murphydog

I agree with you. I think she is much more talented than Jennifer Lawrence myself, but to each their own. Worth noting, however, is that her IMDB page shows 7 films either announced or allegedly in pre-production. Assuming she releases 1.5 films a year which is pretty much on track with J-Law/Stone as of late, that is still going to take over four years to get through, not accounting for other things in which she is rumored (like her Pirates of the Caribbean film, don't know if that is still alive) or other things that will come down the line for her in the next few years. This reminds me of the time where Jennifer Lawrence was also seemingly attached to everything in 2015-2016. McKay's Bad Blood, Spielberg's war photographer film, Ron Howard's Zelda Fitzgerald biopic, a romcom produced by Sony, and I know I'm missing a few. None of those films ended up happening. Similarly, Emma Stone has had bad luck with keeping all her good projects due to scheduling issues (having to drop Little Women because of The Favourite press obligations, dropping this Chazelle film, etc). I imagine with Margot's slate, a number of the projects will end up going to another actress or not being made at all as she winnows down her list to her actual top priorities. But without a doubt, she has the most exciting career of any actress right now, to me at least.

That's how movies film though. A one and a half minute scene with 5-6 Avengers talking takes a 15-18 hour day to film. Scarlett says a line focusing on her face, CUT! Then lets pivot to Chris Pratt reacting to that line and....CUT! And then lets pivot to RDJ saying "That's not the point" off of Scarlett's line, CUT! Now let's do the whole thing over from 15 feet away after spending hours blocking that scene and framing the shot and getting lighting right...CUT! These seamless convos are stop/start to begin with and take forever to film. Then you have the fact that a film with multiple locations is stop/start to begin with. We start our movie at Fox Studios Baja in Mexico to film the yacht scene on their giant pool for a month. Then two week break. Then we gotta move everybody to Pinewood Toronto to do a bunch of filming in the soundstages and backlot. Then a little break as we move everybody to Morocco or Jordan to capture the terrain of Mars. And then finally this isn't even accounting for delays (like Harrison Ford getting injured during The Force Awakens and them having to pause production for almost a month) or reshoots (where they have to bring everybody back nine months later to film some new scenes because they tested poorly) so you have the same scene and in theory it looks like it was happening seamlessly but some takes are from January and some are from October. Movies are inherently stop/start. The skill is making them not look like they are.

Yeah but Netflix has a different battle to win. It's not about getting additional views for Marriage Story or The Irishman. They are trying to position themselves as a place where directors can bring their most prestigious pictures. Regardless of lack of wins, to spend that money to get two prestige films all over the ballot was a good move. Two years ago they weren't in the conversation for these films, last year Roma was viewed as a one off, now the beacon is lit and any director who wants to make an awards worthy film, *especially* with a big budget and/or difficult concept that might send traditional studios running...I mean, they're at least taking a meeting with Netflix and listening to what they have to say. That's a tremendous change in just two years where Netflix was producing strictly B-movies. The money was well spent.

I mean Oscars aside, everything from the NBA to the State of the Union ratings are dropping. More and more people are simply cord cutting. Also, the Met Gala has really stolen the fashionistas and has become the premier red carpet of the year. I don't care about fashion so it doesn't really affect my viewership, but the Oscar red carpet has taken a serious back seat to that event. Lastly though I think it's the politics. Progressives don't like the Oscars because it's not diverse enough (although I also suspect they will never appease Twitter and no matter how much they try they will always find a problem), conservatives don't like the Oscars because it's too liberal, and the rest of the world doesn't like it because they don't like to be scolded by super rich people no matter the political themes. If an actor wants to make a statement these days, there are ways to get real skin in the game. Refuse to work with any director who isn't a POC or a woman, donate 90% of their paycheck *including* their backends to a preferred charity, refuse to wear any jewelry unless it's certified conflict free even if it's vintage, fly coach to their press tour instead of a private jet. (I'm only doing progressive stances since 98% of Hollywood is progressive). If anybody, even one actor, did one of the above *and stuck to it* people might treat them as a non-hypocrite and it would make 1000x more of an impact and statement than ranting when you've won an Oscar, because they've actually made a sacrifice. But of course nobody would ever do that. They'll fly private to the Oscars, work with the same old white male directors over up and comers to stay in big projects, keep all the money for themselves, and wear fur and conflict diamonds from huge designers, and then lecture average people about making sacrifices with their money and flights. It's just such a bad look for fans of both political persuasions and I don't know why nobody understands it (or at least the PR people don't understand it). EDITED: This is why Brad Pitt is a favorite of mine. Slight political joke last night aside, he works hard behind the scenes with Plan B and is a huge reason, if not the *sole* reason, why a lot of recent films and limited series featuring POC got made. 12 Years a Slave, Selma, Moonlight, Beale Street, Last Black Man in San Francisco, Americanah, The Underground Railroad, etc, Plan B was a part of all of that. He uses his influence for others to get a voice to tell their stories, and he *never* calls attention to it, instead letting the creators do the talking. You can agree or disagree with his politics, but he's actually doing work and using privilege to give opportunities and doesn't take any of the credit, vs. all the "for show" posturing everybody else does.

