quote:

Originally posted by Kevin F:
Pretty much have to agree with you but I also thought the Back to the Future trilogy was pretty good throughout

Back to the Future was good. I haven't seen them in awhile but as I remember, #2 was still the weakest. The third was in the Old West and picked up a little again, but the first one was by far the best.

Another trilogy that got dumber as it went along was Scream, but I loved the first one. Same thing with the Harry Potter and Spiderman series. You could probably make the case that the first movie will turn out to be the best one about 95% of the time.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:

quote:

Originally posted by Kevin F:
Pretty much have to agree with you but I also thought the Back to the Future trilogy was pretty good throughout

Back to the Future was good. I haven't seen them in awhile but as I remember, #2 was still the weakest. The third was in the Old West and picked up a little again, but the first one was by far the best.

Another trilogy that got dumber as it went along was Scream, but I loved the first one. Same thing with the Harry Potter and Spiderman series. You could probably make the case that the first movie will turn out to be the best one about 95% of the time.

Hm, Harry Potter had to follow the plots of the books so not really the best example.

Spiderman is a bit of an oddment with regard to sequels as far as I'm concerned. In the first trilogy, I actually thought the second film with Doctor Octopus as the main villain was far and away the best of the three. In the first reboot version, the second film was just as dire as the first...and there hasn't been a sequel to pass judgement on in the latest reboot

Right, Harry Potter wasn't even a trilogy. There were like 8 movies, but I tapped out after the first three. I guess I lost the magic.

Spiderman films kept going back and forth, so they might not be called a traditional trilogy either, which is why I switched over to say series. But actually a lot of the time now we are talking about trilogies within franchise titles. Made in chunks of threes, the titles and characters continue on after that story arc ends.

I forgot that Scream had 4 movies, but the first three were supposed to be the trilogy and the 4th one got tacked on a few years later. The ending was dumb unfortunately and that 4th film did nothing better, totally unnecessary in fact.

With the Marvel and DC universes going, it's hard to even tell where the story arcs end and a new one begins. However on average I've got to say that the first movie in any arc is practically always the best one. A matter of opinion of course, I didn't care for the 2nd Spiderman at all. I think it might have been because I didn't like the casting of Dr. Octopus and thought it was kind of slow getting going.

Anyway we are off topic, but trilogies within franchise titles are big box office right now. Star Wars and Jurassic Park as the best examples and Avengers and Justice League being more spread out.

True, Ocean's 8 has grossed 170 M worldwide, but the first three films did 310-450 M globally

With those numbers, there may not be a fifth film !

quote:

Originally posted by Tommy C:
True, Ocean's 8 has grossed 170 M worldwide, but the first three films did 310-450 M globally

With those numbers, there may not be a fifth film !

Oh I'm pretty sure they will make another one. The cast seems to have already agreed and the studio is happy with the results. You are going to see those foreign numbers jump a lot, the best portion of Europe is not in the totals yet.

Now I saw it and I liked it, but I myself don't think it should have a sequel. I thought it was fun to see the locale, the clothes, the actresses, and the story was passable as those heist plots go. However it's all out there and what's left to do, just another job that you know will work. The Clooney Ocean's series stopped because it just got to be boring smugness and like most trilogies, the first one was the best.

Ocean's 8 is the first one and it's worth seeing, but I'm not advocating that it's so great there must be another one. It's not necessary. However the studio wants to look progressive and it made the money, so I think Ocean's 9 is all but certain and I probably won't like it.

Hopefully Ocean's 8 will do better worldwide than the recent Ghostbusters did (229 M total). There probably won't be a sequel on that one. Yes, I know, it cost much more than Ocean's 8 to make

Read the article on line the other day that said that with SOLO not being a huge hit, the Obi-Wan and Boba Fett movies are on hold

Currently, SOLO is only the 6th highest grossing film of the year (207 M), having been easily surpassed by Jurassic World, Incredibles 2, and the Marvel films

Solo has been doing much better overseas and should be right around 368M worldwide, so why a dud? Because at 250M to make, plus another 150M to promote, its the most expensive SW film yet. That's because it was a mess.

They needed to bring in Ron Howard and do costly reshoots just to get a finished product out there. This movie could have been as bad for Disney as John Carter, but it was not. Carter lost 200M, Solo may lose a tenth of that, if it doesn't yet manage to break close to even. It's just all about lost expectations.

I think Disney will go ahead with whatever next stand alone was planned, but it will be scaled down and managed carefully. Its not that Solo didn't find good money, but they threw it away making it. They bought Star Wars to milk it and they will.

Ocean's 8 just hit 210M worldwide. Even though that's much lower, the 70M production cost and expectations for that one make it a sizeable hit for the studio.

