The Superhero Thread

[butta54 371]

If Batman V Superman wasn't a failure, why has the DC universe begun busting at the seems. We are looking at a full blown collapse and it will probably only get worse before it gets better. Didn't you even make a video about that?

 

If you listened to what I said you would know I didn't make it out to be as bad as you or Milla are.

 

You guys are putting it in too much of a dichotomy as if a movie can only fail or succeed. In terms of what BvS needed to do, there is no way I would say it was a failure.

[Favre4Ever+ 4,476]

 

If you listened to what I said you would know I didn't make it out to be as bad as you or Milla are.

 

You guys are putting it in too much of a dichotomy as if a movie can only fail or succeed. In terms of what BvS needed to do, there is no way I would say it was a failure.

 

I didn't watch it. I read the title of it though.

 

It made money, for sure. Doesn't mean it was necessarily a success or a good movie though.

[butta54 371]

I'm not talking in terms of money. Not really an important thing that I judge success on cause I have no financial stake in a movie.

 

As far as the story-telling, as I said before when the movie was announced, Batman v Superman only had a few specific things it had to do in order to get the story rolling and characters introduced. Very much similar to Captain America or Thor....those didn't need to make big money or the MCU would should down....it's about the long term big picture....they just needed to keep the story moving. Batman v Superman just had to keep the story from MoS moving and set up the new characters. All was accomplished...despite who thought it was a bad or good movie.

[Favre4Ever+ 4,476]

I'm not talking in terms of money. Not really an important thing that I judge success on cause I have no financial stake in a movie.

 

As far as the story-telling, as I said before when the movie was announced, Batman v Superman only had a few specific things it had to do in order to get the story rolling and characters introduced. Very much similar to Captain America or Thor....those didn't need to make big money or the MCU would should down....it's about the long term big picture....they just needed to keep the story moving. Batman v Superman just had to keep the story from MoS moving and set up the new characters. All was accomplished...despite who thought it was a bad or good movie.

 

You did say $800 M is never a failure. All things considered, I think BvS was a failure, just look at the state of the DC Filmverse. They didn't lose money and I am sure they are happy with that fact, but it could have done (and probably should have) much better if it was a better quality product.

[Thanatos 2,847]

 

 

 

Soooo if watching Bruce see his building destroyed, and employees killed....or Superman having his mom about to be killed....is not enough to care about a character....then please explain to me how Stark losing his parents....or Cap trying to protect his old friend any better?

 

 

 

Talking about you care about a character based on previous movies or lack of previous movies is not a legit reason to judge a movie.

 

What? That logic makes no sense, lol. You can't discount previous movies, especially when we're talking about making us care about that character. BvS had one other movie in its universe. Civil War had like 12. If that was the first we saw of Ant-Man or Black Widow or Iron Man or Captain America, then your complaint would have merit. Otherwise, you are the one who sounds like a fanboy of DC trying to say the two movies treat character development the exact same. I don't think 10% of moviegoers would agree with you that you can only judge a movie's plot and character development based solely on that movie.

Edited May 8, 2016 by Thanatos

[Milla4Prez63 678]

DC is clearly trying to emulate/copy/whatever you want to call it the MCU. The fact that they had Wonder Woman and Justice League movies in development but didn't go through with them just furthers that point, Warner Bros. didn't have faith in those. They only seem to have faith in Batman and Superman, and even then that's questionable. Tim Burton's Superman Lives is probably the most infamous comic movie never made. It wasn't until The Avengers broke every box office record there was did Warner finally realize that there is a market for these characters and actually went to work developing projects. But again, there is nothing wrong with that. That is not the problem and you're too hung up on it as if I'm trying to make it sound like DC is unoriginal and just straight ripping off Marvel. Nothing in the entertainment/art business is totally original. Nothing. Every piece of work is inspired by something. The problem is, Warner wanted to rush Justice League out there. That is why this film was made, to introduce an extended universe to the one we were introduced to in Man of Steel. BvS felt like it was trying to do too much and it just didn't totally work right for me.

Also, 850 million is tough pill to swallow for Warner Bros. When you factor in the 250 million dollar budget, an estimated 100-200 million in advertising/marketing and the theaters getting their cut the amount of money they earned in the end was pretty minimal. When you factor in toys and blu ray sales, there is no way this will lose Warner Bros. money but they didn't make this movie for a minimal profit. They wanted box office records and cash flowing in, a movie featuring two of the most iconic characters in American culture together for the first time should bring home a billion these days. Now you can ask me why should I care about box office numbers, but ultimately these movies are a business. If I want to see more movies of these characters I love, then the box office matters because that is what speaks to Hollywood executives. It's why people got to see Spider-Man in Civil War, because TASM2 was the lowest grossing Spider-Man film to date. It's why FOX cancelled the Fantastic Four sequel. We fans speak with our money and if something doesn't make money then more won't be made. BvS underperforming is a bad sign for the DCEU, it isn't dead yet but it's a bad sign, and despite what you may think I want a DC movie universe with top of the line quality. I don't think they've delivered that so far, and obviously I'm not alone in feeling that way.

