The Dark Knight Rises You Have My Permission To Lounge - Part 6

[Slade W]

It is cool that BB finished so high.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

The "Top Superhero Movies of All Time" chart on Flickchart (users are given matches of 2 movies and are supposed to choose one of them, movies' ratings depend on results of those matchups). Tens of thousands people voted.

1 The Dark Knight
2 Batman Begins
3 Iron Man
4 Batman
5 The Avengers
6 The Incredibles
7 Guardians of the Galaxy
8 Captain America: Civil War
9 The Dark Knight Rises
10 Captain America: The Winter Soldier
11 X-Men
12 Spider-Man
13 Superman
14 Deadpool
15 Watchmen
16 Unbreakable
17 X-Men: Days of Future Past
18 X2
19 X-Men: First Class
20 Spider-Man 2
21 Kick-Ass
22 Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
23 Superman II
24 Batman Returns
25 The Crow
26 Doctor Strange
27 Avengers: Age of Ultron
28 Ant-Man
29 Captain America: The First Avenger
30 Blade
57 Man of Steel
78 Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
103 Suicide Squad

I'm impressed at Guardians of the Galaxy standing higher than Cap movies.

http://www.flickchart.com/Charts.aspx?genre=Superhero+Film&perpage=250

Never heard of Big Man Japan before today.

 

[The Batman]

I'm impressed at Guardians of the Galaxy standing higher than Cap movies.

I think only comic book fanboys would rank them higher than GOTG.

 

[Chip Chipperson]

spider-man 2 is still top 5

that list is absolute guano

 

[Tacit Ronin]

I think only comic book fanboys would rank them higher than GOTG.

Yeah. Casuals love GOTG.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

I think only comic book fanboys would rank them higher than GOTG.

Personally speaking, I can't help but enjoy Cap movies (all three of them) more.
After watching Suicide Squad, I should watch Guardians of the Galaxy again.

 

[JackWhite]

It is cool that BB finished so high.

Agreed.

 

[The Batman]

Personally speaking, I can't help but enjoy Cap movies (all three of them) more.
After watching Suicide Squad, I should watch Guardians of the Galaxy again.

I'd say GOTG is definitely better than TFA, and while Winter Soldier and Civil War,are probably equal to GOTG, GOTG just stands out more.

 

[The Joker]

[YT]U9AdMbyTu_o[/YT]

 

[Slade W]

Nice.

 

[BatLobster]

Ah man, that joke at the end was kinda messed up though! It's Family Guy though, to be expected.

 

[Chip Chipperson]

I haven't watched family guy in years but I would like to see Seth MacFarlane's take on the DCEU

 

[Slade W]

Ah man, that joke at the end was kinda messed up though! It's Family Guy though, to be expected.

I didn't hear that the first time I watched the video due to noise in the background of the room I am in. I agree, that isn't funny.

 

[The Joker]

It's like South Park humor. It does cut close to the bone, and can often be tasteless.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

*Jaw drops*
I don't feel bad about not watching either one of those shows.

 

[Brother Jack]

It's like South Park humor. It does cut close to the bone, and can often be tasteless.

South Park is infinitely better. It actually has a greater point to it much of the time, and is generally just written and animated much better. Family Guy, and all of MacFarlane's shows, is lowest common denominator pandering.

 

[JackWhite]

Ah man, that joke at the end was kinda messed up though! It's Family Guy though, to be expected.

lol, which is why I was never a fan of Family Guy. But even I have to admit it was pretty funny, in a morbid type of way.

 

[Greens]

The funniest Family Guy bits aren't the "shocking" ones. Family Guy is a particular brand of humor that you love or hate. I used to love it before the quality went downhill. There's still some funny stuff here and there. Plus, Seth's musical sensibilities lead to some great songs on the show.

 

[Slade W]

It has been a long time since I watched Family Guy. If I remember correctly, my favourite seasons were 4-8, and they were the seasons I considered the funniest.

 

[The Joker]

South Park is infinitely better. It actually has a greater point to it much of the time, and is generally just written and animated much better. Family Guy, and all of MacFarlane's shows, is lowest common denominator pandering.

You may like South Park better, but the fact is the humor is often just as cutthroat. The show is infamous for it. I mean we're talking about a show that dedicated a whole episode to a crippled Christopher Reeve eating aborted baby foetuses for their stem cells just so he could walk again! By comparison Family Guy's throwaway line in that clip is tame.

