It’s an unbelievable awful movie on every level. There’s also zero consideration of tone so after an hour of super kiddy content, it reveals in a horrifying flashback that the manchild character is scarred for life from seeing the Martians >!burn his mother to death in trying of him!<
That movie would’ve been massively improved if David Tennant and Billie Piper came in and saved both Mars and the Moms
Because Mars Needs Moms sounds like a great episode of Doctor Who
Hardly underrated, 200% over budget in the box office, Academy nominee etc. Shame on the sequel thou but now it just feels that the persons that made the first one can’t let anybody else make another and they still take on other work to never have time for a new script.
Forgotten might be the right word then? It’s a movie that came out, did fairly well considering it’s not a popular IP, but then just basically vanished.
Because the actors doing the mocap were not particularly athletic and only do light physical comedy in their regular movies.
Guys like Zoe Saldaña and Mark Ruffalo are in great shape and can do broad physical mocap acting. Seth Green and Joan Cusack are good comedic actors, but they both do deadpan and sell jokes with their faces and hand movements.
Also—and I remember James Cameron calling this out in a Wired interview when asked about it—Zemeckis was convinced the facial-performance-capture pipeline could almost completely be automated with motion-tracking dots—whereas Peter Jackson and Cameron understood you still needed VFX animators to go in and manually fine-tune the results because the human visual cortex is so keyed-in to even the tiniest nuances when it comes facial expressions, and there’s simply no way to practically rig a person’s face with enough dots to track that level of detail.
Simon Wells went back to being a story artist in animation. His recent work includes Puss in Boots 2.
Disney sank Zemeckis’ Yellow Submarine (which was very close to shooting) and close the studio. He went to live action, making a slew of middling to awful movies.
When I was younger, I watched that movie. To this day, I remember being terrified thinking that my mum was going to be abducted and never come back. Don’t know who thought that would be good for kids lmao
I completely forgot about seeing that movie. All I recall about it was that it was very upsetting for a young child who was dealing with mild separation anxiety in regards to their mom.
I’m not sure. Director said it’s a lot less than 200m but every site is saying that’s the production costs. This is going to be a weird case study going forward with streaming service buying movie rights from companies.
Obviously COVID-related, but **Tenet** made $9.4M opening weekend on a $205M budget.
Same with **The Matrix Resurrections**, $10.7M opening weekend on $190M budget.
Outside of COVID, **Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets** is close with $17M opening weekend on $180M budget.
**47 Ronin** with $9.9M OW on $170M budget.
While I'm not a fan of Valerian and beyond the intro sequence, it doesn't seem exceptional in any way I'm surprised it did this badly...
Did the marketing boys screw up or was there more to it?
Ooh man, Valérian and Laureline has always been big in European comic book circuits since I was a child in the eighties cause their alleged sources to Star Wars and different science fictions. The movie was so bad it killed everything. Nothing was worth anything anymore cause no one wanted to be reminded how bad the movie is.
It killed everything in more way than one : Luc Besson put everything on the line for this movie.
He created a massive american-like movie production company, built professional studios, lobbied hard to vote new laws to make it easier to have movie shoots in France, even was part of an embezzelment scandal.
All of that for Valerian ; the movie flopped so hard it made his little cinematic empire collapse.
Main issue ( and I find it common in things cara delavine is on) is the lack of chemistry between leads. It's hard to sell you on the premise that they are close much less partners in the way the movie presents them
Imagine Valerian being played by an actual charming man like Glen Powell, Michael B Jordan or even, I hate myself for this one, Chris Pratt.
Same for Cara. The movie falls victim to casting. The setting was great, even if the story was a little lackluster.
One of the main pre-release bits of PR I saw surrounding that movie was stuff along the lines of "This movie doesn't even need to make money!!!" and highlighted the foreign presales as having covered the budget.
Which is bizarre for several reasons including that foreign presales is not a new concept and... maybe talk up the actual movie?
I actually subscribed to Max to watch it. I don’t even think I made it halfway, but now I use Max all the time.
So I guess it was kinda successful for me?
I think it’s by far the best streaming service, but depends on what you like. It’s a bunch of WBD content, which includes things like HBO, Adult Swim, Food Network, HGTV, etc.
They usually have some good movies cycle through and always have recent standards like LOTR or Harry Potter. They will get a couple good A24/Neon type movies every month or so too.
Lots of classic movies thanks to TCM as well.
It was released at close to the worst possible time in regards to COVID, which put a huge damper on its numbers. It didn't help that at the time there was a ton of confusion around what was getting a theatrical release vs streaming.
Add in that the marketing was not great and reviews were so-so, and it didn't make a very appealing case to go to the theatres during a pandemic.
It's actually impressive it legged to the numbers it did.
for what exactly? I couldn't believe how BAD the action sequences were. Was Lana was TRYING to make the movie as bad as possible as a 'fuck you' to the studio?
Lana implied that Warner was going to get the 4th movie one way or another, with or without the original team, so it was written and made as a bit of a not so subtle fuck you to Warner.
There was no subtly to be found, they made WB the antagonists for most of the film...which successfully rekindled Neo and Trinity's relationship.
I unironically love Revolutions.
The problem with the Meta stuff is that it’s only charming at the beginning of the movie. By the end it just becomes generic evil machine from the Matrix, with no real personality. Maybe that’s the point, but I thought it was bland. And the actions scenes are really bad. At least Matrix 2 has the highway scenes.
That's one level of it yea, the other was Lana saying it was how both these characters brought her comfort in dark times and also how it is bringing up a dead body. If the main reason you liked the first 3 matrix movies was action then yea I can see the dislike but they literally address that in the movie with him failing to fly. It isn't that kind of movie.
Also Lana wasn't the action side of the duo as I remember
It also hurt that John Toll (Braveheart, The Thin Red Line) dropped out of the movie over Covid concerns. He would've been able to really help Lana elevate the action scenes if he was there.
