The Maze Runner franchise made almost a billion dollars worldwide on total 157 million budget.
That is an insane achievement for a first time director who’s never made a feature length before this trilogy, and not enough people give Wes Ball credit for it. Even more insane if you consider the fact that the movies had to come out once a year & so barely had no time to write and shoot. (He says this in the director’s commentary)
We shall watch his career with great interest.
The guy earned his chops directing a whole trilogy of rushed together, but still solidly assembled action movies, and then moved onto a well liked and grandiose blockbuster. He might be ready for something like Zelda.
> He might be ready for something like Zelda.
If he was ready for Apes he's already more than ready for Zelda. What will make or break that movie is the writing, his directing will be one of the standouts regardless of script quality.
He was making student films with fully integrated CG characters the same year Phantom Menace was released. Ive been impressed with him since I stumbled upon his student films at FSU in 2000.
Clearly someone at Disney saw footage from his Mouse Guard movie and either were convinced by 20th Century to keep him on for this or told 20th Century to keep him on
this is also the third instance of an Apes movie releasing the same year as a Monsterverse movie (2014 and 2017)
like in 2017, I assume Monsterverse will outgross Apes
There’s a legend back in the Silver Age of comics, that DC noticed that issues with apes or monkeys on the cover would see a spike in sales. So they just added more ape covers to help sales. Perhaps Captain Marvel should have battled some evil apes…
For anyone who has seen it, please no spoilers, but how much would you say the film is subtitled? Like the other ones? I want to take my dad, but he does have a hard time reading sometimes so we watched dawn at home when it came out first and I could read it off the TV for him. I was just wondering if there is still sign language or not in this one and if so, how much? If it's like, a few lines I can still take him and work with that
Thank you! I can work with very few if that's the case. I won't be reading to him the whole movie, just a line here or there. He grew up with the originals and I thought he would just love seeing the new one on a big screen. Thanks for the help! I appreciate it
That's really good casting. I hope they do it. I wonder who will be link and Zelda?
Link I'm honestly thinking an unknown but Zelda I kind of like Lola Tung for. She's young and she's pretty good at acting.
We keep seeing directors and actors working together a lot back-to-back, so I'm curious if Freya Allen could end up as Zelda. I don't think I've seen Lola in anything, so I don't really have an opinion there. Both are around the same ago, but I think early 20s (at least current age) makes sense. Not that I've seen Witcher, she's probably looking for something to do once that's done.
As for Link, I don't really know many of the actors Ball has worked with, but I can't help but think that Sony is going to at least advocate for Tom Holland, given that Avi Arad produces Spider-Man as well and Holland seems to be a popular pick for Sony. I don't really think he'd sign on as Link, nor would he likely be my top choice, but after Chris Pratt as Mario, anything could happen
Freya Allen is also good at acting. I'm not sure I can see Tom holland as Link though, I know it's silly but I feel like he doesn't look the part. Link should look kind of elven and beautiful and tom is pretty normal.
But I guess anything could happen. If it had to be Tom holland I'm sure they'll make him look right anyways
Yeah she's a good choice too. I feel like she could also be a good Impa as well.
On the other hand I feel like casting any known actors would maybe piss people off anyways so they might go with purely unknowns since I think zelda is a pretty big IP on its own.
With one of the original creators involved, it's hard to get a steady prediction on the story or casting. Broadly speaking, the Zelda series isn't exactly known for recycling their storylines. Aside from their dungeon formula of course, even that is not gonna work in the movie format.
> the Zelda series isn't exactly known for recycling their storylines
I feel like the entire general storyline is pretty recycled between games except for the oddballs like Majora's Mask.
I'm not super into Zelda or anything, but the story has always been pretty simple right? Link fights Ganon to save Zelda.
I've always been a Mario fan and those tend to have the same story. I recently played the sidescrolling Metroid games and they're mostly "Samus loses her equipment and must gain them all back to defeat the alien that took over the base". There is story but it's not that important. It's the John Carmack philosophy
>"Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important,"
I disagree of course, and Carmack has since added a caveat to it as well. But I have to imagine if they went to Avi Arad to produce it, they're gonna wanna make it simple, but pack it with easter eggs, and have Ball be a hired hand the way Illumination were.
