#both critical and box office flops

[cogentranting]

Just on a mission, apparently, to convince everyone on here that I have zero taste in media.

[pretty-unglad-you-were-born]

Timmy stans won't be so loud after wonka.

i'm sure wonka will do well it's a christmas family movie that's being heavily marketed with a big worldwide release but either way both timmy and tom have done some great achievements and a few flops (critically or box officely) in their filmographies won't make or break their careers or else everything would've stopped at bones and all/chaos walking/that w**dy allen movie/cherry

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

Long post incoming...

I guess I'll try to be more reasonable and put things into perspective.

I also happened to come out of FURIOSA earlier today, which to me felt like a nice antidote to what Hollywood tends to pump out when it comes to big franchises. A prequel that really expands the Wasteland world of MAD MAX without feeling like a Glup Shitto-fest. I was pretty much glued the whole time, astounded at what it was going for, the big swings it took and - in my eyes - greatly succeeded at. You can tell creator/director George Miller loves this world, and wanted to expand it meaningfully with both this and MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, after 30 years of the series being a trilogy. And apparently without anyone getting in his way, at that. Rare for a big action film.

Did you know Miller, who also directed the likes of... THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK, LORENZO'S OIL, BABE: PIG IN THE CITY (and pretty much was a huge part of the original BABE), the HAPPY FEET movies, and THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING... Did you know one of his favorite films is Walt Disney's PINOCCHIO? Which had a massive influence on him and his work?

Oh yeah, PINOCCHIO... The second-ever Disney animated feature film, a film designed to be like its European fairy tale-inspired predecessor - SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS - but double that, with its more sprawling story and larger budget. More multiplane shots, whole scenes in the ocean, all that hand-animated, meticulously hand-painted water...

And it was the exact opposite of SNOW WHITE when first released in February 1940. While reviews were generally positive, not really as glowing as SNOW WHITE's reception, it was largely impacted by World War II breaking out across the Atlantic. It couldn't play in the European countries where SNOW WHITE made tons of money, and the money it managed to make in the ally territories - the UK and France - wasn't going to cut it. Its American gross was solid, certainly in the shadows of the huge hit that was out at the time - GONE WITH THE WIND... But again, it couldn't cover the film's astronomical costs. Unthinkable for a film, whose opening song, is pretty much synonymous with Disney today... Once a big flop, now it's absolutely definitively Disney...

The Disney studio would continue to lose a lot of money during this period. FANTASIA did not appeal to audiences, and BAMBI also lost money. Only the relatively-cheaper DUMBO managed to make back its shoestring cost, in addition to appealing to audiences more than the experimental dialogue-free epic and the more lyrical, dramatic forest tale. Disney was deep in debt, and spent the rest of the decade making and releasing movies known as "The Package Features". Anthologies composed of short films/featurettes, with some sort of loose linking device for them. Disney wouldn't return to doing a singular type of story following one set of characters until CINDERELLA, released in February 1950 to critical acclaim and great box office.

Some animation fans and historians divide the Walt years into two halves, the Golden Age covering the streak that began with the runaway success of STEAMBOAT WILLIE and ended with World War II's impact on the studio's first five feature films. (Or six, if you count the hybrid THE RELUCTANT DRAGON.) The Silver Age, covering everything thereafter up until Walt's passing, typically marked at the posthumous 1967 release of THE JUNGLE BOOK. Again, in terms of features. I'd mark it at December 1968, when the 2nd Winnie the Pooh featurette - THE BLUSTERY DAY - was released. The wartime losses took so much out of the studio, that Walt and Roy O. Disney reached some compromises, which - to some - affect the features going forward.

Films like CINDERELLA and PETER PAN avoided the elaborate multiplane effects and minute details of PINOCCHIO and BAMBI, making up for it in their striking art direction and filmmaking choices. The storytelling is also something of a shift. Few of those films attempt to wear the frightening elements of SNOW WHITE and PINOCCHIO, the kinds of scenes that Walt often got angry letters from parents over. After BAMBI, not counting the package features, the death of a major "good" character was pretty much hands off as well. For example, during production of LADY AND THE TRAMP, singer/actress Peggy Lee begged the filmmakers not to kill off Trusty at the end of the picture, following his accident with the dogcatcher wagon. Walt and co. complied. By the time you get to the '60s, Walt's final years among the living, you're a country mile from the early films. THE SWORD IN THE STONE and THE JUNGLE BOOK are very lax "characters exist" kinds of movies, the latter having some danger in the form of the impending encounter with Shere Khan. Otherwise, they are much lighter in tone, much more fun-loving, like romps.

Over the years, I've come to really appreciate those later films for the things my 20-something year-old self tended to criticize them for. When really, it's just a matter of fact. Change happened, maybe had to happen, in order for the Disney studio to survive and keep making animated feature films. Few other studios during the Golden Age of Animation could afford such a luxury. The Fleischer brothers certainly gave it a shot, with GULLIVER'S TRAVELS in 1939 and MR. BUG GOES TO TOWN in 1941, but the falling out between Max and Dave coupled with distributor Paramount's neglect of MR. BUG put a stop to that. Feature-length films would be made in other countries using techniques other than traditional animation, though some studios in America would later get in on it once again - albeit with lower-costing methods.

