Homecoming Was the 2012 reboot pointless?

[XtremelyBaneful]

I understand a lot of people were not satisfied with the ending, however you went into it knowing it was the ending. If you went in thinking anything different that is entirely your fault as the marketing and everyone involved in production made it clear this was the final chapter in the trilogy. You might not have been okay with a new Batman, many people were not, but regardless of if you liked the ending you got one. Not to mention given the reaction from critics and the general audience, most people WERE satisfied with the ending.

The fact Sony handled the reboot very differently than DC/WB are handling Batfleck. They gave you an ending, they're not stepping on any toes by avoiding retreading ground, and they're easing the character in by holding his solo outing until 2020 at the latest (8 years after TDKR).

The thing is the internet has been divided since day one about Garfield's performance and a lot of the general audience just never warmed up to him. Bale on the other hand was very highly praised for his performance and became a household name because of it. If Ben Afleck can be accepted after Christian Bale, then an actor who's much more divisive can be replaced as well.

Although everybody was saying this was the end of Nolan's directing of Batman, don't forget christian bale did say he'd come back to do another film if nolan came back to direct. Now although that book is closed and ship has sailed, I didn't care from that point on if Nolan kept directing, I just wanted bale to continue being batman. and then we had the statement from him late last year about regretting not being a part of the dccu.

And it doesn't matter to me if affleck's role in bvs is just a cameo; a new batman actor in a rebooted universe is a new batman actor in a rebooted universe, 4 years apart from the previous universe. myself and possibly tons of others weren't and aren't willing to accept that, but like I said at this point most people are probably over it.

going with the last thing you said, yes, bale has had near unanimous praise for his time as batman. that's probably why the world was upset he wasn't continuing. however, although garfield's spiderman's been receiving mixed reactions, I think it'd still be hard for people to accept another new face to him. the only perk though which is worth it, is that he'll be a part of the mcu.

 

[spiderman2]

I'm a bit confused on how everyone seems to be saying that TASM2 didn't make Sony money.

Look, no argument, the profits weren't what they were with the first movies, but as you look at each one it seems as though the profits decline.

But, isn't a $92 million US opening decent?

Isn't a $708 million combined US and International decent?

From what I've been able to find TASM2 is the 11th top grossing movie of 2014, just behind Winter Soldier.

So I'm a bit confused. Can anyone explain how much profit this movie has made for Sony so far? And yes, maybe they haven't met the coveted $1 billion mark, but hasn't this movie done pretty good profit wise for Sony???

while the thing is 11th top grossing movie ww for a sm movie is not that good. Sm 1-3 where each number 3 for ww in the years they came out. ASM1 was like 6th. 708 million is the least a sm movie has made and around 70 million less then sm2 witch made the least out of sm 1-3. It made 70 million less even with 3d and 10 years of inflation and a bigger internation market. The movie cost like 250 million plus marketing of like 180 million so that is like 430 million just to make the movie. Now that means 708-430= 278 million but remember not all of that 278 goes to sony has theaters get to keep some of it.

 

[Spider2099]

And in the end, Sony only made $65M before overhead (so they actually made less than that).

 

[spiderman2]

And in the end, Sony only made $65M before overhead (so they actually made less than that).

I really wish I knew what overhead means what it inteals and how that 65 compares to all of the other sm movies to see just how bad things really went.

 

[HarryOsborn]

Oddly though Sony were planning a reboot while SM4 was being produced. They definitely didn't want to pay up any more, so I wonder why they bothered with Raimi at all.

I've always wondered if Lizard was off-limits to Raimi for the 4th film because he was in their sights for the reboot. He seemed to like that character, and it would have been a logical choice for SM4, but it didn't even seem to be entertained. Purely speculation of course.

Avi Arad shot down the idea of the Lizard in Spider-Man 4, he said he had a hard time signing off on a villain "as bizarre looking" as a giant Lizard man. Given that Arad pretty much pandered to the fans requests with the reboot, Lizard became the easy choice once it was decided upon.

