Aquaman 2!

[PeregrineFalcon]

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom comes out in 2 days, on Saturday December 22nd. And I was shocked that I couldn't find a thread about it.

 

 

So are you planning on watching it? In theater or on streaming service?

[Without_Pause]

I didn't see the first one. I don't see a review on RT yet, which tends to be a death sentence. I can think of three movies I would rather see. I'm more curious to see how it does. More so considering The Marvels failing at the box office with at least decent reviews. 

 

And if you are wondering, Godzilla Minus One, The Boy and the Huron, and The Iron Claw.

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

The original  was a fun popcorn flick, especially watching Momoa having a blast, some really imaginative visuals and production, and a battle sequence that felt like it came from a different, better movie. (Kind of expected to see Peter Jackson hanging around in a wetsuit waving a cricket bat at the extras.)

 

But beyond that, there was a lot that didn’t float. 

 

Ignoring the tittle-tattle around Amber Heard, the fact that Jason had much better chemistry with Nicole (his mom) was noticeable. Yet again, we have a villain problem: Yahya does what he can with Kane/Manta, but that outfit would have been rejected as too ridiculous by Power Rangers. Pat Wilson’s Orm pales by comparison with Hiddlestone’s jealous relative. And then there’s the script…

This time around, we’ve got the same cast, a well-worn main thread about being bored of the job and having it taken off you, a hideously clunky shoehorned climate subplot (even by my goodie-goodie little Guardian-reading Social Justice Rogue standards… look, if you’re gonna run with that stuff, do it properly), and two Curse Of Forbidden Power McGuffins for the price of one. 

 

In short, while I might catch this on whatever streaming service survives the 2024/2025 shakeout...

...EDIT: which seems to be already happening... 

BBC News: Paramount and Warner-Discovery in early merger talks

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67782869

 

...I’m not enthralled enough to slap down a tenner for it, and I want my wine and fast forward button on standby. 

Edited December 21, 2023 by ThaOGDreamWeaver

[PeregrineFalcon]

I've seen multiple articles saying that the studio has reviews embargoed until the day it goes to theaters. That's a bad sign. Every time a studio puts a review embargo on a movie it's turned out to be a horrible movie.

 

I hope I'm wrong. We've already had enough bad superhero movies. I'm worried they'll wreak the genre so badly Hollywood will never make a superhero movie for the rest of my life.

 

Bottom line, if your movie's great you want people talking about it. If it's not, you suppress PR and reviews so that people will watch it without having heard anything bad about it.

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

22 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Bottom line, if your movie's great you want people talking about it. If it's not, you suppress PR and reviews so that people will watch it without having heard anything bad about it.

Welp, that embargo just dropped. So far, 36% Rotten. Even the better ones suggest that someone was trying for a Very Serious Movie about Serious Stuff, while still trying to capture the spirit of the first one. Nah. Empire Strikes Back, this ain't.

 

Look, the great thing about the first one is that both the movie and star knew exactly what they were doing - a big, goofy, slightly messy spectacle that knew that a guy who talks to fish is a weird story beat. It had a sense of its own ridiculousness and played to it. And that energy made up for a lot of the weaker stuff, like an adorable puppy that's run in from the beach and is shaking all over your car's upholstery.

 

So if the end of the DCEU turns out to be a damp squib, that gives Gunn & co a clear run at their new vision. Wish them luck. They're gonna need it.

Edited December 21, 2023 by ThaOGDreamWeaver

[Panache]

Only if Pitbull is back

[InvaderStych]

On 12/20/2023 at 8:01 PM, PeregrineFalcon said:

So are you planning on watching it? In theater or on streaming service?

 

Streaming ... eeeeeveeeeentuaaaally ... Once I get around to watching the first one I might as well watch the second one. But it will be a while, I only recently started catching up on the various Marv-sney + series.

 

No, really. I only just finished Loki a few days ago, and only just started What If ....?

(sort of going in semi-order, but I went ahead and watched both seasons of Loki because I liked it.)

 

Yeah, I'm that far behind. 2022-23 has been ... eventful.