But when Walt was around, it was really only him producing feature-length animated films on a regular basis. And to keep going with that, and not just making more money off of only the re-issues of SNOW WHITE and such, he and his crew ultimately changed course and... Well... I'll say it, I feel they still put in the hard work on a bad day. Even the films of the '50s and '60s that I don't like as much as some others, there's still... Say, a Milt Kahl head swaggle or something great from Frank & Ollie in there. Or a great score, or a good sense of pace, the late great Robert and Richard Sherman absolutely going off with a banger song somewhere, very inspired background art, etc. No slouching! Something like THE JUNGLE BOOK is very much as important to me as PINOCCHIO.

I've come to love all of it, really, even with perceived flaws or the results of the studio changing gears. The work of the animators, artists, musicians, etc.... They pulled the weight and then some, and even the more "middling" films of decades past hold some sort of special place...

Maybe this situation applies to the apparent mandates that Disney executives are compromising Pixar with.

Pixar went for many, many years without a box office loss. THE GOOD DINOSAUR, which was made during John Lasseter's 11-year reign, was the first film to lose money for them. It was released *20 years* after TOY STORY came out, and it's their 16th overall film. I remember the media trying to chalk it up to the film's troubled production, which is a silly sentiment, because TOY STORY 2 and RATATOUILLE were similarly-rough, rocky roads. That one just... Didn't appeal, no matter what work and effort went into it, and I also think STAR WARS 7 opening mere weeks later kinda cut into it as well. It was kinda tossed off by Disney's marketing department after INSIDE OUT debuted earlier that year.

But, it was viewed as a minor dent in the armor. CARS 3 didn't really break even when released in the summer of 2017, but that was a CARS movie, so a lot of people kinda just shrugged at that. John Lasseter was then slowly ousted from the Disney company as a whole months later... Not because of that film, or GOOD DINOSAUR, but because he was exposed by the Me Too movement that erupted in fall 2017. Lasseter abdicated his leadership roles at Pixar, Disney Animation, Disneytoon, and Imagineering, right before the release of COCO that autumn. With Pete Docter taking over as CCO of Pixar in June 2018, perhaps all eyes were on him. Unlike Lasseter, Docter was only running Pixar. Not WDAS, not Disneytoon (which was swiftly shut down upon Lasseter's exit), and no major presence in the parks apparently... How would he take on such a task?

Docter, I feel, had something going there. Lasseter's Pixar became what Ken called Sunnyside Daycare in TOY STORY 3, he turned the place into a pyramid and he put himself on top. So many directors and animators exodused out of Pixar in the early 2010s, notably Brenda Chapman, who had words upon being taken off of her film BRAVE. All of Lasseter's goodwill completely vanished after it was learned that he made many women at the studio - and at WDAS - very uncomfortable, and when it was very clear that he only favored his TOY STORY colleagues and wasn't keen on letting women nor PoC direct films at his studio. Docter sought to reverse that, and to let the filmmakers tell stories that meant a lot to them. Much in the same way he, Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich, and Brad Bird did when Pixar was relatively new to making features. It truly was like old times, and I myself was very excited about that.

And it seemed like the sky was the limit... What could go wrong? ONWARD was cut right off, in its second weekend, by the pandemic. SOUL, LUCA, and TURNING RED went straight to Disney+ in the U.S. and most other territories, and their subsequent limited theatrical debuts - expectedly - didn't do great. I see that situation as similar to World War II cutting right into Disney's animated features in the 1940s, impacting the studio/distributor's ability to give them a wide release (at the time, Disney was not big enough to be their own distributor, it was RKO Radio Pictures who were handling the releases of the movies)... and the way the world is now, how expensive it is to take a trip to the movies, what a gamble it is... Animated movies aren't guaranteed smash hits anymore, unless you're something like Mario or Minions, or some entry in a beloved franchise. Remember how PUSS IN BOOTS 2 literally had to claw its way up to such a winning gross and record multiplier? If that had cost the same amount of money as ELEMENTAL had cost to make? It'd be considered a big failure.

LIGHTYEAR was Pixar's big return to theaters, a summer bow in 2022 that was part of the studio's beloved TOY STORY franchise. It opened great, too. $50m! Quite above what other animated movies had been opening with from 2021 to now... But the legs were terrible, word of mouth was sour, audiences just didn't seem to like it. A rare swing and a miss. Pete Docter pulled a "Walt Disney responding to ALICE IN WONDERLAND's disastrous release circa 1951", taking the blame for the film's box office woes. ELEMENTAL opened blah, but had incredible word of mouth. Even Disney boss Bob Iger seemed happy with its slow-burn ride to $500m at the worldwide box office, until he wasn't... Now that's a failure, along with SOUL, LUCA, and TURNING RED... Which all didn't get to enjoy full theatrical releases due to a worldwide crisis that's actually still going on...

