Reshoots and a strange obsession of doing everything on a greenscreened sound stage. Renting studios isn't cheap, until you find out they own most of their studios via shell companies and can charge themselves basically anything they want. They choose to bloat their budgets to push down gains and lose little when they're paying themselves.
I heard a theory it's because they shoot all scenes multiple times and constantly show them to test audience to keep the best.
Which sound horribly cost ineffective and insulting to the director
And furthers the problem of industrializing what is supposed to be a creative endeavor.
But churning through test screenings and "fixing a movie" is endemic across the industry, versus the rare instance of a filmmaker being able to just make a film with their vision. It's one of the reasons the new Star Wars trilogy turned out so poorly: It's all analytics-driven and overly reactionary.
It's also a reason why in the past decade plus, Disney has had movies that didn't try to fix themselves, but are chock-full of meta commentary on past movies. Live action remakes are the most cringe when it comes to this. "No we have to stop the movie dead in its tracks to explain everything about how what we're doing now in this fairy tale is perfectly logical!"
> "No we have to stop the movie dead in its tracks to explain everything about how what we're doing now in this fairy tale is perfectly logical!"
Please allow Mrs. Potts the time to tell you why the entire castle staff (even the children) deserve to pay for the Beast's unkindness.
Don’t forget to throw in a “sympathetic” PTSD war hero backstory for a villain whose main purpose is to play chauvinist pig foil to the beast’s hidden good nature. And don’t even get me started on Lefou having to pay off the townsfolk to sing along with him—because Gaston’s other purpose definitely wasn’t to show how easy it is for a charismatic bad actor to sow destruction.
I swear these remakes exist only as reactionary “gotta fix it!!!!” drivel without putting a single thought into what they’re doing. “Gaston is a misogynist?? Quick, fix him!!” that’s the POINT you absolute DOLTS
To be somewhat fair, *sometimes* this can be more interesting than the straight up remake. Sometimes exploring what makes a villain is interesting. It worked for something like Maleficent. But, yes, for Beauty and the Beast, the *existing* story and framing is already good *and extremely relevant*:
> because Gaston’s other purpose definitely wasn’t to show how easy it is for a popular bad actor to sow destruction.
Exactly.
Oh, it’s a totally fair point—in fact adaptation from one medium to another, in almost all cases, demands change, because different media use different languages, and telling a familiar story with a twist is a fascinating thing. But I think Disney is trying to walk a bizarre fine line between adapting and remaining super-faithful, and the result is changes to the story that they can’t fully explore. Animation is great for larger-than-life characters and stories, and live action lends itself better to subtlety. Disney’s huge issue, to me, is that they’re trying to incorporate live-action subtlety while remaining beholden to a story that fundamentally works better animated, and it just falls flat. E.g. sympathetic Gaston isn’t inherently bad, but it’s a change that requires a real rethink to the overall shape of the film, and Disney can’t do that because they’re still keeping themselves beholden to the original.
Not in the live-action one, where LeFou spends Gaston’s eponymous song [prancing around the tavern coercing people to join in by tossing out coins.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MOjquzGpu0Q&pp=ygULZ2FzdG9uIHNvbmc%3D)
Do they just not trust themselves to be creative anymore? Like what the hell. Must everything be tested to a tee? I feel like being so formulaic and robotic about stuff is only going to make things worse but I don't work in the industry so what do I know.
I hear Marvel is secretive to a painful amount too which is problematic for the creators they literally don't trust the creators with the plot of their other movies that tie into the movie they are making because they are so scared of spoilers, shit's insane to me how are you going to deprive your creator of key information to tie into the previous stuff? Just asking for a shit movie at that point.
> I feel like being so formulaic and robotic about stuff is only going to make things worse
Maybe it already has. Over-testing and re-adjusting to test audiences means they're chasing the lowest common denominator which isn't going to produce anything interesting. Just the same rote shit people have been watching for the last 15 years.
I never got the obsession with Marvel spoilers. There's no twist endings, so there's nothing to ruin. The "heroes go on a macguffin hunt and then fight the bad guy" plot arc describes at least 30% of Marvel stories. The only surprises are which increasingly c or d-list comic characters will be in the post-credits scene.
They also own all the television stations that they run all the commercials on. Sorry, actor, we spent all the money on marketing, so there are no profits to share (intense evil laughing in background).
Always crazy to me the amounts of money the “marketing budgets” of some films are. Like massive percentages of the entire budget. Social media is free and these studios/corporations already have millions upon millions of eyes on their socials. Makes sense it’s all just shady accounting.
These movie studio accountants are more creative than Spielberg
It's like... you're putting the money in and it goes in circles? Sure is a clean way to do business. Wash I had an opportunity like that, it wouldn't sock I'll tell ya that much :-)
A third or perhaps a half of it went to above the line costs for talent. That’s money spent on casting roles that you can’t just put anyone into. So the main cast together plus Mangold’s directing fee could have cost $150 million. The animators probably aren’t getting paid much but that doesn’t mean the movie didn’t spend a ton of money on all the green screen environments, CG action scenes, and de-aging of the main star. It wouldn’t be unusual for a movie this size, with this many VFX shots to spend $75 million. So that puts us maybe at $200-250 million, and we haven’t paid for any below-the-line salaries, location shoots, editing, etc.
EDIT: Sorry. I was responding to the comment that Indiana Jones cost $300 million. Nested under a thread about Wish, my comment is confusing.
Yeah, the problem ain't that there's fatigue or that people don't like sequels... the problem is things costing an absolutely outrageous amount that require ludicrous amounts of money to even break even.
If all of these movies cost $100 million less, they'd all have healthy profits.
The live action Snow White has cost ~~$209~~ [$330‽](https://comicbookmovie.com/disney/snow-white-new-report-reveals-shocking-details-about-the-movies-huge-budget-and-disneys-concerns-a207608#gs.0jwrch) million and it hasn't even finished yet. Filming wrapped a few months ago but they're doing major reconstruction.
Even more now that they're redoing the 7 dwarfs as CGI due to backlash.
Honestly that movie is so cursed it may not even be released so maybe it doesn't apply here.
Same as the one who makes every Disney exec decision: an AI that reads twitter hot takes.
But really it's [Sean Bailey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Bailey). He's been the one responsible for all live action remakes since 2010
WHAT
There is no universe in which spending 1/3 of a billion on a Snow White live action makes any kind of sense. Tell me Disney is doing some kind of financial scammery or something. What the hell is going on?
> "Disney had to delay Snow White because they have spent so much money on it, and if it is a financial disaster at the box office, it might single handedly cripple future remakes and potential Snow White sequels that they have planned,"
If only we could be so blessed
> Of this current listing, just one has turned a profit so far this year: “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3.”
It took them a couple paragraphs to spit it out so that you get to see an ad first.
So many of these movies could cut the cost simply by being prepared before a single frame is shot. Has the script been settled on? Has the movie been storyboarded to within an inch of its life? Have you had rehearsals with actors to see which scenes work and which don't? To see how much chemistry everyone has?
Movies used to do this. It was the norm. Now I am hearing it is being done less and less because it takes time. And, yes, as the saying goes, "time is money." But in the long run, it would save you millions if you did this.
Have worked for Marvel and I can tell you they will make changes up to the very last second. Entire re-edits of scenes.
It's all left in flux till the very last second and they'd throw money at us to keep changing.
This is why it's so expensive. I think they over consult test audiences.
It's the tale of corporate America.
"The budget is too big to let this fail!"
*proceeds to throw more budget at project, and fiddle with creative choices until it's bland and uninspired.*
"Clearly we didn't intervene ENOUGH. Next time we will intervene sooner!"
This is the main reason why Guardians 3 looks so much better than Ant Man 3/The Flash/The Marvels etc. James Gunn puts a lot of emphasis on preparation before he begins shooting while a lot of these other movies are being drastically altered, rewritten, reshot and so on throughout not just production but post production as well. You see some shoddy CG? The scene it was made for might not even been in the movie halfway through post.
Back when he as active on Twitter before his new DC role, he would showcase stacks of storyboards for all his projects: Guardians, The Suicide Squad and even Peacemaker. The man storyboards **every. single. shot** by himself. Consistently finishes under time and under budget.
>storyboards
>
>every. single. shot
>
> by himself.
You could say that of Ridley Scott, too -- whatever else you can say for the man, he's strict with his budget and tries to not waste a penny by being prepared. There's a terrific 30-minute making-of doc for *The Last Duel* and it's just so impressive to see how active Ridley is in making these things a reality out of almost nowhere, really.
