The Marvels | November 10, 2023 | Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter

[ZattMurdock]

3 hours ago, JustLurking said:

"Supporting a film" is a bizarre concept. No one "supported" Barbie. People simply went to see it because they liked what they saw, or because other people told them it was good.

 

It's not a charity, nobody shows up because they are told a film is allegedly important, they show up because they are interested. No one's thought process for Barbie was "well it's directed by a woman so it's important I have to see it", it's "well the trailers looked fun!" or "my friends told me its a good film".

Literal the same can be said about any giving film. I’m going because I’m a Marvel Studios fan die hard and I love all the characters, especially Kamala Khan, but what I think this film has going for it when it comes to the average moviegoer is oddly enough 1) the online incel backlash that has kept the film in conversation more than any film from the superhero genre this year, 2) the short runtime and 3) the release date. 
 

I sincerely don’t know what the public reception for The Marvels is going to be, but I do think that the online backlash against it makes people that would otherwise not be that interested in the film curious about it. And in that, that’s actually not that different than people’s perception of Barbie before it was out and we were sure that it was a great film. Online misguided hate towards a MCU film that is lead by three women and directed by another woman might, in fact, make people want to check The Marvels. Just like you could make a case for an Scorsese film that people support because ‘absolute cinema’ or whatever.

[JustLurking]

47 minutes ago, ZattMurdock said:

Literal the same can be said about any giving film. I’m going because I’m a Marvel Studios fan die hard and I love all the characters, especially Kamala Khan, but what I think this film has going for it when it comes to the average moviegoer is oddly enough 1) the online incel backlash that has kept the film in conversation more than any film from the superhero genre this year, 2) the short runtime and 3) the release date. 
 

I sincerely don’t know what the public reception for The Marvels is going to be, but I do think that the online backlash against it makes people that would otherwise not be that interested in the film curious about it. And in that, that’s actually not that different than people’s perception of Barbie before it was out and we were sure that it was a great film. Online misguided hate towards a MCU film that is lead by three women and directed by another woman might, in fact, make people want to check The Marvels. Just like you could make a case for an Scorsese film that people support because ‘absolute cinema’ or whatever.

Yes? I was referring to the tweet quoted. If you want to go to the film because you think it looks great and you think you'll have a lot of fun watching it I see nothing wrong with it. I didn't say people shouldn't watch this film. I just said they should watch it for the right reasons, aka because they like what they're seeing, not because they should be expected to "support films with women because it's important" or whatever bullshit like the tweet is pushing.

 

Not sure what's unclear here. "People should watch marvels because it looks fun" = good, or "because they like Nia Dacosta's work" or "because they like the actress" or whatever also all good. "Women should watch marvels because women film" = bad and dumb. Supporting the multi billion corporation film is not activism, lol.

Edited October 21, 2023 by JustLurking

[ZattMurdock]

8 minutes ago, JustLurking said:

Yes? I was referring to the tweet quoted. If you want to go to the film because you think it looks great and you think you'll have a lot of fun watching it I see nothing wrong with it. I didn't say people shouldn't watch this film. I just said they should watch it for the right reasons, aka because they like what they're seeing, not because they should be expected to "support films with women because it's important" or whatever bullshit like the tweet is pushing.

 

Not sure what's unclear here. "People should watch marvels because it looks fun" = good. "People should watch marvels because women film" = bad and dumb. Supporting the multi billion corporation film is not activism, lol.

The same happened with Barbie and several others before, and while I agree that there is no such thing as watching a film like Barbie, Oppenheimer or The Marvels equate film activism, it’s the current dumbed down political climate we live in. We can’t really say that the hype around Barbie didn’t play a lot around that, and one could say that while The Marvels will never make as much as Barbie, it might in fact get some of that effect, especially because chuds online targeted that film and its stars for years now. 
 

In my opinion, The Marvels worst enemy isn’t even chuds, it’s the film studios not breaking a deal for the stars to promote the film. The chuds will do what they always do, they did it with Barbie and are doing with The Marvels, but at very least it kept the film in the conversation. My point is that the ‘supporting a multi billion corporation film is not activism’ line of thought can be applied to The Marvels just like it can be applied to Barbie or whatever ‘absolute cinema’ film is in the order of the day.

[ZattMurdock]

 

Ignore for a second that this is coming from an obvious Captain Marvel fan (they are part of a Captain Marvel fan site or something), and also ignore the fact that we in fact do have reasons to believe that The Marvels will open fairly below Barbie: I think they do have an actual point here: the whole framing narrative behind box office prospects for The Marvels seem heavily biased against superhero films in general.

 

Barbie isn’t an indie, neither is The Marvels. Both are films made and backed by multi billion corporations. The fact that both films were officially tracking around the same long box office range forecast 22 days before it’s release is of note. Phenomenons like Barbie and Captain Marvel before can’t be predicted that far along. What we can see here is that there is a lot of biases going around. It’s hard to explain how one could be ‘excited’ for Barbie to open around $70-80m 22 days before it’s release and being doom and gloom about The Marvels tracking around the exact same forecasts.