So now, the corporate logic is... Those movies all failed because they're too "autobiographical", the filmmakers' respective catharses being told through 90min animated movies apparently doesn't appeal to audiences... and that in order to be financially successful again, Pixar needs to make films with more "general" appeal. Pete Docter is not John Lasseter, and I feel the press takes advantage of that. Docter apologizes for films not appealing, whereas Lasseter - when his CARS 2 got panned by most critics - defended critical missteps with his chest. It's as if he still ruled at the end of the day and no one could touch him - given his four leadership roles within the company, while the quieter Docter... Not so much. I get the sense that Disney execs can push him around and the press can easily label him a weak leader, while John seemed invincible. Iger, for example, was aware of his erratic, gross behavior at awards ceremonies well before Me Too caught up with the Hawaiian shirt man... And he was very concerned, but... Lasseter kept his job for another decade, almost unscathed.

I get that studios often have these sorts of "Well, we've had trouble, what should we be making then?" moments. I feel that singling out the three films that went straight to streaming during a pandemic, and another that was high budget and was operating in a much different theatrical landscape than before, is not it, though. SOUL, LUCA, TURNING RED, and ELEMENTAL were liked by most audiences. They got good to great reviews. They were all nominated for Oscar.

This isn't like how FANTASIA and BAMBI were perceived by critics and audiences in the early 1940s. The mixed-to-negative reactions to those films back then must've played a part in Walt and Roy focusing on relatively safer films in the future. For example, CINDERELLA leaned into what audiences loved about SNOW WHITE, 12 1/2 years prior, and was one of Disney's huge hits of that decade that also did exemplary in re-issues. There's a reason the two big flops of the '50s, for Disney Animation, were the more experimental films - ALICE IN WONDERLAND and SLEEPING BEAUTY. Nowadays, both of those movies are beloved and like PINOCCHIO, FANTASIA, and BAMBI... Are synonymous with Disney, often ranked among the best, cream of the crop. The time isn't always right for certain movies...

But things are often unfair in these big entertainment conglomerates, who are run by money hoarders who only think in the moment... and if Pixar's gonna try to do this "general appeal" thing, they would still have to let filmmakers have all the fun that they can feasibly have with the stories. The current iteration of Disney Animation is buckled under so much executive interference, and test screenings where 7-year-olds dictate what goes in and what doesn't, and... Well... Look at their resulting output. How they still try to do the job passionately and not merely just pass the grade. It's like I'm watching them struggle to get their creativity out on films like RAYA, STRANGE WORLD, and WISH. It's, to me, much like where things were for them circa 1980-82.

And after nearly 30 years of making features, maybe Pixar might enter such a phase themselves, as executives place the blame squarely on the filmmakers for their own failures and uncontrollable outside circumstances... Like I said, we'll have to see how they navigate this particular set of rules. Does it work out for them? Does it create movies that audiences mostly don't care for? Who knows... Maybe I myself will like the movies still, maybe I won't even notice a difference... Maybe this is will all be moot, every sentence of it... But we'll see...

[lavie234]

Tlm Hate Train Recap and Highlights

Tw: Racism

In 2019, Singer Halle Bailey is announced to play Ariel in the Disney live-action. This caused mass hysteria on the internet making the phrase “Not my Ariel” a trending topic. Individuals were crying, destroying their VHS tapes and DVDs of the animated “Little Mermaid” in retaliation.

Came up with different disputes as to why a fictional half-human half-fish couldn’t possibly be a black person. Black people can't exist in the little mermaid due to it being a Danish tale and there are no black people in Denmark (allegedly). Stating that this is the worst thing that has ever happened to them in their lives…

~Plague 2020-2023~

It's 2023 and content of the “Little Mermaid” is now dropping. For certain trailers people:

Deep faked using AI Art to make Ariel white while using Halle’s Ariel singing voice.

Stated the movie would promote “Animal Abuse” due to Ariel playing with flounder’s fins in an advertisement. Backing the rhetoric up with the hyperrealistic CGi could confuse kids as if they can swim and survive over 200 ft in the ocean to reach the type of fish flounder is just to play with it.

Claiming the movie is too dark, even though the trailer was showing the scene where it was nighttime in a cave.

Mad at the Ginger-Erasure although the Live action Ariel possessed hair akin to strawberry blond which is a natural color humans can have compared to the animated version you can only get from bleach and a box.

~Movie came out~

Complained over the fact that there was no slavery or Ariel being bombarded as a slave even though Ariel is not a human to begin with and slavery was not a concept in the original source material.

Mad that Ursula called Ariel’s song a “Siren Song,” and said that was a bad influence on kids even though Ursula was the one to use Ariel’s voice as an evil siren’s song to lure the prince and not the other way around like in the…original.

Complaining that Halle’s version of “Part of your world,” is a disgrace to Howard Ashman because *fixes glasses* she sang the song too well and that ruined the meaning.

Claimed that the actress playing Vanessa (Jessica Alexander) should have been Ariel only to get blocked by the actress in return.

Claimed that the actress playing Vanessa carried the film in her 5 minutes of screen time, or that she sang better than Ariel although Halle sang for both herself and Vanessa due to it being her stolen voice used for evil.