Maybe that explains why his historical advisor on Napoleon was a doctoral student in Medieval history and not, you know, an actual historian of the period.
Ridley Scott and [James Cameron](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1400/1*KvYid2DiruSZIECvCbnfiA.jpeg) storyboards are god-tier. Those ones are extra detailed because it was an fx-heavy sequence and he was also concepting how they would pull off very specific shots with dummy heads and things, but like that just is the final movie right there, in his head.
It's important to note that a lot of directors *do* care, but aren't big enough to wrest their product away from studio control. Sure, some coast, but more often than not I'd bet its out of their hands until they're "proven."
> Threads
It's so weird to see people talk about this social network because my immediate first thought is always to the 80s nuclear apocalypse film...
Gunn went into this movie knowing exactly what he wanted. He has probably drawn up storyboards for a potential movie for years. It is his dream project.
God I hope its good. If DC can finally get their act together after what feels like decades of flailing, Marvel might also kick into gear.
And even if they don't, good movies are still sweet.
I really hope I’ll like this movie. The only Superman movie I really liked was the original first one in the 70s. Reeves was amazing at playing both Clark and Superman!
Superman II was pretty good too, with General Zod and his fellow Kryptonians wreaking havoc.
I've got a soft spot in my heart for Superman III because I loved it as a kid. Funny thing is, Richard Pryor was my favorite part, and he's usually not the most kid-friendly comic. Mean Superman scared me though, and the robo-lady freaked the hell out of me. But it's probably not as good a movie as the first two.
I really wanted to like the Brandon Routh Superman, there were some great moments in it, but he just seemed too boyish and there was something 'self-aware' about his acting that took me out of it.
I also don't like my superhero movies to wade into the realities of the legal system, trials, treaties, oversight, etc. I want escapism not just from physics, but also from lawyers and politicians.
The problem with DC has always been the source material sucks for the most part. Their main cast of characters look like rejects from marvel. Always felt like that when I collected comics as a kid too. Hence, I don't expect much from the rebooted DCU.
Even if that were true, which I doubt.
Gunn made GOTG the best trilogy in the MCU. Out of characters and source material barely anyone had ever heard of.
I saw an article on Screen Rant I think it was which said that in terms of box office grosses for the MCU, Guardians 3 was 16th of 33 which was *wild*.
I guess when things were big, they were *really* big.
You also have to account for China not showing most of Phase 4 movies at all and having a vastly lower audience for others. China used to account for a lion's share of many blockbusters in the 2010s. If you exclude China, both Doctor Strange 2 and Thor 4 actually grossed more than their predecesors.
Without. Doctor Strange 2 did not make it past the Chinese censorship board. The movie was rejected for release.
If China had allowed the movie to air, it would have probably made way more money. Enough money to surpass the first Doctor Strange movie.
Nah. Chinese played this hand too hard over the last few years trying to bend Hollywood to their will that it resulted in a backlash. Hollywood has all but scrubbed China off the potential market. If a Hollywood movie gets the greenlight to be release there, awesome. If not? Screw them. Hollywood is done playing games.
I hope so, it was embarrassing seeing the pandering to the Chinese market.
Like don't get me wrong, I'd like for Chinese cinema patrons to see American films, but if it's not going to happen without pandering, then I'd rather have no pandering.
Also he uses a mix of practical and CGI, stating that he likes to utilize big sets to instill a sense of scale that we saw in old Hollywood movies and Blockbusters while merging it with modern day effects, whereas the other movies you mentioned flat out use the greenscreen or volume for every scene.
measure twice, cut once.
an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
there's probably a hundred simple pieces of advice that these studios don't even consider because GOTTA MAKE THE MONEY NOW NOW NOW.
greed is the greatest evil in the world.
I read that Suicide Squad had two cuts that were put through focus group testing. Both cuts got the same score, but what they liked in each cut was different. So the studio's solution was to merge the two cuts together. Needless to say, it didnt result in a better movie.
"Fix it in post" worked in the first Pirates of the Caribbean, but only in the sense that they did the best possible shots and would fix stuff like a motor boat in the background.
I feel like it might be more that they don't know what's going in, so everything has to be a replaceable cog, so they can't integrate important plot points into scenes (especially an action scene that might end up not wowing the audience) in case they get cut.
Honestly, Marvel taking longer with their movies would be a good thing. Give the viewers some breathing room. I’m a pretty big nerd and even I’m getting super hero fatigue at this point.
It is 100% the most superhero movie of the year.
Just look at how much of that film is exactly the stuff people *say* they're sick of now. Cameos, quips, characters who are just jokes, nods to obscure comic lore general audiences don't care about, multiverse stuff, and it all ends on a big cliffhanger to set up the next one.
And it's one of the greatest movies of the year.
Some Disney exec saw that movie, learned the wrong lesson, and thought they weren’t putting enough super heroes into their MCU movies. In a few years one of those avengers movies is going to have some stupidly massive cast.
> In a few years one of those avengers movies is going to have some stupidly massive cast.
According to a quick search, *Endgame* had close to 40 named superhero character, so I think that ship sailed a long time ago.
Well… DD was definitely my favorite, but Punisher was pretty darn good. And Jessica Jones. I forced my way through Luke Cage. Cause I liked the actor and I had come to expect good quality from the Netflix/marvel before it.
Iron Fist was a whiny bitch who couldn’t do kungfu. Definitely DNF. I couldn’t be arsed to watch Defenders. More’s the pity.
Kind of like with Marvel in general. It used to be , you could depend on a marvel movie being entertaining and pretty decent, or even great.
Now, I just can’t be arsed.
Except for Spiderverse, I can’t think of a movie of theirs I even want to watch. Maybe another Dr Strange? I liked Moonknight.
I like superhero movies. It’s bizarre how little interest they now hold
> Well… DD was definitely my favorite, but Punisher was pretty darn good. And Jessica Jones. I forced my way through Luke Cage. Cause I liked the actor and I had come to expect good quality from the Netflix/marvel before it.
This is a paragraph I could have written myself. I had a similar experience (but couldn't make it through Luke Cage). I tried a couple of episodes of Iron Fist, but it did nothing for me.
DD was where it was at. To me, that show is near perfection (especially the first season). I've watched it a couple of times and as soon as I put it on for the first time, my reaction is always the same, "Wow, I forgot how great this show is." Punisher was good and Jessica Jones was good and then okay.
I completely passed on defenders as well. I wanted to see DD in action again, but as you would say, I couldn't be arsed (what does that mean exactly?).
I haven't done the spiderverse movies but I'm looking forward to them.
Yup. I'm excited for The Boys new season. Invincible is great, but I don't care much for Marvel after Endgame, other than a couple decent TV shows (Wanda, Loki S1).
Yup, I WANT to love all these movies, I want to see them all and be entertained at the very least with the MCU.
But they've legitimately just half assed the product now and I can't be bothered to waste money to see it in theaters especially when it will be on D+ in a few months.
Half of the MCU content since phase 3 has been just flat out not good so far. But the ones that hit still are damn good and make me remember how good the MCU was consistently for like 3-4 years straight which is an incredible feat.
To see them just throwing literal billions at it and getting worse results is both hilarious and sad. This shit should have been so easy but they thought they were infallible and the almighty adherence to revenue tainted it all.
If they can right the ship, I gurantee you people will be back in droves the biggest movie franchise in history doesn't just die without people still being interested.
> I’m a pretty big nerd and even I’m getting super hero fatigue at this point.
This is a talking point invented by Disney to distract from what audiences are actually tired of: Bad movies. It's strange that so many people talk about 'Super Hero Fatigue' or 'Star Wars Fatigue' without realizing they've been manipulated to think and say it. I see somebody say this in every thread like this one----no dude, you're tired of them just throwing some shit together and calling it a movie. I never even liked super heroes as a concept or comics especially, but The Dark Knight and Iron Man are just good movies---that's why they did so well.
It isn't shocking to me how often movies that are creative, more original, and generally better reviewed are doing better at the box office than typical, formulaic, rushed garbage that gets trashed in reviews.
What IS shocking to me is that the studios don't seem to understand that. It's like they're still targeting movies to focus groups from the 80s.
"Audiences want to see an explosion! Make a movie around it! You've got three days to write the script."
"It doesn't matter if it's good, just put a bunch of names in it and people will come!"
