Days of Future Past The Official X-Men: First Class Box Office Discussion Thread!

[SuperT]

Wait a sec! Brett's latest twit says he loves First Class and congrats to Matt Vaughn.

Yea because he knows he came off like jack*** after the first two tweets.

 

[FilmNerdJamie]

Haha if Ratner had even one brain cell, he would understand that the underwhelming box office is partly his fault.

Vaughn cooked up the X3 story with the writers, cast most of the new characters (except for Ellen Page) and then quit like 3 weeks before filming started. Ratner was brought in at the last second to help turning the wheel with the oil can to make the release date.

So Vaughn can trash-talk all he wants, but he bares a big chunk of responsbility for The Last Stand as great as First Class turned out.

Stop falling back on the fanboy "It's all Ratner's fault!" BS and do some research, kiddos.

 

[X-Maniac]

I can't believe it took Brett Radner's twitter to get me out of hiding.
I'm stunned at how asinine he was, so to make good box office means he made a good movie?

Hollywood is a business. And it's in bleak economic times with falling ticket sales and plummeting DVD sales. Money matters more than ever.

Those trying to sabotage this franchise through constant nitpicking won't achieve their aims of the rights going to Marvel. Fox will simply churn out frantic action-driven X-Men movies with Hugh Jackman and Halle Berry front and centre. Is that what people want?

 

[X-Maniac]

Vaughn cooked up the X3 story with the writers, cast most of the new characters (except for Ellen Page) and then quit like 3 weeks before filming started. Ratner was brought in at the last second to help turning the wheel with the oil can to make the release date.

So Vaughn can trash-talk all he wants, but he bares a big chunk of responsbility for The Last Stand as great as First Class turned out.

Yes, several of the basic story elements were down to Vaughn (though there were also huge differences). But it seems apparent from First Class that Vaughn's version of X3 would likely have been deeper and more heartfelt, and more aligned with Singer's own vision.

(Edited to add: I say this as someone who enjoyed X3, in case you were wondering - i thought it did some great things, but I recognise it used broad brushstrokes to tell its story)

 

[Raiden]

Vaughn cooked up the X3 story with the writers, cast most of the new characters (except for Ellen Page) and then quit like 3 weeks before filming started. Ratner was brought in at the last second to help turning the wheel with the oil can to make the release date.

So Vaughn can trash-talk all he wants, but he bares a big chunk of responsbility for The Last Stand as great as First Class turned out.

Stop falling back on the fanboy "It's all Ratner's fault!" BS and do some research, kiddos.

Vaughn may have been partly responsible for the draft of the stories and even the new characters, but you really think if Vaughn had directed X3 it would've turned out exactly the way that Ratner's version did? I don't believe that at all.

 

[Mysteryman]

Avatar only made 77 million it's opening weekend.

I would have preferred FC made 77 million, but I will definitely take the 55 million.

 

[danoyse]

It's getting good word of mouth and the competition this weekend is weak. Do you honestly think that Super 8 is going to open at #1?

I think it very well could.

I'm planning to see both of them next weekend.

 

[FilmNerdJamie]

(Edited to add: I say this as someone who enjoyed X3, in case you were wondering - i thought it did some great things, but I recognise it used broad brushstrokes to tell its story)

X3 is totally watchable and entertaining as Hell. Absolutely.

Yeah it's a mess but it isn't the disaster fandom plays it up as.

 

[danoyse]

True. As much as I was rolling my eyes at parts of it on FX last night...I still watched the whole damn movie.

 

[Spider-Fan]

I also don't think X3 was THAT bad. I'd rate it as a 2.5/5 movie, so clearly not good, but still wasn't quite B&R bad or anything. Wolverine I felt was WAY worse. Many problems with X3 were things I had issue with the first 2 films for. Like Cyclops being shallow and disregarded. Singer did that too. But, the X-Men fighting Magneto at the end of X3 I felt captured the essence of the team dynamic of the X-Men better than Singer ever did. Which is sad, considering the film had the most shallow characterization of the 3 films.

 

[samsnee]

Then all is forgiven.

This picture gives me rage blackouts.

 

[danoyse]

I feel like I was the only person who didn't watch Wolverine when it leaked online, and I spent a month being told how much it sucked. So when I finally saw it, and about halfway through it, I remember thinking "I thought this was supposed to suck?!"

No, Wolverine isn't a good movie...but I enjoy it (granted, I also adore Hugh ), I've seen it with friends who've never read a comic book and only have the movies as reference who liked it fine.

Judging from the responses to his cameo, all the fanboy crying that it's time to replace him isn't a popular sentiment to the regular audiences.