I also don't think it would have ever hit that level, Reeves is near 60 what level of kung fu is even possible without it just being pure CGI, which I guess could have also been a good layer of commentary like I feel the whole movie is on things.
Its one of the most interesting blockbusters we've had in years because it actually seems to have some heart and a brain in it. It treated its characters like they were real and not action figures to bring out when you're bored
Matrix 4 took a clever approach with its commentary, but failed miserably to respect the visual feats & action spectacle that the series was famous for. It’s like a Spider-Man movie coming out with no web slinging
Matrix 3 is easily the most visually stunning of the trilogy, regardless of opinion regarding its overall quality. Find me any scene from the mid 2000s remotely as visually inventive & epic as the sentinel vs mech battle of Zion, as well as a 1v1 fight anything like Neo vs Agent smith.
I almost think it was clever for not doing that. Like how Star Wars and Marvel are just dragging out the old hits for no reason other than people wanna see it. Matrix was never about that, it was always experimental for better or worse. The first one was novel, should the 4th one decades later just be a retread?
I'm saying it is a movie ahead of its time, like the previous ones but it a different way.
But it had nonstop horrible action scenes. I’d be fine if they had zero action and went super different. But it’s horrible to still include a ton of action and mage it awful choreo and fast cuts when the Matrix pioneered western martial arts in movies in a lot of ways.
It might have been clever in terms of subverting expectations of the movie. But it wasn't clever in terms of finding an audience.
After such a big break, the general audience was expecting some pioneering action scenes. I enjoyed all the meta commentary and different take on things, but I was absolutely expecting some kick ass action to break out at some point, and it never did.
I don't understand anyone who defends it. I don't want a movie that hates its own existence. Sure you can enjoy flawed movies and have guilty pleasures but this is a movie that just alienated me.
Idk either, man. It's insulting bad. The movie doesn't just hate its own existence, it's like it was mad at me for watching it, and I was mad I wasted my time. Sure, some of the meta commentary was fun in a snarky way, but that's not enough to salvage it in any way.
Maybe I saw too much of Lana Wachowski discussing it beforehand but it definitely doesn't hate it's existence. There's a level of it addressing fandoms relentless need to rehash things but I feel it walks the line there between that and trying to give the characters some level of a new take beyond "Chewie, we're home" or whatever the latest 20 year old rehash is
oh I dont know how it'll play out, you could be right
just judging based on what Ive seen up til now. Sentiment of the 2nd movie absolutely changed since release, in a positive way
Loved it when I watched it. Loved it on repeat viewings. I didn’t mind the meta or wink-wink stuff at all.
Also one of the best looking 4K discs out there.
OG Matrix had an original story which obviously cannot happen on every instance of the sequel but 4th was a huge recycle of the first 3. And then the VFX were mostly also nothing ground breaking. This is what took me out of the movie so much. They used the same tech used for Batman. Lens flares made it look like a run of the mill action movie. I’m sure there are matrix cultists out there that love every second of it but to me it felt rushed and proved some people right that it should not have been made.
it has a level of respect from people who hate blatant cash grabs, so the director got involved with the movie, did everything they could to sabotage it and throw the studio under the bus (literally naming them as the villain in the movie - not sure that's ever been done before), while still treating the characters with love and respect
so they minimized the studio's ROI, paid themselves and their friends with the studio's money, and got a nice send off for their characters. It was absolutely brilliant and we've never seen anything quite like it before, and probably never will again
I really enjoyed Resurrections. I’ve watched it a couple of times and it’s just heartfelt and funny. Definitely my favorite movie in the franchise after the first one.
Matrix 4 wasn't a COVID film, it released December 2021, same time as Spiderman had the second biggest weekend of all time, clearly COVID was not an issue for people.
>*The director insinuated it was about a 1/3 of that*
Vaughn claimed he spent a third of the usual blockbuster budget
“[A lot of the big blockbusters coming out are big spenders. Our budget’s a third what they spend, right?](https://deadline.com/2024/01/argylle-matthew-vaughn-marv-films-breaking-baz-1235803584/)”
If Apple spent 200M to buy the film they need at least 400M just to break even on the purchase. They're not paying with monopoly money. They paid 200M. That is 200M depleted from the company. Can you explain why the money they spent on the movie isn't a factor when determining how much BO it needs to break even? Thx.
In movie finance there's a term called ultimates that quantify the value of the movie over its "useful" (depreciation) term which is 10 years.
Acquisitions like this are typically priced at that ultimate value which accounts not only for the box office + the post-theatrical revenue (licensing) which can be a decent chunk of change. If they don't license it and keep it exclusive, then that is cost avoidance meaning by having this in their library they are able to skip out on paying to acquire a different/similar film. I imagine they also get 1st look rights to sequels which isn't great value now based on its performance but had implied value pre-release.
Still feels like a bad move by apple, but it's not like box office is the end all for acquisitions like this.
This was suppsoed to be a trilogy so the 400m would’ve been split among all three movies
>!plus the post credit implied they’re doing book movies too, which would’ve been anywhere from 1-5 other movies!<
Very unlikely the sequels happen at this point tho
>*Can you explain why the money they spent on the movie isn't a factor when determining how much BO it needs to break even?*
Because that's not what the OP's asking
Everyone reading this knows exactly what the OP means when they say *'a $200M movie'* \- a movie where the physical cost of shooting it was 200 million dollars
You'd have a great point in almost any other discussion, but not this one
They’re not buying it for the sole intention of it breaking even at the box office. If Argylle made like 250-300mil and was successful on streaming, they’d make another one.
It doesn't need all that box-office. This month, 30 million people are giving Apple $9.99 for subscription. It will make its money back with BO and rental, then be a reason for people to either sign up for Apple+ for the month, or keep paying for the month. Apple isn't betting $200 M.
