, and Walt Disney himself. (I think Walt was chasing the property for 20 years) They then tried to duplicate that with CCBB after Walt was dead and it wasn't the same for them. They tried to get Julie Andrews back and she wouldn't do it. Dick Van Dyke turned it down a couple of times but finally agreed...because they kept increasing the money until he couldn't say no. I think CCBB is a fun movie but doesn't quite have nearly the magic of Mary Poppins. After reading his account, I see why.

Not just that, but there is no way Marvel starts with Iron Man if they had the option to make Spider-Man, X-men, or FF first out of the gate. So we probably don't have Iron Man, Cap, GotG, Ant-Man, Dr Strange, and Thor movies if not for that. That also illustrates what a risk it was to start with Iron Man. Marvel really had to put their entire existence on the line with him.

That could be a post you revisit in a couple of years, "I never would have predicted this would be the one they would screw up".

DC fans do seem worse, but like you said they've had a lot more negative things happen to them over the past 10 years. To make it even worse for them, the "rival" is not just doing well...but excelling with just about everything they do and even changing the way movies are made. I would hope most CBM fans would realize that we need everyone to put out movies that the public likes in order for the genre to remain healthy. CBMs got popular in the first place because EVERYONE was making movies the public liked. It wasn't just Marvel. Fox, Sony, and WB are also a part of the explosion. Any CBM that turns off the public is a very bad thing for the genre. If everyone but Marvel failed with the public the genre would suffer and maybe even fade away completely. We are all on the same "side". We used to think that about Pixar too. It happens to everyone. No director is perfect, no actor avoids being in a stinker, and no studio can manage the difficult task of putting together all the various pieces that go into producing a movie perfectly every time. It's inevitable that something will go wrong for Marvel at some point. Like maybe a deadline rushing production like with JL. I wonder if that "counts" for the most angry segment of the DC fan base? I get the sense that most of the worst ones are more Batman fans than DC fans. WW was the one DCU film that didn't have Batman in it so it might actually be worse that it is the one that did so well.

That gets dicey because it suggests that only females can direct a movie with a female lead. ...Which of course also suggests that only men should direct movies with a male lead. (How could a woman understand a male point of view?)

Not a huge fan. Cartoon rats would be ok with me if they were more "cartoony". Pixar made them look too real (i.e. disgusting) in Ratatouille.

Yuck. Never cared for Ratatouille. Kinda creepy movie.

I'm impressed at how many people saw Cars 2 & 3. I thought I was a huge Pixar fan! Tier 1-Finding Nemo/Toy Story/Toy Story 2/Toy Story 3 Tier 2-Up/Monsters Inc/Wall-e/Bugs Life/Incredibles Tier 3-Finding Dory/Monsters U/ Tier 4-Inside Out/Brave/TGD Tier 5-Ratatouille/Cars Tier ?-Cars 2/Cars 3

Well one upside to JL's OW is that even a minor accomplishment is something to cheer about now.

I would need to see that to believe it. They've rolled out their big guns in every movie so far so naturally they all did well. (Even SS had Batman and the Joker) Aquaman is more like what Capt America used to be for Marvel when his first movie came out. (vaguely known character thought of as cheesy) Unless his profile has been raised quite a bit by JL, I would be surprised at a 300+ finish.