Apocalypse X-Men: Apocalypse Box Office Prediction Thread - Part 6

[Iceman]

This *is* a box office thread, but that makes it worthwhile to put the value of box office and totals into perspective. Amid all the wrangling about box office, it is worth asking where it fits in to a worldview. Is higher box office the only thing that matters? Is it the only goal to have the biggest box office plausible? Or the highest attainable domestic box office within the Singer-verse? The fact that X3: The Last Stand had the strongest box office and fans hate it should put that question to stark terms. Do we want to get the biggest possible total regardless of quality?

I personally do not want that. And economists who spend a lot of time studying money say that it is a means to utility, not a goal in and of itself.

If the original team came back and the money did better in the domestic market place, but the movie still sucked, they would be tarnished by the low quality of the movie. XM:A is not as bad as X3, but it has issues, and if the OT present day version had those issues, it would have hurt the sentiment towards the OT.

While there would be possibilities for stories with them, many nerd culture writers and fans might wonder how many good movies they had left having done X3 and then a poorly reviewed XMA.

Not at all. I very rarely hear anyone say that box office is the only thing that matters so I don't know why people even bother asking this question.

Box office will though be the most important thing in the box office thread and there are the RT threads, fans and critic review threads etc to focus on other elements. X3's box office (as is often the case for sequels) paid a big debt to the reception to X2).

 

[kineticist]

Slightly different poster. Don't know if it's been posted.

 

[jaymes_e06]

This one at least makes sense to the way the movie put in importance.

 

[kineticist]

(didn't actually mean to put that in this thread but oh well lol)

 

[jaymes_e06]

I was wondering it's relevance.

 

[Retroman]

A box office so much lower than expected for the movie that it's lower than the lowest poll option for the thread....

I never looked at it that way.

On the positive side, it's made over half a billion dollars. While the US box office takings may be disappointing the global numbers are decent in my book.

 

[DavidHaller]

uff, judging from all the superhero dc trailer coming out today, the whole genre market will be quickly saturated and die down. I really think that the future will quickly look very dark for a large number of superhero movies...Wonder Woman basically looks already like Captain America meets Thor and the hyper-masculinity of Justice League is so exasperating I want to hide somewhere...

It will be very interesting to see which studio movie line will collapse first?

 

[Erzengel]

Considering the Top 9 grossing domestic movies fall under one of these categories:

Comic Book (4 movies)
Animated (4 movies)
Live Action Remake (1 movie)

Comic Book movies have become the new action movies. Meanwhile, Alice 2, Ghostbusters, Independence Day are struggling to even make $100M.

 

[Zarex]

FOX is in a much more precarious position than either Disney/Marvel or WB/DC because they are renters rather than owners. And while they have control over an awful lot of characters, outside of Logan and Wade FOX is sorely lacking solo stars.

 

[Kanon]

uff, judging from all the superhero dc trailer coming out today, the whole genre market will be quickly saturated and die down. I really think that the future will quickly look very dark for a large number of superhero movies...Wonder Woman basically looks already like Captain America meets Thor and the hyper-masculinity of Justice League is so exasperating I want to hide somewhere...

It will be very interesting to see which studio movie line will collapse first?

If that were to happen, I would say the X-Men franchise already collapsed creating a convoluted mess unable to compete with much better planned adventure worlds, failing to connect with audiences.

 

[DavidHaller]

DC and MARVEL are just so completely similar universes in my eyes. I really don't get how mainstream audiences will be able to keep up with all these similar looking movies without getting tired of them? The MARVEL universe in my eyes works because they successfully adapted the tv series format for the cinema. People want to know how the stories of these characters continue...

But I'm already bored seeing these trailers and I'm a comic book nerd who will probably go to see most of them...we will see...

I'm anyway mainly here for this:

 

[DavidHaller]

If that were to happen, I would say the X-Men franchise already collapsed creating a convoluted mess unable to compete with much better planned adventure worlds, failing to connect with audiences.

I never understand this convoluted mess argument! I rewatch the whole series a couple of months ago before X:A and these movies actually beautifully flow into each other: X1, X2, X2, First Class, The Wolverine, Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse build a great ongoing and well-rounded storyline. (in this order leaving out X-Men Origins Wolverine)

But sure, judging from the local boxoffice in the United States the X-Men mainline came to an commercial endpoint this year...

 

[Erzengel]

Xavier killed in X:TLS, enters the body of the other dude, but still looks like himself in the post credit scene of Wolverine.

Wolverine losing his adamantium in his claws in The Wolverine then has it back in DOFP.

No mention of Raven being Xavier's "sister" in X1-X:TLS before retconning it in FC.

Just stuff like that.

 

[DavidHaller]

Xavier killed in X:TLS, enters the body of the other dude, but still looks like himself in the post credit scene of Wolverine.

Wolverine losing his adamantium in his claws in The Wolverine then has it back in DOFP.

No mention of Raven being Xavier's "sister" in X1-X:TLS before retconning it in FC.

Just stuff like that.

that's such an uninspired comment. honey, use your imagination...

-Magneto is on the same team with Logan and could easily manipulate adamantium to give Logan his metal claws back in a second. Singer even integrated a scene where Magneto directly says to Logan: "Imagine if they were metal". That's called a HINT for lazy audiences...

-Xavier has a twin sister in the comic books. Maybe he has a brain dead twin brother in the movie universe? Or he simply went to see the mutant MASQUE for a quick re-adjustment? Or he used a new clone body that was produced by genetics of his girlfriend Lilandra of the Shi'Ar Empire like he did in the comic books after his old body was infected by an evil alien brood queen?

-that's a retcon, sure. But their connection wasn't important before. They barely had any screen time together...Mystique simply takes Cain Marko's role from the comic books.

