The Marvels (2023)

[janglesworthy]

Larson and that Snow White actress suffer from the same behavioral problem with both their films. They both ranted off and gave people material to fill their clickbait youtube channels and news sites. My guess is they got ****** over in their contracts and want to get fired.

If you play their interviews backwards they say "help, get me out of my Disney contract"

 

[VanPersie]

Well colour me surprised, yet another thread where those who "have no interest in this film" are spending their time talking about the film.....

 

[Solo4114]

Hold everything. Ethan has figured this whole thing out…

Why 'The Marvels' bombed at the box office and what it means for the future of the once-mighty MCU

The Nia DaCosta-directed space adventure opened to $47 million domestically and just under $100 million worldwide, the worst start for any Marvel film since "The Incredible Hulk" in 2008.

www.yahoo.com

It turns out that Brie being unable to properly promote the film is a big part of why it seemingly bombed (well, and trolls… the review-bombing trolls played their part too, of course…):

I see his point.

Why, a charm offensive, of the type seen in the past, would surely have turned around their fortunes:

I'm assuming you really are trolling here, in that the article doesn't single Larson out as being bad at promotion, but rather as being unable to promote due to the SAG-AFTRA strike rules that were only lifted this past week.

Literally nobody was able to do any promotion of any kind for the last 6 months, and I expect it's hurt plenty of productions across the board. This isn't "Look! Brie Larson is such a b**ch that she sucks at promotion!" This is "Everyone is contractually prohibited from performing promotion activities including press junkets, red carpet work, interviews, social media promotion, etc. across the board, and have been for the last 180 days."

 

[Captain Dunsel]

I'm assuming you really are trolling here, in that the article doesn't single Larson out as being bad at promotion, but rather as being unable to promote due to the SAG-AFTRA strike rules that were only lifted this past week.

Literally nobody was able to do any promotion of any kind for the last 6 months, and I expect it's hurt plenty of productions across the board. This isn't "Look! Brie Larson is such a b**ch that she sucks at promotion!" This is "Everyone is contractually prohibited from performing promotion activities including press junkets, red carpet work, interviews, social media promotion, etc. across the board, and have been for the last 180 days."

I would treat .0001% of anything that I have said in this thread as coming from a point of serious consideration on my part.

 

[teragon]

Personally, I'm very picky with what I go see in theatre these days, but The Marvels, it's really not Brie Larson's fault for my lack of interest. I actually like her, she was awesome in Scott Pilgrim, and she's pretty good in a show on Apple TV at the moment. It's not the lack of promotion neither, I've been aware of the movie for a while. It's really all on Marvel itself, aside from Loki, thanks to that good season finale, I have been bored with practically every thing I see lately. I have not even finished watching Black Panther 2 or Ant-Man Quantumania on D+. This does not look much better. I think the only movie I'm waiting for is the Deadpool 3, that should be fun.

 

[Solo4114]

I would treat .0001% of anything that I have said in this thread as coming from a point of serious consideration on my part.

Kinda figured as much.

 

[joberg]

 

[NeoRutty]

I have seen it! Of course this is all opinion BUT the opinion of someone who's seen it and is not cheerleading the demise of the MCU and movies and theaters and actors and blah blah blah.

Anywho...

Overall... it's fine?

I wasn't bored, but it's also hard to be bored when you're trying to figure what's actually going on. They RUSH Through the story... and just throw around terms like jump points or whatever (Guardians, Infinity War, End Game space travel) like everyone should know what they are and how they work. They like to throw a lot of MCU science around, which is such insane techno babble I was literally thinking "Ohhhh I wonder what's gonna happen?!!" during the climax cuz I had NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN - meaning the big "hey! I know what to do" moment was followed with so much made up science (I assume) that I didn't know what the actual plan was or why...

Before the flick started, my GF asked "I haven't seen Wanda or Ms Marvel... will I follow this?" to which I could only say "Uhh... Okay Monica walked through a hex and is now a superhero for some reason and Ms. Marvel got a bangle from her grandma.... I dunno what else you would need to know"... and they do cover that, but also, cover it in a way I didn't even get what they were trying to explain, and I SAW IT HAPPEN in the shows.

Prob best to do pros/cons.

PROS!

- Dig the new Captain Marvel costume. Brie Larson looks hot AF. I like how she just peels off the top layer all casual. I actually thought her character was fine in this... I don't generally hate on an actress or actor just cuz they're terrible in an interview. She's just an actor - a good one... they can't all be RDJ. I hated her first movie and her other appearances, so this was a good change for her.

