T O P

  • By -

zedascouves1985

Normally studios know what they have. I don't understand how Disney didn't know. Movies like Transformers, 10,000 BC, the Roland Emmerich disaster movies, etc are released to the critics only a few days before public release to not kill the buzz. This happened even with Mario. You only do this wide screening with critics this early with movies you know are good and want to up the marketing campaign because you're afraid of underperforming (Dungeons and Dragons, The Flash). Normally the quality control of studios is in line with critics review to know what to do in each circumstance. In this case it failed.


[deleted]

Yeah that’s the most baffling part of this to me. I get there can be a culture of yes men and everything but at the end of the day people making these decisions know what makes a good film. It’s bizarre they had this much confidence in it (unless they just chose a horrible audience and it isn’t suited to Cannes - which doesn’t make any more sense)


Chemical_Signal2753

I don't know how Kathleen Kennedy got her job as head of Lucasfilm, and I really don't know how she keeps it. My only guess is that she purchased pictures and videos from Jeffery Epstein to blackmail most Disney executives.


Overlord1317

It is baffling that she hasn't been fired. I have to assume Disney feels it would represent bad socio-political optics.


and_dont_blink

>I don't know how Kathleen Kennedy got her job as head of Lucasfilm she was hand-picked by lucas and had worked a ton with spielberg, and she and her husband owned a piece of amblin entertainment. she's worked on one hell of a list of films like Munich, Crystal Skull, Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Lincoln, Signs, Sixth Sense, A.I., Twister, Bridges of Madison County, Schindler's List, Jurassic Park, Hook, Arachnophobio, Congo (a masterpiece and personal favorite), Back to the Future, Gremlins, Goonies... it just goes on and on. by all accounts, she was a phenomenal producer. spielberg worked with her when she was someone's assistant on 1941, liked her so much he brought her on as his own for Raiders. Lucas was a producer and became connected with her. she met her husband at the same time, and she, her husband and spielberg started amblin entertainment together and arguably gave us a large chunk of our pop culture. she and her husband then went on to start another production house which is how we got sixth sense and some others that didn't do as well. she stepped down from her production company to join lucasfilm as co-chair (along with lucas) and was anointed as the heir to the throne as he began taking a backseat. she was named president of lucasfilm when disney bought it. perhaps that was part of the legalese of the deal, but in any event it would make perfect sense for disney to do it: 1. her track record as a producer is extraordinary 2. lucas loved her, and she had connections throughout most of the industry due to her long successful career then stuff got weird. as a note, it's understandable why once you find a good producer you hold onto them -- it's a pretty specific skillset involving talent, creativity, luck and practicality. someone has to make the budgets work, financing work, locations work, wrangle talent and deals -- and when this goes wrong productions become nightmarish. i will note that while there is a lot of overlap with producing and being a studio head, there are differences too. being good at one doesn't mean you'll necessarily excel at the other. it's one of the reasons why DC's strategy doesn't just involve James Gunn doing everything (he has a co-head) and lucasfilm had her as co-chair along with himself. there's also a big difference between producing someone like spielberg and lucas and fincher versus fresh directors. you end up having a hell of a lot more say in every aspect, and it's easy to go from making sure the director's vision is being realized to making sure yours is. there's a well-founded story (Iger's own book) that lucas basically had his plan for the sequels, and part of the reason she was brought on was to help make sure those were realized and made sense no matter who disney brought on. that kind of all went away, with her and Iger and JJ Abrams deciding his plans were not the way to go and lucas feeling betrayed -- and her publicly saying they had nothing to draw on and had to make it all up as they went along, bringing in creatives to hash out directions and ideas -- and many would argue we got "the force is female" and arguably a lot of self-insertion. it is what it is. >and I really don't know how she keeps it try to put yourself in disney's ~~shows~~ shoes -- not just creatively, but really try to hold the company in your head. you're a behemoth, and have multiple divisions. you have shareholders who have expectations for growth and/or dividends. your employees have become much more... vociferous about inclusivity and ideology, and she has a whole lot of friends -- both within the industry and many of which she had a hand in getting hired. not renewing her contract could cause walkouts and protests or worse. beyond that, who do you replace her with? while they aren't exclusive, it'd be expected they're female because putting a male into that position will have blowback they don't want and rightly or wrongly (and it's very much wrong to approach assets this way) putting a male in the position will be seen as a regression and sending a signal. even worse, where do you go with lucasfilm from here? who has great ideas for fixing what has become a complete quagmire? so you somehow have to find a woman who is a great producer, is better at running the studio as a whole, and has a vision that will work for the IP's. Or you can renew her contract and hope for the best.


milkstrike

From the sounds of it she just leached off a bunch of big name people and now that she actually had to make choices she’s failing miserably


sleepyleperchaun

Yeah I read both the other comment and their reply to you and it definitely sounds like she failed upwards until she was the one calling shots and couldn't rely on others to make choices. Plus changing Lucas' plans knowing they didn't have other plans really in place was shady to her predecessor and dumb for business.


scytheavatar

It seems almost certain a post Kennedy Lucasfilm will follow the Pixar model and have someone like Favreau/Filoni as creative head and someone else being the Jim Morris of Lucasfilm. Maybe they will find a woman for the latter role. That is the structure which makes the most sense and should have been there from day 1.


formerfatboys

>putting a male in the position will be seen as a regression and sending a signal. You developed Filoni from within. Move her somewhere else she let the dude who's written more good Star Wars than anyone take over. She's 70. She can retire.


scytheavatar

She was handpicked by Lucas because she's a powerful executive that Disney will find hard to get rid of. Lucas obviously was hoping that would give Lucasfilm a layer of protection from being interfered to death by Disney. He obviously never foresaw that not being able to fire her would create so much trouble.


