quote:

Originally posted by WOMBLE:
Captain Marvel has comfortably passed $1 billion worldwide, and is the biggest film of 2019 so far. Amazing to consider people are now guessing just how many days it will take 'Avengers Endgame' to overtake it.

EEK! 3 DAYS!

"Hellboy" has grossed a whopping 21 M to date.

Someone should be fired for green lighting that project !

Yeah, I liked the two del Toro "Hellboy" movies but the second one came out 11 years ago and no one has been clamoring for a third. You call him an obscure comic character and even though there were those two movies, ten years is a long time in the entertainment world. He's lost some of the name recognition he had. Of course, as Raven indicated, "Hellboy" is well-known to those who went to the comic book store once a week in the 90's but those fans are in their thirties, now passing out of the desired demographic. I'm also left wondering why they started over unless "Hellboy" was the best-known of the less-expensive comic book character properties to make into a movie. No matter what the studio did, it was going to be an uphill battle topping or even approaching del Toro's imaginative entries.

quote:

Originally posted by Tommy C:
One wonders why they even bothered with the new "Hellboy." If it costs at least 50 M to make, you don't want 12 M back, resulting in millions of dollars lost. Unlike with Marvel, you can't take a big gamble on obscure comic characters

I noticed that even Disney's "Dumbo" is not doing well worldwide. It has grossed about 266 M here and abroad, but it appears to have cost 200 M plus to make.

Regarding Hellboy, I read that the actor who played him in the first 2 movies didn't want to return if the original director was not involved with this one, and he was not

And maybe too much time passed in between movies to call it "Hellboy 3", as teenagers don't even remember the first 2, at this point

There seems to be a surprising lull at the movies for the next couple of weeks. Films are opening, but the next one that looks maybe big is Aladdin in 3 weeks and Godzilla at end of the month. I don't know about that Pokémon one.

Endgame may stay on top for awhile. Long Shot got good reviews today, but a rom-com probably won't break records. If you look at the box office totals, Endgame and Captain Marvel have really taken up most of the oxygen this year so far. US has done terrific for its investment, but is more than half behind and next is Train Your Dragon 3, which I barely remember as opening. They keep scheduling the big films on top of each other come the summer, come the winter holidays, when they could be spread out.

Hellboy/B.P.R.D is such a unique comic book universe that no matter how it was done someone would not be pleased. Del Toros films strayed from the comics and it made certain people upset. Mignola who created Hellboy was lukewarm to these films vision of his character.
The new Hellboy from what I have heard tried to stay truer to the comics (The Wild Hunt storyline) but was an absolute mess and so the fans of the first two films hated it.


I wish the new one would have looked enjoyable to me. It did not.

Ok, saw Hellboy and End Game over the past week.

Hellboy is nowhere near as bad as the critics claim it is. I actually enjoyed it.

End Game is nowhere near as great as the box office blow up indicates. Don't get me wrong, it's great movie but I would not list it as my favorite MCU entry. I was not floored, mesmerized or enchanted and the pace was not so well mastered that I didn't forget I was sitting there for 3 friggin hours. ;-)

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
End Game is nowhere near as great as the box office blow up indicates. ;-)

Endgame became what is now a common event, the cultural phenomenon. The thing everyone must buy, see, attend, love, know about, even though it not's really that great when you do. But you can't say it's not that great, because then you set yourself apart from all those other people that are saying it is, whether they believe it or not. The modern equivalent of "The Emperor's New Clothes."

Endgame is a well made movie for it's genre, but it suffers from the same defects that all wrap up movies do. Infinity War left it with a great set-up, but an impossible situation. So now it has to resolve the impossible situation, but it can't because it's impossible. So the solution is bound to be either over complicated, as it is in Endgame, or stupid simple, like "oh we found this little knife that kills it". Neither way is satisfactory. Very few wrap up movies get it right and the more films they make the less chance there is of getting a reasonably sensible finish.

Everyone who saw Infinity War had to see Endgame. And everyone who didn't see Infinity War still had to see Endgame. So that's why it made all that money. But is it worth it? Of course, it was the big finale. It was overlong, overexplained, a bit like watching Groundhog Day, and for me at least, an unsatisfactory way to do what we knew was going to be done.

But I did go to see it, so I am as guilty as ever one else. But you have to see the end right? That's where they have you.

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

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
End Game is nowhere near as great as the box office blow up indicates. ;-)

Endgame became what is now a common event, the cultural phenomenon. The thing everyone must buy, see, attend, love, know about, even though it not's really that great when you do. But you can't say it's not that great, because then you set yourself apart from all those other people that are saying it is, whether they believe it or not. The modern equivalent of "The Emperor's New Clothes."