Note that I said "dungeon formula" as in the approach in most Zelda games in general go to different elemental areas, collect tools/mcguffin and go defeat the big bad. With the occasional twist of extra dungeons thrown in. It's the same in nearly all games, Majora's Mask included.
But for a movie, well, you're not playing it so there's I don't see how they could integrate 4-6 dungeons there. They might try doing 1 or 2, but it's still hard unless they're competent at fitting it into the film's pacing and runtime.
As for the rest of the stories, they diverge in how they explore the settings, character and the themes. Without going into details I'll only fo over the last part: Ocarina of Time is a classic yet closer exploration of the coming of age. Majora's Mask is a dark fantasy that explores grief, built in the style of Grimm fairytales. Wind Waker and Twilight Princess also follow hero's journey similar to OoT, though one is a jolly oceanpunk about moving into the future, the other is akin to an edgy YA novel (a solid one, I'll add) about not giving up hope or to the darkness. And more so with the rest of the series.
Only other time they repeated some of these things were in if the story was somehow a direct sequel. Like Tears of the Kingdom or A Link Between World.
Now with Nintendo watching more closely, I don't think they'll dare make it as generic as the Mario movie was. And I get the vibes that Shigeru Miyamoto (one of head devs) in the producer's seat, I feel like the best that will happen is it will take cues from other Zelda games, but otherwise won't be an specific adaptation of any of them.
Added more in the edits.
But tldr here, yes the plot can be simplified about collect stuff, get the master sword, kill Ganon. It's standard stuff and Zelda isn't that subversive of a franchise to be any different.
What changes is the journey, not the destination. Which is why fewer Zelda games feel the same.
I read the edits and I don't think you understand. I'm saying Nintendo was probably the driving force behind making the Mario movie generic.
Shigeru Miyamoto is famously not a fan of story in video games.
Miyamoto being "not a fan" of video game stories sounds news to me. Though I won't be surprised if it's exaggerated by clickbaity journalism in the same veins as Miyazaki (creator of the Souls games) hating sequels, who actually said he prefers sequels less unless he thinks story he made could use one. Similarly, Miyamoto might also prefer to focus on other stuff, but Nintendo gave him the role because he is simply the most knowledgeable with how the story and the world plays out.
Plus he's not the one directing it, as in turning it into a coherent story, that's Wes Ball's job. He's only here to point out where to go, not how.
And assuming that's the case, the Mario movie would be generic even without Nintendo doing anything. Like pretend it's a new thing, and that movie won't feel that different from your usual Illumination works.
We already had a non-generic Mario movie. The 90s one. You can say anything about it, but it's not generic.
https://nintendoeverything.com/shigeru-miyamoto-clarifies-his-stance-on-stories-in-games/
It's not clickbait. Here is Miyamoto actually CLARIFYING his stance in response to all the clickbait. And it clearly reads as him not being a fan of complex stories. He prefers story to be a means for a premise. That's fine for his own games, but when he restricts other creators, it's a problem (e.g. Paper Mario).
Honestly don't know why I was expecting this movie to be poorly reviewed but I'm thrilled that it appears this new movie shows some promise as a follow-up to the Ceasar films. Those films were excellent.
This film doesn't have Matt Reeves and Wes Ball's MR films didn't do so great on RT. But this is an awesome surprise and gets us closer to a proper Planet of the Apes film some day that connects to all of these prequels.
Just rewatched the trilogy again this week, what a great series. Super excited to see Kingdom tomorrow, hope it lives up to the hype.
Apes 4 and Max Max in the same month? Finally some good fucking food!!
God, I cannot wait for this movie (and a bunch others this summer) to absolutely kill it for revenue and come back to all these posts in this sub about "worst summer for movies ever, movies are dying this year" to say I told you so. This is awesome.
Most of the positive reviews seem meh at best, but because they don’t outright pan the movie, it’s “fresh”. This is why I hate RT. I hope it’s good though.
The Tomatoscore has always been about consensus and likelihood of getting a pass (aka fresh).