- Kamala Kahn! Still cute. Still fun. Her hero worship still worn on her sleeve. Yeah it gets a little scream-y at times, but overall I wanted more of her and less of others. *MONICA!* cough *MONICA*

- Training montage! I dug this set piece.

- Finally a mid-movie appearance of an Avenger. Why did they stop doing this post End Game? You want your movie to feel like it spreads across the MCU, have cameo's a plenty. Little weird they didn't get the cameo's help. And I could think of a better one for it, of the same ilk. Prob too expensive.

- My popcorn! Holy crap the girl went to town with the butter. (I always get popcorn and drink cuz I want theaters to survive)

- Kittens. Horrifying Kittens.

- 90 minutes!

- Musical Planet. Sure! Why not!? It was fun and again, I don't get the reports that Captain Marvel is all gloom and miserable or talking down in this. People really have a hate on for Brie Larson. She was fun in this scene.


CONS!

- Monica Rambo (Sp?). I dunno... I've never liked this character or the weird way she got her powers. When I complained to my GF she replied "And a spider makes more sense? Goo in eyes makes more sense?" YES. Anyway I don't like her, or her suit. Or her connection to the first movie where she changed that costume color as a kid. Yes I'lll still hold that against the character.

- I don't care about Skrulls.

- HOLY the whole mess up by Captain Marvel is passed by so quickly in story it seems I missed a movie. The GF thought she did. "What movie did she trash that place?"...... THIS one. She did it in that quickie scene.

- Editing was BRUTAL. I had no idea what was going on in the fight scenes. A much much much much better version of a similair stylized fight is Miles Morales vs. The Spot in the beginning of Across the Spiderverse. This was just messy and headache inducing.

- I dunno how anything in the last moments made any sense. Energy is just everywhere and people explode and other universes... parallel? Alternate?! I dunno. They just start spouting MCU science and I had to pee really bad.


NOTES:

- People are highlighting the "black girl magic" line for mockery? Really? It's a throwaway line, and it has no real moment to it or focus. I don't even think it's a dumb line. I don't even know why it's being noted so much. I'm doing it here, but if no one was mocking it, meme-ing it, I probably wouldn't have even noticed it. Sam Jackson may even have suggested it. He certainly is okay with it. I've worked with him... he won't say ANYTHING he doesn't like. How you see him in flicks is either who he's become, or who he's always been. He's not PLAYING Nick Fury - that guy on film is just Sam Jackson, who people are calling Nick Fury.

- I like Ronin the Accuser... Wish he was alive for this. Girl Ronin is fine, but forgettable.

- For what it's worth, the first thing out of the theater from my GF who knew nothing of the flick was all, "That was fun! I was surprised it was all girl heroes. About time... could have been an Asian girl tho..."

"Kamala is technically Asian"

(Doesn't count apparently)

-----------------------------------------

Overall I'd give it a 6.5 out of 10. Enough to pass, but won't impress the parents.

Probably will never see it again...


Also didn't care about the mid credits scene. Whatever. Just do it or don't... enough with the stupid teases.

 

[NeoRutty]

Also we should have caught up with Kamala at a New Jersey MMA gym. No joke.

She’s a fan girl made super hero… feels like her character would be all about training. Have that awkward Marty Mcfly kid hold pads for her while she quips.

SHOW ME WHY SHE KNOWS HOW TO THROW PUNCHES AND KNEES.

Cuz I don’t remember her knowing martial arts in her series.

Hell drop Shang-Chi in there in a cameo that woulda been in step with how the old MCU works. If they have a file on her, and know of Shang-Chi, have him training her.

Hey when did Mantis learn to fight?

I guess they coulda trained her….

Anyway, back to baked drinking.

 

[Bloop]

I didn't see it, and I usually don't comment on things I haven't seen and/or have no interest in, I have been an MCU fan, so I think it's okay for me to comment on this movie as it pertains to the MCU and Marvel/Disney's currentband future plans.

Let me start by saying that even though I had no real interest in seeing this, I nearly went to see it this past weekend and thought about seeing it on Tuesday (cheap ticket day). Part of my renewed interest is the fact that it's showing in 3D, and I'm still one of the relative few that likes 3D. The fact that they don't release 3D blu-rays anymore (at least in the US) means that if I want to see something in 3D, I also have to see it in the theater.

I did see some favorable reviews before its release, but in hindsight, maybe Marvel allowed the early release of some favorable reviews to try to juice the box office before the bulk of the reviews came out. From the reviews I saw, it didn't sound like I would enjoy it, especially since my interest in the characters was already low. I thought Captain Marvel was mediocre at best, and every time Brie Larson has appeared as the character, I feel there's nothing there. I feel her performances are flat and there's been nothing that makes me interested in the character. I also didn't care about Monica Rambeau in WandaVision. There was just nothing present in that to make me want to see more.