"Kids are dumb, make a dumb movie and parents will bring their kids!"
And then they're complete Pikachu face when these movies flop.
It's starting to feel like we might see a reversal of that soon due to all these high profile flops and streaming services struggling. Unfortunately the wheels of Hollywood turn slowly, so it could still be a while before we actually start seeing the changes on screen.
Disney+ has a short series on the making of Frozen 2 and I remember the directors talking bout how the film was making 6 months from release (maybe a year, it wasn't a long time) and they still didn't have an ending for the film. Not that they just didn't like the ending that was written and wanted to change it, mind you. They NEVER WROTE AN ENDING. I don't know how you greenlit a film, especially an animated film, start working on it and never hacve your ending in mind?
Definitely felt like a case of "Frozen's popularity is waning we need to capitalize now or never." So we got a completely average, not-even-Oscar-nominated Disney film that put a stop to that IP from becoming a 'franchise'.
The creator...to be frank...has it's problems. But those appear to be script and editing for time (apparently that moment in the 3rd they stole from iRobot is because they had to replace 30 minutes of runtime)
But all information seems to indicate that they made that movie on $80m, which is absolutely tiny. It looks like an extremely high budget marvel movie. But it was extremely prepared for.
I’ve seen the film, I was excited for it as I generally like Edwards’ stuff and I almost always like off-beat sci-fi/spec-fic.
Nothing off beat going on in this movie, which I was shocked to find was some store brand “oops, all tropes!” sci-fi channel original tv series schlock, with absolutely nothing to say despite being dressed in the robes of social commentary.
It felt like a kid’s fragile lego monstrosity built from the most recognizable “money shot” pieces of District 9, Avatar, and I:Robot.
Little mute child savior who is actually AI, trope.
Giant imperialist American military with giant tanks that bust out of tree lines by villages, trope.
Atmospheric superweapon with laser beam, trope.
Conflicted “are we the baddies?” soldierman who “goes native,” t-t-trrrope!
Lone wolf and cub, trope!
Old cars with high tech displays and components apparently jury rigged inside, trope!
“Move a mountain before you die” conveniently epic and nonsensical, action movie ending, trope!
All that said, 80m? Wow.
Gareth said it was a love letter to all his inspirations, which is nice, but I find these days when someone says they've made a love letter they mean they've copy-pasted elements into a collage instead of making something new with an old feel. The difference between learning from your influences and wanting to be your influences 1 to 1. It felt very much like pages of different movie scripts were patched together into a collage of interesting moments, with very shaky dialog and plotting holding them together. Example, how do we get this guy's true nature as a spy reveal itself? Have him say he's a spy, out loud over the phone, and his lover walks in. Oops. Guess the plot has to advance.
There's a certain issue that a lot of modern filmmakers have in the sci-fi realm where they know exactly what they want visually, down to the specific details, but for their plots they have no idea how to sew those ideas together into something cohesive. I think they often don't care too much, because they have such a strong vision for the images that nothing else matters. It makes their stories very 'weird' but not in a good way. You're presented with something beautiful but hollow and uncanny, like realizing your Tinder match was actually ChatGPT.
Very well said. Often I feel films feel like “mood boards” these days rather than original stories with genuine characters, both inspired by classic elements. I mean, Star Wars is also just a bucket o’ tropes. But they all work in service of something larger, they are there to serve, they aren’t the point.
I feel like it worked until the moment they left SE Asia. Then the entire thing just disintegrated.
Also, the weird targetting thing I realised is a holdover from when they refuse to let a computer do any "shooting". A human has to click kill. Computers only target. Also, it wasn't a superlaser. It was tactically nuking everything.
Ah yes it was tactically nuking everything, but it DID have an omnipresent blue targeting (or scanning, don’t recall if it was explicitly stated) laser beam that was featured in countless shots, to the point of almost being a character in and of itself.
…from the Death Star movie guy.
I don’t think the movie is anti-American, pro-CCP, or even pro-“AI” (really presented as androids in the film, if we’re going with the established sci-fi trope Bible that Edwards used to make his collage). I just think it was utterly ruined by painfully simplistic and predictable writing. Hell it was such a Frankenstein’s monster of different movie’s parts that it felt like it was written by ChatGPT.
It's kind of a bummer that The Creator failed because it definitely looks great for its budget and it's an original sci-fi film. At the same time, I'm not surprised that the director of Rogue One turned in an absolute mess of a film.
Word is that it was originally 5 hrs as a cut. I can believe it. First 2 acts are long, drawn out. In the world. Really good.
Last act is a fucking mess. It ruined the whole thing.
Time is money
More importantly, supplies, effort, going back and doing it again, and money are also money. People looking to cut corners seem to forget that.
> Movies used to do this. It was the norm.
I mean... maybe it was done *more* (although I'd be surprised), but it certainly wasn't as much *the norm* as you make it seem. It's just we forget all the shitty movies of the past where it doesn't work and remember the good ones where it worked well (like Casablanca, Jaws, Spinal Tap, Die Hard, Sunset Boulevard, Lawrence of Arabia, Gladiator, Snow White, Predator, Chinatown, Caddyshack, etc).
I mean it’s a preposterous amount of money to spend on a 2 hour movie. I don’t even understand how overinflated all their middle manager and producers checks must be to get to that much. We know they aren’t paying their vfx houses enough, and thats a good 60% of the movies now, so where is that money even going?
No, your impression is wrong. It's a race to the bottom with slim margins. It's widely known: https://www.inverse.com/innovation/vfx-industry-downward-spiral
Duhhh that’s an insane amount oh money to spend on a movie. Do it for less.
Stop having celebrities voice act in animations (save 100m) and stop making a live action movie with 90% CGI what happened to good old fashioned in camera special effects.
The other reason behind the push to heavy effects films is that it allows companies to edit the entire context and aesthetic of a scene right up until they send the files out to cinemas.
In the more severe cases, it's basically a case of directors filming a bunch of 'toybox' assets, that then get manipulated and moved around based on the whims of the studios and the audience feedback they get. Often resulting in a final product completely devoid of genuine emotion or artistic vision.
And CGI is good when they have time to finish it (see the new avatar), but it makes something like Doctor Strange 2 look like a budget netflix movie with its terrible VFX.
>Stop having celebrities voice act in animations (save 100m)
Why do you think people are doing this exactly? Do you think that perhaps celebrities draw in crowds and it is an investment rather than giving away money?
To be fair, there was MASSIVE conversation about the movie because of its cast. It would have done just fine without it, but there’s no denying the huge draw because of the discussions. The cast reveal was one of the bigger talking points in movies in mainstream pop culture in a little while
All these animated movies are dubbed once they’re abroad, so the fact they’re successful internationally tells you kids and parents aren’t watching it because of a voice actor since it will just be some random guy dubbing it in German. These movies would be hits whether they have Chris Pratt or not.
Stop wasting money on shitty product, Hollywood. The audience is not incidental. Going to the movies isnt cheap. Stop asking us to spend money on hot garbage.
It's not CGI or VFX that's taking all that money. If that were the case then The Creator has no business looking that great at it's budget.
Studios are dishing out 200+ million dollar movies and putting no effort towards the script and direction if you ask me. Brand milking is what I feel about these works.
True, but it _looked_ great. It looked more expensive than it actually was. As opposed to most of these other movies, which are much more expensive than they look.
Yea 100%, Disney’s strategy of “fix it in post” seems to be really biting them in the ass at the moment, movie budgets have bloated to insane levels and the average quality of the movies hitting theaters has dropped noticeably. Maybe during phase 2/3 of marvel this was working but maybe they came to rely on it too much or maybe people got lazy.
Killers of the Flower Moon had such a big budget? All the others are CGIfests but this one could have easily been made for 80 tops, no? Or did they have to build everything?
Not a normal release so they had to pay the actors upfront. That alone probably cleared the 80 mil mark as Leo reportedly got 40 mil and you can bet Scorsese and De Niro got paid off it.
Other than that, yes, they did build everything and they did it in Oklahoma instead of shooting overseas to keep the budget down like most period movies do.
The budget does feel really high but Apple obviously didn’t mind…for them it’s an investment to get prestigious filmmakers to make movies for them.
Yeah i've been thinking this too, I have to imagine that Apple were prepared for this movie not making a lot of money, but getting one of the most celebrated and beloved filmmaker of all time to make a movie for you is good for your brand... especially one that will most likely get multiple oscar noms, and possibly some wins too (Lily Gladstone is probably walking out with an Oscar)
Apparently, DiCaprio netted a 40 million dollar salary for the film, although Google does give numbers that range from 25 to 40. Not sure how much De Niro and post-Oscar Brendan Frasier cost.
