TServo2049

#NotARecord

(Trigger alert: Very possible tasteless joke ahead, so I chickened out and put it in spoiler tags. You are warned.)

I hope so, but it could be a typo. Or Gunn will pull a Spielberg and work on them simultaneously, with GOTG3’s principal photography starting as soon as 2icide’s wraps, and doing the post for one while filming the other. 2icide could also be a protracted post period; these FX-heavy films often wrap their principal shoots (not counting later pickups) over a year before release. BvS wrapped principal photography in December 2014; A:EG wrapped its main shooting in January 2018 before Captain Marvel even started its principal photography. And remember that when GOTG3 was still (unofficially) on track for May 2020, it was weeks away from the start of shooting when Gunn first got canned last summer. (In fact, crew members who were supposed to work on it ended up as reinforcements for the Endgame pickups.)

Someone had better use that movie as a bait and switch, like going in expecting a cartoon musical about a snow queen and getting an R-rated indie thriller about people trapped on a ski lift.

Now, now, music is absolutely key to silent film. (Now, if you were to submit the film totally silent, then yeah, it’s a great joke.)

Oh yeah, absolutely. For another example, I wasn’t following My Big Fat Greek Wedding’s box office, but I was cognizant of the phenomenon. A little indie film from a nobody writer/director that Hollywood had no faith in and wouldn’t touch because it was too “ethnic”, turned into a self-powering perpetual-motion word-of-mouth hype generator. It was absolutely nuts to see people my mom’s age talking this movie up amongst themselves like it was their Star Wars. (And when I saw it, it had one of the best crowds I can remember.)

Yeah, I didn’t intend for it to be that long, but once I started I just couldn’t stop. All the historical connections just fell into place. (Though I am a software engineer by day, my college degree was History, as if you couldn’t tell.) For example, it occurred to me while I was writing it that when Titanic came out, Marvel was bankrupt and the last Batman film was Batman & Robin, so I had to put those in for context.

See, if ROTK had beaten Titanic, I would have been over the Moon, over Mars, over every other planet (including Pluto - because it was still a planet at the time). Just to make clear, I am not on the “Jim Gang,” I just am not willing to downplay success that has been truly earned simply because the movies that earned it aren’t among my favorites. I mean, it’s not like they’re Bayformers or something. I did enjoy Titanic in the theater in ‘97, and I was rooting for it at the Oscars the next year almost to the degree I later rooted for ROTK, it’s just never been on my must-rewatch list.

Nope, I am not. I admire Cameron’s utter cojones, but I haven’t even seen Avatar. I am just trying to make clear that even though I am a bigger fan of the MCU than of post-True Lies god-tier-era Cameron, I am neutral and appreciate how damn hard it has been to challenge the self-proclaimed King of the World.

To repeat what I said before that got lost in my avalanche of text, I haven’t even seen Avatar. I also haven’t watched Titanic in 20 years. I am just making the case that whoever comes out at the end of this, these are two truly worthy opponents.

This Cameron stans vs. everyone else feuding is just dumb IMO. I get it. They don’t want an original work from a singular visionary mad genius filmmaker that nobody thought could ever succeed to get taken down by a studio-manufactured franchise sequel engineered to get the maximum amount of money out of the masses. Well, you know how I see it, as someone who enjoys the MCU, hasn’t seen Avatar but ranks several prior Cameron movies among his all-time favorites? Even if Avatar goes down WW, it will have taken 11 years, 21 prior films and a few BILLION dollars spent up to this point just to get ONE movie that even stands a chance of taking down JAMES FUCKING CAMERON. The man who shattered the worldwide box office record on a scale hitherto undreamt of when Marvel Comics was in the throes of bankruptcy, then turned around did it again when people were still asking each other if Disney was insane for dropping 4 billion dollars on a comic book company. After Cameron took the crown the first time, Star Wars with its creator at the helm, triumphantly returning after a 16-year wait and with hopes still in the stratosphere, couldn’t unseat him. 9 years later, Cameron was still on top, and the apex of the cinematic success of the most popular hero of the rival comic book company - a character who was this close to being a cinematic laughingstock at the same time Cameron defied odds and turned a seemingly guaranteed disaster into a triumph - couldn’t take Jim out. After Cameron asserted his claim to the box-office throne by obliterating his own record when everyone else had failed, nobody could even knock him out of the #2 spot. It took another return of Star Wars, now with the might of the same entertainment empire who had bought Marvel behind it (and with people again questioning the wisdom of dropping so much money on an acquisition), and with 32 years of anticipation behind it, to make more than Cameron’s previous record breaker did, 18 years earlier, and even then it only made more than Titanic did before a 15th anniversary re-release that made the kind of money that theatrical re-releases just didn’t make in the age of Blu-Ray, and that no theatrical reissue would ever touch again. And even the revived Star Wars at the height of its success, with a fanbase not yet divided by controversy and doubt, still could not dethrone the King of the World. Just as recently as last year, what seemed itself to be the apex of a 10-year-running, 21-film comic book movie franchise still could only topple the initial worldwide gross that Cameron’s first record-breaker accumulated 20 years earlier. This is it. This is the one movie that could have a chance, and despite its franchise now being under the same entertainment juggernaut so powerful it just absorbed the rival studio that helped bring Cameron to the top twice, said franchise still took its own 11-year-long underdog story, which began before their acquisition with a $500 million loan they weren’t even guaranteed to be able to pay back, from a bank that had already gone down in flames before Cameron broke his own record, with a stable of B and C- list heroes, and with a seemingly washed-up, has-been, unemployable former drug addict and ex-convict as the lead actor, to get this far. If this is the end, then let it be a glorious end.

