LawrenceBrolivier

They're absolutely a superminority. I don't know which line in this thread is more confusing.... the idea that Endgame is underperforming because fans didn't like it... or the fact people are still talking about Mortal Kombat. Next time you're talking to somebody about fans, and they use the phrase "well a lot of fans think...." step back and take in the larger perspective. Because the person using it isn't lying or anything like that.... but they are being a little unfair. Because if 30 million people all watch a thing, and 2% of that 30 million thought it was lame.... 2% of 30 million is still by any reasonable definition.... a LOT of people. It's 600k people! So you could be talked into believing that lot of people need to be considered carefully. This happens with the media all the time when they write stories about some stupid petition or some angry twitter thread that 20k people glanced at. But that also ignores the 29.4 million other people who loved it. Yes, "a lot of fans" think one thing. But a much bigger lot completely disagrees.... Unfortunately, we almost all stop at "well, a lot of people think this!" and forget about perspective.

uh

But my point was that Disney isn't really replacing them, and in fact has always had at least 1 or 2 subsidiaries focused specifically on making them.... like they do now with Fox, Searchlight, and Hulu. My other point is that you're talking about a narrow range of moviegoers.... 40 to 60yr old people, and my question is how big a slice of the pie do you think that really is to justify someone like Disney changing their strategy significantly to appeal to them.... actually couldn't you argue that Disney buying Fox IS that exact change of strategy? Pixar was killing computer animation, so they bought pixar. Disney needed male demos, so they bought Marvel and Star Wars.... the "Grownup audience" you seem to be talking about is at home streaming for the most part. So Disney bought Fox and Hulu. More grownups who go out to the movies seem to prefer going to movies not specifically aimed directly at them. That doesnt mean the other grownups dont exist.... or that grownups begin at age 40 and everyone else is still a teenager of some sort.... but if youre wondering why movies aimed at 40 to 60yr olds dont get as much love as Avengers or Star Wars... the answer seems obvious.

I dont understand why youre setting the bar for "adult" at 40-60... people are generally considered grownups way before then... and how big do you think the moviegoing audience in that age range really is? They dont have to line up around the block. They just have to go. it seems weird to me that we wouldnt consider 25-50 as an "adult" demographic

exactly.... there is no way something as aggressively aimed specifically at teen boys like Mortal Kombat is going to make more than Pikachu... especially with an R rating. To be frank, it's too ugly, gross, dumb, cheesey, and corny to appeal beyond its built in audience. That's why I said they had to make fun of themselves and make it a campy Deadpool-like cartoon in order to work. General audiences wont get on board otherwise. Mortal Kombat without self-parody is basically a dumber Batman v Superman. Mortal Kombat is cool as a video game because you're playing it. Mortal Kombat as a story is basically just a bunch of edgy Garbage Pail Kids stuck in a bad D and D campaign.

I never said there wasn't an audience for adult-targeted films. I just said it was smaller. Stats seem to show most adults prefer to go to the teen-oriented films.... that doesn't mean adult-oriented films can't also break out. but a large % of grownups going to movies are mostly going to see stuff aimed more at kids and teens. The original question was about Disney and how they're ignoring adult audiences, and I pointed out that historically they've never really done that, and right now I wouldn't say there doing that either.... but it also makes sense if you're trying to hit the biggest home runs you can, that you wouldn't focus as much on making 20 mid-budget grownup movies a year as opposed to 10 huge budget Star Wars and Marvel and Pixar movies How many people here are grown adults, and how many of us are dedicating a huge % of our free time to talk about superheroes and pokemon.... There's your answer. I don't think there's anything wrong with that because theres still a ton of stuff for people who arent interested in superheroes and pokemon and mortal kombat.... its just that most of it is on streaming.

Unless Mortal Kombat is a Deadpool-like live action cartoon that is equal parts comedy and action, its going to flop..... it will need to make fun of itself at every opportunity because general audiences will never take any of it seriously. Just saying the title out loud will make people sound dumb..... even if they do make a good and on purpose campy R rated movie out of it, it still probably wont clear 400 million worldwide.