I did enjoy the Ms Marvel series (for the most part), and its star, Iman Vellani, was the best thing about it. So I guess I have a little bit of interest in seeing her character again, but since she's only a third of the leads of the movie, I'm fairly content to wait until it comes to streaming.

I understand my opinions on why I didn't see the movie aren't that interesting, but my point is that since I have been the target audience of the MCU films - as a former comic book collector/reader (mostly Marvel) - and they didn't do enough to get me to want to see it, that represents a failure to understand their audience. I understand wanting to expand their audience, though this really isn't a gender issue - 61% of the people that saw this opening weekend were male, and audience scores on rottentomatoes are more favorable than the critic reviews (if it simply were an issue of misogyny, rottentomatoes viewers would've review bombed the film).

It's probably also that as I age, I'm also losing interest in seeing generally similar action superhero movies. But I still enjoy superhero fare that can do something interesting with the genre, so I think Marvel needs to take a look at what their fans actually would be interested in rather than trying to draw in new fans at the expense of existing ones.

 

[Tremas]

Apologies in advance.....

 

[blewis17]

Apologies in advance.....
View attachment 1761786

Grosses​

DOMESTIC (43.5%)
$48,483,234
INTERNATIONAL (56.5%)
$62,917,838
WORLDWIDE
$111,401,072


Yeah, it's tanking at the box office.

Which is a shame... but I pitty the ginormous production team more than the actors. Regardless of the quality of the final product, there is still a butt-ton of blood, sweat, and tears / behind the scenes work that goes into a mega production like this. Countless hours, overtime, people breathing down your neck because "deadline", reshoots, finding film flaws that you just don't have time to fix, putting up with others' pettiness, always having to cater to "the talent" etc.

 

[Riceball]

- I like Ronin the Accuser... Wish he was alive for this. Girl Ronin is fine, but forgettable.

I liked how the female Ronin had his hammer, that was a nice touch. But I was wondering why she wasn't blue skinned, aren't all Kree blue-skinned? One thing of note is that she was played by Tom Hiddleston's wife. So that's kind of an Easter Egg of sorts, it makes them an MCU couple.

While I enjoyed this movie a lot overall, there was one minor flaw to it, in my opinion, one that plagues a lot of MCU and to a lesser extent, DCEU movies, and that's the stakes and who's involved. The writers of these movies tend to go a bit too big with the stakes at hand in these movies, instead of making the threat somewhat localized to like a city, or maybe even as large as a country, it threatens the entire planet. While there's nothing inherently wrong with that but when the planet is Earth, you have to wonder, where's the rest of the Avengers? I will grant that in the Marvels the threat to Earth did come late in the movie and it was exactly an Avengers Assemble! moment with hordes of aliens attacking Earth or any direct like that. But a cameo or 2 with other Avengers noticing that something's happening or maybe Nick Fury being asked by somebody if they should try to call up the rest of the Avengers might have been nice.

 

[Usagi Pilgrim]

I liked how the female Ronin had his hammer, that was a nice touch. But I was wondering why she wasn't blue skinned, aren't all Kree blue-skinned? One thing of note is that she was played by Tom Hiddleston's wife. So that's kind of an Easter Egg of sorts, it makes them an MCU couple.

While I enjoyed this movie a lot overall, there was one minor flaw to it, in my opinion, one that plagues a lot of MCU and to a lesser extent, DCEU movies, and that's the stakes and who's involved. The writers of these movies tend to go a bit too big with the stakes at hand in these movies, instead of making the threat somewhat localized to like a city, or maybe even as large as a country, it threatens the entire planet. While there's nothing inherently wrong with that but when the planet is Earth, you have to wonder, where's the rest of the Avengers? I will grant that in the Marvels the threat to Earth did come late in the movie and it was exactly an Avengers Assemble! moment with hordes of aliens attacking Earth or any direct like that. But a cameo or 2 with other Avengers noticing that something's happening or maybe Nick Fury being asked by somebody if they should try to call up the rest of the Avengers might have been nice.

Some Kree are actually pink skinned like humans, but from what I remember, they were ostracized & looked down on by the blue Kree.

 

[firesprite]

I liked how the female Ronin had his hammer, that was a nice touch. But I was wondering why she wasn't blue skinned, aren't all Kree blue-skinned? One thing of note is that she was played by Tom Hiddleston's wife. So that's kind of an Easter Egg of sorts, it makes them an MCU couple.

