Porthos

Switching this from the Superman (2025) thread over to the WB thread where it probably belonged in the first place: Problem with that is, besides pushing everything else back, is... someone has to write and develop it. Can't just sit down in a day and write a hurried end to a franchise that was still mostly in the middle of a run. These projects can be in preproduction for quite a while before we even get a whiff of it. Gunn officially was hired in late August of 2022 to write his Superman film and I have no idea how informally he was working on it before then (when he pitched it, or how long he was working on it before it was pitched, for instance). That's probably delaying everything another year and a half to two years even before the strikes made everything else get delayed even further. Kinda more to the point, how do you tie everything up in one project given where the DCEU was at the time? Ironically enough, The Flash could have been a perfect "end point", but it was too late to really mess with it (more than they did that is + they had two more films on the way). IMO, in an Ideal World, they spend the money to retool The Flash, punt that to after Aquaman 2 and then use that as a send off for the DCEU. Problem was... Well... they had a main star that was public relations poison and that's a little bit of a hurdle to overcome. So too was throwing the gobs of money down the rat hole that would be needed to make The Flash be the end-point. (AIUI they already mucked around with the ending of The Flash, but I couldn't comment on that definitively) I know James Gunn has tried to be cute with the status of Blue Beetle, and good for him for trying, I suppose. But in the end, there were precious few good options available. Just "least bad" ones. Maybe if Ezra Miller hadn't been facing all of their troubles, that would have been one thing. But they were. And that was yet another piece of Very Bad Luck that the DCEU faced. In many ways, if not most ways, a lot of events conspired against the DCEU and it's a wonder it did as well as it did. On the other hand, it had more than its fair share of self-inflicted wounds, so can only curse the Fates so much. So, yeah, I get what you're suggesting. But it isn't quite as simple or as easy it might seem, IMO. Or as quick, for that matter.

Actually want to compliment the cinematography here. One of the things that I detest in modern filmmaking (and something that @Cap has also been railing against) is that IT IS SO FUCKING HARD TO SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING ON THE SCREEN SOMETIMES. Here though? Nearly everything was well lit, at least to my eyes. Even the darkened spotlight knew how to balance dark against light to set the contrast. No squinting at trying to see what is going on in a rainy scene. You had pale-ish light blue to denote "dark" scenes as opposed to more murky, hard to see things. You could actually see the characters in the dark theater room. And so on and so on and so on. Instead of putting folks in darkness, the colors at times looked more desaturated to convey a similar mood (may not be the right word for the term, but that's what I'm going with). In another shot, characters emerged from shadows into a dark blue. but still lit enough that you could actually see them. I mean, there still are a couple of scenes where you couldn't see the character's faces, but compared to a lot of modern movies and TV shows? Just a breath of fresh air. Whole movie may not be like that, but I do think it is something worth noting.

What if I told you that the musical aspects were central and necessary to the plot? Not a leak, but a strong guess/reading the tea leaves:

Want to add a bit to this, @YM!, after thinking about it some more. I think I know where you're coming from when it comes to a trepidation to a Harley/Joker relationship being viewed as Unironically A Good Thing™. I want to say right off the bat that Harley Quinn is one of my favorite additions to DC from the last few decades. Her character is just such a breath of fresh air in many many ways, and let's face it she was portrayed brilliantly in the first animated series she debuted in (as well as nearly everything else since). Even her (mostly) one sided affection with the Joker worked in those first animated series, when that was a thing. With one notable exception. I have always had... mixed feelings regarding the origin of her affections as a part of her overall origin tale. It may not be part of the infamous soap opera trope of "Fall in love with your rapist", but it's maybe a second or third cousin removed in that Joker's mental manipulations helped "birthed" the Harley Quinn persona in the first place. Could make a decent tale about the dangers of grooming there, in fact. So I've always been a little bit... uneasy about that side of the equation. On the other hand, having Dr. Harleen Quinzel be a professional and very competent person that still succumbed to her own inner demons (if after a shove or three) *ALSO* works as part of the origin tale, and that's how I personally square the circle by more focusing on that aspect than the Joker manipulation part. So if the film was going to set up THAT as part of a Fleck/Quinn romance I would be very concerned. But if Quinn is already well on her way to being broken and she has her own motivations and drives and she is in control of her own destiny... Well, it's the difference between character agency and not (which as you probably know is one of my hobby horses lately when it comes to characterization). It turns Harley Quinn from being a victim to being... well, whatever she is in this film. And that's worth seeing where it goes. Personally, I'm betting on: Ending Not Well At All. But even the origin itself looks different enough that I am gonna give this a bit more room than I would a more standard Harely Quinn/Joker "romance". (no, really though, they really ought to explore the dangers of toxic relationships)

It's interesting. What I picked up from the trailer is that Harley Quinn is even crazier than Arthur Fleck, if in a different way. Harley Quinn making the Joker crazier would be an interesting inversion on the classic Harley/Joker tale. Also leaves room for some commentary on toxic relationships and how they can lead to mutual destruction. Can't really point to anything in particular, though if pressed there are a couple of things in there. More a vibe thing at the moment.

from reddit. ==== I'm only upset that *I* didn't think of this. edit: *checks* Yep. It's A Thing, alright.