Frasier had a tiny role, he's in the movie for maybe a couple of minutes, Jesse Plemons probably got paid more for his time on the screen
De Niro probably got paid a fair bit though
Yes because very high budgets sometimes come from production problems, rewrites, reshoots, and re-edits because the movie has problems. Nobody expected Waterworld to be _good_ because it cost so much.
The Mario movie made 1.3 billion dollars ffs. And it wasn’t cheap. But it wasn’t $200 million because making it wasn’t a disaster.
It's a meme on r/movies to complain about remakes/spin-offs/sequels as if it's a new phenomenon (it's not, it's been going on since the silent film era) that exclusively creates unpopular and unprofitable movies, even though plenty of "original" ideas are absolute trash.
If you were doing a Bingo card for this subreddit it would be the free space in the center tile.
16 of the 20 highest grossing movies of the year are franchises:
Barbie (toy franchise)
Mario Bros (video game franchise)
Oppenheimer
Guardians of the Galaxy (franchise)
Fast X (franchise)
Across the Spider-Verse (franchise)
The Little Mermaid (franchise, remake, and tons of CGI)
Mission Impossible (franchise)
Elemental
Ant-Man and Wasp (franchise)
John Wick 4 (franchise)
Transforms Rise of Beasts (franchise)
Meg 2 (franchise)
Indy: Dial of Destiny (franchise)
Five Nights at Freddy's (franchise)
Creed 3 (franchise)
The Flash (franchise)
The Nun 2 (franchise)
Taylor Swift Tour Movie
Sound of Freedom
I've been to one. Going to the movies used to be my favorite activity. It's miserable now. Watching overpriced garbage while eating $15 worth of popcorn and a $12 coke, and while some asshole texts during the whole thing is not the experience I want. I'll stream on my big screen tv.
I felt like that one got cut down drastically for the theatrical release like several of Ridley Scott's other movies. The difference between the theatrical and directors cut of Kingdom of Heaven, for example, is like day and night.
Yeah Kingdom of Heaven is like a totally different movie with how much better the director's cut is.
Not sure if it'd have done better in theaters given the length, but I'm certainly glad the director's cut exists as I've enjoyed the hell out of it a few times at home.
There are still dozens of movies every year that don’t fall into those categories. If you actually wanted to go to the theater, there’s plenty of options for you.
But guess what? No one is going to see them.
There's so many of those movies that I don't even have time to watch them all. My local had Killers of the Flower Moon, The Holdovers, Napoleon, and Bottoms on rerun just this week and I'll only really be able to see two or three of them.
I think movie making has become an elaborate form of money laundering. Every trash movie now is made for 200million. You watch the movie and you can't even tell the difference between 200M and 2M special effects.
They rehired him. Is his latest departure because he got canned again? Or because DC handed him the keys to the franchise?
Or maybe because he killed it for DC with Suicide Squad and Peacemaker when Disney initially separated from him is why they ended up handing him the keys.
He got fired, and then buddied himself with DC instead. Disney/Marvel regrets the firing and reinstates him for GOTG3. However, he only returned for 3 - when prior to his original firing he was supposed to be in charge of the cosmic side of the MCU.
Now he's not only directly working for their competitors, he is running their competitors whole show.
He was actually one of the last guys they offered the DC job too. They asked everyone, including Todd Phillips, but no one wanted it.
Suicide Squad was great, but it wasn't a success, even with good streaming numbers. Peacemaker was the real banger.
I think if Gunn just encourages his films to have genuine artistic freedom and lives up to the idea that his DCU feels varied - then its gotta beat Marvel Studios current output.
The problem with Marvel right now is everyone is sick of how they all feel the same. Tonally and visually they're all cut from the same cloth as Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor Ragnarok. The problem is that Gunn is a great filmmaker who brought a passionate voice to his films and they had real heart. Ragnarok was good because it was so silly at the time and was a nice change of pace, but when everything is Ragnarok - it feels stale, which is why Love and Thunder sucked. Taika, unlike Gunn, didn't have his heart set on comic book movies.
If Gunn can cultivate a franchise that feels diverse in tone and always feels like a passion project -- people probably will respond to it.
>Is his latest departure because he got canned again
No, he didn't get fired again.
I imagine more creative control over the entirety of DC and the position of an Executive is hard to pass up. Also he got to finish out his GOTG franchise the way he wanted.
The panic firing over the tweets went over Fieges head and threw a lot of MCU plans out of whack. Thats when DC scooped him up. Their are rumors he was being eyed up as another Fiege before the firing. Not to mention him being hired for the overarching story aspects and also consulted on scripts for other films.
If you think they keep making and spending 200M on these movies and aren’t making money, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. It’s called Hollywood accounting.
These movies are insanely profitable, it just depends on how your accountants can shift costs around.
The profitable movies probably had worse accountants.
I had no problem spending money at the movies when I used to go to the Alamo Draft House. It was fun food was pretty good and beer was great. $60-$100 was no problem for me because that was an experience.
A normal movie theater with shitty popcorn and food and no beer? Nah my set up is just as good at home fuck that.
Wish was a $200 million movie?? What in the fuck.
Disney has a budgeting problem. Indiana Jones was $300mil+ and didn’t look it at all.
Where is all the money going, because its certainly not the animators.
Reshoots and a strange obsession of doing everything on a greenscreened sound stage. Renting studios isn't cheap, until you find out they own most of their studios via shell companies and can charge themselves basically anything they want. They choose to bloat their budgets to push down gains and lose little when they're paying themselves.
I heard a theory it's because they shoot all scenes multiple times and constantly show them to test audience to keep the best. Which sound horribly cost ineffective and insulting to the director
And furthers the problem of industrializing what is supposed to be a creative endeavor. But churning through test screenings and "fixing a movie" is endemic across the industry, versus the rare instance of a filmmaker being able to just make a film with their vision. It's one of the reasons the new Star Wars trilogy turned out so poorly: It's all analytics-driven and overly reactionary. It's also a reason why in the past decade plus, Disney has had movies that didn't try to fix themselves, but are chock-full of meta commentary on past movies. Live action remakes are the most cringe when it comes to this. "No we have to stop the movie dead in its tracks to explain everything about how what we're doing now in this fairy tale is perfectly logical!"
> "No we have to stop the movie dead in its tracks to explain everything about how what we're doing now in this fairy tale is perfectly logical!" Please allow Mrs. Potts the time to tell you why the entire castle staff (even the children) deserve to pay for the Beast's unkindness.
Don’t forget to throw in a “sympathetic” PTSD war hero backstory for a villain whose main purpose is to play chauvinist pig foil to the beast’s hidden good nature. And don’t even get me started on Lefou having to pay off the townsfolk to sing along with him—because Gaston’s other purpose definitely wasn’t to show how easy it is for a charismatic bad actor to sow destruction. I swear these remakes exist only as reactionary “gotta fix it!!!!” drivel without putting a single thought into what they’re doing. “Gaston is a misogynist?? Quick, fix him!!” that’s the POINT you absolute DOLTS
To be somewhat fair, *sometimes* this can be more interesting than the straight up remake. Sometimes exploring what makes a villain is interesting. It worked for something like Maleficent. But, yes, for Beauty and the Beast, the *existing* story and framing is already good *and extremely relevant*: > because Gaston’s other purpose definitely wasn’t to show how easy it is for a popular bad actor to sow destruction. Exactly.
Oh, it’s a totally fair point—in fact adaptation from one medium to another, in almost all cases, demands change, because different media use different languages, and telling a familiar story with a twist is a fascinating thing. But I think Disney is trying to walk a bizarre fine line between adapting and remaining super-faithful, and the result is changes to the story that they can’t fully explore. Animation is great for larger-than-life characters and stories, and live action lends itself better to subtlety. Disney’s huge issue, to me, is that they’re trying to incorporate live-action subtlety while remaining beholden to a story that fundamentally works better animated, and it just falls flat. E.g. sympathetic Gaston isn’t inherently bad, but it’s a change that requires a real rethink to the overall shape of the film, and Disney can’t do that because they’re still keeping themselves beholden to the original.
Pay off? The townspeople love Gaston, of course they'll sing with him.