While I enjoyed this movie a lot overall, there was one minor flaw to it, in my opinion, one that plagues a lot of MCU and to a lesser extent, DCEU movies, and that's the stakes and who's involved. The writers of these movies tend to go a bit too big with the stakes at hand in these movies, instead of making the threat somewhat localized to like a city, or maybe even as large as a country, it threatens the entire planet. While there's nothing inherently wrong with that but when the planet is Earth, you have to wonder, where's the rest of the Avengers? I will grant that in the Marvels the threat to Earth did come late in the movie and it was exactly an Avengers Assemble! moment with hordes of aliens attacking Earth or any direct like that. But a cameo or 2 with other Avengers noticing that something's happening or maybe Nick Fury being asked by somebody if they should try to call up the rest of the Avengers might have been nice.

Jude Law's character from the first movie was Kree and he didn't have blue skin.

 

[Solo4114]

Grosses​

DOMESTIC (43.5%)
$48,483,234
INTERNATIONAL (56.5%)
$62,917,838
WORLDWIDE
$111,401,072


Yeah, it's tanking at the box office.

Which is a shame... but I pitty the ginormous production team more than the actors. Regardless of the quality of the final product, there is still a butt-ton of blood, sweat, and tears / behind the scenes work that goes into a mega production like this. Countless hours, overtime, people breathing down your neck because "deadline", reshoots, finding film flaws that you just don't have time to fix, putting up with others' pettiness, always having to cater to "the talent" etc.

Worth bearing in mind that "tanking" is a relative term. On its own, week 1 doing $111M at the worldwide box office ain't bad...but it doesn't match the budget that Marvel poured into it. If they'd spent $100M on it, instead of 2x that much, nobody would be saying it "tanked." But it seems like the market has shifted. Captain Marvel did $1.1B worldwide in 2019. The Marvels, only 4 years later, won't hit that mark.

And this tracks to the performance of a lot of franchise films in the last year or two. Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One; Transformers: Rise of the Beasts; Fast X; etc. There's all kinds of "disappointing performing" movies, even when these films are making upwards of $300M at the box office a piece. Hell, Fast X made around $700M and was still considered a mild disappointment. Some of this may be franchise fatigue, but I think a lot of it is shifting audience attitudes about just going to the movies generally, coupled with the studios' habit of spending over $200M on these projects.

Meanwhile, John Wick: Chapter 4 had a budget of around $100M, was rated R, and still did $400M worldwide, showing enough of a surprising success that it wound up almost getting a sequel, but Keanu Reeves is kinda done with the character.

So, let's stop and think a second.

We've got all kinds of films in all kinds of franchises and otherwise getting development budgets of around $200M and upwards (Fast X is estimated to be at about $340M), they're turning out $300-700M performances at the box office....and they keep being classified as "disappointments."

This is a development problem.

 

[CB2001]

Worth bearing in mind that "tanking" is a relative term. On its own, week 1 doing $111M at the worldwide box office ain't bad...

Except a film has to make back twice/three times their budget (depending on it’s budget) to be considered profitable, let alone successful. That’s part of the reason why the FNAF movie is considered a success (its budget was $20 Million dollars, and currently it’s earned $252,879,035 worldwide. It earned back double/triple the budget and then some). So far, things for The Marvels are not looking good, because we’ll soon be approaching the second week, and some films have that second week drop off.

 

[Captain Dunsel]

Worth bearing in mind that "tanking" is a relative term. On its own, week 1 doing $111M at the worldwide box office ain't bad...but it doesn't match the budget that Marvel poured into it. If they'd spent $100M on it, instead of 2x that much, nobody would be saying it "tanked." But it seems like the market has shifted. Captain Marvel did $1.1B worldwide in 2019. The Marvels, only 4 years later, won't hit that mark.

And this tracks to the performance of a lot of franchise films in the last year or two. Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One; Transformers: Rise of the Beasts; Fast X; etc. There's all kinds of "disappointing performing" movies, even when these films are making upwards of $300M at the box office a piece. Hell, Fast X made around $700M and was still considered a mild disappointment. Some of this may be franchise fatigue, but I think a lot of it is shifting audience attitudes about just going to the movies generally, coupled with the studios' habit of spending over $200M on these projects.

Meanwhile, John Wick: Chapter 4 had a budget of around $100M, was rated R, and still did $400M worldwide, showing enough of a surprising success that it wound up almost getting a sequel, but Keanu Reeves is kinda done with the character.