The more I think about it, the more I realize they not only aren't hiding the musical aspect, they're leaning heavily into it. The opening shots of the color coded umbrellas are highly reminiscent of a choreographed musical number. The opening dialogue talks about The Power (and Importance) of Music. The opening notes lead up to an iconic song of the 20th century. Hell, the entire middle of the trailer is straight out of a song and dance number, right down to the spotlighted buildup of a main character. The only thing the film didn't do is have one of the characters turn to camera and say "THIS *IS* SPARTA A MUSICAL!!!" Now unlike you, I don't know enough about the History of Musicals to be able to tell just exactly what they were channeling here. But it was clear as day to me what type of film this is gonna be.

She's really good in it. Sets an immediate tone of a Messed Up in the Head person. Her opening shot in the trailer really sets it well, I think. As does her closing scene Honestly, she might steal the movie from Phoenix, if this trailer is any indication.

I don't exactly think they can be accused of "hiding" the musical aspect here. RIP (that part) of The Discourse.

Fair enough on the secret movie part, but.... Ehhhh on the rest. Black Adam didn't have a great (or even all that good for that matter) OW at 67m. Initial CinemaScore wasn't that great, either, at B+, which didn't portend a great leggy run. Announcement didn't help, no. But don't think it was a determinate factor between success and failure of a Rock-led DCEU. That was largely already baked into the cake by that point, IMO. Not that we'll ever know for sure, of course.

Having slept on it, probably think Rise of the Beasts would be the best in-the-ballpark comp. It had EA as well, which helps. Is the difference between start(-ish) of summer and May, but... eh. Two problems. That starts at T-29 (which means over-indexing for KPotA at first) and *I* didn't start dedicated record-keeping tracking until around T-14 or so. So while others might be able to use it, I won't for a while. Aside from that, kinda left looking around at a lot of really shitty comps. JWD would normally be in the ballpark, but that started at T-42 instead of this weird hybrid T-38 PLF/T-31 Reg rollout. Most of the other GA-themed films are in the T-24 to T-15 range, and thus will probably be completely unsuitable until the very last few days. Will admit to being... intrigued by the Aquabro 2 comp since it started sales at T-31. Gonna be over-indexing at first thanks to the seven day PLF head start. But that might, just might, normalize the fastest out of everything that is conceivably on the table. Fast X might normalize within a couple of weeks, but that two month head start is... Yeah. Be curious what else might be out there that is useable right now, when taking into account the PLF head start and the pre-sale windows.

That's why I don't think it'll be "hidden" per se., though as @ChipDerby notes how much of those songs we actually see on screen is still unknown. Could just be snippets/partial version of those songs. Have some other thoughts, but I'm going to do the radical thing and actually wait until the teaser/trailer drops before commenting further.

I think it is a fair debate about how much this is a musical or not as those exist very much on a spectrum, from "film with occasional songs" to "songs that drive/showcase the plot" to "full on Busby Berkeley Musical numbers". Not that I wish to get into a big, ahem, song and dance about definition of terms. But I do think noting that these things are relative is, as I said, fair. Right now do think it is an open question as to where this film falls within said spectrum as I've seen inconsistent reporting on this. Isn't helped by the fact that "musical" is in fact such a slippery, hard to define, say the term and different examples come to mind thing. What is a "musical" for one person, isn't for another. Or rather what is an objectionable musical (which is what all of this is dancing around) is very much a subjective thing. After all, how many folks complain about the musical elements in the animated version of Aladdin? Family targeted animation does get something of a pass, but it still shows how, again here comes those words, relative and subjective all of this is.

The point he's making is we should wait until the trailer/teaser drops tonight before we judge whether or not they are trying to "hide" the fact that this is a musical and that it is premature to judge off a 20+sec preview of a teaser.

*casually checks KPotA tonight* ... Huh. ============= Quick and Dirty Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Sacramento Report [T-31] 278/18153 (1.53% sold) [+98 tickets] 112 showtimes 1.79355x Nope at T-31 [11.48m] 0.19146x JWD at T-31 [3.45m] 0.41493x Fast X at T-31 [3.11m] 0.43780x Indy 5 at T-31 [3.15m] 0.42573x Oppenheimer at T-31 [4.47m] 1.90411x Aquaman 2 at T-31 [8.57m] [Day 1 of sales] As I said... "huh". Like, I have *no idea* how to interpret all of this thanks to the week of exclusive PLF-only sales. Here's the daily breakdown so far. First column is total sales, second column is sales that day. Total Daily PLF ONLY t-38 73 73 T-37 90 17 T-36 106 16 T-35 119 13 T-34 127 8 T-33 145 18 T-32 180 35 T-31 ALL SHOWS 278 98 That, along with the length of the pre-sale window, is playing merry havoc with any reasonable comps I might be looking at here. Reasonably impressed with the level of D1 for all shows sales today. I think. But I'm at a loss to what to compare it to thanks to the twin factors above. (before anyone asks, a straight Dune 2 comp is gar-bage) Might sleep on it or see what folks say about all of this when I check out the thread in the morning. Still. "Interesting" might be the word to use. Be curious to see just how it goes on from here.