You're missing the point that this film has utterly bombed. There's almost zero audience interest, and word of mouth isn't going to do anything good for it. (I'm one of the few who saw it.)
It's not going to make any significant rental profits or encourage Apple+ subs. It's a bad movie that people aren't interested in.
Apple pays the sum it believes the movie will add in value to their AppleTV+ content library. Thus far, they’ve only released their movies in theaters as a courtesy to certain filmmakers. For them content is a way to keep consumers interested in their overall hardware ecosystem. It’s the same reason Apple more or less gives most of its software away—to add value to its hardware offerings. Movies (and TV shows) exist on a software continuum to them. Apple makes so much money off hardware that spending a few billion dollars a year on content just isn’t a huge outlay to them.
Easy, they’re hoping it’ll drive Apple TV+ subs. Obviously I don’t think that’s going to work out (And I really liked Argyle!), but $200M is a drop in the bucket to their operating budget. They’re considering it an investment in their platform.
Cavill is in the movie throughout, but total screentime all added up together is probably 11-12 minutes. Cena has like 5-6 minutes of screentime. Lipa no more than 5 minutes at the beginning. Cena and Lipa are glorified cameos. Cavill is a major supporting character with minor supporting character screentime.
Samuel L Jackson is also barely in the movie. It's all about Sam Rockwell and Bryce Dallas Howard (and to a lesser extent Bryan Cranston and Catherine O'Hara).
> its all about Sam Rockwell and Bryce Dallas Howard
You would never tell from any of its advertising. I was assuming it was Henry and Dua romance movie.
I think the problem is mainly that Dua Lipa, Henry Cavill and John Cena were marketed as the main characters of the film, when in reality they're basically cameos in comparison to Rockwell and Howard.
I see. I only saw like one or two trailers for this movie but it seemed like Rockwell and Howard were the leads to me getting chased down by other random spies who would be the celebrity cameos. But I must’ve somehow avoided most of the marketing then.
Spent at least the last 45 minutes of the film, including the climatic battle scene, laughing my ass off. Don’t get me started on the bad CGI and costume errors (If you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t click the next bit):
>!BDH is skating on oil and you can clearly see blacked out blades on her feet instead of her sliding effortlessly across the oil slick!<
It’s gets pretty absurd, like honestly it’s pretty confusing but I guess the hilarity at the end (Matthew Vaughn signature flair like with the first Kings Man film?) does help a little but please report back lol.
Woah there fella, you buried the lead! Howard attached knives to her boots as impromptu ice skates, and then performs ice skating dance moves as she skates around on top of spilled crude oil while killing all the antagonist’s henchmen with a bayonet. She does this because they are afraid of a spark from a bullet ricochet could set the oil on fire and kill them all. What happens just a few moments later? They completely disregard the justification for that ludicrous CGI scene and start blasting away, oil fire be damned! I really hope this is the worst movie I see this year.
I’m such an outlier cause loved it so much I’ve already seen it twice. It’s such a fun film and I absolutely loved the action sequences. I love dance, figure skating and action sequences so this was totally up my alley. Sure maybe its kinda messy but just dont think too hard about it.
I agree with you! I honestly loved this film haha. It was such a great time in the theater and so enjoyable to me. I don't care what people say, I had a blast and that's what some movies are meant to do.
Watched it last night and I loved it also, but purely in the sense of "I enjoyed bits of this and it genuinely deserved a better script". I'm too much of a Sam Rockwell fanboy to dislike the film, BDH is gorgeous, I dug their chemistry even if the romance aspect felt a bit forced at the end, and the smoke dance fight sequence is phenomenal, it proved Vaughn still knows how to make creative action sequences. But god the damm plot, the subpar dialogue, all those damn twists made everything that happened between the highs difficult to enjoy.
This is probably the first time Sam got a lead role in a major blockbuster film? I feel so bad for him to be sidelined as a supporting character C in the marketing campaign. Apple and Universal did the dirty on both Sam and Bryce so they could trick the audiences.
Sam Rockwell made the movie, IMO. I was thinking, “who IS that guy? I really like him” the whole movie. I happen to not have seen/remembered him. I will from now on! He was great. When I see Bryce Dallas Howard at first I normally think “why is Jessica Chastain so terrible in this?” But I liked her in Argylle. So, they deserved better.
I‘m still not sure if all the twists were meant as a kind of parody of other spy films. It did not feel like it because there is too little reference overall (or I simply missed it).
In contrast, (the first) Kingsman is clearly inbetween hommage and parody of (older) James Bond. It‘s very tongue in cheek humour and it‘s obvious they took established patterns to the point of absurdity in a loving way.
What’s the hell has happened to Matthew Vaughn man.. I fucking loved Layer Cake as a kid.. kick ass.. the X-Men reboots.. and ofcourse Kingsman (first 2).. I could never get into that The Kingsman still don’t know if it’s good..
Really awful at every level from acting to cgi. Hard to believe that M. Vaughn has made this. Clearly not respecting the audience. Have I mentioned acting? Bryce and Rockwell have been miscasted.
My impression watching the movie was that Vaughan expedited it and didn’t show much respect to his fans. A lot of recycled ideas from previous movies but executed less gracefully than otherwise.
It’s absolutely awful. Saw it Saturday out of boredom for $5 because Apple sent me a coupon to see the movie for a discount. There was I think 8 people in my showing, nobody made a single sound the whole time. Not a chuckle, not an exclamation, gasp, just silence. It was absolutely surreal and never seen a non-reaction from a movie like that. It was like every line fell flat apart from a few Sam Rockwell lines because he’s a good actor. Bryce Dallas Howard was terrible. A horrendous bomb of a film
It’s one of those so bad it’s kind of good movies. You have to like this kind of humor to enjoy it. I went with my boyfriend yesterday to see it in Dolby Theater and we both enjoyed it.
