You have to realize audience polling for Rogue One included people confused about where Rey and Kylo Ren were after watching the movie. Not everyone is actively involved online to learn about what's going on in major franchises. The news from movie news sites trickles down to people who pick up bits and pieces. On Twitter, there has been people confused that New Mutants is the MCU X-Men (which they know about) and it includes the word "new" and the rumor that X-Men were going to only be called "mutants". The idea of googling New Mutants and reading articles online and figuring out what's going on doesn't always happen.
Budget for New Mutants was likely in the 50 Million range. P&A budget was limited - maybe under 15 Million.
If there was any fallout Disney was worried about in terms of above the line talent pissed off about a movie being dumped to digital, it would be Kenneth Branagh & Artemis Fowl. That's a huge hit for him since he was expected a Harry Potter like franchise.
Well he was in that kiss bang movie that was pretty good. I think BLACK Sabbaths Iron Nan song really helped out there to lol
Apparently it wasnt expected to do very well since getting fans reactions a fewx months ago. This actually may help it make it'd budget back apparently
lol I wonder who they were thinking about? How was your friend? lolMy mom talked about his fam a few times I knew him from watching him on SNL on the strangely retro satellite TV we had in way South Alabama lil later from watching Less than Zero, weird science etc.
GrindrStone(D)
I doubt Branagh cared what fans of the books thought since all the changes were to make the movie more appealing to Disney's family audience.
Branagh drastically changed everything about the books and in interviews when the movie was in production and when the first trailer came out, it reminds me of M Night Shyamalan and Airbender completely changing things because it's what will make the movie more successful and marketable. Pretty much the entire plot of the book was overhauled to turn Artemis from essentially Draco Malfoy to Harry Potter.
Like Shyamalan, I doubt Branagh could have cared less what fans thought about the changes. He knew Disney wasn't going to make a movie about an evil genius who kidnaps a fairy. So he made a Harry Potter type movie called Artemis Fowl which loosely borrowed from the books and expected that to be successful.
New Mutants could be so much worse.
Disney will be looking at the metrics of new subscriptions and subscriptions lost. Qibli and HBO Max are launching soon with content aimed at teens and adults more than just for kids. If you don't have kids under the age of 10, would you really need to keep Disney+ when this is their new additions for April: https://www.digitaltrends.com/movies...n-disney-plus/. If you only subscribed for The Mandalorian, there isn't much similar programming.
Onward had purchase options on Amazon Prime and other premium streaming (sort of the old pay-per-view/video-on-demand type streaming) where it cost almost $20 to buy to see it at first then a $6 to rent option was added later. Currently the only way to see Bloodshot and Sonic is the $20 buy option. Probably in a few weeks, those will be cheaper to rent through Amazon. All of the movies which had been in theaters like The Invisible Man and Emma also went very quickly to premium streaming.
Fox's Call of the Wild is on Amazon Prime for $15 to buy rather than being put on Disney+ as well (and it might not be able to go there yet if there is an agreement between Fox and HBO). So, they can get back money rather than just putting New Mutants in theaters. And it could happen.
If Fox and HBO do still have an agreement, then the amount HBO pays Disney for those movies is based on the box office. If there isn't a theatrical release, HBO will get a steal. This is one of the reasons why spending say $35 million on marketing a movie to get an extra $50 million at the box office makes sense in the long term. All deals related to tv rights, cable rights, etc are based on the box office.
Last edited by ClanAskani; 04-06-2020 at 10:59 PM.
Train wreck factor. Prior to Iron Man, I believe RDJ’s highest profile gig was his heralded stint on the TV Show “Ally McBeal” (remember her?) in 2000 from which he dropped out due to a relapse after winning a Golden Globe for the role. He was known as a wild card but as an extremely charismatic one. There are a certain amount of eyeballs that showed up to see if he would flame out again. Marvel took a big risk basing the launch of the MCU around him and it paid off.
Also don’t count out the draw of Terrance Howard. At the time he was a Hollywood “It guy” on the heels of his Oscar nominated “Hustle and Flow”. Howard was the first actor booked and his participation was used to lure the other actors in.
Circling back to New Mutants, if the cast really only Anya Taylor-Joy and Maisie Williams have much notoriety but both of them very niche. Streaming ain’t gonna hurt them. And, again, releasing this movie in theaters anytime soon will bring very little to the actors. No press junket. No red carpet. They’ve GOT to be ready to move on from having from it career wise and the shadow if it being a cursed production.
I honestly think going direct to streaming or at least early home access would be better for the film than releasing at the theaters now. Throw it in with the mass of films trying to scrap for dollars once theaters reopen to a broke af movie audience, or push it out to a captive audience who will "give it a shot" for less than the cost of going to the theaters. Word of mouth will benefit it more from a home viewing audience moreso than theater goers where plenty of people will be pinching pennies post-quarantine.
I know it likely won't happen, but it's the best option for this film IMO.
Team Yana Bachalo Fanboy Cyclops Was Right
More than do the NM. Iron Man at least had his own cartoon in the 90s.
I'm not overestimating the popularity of Cecilia or Bobby, I know the general public doesn't know who they are but New Mutants wouldn't be the first movie to suffer a wave of bad PR because of whitewashing. The only reason people haven't made a bigger issue of it in the media is because this movie for all intents and purposes is seemingly never getting an actual release date.
The movie had an actual release date and was weeks away from releasing and it hasnt. I think back to other movies like Nina Simone and Ghost in the Shell and people make a stink when the casting is revealed. The whitewashing of this film has been known for quite some time and there wasnt huge controversy when the actors were announced nor when the trailers dropped. Outside of us diehard fans, the media doesnt even care to rally up the public
Yeahhhh... there's nothing really to call out when it's not very publicized or getting much press. And honestly since there's been on a small outcry publicly It puts less pressure to cast the upcoming MCU X-Men accurately and gives fans who aren't not concerned more "examples of his changing skin tones" and use it as an excuse to ignore it
GrindrStone(D)
Large theater chain owners and NATO (National Association of Theatre Owners) have been talking about plans to re-open theaters in June and likely having a soft opening with a period before large blockbuster releases in July:
https://deadline.com/2020/04/mooky-g...us-1202899758/
But until there's any sort of plan in place to lift the lockdowns, there won't be any plans on what the release schedule will be. I know several of the studios are essentially on vacation until after Passover when they'll reassess. That's likely the same issue with New Mutants. If Disney can toss it out in theaters in June/July, they will. If they can't, maybe it ends on streaming (not Disney+ but VOD or a VOD plus limited release. Trolls 2 was released in some theaters, including drive-ins but it primarily VOD.
Iger mentioned some other movies may end up on Disney+ after Artemis:
It's likely Soul would be the most likely to go to Disney+ and perhaps the holiday season movie Raya and the Last Dragon since bumping all the spring and summer movies means late 2020 and 2021 is very crowded.There are some we’ve decided to put on Disney+. We already announced one, Artemis Fowl, that would have been released in theaters. Others we’ve simply delayed. In some cases we’ve moved things onto Disney+ faster than we would have. Frozen 2 was one of them, but Onward would be the biggest example. It was in theaters when this happened. We moved to a pay-per-view period for a couple of weeks where people could buy it and own it. And then we ended up putting it on Disney+.
In terms of movies going ahead after Artemis, there may be a few more that we end up putting directly onto Disney+, but for the most part a lot of the big tentpole Disney films, we’ll simply wait for slots. In some cases we’ve announced new ones already, but later on in the calendar.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/bob...us-51586252700