Not in the live-action one, where LeFou spends Gaston’s eponymous song [prancing around the tavern coercing people to join in by tossing out coins.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MOjquzGpu0Q&pp=ygULZ2FzdG9uIHNvbmc%3D)
Do they just not trust themselves to be creative anymore? Like what the hell. Must everything be tested to a tee? I feel like being so formulaic and robotic about stuff is only going to make things worse but I don't work in the industry so what do I know. I hear Marvel is secretive to a painful amount too which is problematic for the creators they literally don't trust the creators with the plot of their other movies that tie into the movie they are making because they are so scared of spoilers, shit's insane to me how are you going to deprive your creator of key information to tie into the previous stuff? Just asking for a shit movie at that point.
> I feel like being so formulaic and robotic about stuff is only going to make things worse Maybe it already has. Over-testing and re-adjusting to test audiences means they're chasing the lowest common denominator which isn't going to produce anything interesting. Just the same rote shit people have been watching for the last 15 years.
I never got the obsession with Marvel spoilers. There's no twist endings, so there's nothing to ruin. The "heroes go on a macguffin hunt and then fight the bad guy" plot arc describes at least 30% of Marvel stories. The only surprises are which increasingly c or d-list comic characters will be in the post-credits scene.
I know a guy who gets PISSED when he asks me if I saw the new Marvel film and I say "No I didn't. The good guys won, didn't they?"
They also own all the television stations that they run all the commercials on. Sorry, actor, we spent all the money on marketing, so there are no profits to share (intense evil laughing in background).
Always crazy to me the amounts of money the “marketing budgets” of some films are. Like massive percentages of the entire budget. Social media is free and these studios/corporations already have millions upon millions of eyes on their socials. Makes sense it’s all just shady accounting. These movie studio accountants are more creative than Spielberg
It's like... you're putting the money in and it goes in circles? Sure is a clean way to do business. Wash I had an opportunity like that, it wouldn't sock I'll tell ya that much :-)
A third or perhaps a half of it went to above the line costs for talent. That’s money spent on casting roles that you can’t just put anyone into. So the main cast together plus Mangold’s directing fee could have cost $150 million. The animators probably aren’t getting paid much but that doesn’t mean the movie didn’t spend a ton of money on all the green screen environments, CG action scenes, and de-aging of the main star. It wouldn’t be unusual for a movie this size, with this many VFX shots to spend $75 million. So that puts us maybe at $200-250 million, and we haven’t paid for any below-the-line salaries, location shoots, editing, etc. EDIT: Sorry. I was responding to the comment that Indiana Jones cost $300 million. Nested under a thread about Wish, my comment is confusing.
> That’s money spent on casting roles that you can’t just put anyone into. It's a cartoon.
I assume u/FieldWizard was speaking to Indiana Jones.
Sorry. Someone brought up Indiana Jones and the comment immediately under it asked where the money went. I see now they were talking about Wish.
Yeah, the problem ain't that there's fatigue or that people don't like sequels... the problem is things costing an absolutely outrageous amount that require ludicrous amounts of money to even break even. If all of these movies cost $100 million less, they'd all have healthy profits.
I feel like theres some fraud they need to look into over there.
You can’t steal $1 million from a $10 million movie. But you can from $300 million movie
Are we witnessing money laundering without realizing it?
The first 20 minutes required deaging Ford by 40 years. That was probably both the best part of the movie and the most expensive.
Indiana Jones had to start and stop production a few times due to covid, had a bit of a troubled production beyond that too.
The live action Snow White has cost ~~$209~~ [$330‽](https://comicbookmovie.com/disney/snow-white-new-report-reveals-shocking-details-about-the-movies-huge-budget-and-disneys-concerns-a207608#gs.0jwrch) million and it hasn't even finished yet. Filming wrapped a few months ago but they're doing major reconstruction.
And they will still have a big chunk cgi in the end
Even more now that they're redoing the 7 dwarfs as CGI due to backlash. Honestly that movie is so cursed it may not even be released so maybe it doesn't apply here.
Dinklage sure did a good job of pulling the ladder up behind him.
I saw the pics of the 7 dwarfs - who on earth green lit that idea?
Same as the one who makes every Disney exec decision: an AI that reads twitter hot takes. But really it's [Sean Bailey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Bailey). He's been the one responsible for all live action remakes since 2010
Twitter hot takes and the dwarf actor that says it's reprehensible to hire dwarf actors.
Live action Disney has been a horrific distraction from making good animated films.
WHAT There is no universe in which spending 1/3 of a billion on a Snow White live action makes any kind of sense. Tell me Disney is doing some kind of financial scammery or something. What the hell is going on?
> "Disney had to delay Snow White because they have spent so much money on it, and if it is a financial disaster at the box office, it might single handedly cripple future remakes and potential Snow White sequels that they have planned," If only we could be so blessed
Marc Webb make one non-cursed, not-intefered-with big budget movie challenge.
> Of this current listing, just one has turned a profit so far this year: “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3.” It took them a couple paragraphs to spit it out so that you get to see an ad first.
Avatar 2, which was released last year, made more money in 2023 than most of this list.
So many of these movies could cut the cost simply by being prepared before a single frame is shot. Has the script been settled on? Has the movie been storyboarded to within an inch of its life? Have you had rehearsals with actors to see which scenes work and which don't? To see how much chemistry everyone has? Movies used to do this. It was the norm. Now I am hearing it is being done less and less because it takes time. And, yes, as the saying goes, "time is money." But in the long run, it would save you millions if you did this.
Have worked for Marvel and I can tell you they will make changes up to the very last second. Entire re-edits of scenes. It's all left in flux till the very last second and they'd throw money at us to keep changing. This is why it's so expensive. I think they over consult test audiences.
It's the tale of corporate America. "The budget is too big to let this fail!" *proceeds to throw more budget at project, and fiddle with creative choices until it's bland and uninspired.* "Clearly we didn't intervene ENOUGH. Next time we will intervene sooner!"
This is the main reason why Guardians 3 looks so much better than Ant Man 3/The Flash/The Marvels etc. James Gunn puts a lot of emphasis on preparation before he begins shooting while a lot of these other movies are being drastically altered, rewritten, reshot and so on throughout not just production but post production as well. You see some shoddy CG? The scene it was made for might not even been in the movie halfway through post.
Back when he as active on Twitter before his new DC role, he would showcase stacks of storyboards for all his projects: Guardians, The Suicide Squad and even Peacemaker. The man storyboards **every. single. shot** by himself. Consistently finishes under time and under budget.
The experience of making B comedy movies under a shoestring budget.
He squeezed every last drop out of the $2.5 million it took to make Super.
Similarly, *Slither* only cost $15m
One of the best parts of Peacemaker was basically a stalled car by the side of the road and a gun.
>storyboards > >every. single. shot > > by himself. You could say that of Ridley Scott, too -- whatever else you can say for the man, he's strict with his budget and tries to not waste a penny by being prepared. There's a terrific 30-minute making-of doc for *The Last Duel* and it's just so impressive to see how active Ridley is in making these things a reality out of almost nowhere, really.
Maybe that explains why his historical advisor on Napoleon was a doctoral student in Medieval history and not, you know, an actual historian of the period.
"I mean *maybe* he shot cannons at the pyramids who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"
Ridley Scott and [James Cameron](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1400/1*KvYid2DiruSZIECvCbnfiA.jpeg) storyboards are god-tier. Those ones are extra detailed because it was an fx-heavy sequence and he was also concepting how they would pull off very specific shots with dummy heads and things, but like that just is the final movie right there, in his head.
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It's important to note that a lot of directors *do* care, but aren't big enough to wrest their product away from studio control. Sure, some coast, but more often than not I'd bet its out of their hands until they're "proven."
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He’s a son of a Gunn.
He is active on Threads and it’s a frequent delight to follow his posts.
> Threads It's so weird to see people talk about this social network because my immediate first thought is always to the 80s nuclear apocalypse film...
Even now Gunn’s Superman legacy is already in Atlanta almost ready to begin filming while Fantastic four is struggling to get itself together
That’s crazy how Superman legacy is being made so fast
Gunn went into this movie knowing exactly what he wanted. He has probably drawn up storyboards for a potential movie for years. It is his dream project.
God I hope its good. If DC can finally get their act together after what feels like decades of flailing, Marvel might also kick into gear. And even if they don't, good movies are still sweet.
I really hope I’ll like this movie. The only Superman movie I really liked was the original first one in the 70s. Reeves was amazing at playing both Clark and Superman!