And movies like this year's A Quiet Place or last year's Get Out are the ones that are really the biggest hits of the year. A Quiet Place was made for around 20M and grossed $329M worldwide. No Star Wars can touch that.

Even adjusted for inflation, SOLO is the lowest of the 10 live action Star Wars films, in terms of domestic gross

It is even LOWER than the 1997 Star Wars Special Edition (the 1977 film with the new footage), which grossed 275 M in the U.S.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
I think the second Jurassic trilogy will follow the same way, and of course it will still break records in 2020.

Jurassic World 2 has taken over $1 billion worldwide in ticket sales. I'm sure the dinosaurs are very happy.

quote:

Originally posted by Tommy C:
Hopefully Ocean's 8 will do better worldwide than the recent Ghostbusters did (229 M total). There probably won't be a sequel on that one. Yes, I know, it cost much more than Ocean's 8 to make

Enjoyed Ocean's 8

This message has been edited. Last edited by: hammer,

Here are the Top 10 films of the year (so far) domestically


Black Panther
Avengers
Incredibles 2
Jurassic World
Deadpool 2
Solo
A Quiet Place
Ant Man
Ready Player One
Ocean's 8


So Disney is doing well with 5 of the Top 10 films. Warner Bros. has 2 (# 9 and 10).

Universal has Jurassic Park, but then their next hit outside of the Top 10, is the third "Fifty Shades" movie

Fox has literally just 1 Top 20 hit--Deadpool. Soon Disney will own them, also.

Paramount continues to struggle year after year. Only hit is "A Quiet Place"

And Sony (Columbia)'s biggest hit so far is Peter Rabbit, at # 11.

quote:

Originally posted by Tommy C:
Here are the Top 10 films of the year (so far) domestically


Black Panther
Avengers
Incredibles 2
Jurassic World
Deadpool 2
Solo
A Quiet Place
Ant Man
Ready Player One
Ocean's 8

The next 5 that are cutting off just below the $100M mark currently are:
Peter Rabbit
Hotel Transylvania
A Wrinkle in Time
Fifty Shades Freed
Rampage - at last cutoff of $99.3M

Notice the commonality of nearly all these 15 films. They are unequal parts of CGI, Si-Fi, Horror, Animation, Comics and Fairy Tales. The only two movies earning more than $100M this year that have stories and characters residing somewhat in the real world are Ocean's 8 and the dreadful Fifty Shades Freed.

Certainly this says something about what has happened to popular entertainment and why it is becoming impossible to get studios to even consider making intelligent, reality based films. All their money and resources is tied up in producing the same genre block busters that are only broken up when one or two of them fail to make back their inflated budgets.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:

quote:

Originally posted by Tommy C:
Here are the Top 10 films of the year (so far) domestically


Black Panther
Avengers
Incredibles 2
Jurassic World
Deadpool 2
Solo
A Quiet Place
Ant Man
Ready Player One
Ocean's 8

The next 5 that are cutting off just below the $100M mark currently are:
Peter Rabbit
Hotel Transylvania
A Wrinkle in Time
Fifty Shades Freed
Rampage - at last cutoff of $99.3M

Notice the commonality of nearly all these 15 films. They are unequal parts of CGI, Si-Fi, Horror, Animation, Comics and Fairy Tales. The only two movies earning more than $100M this year that have stories and characters residing somewhat in the real world are Ocean's 8 and the dreadful Fifty Shades Freed.

Certainly this says something about what has happened to popular entertainment and why it is becoming impossible to get studios to even consider making intelligent, reality based films. All their money and resources is tied up in producing the same genre block busters that are only broken up when one or two of them fail to make back their inflated budgets.

I don't see that this situation is anything new...by a very long way. Way back in the early days of film and cinema, it was the films that had nothing to do with reality that made the biggest impressions and put the most bums on seats. Remember Georges Méliès 'A Trip to the Moon' way back in 1902, the original 'The Lost World' with stop motion work by Willis O'Brien in 1925 who then went on to make the original 'King Kong' in 1933, pretty much everything by George Pal and I could go on.

Throughout the history of cinema people have always wanted to go there to get away from reality not be handed more of it. Television is now on hand for when people want a dollop of unblievable, depressing, or gritty realism

P.S. CGI is everywhere these days, so much so that people don't realise just how common it is even in everyday situations, e.g. something like 50% of the items in the current Ikea catalogue are CG images not photos of actual products.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
Notice the commonality of nearly all these 15 films. They are unequal parts of CGI, Si-Fi, Horror, Animation, Comics and Fairy Tales. The only two movies earning more than $100M this year that have stories and characters residing somewhat in the real world are Ocean's 8 and the dreadful Fifty Shades Freed.

Certainly this says something about what has happened to popular entertainment and why it is becoming impossible to get studios to even consider making intelligent, reality based films. All their money and resources is tied up in producing the same genre block busters that are only broken up when one or two of them fail to make back their inflated budgets.

