Sequels Bryan Singer would love to return to X-Men universe

[[A]]

They won't ignore you, Ace

 

[Ace of Knaves]

As I'm not the BBC reviewer, and he never spelled it out, I don't know.

Well then, why did he bring it up? Makes no sense.

I've watched X-2 countless times and there was no X-Jet sized plot hole.

 

[LEX]

Probably, the reviewer was talking out of his ass and hoping that no-one would notice that he pulled out an example, or lack thereof, in lieu of having us doubting X2's quality by his words alone. Planting seeds of doubt and all. Must've thought he was being subtle. Obviously, it did not work with y'all. I'd pay the man no mind if I were you.

 

[zenith16]

hmm the review on X2 that Eberts and richard Roaper made the the ploblems in that movie clearer than what that reviewer did with his. though they still like the movies, but there are flaws and alot wrong with the formula which x3 copied.

But oh well.

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

It would have been awesome if that reviewer had explained himself.

 

[Ace of Knaves]

Yea I'm in no way saying X-2 was flawless, no way.

But to make a statement like that, and not back it up with any evidence what so ever, makes me question his credibility.

 

[X-Maniac]

Yea I'm in no way saying X-2 was flawless, no way.

But to make a statement like that, and not back it up with any evidence what so ever, makes me question his credibility.

Maybe it's because he didn't want to give away the plot by mentioning a hole in the plot?

The main arguments over here were over why Jean left the plane in order to raise it and why the others (like Storm) also didn't try to stop the water.

 

[Ace of Knaves]

Yea but to make a claim that bold, and not even give a little hint to what he is talking about? He's just asking for people to question him and doubt him.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

I said it didn't get brilliant reviews all round.

This, for instance, was the BBC review:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2003/04/22/x_men_2_2003_review.shtml

It says, among other things, that "X-Men 2 shares its predecessor's problems of story and self-containment: there's a hyperactive narrative and too much assumed knowledge. Whatever its merits as part of a series, it struggles to satisfy as a stand alone movie....Given the screenwriters didn't bother with a coherent story, it doesn't deserve to be explicated here (there's a plothole you could fly the X-Jet through). Best to suspend sense, savour the set-pieces, and mull over your favourite mutant. If only the plot matched the performances, "X-Men 2" could rival "Spider-Man" in the Marvel-lous movie stakes. As is, it merely points to the franchise's potential. The next step in evolution? Hardly. But it could be the missing link."

I personally consider 88% in a time when comic book movies were still looked upon as 'below' some critics is brilliant. CB movies werent as accepted by critics in 2003 as they are now, so 88% positive is brilliant in 2003.

One, you can compare anything. Two, I have no idea why you've even brought this up. It's really somewhat irrelevant to my statements, which amount to: BATMAN BEGINS' box office was considered a success, and THE LAST STAND made much more money, so how come it's a failure?

And BATMAN & ROBIN was not the cinematic death knell for Batman that people want to pretend it is. The reason we didn't get another Batman movie isn't because WB didn't want one, or because the public wouldn't have supported one...it's because WB, by nature, takes a LONG FREAKING TIME TO DEVELOP THEIR TENTPOLE COMIC BOOK MOVIES.

WB planned for several years to make a sequel to BATMAN & ROBIN. They abandoned it yes, but not because they thought no one would go see it, but because WB, by nature, takes a LONG FREAKING TIME TO DEVELOP THEIR TENTPOLE COMIC BOOK MOVIES, and by the time they got their butts in gear and decided yes, we want another Batman film and we're going to commit to making one, a sequel made less sense than a reboot.

So they planned YEAR ONE concepts, and worked on it fairly consistently in one fashion or another until the film finally happened. Nothing got off the ground because, until Chris Nolan was courted, no director that WB was happy with was particularly passionate about the material (Aronofsky took FOREVER to create his project, and became quickly disintered because of WATCHMEN and his obsession with THE FOUNTAIN) and because WB, by nature, takes a LONG FREAKING TIME TO DEVELOP THEIR TENTPOLE COMIC BOOK MOVIES.