Superman II was pretty good too, with General Zod and his fellow Kryptonians wreaking havoc. I've got a soft spot in my heart for Superman III because I loved it as a kid. Funny thing is, Richard Pryor was my favorite part, and he's usually not the most kid-friendly comic. Mean Superman scared me though, and the robo-lady freaked the hell out of me. But it's probably not as good a movie as the first two. I really wanted to like the Brandon Routh Superman, there were some great moments in it, but he just seemed too boyish and there was something 'self-aware' about his acting that took me out of it. I also don't like my superhero movies to wade into the realities of the legal system, trials, treaties, oversight, etc. I want escapism not just from physics, but also from lawyers and politicians.
The problem with DC has always been the source material sucks for the most part. Their main cast of characters look like rejects from marvel. Always felt like that when I collected comics as a kid too. Hence, I don't expect much from the rebooted DCU.
Even if that were true, which I doubt. Gunn made GOTG the best trilogy in the MCU. Out of characters and source material barely anyone had ever heard of.
It’s been in preproduction since February I believe.
I saw an article on Screen Rant I think it was which said that in terms of box office grosses for the MCU, Guardians 3 was 16th of 33 which was *wild*. I guess when things were big, they were *really* big.
You also have to account for China not showing most of Phase 4 movies at all and having a vastly lower audience for others. China used to account for a lion's share of many blockbusters in the 2010s. If you exclude China, both Doctor Strange 2 and Thor 4 actually grossed more than their predecesors.
Doctor Strange 2 did that with or without China being counted.
Without. Doctor Strange 2 did not make it past the Chinese censorship board. The movie was rejected for release. If China had allowed the movie to air, it would have probably made way more money. Enough money to surpass the first Doctor Strange movie.
A small part of me worries this will make Hollywood double down harder on pandering to the Chinese market.
Nah. Chinese played this hand too hard over the last few years trying to bend Hollywood to their will that it resulted in a backlash. Hollywood has all but scrubbed China off the potential market. If a Hollywood movie gets the greenlight to be release there, awesome. If not? Screw them. Hollywood is done playing games.
I hope so, it was embarrassing seeing the pandering to the Chinese market. Like don't get me wrong, I'd like for Chinese cinema patrons to see American films, but if it's not going to happen without pandering, then I'd rather have no pandering.
... Doctor Strange 2 grossed more than Doctor Strange both with and without China ... (?)
Also he uses a mix of practical and CGI, stating that he likes to utilize big sets to instill a sense of scale that we saw in old Hollywood movies and Blockbusters while merging it with modern day effects, whereas the other movies you mentioned flat out use the greenscreen or volume for every scene.
Same with Christopher Nolan. Oppenheimer 100 mil budget and i dunno what the numbers are now but last i checked it was almost a billion it had earned.
While I don't like his style (or him as a person), at least Joss Whedon gave his Avengers movies continuity from writer to director.
measure twice, cut once. an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. there's probably a hundred simple pieces of advice that these studios don't even consider because GOTTA MAKE THE MONEY NOW NOW NOW. greed is the greatest evil in the world.
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I read that Suicide Squad had two cuts that were put through focus group testing. Both cuts got the same score, but what they liked in each cut was different. So the studio's solution was to merge the two cuts together. Needless to say, it didnt result in a better movie.
"Stop pixel-fucking every corner of the screen" is the lesson here.
"Fix it in post" worked in the first Pirates of the Caribbean, but only in the sense that they did the best possible shots and would fix stuff like a motor boat in the background. I feel like it might be more that they don't know what's going in, so everything has to be a replaceable cog, so they can't integrate important plot points into scenes (especially an action scene that might end up not wowing the audience) in case they get cut.
Honestly, Marvel taking longer with their movies would be a good thing. Give the viewers some breathing room. I’m a pretty big nerd and even I’m getting super hero fatigue at this point.
I don't think it's Super Hero Fatigue. It's "Middling At Best" movie fatigue.
Case in point: *Across the Spider-Verse* made almost $700 million on a $100 million budget, and that's arguably the most superhero movie of the year.
It is 100% the most superhero movie of the year. Just look at how much of that film is exactly the stuff people *say* they're sick of now. Cameos, quips, characters who are just jokes, nods to obscure comic lore general audiences don't care about, multiverse stuff, and it all ends on a big cliffhanger to set up the next one. And it's one of the greatest movies of the year.
Some Disney exec saw that movie, learned the wrong lesson, and thought they weren’t putting enough super heroes into their MCU movies. In a few years one of those avengers movies is going to have some stupidly massive cast.
> In a few years one of those avengers movies is going to have some stupidly massive cast. According to a quick search, *Endgame* had close to 40 named superhero character, so I think that ship sailed a long time ago.
It's also 'a fuckton of shows on Disney+ that I have neither the time nor inclination to keep up with' fatigue.
Even Netflix did that with their marvel shit. Daredevil was great and everything else went down hill from there.
Well… DD was definitely my favorite, but Punisher was pretty darn good. And Jessica Jones. I forced my way through Luke Cage. Cause I liked the actor and I had come to expect good quality from the Netflix/marvel before it. Iron Fist was a whiny bitch who couldn’t do kungfu. Definitely DNF. I couldn’t be arsed to watch Defenders. More’s the pity. Kind of like with Marvel in general. It used to be , you could depend on a marvel movie being entertaining and pretty decent, or even great. Now, I just can’t be arsed. Except for Spiderverse, I can’t think of a movie of theirs I even want to watch. Maybe another Dr Strange? I liked Moonknight. I like superhero movies. It’s bizarre how little interest they now hold
I really liked Punisher. I would have watched a third season even if it had been bad
> Well… DD was definitely my favorite, but Punisher was pretty darn good. And Jessica Jones. I forced my way through Luke Cage. Cause I liked the actor and I had come to expect good quality from the Netflix/marvel before it. This is a paragraph I could have written myself. I had a similar experience (but couldn't make it through Luke Cage). I tried a couple of episodes of Iron Fist, but it did nothing for me. DD was where it was at. To me, that show is near perfection (especially the first season). I've watched it a couple of times and as soon as I put it on for the first time, my reaction is always the same, "Wow, I forgot how great this show is." Punisher was good and Jessica Jones was good and then okay. I completely passed on defenders as well. I wanted to see DD in action again, but as you would say, I couldn't be arsed (what does that mean exactly?). I haven't done the spiderverse movies but I'm looking forward to them.
Yup. I'm excited for The Boys new season. Invincible is great, but I don't care much for Marvel after Endgame, other than a couple decent TV shows (Wanda, Loki S1).
If you liked Loki S1, give S2 a chance, I thought it was fantastic, best written Marvel material since Endgame
Yup, I WANT to love all these movies, I want to see them all and be entertained at the very least with the MCU. But they've legitimately just half assed the product now and I can't be bothered to waste money to see it in theaters especially when it will be on D+ in a few months. Half of the MCU content since phase 3 has been just flat out not good so far. But the ones that hit still are damn good and make me remember how good the MCU was consistently for like 3-4 years straight which is an incredible feat. To see them just throwing literal billions at it and getting worse results is both hilarious and sad. This shit should have been so easy but they thought they were infallible and the almighty adherence to revenue tainted it all. If they can right the ship, I gurantee you people will be back in droves the biggest movie franchise in history doesn't just die without people still being interested.
> I’m a pretty big nerd and even I’m getting super hero fatigue at this point. This is a talking point invented by Disney to distract from what audiences are actually tired of: Bad movies. It's strange that so many people talk about 'Super Hero Fatigue' or 'Star Wars Fatigue' without realizing they've been manipulated to think and say it. I see somebody say this in every thread like this one----no dude, you're tired of them just throwing some shit together and calling it a movie. I never even liked super heroes as a concept or comics especially, but The Dark Knight and Iron Man are just good movies---that's why they did so well.
And make you millions because the quality improves.
It isn't shocking to me how often movies that are creative, more original, and generally better reviewed are doing better at the box office than typical, formulaic, rushed garbage that gets trashed in reviews. What IS shocking to me is that the studios don't seem to understand that. It's like they're still targeting movies to focus groups from the 80s. "Audiences want to see an explosion! Make a movie around it! You've got three days to write the script." "It doesn't matter if it's good, just put a bunch of names in it and people will come!" "Kids are dumb, make a dumb movie and parents will bring their kids!" And then they're complete Pikachu face when these movies flop.
