It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
Wow.
I bet nobody involved with “LOL” is laughing on-or off–line after that stunningly terrible opening.
Why didn’t LOL even open in Los Angeles, movie capital of the world?
Not a surprise at all with not a dime of paid advertising.
The cast/star wattage vs opening of LOL is easily one of the worst I have ever seen, if not the worst. Must be a contractually-obligated release? Yes? Otherwise, why didn’t this join the list of heavily-star-driven direct to video releases we’ve seen in the past 10 years or so?
I had never heard of lol before this very moment. Why even bither with the expense of theatrical with no push? Contractual obligations?
I guess Lionsgate picked it up strictly for its potential dvd value.
Hence, the token (102 screens, and not a single one of them in NYC) “release”/dump.
Wait, LOL is the Miley Cyrus/Demi Moore LOL? Holy shit.
I can wait til the middle of the week to see “The Avengers”. It’s not high on my list of seeing this on the first day like “The Hobbit” or “Prometheus” Still it’s a very big number and I don’t begrudge the people who felt they had to see this right away.
I was glad i caught avengers at midnight. Midnight crowds are usually the most enthused and best behaved. Ill probably see every summer blockbuster at midnight this year.
Shocked at the Avengers number. I thought the next bar for the opening weekend record would be $170-180s and that we were about 2-3 years away before the opening weekend record was $200M. Avengers has a legitimate shot at that and even if it doesn’t quite reach it, it should set the record in the $190s. One wonders if it is going to give Batman a run for biggest opening and movie of the year.
Is Kate Hudson officially “over”?”
at this point, I don’t even think a re-teaming with McConaughey (whose star wattage is equally dim these days) would matter a whit.
Hah! I can name you an even more under-hyped weekend release!
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117947493?refcatid=31
I don’t think I’ve ever read “reviewed online” at the tail end of a Variety review before, Joe. (“Reviewed on dvd,” sure.)
Or maybe I just wasn’t looking closely enough.
Was “Evil” some sort of “Houston exclusive”? I’d never even heard of the movie before–despite the presence of Jackson and Wilson in the cast.
It’s VOD, baby! But it’s also a “limited” theatrical this weekend.
Gotcha.
I watched Think Like A Man last night at the late show, theater was half full. Was a very funny movie. The device of seeing Steve Harvey’s face pop-up every 15-20 minutes didn’t work but it once they gave that a rest the momentum of the story worked way better. Some performances were better than others but as romantic comedies go one of the better ones I’ve seen a bit. I’ll say it again, they should have put Kevin Heart in the ads for “Five Year”, he might have added a million or two.
Remember a couple weeks back when I said the poster for LOL–showing a bored Miley staring at a phone–seemed designed to turn off straight men? I guess I underestimated its ability to turn EVERYONE off.
Avengers power, bow. Best superhero movie ever?
Stated once and will DO IT AGAIN!
It is THE SUPERHERO MOVIE.
I can also not stress enough that while the Nolan Batman movies are awesome. They have ruined the comic book industry. Everyone has decided to make everything dark and gritty especially DC with the reboot, and this movie basically rebuffs all of that with such glorious comic bookness, that it gives people a contact high. TDK-R may indeed be a great movie but the Avengers redefines the genre and the genre will hopefully be better for it.
and
It’s Marvel once again demonstrating why so many make their’s Marvel!
How did it redefine the genre any more than Iron Man, Spider-Man 2, or even Donner’s Superman? Enjoyed the tell out of it, but c’mon. Another superhero movie with lame villains (Loki again?) that was saved by great acting and dialogue (There’s only one God, ma,am…).
The Avengers is better than all of those films. It just is. How does it redefine the genre? It takes it back from folks like Nolan who made it too dark and gritty for it’s own good. Seriously, god bless Chris and Johnathan Nolan, but people took what they did with the Batman films, and have used it to ruin the comic book industry. Now, hopefully, this brings some joy back to some dire racks of comics.