 

[HarryOsborn]

Although everybody was saying this was the end of Nolan's directing of Batman, don't forget christian bale did say he'd come back to do another film if nolan came back to direct. Now although that book is closed and ship has sailed, I didn't care from that point on if Nolan kept directing, I just wanted bale to continue being batman. and then we had the statement from him late last year about regretting not being a part of the dccu.

And it doesn't matter to me if affleck's role in bvs is just a cameo; a new batman actor in a rebooted universe is a new batman actor in a rebooted universe, 4 years apart from the previous universe. myself and possibly tons of others weren't and aren't willing to accept that, but like I said at this point most people are probably over it.

going with the last thing you said, yes, bale has had near unanimous praise for his time as batman. that's probably why the world was upset he wasn't continuing. however, although garfield's spiderman's been receiving mixed reactions, I think it'd still be hard for people to accept another new face to him. the only perk though which is worth it, is that he'll be a part of the mcu.

I don't know if I'd go as far as to say the world was upset Bale wasn't coming back, the studio had made it pretty clear this was the last outing. The world was more upset that Ben Afleck would be replacing him.

As for people having a hard time accepting another Spider-Man, I think people would think it's pretty ridiculous there's a THIRD reboot in a decade, but they would be able to accept a new Spider-Man. The franchise would just look like something of a joke for a good bit of time.

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

I don't know if I'd go as far as to say the world was upset Bale wasn't coming back, the studio had made it pretty clear this was the last outing. The world was more upset that Ben Afleck would be replacing him.

As for people having a hard time accepting another Spider-Man, I think people would think it's pretty ridiculous there's a THIRD reboot in a decade, but they would be able to accept a new Spider-Man. The franchise would just look like something of a joke for a good bit of time.

well I disagree. It obviously wasn't the whole world but a good portion of the world myself included, was upset Bale was coming back. And until the announcement of affleck replacing him, it wasn't set in stone that his time as the caped crusader was up.

And the thing with spiderman, I think people would be more willing to accept the 2nd reboot/3rd spiderman since this time (hopefully he'll be in the mcu this time) he'll be in the mcu.

 

[HarryOsborn]

well I disagree. It obviously wasn't the whole world but a good portion of the world myself included, was upset Bale was coming back. And until the announcement of affleck replacing him, it wasn't set in stone that his time as the caped crusader was up.

And the thing with spiderman, I think people would be more willing to accept the 2nd reboot/3rd spiderman since this time (hopefully he'll be in the mcu this time) he'll be in the mcu.

Yeah I get that you were in that group of people, but I think you may have had some unrealistic expectations of Bale's return. A lot of people on here seem to think Maguire may be coming back and Sevenwebheads seems to be certain he saved Andrew Garfield. I think a lot of us took John Campea's general take on things and believed the official announcements.

Yeah I definitely agree people would happy because there's more security in the MCU than in the Sonyverse

 

[Spider2099]

A third reboot that remains in the Sony-Verse would be laughed at. A Spider-Man entering the MCU is quite a different story IMO. It feels more like adding a new character to a successful franchise (the MCU) as opposed to a simple reboot.

If Sony reboots again without Marvel, they are going to fail. They can hit the reboot button every 2-3 years if they want, but they will fail every time and make less and less money. TASM2 wasn't very far away from turning a negative profit, so in time they will see that their plans for a Spide-Man film franchise will go nowhere.

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

Yeah I get that you were in that group of people, but I think you may have had some unrealistic expectations of Bale's return. A lot of people on here seem to think Maguire may be coming back and Sevenwebheads seems to be certain he saved Andrew Garfield. I think a lot of us took John Campea's general take on things and believed the official announcements.

Yeah I definitely agree people would happy because there's more security in the MCU than in the Sonyverse

I wouldn't say the expectations were unrealistic. I think with the trilogy most of the general audience had expected Bale's face for batman and didn't want to see him replaced. I definitely don't think maquire will be back or that sevenwebheads saved andrew garfield. but in terms of batman I think it just came down to bale not wanting to come back but if he wanted to, WB would've been more than happy to keep him on board with bvs.