 

[ClarkLuther55]

I wouldn't say that X3 or Wolverine were horrible either. Disappointing, yeah. Mediocre or "okay" is more how I'd rate them. They showed some big drops in the box office, but they ended up making money and the reviews (at least for X3) weren't that bad.

Add them to the list of movies that hardcore fans are way tougher on than everyone else (like Superman Returns).

 

[FilmNerdJamie]

That's what I'll say about all the X-Men films. All of them so far have been watchable as Hell. Even Wolverine, which yeah...that is a disaster. Even that flick is entertaining.

 

[Spider-Fan]

I feel like I was the only person who didn't watch Wolverine when it leaked online, and I spent a month being told how much it sucked. So when I finally saw it, and about halfway through it, I remember thinking "I thought this was supposed to suck?!"

No, Wolverine isn't a good movie...but I enjoy it (granted, I also adore Hugh ), I've seen it with friends who've never read a comic book and only have the movies as reference who liked it fine.

Judging from the responses to his cameo, all the fanboy crying that it's time to replace him isn't a popular sentiment to the regular audiences.

I don't think we need to replace Wolverine so much as tone him down. Now, in his solo film, of course he should be the main focus of attention. It's HIS movie. But, in an X-Men film, I want more even screentime and development, and this is where I find fault in Singer's approach. Wolverine overshadowed the films too much. Magneto and Xavier got good material, too. So did Rogue. But, all of them easily lose when you compare how much Wolverine was focused upon. I think in X4, they need to scale him back a bit.

 

[samsnee]

I don't think we need to replace Wolverine so much as tone him down. Now, in his solo film, of course he should be the main focus of attention. It's HIS movie. But, in an X-Men film, I want more even screentime and development, and this is where I find fault in Singer's approach. Wolverine overshadowed the films too much. Magneto and Xavier got good material, too. So did Rogue. But, all of them easily lose when you compare how much Wolverine was focused upon. I think in X4, they need to scale him back a bit.

This exactly. People aren't sick of Wolverine. People are sick of it being all about Wolverine in an X-men movie. I think Darwin got more screen time in this one than Cyclops did in X2 and X3 combined.

 

[Spider-Fan]

This exactly. People aren't sick of Wolverine. People are sick of it being all about Wolverine in an X-men movie. I think Darwin got more screen time in this one than Cyclops did in X2 and X3 combined.

EXACTLY! One thing that truly makes me angry about X2 is that the team's leader was written out of the movie for 3/4's of it! I mean, if you blink, you'd forget he was in it! You can't do that to the X-Men's field leader! He needed more time than he got. It was poor writing to do that, especially when Scott's involvement with Jean being a reason she doesn't end up with Wolverine was a big focus of X2. You can't just write him out like that! Plus, in X1, Wolverine came up with the plan that beats Magneto. Not the team tactician.

Cyclops got hosed in all these movies, and he's a major example of where the Wolverine love hurt the films. I mean Cyclops was in the Wolverine solo movie more than he was in ANY other film! What sense does that make?

 

[MARVEL ROCKS]

boxofficemojo 'X-Men: First Class' was also overestimated overseas, coming in at $61M, ranking 3rd behind 'Pirates 4' & 'Hangover 2'


X-Men: First Class was unleashed in 74 countries and drew $61 million, which was close to X-Men: Wolverine's openings in the same countries overall. First Class was projected by distributor 20th Century Fox to be No. 1 in around 30 countries over the weekend, and its top-grossing ones were the United Kingdom and France. In the U.K., it made $9 million (including previews), which was off nine percent from Wolverine, while, in France, it nabbed $7.1 million, up two percent from Wolverine.
In most of its markets, First Class's gross was marginally higher than Wolverine, like in Australia ($5.1 million), or down, like in Spain and Russia, but major improvements mostly in Asia put it over the top. In South Korea, First Class raked in $5.4 million or more than two and half times Wolverine's start, and big gains were made in Taiwan (five times Wolverine), Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia (distributor 20th Century Fox's highest-grossing opening ever). All told, First Class posted franchise-high opening grosses in 14 countries.



http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3180&p=.htm

So...it must be really frontloaded to drop from an estimate of 64m to 61m.

The estimates for POTC4 and HANGOVER 2 were accurate.

 

[Doctor Jones]

I love Jackman and as the character, but the problem is how he's being handled. His cameo in this was the greatest thing he has done since X2. So it goes to show, if done right, you won't get much complaining.

It's just nice now. if we get a sequel to this, we'll see more of the X-Men. I'm fine with Logan's story in X1 and X2, as in X1 he was used more as the audience's doorway into this world. And in X2 they had to finish up his story. And it was a great finish. The story in X2 was great with Stryker.