 

[GM Crumpet]

I kind of avoided it after hearing about

Spoiler

the baby being murdered early on in the film 

Then they did a reshoot after the audience ratings tanked. Then they did reshoots again. At this point (Like the Marvels) the damage they are causing by reshooting, re-editing, reshooting again, then throwing out a lacklustre film that has lost everything it had when the original script was written is immense. Streaming doesn't help, a lot of families are looking and refusing to spend 100 quid or more on a night at the cinema with the price of tickets and snacks and just paying for the particular service to watch it a month or two after it's release.

You do get the movies where people are willing to pay, and go see it again after a couple of weeks, but they are getting really rare. 

[Mr. Vee]

I generally avoid trailers for things I'll eventually see but saw a bit of this one walking past sportsball. I genuinely can't believe they expect anyone to pay to go to this, it just looks ridiculous. Hoping my trick of expecting the worst movie ever made and then being pleasantly surprised will work, but that's been failing me a lot lately.

[Panache]

I'll probably catch it next week because I thought the first one was fun and I have 0 expectations.

I am getting some Ragnarok / Love & Thunder vibes, which is not great since I liked Ragnarok about 20x more than the first Aquaman (and think Love & Thunder might be one of the worst movies I've ever seen in a theater).

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

6 hours ago, GM Crumpet said:

I kind of avoided it after hearing about...

 

[/emote: DW reads spoiler]

[/emote: DW blinks a bit, stares over glasses]

[/emote: takes off glasses and reads again]

[/pow_exec Psychic Wail]

 

...thewhatIsaywhatthehellmahaynow? It's supposed to be a fun splashy super-romp, that's... why would you do that?
More to the point, what exec in their right mind would greenlight that for a tentpole movie?

 

Yeesh. Anyhow, yes, multiple studio reshoots around a movie can be disruptive if the original story and vision is not strong, or you've got meddlesome execs, or both. They're also expensive, difficult to schedule - you've got to call talent and crew back off other jobs - and you're usually working against a preset marketing deadline, insurance terms, financing bonds, etc.

 

Given the well-known WB/D finance issues, I'm kinda surprised this one didn't get consigned to Davy Jones' celluloid locker along with Batgirl. But I guess they decided to salvage what they could from the wreck.

[Frostbiter]

The lack of PR in front of this movies release is a sure sign of DC's no confidence in it.

[GM Crumpet]

5 hours ago, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

 

[/emote: DW reads spoiler]

[/emote: DW blinks a bit, stares over glasses]

[/emote: takes off glasses and reads again]

[/pow_exec Psychic Wail]

 

...thewhatIsaywhatthehellmahaynow? It's supposed to be a fun splashy super-romp, that's... why would you do that?
More to the point, what exec in their right mind would greenlight that for a tentpole movie?

 

Yeesh. Anyhow, yes, multiple studio reshoots around a movie can be disruptive if the original story and vision is not strong, or you've got meddlesome execs, or both. They're also expensive, difficult to schedule - you've got to call talent and crew back off other jobs - and you're usually working against a preset marketing deadline, insurance terms, financing bonds, etc.

 

Given the well-known WB/D finance issues, I'm kinda surprised this one didn't get consigned to Davy Jones' celluloid locker along with Batgirl. But I guess they decided to salvage what they could from the wreck.

That's one of the reasons for extensive reshoots early into the test screening process. 100% of the audience was against that story choice. Yet do it right and you have a John Wick situation where

Spoiler

the death of the dog

was the motivating factor in a movie that was expected to be a throwaway action film and turned it into the franchise it's become. I've not actually seen the John Wick movies, but a guy at work is obsessed and friends say they are really good. I'd have been onboard with an "Aquaman goes nuclear" movie.

[Without_Pause]

A quick look shows if needs to pull in $400 million to break even. Good luck with that.

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

Yup. Thursday preview take was $4.5m and expected opening is $35m to $40m. Which might be a mind-melting mound of money to you and me: but it’s only two thirds of what the 2018 original clocked, and $6m less than The Marvels did. (Then again, Christmas is odd.)

 

They’re banking on much stronger non-US openings - Momoa has a strong Chinese following - and it should breakeven* off the worldwide take.

 

*while still making a loss to present to the IRS, cast and writers for tax and residuals, and profitable for investors and the studio, with all three states being simultaneously true and provable. Quantum accountancy tricks like rolling breaks, production shells, and these days streaming licensing fees - which WBD can pay to itself - have a lot to answer for as to why Hollyweird is why it is.