Now with Loki, he’s a great villain with motivations that have led to many a real person to do something stupid. It’s also very Megatron of him, which is probably why I love him so. Also that hair is evil incarnate!
Avengers… It’s been 2 weeks since I’ve seen it… And the “contact high” has certainly worn off.
Yes, granted, it’s a breezy 95 minutes (the remaining 45 — mostly on that floating ship thing — are a bit of a slog) but with a bit of distance it’s clear what it is… a trifle.
It’s not a movie with any real stakes or emotion in it.
Not saying it needs to brood like the bat … One can be “fun” and have emotIonal resonance too (see Donner Supes).
Is it fun to see superheroes crack wise and blow stuff up? Sure.
But it lacks the heft to change things the way Donner or Burton or Nolan did.
or even favreau’s iron man (where rdj helped elevate… And it felt fresh in away this one doesn’t)
Superman had to sacrifice Lois for Hackensack … What did these guys DO? What will anyone REMEMBER about this? Hulk slamming Loki is a nice moment but ultimately a joke (yes, a good one).
To last and endure a movie (especially a pop entertainment) needs to be more than fun… It needs to move an audience…
And 1.85… Really?
Glad it’s raking it in, tho. Good for the biz.
Really? Really Jerry? All of that gets this:
http://o.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/fss/4cc5c46bb62b1ebfc789272e657e1d1f/chiefbeifong.PNG
I liked when the Hulk smashed stuff.
Why are you dismissive, J.S.?
I don’t understand.
Just expressing my opinion.
If that’s all you got from the movie. http://www.flickr.com/photos/47063070@N06/4706853733/ This sums up the response I’d usually give to someone like you, perfectly.
ETA: Jerry, it’s not dismissive. It’s more shocked that someone could post something like that after seeing this movie, and be shocked someone wouldn’t be amazed by it. The whole WHAT DO THEY DO and WHERE’S THE HEFT are easily some of the more outfield statements about this movie that are easily replied to, but if you did not see it. What’s the point?
I guess I could ask you the same question in reverese…
What DID you see?
(and not what did you bring with you into the theater from loving the characters … What did the MOVIE bring you… What did it create… Not what did you will into seeing onscreen)
Trust me, I’m not the only one who will shake off their Avengers hangover and realize it was junk food.
Not that there’s anything wrong with junk food, it can be tasty and delicious but it ain’t redefining cuisine.
Nor should it.
What was groundbreaking in the film that the other marvel movies hadn’t done?
You want a real phenomenon, look at something like avatar which both gave folks something they’d never seen before and touched them.
That film, for better (and worse) changed the biz.
Avengers is just MORE of the same. Big, yes. But not new.
There’s nothing harder to create than “new” and when an audience gets that… Well, we’ll all know it (or most of us anyway)
Avatar? Really? That’s your reply? Avatar is new? Really? Yeah there’s no point having a discussion with you because over here, we have the first ever SUPERHERO TEAM UP MOVIE THAT IS THE BEST SUPERHERO MOVIE EVER! Over there, you have a technical enterprise that gave me a headache, and I liked it better when Kevin Costner did and danced with wolves. If you really feel that’s creating the new, then I’d love to see how you’d respond to real innovation like the 3D from How to Train Your Dragon which makes Avatar’s look dated just THREE MONTHS LATER!
If you really think Avengers is Junk Food, then we have very different ideas about what’s good food and bad food. Especially when one thing taste like nothing else has before and the other TASTED BETTER IN 1991 (Yeah, I really fucking love Dances with Wolves but yeah, it’s all comic book movies… eyeroll.)
Why is a “first ever superhero team up” movie a big deal?
Serious question.
And yes, we have very different ideas about what’s good and bad.
It’s nice that this movie makes you so happy.
I wanted to love it. I wanted it to stick with me.
It didn’t.
As far as pop entertainments that stuck with me, something like Tron Legacy made more of an impression. That had emotion, fun AND heft. but that’s just me.
Avengers is clearly hitting it with a mass audience in a far bigger way, but that’ll wear off eventually. And then what are we left with?