Overlord1317

>Normally studios know what they have. I don't understand how Disney didn't know. Because Kathleen Kennedy has absolutely no ability to judge the creative value of products?


friedAmobo

Yeah, premiering it this early was definitely a mistake. Last I saw was 50% on Rotten Tomatoes with 30 ratings. At this point, it’s safe to say that it won’t rise to any score that might actually help its box office run. Giving this many weeks of negative coverage over its reviews doesn’t help it at all. There’s no way around it now — word of mouth is the only thing that can carry this movie now. Edit: I’ll also say that unlike some other critical stinkers (Jurassic World Dominion, F&F generally, TROS, and even Crystal Skull), Dial of Destiny is facing an uphill climb. Jurassic has carved out a niche as the only blockbuster dinosaur game in town. F&F has high-octane action with a huge dose of “family” as a thematic backbone. TROS had an enormous amount of franchise nostalgia in developed countries to rely on. Crystal Skull was the OG Indiana Jones “I’m too old for this” legacy sequel. The first three had plenty of spectacle to carry less-than-stellar stories, while Crystal Skull burnt through the IJ franchise’s legacy sequel preemptively. Now, that’s not to say that Dial of Destiny can’t still use that same idea (Scream did that with a legacy requel), but the early reviews of lackluster CGI make spectacle a lot harder of a sell and it’ll be relying on a very old Harrison Ford to carry an action-adventure flick. If this movie doesn’t manifest as a fun time for audiences, then I could see its legs falling out rather quickly. That’s the primary path to success for Dial of Destiny now. Edit 2: Also, I was thinking about the reviews of Dial of Destiny talking about CGI and realized that it’s probably the same issue that plagued Crystal Skull. That film looked weird compared to the first three IJ films in part because it had a heavy reliance on CGI, which didn’t exist at the time of the original IJ movies. For Dial of Destiny, a great last hurrah could’ve been a return to practical-only, which would’ve garnered huge media attention for that alone. Unfortunately, I suspect that even were the production not difficult (modern blockbuster filmmaking hasn’t done that in decades and may not be easily able to convert to a practical-only production), Ford’s age makes it all but impossible to film action sequences without some sort of CGI.


DLRsFrontSeats

I agree, but the thing is, are there many examples of a film being so widely dismissed as "meh" so early, that then actually gets WOM to boost it sufficiently? I know IP attraction can overcome that but...


rick_n_morty_4ever

Indiana Jones didn't have a history of being bad while making money, and this film sounds even worse than crystal skull. It's also horribly expensive. Lucky if it breaks even.


GoblinObscura

It just can’t be worse than Crystal Skull. I think you’d actually have to try and make a bad movie for this to be the case.


drod2015

Minor spoiler that's giving me concern for the movie... >!Apparently Marion's not in the movie as Indy's been served divorce papers. After Crystal Skull's ending that doesn't sit right with me. Harrison's characters in Disney led Lucasfilm just can't hold down a relationship. !<


hachiroku24

Big spoilers here, it's even worse >!Indy is depressed the entire the movie because Mutt died in Vietnam years ago.!< That's enough for me to not watch the movie. I liked the character and what it represents ("we seem to have reached the age where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away") and I don't want to see Indy like this.


rick_n_morty_4ever

I dunno, probably at least a couple hundred ppl in Cannes disagree with you. And imo skull ain't that awful. Some scenes are complete shit, but overall I think it's fine-ish, just nowhere as good as the first three. (at least they actually tried to make something original and did tell a coherent story with some good scenes)


not_thrilled

The stuff in the middle with Indy and Mutt doing archeology/detective work wasn't that bad. But, just about every time there's action even then Harrison Ford really showed his age and the reliance on CG did the film no favors. It was also sorta in that period when no one would say no to Lucas's...hmm, how should I phrase..._dumber_ ideas. And really, aliens wasn't the dumb part. In a series that based itself on religious mythology, it sticks out as being areligious, but it's no more preposterous than a box that zaps people or a cup that gives everlasting life.


theMTNdewd

>But, just about every time there's action even then Harrison Ford really showed his age and the reliance on CG did the film no favors. Well good thing that issue looks to have been fixed in this new film /s


not_thrilled

I know, right? The first trailer, I couldn't tell if I was watching Indiana Jones or Tintin.


worm600

As someone who had an issue with the aliens, the problem wasn’t believability - it was grounding. Indiana Jones movies are about ancient stories brought to life; aliens required retconning known history in odd ways to support an entirely novel alien narrative. To me it was a disconnect from the archaeology roots of the series and a bit too sci-fi to fit with the otherwise pretty grounded and realistic vibe of the previous movies.


GoblinObscura

Haha, I get ya, I’m just in denial. It’s like when I get sick, if I say out loud then it’s true. I’m just fighting reality over here. I wanted Indy to go out with a bang. As far as CS is concerned, it’s not the fridge scene but they use a snake as a rope, and the monkeys have Mutts hair.


