Shazam! Fury of the Gods | March 17 2023 | Sandberg returns to direct. Will Sinbad return? | Get vaccinated!

[dudalb]

People are entitled to their opinion, of course, but it pretty clear the people who really liked Shazam 2 are in the minority

Nothing wrong with that, just don't think it is some kind of outrage if the rest of the world does not agree.

[cax16]

12 hours ago, TwoMisfits said:

Took the 6 to Shazam last night.  I don't know if the reviewers were in a bad mood when they watched this or if it's easy to pile on to a dead DCU world, but this movie is really good!  It's the best super I've seen since The Batman (to include Strange 2, Thor 4, Wakanda Forever, Black Adam, Eternals - since I watched that late, and Morbius - same).  It's funny when it needs to be, dark when it needs to be, and Freddy is the BEST thing about this movie.  I love Freddy.  Give him his own movie, adding in the Wizard (yes, the 2 of them together could have been the movie for 90 minutes and I'd have loved it).  Give Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer) more work - immediately!  Anyway, the plot worked and actually moved forward in a sensible way, the family themes worked, the acting worked (again, with the MVPs above), and the comedy mostly hit.  A few quibbles here and there, but a definite win for supers quality, if not supers box office.  And the grades

 

Me - B+/B - I lean B+

Spouse - B - He also really liked it, better than Black Adam, he said

Boy 1 - A-

Buy 2 - A-

Girl 1 - B

Girl 2 - B

 

Now I will say, the 2 girls dropped their grade b/c they didn't like the last 5 minutes of the movie - yes, the cameo part.  They found that super lame and thought the movie should have ended a certain other way.  I just told them "it's magic and gods, what do you expect", but they wanted more emotional payoff to what they thought was a really great movie til then...

 

 

I think it’s pretty telling when the director was even surprised by reviews. He said he didn’t expect the same critical reaction as the first but even he was caught off guard.

 

I think this is a case of critics saying they “expect more” from cbm now cause of what’s been released the last 10 years but is that really the best way to critique movies or can’t we just critique movies on just the movie and not what the genre has released. I don’t know the right answer tbh and I don’t read reviews anyways so I don’t really care tbh. This is all just from the snippets I read in this thread from reactions and on twitter btw.
 

I said the same day I saw the movie I was pretty shocked by the movie being rotten , it was a pretty entertaining movie. Like I enjoyed black adam but that wasn’t a good movie lol. 

 

Edited March 23, 2023 by cax16

[dudalb]

Given that Warners did not spend more then the minimum to market this, I wonder if the Warners exec might have been a bit more objective in evaulating how the film would have been received then the director was.

[cax16]

14 minutes ago, dudalb said:

Given that Warners did not spend more then the minimum to market this, I wonder if the Warners exec might have been a bit more objective in evaulating how the film would have been received then the director was.

Maybe or what most probably happened was tracking was just terrible and reviews really wouldn’t have mattered either way as we saw with the first movie. 

 

and now all of a sudden we’re gonna give WB execs the benefit of the doubt after they spent probably more on marketing black adam then Shazam’s movie budget lol. 

 

Edited March 23, 2023 by cax16

[John Marston]

https://twitter.com/TheRoot/status/1638560805749923842

[cax16]

7 minutes ago, John Marston said:

 

Maybe the worst article I’ve ever read.

 

”Choosing to have his anti-hero face off against Superman instead of Shazam was best for business.”

 

That worked out really well……..

[kayumanggi]

8 hours ago, cax16 said:

I think it’s pretty telling when the director was even surprised by reviews. He said he didn’t expect the same critical reaction as the first but even he was caught off guard.

 

I think this is a case of critics saying they “expect more” from cbm now cause of what’s been released the last 10 years but is that really the best way to critique movies or can’t we just critique movies on just the movie and not what the genre has released. I don’t know the right answer tbh and I don’t read reviews anyways so I don’t really care tbh. This is all just from the snippets I read in this thread from reactions and on twitter btw.
 

I said the same day I saw the movie I was pretty shocked by the movie being rotten , it was a pretty entertaining movie. Like I enjoyed black adam but that wasn’t a good movie lol. 

 

 

I agree. There were even parts here that I thought were better than those in the first movie. Also, though I also enjoyed QUANTUMANIA for what it was, this was just way, way better than that. And then you look at their RT scores being pretty much the same.