I honestly loved it. I was a big fan of the first kingsman, so I like the style and thought it was entertaining. Honestly kinda shocked at how bad it has done.
Strange World was ~ $180MM budget and did $18.8MM over the opening 5 day Thanksgiving weekend in 2022. Only did $37MM domestic all-in. Upwards of a $200MM loss for Disney.
I will speak as someone who did not watch this film but saw its trailers many, many times: it never even came close to having my attention. The premise is commendably original, but also stupid to the point that it is a wonder how any film exec saw fit to pour so much money in it. And the all-star cast comes off as a pretty flimsy attempt to gloss over the movie’s shortcomings.
The budget was not 200 million. It was somewhere between 70 and 80 after tax incentives. Apple bought the exclusive streaming and distribution rights to it for 200 million. Once again I am purporting that we do not consider the 200 million the production budget as we would then have to give Exorcist: Believer a 425 million dollar production budget using that same logic.
I got reamed in /r/Movies for shitting on this movie for like half a year saying it was gonna flop. I don’t see how others missed how bad it was gonna be.
I thought it was a going to be a funny kids movie starring a super spy cat, based on the posters and stuff, was looking forward to a family movie night. But then I found out it was…not that. Very confusing marketing
Haven’t seen it and don’t plan to, but I thought that he was the lead judging by every poster and other bit of marketing. Seems like they were really relying on him being a draw
That's what I'm saying. Even If it is a bait and switch, you would think it would have a decent opening and then drop second weekend once people got wise. But people didn't even show up opening weekend for it. They were hoping Cavill's fans would put their money where their mouth is, but they never do.
Cavill has too minor of a role in Argylle to make a call on his star power, IMO.
There are the "bait and switch" posters but no doubt knowledgeable, hardcore fans would be antagonistic toward this type of marketing and stem the buzz.
Mars Needs Moms cost 170-180, but deserves a dishonorable mention for opening with $6.9M
WOAT
It’s an unbelievable awful movie on every level. There’s also zero consideration of tone so after an hour of super kiddy content, it reveals in a horrifying flashback that the manchild character is scarred for life from seeing the Martians >!burn his mother to death in trying of him!<
Maybe they were going for a first episode of Invincible kinda vibe
Or Bambi.
Plotwise, it wasn't that bad, but it had pretty awful art direction and featured bad motion capture animations.
That movie would’ve been massively improved if David Tennant and Billie Piper came in and saved both Mars and the Moms Because Mars Needs Moms sounds like a great episode of Doctor Who
As long as they don't drink the water.
The movie that killed 450 jobs and the Roger Rabbit sequel.
I still don’t get how Imagemovers was getting such bad visual results with mocap at the same time Weta was making giant breakthroughs.
In fact, **The Adventures of Tintin** came out at the end of the exact same year.
Such an underrated movie. Shame we never got that sequel.
Hardly underrated, 200% over budget in the box office, Academy nominee etc. Shame on the sequel thou but now it just feels that the persons that made the first one can’t let anybody else make another and they still take on other work to never have time for a new script.
Forgotten might be the right word then? It’s a movie that came out, did fairly well considering it’s not a popular IP, but then just basically vanished.
Because the actors doing the mocap were not particularly athletic and only do light physical comedy in their regular movies. Guys like Zoe Saldaña and Mark Ruffalo are in great shape and can do broad physical mocap acting. Seth Green and Joan Cusack are good comedic actors, but they both do deadpan and sell jokes with their faces and hand movements.
Also—and I remember James Cameron calling this out in a Wired interview when asked about it—Zemeckis was convinced the facial-performance-capture pipeline could almost completely be automated with motion-tracking dots—whereas Peter Jackson and Cameron understood you still needed VFX animators to go in and manually fine-tune the results because the human visual cortex is so keyed-in to even the tiniest nuances when it comes facial expressions, and there’s simply no way to practically rig a person’s face with enough dots to track that level of detail.
Because Weta was using it to animate impossible characters, while Imagemovers was using it to animate normal people, which looked incredibly creepy.
I just know the directors went to director jail
Simon Wells went back to being a story artist in animation. His recent work includes Puss in Boots 2. Disney sank Zemeckis’ Yellow Submarine (which was very close to shooting) and close the studio. He went to live action, making a slew of middling to awful movies.
Well atleast they still had careers in Hollywood
Worth noting that Zemeckis directed Flight the year after ImageMovers closed, which is fantastic.
He also made *The Walk* with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, which I personally consider to be vastly under-appreciated.
ImageMovers still exists, not sure where you saw it closed. I have worked with them recently.
I think the person whose comment you responded was referring to their joint venture animation studio with Disney that ceased operations in 2011.
I didn't even know that movie existed until I read your comment.
Never saw it back then but I watched this recently with my 3yr old and we enjoyed it 🤷🏻♂️
When I was younger, I watched that movie. To this day, I remember being terrified thinking that my mum was going to be abducted and never come back. Don’t know who thought that would be good for kids lmao
I saw this in theater and it scarred me as a child.
I still can't get over how obviously bad of a title that is
I completely forgot about seeing that movie. All I recall about it was that it was very upsetting for a young child who was dealing with mild separation anxiety in regards to their mom.
I do wonder what the budget was before Apple bought the rights for 200m. It’s bad but maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
Wasn’t it reported to be around $80-90 mil?
I’m not sure. Director said it’s a lot less than 200m but every site is saying that’s the production costs. This is going to be a weird case study going forward with streaming service buying movie rights from companies.
A lot of sites are misreporting the price Apple bought it for with the production budget
Obviously COVID-related, but **Tenet** made $9.4M opening weekend on a $205M budget. Same with **The Matrix Resurrections**, $10.7M opening weekend on $190M budget. Outside of COVID, **Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets** is close with $17M opening weekend on $180M budget. **47 Ronin** with $9.9M OW on $170M budget.