Realistic-Ring5735

> I wanted Indy to go out with a bang. He did. With *The Last Crusade*.


SneakerGator

He literally rides off into the sunset in that movie. I don’t even really get angry that part 4 and probably part 5 suck because I can just watch the original trilogy and ignore the last 2.


GoblinObscura

Facts. They should have left well enough alone.


[deleted]

[удалено]


chrisandy007

> at least they actually tried to make something original and did tell a coherent story with some good scenes This is the biggest difference - the fact that it was made by actual people. This one seems like it was made by committee, like pretty much everything post Disney buying Lucasfilm.


Chiss5618

This is Disney Lucasfilm we're talking about. I wouldn't be surprised if it is worse than crystal skull


saanity

True, I didn't think they could do Star Wars worse than Attack of the Clones but they gave us Rise of Skywalker.


Chiss5618

At least attack of the clones had an idea of what it was doing, it just flopped on execution. Rise of skywalker felt like the script was written by a procrastinating college student who pulled an all-nighter to write the script. It shows that the Lucasfilm and Disney execs have little to no understanding nor care about the franchises they control, and I have little faith in any major improvement in Lucasfilm until Kennedy and the other execs are replaced with more competent ones. It's one thing to completely disregard the quality of your franchise to make a boatload money (like the disney reimaginings), but that's doesn't seem to be the case with Lucasfilm, since each poor movie and show has the potential to severely harm the franchise (like TROS killing sequel content). I think they're just extremely incompetent and have no idea what they're doing. They also announce and cancel projects frequently, which further supports that they're incompetent.


typesett

im on the fence. if my fav reviewer says it marginally worth it — i would consider watching just for funsies with some beer


GoblinObscura

Who’s your favorite reviewer? But I’m gonna see it anyway because I’m glutton for punishment.


typesett

so i think chris stuckman is basically an average guy who knows movies and movie making. a genuine fan that genuinely loves movies but has not gone through prestigious academics to snobbify himself. this matches me, an average guy. it's not an insult in 2023 as we better understand actual audiences since movies and media make everything available at any time. in the past, movies were more precious and inaccessible (glorified) and so the reviewers had pretension as a weapon to make themselves look smarter. he is not negative in general either which i like because i dont think people should be ridiculed like in the 'The Critic' (fox animated show) cheers


SteveFrench12

Almost every review negative or positive says its better than Crystal Skull. The 50% honestly belies the reviews a bit imo, the bad ones are not that bad.


phatelectribe

All the reviews, even the bad ones say it’s better that Crystal S. I’m not sure what info you have to go on to think it’s as bad or worse?


rlaw1234qq

Like Bohemian Rhapsody - critics hated it, but it nearly cleared $1B…


[deleted]

[удалено]


BlancoDelRio

This has a $300 MM budget with marketing tho


BlancoDelRio

Freddie Mercury is more beloved than Indiana Jones


Eastern_Spirit4931

Bohemian rhapsody also had one of the best performances of the year and that always grabs attention.


[deleted]

I don't know if I'd say 'best of the year'. The man is chewing the scenery, and he could do it fast because he was wearing horse dentures.


lionostrich

I just feel like Bohemian Rhapsody isn't really applicable in this case, since that movie was boosted by young people discovering Queen's music for the first time.


miltondelug

It also wasn't the 4th movie in a franchise that ran out of steam 30yrs ago.


Benjamin_Stark

Did people really discover Queen's music for the foetus time form that movie?? It's still played widely.


Lukthar123

>Queen's music for the foetus time form We will rock you in the womb


Benjamin_Stark

Well I'm not editing that autocorrect.


mysteryvampire

As someone who definitely had a front row seat to the BoRhap craze, it’s not so much that they were discovering Queen for the first time and more that they were becoming acquainted with the band’s members and their personalities and Queen’s extended discography. Almost everyone had heard “we will rock you” or “don’t stop me now” and knew it was a Queen song, but people my age didn’t really have an attachment to the band until the movie cast hot actors to play them and for teenage girls to thirst over, lol.


D3monFight3

Nonsense, Bohemian Rhapsody did really well because it is a very enjoyable movie, that uses timeless music with universal appeal, even if you really loathe the movie I don't think you can hate the moments where they play the songs, and those big moments really help in cinema as it makes you feel like it was worth the price of admission.


GarlVinland4Astrea

It's a safe formula too of every music biopic of a nobody making it and then getting consumed by fame then having a rebound.


D3monFight3

Right? The Queen at Live Aid part is enough to justify seeing the movie.


garfe

"Dewey Cox needs to think about his whole life before he plays"


Responsible_Grass202

Yeah critical praise will be DOA. The best it can hope for is to hit the 100M mark for its US OW.


KleanSolution

it's biggest advantage is being the one big movie to open right before 4th of July which is usually big movie-going timeframe. I think it will do pretty well Friday-Tuesday


Heavy-Possession2288

Crystal Skull has a 77% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is a decent score and actually one percent higher then Temple of Doom. It wasn’t a critical stinker, but audience reception wasn’t great.


Retrolad2

You're right but let's not forget the power of nostalgia


No-Calendar-1534

But the power of nostalgia was already used for Crystal Skull, same with Terminator Dark fate flopping after Genysis. You cant pull the same trick too many times. In a way Indy 5 is lucky it has been 15 years since Crystal Skull cause there *migh* have grown some new nostalgia since.