 

Edited March 23, 2023 by kayumanggi

[BadOlCatSylvester]

9 hours ago, dudalb said:

Given that Warners did not spend more then the minimum to market this, I wonder if the Warners exec might have been a bit more objective in evaulating how the film would have been received then the director was.

This movie was dead the moment Gunn and Safran took over DC on film. New management usually means the last one's projects being discarded after all. The Flash is lucky it can be used as an in-universe explanation for the reboot, and Blue Beetle is fortunately barely a DC movie which means it can easily be re-edited into the new continuity. There are even rumours of it being shifted to next year. Shazam 2 and Aquaman 2 are deeply rooted in the about-to-be-canned DCEU, and the latter is apparently not very good, so they'll be released with as little marketing as possible to recoup costs.

[JustLurking]

9 hours ago, cax16 said:

I think it’s pretty telling when the director was even surprised by reviews. He said he didn’t expect the same critical reaction as the first but even he was caught off guard.

 

I think this is a case of critics saying they “expect more” from cbm now cause of what’s been released the last 10 years but is that really the best way to critique movies or can’t we just critique movies on just the movie and not what the genre has released. I don’t know the right answer tbh and I don’t read reviews anyways so I don’t really care tbh. This is all just from the snippets I read in this thread from reactions and on twitter btw.
 

I said the same day I saw the movie I was pretty shocked by the movie being rotten , it was a pretty entertaining movie. Like I enjoyed black adam but that wasn’t a good movie lol. 

 

At the end of the day, critics are still matching relatively well with audiences. The film got a B+, which for a lighthearted family fun CBM about family is just not good any way you slice it. So the excuse that critics are expecting more only holds up if you apply it to audiences as well, in which case these films would be doomed either way.

 

But frankly speaking it just seems like a cheap excuse to me, it really wasn't that long ago that NWH/Shang chi got raves from critics even if you want to put aside WF (domestically anyway). I don't see what would've changed in such a short time for both audiences AND critics to turn on the film other than the simplest answer, which is that the film were not considered to be as good.

[Napoleon]

10 hours ago, cax16 said:

Maybe the worst article I’ve ever read.

 

”Choosing to have his anti-hero face off against Superman instead of Shazam was best for business.”

 

That worked out really well……..

While Black Adam was not profitable, it still was the highest grossing DCEU movie since Aquaman. It's been reported by the members of the tracking thread that the movie's presales jumped after the Superman cameo was spoiled, and a member involved in The Rock's production company also said that the massive interest in the rumored Henry Cavill appearance at Comic Con was what caught their attention to actually make the cameo happen. Looking at last weekend's numbers, I think it's safe to say a Shazam cameo wouldn't give the same boost to Black Adam's ticket sales. So I think at the end of the day The Rock made the right decision because it at least saved his movie from a much bigger embarrassment like the one Shazam 2 is facing.

 

Also, WB tried to repeat that stunt with certain cameo in Shazam 2, which to me it's a sign that the studio believes it worked for Black Adam.

Edited March 23, 2023 by Napoleon

[cax16]

2 hours ago, Napoleon said:

While Black Adam was not profitable, it still was the highest grossing DCEU movie since Aquaman. It's been reported by the members of the tracking thread that the movie's presales jumped after the Superman cameo was spoiled, and a member involved in The Rock's production company also said that the massive interest in the rumored Henry Cavill appearance at Comic Con was what caught their attention to actually make the cameo happen. Looking at last weekend's numbers, I think it's safe to say a Shazam cameo wouldn't give the same boost to Black Adam's ticket sales. So I think at the end of the day The Rock made the right decision because it at least saved his movie from a much bigger embarrassment like the one Shazam 2 is facing.

 

Also, WB tried to repeat that stunt with certain cameo in Shazam 2, which to me it's a sign that the studio believes it worked for Black Adam.

Of course having Superman was gonna help the movie, especially with the bad reviews. The point is had they actually tried to build out the Shazam/black adam end of the universe and incorporate Superman(and made good movies) there was potential for a lot more. So I guess congrats to the rock for screwing over his movie, cavill and the Shazam movies all for his ego just for his movie to end up losing a bunch of money. 
 

 

Also just wanna add, while in terms of sheer numbers black adam may of made more at the box office then Shazam 2 but when you factor in the 230-260m for budget for black adam and god knows how much the rock made them spend on marketing I’m not sure which one will actually lose more money. So sure maybe the Shazam number is more “embarrassing” but what’s really embarrassing is how the studio let this whole situation play out and allowed Rock to make the decisions he made. 