 

[samsnee]

Saw this somewhere, and thought it was a good comparison:

Opening Weekends for Batman movies from Batman to Batman Begins (inflation adjusted dollars in parentheses):

1989 - Batman - $43,600,000 ($76,903,421.00)
1992 - Batman Returns - $45,690,000 ($71,242,630.00)
1995 - Batman Forever - $52,780,000 ($77,333,256.00)
1997 - Batman & Robin - $42,872,605 ($59,344,259.84)
2005 - Batman Begins - $48,745,440 ($56,291,234.11)

Opening Weekends for X-Men movies (inflation adjusted dollars in parentheses):

2000 - X-Men - $54,471,475 ($71,063,486.28)
2003 - X2 - $85,558,731 ($103,697,181.97)
2006 - X-Men: The Last Stand - $102,750,665 ($114,114,888.55)
2009 - X-Men Origins: Wolverine - $85,058,003 ($88,715,497.13)
2011 - X-Men: First Class - $55,101,604

So when you look at it this way, it's not like it totally bombed. When you have to follow two of the worst entries in the series, you're probably not going to open up to a $100M weekend. Only the Fast & Furious series defies this rule.

 

[X-Maniac]

It's the only superhero movie to date to which i'm contemplating a fourth visit.

I saw Iron Man once (bought Blu-ray but have never watched it), saw Iron Man 2 once (never bought the Blu-ray at all), saw Thor once (liked it a lot for visuals and fun, decided not to go back and see it again)...

It's easily better than any of Marvel's own releases, in my view.

I don't normally take sides with these films and deliberately support one set and go out of my way to trash the rest, but I'm seriously considering it...

 

[Audubann]

X-Men Origins had really good lead actors. So regardless of how overly PG13 a should-a-been R rated movie was, it was good.

I feel like I was the only person who didn't watch Wolverine when it leaked online, and I spent a month being told how much it sucked. So when I finally saw it, and about halfway through it, I remember thinking "I thought this was supposed to suck?!"

No, Wolverine isn't a good movie...but I enjoy it (granted, I also adore Hugh ), I've seen it with friends who've never read a comic book and only have the movies as reference who liked it fine.

Judging from the responses to his cameo, all the fanboy crying that it's time to replace him isn't a popular sentiment to the regular audiences.

 

[ClarkLuther55]

EXACTLY! One thing that truly makes me angry about X2 is that the team's leader was written out of the movie for 3/4's of it! I mean, if you blink, you'd forget he was in it! You can't do that to the X-Men's field leader! He needed more time than he got. It was poor writing to do that, especially when Scott's involvement with Jean being a reason she doesn't end up with Wolverine was a big focus of X2. You can't just write him out like that! Plus, in X1, Wolverine came up with the plan that beats Magneto. Not the team tactician.

Cyclops got hosed in all these movies, and he's a major example of where the Wolverine love hurt the films. I mean Cyclops was in the Wolverine solo movie more than he was in ANY other film! What sense does that make?

Cyclops was my favorite X-Man when I was a kid. I always respected the disciplined leader characters who did the right things and put others before himself, even if that meant being "uncool" compared to the team badass. Like Leonardo from Ninja Turtles.

Know what my favorite Cyclops scene was in all the X-Men movies? The scene in X1 where he stood over Xavier's dying, unconcious body, swearing to uphold his dream and look out for the others. I saw that in the theater and thought "Yes, THAT is Cyclops!" That was his best moment...and it came in the first movie. This movie series never came close to respecting Cyclops like that again.

 

[Spider-Fan]

Cyclops was my favorite X-Man when I was a kid. I always respected the disciplined leader characters who did the right things and put others before himself, even if that meant being "uncool" compared to the team badass. Like Leonardo from Ninja Turtles.

Know what my favorite Cyclops scene was in all the X-Men movies? The scene in X1 where he stood over Xavier's dying, unconcious body, swearing to uphold his dream and look out for the others. I saw that in the theater and thought "Yes, THAT is Cyclops!" That was his best moment...and it came in the first movie. This movie series never came close to respecting Cyclops like that again.

Agreed. That was the one Cyclops scene we got where he felt like Cyclops. Rest of the movies he had no personality and was just a jerk all the time. He had no other character other than that! Really bugs me. A lot of the good aspects of Cyclops were given directly to Wolverine over the series, most in particular X3. That move I feel hurt both characters in some regard (Wolverine less so than Cyclops).

 

[By your Command]

Know what my favorite Cyclops scene was in all the X-Men movies? The scene in X1 where he stood over Xavier's dying, unconcious body, swearing to uphold his dream and look out for the others. I saw that in the theater and thought "Yes, THAT is Cyclops!" That was his best moment...

You made me remember how much I loved that scene the first time I watched it, thank you for that.