For the last few years franchise movies like star wars, marvel, etc. made money regardless of quality. However now it seems like audiences are being choosier when it comes to these kinds of tentpole releases. I’ve seen some people online say that the movie/theater industry is losing people in general but I don’t think that’s the case.
Super Mario and spiderverse made a lot of money. And Oppenheimer, Barbie, and Dune seem to be tracking well. I think the problem is that people are getting sick of the same old stuff and need more than just a brand name to go to the theater. What do you you think?
It’s not superhero fatigue or franchise fatigue. It’s bad writing fatigue. Seriously, I don’t know why Hollywood keeps choosing terrible writers for huge projects, but as long as they are doing that they are going to keep getting what they deserve.
And speaking of huge projects, from what I’ve heard Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny cost $295 million to make rather than 250. And that’s not counting publicity and marketing, which brings it to 400 million if not more. That means they need to make at least $800 million to break even. No matter how you slice their opening weekend, they are in huge trouble. And given that Elementals and The Little Mermaid both bombed hard along with most other Disney movies of the last few years, I’d say that Disney is in serious trouble too!
On the other hand, Guardians of the Galaxy 3 was rather well written, and from what I’ve heard it did rather well at the box office. Which is just more evidence that if you have a decently-written film the public WILL go and see it. We’re just avoiding crap, that’s all.
I’ll go out on a limb and say that hauling poor old Harrison Ford away from his bong and forcing him at the age of 80 to make shitty movies is tantamount to elder abuse. As for The Flash, coddling wannabe cult leader and mental defective Ezra Miller was just the icing on the cake. The movie was just badly written.
Frantic last minute reshoots and rewrites are a dead giveaway that something is seriously wrong with a production. But that that is happening so often in Hollywood in the last several years is clear evidence that Hollywood itself has completely lost their way. I don’t know if they can right that ship, and to be honest I don’t much care. If they won’t provide people with the good entertainment that they want, eventually somewhere else will. Maybe Bollywood or China.
Speak for yourself. I’ve been majorly burned out on super hero movies.
As someone in the industry, the tentpole execs do not give a shit about writing or even quality. They just imagine $$$ and hate risk, so they double down on what they already know. It’s a dumb decision from the outside looking in, but they literally can’t see that. Also, in the last 10-15 years, screenwriting has developed more into a gig economy than a FT job, so even finding good writers and keeping them around is tough as hell.
I think Flash and Indiana Jones flopped because they’re garbage. Spider-Verse was a masterpiece and clearly a part of the shared universe franchise. Guardians 3 is nearing a billion dollars at the box office.
People aren’t tired of franchises, franchises are just generally getting worse. MCU is a mixed bag with some outliers still doing really well. We’ll see if the new phase can keep up with the introduction of new characters that most people don’t know. But I’m honestly not terribly hopeful.
Indy is failing not because it’s a franchise, but because the audience for an 80 year old Harrison Ford is not going to the theater.
Flash failed for reasons other than it being part of a franchise. It failed because that franchise is not well liked, and in fact is in the process of being replaced.
Also, Ezra Miller is apparently a giant dick bag, turning off audiences.
I expect Blue Beetle will do worse due to featuring a character 90% of the movie going audience is unaware of, based on characters 99.9% are unaware of. At best people will go “So it’s an Iron Man / Spider-Man ripoff?”
Aquaman is the last of this generation of DC movies, hard to tell how it will turn out. The first one was the ONLY ONE of the DC films to hit the big $Billion mark.
Man of Steel - $668M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0770828/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Batman V Superman - $873M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt2975590/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Suicide Squad - $746M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt1386697/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Wonder Woman - $822M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0451279/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Justice League - $657M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0974015/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Aquaman - $1.148B
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt1477834/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Shazam - $367M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0448115/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Birds of Prey - $205M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt7713068/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Wonder Woman 1984 - $169M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt7126948/?ref_=bo_se_r_2The Suicide Squad - $168M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt6334354/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Black Adam - $393M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt6443346/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Shazam: Fury of the Gods - $133M
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt10151854/?ref_=bo_se_r_2The Flash - $245M and counting:
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0439572/?ref_=bo_se_r_1Edit I should say, both Birds of Prey and the Suicide Squad deserved better. Victims of covid and day/date streaming.
WW84 can die in a fire though.