When we finally look that movie in the mirror in the cold vacuum of memory, what will we see? What will we recall?
That said, it was better than wolverine.
PS — weren’t the xmen movies superhero team up movies?
The X-men are the X-men. They are a team but they are not a team up. They are not six disparate people coming together to save the world. There is an inherent difference but don’t trust me. I’m just a comic book fan and actually visits my store to buy floppies!
Also if you want to love something, then you are probably not going to love it. You either do or you don’t. There’s not try. Nevertheless, you dislike the movie for the most inane reasons to me. There’s no reason to go off on you because you’re not seeing something that’s was right there in front of your face like a reflection. I wonder why I brought the reflection thing up? I wonder?
One thing I will answer with your little prose about the cold vacuum of memory. I will remember the day that I saw a movie that brought back the light, kicked the ass of every fucking comic book movie ever made, and dropped the hammer on DC.
Unlike most you people, I am dealing with DC and their DARK AND GRITTY bullshit reboot and that Marvel, of all people, have decided to get all comic booky again with their flagship movie and their AVX event is a great cleanser after years of GRIT AND GRIME AND DARKNESS.
They basically flipped off DC with this movie and as a comic book fan, good lord, that makes me happy.
I thought wolverine was off by himself when they brought him in…
Wasn’t the whole point of the frst coupla xmen movies how they went and found new mutant and brought them in?
Like that fire guy. Or the girl who could touch you and make weird stuff happen.
I don’t dislike avengers… I just don’t love it or think it’s all that special.
It’s not a “bad” movie… And I truly respect whedon and what he did. The degree of difficulty of delivering an entertaining tent pole movie is absurdly high.
But it was no tron.
Serious question…
Why are you mad at DC?
I don’t know much about comic books, but superman and batman are awesome characters. Why don’t you like them?
All batman films (minus Schumacher) have been enjoyable
And Supes 1 & 2 were fun… (yeah, they’ve had trouble since on that franchise)
Yeah unlike most people on earth, Tron and Tron Legacy are two of my favorite movies in the history of the medium for me. The Avengers beats them both. Also, again, you are missing the difference between a team and a team-up. The FF are a team (Dear lord, it’s the human torch man), The X-Men are a team, but The Avengers is a team-up. The team-up is usually always better and we don’t talk about the FF films or the X-films. Even though Ratner unlike Singer, understood the X-Men were a team. Which he doesn’t get enough credit for, frankly.
ETA: Jerry, I explained why I am mad at DC.
That is one killer opening.
Jerry you wanted a smart reason for JSPs love of the film and why it’s a genre defining piece. Well wait just a second. Let me get it for you, you see he brought his A Game analysis to the forefront for all of us to enjoy.
“The Avengers is better than all of those films. It just is. ”
It……. just…… is
LOL
THE AVENGERS is passable entertainment for undiscerning viewers and apparently life-changing for 40 Year Old Virgins.
On a more serious note JSP.
Do you think The Avengers is the best film of all time?
No, that’s still Citizen Kane, Lady. It’s in my top five though. It’s that good but you know, I am sure someone like you really gets what’s passable entertainment, because that’s everything you like. It’s passable, not really that good, but passable.
Now if you want me to explain things to Jerry, then you miss the point of me trying to disagree with him as kindly as possible. You folks are on your little island and that’s fine, but don’t give me shit when I don’t feel like ripping into you. Especially when you had an entire thread whining and complaining about how evil I am because I dare have a strong opinion. I have very strong opinions about this movie, they are over in the BYOB, and it’s my right to not hit Jerry with a big fish.
Again, you folks give me shit for having an opinion, and then you openly mock in one day teenage girls and countless hard working Americans who loved the Avengers. Seriously, you folks are so god damn snobby. It’s what makes you really really really meh. Meh meh meh meh… meh.
I have to admit, as someone who spent most of his comic-collecting youth wishing Hollywood would make superhero movies, now that the wish has become a reality it’s hard to take them seriously, even when they’re really well done. Haven’t seen THE AVENGERS yet, so I can’t weigh in, but do we really go into that expecting “heft”? It’s people in silly costumes shooting rays and tossing hammers at each other.
