The Box Office

[80sbaby]

She made comments she didn't have to with a noticeable hostile attitude. Whether you personally liked them is irrelevant; many potential movie goers were put off by that. She's a good actress when she wants to be, terrible when she doesn't, and doesn't seem to be all that plugged into what regular people want or think. Or she doesn't care.

What she should have done was say nothing, or if she had to say something, do it in such a way as to say nothing. Actors in past generation had mastered that skill when all they had to do was the press tour plus the talk shows. They stuck to script, praised their movies in completely uncontroversial ways, and told funny stories. That's all they have to do, and all they should do. Unfortunately, the advent of social media was not kind to the celebrities who couldn't stop and think about what they were about to type. And they got increasingly insular. Hollywood seems a culture in itself, set apart from the concerns of ordinary people; and they gradually got to feeling even more privileged than they previously did. So they got into the mindset that they could say or do anything they wanted. And of course they mostly can, but there are consequences they're not smart enough to see.

But it wasn't really what she said, but how she said it, in a mean-spirited fashion. You want to project to audiences an image, but I'm not sure contemptuous of part of your potential audience is where you want to go. More than her, I blame Disney, they were so good at so many things for so long, then they lost the ability to manage their talent. They should have given her instruction on how to talk and where and what about. At least until after opening weekend. It sort of offends me when I see companies with products I like own goaling themselves.

Now of course Disney has seen what happened, or perhaps Larson herself did, and seem to have her a bit more under control.

Where I'm coming from on this is that I wanted that movie to succeed, and it did obviously, but not to the degree it should. As for the actual product, it was...okay. Competent enough...not great, but it still should have done better. And now her solo sequel got threesomed, so it's obvious Disney lacks a certain confidence they once had in Larson.

She did alienate some of the fan base but considering those are bigots and misogynistic types, who cares?

How much more successful than a billion dollars did you expect it to be? And every MCU sequel has added co-stars to the cast. So trying to frame this as some sort of jack of confidence from Disney is disingenuous, at best.

[achilles]

She did alienate some of the fan base but considering those are bigots and misogynistic types, who cares?

How much more successful than a billion dollars did you expect it to be? And every MCU sequel has added co-stars to the cast. So trying to frame this as some sort of jack of confidence from Disney is disingenuous, at best.

To take that last bit first, quite a bit. This was after all the character who was being heavily touted by Marvel at the time as the next center of the MCU. It was going to be the big tentpole movie for the next few phases. Beyond which, it did nothing to solidify her popularity as a character. Theatre I was in for Endgame erupted in applause when Thanos punched her out of picture. OTOH they cheered FOR Cap and Tony and most of the rest, even some of the more minor characters.

As for the last, I see you're buying totally into Marvel and Disney's standard answer to when their movies don't go as well as they wanted, everyone, literally everyone who didn't like their movie or character is a racist/bigot/whatever else they can think of. Pretty bad marketing to accuse everyone who doesn't like your product of those things. But a great way to CYA when you just are terrible at your job.

Which BTW is the MCU's basic problem these days, everyone competent at their jobs, in front of the camera or behind, has most left or is in the process of leaving. The people running all these things now are just no up to par.

[80sbaby]

To take that last bit first, quite a bit. This was after all the character who was being heavily touted by Marvel at the time as the next center of the MCU. It was going to be the big tentpole movie for the next few phases. Beyond which, it did nothing to solidify her popularity as a character. Theatre I was in for Endgame erupted in applause when Thanos punched her out of picture. OTOH they cheered FOR Cap and Tony and most of the rest, even some of the more minor characters.

As for the last, I see you're buying totally into Marvel and Disney's standard answer to when their movies don't go as well as they wanted, everyone, literally everyone who didn't like their movie or character is a racist/bigot/whatever else they can think of. Pretty bad marketing to accuse everyone who doesn't like your product of those things. But a great way to CYA when you just are terrible at your job.

Which BTW is the MCU's basic problem these days, everyone competent at their jobs, in front of the camera or behind, has most left or is in the process of leaving. The people running all these things now are just no up to par.

Um, every character was toited as the next "face" of Marvel. They did it with Dr. Strange and T'challa. That's a marketing plot, not something to be taken seriously. And considering the amount of money the film made, pissing off those fans didn't amount to anything. For some reason, people like yourself ascribe way more importance to those vocal minority than they actually are. And while I'm sure your anecdotal evidence is 100% accurate, my theatre clipped when she showed up. So take that for what you will.