The public making a few jokes about nipples and neon doesn't mean they would have rejected a decent Batman movie when it came along. That's just silly.

BATMAN FOREVER, for that matter, had nipples and neon and camp, and still made a ton of money, so obviously there's a level of campy adventure people were ready to accept. BATMAN & ROBIN was a misfire, to be sure, but it still made a decent chunk of change, even as a bad and universally panned movie (let alone merchandising and DVD and whatnot), and it's not like people were realistically never going to not go see a good Batman movie again.

BATMAN BEGINS was clearly marketed differently, developed differently, and was a different animal entirely. It had the following going for it:
-It was about Batman, and a fresh take on the character
-It looked really good
-Big action
-An acclaimed director in Chris Nolan, and several huge names, in Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, etc.
-Wonderful reviews

I mean, this whole nonsense about "BATMAN BEGINS was a huge risk because of BATMAN & ROBIN", I'm sorry, I just don't buy it. ANY movie is a risk, but Batman is as close to a sure thing as Hollywood has from the DC pantheon.

BB was more of a risk than X3, a complete re-start will always be more of a risk than a 3rd movie in a lucrative franchise, X3 was expected to make money, with BB they didnt know, so they really cant be compared IMO.

So what if it's the third film in a franchise? It still made a lot of money. Or is there some mathematical rule that all third movies in a fairly well received trilogy have to make ridiculous amounts of money beyond an already ridiculous amount of money simply because they're the third movie, despite their subject matter, production history, etc? The X-Men franchise was never the box office juggernaut that SPIDER-MAN and PIRATES have been. It's just not that mainstream. X3 was even darker, more somber, and more preachy about its themes than X2 had been. And again, TROUBLED PRODUCTION and BAD REVIEWS. And it STILL made a lot of money.

A 3rd movie in a popular franchise would be expected to make more money than a 1st movie in a franchise, this is simply common sense, there are exceptions of course, but X3 was expected to make more money than Batman Begins did.

BB didnt even have any BO stars in it, X3 had plenty.

I have no idea what you're basing this on. Your opinion apparently fails to take into account the box office, and the fact that, despite any bad reviews or "jokes" people made to their friends about this or that, X3 cleaned up pretty good at the theatre, and on DVD.

Actually, on DVD, it sold around the same as Ghost Rider, so it didnt do so good. And at the cinema, it actually mase less profit than X2, that is NOT good from a business perspective, X3 was expected to make more than it did, especially as X3 had very little competition at the time of its release also.

You think the average person cares about how unfaithful it was, gave two ****s that Cyclops died, that Wolverine, who they'd probably thought was supposed to be the leader, was a leadership role, and that X3 featured The Cure and the Dark Phoenix Saga in one film? Come on now. More to the point, do you think the average person even knows the difference in quality between X2 and X3 and the reasons for it? Doubt it.

They obviously do know, I know people who have never read a comic, hated Cyclops and loved Wolverine, but thought X3 was crap, WOM effected its 2nd weekend at the BO no doubt, so the general public did vote with their pockets.

Well now that you mentioned it. Yes i can say that. i have friends that aren't hard core comic fans that found what was done to cyclops wrong and the lack of character development to the orther characters some what wrong too. there was too much of wolverine. Anyway how would you like to meet them?

Do you have steam? you know what you can just down load ventrilo and i can have you meet them there and they'll tell ya. that's up to you man.

Exactly, as I said, I know people who wanted the spotlight to be on Wolverine and for Cyclops to be out of the way, yet they still found the movie dissapointing, I know of only 1 person outside these boards who liked the movie.

 

[The Guard]

I do thank you for trying to get me to under stand, but they did a bad job over all with screen time. With what they had. Others have been shown to give huge casts of characters equal spot light with in huge casts.