That’s beyond awesome when you’re a kid, and sure, your inner kid can get a big kick out of it when you’re an adult, but the more serious the treatment, the sillier the result, I think. When I saw the oh-so-serious BATMAN BEGINS, I just wished they had gone nuts and handed the franchise to Ingmar Bergman or somebody. It might have sucked, but it would have sucked in more fascinating ways than Nolan came up with.
Yancy, you might go into these films not expecting heft, even though that’s rather snobby, but these are basically the same stories that we’ve been telling throughout human history. Superheroes now replacing soldiers or the lone warrior but for the most part, this is Beowulf, this is the Odyssey, and every other classic story of it’s type. They have heft and the Avengers has a lot of HEFT and if someone does not see it and it’s there, then it’s not on anyone to drag their face to the screen and say; “DO YOU SEE IT?”
Also, the thing with Nolan, is that treating these properties with seriousness and respect is a good thing. The problem that he created, which he probably did not even knew he would create, is that comic book companies and studios decided this is how these properties should be presented. This is why we have DARK AND GRITTY reboot of Spidey because we all wanted a DARK AND GRITTY REBOOT OF SPIDEY!
Marvel and Joss, in the face of this, produced a movie that is as great as any great comic, and people are turning out in droves. There’s no dark and gritty there because it’s replaced with character, hope, and comic book action goodness.
As team-ups go, I think Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein was a bit more fun.
Ticket Price Inflation + 3-D Surcharges + Endless Hard Sell = Major League Money Grab.
Repeat ad infinitum.
Yeah I’m sure LOL was contractually obligated. Miley’s star has faded a lot over the last year, to say nothing of the rumored breakdown by Demi Moore and the fact the film is a mess. Lionsgate has more important things to worry about now…such as scoring THE HUNGER GAMES opening in China this weekend which should help it top $700 million worldwide (BATTLE ROYALE, never released theatrically there, is one of the country’s all time DVD sellers).
Re: what you said last week JS about underperforming overseas, it should finish 50% ahead of the original TWILIGHT. For a non-sequel teen novel adaptation, that’s fantastic overseas.
JS – it took you nine posts to finally make a point.
Also, the thing with Nolan, is that treating these properties with seriousness and respect is a good thing. The problem that he created, which he probably did not even knew he would create, is that comic book companies and studios decided this is how these properties should be presented. This is why we have DARK AND GRITTY reboot of Spidey because we all wanted a DARK AND GRITTY REBOOT OF SPIDEY!
Marvel and Joss, in the face of this, produced a movie that is as great as any great comic, and people are turning out in droves. There’s no dark and gritty there because it’s replaced with character, hope, and comic book action goodness.
Again, you form your opinions in a vacuum.
How far back do I have to go?
Superhero properties are a pendulum swing because they encompass multiple genres.
Donner’s Superman is pure melodrama for two films, than Reeve’s turns it into high camp.
This allowed Burton to swing back harder towards melodrama with a darker visual palette. Things got too bleak with Returns, and forced an opposite reaction too massive camp with Shumacher’s sequels.
You can see this play out in the 90’s from The Crow, to The Shadow, to The Phantom.
In reaction to Shumacher, we get Blade and The Matrix. Though Matrix was not a serial, the initial idea behind it was “how could a person perform superhero actions in the real world”. Now, the pendulum swing finally touches drama.
Blade and Matrix creates the template for Singer’s X-Men; dark and serious, posing as dramatic.
With Spider-Man, the entire production was following the same pattern. Sony was using McFarlane’s vision of Spidey as template until Raimi signed on, who moved back towards melodrama.
Daredevil, Punisher and Hulk follow the X-Men model, with Daredevil only being a success because of how closely it followed Spidey’s release. Hulk’s disaster forces Arad to abandon the X-Men model and try to recapture Spidey with the FF.