And you're still being disingenuous, I see. Please don't put words in my mouth. I never claimed that EVERYONE who dislikes the film is a bigot. That's a strawman and not helping dissuade anyone from thinking you have an agenda here. I and others are VERY specific as to the type of fan we're discussing here and you know it.

[achilles]

Um, every character was toited as the next "face" of Marvel. They did it with Dr. Strange and T'challa. That's a marketing plot, not something to be taken seriously. And considering the amount of money the film made, pissing off those fans didn't amount to anything. For some reason, people like yourself ascribe way more importance to those vocal minority than they actually are. And while I'm sure your anecdotal evidence is 100% accurate, my theatre clipped when she showed up. So take that for what you will.

And you're still being disingenuous, I see. Please don't put words in my mouth. I never claimed that EVERYONE who dislikes the film is a bigot. That's a strawman and not helping dissuade anyone from thinking you have an agenda here. I and others are VERY specific as to the type of fan we're discussing here and you know it.

The Marvel guys certainly did. And they're not the only ones. The Rings of Power crowd over at Amazon did that one well too, ignoring that what really pissed of Tolkien fans was the garbage job they did at everything. There is indeed a strawman argument being made here, but it's on your side. You guys took a few online trolls and expanded it to pretty much everyone who said anything bad about whichever movie was on topic. It was the studio talking points, word for word. And...excuse me, "vocal minority"? Now THAT'S really reaching on the basis of no data at all. I personally don't know one way or another how many potential customers that sort of thing has scared away, but it is a non-zero number, and any business that wants a SMALLER customer base for a product they really can't charge any more for than standard is one that won't last.

The reality is that Zachary Levi was right, studios do make an enormous amount of sheer garbage. Mostly they've forgotten how to write, or are using writers who never knew in the first place. Unproven directors are given huge budget movies with complicated FX and studios act surprised when their movies fail. There is for example a huge difference between directing a few art house movies and say Eternals or something else that big. They've exhausted most of the good actors it seems, and now go for cheap instead. And because they endlessly change their minds these days on movies, they require constant reshoots, and constant FX redoos, which is cited as one of the big reasons we're actually getting worse CGI than when the did Iron Man, along with the sheer amount of material they're trying to put out.

This is why people shunned things like Indy whatever number, Ant Man the worst, Love and Blunder, shows like Willow or Rings of Horribleness, because they were horrible. The current group behind the Marvel and Lucasfilm stuff, and indeed the animation unit seem barely able to walk and talk at the same time, much less produce even decent entertainment.

[Colossus1980]

If a movie from a studio a person likes performs well at the BO the budget is accurate.

If a movie from a studio a person likes performs poorly at the BO, then the budget is inaccurate.

If a movie from a studio a person dislikes performs well at the BO, the budget is inaccurate.

If a movie from a studio a person dislikes performs poorly at the BO, then the budget is accurate.

[Gaastra]

Looks like we have another cars 2 where the merch is where the big money is made over the film! Turtles merch including movie merch has made billions!

https://deadline.com/2023/08/teenage...es-1235519233/

[chicago_bastard]

Claiming that Captain Marvel should have done Avengers movie box office numbers just to be able to adhere to the idea that Brie Larson's statements hurt the movie's success is a whole new level of goalpost moving.

A movie about a character that was unknown to the majority of non-comic fans made more than any Batman or Spider-Man movie at that point (for Batman that still stands), and yet it should have done more. Geez.

[Aahz]

Biggest problem I see with the Marvels is that they trailer makes it come of like an overly expensive Disney Channel Original Movie ...

[Aahz]

She said that A Wrinkle in Time isn't for 40-year-old white dudes and their critiques of the film will be skewed which is true. It was a kids movie with minority characters directed towards kids.

I've lost track of successful children's movies that critics gave bad to lukewarm reviews of.

On the other hand, the budget on that movie seemed pretty high, for something that's mostly directed towards kids (afaik not a particularly well know property).