I've been told by many many people that Real Life Court Cases are nothing like the dramatics that one sees in a typical Law and Order episode. Until today I believed them. Until I read the Elon Musk deposition from beginning to end that is. Having trouble embedding blusky posts right now, so tweets will have to do. Gonna give the topline of a couple of thread summaries first.... But then there's this: *record scratch* I mean, really now. The whole deposition can be read here: https://www.scribd.com/document/721193667/Elon-Musk-Deposed-In-Lawsuit-For-Falsely-Linking-Jewish-Man-To-Neo-Nazi-Brawl There were several times through it I, as a fucking non-lawyer who is absolutely ignorant about these things, was going "SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP FOR GOD'S SAKE SHUT UP ELON! CAN'T YOU SEE THE TRAP YOUR WALKING INTO SHUT THE FUCK UP" in a sort of real life "stop stop, he's already dead" sort of way. But the absolute piece de resistance is a real life sighting of the classic "I move for a bad court thingy": (note in advance: "PO" appears to equal "Protective Order") ===== EVEN ALEX JONES' ATTORNEY'S KNEW HOW TO DO THAT. THE ABSOLUTE SHADE!!!!! (for the record, Elon Musk's legal team filed several emergency motions to prohibit the disclosure of the deposition) ((SPOILER ALERT: They failed)) Lots of stories on the net about the more salacious aspects of the depo, but I'll let y'all find them for yourselves.

There were rumors that James Gunn was gonna take over before Black Adam came out??? I thought the Gunn news literally came out of nowhere. See, that's part of what I'm trying to address here. We do know that there were fights between Dwayne Johnson and various other folks in DC. What we didn't know was that James Gunn was coming in. That was, as far as I know, a stunning and shocking turn (in a town where very little is shocking). And this whole sub-conversation started when you asked why they kneecapped BA by announcing a universe reboot, and I reminded you ***THAT THEY DIDN'T***. Now the 2023 slate got thrown under the bus, yes. But I think a lot of this is that things are getting all jumbled up here in a kinda transitionary haze. Honestly? Probably. At the very least, DC looks like it is letting Gunn take his time to plan things out and not lurch from one knee-jerk reflexive move to another to another. Really, ever since DC/WB overreacted (or choose whatever word one wants that they think is better) to the reception to MoS, WB has been lurching from one set of "plans" to another without ever actually committing to a vision for the long haul. After nearly 10 years of that a clean break and reset was... Well if not for the best, I can absolutely why they decided to stop quintupling down on a strat that wasn't working (to thier satisfaction). Doesn't mean this one will work, as there's no guarantees in the world. And it is true that the DCEU got dealt some pretty bad luck along the way (COVID came at a really bad time for them, for instance). But the DCEU never really gelled and I have doubts that The Rock's vision would have helped set a new direction.

"activists" lol

Amazon releasing the series a day early: ‘Fallout’ Season 1 to Premiere a Day Early on Prime Video 6pm (Wed) PDT 9pm (Wed) EDT 2am (Thr) BST 3am (Thr) CEST 4am (Thr) MSK 6:30am (Thr) IST 9am (Thr) CST 10am (Thr) JST 11am (Thr) AEST 1pm (Thr) NZST

... Who wants to be the one to tell him? (not it)

*sees reaction given by @Morieris* *Googles to see who rumored frontrunner is right now* *laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs* *pauses* *laughs some more for good measure*

Exceedingly strong likelihood we're getting a second season: Not a guarantee as the article notes, but I have to imagine that unless the series viewership numbers are very much under expectations, that a second season will be officially announced somewhere along the line.

Speaking of YouTube in a round about way, the OST is now officially out on various platforms (geolocked to April 8th, it would seem). One of the tracks in particular (Feo Fuerte y Formal) sounds straight out of a Spaghetti Western. In a very good way. ... Oh, yes, one of the tracks is in fact called "War Never Changes". Apparently some things never change in Fallout, as well. 👍

So I've been skimming the reactions of the first two episodes coming out of London and Collider/CinemaCon and elsewhere, and I know they're largely, if not exclusively, fan driven, but they're very positive. It's been said that reading reactions out of premieres is an art, and fan screenings even more so. But I have to tell ya, this is bordering on near unanimous praise. I think the sheer happiness of the tweets/reactions I'm seeing is the subtle tell about how this will go over. Now, again, still just fan reactions I've seen from the most part. And my scanning abilities for Twitter is [CLASSIFIED METHODS REDACTED] errr that is... more than a little limited. Still, initial signs are good. Even over on YT, the reaction is very positive from what I've seen. Mind since this is a binge release, how it sticks the landing is gonna enter the equation extremely rapidly. Or indeed if it peaks far too soon into the series. But the initial episodes sure do seem to capture the vibe/tone/feel of Fallout. NB: Since these are almost exclusively fan reactions, not gonna copy-n-paste them here as it really isn't all that indicative. Collider Frosty has joined the chorus, mind, but... Well... He's not exactly the harshest of graders, it's been noted.