Porthos

Maybe I misremembered the year Disney decided to... cut back on their SDCC then. I do know that with both D23 and SWC in their promotion rotations they've been more... ambivalent about going balls-to-the-walls at SDCC. And I personally think that's hurt them in the long run. Another example would be Disney's... curious lack of promotion of Avatar 2 at the '22 SDCC. Turned out alright in the end, but I do think the Mouse was playing with fire a bit then. Either way, while I can see a world where CinemaCon overtakes SDCC, I don't think we're there yet.

It's just you. Or rather, last year SDCC was smack dab in the middle of *TWO* strikes and thus got kneecapped horribly. The year before Disney mostly took the year off because it had D23 incoming. And if SDCC is more geared to nerd/geek press, then this is still geared more to industry professionals. But it could be seen as the firing of the starter's gun for "con season", for lack of a better term. First real major entertainment event since Award Season and the first real look ahead for the year so it is gaining in stature, I think. Still, with all of that said, SDCC > CinemaCon, and I don't think it's that close. Maaaaaaaybe if Disney keeps boycotting/downplaying SDCC (with other studios following suit), SDCC will continue to lose more of its luster. But even so, I think there's still a rough pecking order of SDCC > CinemaCon = NYCC > Studio Specific Cons

From Variety: That's $32m right there. Been doing a little looking around but haven't seen sourcing on the other $170m-ish. I presume Phillips is getting a hefty payday. I presume the music clearance fees weren't cheap. I presume the set budget was ballooned up the wazoo. And this was in the middle of an inflationary spike. Also seen it commented that films still incur costs even if they're sitting on a shelf somewhere, without folks touching them, though the exact nature of the particulars escape me. Then there's the minor factor of, "Well, the last one did 1 billie so if I took a discount last time around, gunna make sure I get mine this time." Still, even with all of that $200m does seem... a bit on the excessive side. Or perhaps indulgent might be a better fitting term. Better hope the pigs/hogs adage doesn't rear its head!

I think what's going on is that folks are conflating three/four announcements. Aug 4th, 2022: "10 year plan" DC announcement Oct 25th, 2022: James Gunn Hiring announced Dec 14th, 2022: James Gunn Superman Movie announced/No Cavil confirmed Jan 31st 2023: DC (soft) reboot announced. with each other as well as with all of the internet gossip/rumormongering that was going on (for example, a Jan 4th story from Variety looking back at Black Adam and mentioning a rumored incoming reboot). Once James Gunn's hiring was announced people were going to want to know what his plans for DC were, especially with people still snarking about DC's 10 year plan announcement so fresh in their minds. When it became clear that Henry Cavil wasn't going to be in Gunn's plans, those questions became even more intense. Why, exactly, would WB/DC keep shtum about their future plans? Especially since the longer you wait to start casting and pre-production, the later the films will come out. If one will pardon the simile, WB was between a rock and a hard place here in how to execute the transition.

The (soft) reboot announcement (Jan 31, 2023) didn't come until long after Black Adam left the theaters. Rumors were flying around about just how big of a change all of this was gonna be, yes, but that's not the same thing. As for "jeopardizing [] the entirety of DCEU's 2023 slate"? when was Gunn supposed to announce his plans? Especially with the rumor mill going in overdrive. After The Flash? Blue Beetle? Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom? Transitions like this one are never gonna be executed seamlessly or without jankiness. That's one of the problems with having an interconnected set of films: When one decides to radically change plans, the things already made/very far along the tracks can get hit depending on the magnitude of the changes.

Already addressed this in my prior posts but to expand on them it seems to me having a civil war be the catalyst for the tale is the important part here, not the why of the civil war in the first place. It seems to me that this whole argument over this topic, implicit or other wise, is that Garland has nothing to say about contemporary politics, with some going as far as to say as he is someone who is afraid of offending anyone because of it. I'm saying, why not actually see if the movie makes commentary about it before judging it. This includes the ever dreaded subtextual argument. And even if the movie isn't making an overt or implicit argument about Contemporary Culture Wars, which I do think has a pretty decent chance of being true, do think that maybe we should actually wait and see if the movie has anything else to say before judging it. That's really been the thrust of most of my arguments here.

I'm sorry, what? This is reaching by a lot. It says clear as day "main villain". Hell, by implication, that means there are secondary or tertiary villains. It is absolutely not James Gunn's fault if people decide to set an Olympic Record in Jumping to Conclusions. C'mon now.

Because it's still about war? Just more at the 3 foot level than the 30,000 foot one? ... Be interested in hearing what @BoxOfficeZ has to say about all of this kerfuffle considering he's actually seen it. Without getting into spoilers how important is the background of the conflict to the story being told? How much sense does it make within the context of the film? That sort of thing. Just speaking for myself and what I've gleaned from conversations/observations, I strongly suspect though that the reason this is about war is that war is something rather foreign to Americans... on American soil. Disasters, man made or ecological, are a well trod path for storytellers within America. War on American soil? Especially because of internal conflicts? Not nearly as much. War within American soil that had an internal cause sets up all sorts of dramatic avenues and things that can be examined that something like neither Independence Day (foreign invaders, if alien) nor The Day After Tomorrow (ecological disaster) can really portray even if it doesn't necessarily cover the actual politics of how it came to be. The brother against brother story is literally a tale as old as time, and one that has all sorts of stories that can be told. Some care about why kinfolk hate each other. Others, not so much. Hell, maybe Garland intentionally chose an unusual choice of combatants because he wanted to focus on a different story than one that the current rural/urban divide within the US wouldn't lend itself easily too. It could be that he's not so much afraid of alienating people in as much as he's not interested in telling that particular story and is telling a different one about The Horrors of War. ... Or not. Could be giving Alex Garland way too much credit. As said, be interested in hearing what BOZ has to say in regards to this angle of the story.