During this time, the Batman reboot takes two forms; a Superman team-up and a reboot. The reboot wins, and since its based on Year One and written by Goyer, takes a serious tone as a way to distance itself from Shumacher.
Spidey 2, FF 2 and Spidey 3, can’t find the right balance, forcing Marvel to swing Iron Man closer to Begins. The difference is Favreau and RDJ, and without them, it would have been a bust.
We then have the heaviness of TDK totally negated by Watchmen, which froze god-knows how many DC properties.
So Thor and Cap go for the IM tone while the Spidey reboot, without Raimi’s involvement, always falls back to McFarlane. This isn’t an effect of TDK; it’s the crappy retcon writing Marvel has been practicing since the 90’s combined with McFarlane’s visual impact. It will fall perfectly in-line with Iron Man, which is far enough away from Raimi and the FF, but nowhere near TDK.
Avengers is no lighter than Thor or Cap, it’s just the difference between Favreau and Whedon. This has always been the case with Joss; his melodrama works on TV because the character interaction has hours-over-years to develop, where as a movie concludes in one shot. This is why Hulk works in Avengers; his screen time is limited to the main aspects of both characters.
Heft — let me clarify. I don’t think avengers should be Bergman.
It should be what it aspires to be — fun.
What I mean by heft is real emotion. When you have that, the fun is, well, more fun.
Here’s the obvious parallel to me… In star wars, obi wan dies. It has real “heft” (even if it only really affects 12 year olds). This grounds the movie… Just like things like Luke’s longing to leave home does…
Avengers tries to have it with Clark Gregg’s death… But it, in my opinion, fails because the movie turned his character into a buffoon with his collectables.
Just because a movie has become a must-see pop culture event doesn’t automatically confer greatness on it.
To me, Avengers is the ultimate movie of “the moment.”
Its pleasures fleeting.
A sugar rush with nothing behind it.
For pure fun, give me Supes v. Zod in times square. Supes had a journey in that movie. Real on its own terms which made the spectacle, spectacular.
The avengers is spectacle with a sliver of characterization… But that’s what happens when you have 10 protagonists and 2 hrs and change. Frankly, it’s a miracle it works as well as it does. which is just well enough to sell sow popcorn in the summer.
Nothing wrong with that, but once one tries to elevate this movie into the pantheon of greatness, that’s where it becomes silly to do so… For me.
If this is anyone’s idea of “greatness,” then by all mean pre order the blu ray and celebrate! You got what you wanted!
Yay!
Er, Jerryishere: You do realize that not everyone who reads this blog has actually seen The Avengers yet, right? So you understand why some of us think your spoiler about a character’s death is a rather dickish thing for you to have perpetrated, OK?
Avengers is certainly fun but it’s also the epitome of the Marvel movie run: some good moments here and here with mostly stupid stuff, bad costumes, and awful villains crammed into it. It just so happens that the “good moments” here are actually pretty great (i.e. virtually everything with the Hulk in the last half hour).
HUGE GIANT SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!
Stuff I couldn’t stand:
Everything with Nick Fury. Shitty character that even Sam Jackson can’t save.
Captain America. HE didn’t work in his own movie and he doesn’t work here. Also, I cannot believe so many skilled and experienced filmmakers working on this picture didn’t notice he has the single most retarded looking costume since Hollywood figured out how to make superhero costumes look good on screen. It’s just so awful that it’s all but impossible to enjoy or root for the character.
Hawkeye/Black Widow. Same. Fucking. Character. And a memo to Marvel: Screw off, you’re not going to beat us into submission on Black Widow to try and force a franchise.
The villains. Loki is actually kind of interesting, I liked the insecurity angle but the aliens were terrible. I swear I thought the Avengers were fighting the Locust from Gears of War during most of the last 40 minutes.
I loved the shit out of the Hulk at the end like everyone else but his “arrival” was bullshit and a cheat. They spend the whole movie insisting he’s basically a walking nuke that can go off at any second and then suddenly Banner can channel him in any direction he wants and control him? They could have gotten all the badass “Hulk smash” stuff without being so stupid.