I want to see Indiana Jones but I’ve had stuff to do every day since it came out. I might bite the bullet and go tomorrow.
Fair point about DC and Indy but Disney has had a few flops recently as well. Pixar isn’t a franchise but it was definitely a brand that normally would bring people to the theaters with just the name alone. Now they are struggling to get people to come to the theaters.
I think Ezra Miller is a great actor, but in small indie films, where he can act the problematic individual he’s outside the screen. Whorever decided to cast him off for big budget summer blockbusters should be fired.
They actually did a decent job in the Flash. It’s tricky playing an 18/19 year old version of the main adult character on screen at the same time.
Well, in their defense, The Flash was first filmed way before he got super problematic iirc.
I also thought it wasn’t too bad, but I seem to be in the minority apparently lol. My biggest complaint is some moments of bad CGI.
i would love to see revivals of old franchises go the way of the dodo. i am as nostalgic as any millennial but if i want to see indiana jones or ghostbusters or whatever, i’ll just watch the originals.
i don’t think the superhero franchises are going anywhere, unfortunately. they are still reliable, even with some people losing interest over time. it seems like a good moneymaking bet for disney at least. and all the studios seem really risk-averse lately, more than they used to be.
I’d more interested in MCU stuff if they tried something new with them. It’s why guardians as a franchise did so well. The cracks really started showing id argue with captain marvel.
I’m just bored of superheroes in general, I think. I watched up to the first Avengers movie as they came out, and kind of lost interest after that. GotG was fun, and I liked the first Black Panther. Loved Thor: Ragnarok. There’s just probably a limit to how much someone can do with that set of concepts without getting repetitive.
It’s more to me because of the studios interfering. Its worse with wb and DC but like cause it’s a overarching universe each individual projects suffers creatively because of it.
I haven’t bothered with DC movies since Wonder Woman (2017). It was an OK movie, and then I stepped outside and forgot about it. So I can’t speak to how bad those movies are, haha. With Marvel, I do think the quality is good, it’s just that I’m not interested anymore. I have a hard time understanding how anyone is still excited after 15 continuous years of the same stuff.
I don’t think it has anything to do with being franchise films. Studios just need to make good films and people will see them.
Spider-Man made 600m WW so far which isn’t too shabby. That has to contend with superhero fatigue as well as franchise fatigue.
End of franchise films ? Not even close. What I think you’re seeing now is the floor is much lower for franchise films than before (especially with comic book movies). You need more than “it’s a Marvel movie” to have people go out and come see. The top movies of the year are still either sequels to franchises or based on existing IP.
That’s true. I should have titled the end of the “risk free” franchise film. Disney and WB drop 200 million on a movie and start filming without a coherent script because they knew that the film would coast on the name alone. I think those days might be gone. Marvel and others might need to step up their game to survive.
Agreed completely. Writing and Direction are key and studios will definitely need to recognize that (ironic considering the writers are still in strike).
Out of the loop, why is there a writers’ strike?
In short, studios are trying to replace writers with AI
There are only two good indy movies and that’s raiders and the last crusade.
Anything else was crap and crap Indiana Jones movies are nothing new.
Dune and so on are objectively good movies even though they play the hobbit tactic with dune releasing only half the book.
Why people like avengers and marvel and these movies I have no idea. Only a select few of these movies are watchable.
Nah movies are too expensive now. I’m super excited for indy. He’s my hero but the theater is a horrible money waste.
They need to learn to release straight to streaming instead of Theatre only. Because I spent a while lot of money on a 5.1, 65in 4k TV and awesome lighting to go blow $100 every time I want to see a new release? Hell no. The threater is just more irrelevant then ever when I can be super comfy and watch or be packed in with 100 strangers.
I saw the movie last weekend and paid about $10USD for 2 tickets, sodas and popcorn. Mexico is a beautiful place
There’s still a place for theaters for people in apartments or condos who can’t set up home theaters without bothering their neighbors… Unfortunately. Damn you high home prices 😭
How expensive are those tickets?!
I don’t understand the apathy for Indiana Jones. It was a great film. Very entertaining and fun and was dedicated to the previous films. Some very touching moments. Maybe people want to wait until it comes out on a streaming service rather than watch it on the big screen. The big screen experience was worth it with lots of action scenes and Harrison being de-aged and fighting Nazi’s, what’s not to love.
