Avatree

in other news, Paul Blart 2 has held depressingly well, despite 4% on RT and poor audience reaction. I guess it shows how lackluster the box office has in the last couple of weeks in terms of new releases.

Yep, titanic was titanic.

You don't live in the UK, why do you think you have a sense of how the brand's power has increased? I am telling you that the Avengers has become much more popular, which is why a 0% increase in OW is worrying. In fact, it may be a decrease since ticket prices for the triple bill that many saw on opening night were much more expensive than any ticket for opening night first Avengers.

Read my post again.

Still only increased by less than £1.5M (9%). Adjusted for inflation it has not increased at all. AoU OW is exactly the same as TA1 OW adjusted, that suggests no growth to me.

Which countries are the markets it opened in this weekend? I want to compare them to TA1 OW.

According to BOM it was 26M

I thought this one was better marketed than the previous one. I'm really surprised this hasn't grown, as I had got the impression that the fanbase / Marvel audience had really grown. Certainly I know lots of people who were introduced to MCU, or became fans, with Cap 2 or Guardians of the Galaxy.

This is the most stupid thread I've seen in a long time. If you're going to split up OS numbers then split every country up, as films perform differently in different countries.

27M 4-day for Avengers in the UK I expected, well, more.

201.2M weekend or 201.2M week? BOM already had like 50M on there. Yes, this has been obvious for a couple of weeks now.

6.8 IMDB is "really well liked"?

Home still not doing very well overseas though.

Ex Machina is not exactly going for the same audience as Avengers. It will survive.

Huh, I thought it was only in the UK (where the movie was made) and other studios picked it up for international release. I figured maybe Universal only wanted to release it domestically. That's really strange then.

It's a bit odd that A24 is distributing this in US given that in the movie's home country it is a Universal film. Universal could have turned it into a proper hit in America.

Around $15 million.

why before Avengers? They could open it wide after. Anyway it's a small budget film, this is fine.

Ray is putting out far fewer articles. However, the important stuff is still all there. Don't complain until that's gone

January Interstellar ★★★ The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies ★★ 2001: A Space Odyssey ★★★★★ Exodus: Gods and Kings ★★★ Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb ★★★ The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 ★★ Into the Woods ★★★ Taken 3 ★ Whiplash ★★★★ American Sniper ★★ Ex Machina ★★★★★ Big Hero 6 ★★★ February Fifty Shades of Grey ★ Fifty Shades of Grey ★ Selma ★★★ Kingsman: The Secret Service ★★ March Still Alice ★★★★ The Tale of the Princess Kaguya ★★★★★ Home ★ The Babadook ★★★★ April Home ★ Fast & Furious 6 ★★★ Fast & Furious 7 ★★ Blade Runner: The Final Cut ★★★★ The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out Of Water ★★★ While We're Young ★★ The Shining ★★★ A Little Chaos ★★★ Avengers Assemble ★★ Captain America: The Winter Soldier ★ Avengers: Age of Ultron ★★★ Zombieland ★★★★ Total: 32

I just updated my post for the final time, this is my final list - any obvious mistakes I'm making? 1. Avengers - 576M 2. Jurassic World - 374M 3. Minions - 348M 4. Inside Out - 313M 5. Ant-Man - 269M 6. Ted 2 - 250M 7. Mission: Impossible - 195M 8. Fantastic Four - 179M 9. Tomorrowland - 174M 10. Spy - 147M 11. San Andreas - 144M 12. Mad Max - 131M 13. Pitch Perfect - 128M 14. Magic Mike - 119M 15. Terminator - 109M