 

[BaelaTargaryen]

I'm dying at the Deadline article about bad reviews of Will Smith's Collateral Beauty.

http://deadline.com/2016/12/will-sm...ox-office-opening-rotten-tomatoes-1201873153/

This weekend, Will Smith saw a career-low opening at the box office with Warner Bros./New Line/Village Roadshow’s holiday melodrama Collateral Beauty, which debuted to $7M at 3,028 theaters.

Typically the recent go-to excuse whenever Smith tanks at the B.O. is that the actor is out of his tentpole wheelhouse, venturing into more offbeat dramas (i.e. last year’s Focus’ $18.7M opening, $53.9M domestic), but Collateral Beauty‘s bombing is about more than a leading star’s choices and suggests something more systemic at the box office: Critics, more than ever, can dictate the financial fate of a movie, particularly one that’s inherently a crowd-pleaser.

The Rotten Tomatoes aggregation power era is a dilemma that keeps many studio executives awake at night, and Collateral Beauty, which is pained by a 14% overall Rotten rating, but boosted by an A- CinemaScore joins other disconnected pics at this year’s B.O. including Alice through the Looking Glass (A- CinemaScore, 30% rotten, $77M domestic B.O.), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (A- CinemaScore, 38% Rotten, $82M domestic B.O.) and even X-Men: Apocalypse (A- CinemaScore, 48% Rotten, $155.4M domestic) which saw a slowdown in its Memorial Day opening to $65.8M over FSS.

It use to be a panned tearjerker could get by at the box office; that reviews only impacted upscale arthouse movies. Does Collateral Beauty‘s bombing further indicate how intolerant audiences can be toward Kleenex movies today, especially after reviews hit? Last September, the feature adaptation of bestseller The Light Between Oceans was eroded with a $12.5M domestic take (B+ CinemaScore, middling 59% rotten reivews). Some say ‘No’, pointing to the example of The Fault in our Stars ($124.8M) and Nicholas Sparks’ movies. A hurdle for Collateral Beauty which it didn’t shy away with in its marketing is dealing with the death of a child, and that can be a hard thing to watch during the holiday season.

In the current Rotten Tomatoes pack-rat reviewer era, would 1990’s schmultzy Oscar best picture nominee Ghost even have a shot at becoming a B.O. hit? Even with a poor review from the New York Times that movie became the second-highest grossing title of its year with $217.6M domestic. Back in those days, the studios didn’t have Rotten Tomatoes to worry about, rather two guys dictating mainstream moviegoing: Siskel and Ebert (they both gave it a thumbs up). “Still, even if they thumbed down a film, you could survive at the box office,” says one distribution executive this morning.

What’s even more disheartening and a head-scratcher for Warner Bros./New Line: Collateral Beauty‘s test scores were through the roof with over 90% in two polls and an 81% definite recommend. A looming bomb, it was not. But then tracking hit showing a huge opening swing between $6M-$12M.

It’s a vicious cycle if you think about it: In this streaming Netflix-Golden TV age renaissance where moviegoers will think twice about heading out to the multiplex, critics arguably have the power to keep them at home, shut down a movie, and put exhibition in a stalemate. When a movie like Collateral Beauty dies, it’s from here that industry discussions ensue regarding the collapse of theatrical windows and the introduction of premium VOD in the home so that a studio can quickly recoup their costs.

Collateral Beauty follows a New York ad exec played by Will Smith, who loses his daughter and gets into a funk. He begins to write letters to Death, Time and Love. The peers at his office hire actors to portray these people in an effort to show that Smith’s character has gone off the rails. In sum, his peers vie to steal the company away from him. Through it all, Smith’s character has some heart-to-heart conversations with Death, Time and Love.

Warner Bros. had high hopes for the movie as counterprogramming against Rogue One‘s $155M opening weekend, and becoming the choice for older females (who turned up at 55% females, 78% over 25). That may still be the case as Collateral Beauty‘s prime demo becomes fully available after Christmas day. In fact, the studio is comping Collateral Beauty to the 2007 weepy P.S. I Love You, which was also panned by critics, posted a dismal $6.5M opening, but received an A- CinemaScore and did over an 8 multiple with a final domestic of $53.7m.

Collateral Beauty received vicious reviews with such headlines like the New York Post‘s “Collateral Beauty does Collateral Damage” and its critic Kyle Smith declaring, “This must be the first movie ever made in which the death of a child is presented as a pesky obstacle to a corporate sale.” The headline for the New York Times’ review read “Lots of Plastic in the Face of Collateral Beauty” with Manohla Dargis (who by the way loved Ghostbusters) raging “The five stages of grief sometimes seem applicable to movie reviewing, except that I usually skip denial, rarely get around to acceptance and generally just settle into anger, which is where I am with Collateral Beauty.”