I have never seen an action/adventure movie, even an ensemble movie, where everyone gets an equal spotlight. Ever. I would be interested in knowing what movies you think have accomplished this. The closest I've ever seen in the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, and those movies were three hours long.

The writers they hired are just used to doing soloist type movies.

That has nothing to do with why certain characters got more spotlight time than others. Nothing whatsoever.

 

[The Guard]

I do thank you for trying to get me to under stand, but they did a bad job over all with screen time. With what they had. Others have been shown to give huge casts of characters equal spot light with in huge casts.

I have never seen an action/adventure movie, even an ensemble movie, where everyone gets an equal spotlight. Ever. I would be interested in knowing what movies you think have accomplished this. The closest I've ever seen in the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, and those movies were three hours long.

The writers they hired are just used to doing soloist type movies.

That has nothing to do with why certain characters got more spotlight time than others. Nothing whatsoever.

 

[Ace of Knaves]

Well it could indicate that the writers don't know how to juggle multiple characters

 

[The Guard]

Well it could indicate that the writers don't know how to juggle multiple characters

Why?

I mean it could, but where exactly is the proof of that?

All we've seen is that they didn't juggle every single one of the characters well in X3 (which happened in X-MEN and X2 with good writers, and in countless other movies as well).

It's also not like it's easy to juggle 10, 12 characters in the first place, let alone when you have certain directives about who has to be doing what, in a 90 minute film.

I don't know too many Hollywood writers who can develop all the characters they come into contact with, or even most of them. For one thing, I don't know of too many Hollywood writers who understand true character development, or who deviate from accepted formulas for "showing development", which limits what they can do with characters in the first place. Mind you, this includes the best of the best. There just isn't that kind of screentime in most films, and Hollywood puts demands (especially in action movies) on writers that don't usually allow for this type of development across the board. And it's obvious...to anyone who has followed this franchise...Wolverine is front and center, takes up a chunk of screentime, and that it's not just the writers doing this to the characters...it's the studio.

 

[cronosred]

Well then, why did he bring it up? Makes no sense.

I've watched X-2 countless times and there was no X-Jet sized plot hole.

One thing I am curious about is why can Xavier enter Wolverine's mind when he has an adamantium covered skull but he can't enter Magneto's when he wears a helmet, does anyone know if this has ever been explained?

 

[Nathan]

I've always assumed there's more to the helmet than just being made out of metal.

 

[Ace of Knaves]

Yea it's made with the same tech as cerebro ain't it?

 

[The Guard]

What Nathan said.

 

[terry78]

I assume Juggernaut's is the same, in theory.

 

[The Guard]

BB was more of a risk than X3, a complete re-start will always be more of a risk than a 3rd movie in a lucrative franchise, X3 was expected to make money, with BB they didnt know, so they really cant be compared IMO.

Yes...BATMAN BEGINS was more of a risk (did I ever deny that?), but how is that relevant to anything I've said in regard to the amount of money X2 made?

I'm not sure if you really think you can't compare them, or if you're just trying to say "They're not the same". And I'm puzzled, because I'm not saying, and never said, "BATMAN BEGINS and X3 are the same thing".

I'm only talking about what is considered a financial success in recent years.

A successful movie is a successful movie. Execs don't tend to care, when gauging whether something succeeded or failed, about any sliding scale based on whether a movie was a new franchise, a trilogy, etc. They just want to make money.

They care about sliding scales and risk when trying to decide how LARGE a success something was. Which is all well and good, but again, an entirely different discussion. I'm not quantifying its success. I'm just saying it succeeded. Period.

You want to quantify its success, go right ahead. That's a whole different discussion that I could care less about it. I care about the statement I made earlier, when someone (now who could that have been) made the absurd statement that perhaps people wouldn't go see an X4 and tried to use box office to prove this.

A 3rd movie in a popular franchise would be expected to make more money than a 1st movie in a franchise, this is simply common sense, there are exceptions of course, but X3 was expected to make more money than Batman Begins did.