Called Halle’s Ariel disrespectful and horrible for kids to see because she did not ask permission before entering the Prince’s study or to touch his things as if her voice was not stolen by a sea witch 10 minutes prior in the film.

30+, childless, single, unemployed adults deep faking the new preschool Ariel show on Disney Junior to be white. Stating that this little show is ruining their childhoods knowing they will never watch an episode of it a day in their lives.

Sadly, using “Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kracken” main villain as a vessel to hate on Halle’s Ariel (she looked like animated Ariel) even though they would never step foot into a screening of this film.

Review bombing a movie they’ve never seen so badly that Google had to change the reviewing system altogether.

Goal posting the profits of the “Little Mermaid’s” box office, continuously stating that the movie did not break even and “flopped,” but continued to raise the money limit because the movie broke their original price statements. They claimed the movie needed 300m to break even then 400m and then 540m now they are stating the movie needed 700-800m to break even. When asked what exactly made the movie a “flop” could not elaborate or explain how the movie is not a success.

Most annoyingly, using the children in their lives to shield their own racism…ahem…” criticism” towards the movie saying that their kid wanted the og Ariel only to find out that the kid loved the live-action and was being used to fuel the hate train.

And last but not least, mutilating, changing, and disrespecting Halle Bailey’s features from her eyes down to her toes. Calling her a monster, alien, and beast. Making racist caricatures and blackface drawings to mock her role. Making colorist comments about her skin tone, calling it dirty, contaminating, and disgusting. Calling her natural hair ugly and so much more making me so happy that little kids (especially little black kids) never had to witness people picking apart someone’s race over a fish movie.

The Little Mermaid has been through a lot, and in my opinion, one of the worst worldwide hate campaigns I’ve ever seen. Although there was so much vitriol, it was lovely to see people from critics to children fall in love with this fairytale all over again and love Ariel regardless of what she may look like. If I missed anything I’m sorry.

[destinyc1020]

sorry destiny, i am huge tom fan believe me, but i agree with what the anon said, i understand that u can like a movie that others dont thats not what i am saying but out of the MCU and throw in uncharted, tom's acting skills aside because we both hes fantastic, his projects have been misses, in terms of overall quality, reviews & numbers, TDATT, CW, Cherry, TCR. yes u may have liked some of them but numbers were bad, in a sense they flopped. most of these projects he chose when he was still pretty young and green and the only project he chose post covid was i think TCR and it was amazing but people weren't patient and it was slow at first. and i think since then he has grown a lot more and u can tell, its obvious the way he views things and the way hes picking his projects are diff now so hopefully things go well for him in the future in terms of success outside popcorn movies.

I mean, we can all have different viewpoints on films or actors, and that's fine! 🤷🏾‍♀️ I don't think anyone doubts that Tom is talented.

I understand some fans haven't enjoyed his projects in the past several years. I know for me personally, I've enjoyed 90% of Tom's films....whether they were successes at the box office or NOT. Most of his work I didn't even see in theaters. I saw at home.

The only films of Tom that I've actually seen in theaters are The MCU films (of course), The Current War, The Impossible (before I even knew who Tom Holland was lol), Uncharted (of course lol), and Spies in Disguise! Everything else of his, I've seen at home.

RE: TCR....

I actually enjoyed TCR, but if I had one critique, I would say that Akiva took a little TOO long to get to the point and kind of treated us as viewers like we were too dumb to get the "twist". Most of us knew or got the twist w/in the first episode lol. He really could have spent more time focusing on other things imo. Don't get me wrong, I actually think Akiva had a very ingenious, sympathetic, and creative way of showing what's actually going on when someone suffers from DID (and why they may end up having it), and it was done in a way I'd personally never seen done onscreen before. But I just feel like he should have given us as the audience a little more credit. We could have known from the very beginning that he suffered from DID, but maybe not know who exactly his alters actually were. There were many things that could have been done differently. And I think some of the critics purposely gave TCR LOW reviews to spite Akiva, because apparently he didn't even want DID or "multiple personalities" to be written in any of the early reviews coming out for the series, in order to preserve the "twist". But umm.... Everyone saw it coming a mile away bro lol 😅

So...I really think his tactic of trying to keep the audience in the dark felt a bit laborious after a while, and it's like, "WE GET IT man... we've already figured it out!" We didn't need several episodes prolonging things. But hey, I still enjoyed TCR Summer last year lol, and it was very enjoyable to watch Tom in a series (for a change) every single week! 😊

[offonaherosjourney]

how did disney do treasure planet dirty?

Thank you so much for asking

Story time!

Treasure Planet (2002) is Treasure Island set in space. It was directed by Ron Clements and John Musker. They worked in Disney as directors for a while, and some of their other directive credits include movies such as The Great Mouse Detective (1986), The Little Mermaid (1989), Aladdin (1992), Hercules (1997), and more recently Moana (2016). Before directing those they worked as character animators and writers in other movies, and then one day they went to the at the time chairman of Disney, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and asked him to pretty please let them adapt Treasure Island and set it in space. However, they didn't have the best timing because this was after the release of Black Cauldron (1985), which had flopped bad and they'd worked on as writers.