But I'm going to drop the whole BvS discussion with that, I'm tired of discussing that movie and it's old news at this point anyways. We'll just have to revisit the DCEU's future discussion next year after Justice League Part One.

[butta54 371]

 

What? That logic makes no sense, lol. You can't discount previous movies, especially when we're talking about making us care about that character. BvS had one other movie in its universe. Civil War had like 12. If that was the first we saw of Ant-Man or Black Widow or Iron Man or Captain America, then your complaint would have merit. Otherwise, you are the one who sounds like a fanboy of DC trying to say the two movies treat character development the exact same. I don't think 10% of moviegoers would agree with you that you can only judge a movie's plot and character development based solely on that movie.

 

Not at all what I was hinting at. I'm saying you can't point at one movie and say it has all these previous movies setting up background that's why I care...but this other movie doesn't have that so I don't care about the characters.

 

If you think that then you are basically saying every movie needs to be a franchise.

[butta54 371]

DC is clearly trying to emulate/copy/whatever you want to call it the MCU. The fact that they had Wonder Woman and Justice League movies in development but didn't go through with them just furthers that point, Warner Bros. didn't have faith in those. They only seem to have faith in Batman and Superman, and even then that's questionable. Tim Burton's Superman Lives is probably the most infamous comic movie never made. It wasn't until The Avengers broke every box office record there was did Warner finally realize that there is a market for these characters and actually went to work developing projects. But again, there is nothing wrong with that. That is not the problem and you're too hung up on it as if I'm trying to make it sound like DC is unoriginal and just straight ripping off Marvel. Nothing in the entertainment/art business is totally original. Nothing. Every piece of work is inspired by something. The problem is, Warner wanted to rush Justice League out there. That is why this film was made, to introduce an extended universe to the one we were introduced to in Man of Steel. BvS felt like it was trying to do too much and it just didn't totally work right for me.

 

Also, 850 million is tough pill to swallow for Warner Bros. When you factor in the 250 million dollar budget, an estimated 100-200 million in advertising/marketing and the theaters getting their cut the amount of money they earned in the end was pretty minimal. When you factor in toys and blu ray sales, there is no way this will lose Warner Bros. money but they didn't make this movie for a minimal profit. They wanted box office records and cash flowing in, a movie featuring two of the most iconic characters in American culture together for the first time should bring home a billion these days. Now you can ask me why should I care about box office numbers, but ultimately these movies are a business. If I want to see more movies of these characters I love, then the box office matters because that is what speaks to Hollywood executives. It's why people got to see Spider-Man in Civil War, because TASM2 was the lowest grossing Spider-Man film to date. It's why FOX cancelled the Fantastic Four sequel. We fans speak with our money and if something doesn't make money then more won't be made. BvS underperforming is a bad sign for the DCEU, it isn't dead yet but it's a bad sign, and despite what you may think I want a DC movie universe with top of the line quality. I don't think they've delivered that so far, and obviously I'm not alone in feeling that way.

 

But I'm going to drop the whole BvS discussion with that, I'm tired of discussing that movie and it's old news at this point anyways. We'll just have to revisit the DCEU's future discussion next year after Justice League Part One.

 

All valid points, but at the end of the day we know executives are greedy. There standards are usually too high.

 

BvS not making a billion dollars is FAR from the death nail this conversation has made it out to be. Less than 30 movies in our history have made over a billion dollars. And making hundreds of millions over your budget isn't minimal.

 

But my point has always been the same over and over again....it's about the long game and the overall universe. If it's a failure every time a movie in the universe didn't make a billion dollars then we would have none of these franchises.

[Milla4Prez63 678]

So Civil War's opening weekend is looking like 181 million. Good enough for 5th all time. Ironically, 3-6 on the all time domestic opening weekend box office list are all MCU movies (Avengers, AoU, Civil War, IM3 in order). That puts it currently at 678 million worldwide after it's American opening weekend. A billion dollars looks likely at this pace. I'm thinking 1.2 or 1.3 billion.

[butta54 371]

I'm seriously interested in how much it will make once X-Men opens. If it's not at billion by then I don't know it will be easy sledding.