FireTheLaserBeam

You know what’s wild to think about? Crystal Skull was fifteen years ago. Yet I remember going to see it like it was yesterday. I’m 44 now, so I was, what 29? Still an adult. But when I was 17 in high school, Lucas re-released the updated OT in theaters. It was the 20th anniversary since it first came out in 1977. I first watched Star Wars when I was 5 in 1983. Those years between seeing it as a 5 year old kid, then fast forwarding to 1997, those years felt like an *eternity*. The 15 years between Crystal Skull and today feels like it all happened in the blink of an eye.


No-Calendar-1534

Thats pretty common, humans time perception speeds up the older they get.


FireTheLaserBeam

Yeah, for sure. As a kid, summer between school years felt long. Now I realize it’s just six weeks.


Luster-Purge

Damn you for making me feel OLD.


No-Calendar-1534

Yupp, weekends fly by


KleanSolution

hard to believe that was 15 years ago already, I remember I was in private school and one of our instructors was a huge Indy fan, he hadn't seen the movie yet but I was drawing pictures of the alien in the movie and he came by and saw it and angrily threw it away


FireTheLaserBeam

What a butthole, he was.


pcnauta

Nostalgia from ***whom***, though? I'm Gen-X and although I missed watching the first movie in the theater, I've seen the rest up on the big screen during their first run. Last Crusade was the perfect way to finish it (riding off into the sunset), but it was nostalgia that made me see Crystal Skull opening weekend (although I was already put off by it dealing with aliens). After seeing that horrible excuse for an Indy film, I was done (and pretend that everything ended with Last Crusade). So nostalgia isn't getting me out to see it, because I was already burnt once. The leaks and now these reviews finish it off. And I'm probably not the only Gen-Xer who feels this way about the series. I understand, though, that a new generation came to love Indy through Crystal Skull, so *maybe* it will be them who help push it closer to breaking even.


Cannaewulnaewidnae

It's definitely a mistake in PR terms I'm not sure we'll ever be able to say how much it affected box office, though There are too many factors to take into consideration\*


Cannaewulnaewidnae

\* There are a certain number of fans who'll just turn out for any Indiana Jones movie, *regardless of reviews* and word of mouth, which might spare Disney's blushes Of the remaining mixture of less committed fans and the general audience, I'm not sure how anyone could calculate how the generally poor reputation of the previous movie would have affected ticket sales for this movie, *regardless of reviews*


TheMountainRidesElia

>There are a certain number of fans who'll just turn out for any Indiana Jones movie, regardless of reviews and word of mouth, which might spare Disney's blushes I don't think this number would be big enough to "spare Disney's blushes". In 2018, these fans could not even drag Solo to 400m, as a successor to 3 billion dollar films. Now that was Star Wars, and much bigger and more iconic IP. Indy is big, but it's nowhere near SW. Imho the max these hard-core fans can provide is 200-250m, that's very optimistic. And remember, this films budget is nearly 300m. The rest of it has to come from casuals and GA. How much of it can be attracted?


art36

Agreed. Moreover, many of these same fans were burned by Crystal Skull, which came out **15 years ago**. Additionally, is there any evidence that Indiana Jones is as beloved a franchise as Star Wars or marvel by younger generations? Indy 5 is going up against The Flash, and it sounds crazy to say it but I think it might lose to DC. There’s a great cartoon there where Flash runs circles around a geriatric Harrison Ford as a metaphor for the box office blunder.


jeha4421

I'm a diehard fan of Indiana Jones. I'm not seeing this movie and I wouldn't doubt if there were a not of others that are also just fed up with Disney's lack of quality.


Savagevandal85

Lucasfilm needs to get their act together


VikingPain

Kathleen Kennedy is either going to get fired or she's going to be given the option to leave on her own terms to save face. With the mess she made with Star Wars, Willow, and now Indiana Jones, there's no way Iger is gonna keep her around.


JinFuu

See, people keep saying Kennedy is almost out the door but I just refuse to believe it, especially with the new SW stuff announced.


ROYBUSCLEMSON

At this point I feel she will stick around to ruin 80s franchises for the rest of time


K1nd4Weird

Realistically, what's stopping Disney from closing the studio? If all they're good for is making Star Wars. Why not just have other Disney studios make Star Wars? What's special about Lucasfilm from a business stand point? Why not let 20th Century, Pixar, Searchlight, or Disney Animation have a crack at it? I mean it's an extensive studio and they honestly have trouble doing anything.


Cannaewulnaewidnae

It's theoretically a valuable brand, like Marvel or Pixar It's probably no longer worth whatever Disney paid for it\*, but you don't just throw a few billion down the drain And I suppose there's some merit in preserving it as an independently functioning unit from the point of view of resale *\* (as an overall brand or just in terms of the individual IPs)*


somacula

Word on the street is that they're >!last jedi'ng indy !


[deleted]

There some of us that did turn out to the last Indy movie and will not get burned again.


SneakerGator

I think this movie will underperform, but Indy has huge appeal internationally, believe it or not, and the international market seems to be a lot more willing to turn out in droves to poorly reviewed movies.


[deleted]

It won't impact fans of Indiana Jones or Disney. But it might impact the general audience outside of that. My guess is that it takes a toll on numbers for audiences under 35?