Say it with me now: C R U M B L I N G

There’s a phrase that goes back to the silent era (originally describing Erich von Stroheim): “The man you love to hate.” I think that applies here. You love to hate Thanos. Aside from the cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs nut jobs who think #ThanosDidNothingWrong, most of us know the Mad Titan is as insane as his nickname implies, and that his plan to bring “balance” to the universe through genocide on a cosmic scale is absolutely and undeniably psychopathic lunacy, but we still loved to see him win and snap half the universe away in IW because we admired that he was such a badass bad guy that he could get that far and not be thwarted - and that the filmmakers were not themselves thwarted from making it happen. (I know I often feel slightly disappointed when the villain gets stopped too early; I want to see their plan come at least almost to fruition and all hell to break loose, and THEN the heroes have to deal with it.) As far as memorable, charismatic and quotable cinema villains go, I’m sure plenty would agree that he earns his place among all-time greats like Blofeld, Darth Vader, the Joker, Hannibal Lecter, Keyser Soze, Agent Smith and Voldemort.

Cliched as it is, Disney shareholders still be like:

Matrix Reloaded - Matrix Revolutions: -43M. (Or -50.5M if you include their Wed-Thu grosses too.)

Being featured in a cult TV series will do that for you.

No, those are all indeed missing. I forgot about one of those somehow.

I only count four posters missing.

Also Vin Diesel, Hugo Weaving, Tyrese Gibson, John Rhys-Davies (if you count his short voice role in Aquaman), and Djimon Hounsou (Aquaman voice role + Korath cameo in CM). If you count animated films too, you can also throw in Josh Gad, Julie Andrews(!), Idris Elba, Alan Tudyk and John Ratzenberger (between on-camera and animation voices, the latter three have each played a different role in THREE billion-dollar grossers).

Burton’s Planet of the Apes. Now that’s a movie I’ve not thought of in a long time... I remember being hyped for that. Tim Burton! Remaking Planet of the Apes! How could this possibly be anything but awesome? Almost 18 years later, all I really remember is that Lincoln Memorial twist, and that Helena Bonham Carter’s character looked kind of what Michael Jackson had devolved into by that time. That’s got to be one of the first movies where I was actually cognizant of my disappointment. (Actually, most of that summer was like that for me. A.I., Tomb Raider, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within...though I am one of the people who loved Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.)

Don’t kid yourself on Doctor Strange, Adm. With James Gunn back in the MCU fold, and Taika being around, and Feige being the one who pushed for both of them, I don’t think we should be worried that the cosmic stuff won’t be crazygonuts enough. I think they understand that they’ve earned the right do to whatever they want, and will proceed to do just that.

I wouldn’t trade ROTK opening night for it being the first $100m December OW 12 years before TFA. I will always remember going straight from school to the theater with my advance tickets and waiting there for several hours. I can’t even remember how I managed to have all my homework done. (This was high school.)

I wonder where the AMC Metreon fits in there. Also, I wonder about Regal Hacienda Crossings (Dublin, CA) since it’s one of those megaplexes that has IMAX and PLF but no recliners. I’d think the theaters without recliners would make more money since they have more seats available.

You can use it. I won’t mind.

No, it’s going to be Floptor Dolittle.