TServo2049

Did the 3D premium make the difference between being a flop and a hit? It made a billion with 3D, it surely would have done well without it. It was a timely hook, but a 2D version would still have been a success.

3D didn't save John Carter. (Has 3D saved anything?)

Who wrote the draft with the human/raptor hybrids that got all the way to concept art?

Into Darkness could well have been Abrams' Returns on a smaller scale. (Though Orci actually seems to be the Burton in this situation...)

Batman Returns was one of those "you made us a ton of money, so we'll trust you" deals, the final product scared the suits and didn't appeal to everyone, so we got Schumacher. History may not repeat, but it does rhyme.

I think the general worry may be the same as I originally postulated - that the films won't fit together. This extends to the look and of the films - if they were all auteur films with absolutely distinct cinematography, editing, music, tone, etc., would it be difficult to fit them into crossovers?Avengers movies were always the endgame of this, maybe the worry among the suits could be that if every one is too distinct, they might not have wide enough appeal, and the crossover stuff wouldn't feel like all the films intersected?

I think the studios may be have some irrational overblown fear that if they hand franchise blockbusters over to female or minority directors, there's a risk that they will ipso facto become political?

Perhaps the worry is that if the directors have TOO much creative control, the films wouldn't fit together into a cohesive continuity. If they're stand-alone, then it may be difficult to fit them into a "universe." Not saying I agree with this, I would be interested if the films were even more varied. Could it be possible for radically thematically and stylistically different films to still fit together? Or would it be better to go back to stand-alone films/series that don't exist in a shared continuity?

I think the trend may actually be toward hiring "geek directors". They are usually white guys in their mid-30s (but not always that young). For sci-fantasy-superhero-comic stuff, they could think "geeks" will do a better job? Favreau, Whedon, Abrams, Snyder, Gunn, Edwards, Johnson, Trank, Vaughn, Trevorrow, Edgar Wright initially being on Ant-Man, they all seem to fit this template where maybe they're considered as being "geeky" enough to be handed the keys to these kinds of franchises and enjoy working on them?

Because The Simpsons were still huge. And yes, I'm sure Spider-Pig helped. If a Simpsons movie came out today, it probably wouldn't do as well.

Catherine O'Hara is so great in that movie. I almost wonder if she could have gotten a Best Supporting Actress nomination. I'd love to know if she was on the nominee voting ballot.

Again, my point is that people may remember them being big, but they seem to forget HOW huge it was.

Oh, make no mistake, I love Home Alone. A lot of people do. It's one of the movies my family watches every Christmas - I think we've watched it every Christmas since it came out on VHS in '91. It's just that it's sometimes forgotten HOW big it was theatrically.

The documentary would probably play like a combination of Hearts of Darkness and Lost in La Mancha.

Shrek 2, Forrest Gump and Home Alone are probably the most oddball of the films to hit the all-time top 5 unadjusted. Not just because they're films you wouldn't expect to have made as much as they did/sold as many tickets as they did, but because their reputation 10+ years later doesn't seem to match with their performance.

Hence the common epithet "Shrek the Turd".

I seem to recall Shrek 3 being marketed as some kind of domestic comedy with Shrek having to deal with kids, then finding out that scene plastered all over the trailers was actually just a nightmare sequence? Shrek 2's 5-day is baffling as hell. I seem to recall reading that it was actually pushed forward two days at the last minute, so a lot of audiences may not have even been aware it was opening on a Wednesday? Also, kids were still in school, it does seem weird to have a family film opening on a Wednesday on a non-holiday week. When else has that happened?

Don't you understand that if it's a movie WE enjoy, it's earned the right to be merchandised out the wazoo because WE deem it worthy? Only merchandising for movies we DON'T like deserves utter scorn! This is why I don't care how much movie X is merchandised. When we like a movie we don't complain.

I think the Cars franchise basically makes Lasseter turn into an 8-year-old on a sugar high, coming up with whatever excites him and him alone.

The whole point I was making was that it's amusing how people are trashing Minions as a cash grab and holding up Pixar as the shining example, when a year ago they would have been criticizing Pixar too.

Then you and I are in complete agreement.

I'm not smoking the pipe. I'm pointing out the fallacy of the perception that anything was seriously wrong with Pixar. My point is, they were being pilloried in some circles, up until Inside Out came out and reminded them "Oh wait, Pixar DOES still make good movies!"

Inside Out did wonders for Pixar's image. Before it released, people were accusing PIXAR of having sunk to the level of cash-grabbing. It reached its peak when Toy Story 4 was announced (and BTW, I've heard rumblings that TS4 won't really be a true TS4, but that it will be some kind of story taking place in the Toy Story universe but supposedly not centering around the main characters of the original trilogy, not involving humans at all. So basically, that it will be more a spin-off than a sequel?) Boy, what one great movie can do to "rehabilitate" a studio whose reputation was "declining".

The best thing about the Schumacher trailers is that they're narrated by Optimus freakin Prime. Those trailers felt so awesome back then. I remember when I thought Forever was so cool, ah, youthful stupidity.

Every of the last couple decades seems to have that wannabe mini-major that doesn't flame out due to flagrant overspending like Cannon/Orion/Carolco, but just sort of falls apart and goes out with a whimper. The 80s had DEG, the 90s had Savoy, the 00s had...I guess Overture? (Oddly enough, a lot of Overture staff went over to Relativity when they folded.)