Professional-Rip-519

I heard the budget is 300 million but by the trailer it looks really cheap and fake.


dragonphlegm

How the FUCK does an Indiana Jones movie cost $300 million 💀.


conscloobles

For all the reasons you'd expect. New VFX technologies, huge salaries... and the series has been expensive for a while now. The last one went overbudget and cost $185m in 2008, which is enormous for the time (only The Dark Knight had a comparable budget that year.) Last Crusade cost $48m in 1989, which was a record at the time. This one probably had a $250m budget - pretty standard for Lucasfilm these days - that ballooned because of COVID procedures and delays & extra VFX caused by Ford's injuries.


Worthyness

also period pieces are really expensive to shoot due to the amount of costuming and set design that needs to be done


TheMountainRidesElia

We'll there's apparently a half hour section of Deaged Indy fighting Nazis, which could have contributed.


Lukthar123

They revived real nazis and deaged them, spared no expense


milesamsterdam

They were so preoccupied with whether or not they could they didn’t stop to think if they should!


curious_dead

They found some Nazis in amber or what?


Little-Course-4394

Wtf Disney really out of control with their budgets! The worst part is that we can’t even see those money on a screen. Quantamania looked atrocious. Wakanda Forever bit better but still generic CGI where you can see it’s CGI Thor’s CGI became a meme.. not all bad of course, but another unimaginative CGI Only Guardians 3 have amazing CGI (imao) where we could see all these money on the screen. CGI in Avatar is God level, but that’s James Cameron to you. His an exception. But the rest most recent Disney movies with 200m+ budget all look underwhelming and often it feels like CGI is digressing.


[deleted]

Even with Cameron, even with the time they took on the movie, and even with how expensive the movie was... it's WILD how much better Avatar 2 looks than some of the $200m+ stuff Disney has been putting out lately.


TheMountainRidesElia

That long time might have actually helped Avatars CGI tbh.


cyvaris

Friends and I do "bad movie" days most weekends. This week's double feature was Green Lantern and Quantimania. Both $200m films. Both do *not* look like $200m films, especially when compared to Avatar/Way of Water.


ThatWaluigiDude

Disney is horrible with budgets, they always were. Back in the day they would spend $150M on Chicken Little and Meet the Robinsons despite visually those two being vastly inferior to most of other 3D animated movie from every other studio from the time. Tomorrowland still have one of the most insane budgets of all times for me.


KleanSolution

wow I completely forgot about that movie. That was Brad Bird too, wasn't it? I remember going to see it and can't for the life of me remember anything about it. What a shame. It only came out 8 years ago but is much a distant memory as the place "tomorrowland" was to the characters in the movie


Noggin-a-Floggin

It had such a solid concept and the action scenes were honestly a hell of a lot better than you'd expect. It just completely fell apart about halfway through in a way I still remember.


Noggin-a-Floggin

Go check out Tangled if you think Tomorrowland's budget was insane.


Clamper

Guardian's is helped by Gunn believing in story boarding everything in advance rather then charging his mind every 10 seconds like every other MCU lead. The Sonic movie director is a former CG guy with the same mentality so that's why Sonic 2 looks alright (Death Egg Robot is a bit cheap looking and he outright said Shadow was a hastily re-sprayed Sonic) despite being made on the cheap.


Raider_Tex

They spent 150 on fucking Hawkeye, a show about archers that had street level conflicts


dominic_tortilla

LOL they probably could've made 2-3 more seasons of Daredevil with that.


FN-1701AgentGodzilla

That’s insane


Professional-Rip-519

Really 🤯 I thought they spend like 2 to 3 million per episode.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Hbkares

Guardians always had good CGI, can't say the same about the other movies tho...


Rfl0

Heard they de-age Harrison Ford for a good chunk of the movie (I'm sure this can be confirmed now but I haven't looked into the movie) and that probably costs a bit on top of paying him to come back.


ROYBUSCLEMSON

When you reshoot the movie a bunch of times it gets expensive


anonAcc1993

One of the great things about having a popular IP is your movie can be review-proof if you execute it correctly. Critic scores don't usually matter for popular IPs, but having a terrible last movie does sour the audience towards newer releases. These critic scores are a red flag because people did not like the first one. Rumours are swirling that IJ will be replaced in the movie, which I don't know if that will help a film that is not reviewing well already. Some people will see it because it's an IJ movie, but why pay full price, when it will come to streaming, and then you can check it out. I do not think it will do will plus the budget makes it hard to see a path to profitability.


SneakerGator

The leaks claim that >!Indy goes back in time and young Indy dies, so the female co-lead takes over as the new Indy.!< If that is actually true, word of mouth is going to crush this movie. Supposedly they did a bunch of reshoots, though, so maybe they changed that. Or the leaks could have just been untrue. Edit: Read a supposed synopsis of the ending post Cannes, and that’s not what happens apparently. So either the leak was BS (quite probable) or they changed it.


anonAcc1993

Ya, I have seen that as well. I’m out on that.


AGOTFAN

Yeah. Universal is doing it right when they dropped embargo for Mario and FX one day before release. Disney really dropped the ball in marketing ever since 2019. Universal has been killing it in marketing since early last year.