Jeff said a big nope and had them direct The Great Mouse Detective (1986). And after that movie came out, Clements and Musker asked again, and Jeff instead made them directors for The Little Mermaid (1989) and Aladdin (1992), and after each movie they made, they kept asking about Treasure Planet. By that point Jeff told them that if they directed one more film, Hercules (1997), he'd let them do Treasure Planet. They did and Treasure Planet got the greenlight.

The movie is amazing and I won't go into why to keep this a reasonable length, but one of its feats was how it combined traditional 2d animation, CG animation and deep canvas (a looot of deep canvas). It was very cool, very innovative and veeery expensive.

That's the factual part of the story, now we go into personal opinions and fan theories, which are that basically maaaybe Disney didn't really want to make this movie, and it only got the ok because it was the passion project of their two directors responsible for the Disney Renaissance. Between the movie's budget and the marketing they spent a whopping 180 million to make this movie (Aladdin cost them 28m, The Little Mermaid 40m, Hercules 85m).

However, when Treasure Planet came out in late 2002, it flopped. Another Disney movie that came out earlier that year during the summer and had done amazing was Lilo and Stitch. Great movie too, btw, and the marketing team had made sure people heard about it. Six months before it came out you got ads of Stitch disrupting iconic scenes, McDonalds toys... the whole spiel. Meanwhile Treasure Planet's marketing was a mess and their ads either didn't give out anything about the movie or spoiled a bunch of stuff. And they released the movie in December 2002. Do you know what other movie had released just a couple days before? The second movie about a certain boy wizard whose books were written by an author whose name I shall not utter. Oh, and another veery Christmasy Disney movie, The Santa Clause 2. These two both dominated the box office while Treasure Planet... didn't.

And the thing is that Disney knew. They were well aware that there wasn't much buzz about the movie and that it's sales projections didn't look good, and despite all the money they'd invested on it... they didn't move the release to a date that would help it perform better.

Also, while Treasure Planet's box-office numbers might have been lackluster, the movie received excelled critics and even received an Oscar nomitation for Best Animated Picture.

But why they would set up to fail their own movie?

Well, because then they could avoid doing a sequel. Remember Jeff, the guy that approved Clements and Musker's passion project? He hadn't been with Disney since 1994, and there'd been two other chairmen after him. Any loyalty and passion left for this movie remained with the people working on it, not with the top executive's whose job was to make money, not art.

And here's the tragic kicker: films like A Bug's Life or Monster's Inc, aka 3d movies were doing amazing in the box-office, so Disney wanted to switch directions. By setting the very expensive movie to fail, they avoid doing the promised (and likely just as expensive) sequel that was already in pre-production. Making sure Treasure Planet failed planted the first nail in the coffin where a couple years later they would bury their 2d animation studio. A couple more 2d animated movies later that didn't really do that great either they closed shop for good and switched completely to the 3d animated features we get nowadays.

(Also while the storyboard for the sequel is somewhere in a Disney vault gathering dust, there's some stuff on the internet with rough designs for the sequel and info about the plot and it looked SO GOOD AND THEY CANCELLED AND IT'S BEEN OVER 20 YEARS AND I'M STILL MAD ABOUT IT)

End of story time

(And, if you liked this ramble or wish to learn more about this topic, here's the video where I learned most of this and that also goes into more details about stuff like what deep canvas is and the changes they did to successfully adapt the story)

[littleeyesofpallas]

Now here are some real gems. The World Master Piece Theater titles i've been picking out of the pile might be classics but they were all fairly safe and stable works both artistically, financially, and culturally. But MushiPro's ANIMERAMA film trilogy were boldly ambitious, bordering on avante garde, and delightfully irreverently bizarre. They didn't tend to do great at the box offices but coasted by on the power of Osamu Tezuka's reputation.

1001 Nights, the first of the three, actually performed fairly well and even earns itself a little historical footnote as one of the world's earliest feature length animated erotica. It's English dub even beat Ralph Bakshi's infamous Fritz the Cat to theaters by a couple of years, although it's impact on a US market was nearly nonexistant.

Belladonna of Sadness has had an odd resurgence in cult classic status as of the past few years for some odd reason. It sports a very brash 70s brand of feminism and sexual liberation in addition to its erotica and psychidelic themes. It draws from the 1862 "historical" text, La Sorcière. It was notable for being a record of the "history" of witchcraft in Europe, but one with a relatively sympathetic view of pagan rebelliousness against the catholic church. It's also drawing from those themes of rebellion as innate to witchcraft that the movie plays with themes of the French Revolution and 2nd wave feminism. It was a financial flop but has endured as a cult classic.

Less favorable to box office number and critics alike was Cleopatra. Other than some bad advertising/marketing it had a weird mix of styles, including bits of rotoscoped animation, and walked an odd line in being raunchy but not actually pornographic, which resulted in aforementioned muddled advertising efforts. It's also just kind of a jumble of a plot about time travelers going back in time to stop aliens from masquerading as Cleopatra and seducing the great leaders of the ancient world and rewriting the history of humanity.