What if the why of the civil war wasn't actually important to the story Garland wants to tell? Is that really so hard to get past?

That they should be able to promote more than one Major IP at a time? I sure as hell hope so! (NOTE: Solo did NOT fail because it came so soon after TLJ) ((Yes, not the thread, but been feeling like I need to push back against this so-called wisdom much more than I have been))

(No Canucks Allowed; sorry @Daxtreme )

BTW, why am I making so many comments calling John Fisher and co inept? Oh, no idea. None, really, come to think of it. (amateur hour is another phrase that describes the Fisher/Keval A's)

Move to Las Vegas has already been approved. Main roadblock right now, besides John Fisher's ineptitude, is local backlash in Vegas. If folks there can throw a spanner in the works, and that's a big big if, then who the hell knows what happens. I know one of the local teachers unions in Nevada is trying to get the stadium funding on the ballot (either locally or state), but how feasible/likely that actually is, I haven't looked into. Define "impressive". Besides, the main stumbling block for any sort of expansion in Sacramento is the same as it ever was: in that Sacramento still doesn't have the ***CORPORATE*** deep pockets that modern sports leagues crave like little else. Having an investor group that's willing to shell out $2b (with a "b") and have local officials be willing to spend nearly $1b (with a "b") on a brand new stadium here is... Unlikely. Yes, there is the Forever Project in the Railyards, which is about the only place in the area I could see a new stadium being built. But lining up the deep deep deeeeeeeeeeeep pockets to get a successful bid on an expansion team is... Well, I ain't holding my breath. Only reason I'm even entertaining it as a super remote possibility is that John Fisher really *IS* so inept that the whole Vegas deal could come down crashing like a house of cards and Vivek is able to somehow pick up the pieces. Still would have the teeny tiny problem of a new stadium, but first things first.

*rereads* Oh, I think I misunderstood you. You were pointing out that they were calling TofJ the first season and thus by implication the second. Got it. My bad. FWIW, I'm seeing places like IGN and Deadline call this the second season. Plus there's this: So I guess the umbrella title, should there be more of them, would be Tales of the X?

Considering the filmmaker is British, he might not be expected to have an... instinctual grasp on such things. However I get the vibe that the background reasons for why war breaks out in Civil War are relatively unimportant to the story Alex Garland wants to tell, which presumably is the human cost of war. Only a vibe I'm getting mind as I'm relatively checked out on this movie. One of the reasons I've been saying we should wait until the movie comes out before... critiquing it/saying it has nothing to say is that it might be saying something not about the current political situation in the US/West, but that, to coin a phrase, War is Hell. And stories exploring Hell are as old as time itself. Or to put it another way: How someone got to Hell might not be as important to a storyteller as what they do inside Hell/navigate Hell once they get there. (now if you're just talking about marketing, fair does. But then again, it sure is driving conversation, inn't?)

I attempted to bring some normalcy at any rate! (says something about the State of the Times [as well as the cyclical nature of things] that posting new SW content is an attempt to bring down the temperature of a thread)

True, but... Well I know these pressers are vetted to the nth degree, I've seen enough casual language (or, if we want to stay on brand "from a certain point of view") slip in from comms teams operating under incomplete information that until I see hard confirmation one way or the other, still gonna leave this open as a possibility. Still, that does add a bit of weight to the idea that this is separate, if related to, Tales of the Jedi. EDIT: Misread what you were saying, see post below. 🙂

Welp. Follow the money indeed: A's reach deal to play in Sacramento while waiting for Las Vegas stadium Been rumored for so long that I still can't quite believe it happened. Gonna be.... interesting to see how it all plays out. lol Couldn't even call yourselves the "California Athletics"? Whatever.

Been quickly looking around the net and right now I do not know if this is the mentioned at last year's Celebration second season of Tales of the Jedi or not. I suspect it is, as the wording from Dave Filoni about more Tales of is rather... vauge: And while the official website called it at the time a second season of Tales of the Jedi, as did the banner art, someone might have been fibbing at the time to keep the surprise. Or not. Suppose we'll find out soon enough.

Not sure if it's worth a new thread, so.... Hello, Barriss. Long time, no see.

Tales of the Jedi style follow up including the long demanded continuation of the Barriss Offee storyline.

Hmmmmm...... Out of idle curiosity, what do we all think of using Nope as a comp for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (please, no jokes). That one had an even longer pre-sale window and while horror is gonna be more backloaded the Peele name factor did have a very small amount of frontloading. And as something fairly close to a monster movie, or at least closer to the Jurassic World/RotB end of things, KPotA should be more backloaded than a typical sequel fan property... Well... Let's just say I took a look around town just now and it's exactly five tickets behind Nope at T-36 (KPotA: 105 tickets sold | Nope: 111 tickets sold). Nope had been on sale for four more days as well. Do think the extra four days of sales will cripple any usefulness out of a JWD comp, though that might normalize somewhat quickly. Plus PLF ONLY is, pardon the phrase, throwing a bit of a monkey wrench into things. And Nope is literally the best case scenario for something I have this far out. Still... Want to get folks thoughts on what might be a good comp as I have indeed been tracking this on the side just in case (though not a full track — at least not yet).

Um... you may not know, but Jake Lloyd is suffering from schizophrenia. Well, suffering's not the right word, but neither is "recovering". On reflection, I suppose "dealing with" might be the best phrase I can come up with in a moment's notice. Here's the latest on how he's doing and how he's getting better with the help of his family and a lot of hard work on his part.

You guys really can't help telling on yourselves, can you?