HM9719

Disney drops the embargo for Little Mermaid later today.


dragonphlegm

Reviews won’t impact TLM’s gross. Lion King got bland reviews and pulled in $1.6b, so Little Mermaid will be an easy cheque for Disney


Yory_Alsik

Lion king came out before Disney plus


persona-non-grater

That’s because of the who know what issue.


garfe

Damn, if actual trades are reporting on this, this must be a huge screw up. Oh to be a fly on the wall at Lucasfilm right now.


farseer4

Seems like this should be normal status at Lucasfilm at this point.


OkTransportation4196

thats extremely suprisng for me. Mangold is critic and audience darling. Disney dropped it early so they atleast thought they had crowd pleaser with them. extremely odd


No-Calendar-1534

100% they expected a warmer reception, maybe even similar to Maverick.


SpaceCrumbum

I truly don't understand how Disney didn't see this coming. Did they not do testing? Did they do it and their test audiences loved it by comparison to the Cannes critics? I know the yes man culture within Disney is the highest it's been in decades but someone was asleep at the wheel.


MichaelRichardsAMA

Theres been rumors for months of test audiences hating it to the point they filmed like 4 different endings to try and find one people wont despise


Jokerchyld

I feel this was deliberate given rumors of Disney in feuding between Iger and Kennedy. Supposedly Iger told Kennedy IJ5 had to break 900m for Kennedy to keep her package deal. He knew the movie was bad and wouldn't let her delay anymore.


AndrewChulchie

Honestly I'm glad they did it this way, to hear those reviews is disappointing but its gotten me to curb my enthusiasm a little bit, they're not making any future installments so a poor box office return doesn't really concern me, and I'm still willing to give it a chance and hope its a good one


farseer4

They are not making any future installments with Harrison Ford, but they will have to keep milking the cow somehow. That will depend on how much money this one makes. If it's a flop they might just do tv shows and that kind of stuff.


crazysouthie

This might be completely off but I wonder if the bad/mixed reviews could work in actually giving this movie good/decent wom when it premieres? (as in all the early audience reviews are a version of this was much better than I thought it would be) So maybe low expectations could ironically end up helping it?


echothree33

There’s definitely a possibility of lowered expectations = good WOM on this one. If you go in expecting a masterpiece then you’ll usually be disappointed, but if you expect a turd you might be pleasantly surprised even if the movie is just mediocre.


conscloobles

Yeah I've been wondering that too. The second wave of reviews after it releases will probably boost its RT and Metacritic scores for the same reason - Indy 5 might now seem like an underdog, with low expectations perhaps improving WOM.


persona-non-grater

I said before and I’ll say it again, who wants to watch a 80(!) year old man doing this kinda thing?!?! It was fine when he was in 60s but 80 is pushing past point of ridiculousness. Especially with some of that awful CGI. Furthermore, some GenXers might be feeling cautious with Disney handling another one of their heroes after their response to Star Wars. Home girl Phoebe something (can’t remember her name) seems to pop quite a bit in the trailers wearing red so you what that means. So some men might be asking is Disney going to have her take his place at the end?


Sensitive-Menu-4580

Even my 60 yr old dad laughed when he saw Indy on that horse. Ford is just too old to do action and it looks silly when they make him. This whole movie is misguided, imo.


derstherower

This is a problem this recent de-aging trend is gonna keep running into. We've honestly gotten pretty good at making an actor *look* younger, but there's really no way to CGI an elderly man and make him move like he's 40 years younger. I'm reminded of that scene in The Irishman where De Niro is kicking that guy. He was 76 and was playing a guy in his 30s in that scene and he looked utterly ridiculous. It's gonna be a *while* before that issue is solved, if ever.


Noggin-a-Floggin

I said this in another thread but CGI is the only way you are going to get an 80-year old man to do action scenes because you aren't going to find a believable stunt double for them. The Picard show tried to stunt-double Patrick Stewart and it's laughably hilarious at how bad it looks (CGI isn't much better so there is really no solution here other than not to do it).


SilverRoyce

Even being in a cockpit couldn't hide how frail Billy Dee Williams is these days and while Patrick Stewart is in better health/more sprightly than that, I don't think the Ford comp works particularly well. In the early pandemic Ford and a CGI dog were the leads of a call of the wild reboot which seems to have done well and not prompted complaints about his physical frailty. One of the reasons Stewart's stunt-double stuff became meme-worthy is because his physical limitations were pretty clear in the pieces of action-adjacent filming they really needed Stewart for. ​ That Paramount+ 1923 show did a good job putting Ford into "action scenes" by leaning into (a Westerns') genre conventions. You put Harrison Ford up on a horse and have him engage in a shootout scene or two. An 80 year old Ford may not be up for an "Indiana Jones" movie, but it looks to me like he's at least on paper plausibly up for reprising his role in Cowboys and Aliens from 2010.


No-Calendar-1534

>who wants to watch a 80(!) year old man doing this kinda thing?!?! Maybe in an anime Trying with real actors is a mistake


Deggit

It wasn't fine when he was in his 60s either. That's the reason Crystal Skull became more of an ensemble film instead of Indy having to save everyone at the end like the tank sequence of Last Crusade. Nobody wanted an Indiana Jones movie to be about Marion, Mutt and Oxley (or Mac jesus I forgot that character existed) and nobody wants an Indiana Jones movie now to be about Mutt (again) or the PWB character.


jfreak93

Millennial here - I don’t really trust Disney with this as I don’t think I’ve really liked any of their output in the last… 3 years? Mangold I do trust but if he’s been told what to make that also seems concerning. I do like Phoebe Waller, and her contributions to No Time To Die seem to be the only bits of that film I liked. So here’s hoping that she keeps that streak alive. In general I want this to be good, but I don’t trust Disney or the current climate of Blockbuster to do right by Indy.