[thebrikbox]

MCU’s FANTASTIC FOUR

The dynamic duo, Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, created a super hero family with powers to protect the world from dastardly evil beings with plots to rule the earth. The mighty team is led by scientist Reed Richards - Mr. Fantastic, Susan Storm (Mrs. Richards) - The Invisible Woman, Johnny Storm - The Human Torch is Susan’s brother, and Ben Grimm - The Thing is Reed’s best friend.

The team went a test flight expedition aboard a space ship when they were hit by a cosmic storm containing a massive amount of gamma radiation. Though they weren’t injured, they soon discovered that the exposure to the radiation altered their DNA, each having a different life-changing effect. They each learned their abilities and became superheroes.

Reed’s body became elastic and rubbery, stretching to unbelievable lengths. Susan can make herself invisible along with the ability to create force fields. Johnny’s body ignites into flames as hot as the sun and he can fly. Ben’s anatomy transformed into stone with unmatchable physical strength. Together, the combined abilities of the team makes them one to be reckoned with, but challenging for their foes to want to conquer.

From Pages to Screen

THE FANTASTIC FOUR first came to life in 1963 with ten episodes.

Cartoon series entertained fans of all ages in 1967, 1978, and in 1994 - all fun and enjoyable to watch.

In 1994, a TV movie was made but not released. The budget was low and it was during screening that producers refused to air it because of the low quality special effects and acting.

In 2005, 20th Century Fox released the first of two the FANTASTIC FOUR films starring Ioan Gruffudd as Reed Richards, Jessica Alba as Susan Storm, Chris Evans as Johnny Storm, Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm, and Julian McMahon as Victor Von Doom. The movie’s budget started at $87.5 million and when production wrapped, it cost the studio $100 million to make. FOUR fans rushed to theaters to see their beloved heroes earning the studio $333.5 million dollars.

In 2007, the cast reprised their roles in FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER. Budget for this production was $120-$130 million and had box office earnings of $301.9 million.

Both films were directed by Tim Story. Mark Frost, Michael France, and Stan Lee wrote the screenplay in 2005 and the 2007 film was written by Don Payne and Mark Frost. Critics weren’t fond of either movies, but they fared well in earnings and fans. Of course, Stan Lee had adored cameos that had us tickled pink with delight. If you’ve seen the movie, I’m sure you may have been critical about the CGI, but keep in mind that that particular technology was blooming and it was decent and watchable for its time.

Both films had critics that felt the movie had a lack-luster feel and felt generic when compared to SPIDER-MAN. (I don’t believe these critics read any of the comic book series). Despite their opinions, comic fans enjoyed the movies for what they were: cartoon heroes that came to life and non-comic book fans enjoyed the movies for pure entertainment.

Marketing FANTASTIC FOUR products like toys, clothes, and even comic books soared, earning both the studio and Marvel Comics significant profit.

Movie grade: 0.0 to 4.0

2005 scores 3.6

2007 scores 3.8

In 2015, 20th Century Fox released another FANTASTIC FOUR (FANT4STIC) movie that is based on the original comic book series by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, but the movie went in a different direction that became a blockbuster flop.

The film starred Miles Teller as Reed Richards, Kate Mara as Susan Storm, Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm, Jaime Bell as Ben Grimm, Toby Kebell as Victor Von Doom, and Reg E. Cathey as Dr. Franklin Storm. The doomed flick was directed by Josh Trank and written by Jeremy Slater, Simon Kinberg, and Josh Trank.

In this version, the team consists of super intelligent teenagers ousted by peers. They teleport to an alternate universe and during the transport, something goes horribly wrong and the four are physically altered with their newfound special abilities. They are forced to combine their powers to defend the earth from a friend turned enemy determined to rule the planet.

Reviews were less than favorable and critics weren’t at loss for words with a few walking out of theaters unable to finish watching it, and I was one of them. I did eventually finish the movie on Disney+, and it was grueling. It cost the studio $120 million to make and the studio earned only $167.9 million overall compared to the previous releases with only $56.1 million in the states. Expectations and hype were crushed and for millions of FOUR fans, this film is too unbearable to view.

Movie grade: 0.0 to 4.0

Movie scores a -0.0

Marvel Studios announced its production of a new FANTASTIC FOUR movie for release in 2025. The new cast has fans reeling with excitement. The new faces of the beloved heroes are Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm. Marvel hired Matt Shakman (WandaVision) to direct with Josh Friedman, Jeff Kaplan, and Ian Springer set to write the screenplay.

As a seriously devoted fan of Marvel Comics and movies, I look forward to seeing the 2025 release.