Edited March 23, 2023 by cax16

[MightyDargon]

even if Shazam 2 technically loses more money, its failure was set up by Black Adam and the Rock's refusal to be a team player. Also Black Adam did NOT look like a 200 mil movie, most of that must have been Rock's salary. 

Obviously the stunt didn't work for Black Adam since it was a major part in killing the Snyderverse continuity dead. Having Shazam do something similar was a last ditch strategy because the movie couldn't build buzz to save its life.

Edited March 23, 2023 by MightyDargon

[cax16]

Look I’m not blaming the rock for Shazam’s failures but so much could of been done over the course of Shazam 1, black adam and Shazam 2 to build out the universe and make it much more intriguing and possibly making all movies perform better. 
 

Unfortunately the rock let his ego get in the way and tried to make power moves that didn’t work out for him or anyone for that matter, and thank god for that, could you imagine the rocks team being the architects behind the dc movies when he didn’t even want black adam in the same movie as Shazam, what a joke. 

[dudalb]

18 hours ago, cax16 said:

Maybe or what most probably happened was tracking was just terrible and reviews really wouldn’t have mattered either way as we saw with the first movie. 

 

and now all of a sudden we’re gonna give WB execs the benefit of the doubt after they spent probably more on marketing black adam then Shazam’s movie budget lol. 

 

I thknk we  pretty much saying the same thing.I 

 

I think studios are going ro be more reluctant to spend a lot marketing movies which look like they are ging to fail simply because studios ...even Disney...do not have as much to spend as thet used ot. Clear the whole industry is having tough economic times since most studios have had cutbacks.

Worst example of throwing away money on marketing a failed film was "Battleship". Universal spent a massive amount marketing the film despite bad trackisn and many execs thinking the film was going to fail no matter what. Universal was raked over pretty good in the Trades over that.

[ChipDerby]

45 minutes ago, dudalb said:

I thknk we  pretty much saying the same thing.I 

 

I think studios are going ro be more reluctant to spend a lot marketing movies which look like they are ging to fail simply because studios ...even Disney...do not have as much to spend as thet used ot. Clear the whole industry is having tough economic times since most studios have had cutbacks.

Worst example of throwing away money on marketing a failed film was "Battleship". Universal spent a massive amount marketing the film despite bad trackisn and many execs thinking the film was going to fail no matter what. Universal was raked over pretty good in the Trades over that.

 

These are lies though, lmao.

 

WBD made $13.3 billion in 2021. Almost double their profits from 2019.

 

They just have massive debt. They're making money hand over fist.

[WittyUsername]

I don’t know if WB’s tendency to throw people under the bus is a very sound business practice. Blaming The Rock for this movie’s failure just comes off as petty. 

[MightyDargon]

1 hour ago, WittyUsername said:

I don’t know if WB’s tendency to throw people under the bus is a very sound business practice. Blaming The Rock for this movie’s failure just comes off as petty. 

Yeah I'm sure they're really in a rush to hire him again after he managed to tank both Black Adam and Shazam 2.

[dudalb]

1 hour ago, ChipDerby said:

 

These are lies though, lmao.

 

WBD made $13.3 billion in 2021. Almost double their profits from 2019.

 

They just have massive debt. They're making money hand over fist.

If you have massive debt, you are in economic trouble.

That is Econ 1A stuff.

[dudalb]

1 hour ago, WittyUsername said:

I don’t know if WB’s tendency to throw people under the bus is a very sound business practice. Blaming The Rock for this movie’s failure just comes off as petty. 

When a company has failures, you need to throw somebody under the bus.

I agree the Rock is not fully to blame for what happened with Black Adam...the writers and director were more responsible..but the Rock made himself the face of the Franchise, and it's natural he got blamed.

And his behavior since has really hurt his standing. He might still get hired as an actor, but studios are not going to let him produce or be a behind the scenes infleuncer. He has shown you can't trust him with your money in those roles.

[WittyUsername]

1 hour ago, MightyDargon said:

Yeah I'm sure they're really in a rush to hire him again after he managed to tank both Black Adam and Shazam 2.

Ignoring what I already said about how it’s stupid to blame him for this movie’s failure, I was referring more to this general tendency WB seems to have of going after people they formerly worked with. They did it with Snyder and now they’re doing it with Dwayne Johnson. It strikes me as a rather bizarre tactic that could potentially make others less willing to work with the company. Seriously, are they gonna do this with James Gunn too if the DCU isn’t as successful as they’re hoping?