The Shield heleharrier or whatever the fuck it is can be brought down by…a single explosive arrow? And it’s so advanced and high tech it can’t detect, like, another plane flying RIGHT FUCKING NEAR IT? Does the ship’s radar have a giant eyepatch over it too?
And since my post isn’t long enough I want to throw in on the Nolan vs conversation that’s been going on. This isn’t about The Avengers “taking back” superheroes from Nolan. Nolan didn’t ask the whole industry to ape what he did with Batman. His movies are dark and gritty because that’s what the character calls for. Bryan Singer actually started the trend with the X-Men movies. And it’s not even about being dark and gritty, it’s simply about trying to ground these fantastic things in reality so they seem, y’know, fantastic.
$200m weekend according to boxofficeguru.
Ok Disney is calling a weekend estimate just OVER $200 million! Hmmmm……it will grab a lot of headlines, any chance they could overestimating a bit?? I wonder….
Look, it’s an amazingly impressive opening even if they’re $10 million below that….Disney and Marvel really pulled out all of the stops on this one and pulled it off. Those early trailers looked eh….but I’m guessing it was more about effects not being done. Just shows even further how they did NOT bring their A game for John Carter.
Kudos to every one, but I really don’t understand why they had to punch up estimates so much….is ANY ONE even IO buying that this went pretty much dead-even from Saturday to Sunday to pull just over $200 million??
I actually think it’ll finish higher than 200, if the Friday and Saturday numbers are correct. They’re calling 80 and 69.5 for Fri and Sat, which would leave only 50 to go on Sunday to hit 200. Seems more than feasible given the great word of mouth.
Regarding the logic of the Avengers, yes, it makes no sense. Doesn’t take away from the enjoyment for me. I mean, there are all kinds of insane scale problems all over the place. Do a roll call on the weapons they use to take down an intergalactic force of all-powerful aliens:
1. A hammer.
2. A shield.
3. Some hand-lasers.
4. A bow and arrow.
5. Some punching.
6. And Black Widow has what appears to be a couple of standard issue 9mm handguns.
I think that’s about it.
And am I crazy or is Captain America invincible now? I saw his movie, and my take on things was that he was just a really strong guy. Perhaps I overlooked his invincibility because I was straight up hammered while watching that particular pic.
Iron Man’s suit? Its ability to keep its operator from a concussion is… impressive.
…aaaaaand it’s a comic book movie.
For my money it was the best one I’ve seen, save for perhaps X2 and HULK (yes, I am apparently its only die-hard fan). Can’t wait to see a full film for the Ruffalo HULK.
Whedon always has a character die, like in Serenity where alan tudyk gets offed or Cabin in the Woods where everybody dies ….
I’m so sorry about spoiler.
Truly feel terrible.
Backing out of the room. Sorry folks.
They had a Hulk as well. It wasn’t just a funny line.
@Gus
I get that it’s a superhero movie so suspension of disbelief is necessary. I don’t have a problem with a hammer beating off an alien invasion when it’s wielded by Thor, God of Thunder. I have a problem when the filmmakers need to bring down the SHIELD helecarrier and are too lazy to think up something that might make sense. The latter isn’t suspension of disbelief its suspension of critical thinking. Case in point, the bit about Nokia’s chamber originally being meant for Hulk. Why would anyone in that universe.think that would kill him? This conceit becomes even copier when they go ahead and basically drop Hulk from the ship anyway and its just the set up for a WONK WONK moment with Harry Dean Stanton.
Agreed on Captain America.
Nokia =Loki, copier = dopier. This is what happens when you use a phone to post to blogs.
haha yeah thanks Jerry;) No worries, it happens.
Disney needs this badly given their nasty slump. Though like 50% of Paramount’s films it’s distribution only….still, it works.
What’s odd is the decline among lesser films. Used to be you had an opening this large, and people would go for Avengers, see it sold out, pick something else, and you’d see an overall uplift on the holdovers.