 

Also interesting enough Civil War only opened to $75 million on Friday. That's way lower than expected, wonder what everyone went to see?

[RazorStar 4,025]

I saw it in Korea before that though...

 

[Thanatos 2,847]

 

Not at all what I was hinting at. I'm saying you can't point at one movie and say it has all these previous movies setting up background that's why I care...but this other movie doesn't have that so I don't care about the characters.

 

If you think that then you are basically saying every movie needs to be a franchise.

 

No I don't. Are you being intentionally thick here, butta?

 

Try this: Any movie with the amount of characters that both BvS and Civil War had does in fact need to be a franchise, because otherwise the movie will feel rushed and you won't care as much about the characters.

 

BvS: Lots of characters, one other movie that only introduced Superman, so it felt rushed.

CW: Lots of other movies, lots of characters, so it did not feel rushed.

 

Warner Bros wanted to tell BvS as a story. They needed to wait a couple years and give us 6-8 more movies in that same universe. That's why Avengers was so good. They spent the time to make us care about the universe and the people in them.

 

First Superman? Was fine. There wasn't a shit ton of characters. Wasn't the best movie ever, but I didn't have a complaint about the amount of characters or making me care about them.

 

The Hulk just needed one movie because we're focused on him. Same with Thor. Same with Batman. Not that you can't make more, but when you're focused on one major good guy, you can do that in 2.5 hours of screentime. If you have 10 characters, you can't do that with 2.5 hours of screentime, so yes, you do need a franchise. It's simple logic. Trying to argue otherwise is just plain ludicrous, lol.

Edited May 8, 2016 by Thanatos

[butta54 371]

 

No I don't. Are you being intentionally thick here, butta?

 

Try this: Any movie with the amount of characters that both BvS and Civil War had does in fact need to be a franchise, because otherwise the movie will feel rushed and you won't care as much about the characters.

 

BvS: Lots of characters, one other movie that only introduced Superman, so it felt rushed.

CW: Lots of other movies, lots of characters, so it did not feel rushed.

 

Warner Bros wanted to tell BvS as a story. They needed to wait a couple years and give us 6-8 more movies in that same universe. That's why Avengers was so good. They spent the time to make us care about the universe and the people in them.

 

First Superman? Was fine. There wasn't a shit ton of characters. Wasn't the best movie ever, but I didn't have a complaint about the amount of characters or making me care about them.

 

The Hulk just needed one movie because we're focused on him. Same with Thor. Same with Batman. Not that you can't make more, but when you're focused on one major good guy, you can do that in 2.5 hours of screentime. If you have 10 characters, you can't do that with 2.5 hours of screentime, so yes, you do need a franchise. It's simple logic. Trying to argue otherwise is just plain ludicrous, lol.

 

You've lost me. Batman v Superman was about two characters. Civil War is really about two characters but features two full teams. Not sure how you are saying BvS has a lot of characters.

 

Marvel is able to put that many people in because they have previous movies....yes I agree. But BvS brought in Batman connected to the Superman story we already saw...so what's the issue?

 

I don't get what you are getting at, but my point was you can't hold it against a movie for having a lack of background. Yes there are a hundred stories you could tell before BvS...but that doesn't automatically mean the story of Batman and Superman having an issue with each can't work. The motives and reasoning was very real and present in the movie IMO.

[Sparty 110]

BvS was so bad even Ben Affleck is ashamed of it. So much is riding on Suicide Squad, which sucks because it'll most likely be the Will Smith show considering he loves being the lead.

[butta54 371]

Fanboy Sparty

[oochymp 2,393]

Didn't like the lack of a real villain tho. But still a solid 8/10.

I actually really liked the lack of a real villain

 

The whole "unite to defeat a bigger threat" is such a played out storyline, it was the undercurrent in both of the Avenger's movies so far so I'm glad they didn't go that route even if that is the way they set it up for Infinity War.

 

As for more general thoughts: what I've always been impressed with is how well Marvel balances the number of characters they use. Each of the secondary characters had their moment but they still kept the focus on the main story of Cap v. Iron Man.

 

But the main reason this was way better than BvS (which I actually did enjoy) was subtlety, BvS just beat you over the head with everything, from showing the Wayne murder in about a dozen different iterations, none of which actually added to the story (including the first time they showed it because who doesn't know about that at this point?) to the 'reveal' of the other characters through watching clips from Luthor's hard drive, they left nothing for the audience to figure out. Contrast that with this movie, which amazingly set up the big reveal that Bucky killed Stark's parents, I probably should have figured it out sooner but it clicked right as Zemo started the clip (unlike BvS they actually had a reason for going back to the parents' death scene, and they didn't overdo it) and they did a fantastic job of introducing Black Panther, who most movie goers aren't familiar with at all (the first time he showed up in costume my brother leaned to me and asked "who's that?" then he had another great moment of realization when he pulled his mask off, that was just sooooo well done) and I loved the way they brought Spiderman in.