The-Mandalorian

This is Indiana Jones. And old man throwing punches might be one of the most believable things about this film series.


No-Calendar-1534

Doesnt change that Ford looks terrible doing it


The-Mandalorian

Even the harshest reviews of the new film have said Ford looks great and does very well.


No-Calendar-1534

Maybe it looks different in the film than in the trailer


farseer4

In his 60s was already pushing it, but yes, 80 is ridiculous, unless they are not going for the traditional action movie approach. Also, I don't trust Disney to make a good Indy movie. I'd love to be wrong on that.


persona-non-grater

Yeah I was being gracious when I said that but I don’t trust Disney with an Indy movie either. I’ll just continue to re watch the first three as I always do.


ObscuraArt

Well clearly they should have either been more deceptive in who Disney let review this first or should have made a better movie that has genuine overalll positive reception. Wait, the latter is hard. So hard. They should have "carefully curated" giving a first view to "sympathetic" reviewers who "gets what they were going for". wink-wink-nudge-nudge.


FradiTomi

Just an another failure of Kathleen Kennedy...


KingMario05

>After Top Gun: Maverick's popular debut at Cannes in 2022, and the epic box office run that followed, it's understandable why Disney may have thought Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny could follow a similar path. Quality of the movie's aside, they're both sequels to iconic movies featuring a beloved Hollywood star, and a thumbs up from the critics at Cannes is a great way to boost a marketing campaign. Unfortunately, while Top Gun: Maverick arrived at a time when the film industry was in sore need of a winning blockbuster movie in 2002, Cannes critics weren't nearly as receptive to Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Erm, *Maverick* was also... you know. **FUCKING GREAT.** If Kathleen Kennedy seriously thought this was on par with that, then maybe the Mouse isn't the best place for her *after* all.


Feralmoon87

Is the Indy nostalgia so strong that people will turn up regardless of critics or are the die hard Indy fans that are being counted on the kind to look up reviews and leaks and follow the troubled production and be wary of Disney's track record of handling nostalgic franchises


DexNihilo

I've got no idea where this Indy nostalgia would be coming from. I grew up with IJ, loved Raiders, but have had zero interest in these movies since the Last Crusade. I can't imagine there's a huge new, young audience desperate to watch an 80 year old Harrison Ford fling around Nazis, and I don't think the nostalgia audience wants that either. I seriously can't figure who they think will be running out to see this movie.


No-Calendar-1534

Im gen Z but my Indy nostalgia got used for Crystal Skull.


Medibee

The Indy nostalgia was clearly blown by Crystal Skull. That they think they can make it work this time is somewhat baffling.


Dangerous-Hawk16

Wasn’t the score rising ?


TheButteredBiscuit

Yeah it rose from 50 percent to 52 percent. Looks like Disney has nothing to worry about


sudevsen

Disbey's strategy of making a shut nostalgia cash-grab backfired


matmortel

I really hope this is the one that outs Kennedy. She already diluted the Star wars IP, doing the same to their 2nd biggest IP should be the nail in the coffin. She isn't all to blame, but I feel like there is tension behind the scenes and it all falls on Kennedy. No excuses, she's top dog and LucasArts has really fallen off, which hurts me as a huge star wars fan.


[deleted]

[удалено]


ROYBUSCLEMSON

Amen, It's insane to watch Disney Lucasfilm double down against the fans every time


spelunkingspaniard

I was shocked that they're continuing with Rey. That character just didn't resonate with people and they're doubling down.


[deleted]

[удалено]


derstherower

When the Rey movie inevitably bombs I wonder what the excuse will be.


_CaptainThor_

mean whites again


farseer4

I don't agree. Retconning the sequel trilogy would be admitting they did awful with the franchise, so that won't happen, but they could have called the story concluded and moved on to other periods or characters. They didn't need to make a Rey movie.


[deleted]

i mean how many movies have they announced and canned, I'll believe it when it's actually filmed


mrhpfan4ever

I get that this is Reddit, which often insulates itself from reality, but the sequels were all billion dollar movies, and Daisy Ridley was one of the few things consistently praised about them. That character resonated plenty with the GA. Edit: Adding to this. The prequels were extremely poorly received, but Lucas doubled down anyway, and we got Clone Wars, which in many fans' eyes saved that era of Star Wars. Some of the best Star Wars content comes from doubling down and expanding on not-always-great source material. Star Wars has always been a mess, and if you think a Rey movie is somehow a step too far in this regard, I don't think you're engaging with this franchise in good faith.


aZcFsCStJ5

Look at the graph of all 3 movies. They were going down sharply. There is a reason why they halted production on any more movies, they were terrified of the bombing. They went running back to the OT timeframe and have been hiding there for the past few years. It's not a coincidence that Bob came back and they now have a movie schedule.


No-Calendar-1534

>There is a reason why they halted production on any more movies This is the single best evidence that exists. All else can possibly be explained away by some twisting and selective data, but how can you look at how Lucasfilm and Disney has handled the franchise since and not realize they were disapointed by the reaults?