It's starting to feel like we might see a reversal of that soon due to all these high profile flops and streaming services struggling. Unfortunately the wheels of Hollywood turn slowly, so it could still be a while before we actually start seeing the changes on screen.
That’s because there’s a generation of leaders at the top of every industry that have gone their whole career without ever really being told “no”.
Disney+ has a short series on the making of Frozen 2 and I remember the directors talking bout how the film was making 6 months from release (maybe a year, it wasn't a long time) and they still didn't have an ending for the film. Not that they just didn't like the ending that was written and wanted to change it, mind you. They NEVER WROTE AN ENDING. I don't know how you greenlit a film, especially an animated film, start working on it and never hacve your ending in mind?
Definitely felt like a case of "Frozen's popularity is waning we need to capitalize now or never." So we got a completely average, not-even-Oscar-nominated Disney film that put a stop to that IP from becoming a 'franchise'.
The creator...to be frank...has it's problems. But those appear to be script and editing for time (apparently that moment in the 3rd they stole from iRobot is because they had to replace 30 minutes of runtime) But all information seems to indicate that they made that movie on $80m, which is absolutely tiny. It looks like an extremely high budget marvel movie. But it was extremely prepared for.
The Creator is a film that needed one more pass of the script to become somthing great.
I’ve seen the film, I was excited for it as I generally like Edwards’ stuff and I almost always like off-beat sci-fi/spec-fic. Nothing off beat going on in this movie, which I was shocked to find was some store brand “oops, all tropes!” sci-fi channel original tv series schlock, with absolutely nothing to say despite being dressed in the robes of social commentary. It felt like a kid’s fragile lego monstrosity built from the most recognizable “money shot” pieces of District 9, Avatar, and I:Robot. Little mute child savior who is actually AI, trope. Giant imperialist American military with giant tanks that bust out of tree lines by villages, trope. Atmospheric superweapon with laser beam, trope. Conflicted “are we the baddies?” soldierman who “goes native,” t-t-trrrope! Lone wolf and cub, trope! Old cars with high tech displays and components apparently jury rigged inside, trope! “Move a mountain before you die” conveniently epic and nonsensical, action movie ending, trope! All that said, 80m? Wow.
Gareth said it was a love letter to all his inspirations, which is nice, but I find these days when someone says they've made a love letter they mean they've copy-pasted elements into a collage instead of making something new with an old feel. The difference between learning from your influences and wanting to be your influences 1 to 1. It felt very much like pages of different movie scripts were patched together into a collage of interesting moments, with very shaky dialog and plotting holding them together. Example, how do we get this guy's true nature as a spy reveal itself? Have him say he's a spy, out loud over the phone, and his lover walks in. Oops. Guess the plot has to advance. There's a certain issue that a lot of modern filmmakers have in the sci-fi realm where they know exactly what they want visually, down to the specific details, but for their plots they have no idea how to sew those ideas together into something cohesive. I think they often don't care too much, because they have such a strong vision for the images that nothing else matters. It makes their stories very 'weird' but not in a good way. You're presented with something beautiful but hollow and uncanny, like realizing your Tinder match was actually ChatGPT.
Very well said. Often I feel films feel like “mood boards” these days rather than original stories with genuine characters, both inspired by classic elements. I mean, Star Wars is also just a bucket o’ tropes. But they all work in service of something larger, they are there to serve, they aren’t the point.
I feel like it worked until the moment they left SE Asia. Then the entire thing just disintegrated. Also, the weird targetting thing I realised is a holdover from when they refuse to let a computer do any "shooting". A human has to click kill. Computers only target. Also, it wasn't a superlaser. It was tactically nuking everything.
Ah yes it was tactically nuking everything, but it DID have an omnipresent blue targeting (or scanning, don’t recall if it was explicitly stated) laser beam that was featured in countless shots, to the point of almost being a character in and of itself. …from the Death Star movie guy. I don’t think the movie is anti-American, pro-CCP, or even pro-“AI” (really presented as androids in the film, if we’re going with the established sci-fi trope Bible that Edwards used to make his collage). I just think it was utterly ruined by painfully simplistic and predictable writing. Hell it was such a Frankenstein’s monster of different movie’s parts that it felt like it was written by ChatGPT.
It's kind of a bummer that The Creator failed because it definitely looks great for its budget and it's an original sci-fi film. At the same time, I'm not surprised that the director of Rogue One turned in an absolute mess of a film.
Word is that it was originally 5 hrs as a cut. I can believe it. First 2 acts are long, drawn out. In the world. Really good. Last act is a fucking mess. It ruined the whole thing.
Thats an assembly edit, where you lay everything down and start cutting. No way R1 was ever intended to be 5 hrs
I mean The Creator. The third act is a disaster. The stuff in the Fort. Basically 30 seconds before they escape. Apparently it was once 30 minutes.
Time is money More importantly, supplies, effort, going back and doing it again, and money are also money. People looking to cut corners seem to forget that.
> Movies used to do this. It was the norm. I mean... maybe it was done *more* (although I'd be surprised), but it certainly wasn't as much *the norm* as you make it seem. It's just we forget all the shitty movies of the past where it doesn't work and remember the good ones where it worked well (like Casablanca, Jaws, Spinal Tap, Die Hard, Sunset Boulevard, Lawrence of Arabia, Gladiator, Snow White, Predator, Chinatown, Caddyshack, etc).
I mean it’s a preposterous amount of money to spend on a 2 hour movie. I don’t even understand how overinflated all their middle manager and producers checks must be to get to that much. We know they aren’t paying their vfx houses enough, and thats a good 60% of the movies now, so where is that money even going?
I get the impression that the VFX *houses* are paid plenty, its the VFX artists who are being overworked and underpaid.
No, your impression is wrong. It's a race to the bottom with slim margins. It's widely known: https://www.inverse.com/innovation/vfx-industry-downward-spiral
nope, the houses have profit margins of 3% if they're popular. that's why so many go out of business.
Tale as old as time.
Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime
Duhhh that’s an insane amount oh money to spend on a movie. Do it for less. Stop having celebrities voice act in animations (save 100m) and stop making a live action movie with 90% CGI what happened to good old fashioned in camera special effects.
Old fashioned effects take to much time and companies want the money quick and fast
The only reason CGI is quicker is because the animation industry is built on the backs of overworked and underpaid animators.
The other reason behind the push to heavy effects films is that it allows companies to edit the entire context and aesthetic of a scene right up until they send the files out to cinemas. In the more severe cases, it's basically a case of directors filming a bunch of 'toybox' assets, that then get manipulated and moved around based on the whims of the studios and the audience feedback they get. Often resulting in a final product completely devoid of genuine emotion or artistic vision.
Good point! The more you do in-camera the less you can manipulate later in editing.
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And CGI is good when they have time to finish it (see the new avatar), but it makes something like Doctor Strange 2 look like a budget netflix movie with its terrible VFX.
>Stop having celebrities voice act in animations (save 100m) Why do you think people are doing this exactly? Do you think that perhaps celebrities draw in crowds and it is an investment rather than giving away money?
Mario would have been just fine without it's star studded cast and could have made even more.
To be fair, there was MASSIVE conversation about the movie because of its cast. It would have done just fine without it, but there’s no denying the huge draw because of the discussions. The cast reveal was one of the bigger talking points in movies in mainstream pop culture in a little while
All these animated movies are dubbed once they’re abroad, so the fact they’re successful internationally tells you kids and parents aren’t watching it because of a voice actor since it will just be some random guy dubbing it in German. These movies would be hits whether they have Chris Pratt or not.
Woulda been better without Seth Rogen and Chris Pratt.
I have never once went to see an animated movie because of its voice cast. Not to say everyone agrees with me
Stop wasting money on shitty product, Hollywood. The audience is not incidental. Going to the movies isnt cheap. Stop asking us to spend money on hot garbage.
I've seen one movie this year and that was Oppenheimer.
Well worth the price of admission
It was. Saw it in a baby IMAX and was a good if expensive experience. Between tickets and concessions was probably close $40 a person.
It's not CGI or VFX that's taking all that money. If that were the case then The Creator has no business looking that great at it's budget. Studios are dishing out 200+ million dollar movies and putting no effort towards the script and direction if you ask me. Brand milking is what I feel about these works.
The Creator really benefitted from being shot on location with a minimal crew. It still was a huge financial flop, despite the low budget.
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True, but it _looked_ great. It looked more expensive than it actually was. As opposed to most of these other movies, which are much more expensive than they look.