*photos: Hanna-Barbera, Marvel Comic, MCU, Warped Factor, Getty Images, Variety

[joker-daughter]

no i absolutely agree with you and how isn’t going to be positive outlook on what he do, it’s absolutely valid but what i don’t get is how the media paints it as if he’s the most flop guy in the industry and they keep comparing him to other actors, my point was he was two steps ahead of his peers with his box office success but no one talks about it, an actor who changes the genre that he played for almost 6 years will definitely have some struggles with it

yeah but the thing is, even the projects that bombed with critics were still successes lol tdatt did well even with close to no promotion, cherry also did well from what we know, same with tcr, and yeah it sucks that uncharted’s success is being ignored and with that the tickets frenzy with r&j as well even though both pulls were remarkable…it is what it is, but yeah let’s hope he still comes out at the top and doesn’t get so many obstacles put in his way anymore lol

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Gina Florio

Published: Dec 20, 2023

The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Lion King, Mulan, and many more told the kind of magical stories that stayed in our hearts, along with catchy music that could get stuck in our heads for days. This period is often referred to as the “Renaissance Era,” and many suspect that these movies are loved by women everywhere because Disney successfully captured the brilliance and timelessness of femininity. Jasmine was seductive and required her man to work for her, Ariel taught us about sacrifice and trust, and Mulan was both brave and family-oriented. All of the princesses had their own personalities and opinions, but they each made room for a prince to come in and sweep them off their feet. None was too proud to reject a man. 

These traditional Disney films were never political, and the themes were always centered on universal, relatable stories that brought people together rather than driving them apart. However, Disney has certainly lost its way over the last couple of decades. They’ve lost their touch at producing hit movies that resonate with both young children and adults. 

Disney Movies Have Taken a Turn for the Worse

Turning Red, the Disney Pixar film of 2022 that was acclaimed for its heartwarming narrative and representation, did not achieve high commercial success compared to other Pixar films. With a global box office gross of only $20 million against a production budget of $175 million, it ranks among the biggest box office bombs of 2022. The supposed reason for its underperformance is attributed to its simultaneous release on Disney+. This strategy allowed audiences to view the film at home, significantly affecting its worldwide box office earnings. However, it left people wondering if it just wasn’t good enough to draw in audiences; there were many parents who expressed their disappointment with the type of inappropriate content that was being delivered to teenagers for the sake of sending a particular message to the world. 

The Disney animated movie Strange World also faced a significant box office shortfall, with an estimated loss of $147 million in 2022. A notably woke aspect of the film is the introduction of Disney's first openly LGBTQ+ teenage character, who discusses his same-sex crush. The film's underperformance is attributed to various factors, including its inclusion of sexuality discussions, which deterred many parents from allowing their children to watch it. Some critics suggest that modern parents, more informed through social media, may choose to avoid content with inappropriate sexual themes for their children.

Similar issues in the past were observed with Pixar's Lightyear, which included a gay kiss and initially underperformed at the box office. Chris Evans, a voice actor in Lightyear, criticized those opposed to the movie's “inclusive” content. However, what he considered inclusive was just seen as annoyingly woke to the general public. Parents have generally never been on board with showing their children progressive content, regardless of the political message companies like Disney are desperately trying to send. 

Elemental, a Pixar movie, actually defied initial poor box office performance to become a significant hit. Released in June, it had the worst opening in Pixar's history with $29.6 million in domestic ticket sales. However, the film, which cost $200 million to produce, gradually gained momentum, earning nearly $500 million globally. It currently ranks as the ninth top-grossing film of the year, surpassing Marvel's latest Ant-Man sequel. But this was an anomaly compared to the rest of the Disney flops in the last two years. 

Now, Disney is again experiencing a box office bomb with its Thanksgiving release, Wish, the newest princess film that seeks to copy Encanto’s success. But, due to its poor storytelling, boring songs, and progressive message, it has also flopped. 

Disney Says It “Lost Some Focus”

Disney has disclosed that it invested a staggering $965 million in four high-profile projects in 2023, which unfortunately turned out to be significant flops: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, The Little Mermaid, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, and Secret Invasion. This revelation comes amid a cost-cutting initiative led by CEO Bob Iger, who returned to lead the company in November 2022. Iger emphasized the need to reduce production costs, acknowledging the exorbitant expenses involved in creating content.

In early November, Bob Iger said, “At the time the pandemic hit, we were leaning into a huge increase in how much we were making and I’ve always felt that quantity can be actually a negative when it comes to quality. And I think that’s exactly what happened. We lost some focus.”

Typically, the budgets of movies and streaming shows are kept confidential, as studios usually lump these costs into their overall expenses without detailing individual project expenditures. However, Disney's production activities in the UK provide a clearer picture of their spending, due to the unique financial reporting requirements in that country. Studios operating in the UK must set up separate companies for each production to avail a tax rebate of up to 25% on their expenditures. These companies are required to file financial statements, which reveal detailed spending data.

Disney has been leveraging the UK's incentive scheme by filming more content there. This strategy, however, has led to significant investments in some of its most expensive and least successful productions of the year. A notable example is the Marvel Studios superhero film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Despite spending a hefty $193.2 million on pre-production and filming, the movie opened to mediocre reviews. This situation illustrated the challenges Disney faces in managing production costs while striving to create compelling content that resonates with audiences and succeeds financially.