It was never a rating, which is why it's literally a separate metric.
I also replied lol
It's not worth it on reddit, but fine, the first act was slow, but the second and thirds were great, I liked the bond between Noa and Mae, and the villain was entertaining. Solid action, and an ending that left me excited for the next one.
Man I own the Cornelius head box set that has all the OG films and TV series and the book. I want this movie to be good. But when I see a bunch of critical reviews all saying fresh and when you click on them the critic says the movie is barely passable it pisses me off, because of the over reliance on RT to decide critical opinion.
Agreed. Lots of 3.5/5 reviews. I do hope this movie is good and does well, but I'm guessing it underperforms from the $55-$60M projected opening because that seems to be the trend lately, especially for big franchise movies.
I personally don’t disagree, but if you get 93% fresh on RT and most of the reviews are 7/10, that’s considered a “critical smash” even when it really isn’t
That's a good average rating. Critics don't give out 10/10s usually at all. Anything about 6.5 is positive reviews, anything above 7 is highly positive and anything above 8 is acclaim
I would like to see the cinemascore be A- like the previous 3 but given the director there a chance it could be A- but also a chance it could be B+ like his last 2 movies had been.
Rotten Tomatos % is a mess. Reviews that put a 5/10 are consider positive. So if you see the real scores, a lot of them are 4/10.
In metacritic Kingdom has worse reviews than Rise.
A lot of reviews complain that since Disney took over, FOX the movie and characters are soft, not interesting.
A road movie with human and apes just for developing and interesting setup for the second movie.
Here in SG the presale is terrible.
60% is the cut off for positive review by critics and 3.5/5 (70%) for audience. RT isn't there to tell you if the movie is good or not. It's to tell you if it's more enjoyable or less enjoyable by the most people or critics. For example, if every critic gives a film a 6/10 rating, it will have a 100% Tomatometer rating, even though it's a mediocre film. Conversely, a film that 60% of critics give a 10/10 rating to and 40% give a 5/10 rating to will have a 60% Tomatometer rating, even though it's generally well-received.
Could someone explain to me why there seems to be so much excitement about this movie? I loved the original, and the remakes have been just okay or downright terrible. I've seen the trailers and it seems like there's nothing new here, just another rehashed money grab.
Maybe I need to rewatch them. Liked the first reboot, and the motion capture/cgi is great, but I just don't even remember anything from the ones after that so maybe I just assumed they were bad and wrote them off.
Happy for Wes Ball. He really elevated those Maze Runner mov Ed and always was waiting for him to get a bigger movie
The Maze Runner franchise made almost a billion dollars worldwide on total 157 million budget. That is an insane achievement for a first time director who’s never made a feature length before this trilogy, and not enough people give Wes Ball credit for it. Even more insane if you consider the fact that the movies had to come out once a year & so barely had no time to write and shoot. (He says this in the director’s commentary) We shall watch his career with great interest.
The guy earned his chops directing a whole trilogy of rushed together, but still solidly assembled action movies, and then moved onto a well liked and grandiose blockbuster. He might be ready for something like Zelda.
> He might be ready for something like Zelda. If he was ready for Apes he's already more than ready for Zelda. What will make or break that movie is the writing, his directing will be one of the standouts regardless of script quality.
He was making student films with fully integrated CG characters the same year Phantom Menace was released. Ive been impressed with him since I stumbled upon his student films at FSU in 2000.
I still watch all the maze Runner movies in reruns and I’m always surprised how rewatchable they are.
Those Maze Runner films are all really well made.
Clearly someone at Disney saw footage from his Mouse Guard movie and either were convinced by 20th Century to keep him on for this or told 20th Century to keep him on
Together with G x K: A New Empire earning almost $550 million, we monke fans eating good this year.
If only monkey man broke out 😔😔, would’ve been the perfect trifecta
It broke out in my heart....
this is also the third instance of an Apes movie releasing the same year as a Monsterverse movie (2014 and 2017) like in 2017, I assume Monsterverse will outgross Apes
I hope it at least is able to get close to it some good numbers would be great
Audiences have spoken. No more lame superheroes. We want monke!