 

[Frodo]

I wouldn't say the expectations were unrealistic. I think with the trilogy most of the general audience had expected Bale's face for batman and didn't want to see him replaced. I definitely don't think maquire will be back or that sevenwebheads saved andrew garfield. but in terms of batman I think it just came down to bale not wanting to come back but if he wanted to, WB would've been more than happy to keep him on board with bvs.

I would agree. I think what alot of fans tend to forget is that the vast majority of the GA don't follow casting/script developments the way fanboys do. Regardless of how TDKR ended , alot of people assumed Bale would return even though fanboys had heard Bale say he was done. There was genuine shock when Bale didn't come back and Ben Affleck took the role instead from the GA's perspective.

In fact, The Affleck/Batman casting is one of those relatively rare times when a casting announcement becomes part of the mainstream conversion , but for the most part that doesn't happen. When its a new Bond, or a coveted role from a book such as Scarlet O'Hara, or Professor Grey, it happens, but the GA aren't on the hype, AMC film talk, etc following every press release or reading articles about the development of these projects. I do think the GA for a variety of reasons, was resistant to Garfield and the reboot , and I do think they assumed Maguire would come back , regardless of Spiderman 3.

I would agree with Campa that its best to wait for an official word before placing bets , but that doesn't mean that non official scuttlebutt or rumors can't/don't end up coming to fruition. All Campa is saying is that in these situations you need to be careful about inferring outcomes from small bits of infomation, gossip, rumors, and less than reliable sources, before popping champagne bottles. Then again, is ever a bad time to open a bottle of champagne?.

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

I would agree. I think what alot of fans tend to forget is that the vast majority of the GA don't follow casting/script developments the way fanboys do. Regardless of how TDKR ended , alot of people assumed Bale would return even though fanboys had heard Bale say he was done. There was genuine shock when Bale didn't come back and Ben Affleck took the role instead from the GA's perspective.

In fact, The Affleck/Batman casting is one of those relatively rare times when a casting announcement becomes part of the mainstream conversion , but for the most part that doesn't happen. When its a new Bond, or a coveted role from a book such as Scarlet O'Hara, or Professor Grey, it happens, but the GA aren't on the hype, AMC film talk, etc following every press release or reading articles about the development of these projects. I do think the GA for a variety of reasons, was resistant to Garfield and the reboot , and I do think they assumed Maguire would come back , regardless of Spiderman 3.

I would agree with Campa that its best to wait for an official word before placing bets , but that doesn't mean that non official scuttlebutt or rumors can't/don't end up coming to fruition. All Campa is saying is that in these situations you need to be careful about inferring outcomes from small bits of infomation, gossip, rumors, and less than reliable sources, before popping champagne bottles. Then again, is ever a bad time to open a bottle of champagne?.

thank you. couldn't have said it better myself.

who's campa?

 

[Frodo]

thank you. couldn't have said it better myself.

who's campa?

I meant to write Campea.Lol. He's John Campea the editor and chief of AMC Movie Talk on youtube.

 

[Super Jim]

while the thing is 11th top grossing movie ww for a sm movie is not that good. Sm 1-3 where each number 3 for ww in the years they came out. ASM1 was like 6th. 708 million is the least a sm movie has made and around 70 million less then sm2 witch made the least out of sm 1-3. It made 70 million less even with 3d and 10 years of inflation and a bigger internation market. The movie cost like 250 million plus marketing of like 180 million so that is like 430 million just to make the movie. Now that means 708-430= 278 million but remember not all of that 278 goes to sony has theaters get to keep some of it.

First, thank you to everyone who responded to my question on the profits of TASM2.

My take away is pretty much what I thought...

The movie didn't make as much as what Sony was hoping, but it did make millions of dollars in profit.

Yes, maybe they were hoping for the billion mark, but only got to $700 or $800 million. And yes, out of that the profit is much less.

But $300 million (even if it's before "overhead") is still $300 million. The point being that Sony has and will continue to make money with their Spider Man films. I believe they will be discussing the ways to make their next Amazing Spider Man film more profitable, which is very possible.