Now, I dont know if there are too many theatres or theatres dedicate half their screens to big openers but we are seeing DEVASTATING drops among the holdovers….excluding the most bizarre outlier Ive ever seen by John Carter (+1,000% on the 2nd run release weekend..were they counting sneaks of Prometheus we werent aware of?).
My call to a Disney rep (his name is Jerry) “Audiences have taken longer to embrace JOHN CARTER than usual, but they have decided to take a second look at Andrew Stanton’s brilliant vision and decided it’s aces.”
I don’t think so. A 2nd run re-launch highlighted by a 51% theatre count increase results in a 1,073% revenue increase? I don’t think so. There were some investment minimums at stake here and Disney is covering them with their massive AVENGERS opening. Someone smarter than me should go further. You do not see a film jump 1,000%+ on its second run debut ever, even if you’re in the first weekend in September.
Spoiler Alert
I also had a problem with Hawkeye being able to pull right next to the Shield Helecarrier and mount an attack and no one notice. The most sophisticated airplane on the planet and they can’t detect another airplane in the sky? Would have been easily solved if the Loki team had some sort of cloaking mechanism as well.
End Spoiler.
All in all, I had fantastically fun time, but is was a case of more of the same and done a bit better. It did not redefine comic book movies or the genre. It had the best Hulk to date, it was very well put together, and they thread the needle between fantasy and reality very well. It deserves to be a success. All eyes are now looking to the Bat, and while persons are throwing comparisons, what I will say is that Avengers remains a comic book movie, a very good one, while Dark Knight transcended comics into being a very good film. You can’t remove the comic book elements of Avengers and have a movie, while you can take away the cape and still have one of the very best crime stories of our era. That is the difference between the two.
BD, no, that’s why one almost destroyed the comic book genre and the other brings it back. There is nothing wrong with comic bookness in a comic book movie. Nolan tried to deconstruct the genre and while that works for Bats, that does not work for everything like Spidey.
You take the comic bookness away from the Avengers and what do you have? The same story about saving the world and making sacrifices. That’s a very human story because we keep telling it over and over and over again.
Now with the rest of the complaints about the best Superhero movie ever… raspberry followed by a maniacal laugh.
Oh yeah Geoff, I have a name: use it. Also, Disney are rounding down. The members of this blog aside, the movie is playing like crazy to the rest of the world. 220m seems a bit more plausible given that there is nothing on today, that would keep people from seeing it.
John Carter comes out on DVD June 5th. I’m not sure exactly what they think a second run is going to do.
It’s a quickie DVD. I wonder if there’s ever going to be a directors cut.
Wasn’t THAT the director’s cut? Heck, Stanton even had control over the marketing.
The greatest Superhero movie of all time? Well, okay, sure. I think Iron Man is a better film up until the end, but otherwise the rest of the Marvel movies were mostly drecky so…go Avengers. Why not.
Im going to repeat what I said from a pretty dead thread to blatently get attention following an inexplicable %1,073 revenue surge for JOHN CARTER on a 51% theatre increase on the debut of their second run (full disclosure: I work for the-numbers.com and we have had issues with Disney lately):
“”My call to a Disney rep (his name is Jerry) “Audiences have taken longer to embrace JOHN CARTER than usual, but they have decided to take a second look at Andrew Stanton’s brilliant vision and decided it’s aces.”
I don’t think so. A 2nd run re-launch highlighted by a 51% theatre count increase results in a 1,073% revenue increase? I don’t think so. There were some investment minimums at stake here and Disney is covering them with their massive AVENGERS opening. Someone smarter than me should go further. You do not see a film jump 1,000%+ on its second run debut ever, even if you’re in the first weekend in September.
For someone, somewhere, 70 mil domestic was a minimum for JOHN CARTER (ironically thats what we pegged its total at, at my site initially) and Disney thought it would cover breaking it this weekend with most analysts turning a blind eye. These kind of shenanigans have got to stop.
BTW: For those who were asking about “LOL”
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117947505?refcatid=31