 

I could go on, but I'll stop there for now.

 

[Milla4Prez63 678]

For Civil War's villain....

I actually feel like Zemo may be the best villain in the MCU movies so far outside of Loki. For one, he actually accomplished his goal. He tore the Avengers apart. This film didn't need a menacing powerful villain because it was about internal conflict. But they were still able to do the whole bad guy playing the heroes like pawns subplot more effectively than BvS did. I hope we haven't seen the last of Zemo and I doubt we have, it isn't like Marvel to leave their villains alive.

So far the only baddies alive in the MCU are Loki, Abomination and Helmut Zemo. Maybe Red Skull too, but I doubt Marvel ever revisits him so I'll consider him dead until shown otherwise. Abomination is also highly unlikely to ever be used again, so we'll just assume he's going to rot in a cell. But Obadiah Stane, Whiplash, Aldrich Killian, Malekith, Ronan, Alexander Pierce, Ultron and Yellowjacket all bit the dust.

 

[Sparty 110]

Well I saw an article about a first look at Zemo (which is a comic character that the bad guy might be related to or become?), so I guess I was expecting a villain.

[butta54 371]

It's the same Zemo from the comics, just 1000x different.

 

 

With all the projections pointing north of $200 million, I'm still really curious why Civil War didn't have the domestic box office it should have. Especially it's Friday which was lower than BvS opening Friday.

 

I contend this isn't the family movie that the other Avengers were. While there is good humor and great action, I would say most of this movie happens on an emotional and philosophical level. Maybe word spread not to take the little kids? Idk

[Favre4Ever+ 4,476]

For one, it actually had good movies to compete with. Jungle Book still raked in over $20 million in like it's 4th week, which also pushed Disney to the quickest billion dollar year in the history of film.

 

I am just glad Civil War doesn't have a bombshell Melissa Joan Hart movie ready to knock it off it's perch next week.

[butta54 371]

Meh Jungle Book being in it's 4th week would not be big enough to take chunks out of the movie. Even so that makes sense as again I think more family films were the target on a Mother's Day weekend, and word of mouth didn't paint Civil War as a family film.

 

Even still I think you can blame the bad reception of BvS and you can add in superhero fatigue.

[Milla4Prez63 678]

Early reviews for X-Men: Apocalypse coming out and....

Not too great, 43% on RT right now

 

[Favre4Ever+ 4,476]

Meh Jungle Book being in it's 4th week would not be big enough to take chunks out of the movie. Even so that makes sense as again I think more family films were the target on a Mother's Day weekend, and word of mouth didn't paint Civil War as a family film.

 

Even still I think you can blame the bad reception of BvS and you can add in superhero fatigue.

 

You wouldn't have said that about God's Not Dead until it happened and beat down BvS either... And Jungle Book is a masterpiece compared to that pile of shit. Lol.

 

Top 5 all time opener and on track for an easy billion. But we will see, projections change.

[butta54 371]

 

You wouldn't have said that about God's Not Dead until it happened and beat down BvS either... And Jungle Book is a masterpiece compared to that pile of shit. Lol.

 

Top 5 all time opener and on track for an easy billion. But we will see, projections change.

 

But we know what Jungle Book made..... $20 million and it's in a different genre.....I don't think there is enough to say it ate into Civil War's profit.

 

I'm not going to say this is a failure or that is a disappointment because it didn't hit the marks people expected. A lot of money is a lot of money. So to me it is perfectly fine. Just like BvS is. But make no mistake Disney is probably up in arms right now. I'll use what everyone said to me about BvS.....for what it was....it should have made more money.

Edited May 10, 2016 by butta54

[Favre4Ever+ 4,476]

 

But we know what Jungle Book made..... $20 million and it's in a different genre.....I don't think there is enough to say it ate into Civil War's profit.

 

I'm not going to say this is a failure or that is a disappointment because it didn't hit the marks people expected. A lot of money is a lot of money. So to me it is perfectly fine. Just like BvS is. But make no mistake Disney is probably up in arms right now. I'll use what everyone said to me about BvS.....for what it was....it should have made more money.

I don't think they are up in arms at all. BvS failed to meet expectations, Civil War is on it's way to over a billion dollars. Lol.