Barbie | July 21, 2023 | Warner Bros | Margot Robbie is Barbie. Ryan Gosling is Ken. | Second most profitable movie of 2023

[ChipDerby]

26 minutes ago, joselowe said:

You mean Mattel nailed the marketing. Let’s see how Warner Markets their next films or if Mattel deserves the credit for this? Apparently they split the costs 50/50 but Mattel allowed branding partnerships with different companies for this movie.

 

Yeah! WB is known to be terrible at marketing their films! It's a known fact!

[Johnny Tran]

30 minutes ago, joselowe said:

You mean Mattel nailed the marketing. Let’s see how Warner Markets their next films or if Mattel deserves the credit for this? Apparently they split the costs 50/50 but Mattel allowed branding partnerships with different companies for this movie.

 

Warner Bros. has had a tremendous marketing team for a long time.   I'm not sure who is there now so we can only credit Zaslav's team. 

 

Mattel isn't distributing the movie.  They are a partner sure but WB is the studio.  They get the credit. 

[ZattMurdock]

 

[ThomasNicole]

This type of discourse sounds like misoginy to me 

 

Some guys should just think, the fact that many indie darlings like Zhao and Gerwig are happy to jump to huge movies is because they´re hacks that doesn´t care about art or this type of career is what always happened, it just didn´t happen to women before?

 

You can count how few directors debuted doing huge movies, nearly all of them started doing smaller stuff before going bigger. Just to keep the discussion in the Barbenheimmer weekend: Nolan sell out because he decided to do a comic book movie just 7 years after dropping a nearly self made indie movie? 

 

You don´t see this type of headlines to Nolans or Villeneuves, but you see for Patty Jenkins, Ava Duvernay, Chloe Zhao and Gretta Gerwig. And when you see man being accused of sell out, is usually black man like Barry Jenkins.  

 

The whole thing just seems like minorities as always having to face way higher standards, they just can´t do a big movie without pass though scrutiny.

[MikeQ]

2 minutes ago, ThomasNicole said:

The whole thing just seems like minorities as always having to face way higher standards, they just can´t do a big movie without pass though scrutiny.

 

Welcome to every aspect of life for minorities.

 

(i.e. you nailed it)

 

Peace,

Mike

[Fanboy]

Gerwig was always destined to be a mainstream director. Lady Bird might have technically been an indie movie but its a commercial film through and through that almost everyone can enjoy. Someone like Wes Anderson who has a big enough fanbase to keep making "indie films" does so because if he made a big budget IP it would flop for being too quirky for mainstream audiences. 

[LegionWrex]

21 minutes ago, Fanboy said:

Gerwig was always destined to be a mainstream director. Lady Bird might have technically been an indie movie but its a commercial film through and through that almost everyone can enjoy. Someone like Wes Anderson who has a big enough fanbase to keep making "indie films" does so because if he made a big budget IP it would flop for being too quirky for mainstream audiences. 

^^^This. There is nothing wrong with being a populist director. Many of the all time greats are populists (Spielberg, Lean, Nolan, Carpenter).

[joselowe]

Ok just came back from my Barbie blowout screening. Probably one of the best movies I’ve seen this decade so far! Definitely don’t really see any acting Oscar noms but Greta did a great job, the movie is visually stunning and hilarious! I don’t think it was as risky as some critics made it out to be but it’s definitely a great film! 

[redfirebird2008]

2 minutes ago, LegionWrex said:

^^^This. There is nothing wrong with being a populist director. Many of the all time greats are populists (Spielberg, Lean, Nolan, Carpenter).

Hitchcock, Capra, Curtiz are some examples from the classic era. 

[WittyUsername]

Gerwig is free to direct whatever she wants. If she wants to direct a superhero movie or a Star Wars movie, that would be her prerogative. I’m not sure if it would be fulfilling for her as a creative, but she did help write an upcoming Disney live action remake, so it doesn’t seem that she’s particularly interested in being an indie filmmaker. 

[MovieMan89]

I mean you can look at a movie like Eternals and go “was this a paycheck thing?” for Zhao given how mid that was. But with this, it seems blatantly obvious from reviews that there was a clear artistic vision and something Gerwig wanted to say driving the whole thing. Also with a situation like Eternals, it’s hard to know if the vision was just way better than the execution or maybe she wasn’t able to actually execute her creative vision without studio interference. So still not necessarily a “sell out” move. 

