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Ken

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Posts posted by Ken

  1. I don't really want to add to this debate any more, so I'll just give my opinions really quickly:

    Marvel still has potential to produce crowdpleasers, it just vastly depends on the character. Only the next Avengers films will be the ones to determine, once and for all, if the post-Endgame strategy was worth it. Once that's over with, then the time is right for X-Men's comeback.

    DC has more potential than ever before, but it's really tough to say if it'll work out this early on, 'cause their current Phase One film lineup is even more laidback and experimental than Marvel's early phases were.

    Sony's SUMC is the one that really isn't doing any favors. Their plan is to pair up a somewhat recognizable actor with a random character who can't sustain a full feature and expect high results. And their big Avengers-style team up event seems to be...what, exactly? A big brawl with Spider-Man? Something else entirely?

     

    But in order for the comic book superhero film bubble to truly burst: something else would have to come in and take its place. 

  2. I felt like sharing something that's been on my mind.
    Just to be clear, I really enjoy Volume 2 a lot: I think it's one of the best examples in recent history of a strong sequel, and it solidified this series as Gunn's franchise. Yet I also remember that the reaction to it back in 2017, while mostly very positive, was kind of divisive (obviously not to the same extent as another sci-fi sequel that year). 'Cause of this, I can't help but wonder if that film would have had a worse reception if it came out now. 

    Think about some of the criticisms, do any of these sound familiar?

    • This one had too many characters, and not enough got the depth they deserved. Also, some of my favorites from the last film were absent with no explanation.
    • There was WAY too many action sequences and CG VFX, especially the third act. They should have trimmed some of them down. [Also, Dairy Queen's inclusion was accused of being product placement.]
    • Too many good actors "wasted". They killed off Russell's Ego, Debicki didn't have much to do, Stallone & others were only in it for a few minutes.
    • Too much bad humor! Every serious moment was undercut by a joke immediately afterwards!
    • They did nothing to set up Infinity War! No Thanos, no soul stone, are the heroes on Earth going to even acknowledge Ego's destruction in any of the upcoming films? 

    Obviously, this wasn't the first time a Marvel film got critiques like these, but is the film really worthy of a high merit, or were people more easily accepting back then? Are the films really that much worse now? To me, it feels like a film that could get away with an 85% RT and A CinemaScore back then would now have like a 69% and B with how much restless people are now.

     

    And if Volume 2, The Suicide Squad, and Peacemaker didn't make enough people think that Gunn went too far, what could Volume 3 do to tick audiences off?

  3. 40 minutes ago, WittyUsername said:

    I remember that back when the first Shazam came out, Johnson did a video on his Instagram where he congratulated it on opening at number one. He didn’t seem to mind being associated with the character at the time, especially since his production company was producing the movie. I guess something must have changed for him in between movies, but I can’t imagine what. 
     

    Maybe he just felt he needed to be the face of his own big franchise, like how Vin Diesel is the face of Fast & Furious? 

    I also remember last year he made a video talking about Super-Pets and BA's release date changes, but nothing about Shazam moving up from June 2023 to December 2022. 

    And then both BA & Shazam were at Comic-Con, and there wasn't even an attempt at cross-pollination. It's pretty obvious he felt Billy Batson was beneath him.

    At least he and Gadot still have Red Notice, I guess?

  4. I think the original idea, circa 2019, was to do something like Legendary's MonsterVerse:

    1st Shazam (like Godzilla)

    Black Adam (like Skull Island)

    2nd Shazam (like King of the Monsters)

    Black Adam v Shazam: We All Live in a Justice Society

     

    But somewhere along the line, Johnson decided a fight with Superman would rake in a lot more cash and make him look cooler, and that's what left Shazam 2 feeling empty. Without seeing the actual credits myself, I can't find any proof that Johnson even had a producing credit on it.

    • Like 1
  5. If this article from 2010 is to be believed: if WB didn't hire SnyderMan of Steel could have been directed by: 

    Jonathan Liebesman

    Duncan Jones (!)

    Matt Reeves (!!)

    Tony Scott (!!!)

    They also approached GDT, but even if he wasn't working on ATMOM at the time, I don't think he would have done it. Some of the directors on that list could have also given Goyer's script a rewrite. We all were cheated.

     

    • Like 1
  6. For reference's sake, when this movie was greenlit at the end of 2019, the superhero movie calendar looked like this:

     

    2020

    Feb-Birds of Prey 

    Mar-Bloodshot (from Valiant: remember that?!)

    Apr-The New Mutants

    May-Black Widow

    Jun-Wonder Woman

    Jul-Morbius

    Oct-Venom

    Nov-Eternals

     

    2021

    Feb-Shang-Chi

    May-Doctor Strange

    Jun-The Batman

    Jul-Spider-Man

    Aug-The Suicide Squad

    Nov-Thor

    Dec-Black Adam

     

    2022

    Feb-Untitled Marvel

    Apr-THIS MOVIE ON THE 1st and Spider-Verse on the 8th

    May-Black Panther (when Boseman was expected to star) and Super-Pets

    Jul-The Flash and Untitled Marvel 

    Oct-Untitled Marvel

    Dec-Aquaman

     

    If the following year didn't mess everything up, I wonder if this movie would've stood a better chance or not. (And on an unrelated note, I also wonder if the current complicated MCU feelings would've still occurred).

  7. Anyone here remember that time around 2015 when Universal/Working Title was planning their own Little Mermaid adaptation with Chloe Grace Moretz starring and Richard Curtis writing (right after Sofia Coppola dropped out from directing)? I wonder what it would have been like if that got made: it could have been Favreau's The Jungle Book vs. Serkis's Mowgli all over again.

  8. I've noticed a lot lately that whenever a sequel flops or underperforms, people complain it's because the marketing had no hook. 

    For someone like me who never got around to watching the first movie, is the hook for an adult audience supposed to be "Shazam and all his siblings must fight Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu"?

    Seems to me like WB is aiming more for a family-friendly-but-still-PG-13 market (like with the Jumanji films and some of Disney's live action fare).

    • Like 2
  9. 2 hours ago, jedijake said:

    So.....that was horribly sarcastic.

     

    But truthfully, the underwater scenes in MPR were not that atrocious. There have been several different ways to do underwater scenes. We have that one. We also have Aquaman which weren't bad for the purpose it needed. Of course there's AWOW which is its own league. But even then, you have to really put all these through a fine toothed comb to find absolutely drastic differences. The only ones that really stood out as being dark were BPWF (I admit that was a weak point but they only had so long to work on it) and POTC:OST which, of course, Marshall also did.

    Sorry that I was unclear: I was actually being honest about MPR. Only the second sentence was a joke, because it seemed funny to me how visually different they both were despite coming from the same director. (This is why I try to make more sincere posts than comedic ones, since I can't do it as effortlessly as others.)

    Personally, I don't really have any particular strong feelings about how this film looks, mostly because very little of it has been revealed so far. 

    • Like 1
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