[JustLurking]

"Why do two films with drastically different budgets in drastically different situations get judged differently? It's just not fair!"

[toutvabien]

15 minutes ago, ZattMurdock said:

 

Ignore for a second that this is coming from an obvious Captain Marvel fan (they are part of a Captain Marvel fan site or something), and also ignore the fact that we in fact do have reasons to believe that The Marvels will open fairly below Barbie: I think they do have an actual point here: the whole framing narrative behind box office prospects for The Marvels seem heavily biased against superhero films in general.

 

Barbie isn’t an indie, neither is The Marvels. Both are films made and backed by multi billion corporations. The fact that both films were officially tracking around the same long box office range forecast 22 days before it’s release is of note. Phenomenons like Barbie and Captain Marvel before can’t be predicted that far along. What we can see here is that there is a lot of biases going around. It’s hard to explain how one could be ‘excited’ for Barbie to open around $70-80m 22 days before it’s release and being doom and gloom about The Marvels tracking around the exact same forecasts.

Well, opening to $70-80M would already have been very very strong for Barbie. It's part of an IP sure, but one that has never been tested this way. It's a known IP turned into a four quadrant comedy. If the Barbie made $200M domestic and $400M worldwide, it would still be a hit. The fact that it massively outperformed these expectations turned into a phenomenon.

 

The MCU just had a six-film streak of $100M+ openings and that mostly included sub-franchises that never had installments make money like the first Captain Marvel did. There's a very different set of expectations. The Marvels opening to that kind of range would not mean the same thing it would mean for Barbie if it also opened to $70-80M. Heck, Shang-Chi and Eternals opening to that range, even if there were no pandemic behind it, would not mean the same thing as The Marvels opening to that range.

[ZattMurdock]

Just now, JustLurking said:

"Why do two films with drastically different budgets in drastically different situations get judged differently? It's just not fair!"

The budgets of these two multi billion backed corporation films aren’t that far from each other. Both of them are about very much só corporation toys and made to promote Marvel and Mattel. Never mind the lack of understanding of how box office prediction works, I can’t really argue against that it does look incredibly odd to have the positive narrative framing for Barbie opening to the exact same long range box office forecast of $70-80m and the doom and gloom to The Marvels around the same numbers. It’s not even about judging films differently, it’s just odd. Captain Marvel super fan bias there not withstanding, the narrative around both films do come off weird. Mattel and WB aren’t a David to Marvel’s and Disney’s Goliath. Both films exist for very similar reasons, and I do think it’s of note that the long range box office forecast for both is literal the same, even if we are all in agreement that there is no way that The Marvels will enjoy an opening weekend as big as Barbie’s.

[JustLurking]

we could go into it but realistically you will never agree which means I would waste my time so I will instead sit on the sideline and watch the meltdown

[nevermore]

The Marvels is a sequel to a movie that opened to $154M. It's hard to spin a 50% drop as positive.

[Maggie]

If the Barbie sequel does 200M domestic (as i think The Marvels will do) after the huge success of the first one, then it's fair to say it has failed. The Marvel is the sequel to a hugely successful first movie. It's fair to say expectations are high

[ZattMurdock]

21 minutes ago, toutvabien said:

Well, opening to $70-80M would already have been very very strong for Barbie. It's part of an IP sure, but one that has never been tested this way. It's a known IP turned into a four quadrant comedy. If the Barbie made $200M domestic and $400M worldwide, it would still be a hit. The fact that it massively outperformed these expectations turned into a phenomenon.

 

The MCU just had a six-film streak of $100M+ openings and that mostly included sub-franchises that never had installments make money like the first Captain Marvel did. There's a very different set of expectations. The Marvels opening to that kind of range would not mean the same thing it would mean for Barbie if it also opened to $70-80M. Heck, Shang-Chi and Eternals opening to that range, even if there were no pandemic behind it, would not mean the same thing as The Marvels opening to that range.

See, I don’t see it that way. And I honestly don’t think that The Marvels will miss the $100m OW mark. That’s beyond the point I’m making. My point is, both films are blockbusters backed by multi billion dollar corporations trying to sell well, toys and their brands. Marvel Studios being around longer and having its peaks and valleys are par of the course. I just think the narrative between Barbie and The Marvels have been incredibly skewed and almost seems like Barbie was an indie, when it obviously wasn’t. There is a lot of money thrown at that film to make that one successful, just like The Marvels. The difference here in my opinion is the narrative. It feels like people that wanted Barbie to succeed was deemed a cool thing, while people wanting to see The Marvels to succeed is seen as a bad thing. What I see is two multi billion dollar endeavors that should be celebrated if they are any good, but it seems almost like that it’s out of discussion and we live in the broad terms of Marvel equals bad and WB and Mattel as the indie up and comers. It does look weird to me.