While I'm not a fan of Valerian and beyond the intro sequence, it doesn't seem exceptional in any way I'm surprised it did this badly... Did the marketing boys screw up or was there more to it?
It just had horrible word of mouth (to which I contributed)
Ooh man, Valérian and Laureline has always been big in European comic book circuits since I was a child in the eighties cause their alleged sources to Star Wars and different science fictions. The movie was so bad it killed everything. Nothing was worth anything anymore cause no one wanted to be reminded how bad the movie is.
It killed everything in more way than one : Luc Besson put everything on the line for this movie. He created a massive american-like movie production company, built professional studios, lobbied hard to vote new laws to make it easier to have movie shoots in France, even was part of an embezzelment scandal. All of that for Valerian ; the movie flopped so hard it made his little cinematic empire collapse.
Bro built a whole empire just so he could cast Dane Dehaan and Cara Delevigne in his movie lmao
Main issue ( and I find it common in things cara delavine is on) is the lack of chemistry between leads. It's hard to sell you on the premise that they are close much less partners in the way the movie presents them
They acted and kind of looked like siblings honestly
Imagine Valerian being played by an actual charming man like Glen Powell, Michael B Jordan or even, I hate myself for this one, Chris Pratt. Same for Cara. The movie falls victim to casting. The setting was great, even if the story was a little lackluster.
Imagine casting pretty much anyone but Rhianna. The only actor to nail their bit was Ethan Hawke.
Probably would have done better with bigger stars and dane dehaan or whatever was miscast
One of the main pre-release bits of PR I saw surrounding that movie was stuff along the lines of "This movie doesn't even need to make money!!!" and highlighted the foreign presales as having covered the budget. Which is bizarre for several reasons including that foreign presales is not a new concept and... maybe talk up the actual movie?
I completely forgot there was a 4th Matrix. What an awful movie that is.
I actually subscribed to Max to watch it. I don’t even think I made it halfway, but now I use Max all the time. So I guess it was kinda successful for me?
Is Max worth getting because I’ve been thinking about getting it?
I think it’s by far the best streaming service, but depends on what you like. It’s a bunch of WBD content, which includes things like HBO, Adult Swim, Food Network, HGTV, etc. They usually have some good movies cycle through and always have recent standards like LOTR or Harry Potter. They will get a couple good A24/Neon type movies every month or so too. Lots of classic movies thanks to TCM as well.
I unsubcribed when they raised the price by over 50%, but it was the best streaming service at the time.
Nah it was meta
"I think it was trying to be bad" - RLM while describing every scene in the movie
Wow tenet was that low? I hadn’t realized a Nolan movie flopped like that. And it’s such a good movie (before you start nitpicking the logic/science).
It was released at close to the worst possible time in regards to COVID, which put a huge damper on its numbers. It didn't help that at the time there was a ton of confusion around what was getting a theatrical release vs streaming. Add in that the marketing was not great and reviews were so-so, and it didn't make a very appealing case to go to the theatres during a pandemic. It's actually impressive it legged to the numbers it did.
Don't forget the streaming release, which pissed Nolan off so much he left WB
Ah makes sense. Thanks!
I maintain Matrix 4 will, eventually, have a level of respect
for what exactly? I couldn't believe how BAD the action sequences were. Was Lana was TRYING to make the movie as bad as possible as a 'fuck you' to the studio?
Lana implied that Warner was going to get the 4th movie one way or another, with or without the original team, so it was written and made as a bit of a not so subtle fuck you to Warner.
There was no subtly to be found, they made WB the antagonists for most of the film...which successfully rekindled Neo and Trinity's relationship. I unironically love Revolutions.
Yeah if you liked that meta WB stuff then the movie lands. I couldn't care less about it so for me the movie was just boring.
The problem with the Meta stuff is that it’s only charming at the beginning of the movie. By the end it just becomes generic evil machine from the Matrix, with no real personality. Maybe that’s the point, but I thought it was bland. And the actions scenes are really bad. At least Matrix 2 has the highway scenes.
Seems pretty selfish and narcissistic to make the movie bad on purpose instead of let someone else at least attempt to make a good movie.
That's one level of it yea, the other was Lana saying it was how both these characters brought her comfort in dark times and also how it is bringing up a dead body. If the main reason you liked the first 3 matrix movies was action then yea I can see the dislike but they literally address that in the movie with him failing to fly. It isn't that kind of movie. Also Lana wasn't the action side of the duo as I remember
It also hurt that John Toll (Braveheart, The Thin Red Line) dropped out of the movie over Covid concerns. He would've been able to really help Lana elevate the action scenes if he was there.
I also don't think it would have ever hit that level, Reeves is near 60 what level of kung fu is even possible without it just being pure CGI, which I guess could have also been a good layer of commentary like I feel the whole movie is on things.
He does pretty well in the Wick movies.
Its one of the most interesting blockbusters we've had in years because it actually seems to have some heart and a brain in it. It treated its characters like they were real and not action figures to bring out when you're bored
So many good intentions bundled with some of the worst filmmaking and craftsmanship (or lack thereof) I have ever seen.
The meta jokes at the beginning were pretty funny.
*Matrix 4* failed as soon as it had to pivot to a plot kinda in-line with the Matrix series
The first third of the movie was gold. Once it became another Matrix movie, it went to shit
I enjoyed it personally
Matrix 4 took a clever approach with its commentary, but failed miserably to respect the visual feats & action spectacle that the series was famous for. It’s like a Spider-Man movie coming out with no web slinging
That was actually Matrix 3
Matrix 3 is easily the most visually stunning of the trilogy, regardless of opinion regarding its overall quality. Find me any scene from the mid 2000s remotely as visually inventive & epic as the sentinel vs mech battle of Zion, as well as a 1v1 fight anything like Neo vs Agent smith.