[WittyUsername]

2 minutes ago, MovieMan89 said:

I mean you can look at a movie like Eternals and go “was this a paycheck thing?” for Zhao given how mid that was. But with this, it seems blatantly obvious from reviews that there was a clear artistic vision and something Gerwig wanted to say driving the whole thing. Also with a situation like Eternals, it’s hard to know if the vision was just way better than the execution or maybe she wasn’t able to actually execute her creative vision without studio interference. So still not necessarily a “sell out” move. 

I don’t think Eternals was a paycheck thing. I do think Zhao genuinely tried to make something special. There’s just a limit to how far you can do something like that with the 26th movie in a massive shared universe. The fact that she was inexperienced with such a thing perhaps didn’t help. 

[ZattMurdock]

1 hour ago, ThomasNicole said:

This type of discourse sounds like misoginy to me 

 

Some guys should just think, the fact that many indie darlings like Zhao and Gerwig are happy to jump to huge movies is because they´re hacks that doesn´t care about art or this type of career is what always happened, it just didn´t happen to women before?

 

You can count how few directors debuted doing huge movies, nearly all of them started doing smaller stuff before going bigger. Just to keep the discussion in the Barbenheimmer weekend: Nolan sell out because he decided to do a comic book movie just 7 years after dropping a nearly self made indie movie? 

 

You don´t see this type of headlines to Nolans or Villeneuves, but you see for Patty Jenkins, Ava Duvernay, Chloe Zhao and Gretta Gerwig. And when you see man being accused of sell out, is usually black man like Barry Jenkins.  

 

The whole thing just seems like minorities as always having to face way higher standards, they just can´t do a big movie without pass though scrutiny.

Couldn’t have said better myself. Let directors make the films they want. 
 

 

[von Kenni]

1 hour ago, ThomasNicole said:

This type of discourse sounds like misoginy to me 

 

Some guys should just think, the fact that many indie darlings like Zhao and Gerwig are happy to jump to huge movies is because they´re hacks that doesn´t care about art or this type of career is what always happened, it just didn´t happen to women before?

 

You can count how few directors debuted doing huge movies, nearly all of them started doing smaller stuff before going bigger. Just to keep the discussion in the Barbenheimmer weekend: Nolan sell out because he decided to do a comic book movie just 7 years after dropping a nearly self made indie movie? 

 

You don´t see this type of headlines to Nolans or Villeneuves, but you see for Patty Jenkins, Ava Duvernay, Chloe Zhao and Gretta Gerwig. And when you see man being accused of sell out, is usually black man like Barry Jenkins.  

 

The whole thing just seems like minorities as always having to face way higher standards, they just can´t do a big movie without pass though scrutiny.

 

The evolution of directors from smaller to bigger productions is pretty interesting. I think for Villeneuve it's been pretty step-by-step without huge leaps but leaps that challenge enough. I don't recall Nolan's early steps. I thought that Point Break was already a big production for Patty Jenkins and that was already in 1991! So anything after that shouldn't have been such a big leap. But I think the jump from Nomadland to Eternals was unfair for Chloe. She herself was telling how overwhelming it was. That's a rare jump in the scale of production.

 

That said, I'm not referring to those commentaries that you refer to and don't know about them but I know from my own experience how belittling women still exists everywhere with different degrees depending on culture and sub-culture.

 

For the minorities and high standards, as a gay from rural areas, it felt that way certainly in the 90s and still in the early 2000s but now there are often situations that I want to hide that side (and partly have on this forum as well in the past but decided to now mention that on the top LBTGQ+ films thread) because in many places you get extra bonus points and extra leeways due to it. The last thing I want that my work, opinions, or just my sheer existence would be valued more if I belong to a sexual minority or any minority. I just want that equality and not a cent extra. And I understand all the prejudice, even disgust, and hatred that I faced at some point in my life. It is natural between humans but fighting intolerance with intolerance isn't the answer.

 

Now I digress. Wanted to say from my own experience as part of one minority that in some cultures and circumstances it brings you privileges and advantages nowadays with having to meet lower standards than the majority, and personally, I don't want that and that's why I sometimes or even often hide being gay, especially in most parts of the US and Europe.