Edited October 21, 2023 by ZattMurdock

[JustLurking]

the way tracking is going the marvels needs good reviews and a very strong finish just to hit 70 let alone 100

 

barbie had crazy pace on the other hand which became straight up absurd the closer we got to release which is why the OW expectations kept being pushed up - notice how no one is pushing OW expectations for marvels up and long range tracking from BOP went down?

Edited October 21, 2023 by JustLurking

[DInky]

6 hours ago, JustLurking said:

"Supporting a film" is a bizarre concept. No one "supported" Barbie. People simply went to see it because they liked what they saw, or because other people told them it was good.

 

It's not a charity, nobody shows up because they are told a film is allegedly important, they show up because they are interested. No one's thought process for Barbie was "well it's directed by a woman so it's important I have to see it", it's "well the trailers looked fun!" or "my friends told me its a good film".

 

 

[ZattMurdock]

Just now, JustLurking said:

the way tracking is going the marvels needs good reviews and a very strong finish just to hit 70

I think that if it gets good reviews and if ends up getting the stars to promote the film, it will open above $100m OW dom. It won’t fly as high as Barbie, but I do think it’s performance is been heavily underplayed. Similar to Elemental.

[toutvabien]

2 minutes ago, ZattMurdock said:

See, I don’t see it that way. And I honestly don’t think that The Marvels will miss the $100m OW mark. That’s beyond the point I’m making. My point is, both films are blockbusters backed by multi billion dollar corporations trying to sell well, toys and their brands. Marvel Studios being around longer and having its peaks and valleys are par of the course. I just think the narrative between Barbie and The Marvels have been incredibly skewed and almost seems like Barbie was an indie, when it obviously wasn’t. There is a lot of money thrown at that film to make that one successful, just like The Marvels. The difference here in my opinion is the narrative. It feels like people that wanted Barbie to succeed was deemed a cool thing, while people wanting to see The Marvels to succeed is seen as a bad thing. What I see is two multi billion dollar endeavors that should be celebrated if they are any good, but it seems almost like that it’s out of discussion and we live in the broad terms of Marvel equals bad and WB and Mattel as the indie up and comers. It does look weird to me.

There is some point I agree with in there, but the main thing is that there is no bias needed to see that the current tracking for The Marvels is no good news and would still be had Barbie opened to that range and deemed a hit.

[JustLurking]

3 minutes ago, ZattMurdock said:

I think that if it gets good reviews and if ends up getting the stars to promote the film, it will open above $100m OW dom. It won’t fly as high as Barbie, but I do think it’s performance is been heavily underplayed. Similar to Elemental.

elemental's OW was absolutely terrible

 

bold to expect 100M out of a film that is currently at less than two thirds of eternals' tickets sold and going down

Edited October 21, 2023 by JustLurking

[toutvabien]

3 minutes ago, DInky said:

 

 

Friendly reminder that Justice League ow dropped 44% from Batman v Superman ow. That's the current industry high-end for The Marvels.

[ZattMurdock]

9 minutes ago, toutvabien said:

There is some point I agree with in there, but the main thing is that there is no bias needed to see that the current tracking for The Marvels is no good news and would still be had Barbie opened to that range and deemed a hit.

Okay fair, then let’s discuss what would be good news, then. The Marvels would need to track above Captain Marvel in order to do that? Because I firmly believe the idea that Marvel Studios films needing to open above of their previous installments ridiculous. 
 

This is a graphic with the domestic lifetime grosses of the MCU films:

 

 

Unlike Avatar and even Star Wars, the MCU films have always been about peaks and valleys. If The Marvels fails to reach $300m DOM I could see it as a potential issue. But The Marvels job shouldn’t be to top Captain Marvel. It should be to cement Captain Marvel as a power player and present Ms. Marvel and Photon as these new MCU players. People look at the MCU with every franchise individually, when I look at it like this big franchise encompassing several minor ones. I think when it’s all said and done, The Marvels actual job is similar to The Winter Soldier, which was - despite been a great MCU film - to introduce The Winter Soldier as this new player in the MCU. We will see the peaks again once we get around the next Avengers film, with outliers like Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Spider-Man: No Way Home happening in between, like it has always been before.

[ListenHunnyUrOver]

When the trailer played before KOTFM, the audience seemed so disinterested. I think the MCU has worn out its welcome.

[ZattMurdock]

1 minute ago, ListenHunnyUrOver said:

When the trailer played before KOTFM, the audience seemed so disinterested. I think the MCU has worn out its welcome.

I don’t think KOTFM has the same public of The Marvels. Hell, I don’t think it has the same public of Barbie either. I think that film pundits are pushing their luck trying to angle against Marvel, and the backlash against films like KOTFM is already a thing, too:

 

FWIW, I think that I’ll enjoy KOTM when I watch it at home via Apple. But I do have tickets for The Marvels and I do think the ‘film pundit’ schtick when it comes to Marvel Studios films or blockbusters in general is what actually overstayed it’s welcome. I love a lot of tv shows, but I like to watch them at home, not at a movie theater.