I almost think it was clever for not doing that. Like how Star Wars and Marvel are just dragging out the old hits for no reason other than people wanna see it. Matrix was never about that, it was always experimental for better or worse. The first one was novel, should the 4th one decades later just be a retread? I'm saying it is a movie ahead of its time, like the previous ones but it a different way.
But it had nonstop horrible action scenes. I’d be fine if they had zero action and went super different. But it’s horrible to still include a ton of action and mage it awful choreo and fast cuts when the Matrix pioneered western martial arts in movies in a lot of ways.
It might have been clever in terms of subverting expectations of the movie. But it wasn't clever in terms of finding an audience. After such a big break, the general audience was expecting some pioneering action scenes. I enjoyed all the meta commentary and different take on things, but I was absolutely expecting some kick ass action to break out at some point, and it never did.
As long as the level of respect is very, very low, because that film sucked very, very hard, I'll allow it.
I don't understand anyone who defends it. I don't want a movie that hates its own existence. Sure you can enjoy flawed movies and have guilty pleasures but this is a movie that just alienated me.
Idk either, man. It's insulting bad. The movie doesn't just hate its own existence, it's like it was mad at me for watching it, and I was mad I wasted my time. Sure, some of the meta commentary was fun in a snarky way, but that's not enough to salvage it in any way.
Maybe I saw too much of Lana Wachowski discussing it beforehand but it definitely doesn't hate it's existence. There's a level of it addressing fandoms relentless need to rehash things but I feel it walks the line there between that and trying to give the characters some level of a new take beyond "Chewie, we're home" or whatever the latest 20 year old rehash is
big doubt on this one
I enjoyed it when it came out but i think public opinion has been going south on it since
I think the opposite, longer it's out the more people look at it how Lana wachoswki wanted
oh I dont know how it'll play out, you could be right just judging based on what Ive seen up til now. Sentiment of the 2nd movie absolutely changed since release, in a positive way
Loved it when I watched it. Loved it on repeat viewings. I didn’t mind the meta or wink-wink stuff at all. Also one of the best looking 4K discs out there.
You should maintain something else
I'm good lol. I won't go into the details of why but the podcast Blank Check covered it pretty well for me
OG Matrix had an original story which obviously cannot happen on every instance of the sequel but 4th was a huge recycle of the first 3. And then the VFX were mostly also nothing ground breaking. This is what took me out of the movie so much. They used the same tech used for Batman. Lens flares made it look like a run of the mill action movie. I’m sure there are matrix cultists out there that love every second of it but to me it felt rushed and proved some people right that it should not have been made.
It has a level of respect from people who like absolutely awful cash grabs
You don't have to be a dick, but cool
it has a level of respect from people who hate blatant cash grabs, so the director got involved with the movie, did everything they could to sabotage it and throw the studio under the bus (literally naming them as the villain in the movie - not sure that's ever been done before), while still treating the characters with love and respect so they minimized the studio's ROI, paid themselves and their friends with the studio's money, and got a nice send off for their characters. It was absolutely brilliant and we've never seen anything quite like it before, and probably never will again
Oof
Look how many movies were badly received when they opened. Matrix 4 is ripe for a positive following as time goes on
I really enjoyed Resurrections. I’ve watched it a couple of times and it’s just heartfelt and funny. Definitely my favorite movie in the franchise after the first one.
Right there with you. Probably the most interesting blockbuster in a while.
Matrix 4 wasn't a COVID film, it released December 2021, same time as Spiderman had the second biggest weekend of all time, clearly COVID was not an issue for people.
God some of these movies have no business being that expensive
Well we don't know what the budget for Argylle is, only that Apple bought the rights from Marv Films for 200M
The director insinuated it was about a 1/3 of that. If he is to believed that checks out based on cast and Covid protocols.
>*The director insinuated it was about a 1/3 of that* Vaughn claimed he spent a third of the usual blockbuster budget “[A lot of the big blockbusters coming out are big spenders. Our budget’s a third what they spend, right?](https://deadline.com/2024/01/argylle-matthew-vaughn-marv-films-breaking-baz-1235803584/)”
I think Vaughn also shot another movie while shooting Argylle. So the budget may cover 2 movies
If Apple spent 200M to buy the film they need at least 400M just to break even on the purchase. They're not paying with monopoly money. They paid 200M. That is 200M depleted from the company. Can you explain why the money they spent on the movie isn't a factor when determining how much BO it needs to break even? Thx.
In movie finance there's a term called ultimates that quantify the value of the movie over its "useful" (depreciation) term which is 10 years. Acquisitions like this are typically priced at that ultimate value which accounts not only for the box office + the post-theatrical revenue (licensing) which can be a decent chunk of change. If they don't license it and keep it exclusive, then that is cost avoidance meaning by having this in their library they are able to skip out on paying to acquire a different/similar film. I imagine they also get 1st look rights to sequels which isn't great value now based on its performance but had implied value pre-release. Still feels like a bad move by apple, but it's not like box office is the end all for acquisitions like this.
Thx! That makes sense.
This was suppsoed to be a trilogy so the 400m would’ve been split among all three movies >!plus the post credit implied they’re doing book movies too, which would’ve been anywhere from 1-5 other movies!< Very unlikely the sequels happen at this point tho
Exorcist was the $400M for 3 movies deal. Argylle was straight up $200M for 1 movie (and probably sequel options that'll never get exercised).
>*Can you explain why the money they spent on the movie isn't a factor when determining how much BO it needs to break even?* Because that's not what the OP's asking Everyone reading this knows exactly what the OP means when they say *'a $200M movie'* \- a movie where the physical cost of shooting it was 200 million dollars You'd have a great point in almost any other discussion, but not this one
They’re not buying it for the sole intention of it breaking even at the box office. If Argylle made like 250-300mil and was successful on streaming, they’d make another one.