[Username taken]

The Marvel guys certainly did. And they're not the only ones. The Rings of Power crowd over at Amazon did that one well too, ignoring that what really pissed of Tolkien fans was the garbage job they did at everything. There is indeed a strawman argument being made here, but it's on your side. You guys took a few online trolls and expanded it to pretty much everyone who said anything bad about whichever movie was on topic. It was the studio talking points, word for word. And...excuse me, "vocal minority"? Now THAT'S really reaching on the basis of no data at all. I personally don't know one way or another how many potential customers that sort of thing has scared away, but it is a non-zero number, and any business that wants a SMALLER customer base for a product they really can't charge any more for than standard is one that won't last.

The reality is that Zachary Levi was right, studios do make an enormous amount of sheer garbage. Mostly they've forgotten how to write, or are using writers who never knew in the first place. Unproven directors are given huge budget movies with complicated FX and studios act surprised when their movies fail. There is for example a huge difference between directing a few art house movies and say Eternals or something else that big. They've exhausted most of the good actors it seems, and now go for cheap instead. And because they endlessly change their minds these days on movies, they require constant reshoots, and constant FX redoos, which is cited as one of the big reasons we're actually getting worse CGI than when the did Iron Man, along with the sheer amount of material they're trying to put out.

This is why people shunned things like Indy whatever number, Ant Man the worst, Love and Blunder, shows like Willow or Rings of Horribleness, because they were horrible. The current group behind the Marvel and Lucasfilm stuff, and indeed the animation unit seem barely able to walk and talk at the same time, much less produce even decent entertainment.

I don't mean to dig people out but Zachary Levi sounds like a man upset that he just starred in a big bomb.

There are some bad films coming out but at the same time, there are a lot of excellent films coming out today. This summer alone we've seen Across the Spider-Verse, GoTG 3, Oppenheimer, Barbie (apparently) Elemental, MI-7, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, John Wick 3 and smaller films like Talk to Me. Even on streaming, there's gems like "We cloned Tyrone" on Netflix right and Killers of the Flower Moon is still coming out this year. The "they've forgotten how to write" is completely ignoring what we're seeing right now with Barbie and Oppenheimer.

There's been some misfires, but a lot of stuff is good and frankly great. I also didn't feel The Rings of Power was terrible, it wasn't great but it wasn't terrible, a lot of people screeching about that were angry at black elves and black dwarves or some weird stuff like that.

[Gaastra]

Don't forget Coraine and enter the dragon are back in theatres today if anyone wants to see them on the big screen.

[Username taken]

If a movie from a studio a person likes performs well at the BO the budget is accurate.

If a movie from a studio a person likes performs poorly at the BO, then the budget is inaccurate.

If a movie from a studio a person dislikes performs well at the BO, the budget is inaccurate.

If a movie from a studio a person dislikes performs poorly at the BO, then the budget is accurate.

I haven't seen that happen here.

With recent revelations (and a lot of what we have suggested here), it's a little more obvious that we don't know what these films budgets really are.

As some guys said, I'm sure Iger will be very angry that Pixar said that Elemental will make a profit because it's kind of lifted the veil. More profits will mean that more residuals will need to be paid out.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

On the other hand, the budget on that movie seemed pretty high, for something that's mostly directed towards kids (afaik not a particularly well know property).

Disney the past decade has a deal where they have let budgets run insanely high on films.

[choptop]

Brie Larson never said anything controversial.

She said that A Wrinkle in Time isn't for 40-year-old white dudes and their critiques of the film will be skewed which is true. It was a kids movie with minority characters directed towards kids.

I've lost track of successful children's movies that critics gave bad to lukewarm reviews of.

Let me get this straight if you're older you have no right to critique a kids movie? That's silly if a movie sucks it sucks I don't care who a movie is for kids women gay people doesn't matter I've see plenty of movies not made for me that I think are good fact of the matter is AWT wasn't very good doesn't matter if you're 4 or 40 white or black gay or not man or woman it's still not very good.

[80sbaby]

Let me get this straight if you're older you have no right to critique a kids movie? That's silly if a movie sucks it sucks I don't care who a movie is for kids women gay people doesn't matter I've see plenty of movies not made for me that I think are good fact of the matter is AWT wasn't very good doesn't matter if you're 4 or 40 white or black gay or not man or woman it's still not very good.

She didn't say you can't criticize them. She said your critique doesn't really matter (to her.) And that's correct because it's not made for you, so what you think doesn't really matter to those who created it for someone else.