I can see why it'd look that way but I dont know that I agree very much. The only time Rotten Tomatoes ever affects box office is if the consensus is really, really terrible. Even then that doesnt matter too much. Everyone hated Glass but that still made a lot of money.... relatively that is. Its simply not enough people looking at RT to make that big of a dent. It just seems more important than it is because the tiny % of us who do pay attention to it includes hacks churning out content for movie sites.... and THOSE dont get paid attention to as much as we like to think, either. Next time youre at a family dinner or a reunion or something, start talking to your favorite uncle about slashfilm or collider and watch as they look at you like you started speaking babylonian.

People didn't avoid Dumbo because of the bad reviews. They didn't avoid Pete's Dragon because of the good reviews. They didn't go to either movie because it didn't look good and nobody really cared about those IPs. They gave Aladdin mediocre reviews and it didn't matter because Fresh Prince + Aladdin was all they needed. They're going to Lion King no matter what a critic says because to so many folks it's "Live Action" which means its automatically better than a cartoon, its got Beyonce in it, and they love the Circle of Life. Rotten Tomatoes isnt as important as we like to think it is, because most people going to the movies dont ever even look at it. Even when stuff is getting review-bombed there, when people are all involved in their conspiracy theories about sold out critics and shills and corrupt journalists, its like less than 1% of the audience responding, and maybe 5% of the audience looking at it. 95% of the rest of us buying tickets didnt even care enough to look.

I think the main question is why should most studios care about "adult movies" as we've been defining them when it seems pretty obvious the adults in question don't care much either. What are most adults going to? The teenager stuff! The superhero movies.... the young adult adaptations..... the horror movies..... the adults aren't going to theater at all because they're all like "I'll wait for Netflix." That's an exaggeration of course but not by much.... The reason other studios make more "adult" movies is because they're cheaper to make, and its the best way for them to compete against the Juggernaut of Disney. Disney is over there making billions with every swing, so we're just going to make a bunch of smaller movies instead and serve what audience isnt just waiting for Netflix. Its not even a question of competing realy.... but just survivel. I think a lot of these studios know its not even a competition anymore. They just dont want to go out of business or get bought. Speaking of Netflix Disney is now in control of adult stuff like Handmaid's Tale and Castle Rock on Hulu. If you want "adult" stuff from Disney its probably a good bet to look at its streaming networks. Disney has historically gone out of its way to have one if not two divisions dedicated solely to making grownup movies. Theyve got 2 now. 3 if you want to count Hulu. I bet they're going to give Ridley Scott what he wants to finish his Alien prequel trilogy for example editing to add: Lion King is going to be the definition of critic-proof.

Jupter Ascending vs John Carter Tron Legacy vs Ready Player One Oatmeal vs Gruel Toast vs Saltine Crackers Napping vs Snoozing

I didn't ignore it.... I just don't think it's difficult. If they could do it in the comics for 10yr olds in the 60's.... and they could do it in the cartoons for 10yr olds in the 90's.... and they could do it for teenagers in a live action movie for 20 years starting in the 00's.... Marvel, the studio who figured out how to take the Guardians of the Galaxy and put them on screen without years of buildup, can probably do that for the X-men too. Most audiences are capable of understanding the concept by now, which makes it easier to explain in a couple lines when they put it in a movie later.

stan-ing is weird, period. But the idea that Disney is averse to making adult films is pretty incorrect. Over the course of its history there's been Touchstone Miramax Hollywood Pictures And now: 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight. Plus, adult oriented or not, many of the films Disney pays for are very well made. There aren't a lot of movies for grownups that are as thoughtful and heartfelt as much of Pixar's output, for example.

My first paragraph was about Stuber. The second is about Hobbs and Shaw. Do you honestly think Hobbs and Shaw won't make a ton of money? That's all I was really talking about in the first place.