It did make more money than X-MEN and X2. Who cares if it was expected to or not at this point, because it did.

I really don't know why you're going round and round on this. I'm not trying to prove you wrong about anything in terms of "how big" a success it was. I'm saying X3 was a financial success. Period.

And while I'm sure studios WANT the third film in a popular franchise to make more money than the other two, this isn't neccessarily "common sense" in every situation. It's your assumption. While there are definitely franchises where the third film makes a lot more money than the first two, quite a few third films and sequels in general have not done particularly well or been particularly good, for various reasons, among them the changing of creative teams and approaches, which is what X3 was dealing with. Surely you've heard of the "trilogy curse". And with a different creative team, a new direction, and a very public, troubled production and some pretty mediocre reviews, you really can't say with any certainty as the movie was released that X3 was going to make a ton more than X2 did, or that it even should have.

BB didnt even have any BO stars in it, X3 had plenty.

You have got to be kidding.

Morgan Freeman
Liam Neeson
Katie Holmes
Michael Caine

All well known, generally well liked actors, easily fit the term "stars", and very good box office draws.

Actually, on DVD, it sold around the same as Ghost Rider, so it didnt do so good.

Once again. I am not quantifying. When I say "It made money in the cinema and DVD sales", that's what I mean. I don't mean "It made money compared to this or that movie". I mean "It made money".

You keep trying to quantify things, as if limiting X3's success actually invalidates the fact that it was, in fact, a financial success.

Profit is profit.

What it was expected to make is irrelevant to me in the context of this discussion. It's competition is irrelevant to me in the context of this discussion.

Go back to the context of my original statement about X3's financial success, which is what this conversation has, for some reason, been going around and around on since I first said it. X3 was a financial success. Period. It's a simple concept.

Quit muddying the issue with semantics about how much of a financial success it was, etc. That was never my point, nor do I care about such a discussion.

They obviously do know, I know people who have never read a comic, hated Cyclops and loved Wolverine, but thought X3 was crap, WOM effected its 2nd weekend at the BO no doubt, so the general public did vote with their pockets

Vote with their pockets. In what sense? That a ton of people didn't go see it week after week?

Okay.

Yes, it had a drop off. But again. I'm not quantifying. I'm saying enough people saw the movie overall that it was a success.

So...you...know some people who didn't like it. I know people too. People who loved it. People who are comic book fans. They didn't love everything about it, but they went to see it nontheless. Which is the only point I've been trying to make.

At this point, it's somewhat moot. Since critics don't in any real sense represent the general population, and fans make up a minority of it, neither of us can realistically prove what "everyone" thought about the movie, and I'm not trying to. All I'm trying to prove is that enough people saw X3 to make it a financial success, which the box office and DVD sales numbers bear out.

I get it. You seem to want X3 to have been a failure on every level, because it failed in your eyes, and maybe in the eyes of some people you know.

It wasn't, though.

 

[EnDz0n3]

One need only look at both films' production budgets to determine which was a more profitable undertaking for Fox. With X-men 3's excess of $100 mil over X2's budget ($210 for the former, $110 for the latter, according to boxofficemojo.com, which is the closest we'll ever get to a confirmation), X2 was definitely a more profitable movie for the studio.

So judging from those numbers, NO, X3 did not make more money than X2.

 

[X-Maniac]

One need only look at both films' production budgets to determine which was a more profitable undertaking for Fox. With X-men 3's excess of $100 mil over X2's budget ($210 for the former, $110 for the latter, according to boxofficemojo.com, which is the closest we'll ever get to a confirmation), X2 was definitely a more profitable movie for the studio.

So judging from those numbers, NO, X3 did not make more money than X2.

You have to be a little cautious with those figures. An article in the LA Times recently talked about budgets varying depending on the person quoting the budget. It was fascinating to see the disparities between what different people said about the same film.