Yup that is pretty much spot on. I think my only disagreement is the impossible situation. It's a comic book film, the impossible situation is always a card in the deck. I even liked the resolution and thought it wrapped up everything nicely. My problem was there was so much narrative about the final resolution that it jilted the pacing of the film.

I thought that Black Panther fell into that cultural trap as well (obviously for different reasons than end game). It was a very pretty movie but not a great story. The final battle scenes were under whelming.

On my list Civil War is still the perfect comic movie.

So Godzilla King of the Monsters will open on May 31st and the rumored budget is 200M and up. The trailers look to be all monster clashes with the occasional spat of jibberish dialogue from the human actors who cashed a nice paycheck to take a backseat to the CGI.

If that sounds like I'm against, noooo, I dig Godzilla and all that stupid stuff when the action is done well. I didn't care much for the last one because it took too long to get going and the payoff wasn't worth it. I also don't particularly like the new thicker and squattier Godzilla look, but they have seemed to keep that design in this one too.

There are at least 17 monsters in this film, which for their purposes are now called Titans. I hope we get to see enough of all of them for that budget. The trailers look interesting, but quick and dark. That's what I hate about many modern action movies, for people or creatures. You can't see the action because of poor lightning and quick cuts. I can't watch a Transformer film for that reason, and also because they are usually awful.

I know this film should break big in Asia because these are all Japanese icons. I think its coming out early enough in the season and behind the Avengers long enough to do good business if its not terrible. I don't know if I want to see it in the first rush, probably not, but I will eventually.

Looks like neither "Godzilla" (grossed 49 M this weekend) nor "Rocketman" (the Elton John story, grossed 25 M) were huge hits

Although Rocketman only cost 40 M to make, so it might make some money in the end. Not much. It won't be a monster hit like "Bohemian Rhapsody" last year (grossed 215 M alone in the U.S.)

Godzilla is a true Monster movie. As with EVERY Godzilla it has its dumb stuff but if you like an overload of monster action....this one is for you.

Saw it in IMAX and loved it.

These moves tend to break in around or a bit below their production budget domestically but I think Internationally it will be pretty big.

Queen got my band history movie money this year. They almost ALL follow the very same story and formula. I will check out Rocketman on the small screen.

Some statistics about the Domestic box office, so far in 2019:

1) Only 2 films have grossed 200 M or more, Avengers and Capt. Marvel, although Aladdin will soon be # 3.

2) Last year, 14 films made 200 M or more.

3) In 2018, 34 movies made at least 100 M, so far this year, only 12 have done this.

quote:

Originally posted by Tommy C:
Some statistics about the Domestic box office, so far in 2019:

1) Only 2 films have grossed 200 M or more, Avengers and Capt. Marvel, although Aladdin will soon be # 3.

2) Last year, 14 films made 200 M or more.

3) In 2018, 34 movies made at least 100 M, so far this year, only 12 have done this.

Of course your top 3 could count for 7 200M movies.

Looking at the release schedule I would be surprised if this year does not surpass last.

I didn't realize that there is yet another "Shaft" film coming in June, again starring Samuel L.Jackson. It has the same title as the last one, from 2000, which also starred Jackson

And Richard Roundtree is in this one, as well, the Shaft from the three 1970s films

Plus you have all of these coming out through December.

Not sure how a couple of them will do (Men In Black does not speak to me) but I would say that most of them will break $100M

Dark Phoenix
Men In Black
Toy Story 4
Spiderman
Lion King
Hobbs & Shaw F&F
IT Chapt 2
RAMBO
Joker
ZombieLand 2
Terminator
Frozen 2
Star Wars

I saw in the paper today that "Dark Phoenix" received poor reviews, at least by the 1 reviewer

quote:

Originally posted by Tommy C:
I didn't realize that there is yet another "Shaft" film coming in June, again starring Samuel L.Jackson. It has the same title as the last one, from 2000, which also starred Jackson

And Richard Roundtree is in this one, as well, the Shaft from the three 1970s films

I saw the trailer for this film for the first time yesterday. I think I missed the last one with SLJ, and this one will probably be no different. However, this does seem like a role he was born to play. Nice to have Richard Roundtree in this latest version.

I wonder why they didn't decide to go with a different title for "Shaft", instead of using the same title as the 2000 movie. And both star Jackson. Maybe because it was almost 20 years ago, and people don't remember it as clearly ?

That's like having two movies named "James Bond."

quote:

Originally posted by David R:
I wonder why they didn't decide to go with a different title for "Shaft", instead of using the same title as the 2000 movie. And both star Jackson. Maybe because it was almost 20 years ago, and people don't remember it as clearly ?

That's like having two movies named "James Bond."

Richard Roundtree was in the one from 2000.

The one from 2000 was entertaining. This is just a continuation with the next generation of Shaft taking over.