Happiest I've been with the bulk of the wins in a long time. Very very very happy for Bong/Parasite, Taika/JoJo, Hildur, Joaquin, Elton, etc etc etc. The ceremony itself was cringe-tastic and doubled down on everything the general public has hated about the Oscars recently. Ratings will probably be very low. The GP wants the Oscars to take themselves less seriously (Tom Hanks speech about a museum??!?) and to stop feeling scolded and berated all throughout the show. But they can't help themselves. Re: people in here upset that a foreign film won, either because they didn't want a foreign film or because they think other foreign films were more deserving, your faves can follow the tried and true formula if they want. Step 1) Premiere at TIFF/Venice or if feeling really confident buzz will last awhile premiere at Cannes. Step 2) Try to get buzz there. Step 3) Roll it out smartly. Step 4) Spend shitload of $$$$$ promoting it, especially to get multiple nominations in other categories if you want to get BP. Step 5) Get those screeners out early. Oh yeah and it's helpful, but not necessary, if the film is good. If the film, domestic or foreign, doesn't do the above, the chances go way down regardless of quality. Lupita should have been nominated, sure, but was never going to happen with a March release date, and Universal clearly spent their promo money on 1917 (plus the whole horror thing). Despite my cynicism above, I do feel like for the most part, the best won this year. Which is rare.

Or, alternatively, the mid-budget movies she's headlined are the best she's been offered. She would have been a top tier Bond girl in the Brosnan era, but the Craig era has focused on an entirely different type of woman. It's so hard for younger leads on gigantic teen television series to really cross over into Hollywood as an A-List star. Nobody young managed it from the The OC, Gilmore Girls (other than Melissa McCarthy but she's obviously not young), Glee, Vampire Diaries, Pretty Little Liars, Gossip Girl. If anything, Blake has been wayyyyy more successful than virtually any other big "young 20s" TV star from her era, and she should be proud of that. Lea Michele, Mischa Barton, and the other Gossip Girl girls would kill for her career. Only Kristen Bell (and *only* bigger in movies than Blake because of Frozen, otherwise it's really comparable) and Tessa Thompson (smaller part, also on Veronica Mars) have managed to do better in Hollywood than Blake, unless I'm forgetting another female star from that decade of teen TV.

Sure stars in the 80s and 90s could have whiffs, but even in the early 2000s, BO decisions were so different. You'd read your local newspaper film critic, and maybe watch Siskel & Ebert, and then you'd show up to the movie theater and buy a ticket to something. But if that movie was sold out, then you'd glance at the list and say, "oh I've heard of that one, that's the Will Smith movie" and you'd march in sight unseen. So star power was so important purely because it'd breed some degree of familiarity, and many decisions were made split second without knowing anything about the critical consensus on the film. It was very much "let's go see A movie" rather than "let's go see THIS movie". Fandango started changing things because you could buy a ticket ahead of time, and thus you wouldn't pick movies on a whim anymore. For me, Rotten Tomatoes *really* changed things because all of the sudden I knew which star vehicles to avoid, and which smaller films would be excellent.

Ahh gotcha. Lupita is so interesting to me because there are all these articles about how Hollywood should try to cast her more and that she isn't getting as many opportunities as white actresses, but I know of many, many "Big 6" studio films she's passed on that she could have easily done with her schedule. Most of them did not end up being good movies so she was probably in the right on most of them, but it's clear that she is being thrown a ton of stuff and Hollywood has been desperate to have her in their projects, but she is only interested in working on very select films. And her Rotten Tomatoes record for her films has been extremely good, so it may be a smart move than to take the Red Sparrow/Gangster Squad movies that J-Law and Emma Stone will take just to have a crowded schedule. So I don't know if that means she thought 355 was a better script than Bond, which would make me nervous for NTTD since Kinberg and a January dump date for 355 inspire no confidence in me for teh quality of that movie, or if she was more interested in doing an all female film. But from what I've seen of Lashana in the trailer, she's going to nail it and the role looks great.

I may be wrong here, but I believe the scheduling conflict was 355 which she signed on to after she was offered Bond. She was offered Bond first, as well as the lead role in a John Woo remake of The Killer, and was circling both seriously with her fans positive she'd be in both. And then ended up signing on to 355 instead, thus cancelling her role in both projects.