I don't see that this situation is anything new...by a very long way. Way back in the early days of film and cinema, it was the films that had nothing to do with reality that made the biggest impressions and put the most bums on seats. Remember Georges Méliès 'A Trip to the Moon' way back in 1902, the original 'The Lost World' with stop motion work by Willis O'Brien in 1925 who then went on to make the original 'King Kong' in 1933, pretty much everything by George Pal and I could go on. [/QUOTE] Kevin F

Well of course, special effects films were always bigger in any age. Just as the good comedy and action movies tend to always find bigger audiences than straight dramatic stories. But you had one King Kong or one Lost World a year. You also had Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, And Then There Were None, Charge of the Light Brigade, Zulu, The Dirty Dozen, The Magnificent Seven, I mean I could name classic, terrific hit movies all day long, from all decades, that don't have one superhero or alien in them.

But not anymore. Now the exception is a hit movie without a superhero or alien or monster in it. And the few films that are straight drama invariably come out at Christmas and are insufferable political rhetoric or personal tragedy designed for awards season only. Its OK if they don't make money because they are for the prestige only.

Then its all rounded out by a couple action franchises like Fast & Furious or Mission Impossible. And that is it for reality based movies in the modern era. So what I'm trying to say is that the biggest hits of the last few years just aren't like the classics from years before that are still great films. I don't know how future generations are going to look at this period of films. They may love them, but to me, most of the biggest money makers are mediocre to poor scripts that have excellent CGI and an established title fan base. Forget about being great movies, half of them aren't even good movies.

Raven, I think future generations will view the current crop of movies the same way we look back on the movies of the past...through rose coloured spectacles. There have always been more poor to mediocre films released than good, great or classic ones. Just as TV companies these days have to fill their schedules with low budget dross, so film makers have always had to do the same.

Take a look through the full list of films released last year on a month by month basis:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_in_film

There was a wide cross-section of different types and genres released. Most, I haven't even heard of let alone watched. The ones that topped the box office were indeed the heavily promoted, standard stuff you are complaining about but the evidence suggests that there is a lot more out there all year round....if you can find it

Mission Impossible 6 did well with its opening, approximately 62 M, which is Tom Cruise's best showing since War of the Worlds in 2005

The animated Teen Titans Go! flopped at 10 M

In terms of sequels, Mamma Mia 2 has made only 70 M total domestically, while the original made 144 M.

quote:

Originally posted by Kevin F:
Raven, I think future generations will view the current crop of movies the same way we look back on the movies of the past...through rose coloured spectacles. There have always been more poor to mediocre films released than good, great or classic ones. Just as TV companies these days have to fill their schedules with low budget dross, so film makers have always had to do the same.

Take a look through the full list of films released last year on a month by month basis:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_in_film

There was a wide cross-section of different types and genres released. Most, I haven't even heard of let alone watched. The ones that topped the box office were indeed the heavily promoted, standard stuff you are complaining about but the evidence suggests that there is a lot more out there all year round....if you can find it

Agreed, there are still some small independent movies and cable channels are making their own. A first just happened with Netflix last week. Mowgli, another Jungle Book version, was bought by Netflix for a 2019 streaming release, instead of the October theatrical opening it was supposed to have. Now Mowgli is live action with CGI, but ran into trouble because of competition with Disney on the same title. I bring it up only to illustrate how overcrowded and unbalanced those heavily promoted big money making movies are these days. Mowgli couldn't even get a good slot and opted for an end around release. Even if you say popular movies always run in cycles and copy each other, I think you have to admit its gotten way worse because even the stinkers are breaking box office records. Yet in terms of comparing to past films, they are not good, with or without those glasses.

As for Mama Mia, I was amazed they even did a sequel when the first one was awful. I bought it on as a DVD and watched maybe 20 minutes before tossing it out. Now I saw the original production on Broadway and it was a wonderful musical event. Everybody knew the songs, the singing and dancing was top notch and the audience was just singing along at points. Mama Mia is a great live show, but the story is just an excuse to get as many ABBA songs together as you can.

As a movie, Mama Mia had no story, so no reason for good acting to speak of and no main actors that were professional singers and dancers. They managed to make the songs boring. So I hated it. Just put on an ABBA record if you want the music. Still the movie made money, which is no indication of anything, and had to be brought back without Streep, and now as both a sequel and prequel rolled into one. The only thing it has going for it is still the music and for those who enjoy musical films, its the only one out there. So it does have that.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Raven,

That "Jungle Book" thing confused me.

Disney did a live action version released in 2016 which was a hit

Why did someone try to do another live-action version at the same time ? Apparently this was filmed in 2015-16 and is still unreleased. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Andy Serkis, Cate Blanchett, and Christian Bale.