[grim22]

3 minutes ago, von Kenni said:

 

The evolution of directors from smaller to bigger productions is pretty interesting. I think for Villeneuve it's been pretty step-by-step without huge leaps but leaps that challenge enough. I don't recall Nolan's early steps. I thought that Point Break was already a big production for Patty Jenkins and that was already in 1991! 

 

What?

[MovieMan89]

 

30 minutes ago, WittyUsername said:

I don’t think Eternals was a paycheck thing. I do think Zhao genuinely tried to make something special. There’s just a limit to how far you can do something like that with the 26th movie in a massive shared universe. The fact that she was inexperienced with such a thing perhaps didn’t help. 

I felt it lacked coherent direction or passion. It’s certainly possible she didn’t know what to do once she got there, or the fact that it did have to be an MCU film reared its ugly head in studio interference. 

[von Kenni]

9 minutes ago, grim22 said:

 

What?

Jesus, I had a brainworm there. Kathryn Bigelow directed Point Break. Maybe it came to mind because Bigelow is one of the rare women action directors and great.

[ThomasNicole]

11 minutes ago, von Kenni said:

 

The evolution of directors from smaller to bigger productions is pretty interesting. I think for Villeneuve it's been pretty step-by-step without huge leaps but leaps that challenge enough. I don't recall Nolan's early steps. I thought that Point Break was already a big production for Patty Jenkins and that was already in 1991! So anything after that shouldn't have been such a big leap. But I think the jump from Nomadland to Eternals was unfair for Chloe. She herself was telling how overwhelming it was. That's a rare jump in the scale of production.

 

That said, I'm not referring to those commentaries that you refer to and don't know about them but I know from my own experience how belittling women still exists everywhere with different degrees depending on culture and sub-culture.

 

For the minorities and high standards, as a gay from rural areas, it felt that way certainly in the 90s and still in the early 2000s but now there are often situations that I want to hide that side (and partly have on this forum as well in the past but decided to now mention that on the top LBTGQ+ films thread) because in many places you get extra bonus points and extra leeways due to it. The last thing I want that my work, opinions, or just my sheer existence would be valued more if I belong to a sexual minority or any minority. I just want that equality and not a cent extra. And I understand all the prejudice, even disgust, and hatred that I faced at some point in my life. It is natural between humans but fighting intolerance with intolerance isn't the answer.

 

Now I digress. Wanted to say from my own experience as part of one minority that in some cultures and circumstances it brings you privileges and advantages nowadays with having to meet lower standards than the majority, and personally, I don't want that and that's why I sometimes or even often hide being gay, especially in most parts of the US and Europe.

Well i´m happy you feel this way. 

 

It seems ... very unique. Personally i think we´re just tolerated more now and intolerance sometimes should be answered with violence depending of the situation. 

 

But about the directors, i´m pretty sure non of them feel this way. I think the only women that actually have a very solid career doing action is Bigelow, she was very disruptive and important. 

 

Gina Prince-Bythewood gave a wonderful speech last year about how important Bigelow persistence on this industry was revolutionary and it´s the reason we have more woman helming big movies now, but it´s still a fight. 

 

 

 

[JohnnyGossamer]

3 minutes ago, grim22 said:

 

What?

Kathryn Bigelow... Forgotten beast apparently. Near Dark... Strange Days... Point Break... Hurt Locker. Love them all. Not sure what's she done since Detroit though. But, yeah, I saw that oversight too.

 

Does everyone still love Seven Beauties? Might be my favorite movie directed by a woman... Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Ohhhh, yeah. Wanna post the YouTube clip of the opening of that one here but not sure it appropriate so I'll just drop the poster here.

[von Kenni]

5 minutes ago, MovieMan89 said:

 

I felt it lacked coherent direction or passion. It’s certainly possible she didn’t know what to do once she got there, or the fact that it did have to be an MCU film reared its ugly head in studio interference. 

 

I don't know if "she didn't know what to do" is the right wording but otherwise probably both. The little that I've followed her, I would bet that it's not about the money but taking the challenge and advancing in her craft. Kudos for the courage to do it and I hope she landed on her feet after that. I mean Villeneuve was afraid that after BR2049 he wouldn't be allowed to direct any big-budget movies ever again.