Gavin Feng

Even many 4/5 reviews say the pace is not good. Not a good sign for general audience's reactions.

when will be the review embargo?

Marketing campaign is finally starting.

Great example. Now we can do a simple calculation. Box office profit from China for these A-level movies would be $170M * ~22% = $37.4M. And I don't think the ultimate fate of a franchise would be so different with or without these money. If your movie have $10M net loss before coming to China, you will easily hit the break-even point and become profitable. But a global blockbuster with $27.4M net profits can hardly be seen as great success. A sequel would still face big risk. That's why films like Warcraft have no follow-up. Post that period, fewer HLW blockbusters could get those stunning results here. Studios can clearly see China will be less attractive in near future. I don't expect our industry can be great under these climates. But I hope Chinese culture limitation and ban can make Hollywood great again.

Observers believe in future (5 years at least), the question is not whether China would allow more local or foreign films to secure releases; It's whether film market is still available. Culture Ministry will gather all resources the industry could apply for making propaganda film. 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) says China “will make about 10 quality films that gain box office successes and rave reviews every year and about 50 local films with ¥100M-plus box office” and will focus on "key projects". IOW, filmmakers couldn't make their own project until they finish these propaganda productions at first.

If one movie fail or struggle in most major markets, China can do nothing but slightly improve your overall finance. It never turned a money losing movie into a money making machine. At best, studio in blind confidence would greenlight a sequel like Pacific Rim 2 because they believe Chinese would be milked. But this kind of decision logic was dead long ago. You want more sequels? Making better work instead of expecting a market would save a so called "it's not that bad" movie. Chinese audience want to see more movies especially good stuff. But if cultural constraints keep going, that's it. Beijing banned K-pop years ago, so what? That industry make even more surprising works and rule the world. And talents like Peter Chan, Tony Leung went to Busan and discovered opportunities. We are good if Hollywood can make better movies after Ministry of Culture refuse them. We can watch them anyway through online channels after six weeks with no fees.

they definitely disneize the poster.

can someone give me a 4k leaked trailer?

And of course, most of those movies will be worse than Phase 4 of Marvel. Perhaps one or two could be good.

Film Bureau will have a new leader who is seen as someone knows cinema. But observers don't think he will terminate the wilderness situation. People believe he will use his knowledge to create more propaganda films. More like a Kevin Feige of CCP.

Both EVA and JK couldn’t deal with censorship.

Box office for this one doesn’t matter unless it’s in danger of losing money. What’s matter is if this one will be astonishing. In a era of CG mess, “surprising” cameos all around the world, the world need a great movie more than another money machine.

Wow, I guess we would see the new trailer tomorrow or Monday because some good people will leak it to us.

Damn I was pretty enjoying the first two AM movies. I hope they treat the third one correctly...

This is one of the few reactions that make me start to believe Marvel may make their first good movie of phase 4.

But what he said is pretty much right. You can argue some movies aren't one of those, but more and more superhero stories are becoming what he described. This happened decades ago on Japanese ACG. You can see in Dragon Ball that Goku always act like a boy, or Conan Edogawa is still a 7-year-old student after nearly 20 years. Why? Because their arcs are controlled by revenue and audience instead of the characters themselves. The story will finish as long as they get old. And studios couldn't let that happen because they don't want to lose money machine or develop a new story or character. Marvel Studios' Spider-Man trilogy is basically shaping a high school Peter Parker that Sam Raimi could do much better in just one movie. He has to make the same mistake and use the excuse of "he is just a kid" every time. The comments Cameron made were essentially saying Hollywood's business model have big problem. He also said: "You can’t think in those terms. If I brought that into every decision I make, then it’s like, 'OK, is the color that’s going to go on the back of this Ilu going to make the difference of $10 million global gross?'" Well, many people in this industry are doing these shitty things. Remember VFX artists accused Marvel of changing creative decisions without reasonable production time? All of these illustrate that Hollywood do not give creative people the respect they deserve. Businessmen like JD Payne & Patrick McKay are telling shitty stories like Rings of Power and believe they are making another "Batman Begins and The Dark Knight".

I like this

A description about the essence of MCU movies I would give -- sorry for lack of better words -- is marketing desire like porn. The reason Marvel formula could always work is that the movie just deliver what people want in a directly effective way. When I click on a porn video, I want nothing but satisfying my desire. Even though I already know the layout -- a) Flirtation; b) Non-penetrative sex; c) Penetrative sex, it still work quite well, because that's what I want. For those who go to see Marvel movies, formula is the promise of getting what they want in these movies. If studio let filmmakers do whatever they want while setting a goal of marketing desire, audience would feel dissatisfaction. Nobody want to learn anything about art while watching porn or Marvel movies. It's all about desire. So movies like Eternals couldn't work really well. Assemble is another problem. Because I'm tired of watching threesome, foursome, multipleversesome for solo hero movies. I want a sex between two persons. A more sincere and high-quality experience. I hope Marvel Studios leadership can learn about that.

Actually 190 min info is from some non-English site outside China. So the source is unclear.

My point is, for these movies, committee vision before director's vision. The best result is both studio and filmmaker share the same vision, because filmmakers can do what they're good at while studio could deliver anything they want. Is DS2 a Sam Raimi's work? My answer is yes. His style is quite distinctive like his classic movies. Is Sam Raimi a better filmmaker than Scott Derrickson? I would say yes. Sam Raimi has proven his unique and great visual storytelling ability with so many good works. But does DS2 a better movie than the previous one? I don't think so. General audience don't think it's better either. And why is that since studio had a better director on the sequel? Because committee's vision go first. I'm not sure what the creative differences between Derrickson & Marvel were, but I think the assemble models for almost every sequel of solo movie under Marvel has restricted to what the filmmakers could do. In DS2, way more heroes were brought to us. And the movie is considered as a backward step. In BP2, they will show more characters. That's why I think Coogler couldn't do much on this one. Not saying he totally lose control or his style -- because Marvel don't have to hire big names if they don't want their personal signet -- but he couldn't deliver his top talent like his previous movies. Nobody think DS2 could present Sam Raimi's filmmaking talent, right? And I think Coogler has been in same situation.

But DS2 was supposed to be a Scott Derrickson's movie? Sam Raimi was the result of committee's vesion.

I think people can reduce expectations for this one if they think Coogler can do whatever he want. I'm not saying he has no control on this. I'm saying Marvel Studios could even change the entire 3rd act of the first BP movie weeks before its release. And I think the second one would be more of a committee vision, just like DS2.

Of course. Years ago Xi even said he was a big fan of Saving Private Ryan. He went to US in 2012 and watched MI4 with US officials.

4pm for Shazam.

Doesn't matter. Joker was showed over 5 times in Zhongnanhai.