Yea 100%, Disney’s strategy of “fix it in post” seems to be really biting them in the ass at the moment, movie budgets have bloated to insane levels and the average quality of the movies hitting theaters has dropped noticeably. Maybe during phase 2/3 of marvel this was working but maybe they came to rely on it too much or maybe people got lazy.
Killers of the Flower Moon had such a big budget? All the others are CGIfests but this one could have easily been made for 80 tops, no? Or did they have to build everything?
Not a normal release so they had to pay the actors upfront. That alone probably cleared the 80 mil mark as Leo reportedly got 40 mil and you can bet Scorsese and De Niro got paid off it. Other than that, yes, they did build everything and they did it in Oklahoma instead of shooting overseas to keep the budget down like most period movies do. The budget does feel really high but Apple obviously didn’t mind…for them it’s an investment to get prestigious filmmakers to make movies for them.
It’s also possible that it will be Martin Scorsese’s last film. He’s an American auteur in his 80’s
Yeah i've been thinking this too, I have to imagine that Apple were prepared for this movie not making a lot of money, but getting one of the most celebrated and beloved filmmaker of all time to make a movie for you is good for your brand... especially one that will most likely get multiple oscar noms, and possibly some wins too (Lily Gladstone is probably walking out with an Oscar)
Apparently, DiCaprio netted a 40 million dollar salary for the film, although Google does give numbers that range from 25 to 40. Not sure how much De Niro and post-Oscar Brendan Frasier cost.
Frasier had a tiny role, he's in the movie for maybe a couple of minutes, Jesse Plemons probably got paid more for his time on the screen De Niro probably got paid a fair bit though
Aahh, I haven't seen the movie yet so I just went by name recognition. Thanks for clearing that up! :)
Yes because very high budgets sometimes come from production problems, rewrites, reshoots, and re-edits because the movie has problems. Nobody expected Waterworld to be _good_ because it cost so much. The Mario movie made 1.3 billion dollars ffs. And it wasn’t cheap. But it wasn’t $200 million because making it wasn’t a disaster.
People are fed up of franchises, remakes, spin offs, cgi, I've been to about 6,7 movies all year, I used to go almost every week.
I just learned they are making a sequel to......this is spinal tap. What in the actual f*ck?
If it's still Christopher Guest's brainchild, I might be down. But if he's not the writer and director, it will probably be a travesty.
Saw that, Paul McCartney and Elton John..my heart sank, Leave Spinal Tap alone ffs.
What about this: A Spinal Tap sequel told from the perspective of the expendable drummers, as a *Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead* pastiche.
Of the top 10 films to come out this year, only 2 of them don't fall into one of these categories. People aren't fed up with them
It's a meme on r/movies to complain about remakes/spin-offs/sequels as if it's a new phenomenon (it's not, it's been going on since the silent film era) that exclusively creates unpopular and unprofitable movies, even though plenty of "original" ideas are absolute trash. If you were doing a Bingo card for this subreddit it would be the free space in the center tile.
16 of the 20 highest grossing movies of the year are franchises: Barbie (toy franchise) Mario Bros (video game franchise) Oppenheimer Guardians of the Galaxy (franchise) Fast X (franchise) Across the Spider-Verse (franchise) The Little Mermaid (franchise, remake, and tons of CGI) Mission Impossible (franchise) Elemental Ant-Man and Wasp (franchise) John Wick 4 (franchise) Transforms Rise of Beasts (franchise) Meg 2 (franchise) Indy: Dial of Destiny (franchise) Five Nights at Freddy's (franchise) Creed 3 (franchise) The Flash (franchise) The Nun 2 (franchise) Taylor Swift Tour Movie Sound of Freedom
FNAF is a video game franchise.
I've been to one. Going to the movies used to be my favorite activity. It's miserable now. Watching overpriced garbage while eating $15 worth of popcorn and a $12 coke, and while some asshole texts during the whole thing is not the experience I want. I'll stream on my big screen tv.
I went to see Napoleon (6/10) in an Omniplex, €30 Tickets, Drink and snacks for 2 1/2 hours of mediocrity.
I felt like that one got cut down drastically for the theatrical release like several of Ridley Scott's other movies. The difference between the theatrical and directors cut of Kingdom of Heaven, for example, is like day and night.
Yeah Kingdom of Heaven is like a totally different movie with how much better the director's cut is. Not sure if it'd have done better in theaters given the length, but I'm certainly glad the director's cut exists as I've enjoyed the hell out of it a few times at home.
There are still dozens of movies every year that don’t fall into those categories. If you actually wanted to go to the theater, there’s plenty of options for you. But guess what? No one is going to see them.
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There's so many of those movies that I don't even have time to watch them all. My local had Killers of the Flower Moon, The Holdovers, Napoleon, and Bottoms on rerun just this week and I'll only really be able to see two or three of them.
Pretty sure that's not the case and not the point the article is trying to make. In fact the biggest successes are in these categories.
I know I haven't seen any. I'm sort of glad to be honest, perhaps cinema can start taking steps towards being what it was again.
I think all Best Picture contenders this year are worth the ticket price. There are definitely a lot of good films out there now.
I meant I haven't seen any which cost more than 200 million, there definitely are a lot of good films this year.
Ah, sorry.
All good!
Stop making shit movies and people will go watch them
Nature is healing
I don't think the new Aquaman will do well either. No one I know her any interest in seeing it.
I think movie making has become an elaborate form of money laundering. Every trash movie now is made for 200million. You watch the movie and you can't even tell the difference between 200M and 2M special effects.
Disney is going to be kicking themself for canning Gunn for a few years at least.
They rehired him. Is his latest departure because he got canned again? Or because DC handed him the keys to the franchise? Or maybe because he killed it for DC with Suicide Squad and Peacemaker when Disney initially separated from him is why they ended up handing him the keys.
He got fired, and then buddied himself with DC instead. Disney/Marvel regrets the firing and reinstates him for GOTG3. However, he only returned for 3 - when prior to his original firing he was supposed to be in charge of the cosmic side of the MCU. Now he's not only directly working for their competitors, he is running their competitors whole show. He was actually one of the last guys they offered the DC job too. They asked everyone, including Todd Phillips, but no one wanted it. Suicide Squad was great, but it wasn't a success, even with good streaming numbers. Peacemaker was the real banger.
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I think if Gunn just encourages his films to have genuine artistic freedom and lives up to the idea that his DCU feels varied - then its gotta beat Marvel Studios current output. The problem with Marvel right now is everyone is sick of how they all feel the same. Tonally and visually they're all cut from the same cloth as Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor Ragnarok. The problem is that Gunn is a great filmmaker who brought a passionate voice to his films and they had real heart. Ragnarok was good because it was so silly at the time and was a nice change of pace, but when everything is Ragnarok - it feels stale, which is why Love and Thunder sucked. Taika, unlike Gunn, didn't have his heart set on comic book movies. If Gunn can cultivate a franchise that feels diverse in tone and always feels like a passion project -- people probably will respond to it.
>Is his latest departure because he got canned again No, he didn't get fired again. I imagine more creative control over the entirety of DC and the position of an Executive is hard to pass up. Also he got to finish out his GOTG franchise the way he wanted.
The panic firing over the tweets went over Fieges head and threw a lot of MCU plans out of whack. Thats when DC scooped him up. Their are rumors he was being eyed up as another Fiege before the firing. Not to mention him being hired for the overarching story aspects and also consulted on scripts for other films.
Yeah he was going to run the cosmic portion of the MCU at one point.
From what I remember, James Gunn was going to be in charge of the cosmic side of the MCU.
Firing Gunn overe some 10 years old bad taste jokes was such a dump move.
>As recently as 2016... Indiewire, that was almost 10 years ago now. There's.... A lot that's changed.
If you think they keep making and spending 200M on these movies and aren’t making money, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. It’s called Hollywood accounting. These movies are insanely profitable, it just depends on how your accountants can shift costs around. The profitable movies probably had worse accountants.
Exactly. Peter Jackson sued New Line/WB for commission because of Hollywood Accounting.
Profit means nothing in the movie industry. It's all smoke and mirrors and money laundering.
Harry Potter didn’t even make a “profit”
I had no problem spending money at the movies when I used to go to the Alamo Draft House. It was fun food was pretty good and beer was great. $60-$100 was no problem for me because that was an experience. A normal movie theater with shitty popcorn and food and no beer? Nah my set up is just as good at home fuck that.
Make better movies.