People like those 2, they seem to like those 2 bouncing off each other, the trailers are getting good reactions. I don't think it'll be a mega-hit or anything. But I can see it being a sleeper. Hobbs and Shaw's disgustingness aside, it's a Fast and Furious spinoff with none of Vin Diesel's weird charisma weighing it down, and all the best parts of the last 3 movies. That movie is going to be pretty successful. It's basically this generation's Tango and Cash, but it'll probably be ACTUALLY good instead of "good for a bad 80s movie."

you think that's gross, I also think Stuber has a chance at being a solid sleeper hit

Disney to the rescue. Spidey (Disney wont be getting any of that SPECIFIC money themselves though) Toy Story 4 The Lion King Frozen 2 Star Wars Plus there's still It Chapter 2 and Hobbs and Shaw, too.

This is the easiest way to do it. They even had Rocket point out some big energy wave covering the globe didnt they?

Didn't Feige say it would be at least five years? It's not like Marvel is hurting for scheduled content as it is. They still have to get Dr. Doom introduced too.

Of course they can. It worked just fine in the '60s, for example. The idea that in 2025 audiences would need to be "warmed up" to the notion of the X-Men doesn't make any sense. If you can introduce all the Guardians of the Galaxy in a single movie, or all the Eternals even... you can introduce some X-Men.

Will won't be on fire when Gemini Man wets the bed later this year. And MIB lost its way when the first sequel wasnt all about Will Smith and Linda Fiorentino. Its the 90s version of Ghostbusters.... a franchise that probably shouldnt have been a franchise, because you'll never be able to get close to what made that first one so good. Lightning in a bottle. Trying to retrofit a formula onto something that was successful because it completely refused to be formula is a recipe for disappointment.

And he built DOFP off what Vaughn already had in place and planned. It was giftwrapped for him. He came back because he needed a hit and he basically swooped in and shortcut to Vaughn's endgame. And even then he didn't live up to the full potential of it, and when he held onto it, he ruined it (Apocalypse) I also didn't say X2 was a bad movie. I just didn't name it as one of the best, because it isn't anymore. It's a good entry in a mediocre franchise. The 4 movies I listed are the 4 best films. Singer only directed 1 of them, and his status as a trash human being aside, his embarrassment at making comic book movies hurt the franchise. And looking back at his history, its probably safe to say that Usual Suspects aside, he was never a great director.... just pretty good at best. Blaming the writer makes some sense but everyone should know by now that whatever the writer wrote before it got to the set is almost never what gets made. That's why the best scripts are so remarkable... if you managed to write something so strong it survives the mangling its guaranteed to get, you did a good job. I figure if you're going to praise the director when it goes right you need to also ding him when it goes wrong. Its not like directors wont just change something in the script the second they dont like it anyway. I'm not a Kinberg fan but if it comes to a question of who is more responsible between him and Singer.... I'm taking the guy who bailed on Last Stand, screwed up Superman Returns, and got fired from Bohemian Rhapsody

I'm sure people cared, it's just X-Men came into Hollywood severely mismanaged and left that way.... It's successes were almost always in spite of itself. People would have cared MORE if it hadn't: #1: Started under an executive who looked down on the property, #2: Was given to a director who was always sort of embarrassed by the property #3: Had its budgets constantly messed with #4: Was almost always being meddled with by executives It's best movies (First Class, Logan, Days of Future Past, Deadpool) all came after leadership at the studio changed and directors were allowed to make films that meant something to them.... so long as they agreed to a lower budget. Letting Singer back in the building was basically all she wrote. Everything he touches eventually turns to trash the longer you let him hold onto it. The X-Men's biggest problem as a film series is that it was never defined by what it was, but by what it WASN'T. Eventually the rest of the industry got over being embarrassed about superheroes, and X-Men & Fox never did. If anything limited the franchise, it was that.

Alita always looked bad.