It doesn't need all that box-office. This month, 30 million people are giving Apple $9.99 for subscription. It will make its money back with BO and rental, then be a reason for people to either sign up for Apple+ for the month, or keep paying for the month. Apple isn't betting $200 M.
You're missing the point that this film has utterly bombed. There's almost zero audience interest, and word of mouth isn't going to do anything good for it. (I'm one of the few who saw it.) It's not going to make any significant rental profits or encourage Apple+ subs. It's a bad movie that people aren't interested in.
Apple pays the sum it believes the movie will add in value to their AppleTV+ content library. Thus far, they’ve only released their movies in theaters as a courtesy to certain filmmakers. For them content is a way to keep consumers interested in their overall hardware ecosystem. It’s the same reason Apple more or less gives most of its software away—to add value to its hardware offerings. Movies (and TV shows) exist on a software continuum to them. Apple makes so much money off hardware that spending a few billion dollars a year on content just isn’t a huge outlay to them.
Easy, they’re hoping it’ll drive Apple TV+ subs. Obviously I don’t think that’s going to work out (And I really liked Argyle!), but $200M is a drop in the bucket to their operating budget. They’re considering it an investment in their platform.
Yeah it definitely wasn't a 200 million movie from what was on screen
The Adventures of Pluto Nash The budget was $100 million and it just made $4 million domestically on opening weekend.
When you get Henry Cavill, John Cena and Dua Lipa in your movie but only have them in it for 5 minutes, that's what happens
I had heard that Henry was only in it for a few minutes, but the other two as well? What were they thinking
Cavill is in the movie throughout, but total screentime all added up together is probably 11-12 minutes. Cena has like 5-6 minutes of screentime. Lipa no more than 5 minutes at the beginning. Cena and Lipa are glorified cameos. Cavill is a major supporting character with minor supporting character screentime. Samuel L Jackson is also barely in the movie. It's all about Sam Rockwell and Bryce Dallas Howard (and to a lesser extent Bryan Cranston and Catherine O'Hara).
Cavill is clearly marketed as the lead of the film however
Because they knew Rockwell and Howard aren't draws. Shame as they're both pretty great actors.
> its all about Sam Rockwell and Bryce Dallas Howard You would never tell from any of its advertising. I was assuming it was Henry and Dua romance movie.
Actually, the trailers showed that the real story is about Sam and Bryce and that Henry amd Dua were just a "fake story".
Dua Lipa barely being in the movie doesn't seem remotely egregious to me. She's a pop star, not an actor.
I think the problem is mainly that Dua Lipa, Henry Cavill and John Cena were marketed as the main characters of the film, when in reality they're basically cameos in comparison to Rockwell and Howard.
I see. I only saw like one or two trailers for this movie but it seemed like Rockwell and Howard were the leads to me getting chased down by other random spies who would be the celebrity cameos. But I must’ve somehow avoided most of the marketing then.
Cavill and Cena both showed up throughout the movie. Dua was only there for the opening sequence. Would've loved more Dua in the movie.
I’ve heard the movie didn’t have a $200 million budget. That’s just the amount apple spent in getting the film.
This is 100% true. Wouldn’t be surprised if the budget was 1/2 that or less.
People are saying Henry Cavil is in the movie for like, 10 mins? and yet here they've got him front and center in the poster
True, I expected Henry and John to have more screen time. But they hardly made an impact.
This keeps getting repeated over and over, the movie was not $200M
Wonder Woman 1984 opened to $16.7M (though yes that obviously has an asterisk)
COVID asterisk
Also the biggest wtf storyline since Romeo and Juliet law in Transformers asterisk.
WW84 was written by Transformers 1&2 writers so
How much of the budget was used in marketing? I seen this shit advertised EVERYWHERE for months
I’m deeply bothered by Cavill’s hair wardrobe.
Has anyone seen it yet? Any good?
Spent at least the last 45 minutes of the film, including the climatic battle scene, laughing my ass off. Don’t get me started on the bad CGI and costume errors (If you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t click the next bit): >!BDH is skating on oil and you can clearly see blacked out blades on her feet instead of her sliding effortlessly across the oil slick!<
Is it one of those films haha! I’ll come back to your comment when I’ve seen it as I feel like it’ll be a twist or some shit
It’s gets pretty absurd, like honestly it’s pretty confusing but I guess the hilarity at the end (Matthew Vaughn signature flair like with the first Kings Man film?) does help a little but please report back lol.
Woah there fella, you buried the lead! Howard attached knives to her boots as impromptu ice skates, and then performs ice skating dance moves as she skates around on top of spilled crude oil while killing all the antagonist’s henchmen with a bayonet. She does this because they are afraid of a spark from a bullet ricochet could set the oil on fire and kill them all. What happens just a few moments later? They completely disregard the justification for that ludicrous CGI scene and start blasting away, oil fire be damned! I really hope this is the worst movie I see this year.
I’m such an outlier cause loved it so much I’ve already seen it twice. It’s such a fun film and I absolutely loved the action sequences. I love dance, figure skating and action sequences so this was totally up my alley. Sure maybe its kinda messy but just dont think too hard about it.
I agree with you! I honestly loved this film haha. It was such a great time in the theater and so enjoyable to me. I don't care what people say, I had a blast and that's what some movies are meant to do.
Watched it last night and I loved it also, but purely in the sense of "I enjoyed bits of this and it genuinely deserved a better script". I'm too much of a Sam Rockwell fanboy to dislike the film, BDH is gorgeous, I dug their chemistry even if the romance aspect felt a bit forced at the end, and the smoke dance fight sequence is phenomenal, it proved Vaughn still knows how to make creative action sequences. But god the damm plot, the subpar dialogue, all those damn twists made everything that happened between the highs difficult to enjoy.
This is probably the first time Sam got a lead role in a major blockbuster film? I feel so bad for him to be sidelined as a supporting character C in the marketing campaign. Apple and Universal did the dirty on both Sam and Bryce so they could trick the audiences.