So, let's stop and think a second.

We've got all kinds of films in all kinds of franchises and otherwise getting development budgets of around $200M and upwards (Fast X is estimated to be at about $340M), they're turning out $300-700M performances at the box office....and they keep being classified as "disappointments."

This is a development problem.

Consider this…Raiders of the Lost Ark had a budget of roughly $20 million (1980 / 1981 dollars) which is the equivalent of roughly $75 million, in today’s dollars.

There is definitely an argument to be made that movie budgets suffer from significant “bloat” today.

 

[Solo4114]

Except a film has to make back twice/three times their budget (depending on it’s budget) to be considered profitable, let alone successful. That’s part of the reason why the FNAF movie is considered a success (its budget was $20 Million dollars, and currently it’s earned $252,879,035 worldwide. It earned back double/triple the budget and then some). So far, things for The Marvels are not looking good, because we’ll soon be approaching the second week, and some films have that second week drop off.

Yes, that's rather my point.

The raw number alone isn't the whole story. The film's budget is part of the issue as well. There's an ongoing discussion about how poorly Marvel films have been doing (which is apparently not extended to Transformers or Mission Impossible or Fast & Furious films...) and the root causes for this. Even in this discussion, there's been a focus on how poorly The Marvels is doing.

My point is that these films are doing poorly relative to their budgets, but not in an absolute sense. If John Wick 4 had made $111M in its first week, the execs would've been over the friggin' moon. As it was, it made just shy of $74M in its opening week, and that was "beyond expectations."

And this is my point.

We say "only $111M" for The Marvels. But John Wick made a "beyond expectations" $74M. And set against all of this is a discussion about why audiences aren't going to the movies.

But they are. They just aren't going in the numbers that Marvel expected them to go, and they aren't going in the numbers necessary to support Marvel's business approach up to this point. And from this, people draw all manner of conclusions, up to and including "This is the end for Marvel Studios and superhero movies."

No, it isn't. It's probably the end for this approach to making superhero movies, and for Marvel -- and I'd note plenty of other studios -- making movies by throwing +$200M budgets at them and then making shocked pikachu faces when audiences don't automatically show up to the tune of $200M for the midnight opening showing and then bemoaning $100M openings. Good lord! It's a $100M opening! If that's not good enough for you, then I'd say the problem is your business practices suck. It's not bad scripts, it's not "woke" or "pandering," it's not lousy casting, or bad editing, or anything like that stuff. It's that they're burning mountains of cash to make these films and expecting them to all make $1B a piece when the market has simply changed.

 

[Solo4114]

Consider this…Raiders of the Lost Ark had a budget of roughly $20 million (1980 / 1981 dollars) which is the equivalent of roughly $75 million, in today’s dollars.

There is definitely an argument to be made that movie budgets suffer from significant “bloat” today.

Exactly.

Take Solo, for example. For all the discussion people have about what a failure Kathleen Kennedy is for how she defiled Luke or whatever, you know what her absolute worst and most obvious mistake was?

Hiring the guys who wrote 21 Jump Street to make her Han Solo movie, and then being surprised when they turned in a flipping comedy. She let that production get to the point where it was almost complete and only then replaced those guys with one of the most expensive directors in Hollywood, who then went on to reshoot something like 90% of the movie. She basically paid to make 2 movies and only got 1. Solo did almost $400M at the box office, but because of her bad decisions and mismanagement, they spent almost $300M making the damn thing.

Solo was a popular movie. $400M at the box office is a popular movie. It wasn't a $1B movie, though, that's for sure, nor should it have been. But the money that was spent on it was basically what you'd spend on a movie that you'd expect to make $1B. I mean, honestly, WTF was she thinking? You could make a similar argument about Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Again, a failure of production, budgeting, and management. Forget the arguments people make about "woke" casting by including Helena whatserface. That's not the problem with the movie. The problem with the movie was they spent another $300M to make the damn thing and, again, it did...about as well as Solo: "only" about $400M!

That's bad management.

And it's everywhere in Hollywood right now. This is a consistent overestimation of the popularity of brands. And really, an assumption that it's somehow easy to make a $1B movie. It isn't, but you wouldn't know that to look at Hollywood's budgets; they sure seem to spend on films as if you can just burn a mountain of cash and from it will spring a $1B movie like the phoenix reborn. They're like guys who play the ponies too much and keep betting tons on those incredible longshots because if they win, they'll make money hand over fist. What they should be doing is spending something like $50-100M to make movies, because it's pretty clear the audience is there for it; just not in the numbers you need to make $1B.