Re: Spectre, the more I watch it, the more I am convinced it wasn't the script as much as it was Lea and Christoph being totally miscast in very critical roles. Vs QOS where the problem was the script itself. From the trailers Lashana Lynch looks like she is going to absolutely nail her character, and we've seen little of Ana (which makes me think she'll be onscreen for all of ten minutes) but she's been delivering lately. Hopefully those two can offset Lea, and hopefully Christoph is relegated to one scene and Rami delivers (not really a Rami guy, at all really, but optimistic for him in this role anyway). But ultimately I don't really see Spectre affecting this one at the BO. At the end of the day, this is the final outing of a James Bond actor who had two films that I would imagine many would rank amongst the absolute best Bond films ever. And unlike Star Wars whose most recent "final entry" film suffered likely due to fans divisiveness over previous entries in the reboot, there has been a lot of room for the franchise to breath and thus even fans who were put off by Spectre will be in for NTTD because there has been a void in the market. SW released five films in between Spectre and NTTD and that, more than anything, was their fatal flaw. SW and Bond films need to float on rarefied air of "oh my God, is it that time again?" and I have a lot of confidence for NTTD five years away from Spectre where I might have been more nervous if they were only two years apart. EDITED TO ADD: Speaking of Lashana, it is INSANE to me that Lupita passed on her role for Simon Kinberg's 355. With Kinberg at the helm and a January dump release date, it looks like it might have been a very bad decision. Then again she's passed on all sorts of stuff I consider crazy and ended up in some great projects nonetheless, so maybe she knows something about NTTD script that we don't yet.

I certainly agree to a large extent, and personally I've been beyond burnt out by the MCU for a long time now and on top of that, star power guaranteeing big numbers really doesn't exist anymore. All I'm saying is that while some in this thread were correct that there isn't a Damon/Bullock level star at the helm, the aggregate collection of actors who were also in big roles in huge recent films will ensure a sense of star power even if the bulk of the actors are more A-/B+ list indie/dramatic type actors rather than the J-Laws and DiCaprios of the world. That's all they need to get the GA's attention, but the marketing direction of the film itself will make the difference between the GA being aware of the film and the GA actually buying a ticket. I feel confident Villeneuve will produce a film that will make the Dune fanbase very happy, and it's a large fanbase. But with the presumed $100M+ budget and the franchise hopes, they'll need to find a way to rope the GA in as well to make it takeoff. And that's what I'm most curious about, and the reason I can see this as anything from a colossal bomb to a huge hit.

My wife and I thought Jupiter Ascending was one of the worst films in recent memory, despite our predisposition to the tone/storylines of those kind of films and our respective crushes on Mila and Channing. While usually I can find things I loved about their films even if the film itself didn't work for me, for me that movie was completely irredeemable. It's filming in San Francisco tomorrow though. They'll be here until the 23rd per signs posted all over our downtown, with the working title "Project Ice Cream".

And even then, early marketing reactions could be misleading. Do you have a bunch of young MCU fans going apeshit over Thanos, MJ, and Dax in a trailer together (with Aquaman and Poe on top of that) but then don't show up to the movie because they perceive it as "boring" compared to the standard CB formula they've been eating up? Do trailers barely move the needle but then an older fanbase who doesn't use social media as much shows up in droves and WOM propels it to a big phenomenon film? It's going to be so fun to track. I'm not going to be sure of anything until presales start in earnest. The rest of the big films this year, it's more of a "will it hit $800M or $1B" type conversation (Bond, BW, WW) or a clear flop with no chance of redemption (Artemis, Dolittle, etc), whereas the range for this one is all over the place. If a genie from the future came in here and said, "280M WW" or "1.1B WW" I wouldn't be surprised either way. It has so many things in its favor, and so many things that make it extremely risky.

If it could happen for Blake, it would have happened by now though. She's not an Amy Adams whose talent allowed her to grow a career as she got older, she's not a Margot/J-Law/Emma who landed huge movies in their 20s, and she's not a younger Pugh or Zendaya type on the verge of a ginormous breakout. Hollywood sexism is also tied to age. Studios will throw themselves at a young ingenue type but once you hit 30 you better be an Adams/Chastain/Lupita type able to tackle challenging dramatic roles. She's 32 and even if she started filming another project tomorrow, her next film wouldn't likely be out until the second half of 2021, so most likely if nothing has been announced for her yet and thus nothing that's ready to be filmed in the next few months, she'll be 34 in 2022 when her next project comes out, with no certifiable hits to her name and no real acting talent (although a ton of charisma)...it's not looking all that promising. Which is fine. She was the lead on an enormous TV show and made bank from that, and is married to one of the highest paid actors in the business. She's not hurting for money. She'll likely continue to be employed but I think the chances of her ever landing anywhere near the top of the A-List in film is a huge stretch. Paramount recently I feel has had a habit of dumping things that didn't need to be dumped, or severely under-marketing films. Take Crawl. If they had any confidence in that film at all, it could have been far bigger than it was. Critics loved it, it got a "B" CinemaScore which is at least an "A" on the horror CinemaScore curve. It did enormously well for its budget, but if the studio understood what they had, it could have been bigger IMO. They barely marketed it at all, like they didn't understand what they had. For a studio with dwindling franchises, if they're going to take on original IP, they need to be confident in it.

That scene is exactly the same from the opening of the third Uncharted video game. Thus, is there any chance this is simply a fan made hoax, or are they planning on heavily adapting Uncharted 3's plot?