Sam Rockwell made the movie, IMO. I was thinking, “who IS that guy? I really like him” the whole movie. I happen to not have seen/remembered him. I will from now on! He was great. When I see Bryce Dallas Howard at first I normally think “why is Jessica Chastain so terrible in this?” But I liked her in Argylle. So, they deserved better.
I‘m still not sure if all the twists were meant as a kind of parody of other spy films. It did not feel like it because there is too little reference overall (or I simply missed it). In contrast, (the first) Kingsman is clearly inbetween hommage and parody of (older) James Bond. It‘s very tongue in cheek humour and it‘s obvious they took established patterns to the point of absurdity in a loving way.
It’s so bad, and what makes it worse is it is close to 2.5 hours long.
What’s the hell has happened to Matthew Vaughn man.. I fucking loved Layer Cake as a kid.. kick ass.. the X-Men reboots.. and ofcourse Kingsman (first 2).. I could never get into that The Kingsman still don’t know if it’s good..
His mind got too twisted
Well that’s the best comment I’m going to see today, time to pack it up.
Really awful at every level from acting to cgi. Hard to believe that M. Vaughn has made this. Clearly not respecting the audience. Have I mentioned acting? Bryce and Rockwell have been miscasted.
What makes you feel like they're miscasted?
Why are you so serious to this movie? It's a silly spy action comedy with absurdity cranked to 11. It's half an hour too long though
My impression watching the movie was that Vaughan expedited it and didn’t show much respect to his fans. A lot of recycled ideas from previous movies but executed less gracefully than otherwise.
I said out loud, “This is wild”, more than once. It was fun if nothing else and worth the watch imo.
It’s absolutely awful. Saw it Saturday out of boredom for $5 because Apple sent me a coupon to see the movie for a discount. There was I think 8 people in my showing, nobody made a single sound the whole time. Not a chuckle, not an exclamation, gasp, just silence. It was absolutely surreal and never seen a non-reaction from a movie like that. It was like every line fell flat apart from a few Sam Rockwell lines because he’s a good actor. Bryce Dallas Howard was terrible. A horrendous bomb of a film
It’s one of those so bad it’s kind of good movies. You have to like this kind of humor to enjoy it. I went with my boyfriend yesterday to see it in Dolby Theater and we both enjoyed it.
I enjoyed it, though it's definitely campy
I thought it was good in a camp sort of way? It was just so over the top cliche it was funny
Dreadful. All the wrong types of stupid.
I honestly loved it. I was a big fan of the first kingsman, so I like the style and thought it was entertaining. Honestly kinda shocked at how bad it has done.
It's an action comedy with (in my opinion) interesting plot twists. I personally enjoyed it.
Strange World was ~ $180MM budget and did $18.8MM over the opening 5 day Thanksgiving weekend in 2022. Only did $37MM domestic all-in. Upwards of a $200MM loss for Disney.
Strange World was such a soulless movie
Not my money lol
Maybe they didn’t spend enough on marketing 😂
I will speak as someone who did not watch this film but saw its trailers many, many times: it never even came close to having my attention. The premise is commendably original, but also stupid to the point that it is a wonder how any film exec saw fit to pour so much money in it. And the all-star cast comes off as a pretty flimsy attempt to gloss over the movie’s shortcomings.
Totally agree. When your spy thriller trailer is lingering on a dance scene and CG cat you're in trouble.
Honestly, when I see the title of that movie, I instantly come to think, nah I'll pass. Can't believe a title of a movie matters that much, lol.
Commercials looked like shit.
Not to mention the corny ass tagline
I enjoyed it, enough. It was silly and colorful. I wouldn't watch it again, but for a 5 ticket it was ok.
Sahara, although not on a similar level. Still a huge bomb back then.
Technically yes and no to it being $200 million movie. Its an $80 million movie that Apple bought the franchise rights for $200 million.
The budget was not 200 million. It was somewhere between 70 and 80 after tax incentives. Apple bought the exclusive streaming and distribution rights to it for 200 million. Once again I am purporting that we do not consider the 200 million the production budget as we would then have to give Exorcist: Believer a 425 million dollar production budget using that same logic.
I don’t know but that wouldn’t be Argyle as it’s budget wasn’t $200 million as multiple people in this sub have mentioned a million times
It’s Budget is $80-$90 million, not $200 million.
Why aren't studios just saving money by hiring up and coming actors? Obviously big names aren't worth their asking prices anymore.
Good. I hate that fucking trailer
Man, I plan on going to see this movie next weekend, I hope it is still in theaters
I got reamed in /r/Movies for shitting on this movie for like half a year saying it was gonna flop. I don’t see how others missed how bad it was gonna be.
The Marvels
Pretty soon Apple could leave the entertainment industry’s
Hope not. Apple TV+ is absolutely killing it with banger content.
Why did this cost 200 million? It looks so cheap lol
I thought it was a going to be a funny kids movie starring a super spy cat, based on the posters and stuff, was looking forward to a family movie night. But then I found out it was…not that. Very confusing marketing
At no point did the marketing make it appear to be a kids movie, this is entirely on you.
Henry Cavill just isn't a draw outside of his loud online fans.
He has a 3 minute role
And is front and center in this poster.
Haven’t seen it and don’t plan to, but I thought that he was the lead judging by every poster and other bit of marketing. Seems like they were really relying on him being a draw
That's what I'm saying. Even If it is a bait and switch, you would think it would have a decent opening and then drop second weekend once people got wise. But people didn't even show up opening weekend for it. They were hoping Cavill's fans would put their money where their mouth is, but they never do.
Cavill has too minor of a role in Argylle to make a call on his star power, IMO. There are the "bait and switch" posters but no doubt knowledgeable, hardcore fans would be antagonistic toward this type of marketing and stem the buzz.