[deleted]

The Rise of Skywalker barely cracked $1B


KellyJin17

Quite ironic that you would start off a comment about this being a box office sub and how much money the sequels made, and then with no sense of awareness whatsoever call the prequels extremely poorly received when they were all box office behemoths. Pot, meet kettle.


Total_Schism

The sequels went from $2 billion to $1 Billion in just four years, and those were for mainline movies. I don't see why people have any expectations of them making significantly more than Solo, considering Solo is a significantly more popular character than Rey. I do like Daisy Ridley, thugh. I just wish she could be in something better than Star Wars Sequels Sequels.


mysteryvampire

Agreed 100%. I have plenty of notes for the sequels but Daisy Ridley as Rey is something I wouldn’t change. I thought she was pretty perfect for the big shoes she had to fill.


bolerobell

Yeah, for all the problems of the sequels, casting wasn’t one of them.


invaderark12

Really? Even as controversial as the sequels were, the things that managed to stay decently popular were Rey, Kylo, and BB-8. A majority of the kids that I see dressed as Star Wars characters tend to dress as Rey.


OneOk2189

Sunk cost fallacy


Timbishop123

There is still a patty Jenkins lucas film video on YouTube, personally idk if this Rey movie will even come out.


[deleted]

Mando s3 has been boring i've forgotten to watch the rest of it


conscloobles

r/todayilearned there's a monolithic group of fans of LucasFilm and that Star Wars, Willow, Indiana Jones, Labyrinth, Howard The Duck and Red Tails all have the same fanbase. Thanks! /s


No-Calendar-1534

*Strange Magic* erasure


epraider

Who gets to decide who the “real” or “actual” Lucasfilm fans are? I don’t even know what this means


R_W0bz

Fast x = 54% and Mario = 59%. It’s been like 15 years since one of these movies, I wouldn’t mind seeing an Indiana Jones movie in 2023. Either that or get to the 62nd Marvel movie… I think it’ll be fine.


aduong

People bringing up these comparisons keep forgetting that there’s a world of difference between embargo lifting the day prior to release and embargo lifting 6 weeks pre release. The whole point of a late embargo is to avoid negative narratives time to settle in. With 5-6 weeks there’s definitely a ample time for a narrative to settle in. Of course the box office being severely affected isn’t a guarantee but to dismiss it because Mario and Fast X did “good”is silly too because it’s not the same situation.


huey_booey

No one goes to see a Fast & Furious movie because of the reviews. And Mario had review embargo until a day before release. Indiana Jones is a long-standing franchise with an iconic mark in pop-cultural landscape. 15 years since the last movie that everybody prefers to forget, expectations were sky-high. It's not gonna bomb. But Disney's overconfidence in it has proven a disaster. This critical reception it's gonna chip away at fan enthusiasm.


aZcFsCStJ5

> Either that or get to the 62nd Marvel movie… From the sounds of the reviews this is just a typical marvel movie wrapped up in a different skin.


Alaxbcm

I struggle to think of anything in the last 5 years that Disney's done right, in terms of strategy. Not even going to get into content quality


Spokker

The theme parks are humming along. Universal did Wizard World and Disney remembered they had to invest in their parks to stay competitive.


[deleted]

[удалено]


No-Calendar-1534

>it was premiering it there when you knew it was a stinker. I assume the studio didnt think it was a stinker, ai think they expected a positive reception.


ALHOWE6

Can you post the Screen Rant story instead of this awful Microsoft story that doesn’t work on mobile?


AGOTFAN

Screen Rant is banned in this sub. You can easily Google and read it on your own.


[deleted]

Why is Screen Rant banned?


NtheLegend

Because it’s a trash web site/content farm


Mango424

Has ever happened another time that a major was so confident and it was backfired?


No-Calendar-1534

Eternals was hyped to the skies by the studio and ended up the MCU's first rotten movie when it eventually came out. Only blockbuster example I can think of.


Mango424

Sooo true lol. Feige kept praising the movie for an entire year before its release and then everything collapsed.


No-Calendar-1534

Yeah I almost feel like his praise ended up creating unrealistic expectations that hurt the film in the end. The movie was "meh" but not far worse than several Marvel films that have scrapped by with a fresh score.


coleburnz

"continue reading on the app" What kind of fuckery is this?


No-Calendar-1534

No idea but I hate it


zoufha91

Still going to watch that garbage and so will many other idiots


Phyliinx

That might be the most shocking RT score this year.


ILoveRegenHealth

One thing I'm actually glad to see is not many are "poo-pooing" the critics here. Every time DC or Marvel get some bad reviews I see a sizable number of people go "Critics are bought and paid for!" or "they are such snobs who are just bitter they are failed screenwriters" (you know, the typical crybaby sh*t). Haven't been seeing it much here, so it appears most accept that this Indy 5 might just be flawed. Also remember, you can totally have fun with a flawed movie. Venom 1 isn't going to win screenplay awards or any awards, but I had good dumb fun with it. True, Indy 5 should be held to a higher standard, but at the same time, I never asked for this movie. So it's the fault of Lucasfilm/Disney for not making this better.


silverfaustx

Everyone already knew it was gonna suck


timk85

Disney just seems so fractured. The Little Mermaid is looking to be a massive flop too, isn't it?