Singer is not a director who takes the audience by the hand and leads us through the movie like we are children (like Marvel movies normally do). He clearly expect us to fill these gaps on our own and often even indicates the solutions...and yes, the X-Men series is 16 years long franchise that was not conceptualized to be an ongoing series. But they made fantastic choices to solve most problems. Everything else is hairsplitting!

 

[Erzengel]

Let's not forget their are many other examples, especially if you include Wolverine Origins. Even getting past that Trask was played by 2 very different type of people. In the X-1-X:TLS, he was alive and yet in DOFP he was killed by Mystique in the original timeline. Psylocke and Angel/Archangel being presented in different times 80s and 00s. Xavier stating that Magneto helped him build Cerebro but it was Beast who did it.

Magneto regrafting adamantium onto Logan is a small leap and not something that would necessarily bother me if that was the only thing.

Imagining Xavier has brain dead twin brother or Lilandra is a larger leap that's not easily done for non comic book reading viewers.

And Raven sabotaging Cerebro to almost kill Xavier, doesn't sound like something someone would do to a sibling.

There's a difference between a director needing to handhold the audience and large leaps in imagination to explain a scene using examples that weren't introduced in a movie. As of right now the Shiar do not exist in this continuity.

 

[JEM]

There are 40 years between FC and X1, it is not impossible to think Raven didn't care about Xavier anymore. In real world, some brothers/sister hates each others or have very cold relationship. X-Men franchise have continuity issue but Xavier/Raven is not. They have no scene in the first trilogie and we didn't know their past.

If Raven didn't meet Xavier since FC, i can see her killing him in X1 without problem.

For Xavier, i think X3 post credit scene is enough. It was his twin brothers, it is simple.
For Wolverine, he fought with Magneto againt Sentinel during 10 years so i don't need more explanation.

 

[iacobusleo]

And Raven sabotaging Cerebro to almost kill Xavier, doesn't sound like something someone would do to a sibling.

Note that the poison didn't kill Xavier, just put him out of commission. He recovered just fine on his own. Sounds like something a ruthless Mystique would do even if it is to a loved one. And that's not getting into the fact that Mystique was tortured and hardened into a different person by Stryker after killing Trask.

 

[GuestStar2004]

Singer is not a director who takes the audience by the hand and leads us through the movie like we are children (like Marvel movies normally do). He clearly expect us to fill these gaps on our own and often even indicates the solutions...and yes, the X-Men series is 16 years long franchise that was not conceptualized to be an ongoing series. But they made fantastic choices to solve most problems. Everything else is hairsplitting!

Thing is these films are for casual audiences too, not just comic guys or girls who can say well this happened in the comics so let's just feel in the gaps ourselves.

Explaining stuff like that isn't him treating audiences like children its just singer clearly decided against explaining certain things and that moving forward was the best thing for the story.

 

[X-Maniac]

Thing is these films are for casual audiences too, not just comic guys or girls who can say well this happened in the comics so let's just feel in the gaps ourselves.

Explaining stuff like that isn't him treating audiences like children its just singer clearly decided against explaining certain things and that moving forward was the best thing for the story.

It's partly that, but Singer is also known for weaving subtleties, hints, aspects and possibilities into his movies, he doesn't spell everything out (this applies to another post I need to reply to on here). In Superman Returns, Superman and Lois 'somehow' had a child together, Singer handwaved it as the result of some sort of vague sexual relationship that had occurred in the past. Love it or loathe it, but it's one of the things Singer does tend to do.

Rarely do we get on-screen, in-story explanations that define things with forensic clarity. An exception that comes to mind is when Jean Grey tells the gathered X-Men in X1 all about Wolverine's adamantium and his regenerative abilities and how it makes his age impossible to determine. That sort of thing is rare to see in these films, or (to be honest) in most movies in general.

Audiences are left to fill in the gaps, and (as you say) in some instance Singer just chooses to move forward and not to dwell on things that slow down the narrative momentum or could sound clunky. Clearly, it's a conscious choice - such as Kitty having time travel powers in DoFP with no explanation, no exposition, they were just shown on screen.

 

[Erzengel]

Or that Mystique's shapeshifting powers wouldn't necessarily be able to be used by Sentinels to mimic powers unless they also used Rogue.

 

[X-Maniac]

Or that Mystique's shapeshifting powers wouldn't necessarily be able to be used by Sentinels to mimic powers unless they also used Rogue.

True... though they mostly seemed to mimic external texture/appearance - steel, diamond, etc - while staying the same shape (aside from the spikes on the end of their arms).

 

[GuestStar2004]

Superman returns must be one of the most confusing movies for anyone who doesn't know it's a sequel to superman 2 and ignores 3 and 4 as there are no hints in the movie either to say it's just a sequel to superman 2.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

FOX is in a much more precarious position than either Disney/Marvel or WB/DC because they are renters rather than owners. And while they have control over an awful lot of characters, outside of Logan and Wade FOX is sorely lacking solo stars.

Well that and their box office isn't nearly as impressive as what Marvel and DC have done. Both of them have had billion dollar grossers in the past decade. Fox has only even hit $700 million twice.

 

[superweirdo87]

One note on box office, though. Raimi's Spider-Man movies outgrossed all of the original X-Men trilogy, yet Singer made X-Men movies after and Raimi did not. That was purely by virtue of a quirk--Sony needed to make the movie by 2012 to keep the rights and Raimi did not feel like he could hit that deadline. So, box office is part of the story, but not all of it.

 

[superweirdo87]

With respect to convoluted continuity, Fox could do a hard X-Men reboot in the Deadpool timeline. At this point, the convoluted past and continuity does not count them out.

I think Fox/X-Men or DC goes before Marvel. But, this stuff is cyclical potentially, and so many all of them will have movies in some form or another decades later.