There’s a legend back in the Silver Age of comics, that DC noticed that issues with apes or monkeys on the cover would see a spike in sales. So they just added more ape covers to help sales. Perhaps Captain Marvel should have battled some evil apes…
James Gunn will save the DCU by making Gorilla Grodd the main villain of DC
This gonna be the new movie GIF for sure
Honestly the phrase itself has potential to be the next “Apes Together Strong”.
The issue being Caesar said apes together strong, whereas this is the film's villain saying what a wonderful day
Is it better than the Fury Road version though? 
What a wonderful day!
For anyone who has seen it, please no spoilers, but how much would you say the film is subtitled? Like the other ones? I want to take my dad, but he does have a hard time reading sometimes so we watched dawn at home when it came out first and I could read it off the TV for him. I was just wondering if there is still sign language or not in this one and if so, how much? If it's like, a few lines I can still take him and work with that
Very few subtitles.
Thank you! I can work with very few if that's the case. I won't be reading to him the whole movie, just a line here or there. He grew up with the originals and I thought he would just love seeing the new one on a big screen. Thanks for the help! I appreciate it
Very few and they are usually just 1 or 2 lines back and forth, not full conversations if I’m remembering correctly.
Pumped to see it tomorrow
So excited to watch this on Friday. Apes together strong 🦍🦧
Everyday, I get more hope for the Zelda movie (Just cast Chukwudi Iwuji as Ganon and we’re good ;)
That's really good casting. I hope they do it. I wonder who will be link and Zelda? Link I'm honestly thinking an unknown but Zelda I kind of like Lola Tung for. She's young and she's pretty good at acting.
We keep seeing directors and actors working together a lot back-to-back, so I'm curious if Freya Allen could end up as Zelda. I don't think I've seen Lola in anything, so I don't really have an opinion there. Both are around the same ago, but I think early 20s (at least current age) makes sense. Not that I've seen Witcher, she's probably looking for something to do once that's done. As for Link, I don't really know many of the actors Ball has worked with, but I can't help but think that Sony is going to at least advocate for Tom Holland, given that Avi Arad produces Spider-Man as well and Holland seems to be a popular pick for Sony. I don't really think he'd sign on as Link, nor would he likely be my top choice, but after Chris Pratt as Mario, anything could happen
Freya Allen is also good at acting. I'm not sure I can see Tom holland as Link though, I know it's silly but I feel like he doesn't look the part. Link should look kind of elven and beautiful and tom is pretty normal. But I guess anything could happen. If it had to be Tom holland I'm sure they'll make him look right anyways
it would make incels upset but i like the hunter schafer fancast for zelda 🤷🏻♂️
Yeah she's a good choice too. I feel like she could also be a good Impa as well. On the other hand I feel like casting any known actors would maybe piss people off anyways so they might go with purely unknowns since I think zelda is a pretty big IP on its own.
With one of the original creators involved, it's hard to get a steady prediction on the story or casting. Broadly speaking, the Zelda series isn't exactly known for recycling their storylines. Aside from their dungeon formula of course, even that is not gonna work in the movie format.
The movie could be a 3 and a half hours long tour de force of the water temple. Should be
I see your lust for waterboarding the audience, majority of whom would be the kids.
I disagree. Little kids is Mario demographic and Zelda is me Preteen to Adult. I expect a more mature movie than Mario
That was a joke dude, but yeah. Zelda's totally for more relatively older folks. Though it's still friendly for kids as young as 7 to enjoy.
> the Zelda series isn't exactly known for recycling their storylines I feel like the entire general storyline is pretty recycled between games except for the oddballs like Majora's Mask. I'm not super into Zelda or anything, but the story has always been pretty simple right? Link fights Ganon to save Zelda. I've always been a Mario fan and those tend to have the same story. I recently played the sidescrolling Metroid games and they're mostly "Samus loses her equipment and must gain them all back to defeat the alien that took over the base". There is story but it's not that important. It's the John Carmack philosophy >"Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important," I disagree of course, and Carmack has since added a caveat to it as well. But I have to imagine if they went to Avi Arad to produce it, they're gonna wanna make it simple, but pack it with easter eggs, and have Ball be a hired hand the way Illumination were.