Edited December 23, 2023 by ThaOGDreamWeaver

[Mr. Vee]

when you put it that way it sounds like a Bialystock and Bloom production

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

If Max and Leo had tried that stuff in LA…

[thinks]

…yeah, they’d be heading a studio in no time. 
 

Here’s a fun thing. Whatever Internet Ranty People say, it is highly unlikely that WB/D itself will “lose money” on this movie.

Because they didn’t make it. A specific, limited shell company, set up to make this specific movie did.

 

Which WB/D and various investors can then loan money to for the flick, and get repaid… with interest. If the flick folds, they’re creditors and can write off the bad debts.

They can charge as much or as little as they like for marketing and other “overheads” like studio execs’ time.
They can charge distro fees to the sub company, and pay the shell corp for streaming rights - which they then get back - appearing as profit lines for both the parent and child company.

 

And if - Gods forbid - a flick insists on making an above the line profit, you can merge that company with a loss-making one to hide them.

 

Recent example: the LOTR and Hobbit movies, which made six billion bucks… according to one particular formula, have never made dime one in above the line profit - and neither has any of the spinoff merch. So Pete Jackson and the lead actors had to sue for their shares and image rights shares… which New Line can write off as another business loss.🤷🏻‍♀️

[Without_Pause]

$9.2 million Friday. Saturday can pull in some decent numbers, but I can't imagine Christmas Eve doing much for the film.

Edited December 24, 2023 by Without_Pause

[Ghost]

Thursday-Sunday = 28.5mill

What a friggin disaster.

[Without_Pause]

Box Office Mojo shows $28.1. The point remains the same. Looks like The Marvels was $47 million in it's 3-day opening. At least DC can pull out the #1 movie in America trope for a week.

[Ghost]

44 minutes ago, Without_Pause said:

Box Office Mojo shows $28.1. The point remains the same. Looks like The Marvels was $47 million in it's 3-day opening. At least DC can pull out the #1 movie in America trope for a week.

What they should do is pull it out of theaters and pretend it never existed

Marvels was a 3-day weekend disaster.  This will be a 4-day.

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

11 hours ago, Ghost said:

Thursday-Sunday = 28.5mill

What a friggin disaster.

Not that bad... for a Christmas weekend release. There's only been one flick that went above $60m for a festive opening weekend, and that was RDJ's Sherlock Holmes: with its closest rival being [checks notes] Alvin and The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel on $49m.

 

...told you Christmas was a weird time for movies...

 

The Karen Gillan* Jumanji also had a Christmas release when it "only" did $36m, but had "legs" until May - went on to make $400m domestic, and just shy of a billion worldwide on word-of-mouth: Night At The Museum did $30.4m and was still running in June. All the other top festive flicks tend towards musicals, like Les Mis and Into The Woods. Though that seasonal sparkle didn’t quite stick to Spielberg’s West Side Story. Or Cats, but there may have been reasons for that.

 

Momoa has at least demolished WW1984 ($12m opening, $44m total domestic… ouch, though that only had about half the number of theatres booked.)

 

Releasing in the weeks leading up to Christmas is much better: all three LOTR movies were basically required Christmas viewing, but they all had at least a week to build audience (and by ROTK didn’t need it). So was Spidey: NWH.

 

*there may have been some guys in the flick too, but not all that famous 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Edited December 25, 2023 by ThaOGDreamWeaver

[OldManMercy]

I still think Momoa was horribly miscast as Aquaman. He'd have made a much better Lobo.

 

 

 

[Without_Pause]

It did better than expected for Christmas. It will be interesting to see how it does long term. Audience scores are at 80% on RT despite the scores for reviews being so bad. Audience scores on Metacritic are much lower. I don't think it is fair to compare a superhero flick to non-ones in terms of how long they stay in the theater. More so when a number of those films were flat out better. Add in 66% of Aquaman 2's numbers are for worldwide. It isn't going to stick around domestically. I can't fathom the audience for this being willing to stick it around until May. We're living in a post Covid peak streaming world. Stuff doesn't stick in the theaters and more so if the reviews are bad. 

[SeraphimKensai]

I haven't watched it yet due to Christmas family activities, but I'll watch it possibly this weekend on my jail-broken fire stick. Given the reviews I've seen it doesn't seem worth it to find a babysitter and then go buy tickets/concessions at a theater.