It’s because 4 was bad and it’s hard to believe that 80yr old Indy is still doing anything. Throw in the wonkiness of de aging and it’s not exactly an attractive use of time.
Also a really really stupid name imo
I heard bad things about the last Indiana Jones, so I won’t see the latest one as I would feel like I was missing out on something. Same goes with the Flash… the films don’t come across as independent from each other so I won’t bother if it seems like I need to have followed the franchise until that point.
No, Indiana Jones is a terrible example to base those on. It’s a franchise who’s last good film was in the 80s and most people hated the last attempted comeback.
I don’t think people are sick of the same old stuff. Indy flopped at the box office on the combination of a disappointing 4th movie and Disney’s trend of virtue signalling over good characterization and storytelling.
The Flash has the baggage of an unlikeable lead actor, plus the DCU is still all over the place and constantly rebooted. I honestly have no idea what to expect from the Flash, given previous DCU movies.
Someone who says virtue signaling unironically is the dumbest fuck in the room, no matter what room they’re in.
Wait, is having a woman in the movie virtue signaling? I haven’t seen it to know.
There are only two genders: male and political.
Genuine question, how do you know Indians jones flipped hard ?
I went on imdb and it is rated around 7 which isn’t bad at all.Critic and audience reviews (such as IMDB scores) alone don’t make a movie a flop or not. Instead, it’s the movie’s box office performance.
$60M opening weekend against a $250M production budget would be considered a flop. (Source)
Typically, studios want to see at least $100M on their opening weekend to consider something a success.
Could this be the beginning of the end for franchise films?
We can only hope.
‘The Flash’ and Other Mediocre Movies Won’t Stop Superhero Fatigue - Variety. Fifteen years (since Iron Man), for the love of Stan! As Scorsese said, “…that’s not cinema…the closest I can think of them…is theme parks.”
Fun fact: did you know that the (then) new distribution strategy invented for the iconic film The Godfather gave rise of the Blockbuster (and thus “franchise movies”) and the near-death of auteur cinema?
@kingmongoose7877 Of course Scorsese’s mastery, knowledge and love of movies is matched by few and surpassed by none. But I do find it amusing that the he criticises lowbrow superhero genre movies when every third film he makes has a bunch of Irish or Italian guys telling each other to fuhgeddaboudit, then shooting each other in the head. (Yes, I’m exaggerating, but not by that much.)
My point? There are bad, mediocre and good superhero movies, just as there are bad, mediocre and good gangster movies. And every so often there are great genre movies, like The Godfather, or - for my money - Logan (which I think deserved Oscar nominations for picture, director, adapted screenplay, actor, supporting actor and supporting actress).
And, basically, you just need a lot of movies to be made before a masterpiece is produced. For how many decades were westerns a popular genre? Were directors complaining about the guns’n’horses theme parks in the 1950s? Most westerns that were made over that time have been forgotten, but the great ones like Shane or Unforgiven live on. In fifty years most superheroes will have been forgotten, but a handful will live on.
To address @chickenwing 's post more directly: I remember reading articles a few years ago about how the age of the movie star was dead (Tom Cruise being cited as one of a few exceptions), and that the age of the franchise/brand (Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar) had arrived. If the age of the franchise is dying, what will rise to take its place?
If the age of the franchise is dying, what will rise to take its place?
The age of good writing! Or am I too optimistic?
…when every third film he makes has a bunch of…
…there are great genre movies, like The Godfather, or - for my money - Logan (which I think deserved Oscar nominations…
See, right there that makes me question your ability to discern the difference between gummy bears and filet mignon or, like my post here, pop art and highway billboards. The Godfather and Logan in the same sentence? Really?
@kingmongoose7877 Yup. Really. Objectively in terms of craft The Godfather probably is a bit better (note that I said Logan deserved to be nominated for a bunch of Oscars), but personally of the two I prefer Logan. And yes I put them in the same sentence. Deal with it.
Dealt with, many many times before you came along. And like the others, you will remain with me for as long as it takes to write this reply. I’ll keep separating the pearls from the dreck and you keep enjoying movies about muscular men with claws.
Slightly off-topic, but didn’t they claim something along the lines of “people will ignore that Ezra is a total piece of shit because of how great the movie is”?
Wow, you got me to Google the guy. I was expecting a bad incident or two, but the list just goes on and on.
He’s mentally ill there’s no doubt about that. But it makes for good sensationalism so social media loves to just celebrate it.