Regarding Box Office Mojo, it seems to get the budget wrong for Superman Returns, stating it as $270million when The Numbers website explains that SR itself cost less and only adding in costs of previous failed Superman film efforts brings it to that price.
http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2006/SPRMN.php

The Numbers gives the budget for X3 as $150million.
http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2006/XMEN3.php

Whichever of those figures you use, X2 made more profit than X3 but in part that's simply because its budget was trimmed (lots of stuff was cut out: Sentinels, Danger Room, and some characters) which raises the profit margin.

I think that trying to link box office or profit to quality can be dangerous, especially considering things like Transformers.

 

[The Guard]

So judging from those numbers, NO, X3 did not make more money than X2.

Still puzzled. Did anyone say it did?

 

[zenith16]

I have never seen an action/adventure movie, even an ensemble movie, where everyone gets an equal spotlight. Ever. I would be interested in knowing what movies you think have accomplished this. The closest I've ever seen in the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, and those movies were three hours long.



That has nothing to do with why certain characters got more spotlight time than others. Nothing whatsoever.

hmm OK Kelly's Heroes (1970) which Clint east wood stared in, there's the old school mission impossible. not the tom cruse one but i mean the ones that were tv based movies and the team was the focus. there are plenty if you really look though.

There's one I'm trying to remember that had to do with hacking but I can't remember it. it might be a Robert Redford movie. there's a ton of movies that fit this kind of thing but most people don't always remember the name off the top of their head. I guess I fit that bill right now. plus having a buddy talk to me on steam about some thing esle while I'm typing this isn't helping me remember. oh well

the point is there are tones of shows and tv movies in the past that have done this. but there are even shows like 4400 and shows like babylon 5 that dealt with the same themes like X-men has. In fact they were ripped right from the X-men and the writers of those shows did a good job. and have done movies of them too.

J micheal Straczynski has a track record of sucess in both movies and tv shows and yet fox hires the guys doing X-Men movies which have showed they can't handle that type of thing, where he has. what's wrong with this freaking picture?

They have people in hollywood that can do this kind of thing right under their nose's. he has worked for marvel at the same time too. yet look who fox get's guy with scripts that arn't really much of a well put to gether script at all. there's a lot wrong here.

 

[X-Maniac]

hmm ok Kelly's Heroes (1970) which clint east wood stared in the there's the old school mission impossible. not the the tom cruse one but i mean the ones that were tv based movies and the team was the focus. the are plenty if you really look though. there one I'mtrying to remeber that had to do with hacking but I can't remember it. it might be a robert redford movie. there's a ton of movies that fit this kind of thing but most people don't always remeberthe name off the top of their head. i guess i fit that bill right now. plus having a buddy talk to me on steam while i'm typing this isn't helping me remember. oh well

The X-Men are different. They have more than four decades of characters in several different continuities/series (Astonishing. Ultimate, Uncanny etc), so everyone has their favourite characters who they want to see get plenty of screentime or get included in the films.

But there just isn't room to fit them all in.

That's why Colossus had just a cameo in X2, that's why Deathstrike was a silent henchwoman whose backstory and links to Wolverine were never mentioned. And why Cyclops was absent for most of X2. And also why the Gambit scene was cut from X2.

When new characters are added, they are often done to please fans and yet fans then moan that these characters don't get the 'right' amount of screentime.

Most times, the characters got the screentime that was required by the story. Just because you weren't happy with the screentime for a character doesn't mean the film handled it badly.

 

[EnDz0n3]

You have to be a little cautious with those figures.

I did try to. Maybe I should have pointed out that boxofficemojo is *one* of the sources that we can get the budget info from and might not always be correct.

Again, its hard to pinpoint the budget for most of these blockbusters considering Studios are very cautious to get these info out.

Still puzzled. Did anyone say it did?

Yes, as a matter of fact, YOU did.

It did make more money than X-MEN and X2. Who cares if it was expected to or not at this point, because it did.