First, they are going to need to cut back in certain areas. For example, how much did it cost them to have that whole mech Rhino CGI scene at the end? And what was the purpose, to show us he's ready to move on and be Spider Man again? Meh... IMO, they should have just ended the movie after Gwen's death, with the Goblin getting away, and after they showed us that Peter has promised revenge. Revenge is a good story point...

The point is that if they can still make say $300 million profit (give or take) then they will want crazy money and rights (or possibly certain levels of control) to sell this back to Disney. It's just not in Sony's favor to do this deal for anything less than like $1 billion and some control. Disney is not going to agree to that.

So, that will leave Sony having to go forward with a new movie. A reboot would not make sense, but they can easily change their plans for the next movie in order to fix the places where they went bad, and maximize their profit. First, one main villain! Less Oscorp behind the scenes stuff (still need a little though). Maybe just one secondary villain.

So again, if they went with a Kraven story, with Kraven taking on the "hunt of a lifetime" in order to obtain Peter's blood (needed to stabilize Harry), you have a solid story. Simply put, Kraven gets beat solidly in their first meeting, forcing him to get "enahnced" by Oscorp. Add in Black Cat, a little MJ friendship only stuff, more Aunt May, some minimal Bugle stuff, a little Empire State U stuff, and maybe a secondary villain like Cameleon; and you've got something to work with.

Seems like they need to stabilize and see if they can reach say $350 million profit, instead of going for the huge story, which means holding off on the Sinister Six as the villains, and totally doing away with any offshoot movies (especially the stupid S6 redemption travesty) at this time...

 

[Lord]

I agree, selling Spider-Man may not be the best for SONY, what they realy need is to see where they went wrong and stabilize their path, they can still bring the franchise back to top form, but they need to be patient, the same way FOX was with X-Men.

Black Cat and Venom would be able to get their spin-offs, but just at the right time, Sinister Six seems more like something that would serve as an epilogue to a Spider-Man vs Sinister Six movie. I know many fans want him in the MCU and think that he would be treated better there, but i vote for another SONY try, with Amazing Spider-Man 2 going back to basics and possibly being more of a closed narrative, sort of what Bond did with Skyfall.

At this point i'm realy not sure what will happen with the franchise, but if it goes back to Marvel Studios, then yeah, the reboot was pointless, and not just that, it was SONY shooting themselves in the foot.

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

I agree, selling Spider-Man may not be the best for SONY, what they realy need is to see where they went wrong and stabilize their path, they can still bring the franchise back to top form, but they need to be patient, the same way FOX was with X-Men.

Black Cat and Venom would be able to get their spin-offs, but just at the right time, Sinister Six seems more like something that would serve as an epilogue to a Spider-Man vs Sinister Six movie. I know many fans want him in the MCU and think that he would be treated better there, but i vote for another SONY try, with Amazing Spider-Man 2 going back to basics and possibly being more of a closed narrative, sort of what Bond did with Skyfall.

At this point i'm realy not sure what will happen with the franchise, but if it goes back to Marvel Studios, then yeah, the reboot was pointless, and not just that, it was SONY shooting themselves in the foot.

I don't the discussion sony's been having with disney is about selling spidey back. it's about sony and disney making a deal.

 

[Lord]

I don't the discussion sony's been having with disney is about selling spidey back. it's about sony and disney making a deal.

Which would limit how much SONY gets per film, they only have half of James Bond, Spider-Man's pretty much the biggest film series they have around right now, they don't even have marketing rights for it anymore, so having to share yet another big hitter may not be the best of deals.

Though SONY does seem to be strugling in finding a proper strategy for the franchise, so in a way, keeping the full rights may leave them with a possible box office bomb if they don't handle it with more care.

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

Which would limit how much SONY gets per film, they only have half of James Bond, Spider-Man's pretty much the biggest film series they have around right now, they don't even have marketing rights for it anymore, so having to share yet another big hitter may not be the best of deals.