My sarcasm detector is bleeping

Historically, I have not been a fan of Marvel Studios. When the Marvel Cinematic Universe started out, its first few flicks tended to be films which pretend to have some substance for 35 minutes, and then descend to mindless hitting and smashing. I was somewhat fond of Captain America: The First Avenger, as it managed to sustain its World War II theme for the entire movie, but that was virtually it in terms of the MCU films which I liked. Last year, Guardians of the Galaxy was surprisingly upbeat and funny, and it ended up being one of my favourite films of 2014. The rest of them are dull, uninventive, and fail to have the courage of their convictions. So, that's a hit rate of 2 out of 10. Not great. Avengers Assemble itself was a boring, drawn out orgy of special effects and Robert Downey, Jr. talking very quickly. I'd never understood the excitement behind putting multiple superheroes on screen, and found the film dull and one-dimensional. I didn't care about any of the characters, or for that matter anything else in the movie. As a result, I went into Age of Ultron sceptical. The plot - and I use the term loosely - is that Tony Stark (Downey, Jr.) and Bruce Banner (Ruffalo) have invented sentient artificial intelligence, called Ultron (Spader). As one would expect, it goes wrong and Ultron attempts to destroy the entire world - and so the Avengers must team up once again to stop him. In terms of its story, it's all over the place. I am no Marvel Comics fan, but I do consider myself well-versed enough in the film canon to keep up with these movies most of the time. Age of Ultron makes no attempt, however, to make any sense of its story. I don't know why Ultron has to lift up a city into the sky, I don't know why he needed huge shipments of Vibranium, I don't even know why he wants to destroy the world in the first place. His motives are, to say the least, unclear, and Whedon's narrative style is still as jumbled as it was in the first film. But herein lies the difference between Avengers Assemble and Age of Ultron: Age of Ultron manages to be fun regardless. I didn't understand the plot in either movie, but it's much less of a problem here. This is down to a few reasons: Firstly, the sideplate of melodrama is more focused in scope and more fleshed out in detail. Romanoff (Johansson) and Banner have a relationship that is, at the very least, engaging (though problematic, which I'll get to in a bit); Hawkeye (Renner) gets some love, in both the context of the film itself and his character arc; and the drama regarding the team composition is more functional. For the first 20 minutes or so in the film, the various Avengers are working together to not only get a mission done, but to party hard, and to make small talk. This is a vital section of the film that was missing from the previous outing - it lets us explore, even just on surface level, the interactions and relations between the characters. There's a wonderful moment in which each character tries to lift Mjolnir (hammer of Thor (Hemsworth)), and it's a refreshing, relaxed scene which reminds us that these are all actual characters, not merely tools to show off flashy special effects. Similarly, Whedon has learned from his mistake of the last film when it comes to balancing the characters. Despite adding three more Avengers to the team, the film feels more even in its characterisation. This is mainly due to Stark being pushed from his leading position, allowing others not only more screen time but more narrative importance. The biggest factor, though - the biggest change from Avengers Assemble - is its tone. Marvel films have always had their fair share of jokes, but they have - with the exception of Guardians - taken themselves a little too seriously. In contrast, Age of Ultron feels more self-aware, and as a result takes liberty with the idea of joking around. Jokes are fired off at an exuberantly quick rate, and most of them are spot on. Despite the odd awkward silence where Whedon thought something was funny and just wasn't, the film's gags are genuinely laugh-out-loud funny - and the audience with whom I saw the film seemed to agree. I found many of the first film's jokes to fall flat in their execution, but thanks to excellent comedic timing from the entire cast, a fair splitting of the jokes among each character, and a couple of great running gags, the movie had me giggling once every few minutes. Without this level of humour, I doubt I'd have enjoyed the film, but it managed to distract me from plot issues or repetition in the action. There are also some strong additions to the film, including Ultron and Vision (Bettany). Because Ultron was created by Stark, James Spader is, in essence, channeling a psychotic version of Downey's Iron Man. Both characters are written as mirror images of each other, and as such, there are some terrific sections of dialogue between the two - for example, when Ultron claims he will break the world, the dialogue exchange is, "Nothing needs to be broken" - "Well, clearly, you've never made an omelette". I suspect Ultron himself has little experience in the kitchen, but the joke works, and showcases how Stark must defeat himself. Ultron does not speak like any robot I've seen, and this works to the film's advantage. Partly due to Spader's comic timing and grindy, menacing, charming vocal work, and partly thanks to Whedon's ability as a writer of dialogue, Ultron just works. Equally, Vision is a fine new character, and is the peaceful opposite to Ultron. Bettany - who is well-cast due to his soft-spoken nature and uplifting presence - brings a cool level of silence to the action-packed film, something sorely missing from the characters in the previous movie. The film is not without its problems. Firstly, the elephant in the room - this is the eleventh film in the franchise. By this point, film #11 shouldn't really feel like film #1, but really, no matter how much funnier it is, Age of Ultron does little to make itself standout in the sea of superhero films. It trundles along at a fine pace but I'll be more than happy to bet that there's not a single element of the film which you can't predict. It is generic and derivative, and this is unavoidable, given that Marvel has still not managed to change this after what feels like three billion superhero films in the past 7 years. This doesn't make the film bad in its own right, but there are points in the film where you can't help but go, "Yep. We've been here before." Another issue is Black Widow's relationship with Hulk. While, as I said earlier, the relationship does get your attention and you do care about both characters, Black Widow is strangely creepy here. Banner repeats several times that they can't be together because of how dangerous he is, but Johansson's super spy continues to drool over the sexy Ruffalo in a rather Stockholm Syndrome-like manner. Given that Joss Whedon spends so much time reminding us of how important female characters are to him, and how a one-minute Jurassic World clip proves that he's the superlative Hollywood filmmaker when it comes to gender politics, this feels out of place and hypocritical. I must, finally, talk about the action, given that so much of the film consists of it. There is nothing special about much of the film's visual sequences (at least on the visual front, ignoring the dialogue), and parts - for example, the much talked-about Hulkbuster scene - feel underwhelming. But because there are so fewer buildings being knocked down, and fewer aliens to fight, it's easier to understand what's going on. There are also golden moments of action sequences which differentiate themselves from the usual destruction porn. Notably, the film - in its most tongue-in-cheek characteristic - continuously goes out of its way to save civilians in the battles. The first movie seemed to destroy and kill anyone who happens to be in the way of our heroes, and Age of Ultron spends a significant amount of time clearing civilians of the battleground The film as a whole benefits from Whedon's improved, more coherent and more stylish direction, and there's a fine balance between the battles and the amusing dialogue. I'm not yet sold on this franchise - I don't believe that the current superhero obsession which mainstream audiences have is very healthy, and the fact that these films fail to do much more than be derivative sequels built to make way for the next seventeen movies is a little disappointing. But at the very least, Avengers: Age of Ultron is tolerable, and at best, it's actually quite enjoyable. Marvel has put the fun back into this series. ★★★ Taken from http://entwinedbranches.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/avengers-age-of-ultron-review.html

In which case, awesome.

Avengers has given her a boost in popularity.