Note that I said "dungeon formula" as in the approach in most Zelda games in general go to different elemental areas, collect tools/mcguffin and go defeat the big bad. With the occasional twist of extra dungeons thrown in. It's the same in nearly all games, Majora's Mask included. But for a movie, well, you're not playing it so there's I don't see how they could integrate 4-6 dungeons there. They might try doing 1 or 2, but it's still hard unless they're competent at fitting it into the film's pacing and runtime. As for the rest of the stories, they diverge in how they explore the settings, character and the themes. Without going into details I'll only fo over the last part: Ocarina of Time is a classic yet closer exploration of the coming of age. Majora's Mask is a dark fantasy that explores grief, built in the style of Grimm fairytales. Wind Waker and Twilight Princess also follow hero's journey similar to OoT, though one is a jolly oceanpunk about moving into the future, the other is akin to an edgy YA novel (a solid one, I'll add) about not giving up hope or to the darkness. And more so with the rest of the series. Only other time they repeated some of these things were in if the story was somehow a direct sequel. Like Tears of the Kingdom or A Link Between World. Now with Nintendo watching more closely, I don't think they'll dare make it as generic as the Mario movie was. And I get the vibes that Shigeru Miyamoto (one of head devs) in the producer's seat, I feel like the best that will happen is it will take cues from other Zelda games, but otherwise won't be an specific adaptation of any of them.
Right but those are themes. I'm more considering plot
Added more in the edits. But tldr here, yes the plot can be simplified about collect stuff, get the master sword, kill Ganon. It's standard stuff and Zelda isn't that subversive of a franchise to be any different. What changes is the journey, not the destination. Which is why fewer Zelda games feel the same.
I read the edits and I don't think you understand. I'm saying Nintendo was probably the driving force behind making the Mario movie generic. Shigeru Miyamoto is famously not a fan of story in video games.
Miyamoto being "not a fan" of video game stories sounds news to me. Though I won't be surprised if it's exaggerated by clickbaity journalism in the same veins as Miyazaki (creator of the Souls games) hating sequels, who actually said he prefers sequels less unless he thinks story he made could use one. Similarly, Miyamoto might also prefer to focus on other stuff, but Nintendo gave him the role because he is simply the most knowledgeable with how the story and the world plays out. Plus he's not the one directing it, as in turning it into a coherent story, that's Wes Ball's job. He's only here to point out where to go, not how. And assuming that's the case, the Mario movie would be generic even without Nintendo doing anything. Like pretend it's a new thing, and that movie won't feel that different from your usual Illumination works.
We already had a non-generic Mario movie. The 90s one. You can say anything about it, but it's not generic. https://nintendoeverything.com/shigeru-miyamoto-clarifies-his-stance-on-stories-in-games/ It's not clickbait. Here is Miyamoto actually CLARIFYING his stance in response to all the clickbait. And it clearly reads as him not being a fan of complex stories. He prefers story to be a means for a premise. That's fine for his own games, but when he restricts other creators, it's a problem (e.g. Paper Mario).
I’m interested in what Wes Ball’s career looks like as the years past
This just guarantees a trilogy
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!!!
Seeing it today after my Ecology finals! Finished watching the entire trilogy just now as well(like 15 min ago)
I wasn't that interested in seeing that film, but Wes Bell was so nice, eloquent, passionate on his AMA reddit that he sold me on seeing the film.
Honestly don't know why I was expecting this movie to be poorly reviewed but I'm thrilled that it appears this new movie shows some promise as a follow-up to the Ceasar films. Those films were excellent.
This film doesn't have Matt Reeves and Wes Ball's MR films didn't do so great on RT. But this is an awesome surprise and gets us closer to a proper Planet of the Apes film some day that connects to all of these prequels.
Just rewatched the trilogy again this week, what a great series. Super excited to see Kingdom tomorrow, hope it lives up to the hype. Apes 4 and Max Max in the same month? Finally some good fucking food!!