Though SONY does seem to be strugling in finding a proper strategy for the franchise, so in a way, keeping the full rights may leave them with a possible box office bomb if they don't handle it with more care.

according to sevenwebheads, part of the deal means sony will get at least a portion of the merchandising rights back.

why do they get only half of james bond?

 

[Lord]

according to sevenwebheads, part of the deal means sony will get at least a portion of the merchandising rights back.

why do they get only half of james bond?

I'm not sure, but i believe they made a deal that traded 007 for Spider-man back before Raimi's was made, for some reason they still hold part of James Bond. I may be wrong though.

 

[SyntaxError]

65 Million before overhead is horrible for a franchise like Spider-Man and a big company like Sony.

We look at numbers and think that the picture is only a failure if and only if it doesn't break-even. However, that is not the case at all. Studios need to access the viability of a franchise from amount of return they receive, and sometimes even if it makes a profit, the movie simply isn't profitable enough to invest in or spend time on. Spider-Man is probably their most expensive franchise, and is meant to bring in big profits. A profit under 65 million is seen as a massive flop, considering the amount of money they spent on Marketing and Production. Additionally, Sony do not have merchandising rights, so the only profit they ever receive is from the movie itself - there's no safety net cushioning the fall.

It's all well and good that we say Sony can easily assess how to cut costs and thus make a movie more profitable, but considering how ASM1 was already a box office disappointment, they probably already did for ASM2. There is no space to cut from Marketing - the amount of money they spent on the last 2 movies weren't enough to generate a massive audience either. Instead of scaling down on production, the best way is to improve quality and audience satisfaction. That drives sustainability instead of big drop after first week.

The way Sony can best achieve stability is through a deal with Marvel. Sure, it means that they need to share the profit, but it also means that they share the cost. In relative terms the profit margin will be better than that of what they produce currently. Additionally, Marvel has proven itself extremely stable and reliable in their franchises.

 

[JOE]

^ Let's hope someone at Sony reads this post since they're too stupid to figure it out on their own.

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

I'm not sure, but i believe they made a deal that traded 007 for Spider-man back before Raimi's was made, for some reason they still hold part of James Bond. I may be wrong though.

wait, what? what does 007 have to do with spiderman?

 

[Lord]

wait, what? what does 007 have to do with spiderman?

It's all in here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man_in_film#Columbia_Pictures

Namely:

The two studios made a trade-off in March 1999; Columbia relinquished its rights to create a new 007 series in exchange for MGM's giving up its claim to Spider-Man

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

It's all in here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man_in_film#Columbia_Pictures

Namely:

damn, so Columbia didn't always have 007...MGM did. But MGM is also its own independent studio yeah?

 

[Spider2099]

65 Million before overhead is horrible for a franchise like Spider-Man and a big company like Sony.

We look at numbers and think that the picture is only a failure if and only if it doesn't break-even. However, that is not the case at all. Studios need to access the viability of a franchise from amount of return they receive, and sometimes even if it makes a profit, the movie simply isn't profitable enough to invest in or spend time on. Spider-Man is probably their most expensive franchise, and is meant to bring in big profits. A profit under 65 million is seen as a massive flop, considering the amount of money they spent on Marketing and Production. Additionally, Sony do not have merchandising rights, so the only profit they ever receive is from the movie itself - there's no safety net cushioning the fall.

It's all well and good that we say Sony can easily assess how to cut costs and thus make a movie more profitable, but considering how ASM1 was already a box office disappointment, they probably already did for ASM2. There is no space to cut from Marketing - the amount of money they spent on the last 2 movies weren't enough to generate a massive audience either. Instead of scaling down on production, the best way is to improve quality and audience satisfaction. That drives sustainability instead of big drop after first week.

The way Sony can best achieve stability is through a deal with Marvel. Sure, it means that they need to share the profit, but it also means that they share the cost. In relative terms the profit margin will be better than that of what they produce currently. Additionally, Marvel has proven itself extremely stable and reliable in their franchises.

Excellent post. Someone should send this to Sony on twitter to make sure they full understand their situation. Something tells me they don't.