Speaking with Deadline yesterday morning, a person close to the Collateral Beauty production declared that the film’s reviews were a “schoolyard assault.” A pack rat nature pervades unfortunately among reviewers. Damned they are by their bosses should their opinion ever steer from the mainstream pack. I witnessed this first hand at an outlet I worked with when a critic had the audacity to give Gigli a platinum review in the face of all the negative criticism it was accruing.

Warner Bros. even received sympathy from a rival major studio distribution executive who defended the mass-appealing qualities of Collateral Beauty: “Film critics are narrow-minded and have dark hearts. They prefer something like Manchester by the Sea which is significantly much darker than this film and deals with a similar set-up: the death of children,” said the executive.

To the executive’s point, the presence of the awards darling Manchester by the Sea in the marketplace (it broke wide in over 1,200 theaters, grossing $4.1M for a running cume in its fifth weekend of $14M) may have also slowed Collateral Beauty‘s momentum, particularly in how both titles were vying for older adults. Selling the death of a child is a challenge to market and sometimes scares an audience off: Manchester avoided it entirely in its trailers focusing more on Casey Affleck’s character taking in his teenage nephew. Ditto for Paramount’s Arrivals which was sold as a thinking-person’s sci-fi movie. Collateral really had no choice in avoiding the topic in its heart-tugging trailers. Those connected with the movie say that the tested marketing materials for Collateral Beauty were never a headache, but conveyed the film’s emotion.

Smith himself even admitted this summer at a Cannes Lions marketing session how social media messaging makes it impossible for studios to shield bad-word-of-mouth movies heading into their opening weekend.

“The power has gone away from the marketers,” Smith said, and as a star, he has to “not trick them (fans) into going to see Wild Wild West...Back in the ’80s and ’90s you had a piece of crap movie you put a trailer with a lot of explosions and it was Wednesday before people knew your movie was *****,” Smith explained. “But now what happens is 10 minutes into the movie, people are tweeting ‘This is *****, go see Vin Diesel’.”

Then there’s also the factor of Collateral Beauty going up against a monster like Rogue One. Most adult movies grossed in the single digits this weekend. Last month we saw STX release their critically praised and audience embraced The Edge of Seventeen (94% fresh, A- CinemaScore) against Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them($74.4M), and that smart James L. Brooks R-rated teen comedy production died with a $4.75M opening and a near $15M stateside cume. Some rivals suggested that releasing Collateral Beauty at a quieter time may have spurred better word of mouth instead of the holiday crush where it’s competing with a number of prolific awards contenders as La La Land, Fences, Hidden Figures, and Manchester by the Sea to name a few.

So how do studios get around the power of aggregate review sites? While Rotten Tomatoes is a neutral collection site, it should be pointed out that the entertainment conglomerates themselves have built the wattage of this portal overtime: Early on, News Corp owned it via IGN, then Warner Bros. owned RT via Flixster before the entire unit was sold to Comcast’s Fandango in early February. It’s not just a website that we in the industry gawk at, but average moviegoers in non-Metropolitan parts of the country swear by it.

Whenever one buys tickets on its partner Fandango’s site, there’s a film’s Rotten Tomatoes rating staring you straight in the face. Why haven’t the majors taken umbrage with that?

In an effort to steer the general public’s observation toward more positive results, the majors may want to consider using upbeat PostTrak, CinemaScore, NPD scores in their ads, well in advance of a film’s opening (the first two polling companies largely test during a film’s opening weekend, so a change in their process might be required).

Said Warner Bros. domestic distribution czar Jeff Goldstein this morning about the results of Collateral Beauty, “While I had hoped for stronger attendance this weekend, I’m hopeful audiences will discover this terrific film that’s well done and uplifting and has a great message of hope and connection.”

 

[The Joker]

Huh. And I thought Smith was supposed to be a bankable star. I'm convinced he's a big reason dreck like SS made money.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

Had to check his filmography.
Dramas he starred in mostly bombed, or barely grossed more than their production budget.
Action movies gained a good amount of cash, notable misfires are After Earth and Bad Boys II.

 

[Chip Chipperson]

Where's Vader?

YOUR ATTACK ON THE REBELLION,

IT DIDN'T WORK, MY FRIEND!

 

[Spider-Aziz]