RRA

Don't tease me.

Certainly folks from emerging foreign territories have regaled us with anecdotes about how SW doesn't make jack crap in those markets. No history with that brand, and what they've seen since 2015 hasn't exactly made them want to sign up. Contrast that with Fast & Furious and spandex movies, etc. That's the biggest question about this era of SW movies. Are they making new fans or just servicing (or at this point annoying) the old ones? Because then this is a problem brewing before TLJ (the scapegoat for many folks) and....I don't know how you would fix that unless you put out new (like actually NEW) SW properties that does connect with those folks not into SW before or something.

This will sound nuts considering my rep regarding the DCEU, but.....at least the DCEU, their primary problem was easy to target: most of their movies sucked. SW might be in a tougher position. With SW, as Empire City pointed out, TLJ had really good reviews. Even SOLO aka "the movie nobody asked for" still garnered OK reviews? Certainly not a critical disaster. Yet there is a problem in Star Wars land, but what exactly *are* the problems? It's easier to tackle problems or try to anyway if you have an idea of what went wrong.

Reminds me of in a recent weekend thread when people wanted me to admit the DCEU movies pre-JL were hits, which I found silly. They were on paper. But they didn't make the money WB expected and well, consequences happened. I had trouble making some folks understand that concept.

DCEU = one financial dud (JL) Disney SW = one financial dud (Solo)

well if both movies cost (using the IW budget as we know it) 400 at upper range of known reports, that's 800 million and nothing has been said about marketing costs. These movies are sure expensive.

Difference is SW fanbase (which is fragmented like hell) isn't fueled by a persecution complex.

Reminds me when that BVS rumor about the $400 million budget arose and some fans stuck to the studio line that it really cost $250 million (not including ads), though who's keeping to that fairy tale now? I think its common consensus now that at the least it was somewhere in the 300s. Regardless enough allegedly to break even theatrically despite the disappointing box office. A lot of these rumors, there is some truth to them. Think of how Avengers 3/4, Bleeding Cool reported originally that it would together cost a billion. I found that insane at the time. That said, IW's budget is 300-400 depending the source and even the Russos admitted it cost around $350-450K(!) per shooting day and it did go over budget. So who know?

These talks about budgets confirms another wrinkles that the current SW movies are indeed the new DCEU when we're debating how much they really cost and thus how much profit (or loss) they made.

Let me get this straight: UPGRADE did $4.4 million from 1,457 screensACTION POINT did $2.3 million from 2,032 screens Yes I know Paramount (wisely) dumped AP, but still....holy crap.

Just wait for the Christopher Robin porno parody

It’s basically cyberpunk DEATH WISH.

Thanks to Marvel marketing them (backed by their brand name power) making audiences go from (1) wtf? to (2) who the hell? to (3) OK I want to see this. Funny enough it's like STAR WARS back in the day. Nobody at start of 1977 would've predicted throwback space opera/fantasy would be the biggest hit that year and make people realize yeah secretly they've been craving something like this all along and didn't know it.

You make JP3 sound more awesome than it really is.

That's nice. Also I like how "popcorn films" is a diplomatic putdown. You know you can make a quote "popcorn film" and still make a great movie, right? I thought BP and IW were both quite exceptional entertaining films for their respective spectrum. (Honestly you can make the argument for how both were successful in ways that TLJ was striving for, but they did it better.) Their ambitions are to be blockbuster action films, yet I got more out of them as both a cinephile and as a person than I do many Best Picture Oscar winning movies. I liked TLJ and will defend it when merited, but when people go pretentious and make it more than what it is (which of course is pulp-inspired space opera with laser swords and cool spaceships) then that's where I tune out. Hell at times such folks pull the "it's too dense for its detractors" and I get deja vu of DCEU fans saying similar things after MOS/BVS. Like what fan wants a fandom they're part of to fall into that intellectual dead end?

It's crazy how MCU has grown in popularity over the years, especially in those growing Asian markets. I never would've thought MCU would eclipse SW on the Nerd Totem Pole, but here we are....

It got terrible reviews but I enjoyed the last one. That bank heist (literally a bank is stolen!) in the 1st act was one of the great movie sequences of 2017.

It's OK, just bland. Like JW to be honest. LOST WORLD might be Spielberg's worst directed movie.

To be fair who exactly was begging Marvel for GOTG and Ant-Man movies before they came out?

TFA was decent, but in terms of scope IW was superhero LOTR

Or maybe it’ll just be set in 1984 and be another recent excuse for Hollywood to indulge in 80s nostalgia? sometimes a cigar is just a cigar

Sly knocking of BVS and WW there.

Soviets boycotting L.A. Olympics?

So it’ll be Atomic Blonde but without the nudity and with (probably) inferior action scenes? upside: a much more coherent plot

Its OK, you can say the WW scene did it better than those two that most people struggle to remember.