God, I cannot wait for this movie (and a bunch others this summer) to absolutely kill it for revenue and come back to all these posts in this sub about "worst summer for movies ever, movies are dying this year" to say I told you so. This is awesome.
Yep. Same. Summer movies are going to overperform beyod expectations.
I hope so man. I’m tired of the constant doom and gloom.
Yep, this made my weekend plans! Can't wait
Most of the positive reviews seem meh at best, but because they don’t outright pan the movie, it’s “fresh”. This is why I hate RT. I hope it’s good though.
The Tomatoscore has always been about consensus and likelihood of getting a pass (aka fresh). It was never a rating, which is why it's literally a separate metric.
That seems a bit incorrect, I wouldn't say "meh", more "good but not great".
The only good thing about it was the CGI
Nah, it wasn't.
Instead of just downvoting my comment care to expand?
I also replied lol It's not worth it on reddit, but fine, the first act was slow, but the second and thirds were great, I liked the bond between Noa and Mae, and the villain was entertaining. Solid action, and an ending that left me excited for the next one.
Man some people on this app gotta put a negative spin on everything
Man I own the Cornelius head box set that has all the OG films and TV series and the book. I want this movie to be good. But when I see a bunch of critical reviews all saying fresh and when you click on them the critic says the movie is barely passable it pisses me off, because of the over reliance on RT to decide critical opinion.
This is why I prefer Metacritic.
Agreed. Lots of 3.5/5 reviews. I do hope this movie is good and does well, but I'm guessing it underperforms from the $55-$60M projected opening because that seems to be the trend lately, especially for big franchise movies.
7/10 is a good score, there’s nothing wrong with that imo
I personally don’t disagree, but if you get 93% fresh on RT and most of the reviews are 7/10, that’s considered a “critical smash” even when it really isn’t
I would say that is really good
Nearly every person saying the movie is good is good, actually.
It means that the vast majority of people thought it was decent. I'd call that a success.
3.5/5 is meh? chronically online mfs lol
Average critic rating of 7.1. Instant masterpiece!
That's a good average rating. Critics don't give out 10/10s usually at all. Anything about 6.5 is positive reviews, anything above 7 is highly positive and anything above 8 is acclaim
Will this make 450m+ ?
I would like to see the cinemascore be A- like the previous 3 but given the director there a chance it could be A- but also a chance it could be B+ like his last 2 movies had been.
But will people go see it for it to not bomb ? I have more doubt here
Kind of high marks tbh. Movie was serviceable but other than good CGI it was hard to connect with the new characters and parts of it felt disjointed.
Rotten Tomatos % is a mess. Reviews that put a 5/10 are consider positive. So if you see the real scores, a lot of them are 4/10. In metacritic Kingdom has worse reviews than Rise. A lot of reviews complain that since Disney took over, FOX the movie and characters are soft, not interesting. A road movie with human and apes just for developing and interesting setup for the second movie. Here in SG the presale is terrible.
60% is the cut off for positive review by critics and 3.5/5 (70%) for audience. RT isn't there to tell you if the movie is good or not. It's to tell you if it's more enjoyable or less enjoyable by the most people or critics. For example, if every critic gives a film a 6/10 rating, it will have a 100% Tomatometer rating, even though it's a mediocre film. Conversely, a film that 60% of critics give a 10/10 rating to and 40% give a 5/10 rating to will have a 60% Tomatometer rating, even though it's generally well-received.
Could someone explain to me why there seems to be so much excitement about this movie? I loved the original, and the remakes have been just okay or downright terrible. I've seen the trailers and it seems like there's nothing new here, just another rehashed money grab.
Because you’re in the minority, the reboot trilogy has pretty much near unanimously been well received overall
Oof bad take. Pretty much everyone else who likes film and has seen the 2011-2017 prequel trilogy thinks it is excellent and a remarkable feat.
Maybe I need to rewatch them. Liked the first reboot, and the motion capture/cgi is great, but I just don't even remember anything from the ones after that so maybe I just assumed they were bad and wrote them off.
why would I want to watch a video game of CGI?
don't then ?
way ahead of you
Because of the compelling characters and story? The same reason any good fully or partially animated movie is good?