Disney Acknowledges That Going Woke Hasn’t Worked Out So Well for Them

Disney is finally acknowledging the significant impact of wokeness and culture wars on its operations. This admission was made in its annual financial report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the fiscal year ending September 30. The report highlights various aspects of Disney's performance and future risks. Disney employs about 225,000 workers worldwide and emphasizes its commitment to creating a more inclusive and diverse workplace. This commitment aligns with its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) objectives, which focus on reflecting the life experiences of its audience and supporting diverse voices in creative and production teams.

Financially, Disney reported revenues of $88.9 billion for fiscal 2023, marking a 7% increase from 2022. Despite this growth, the company has reduced spending on film and TV content, cutting it from $29.8 billion to $27.2 billion. Iger plans to further reduce content spending to $25 billion next year. Alongside these cuts, Disney has also implemented staff reductions and other expense cuts, achieving about $7.5 billion in cost savings.

Disney's involvement in culture wars and public debates has had widespread effects. The company acknowledges risks related to “misalignments” with public and consumer preferences, which affect demand and profitability across various segments, including broadcast, cable, theaters, internet, mobile technology, theme parks, hotels, resorts, and consumer products. This misalignment has led to challenges in adapting to market changes and economic or social climates.

"Further, consumers’ perceptions of our position on matters of public interest, including our efforts to achieve certain of our environmental and social goals, often differ widely and present risks to our reputation and brands," Disney admitted, acknowledging that consumer preferences impact revenue.

Disney's leisure business is influenced by multiple factors, including health concerns and the political environment. The company's intervention in the debate over Florida's Parental Rights in Education bill in March had significant repercussions. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis responded by revoking Disney’s special district status in the state, highlighting the cost of Disney's political engagement.

Closing Thoughts

Whether Disney is going to correct its course is yet to be seen. Even with its flops, the brand remains the most recognizable name in the entertainment industry, and it has committed itself so deeply to the woke liberal cause that it’s difficult to imagine they would ever come back from that. In the meantime, their movies will continue to flop if they don’t find a way to return to the Renaissance Era (or something remotely close to that) and offer audiences heartwarming, relatable stories rather than subtle (and not-so-subtle) tales of progressive politics. 

==

I've seen statistics suggesting that Disney has lost a good $1b at the box office in 2023, not counting the major losses in streaming, both in terms of the cost vs return of the content (the excrable She-Hulk was reportedly $25m per episode, almost double the $15m budget of Godzilla Minus One, for a 9-episode dumpster fire), and the inability of the platform as a whole to turn a profit.

[joeeatsdvds]

Elemental

hey look it’s me posting a non-christmas film review that’s kinda crazy! anyways i saw this film today because i’ve been meaning to and now’s the perfect time with it leaving cinemas in a matter of days.

there’ll be spoilers under the cut for Elemental in this review!

for anybody who doesn’t know of Pixar’s ‘Elemental’ is the 27th feature film to be produced by the studio and being directed by Peter Sohn (also known for directing ‘The Good Dinosaur’, another Pixar film and a Pixar short ‘Partly Cloudy’).

‘Elemental’ when it was first teased to audiences received some criticism for how it looked, i would know because i was one of those people. though unlike the other people who were complaining i was simply sick of watching the trailer after months of it being shoved down my throat at every trailer showing at the cinema, on instagram sponsored posts, youtube ads and even a few ads on some mobile games. after the film came out though this seized mostly so my opinion once again became neutral of the elements and their element city.

originally lined up to be released in the uk at the same time as the us release the film was delayed until july 7th. upon its release the film was a flop and not doing very well at all earning it the title of Pixar’s lowest grossing movie in the box office on opening weekend. however ‘Elemental’ made a come back in the coming weeks making a splash in the overseas market when it released outside of the us. there was a lot of negative press surrounding the film when it came out however stating it was “the death of pixar” and being called “woke” for the inclusion of the studio’s first non-binary character who barely actually features on screen. reviews were harsh to say the least. things seem to have softened now though and so time for my opinions on the matter at hand, the film.

i do have my complaints about my experience but those aren’t actually anything to do with the film more about having to sit next to some random child for the whole movie + opening short.

before i go into the actual film i want to quickly talk about that teaser, the first glimpse at the world of element city, and where we meet our main two characters Wade and Ember. well scrap everything you know about that because that doesn’t actually happen in the film. both Wade and Ember do in fact go on a train and some of the stuff that happens in the teaser do happen in the film but that meet cute between Wade and Ember that you see where Ember’s headphones are knocked to the ground and both her and Wade go to pick them up at the same time? doesn’t happen lol. i get that they didn’t include this in the film because it wouldn’t make sense within the context of the film and the teaser was just to give you the faintest glimpse at the world and characters. Ember is very hesitant to even follow Wade onto the train in the actual film and when she’s on the train trying to find where he went she’s very cautious of those around her and one could say she’s even scared (as stated in the film by Ember herself she doesn’t like going outside of fire town because element city isn’t built with fire people in mind and she has everything she needs in fire town). also another complaint is that i don’t remember them introducing themselves to each other properly in the film but that might just be my brain forgetting that little unimportant detail.

something i question about the theatrical poster that was used (in the uk at least) is the inclusion of random irrelevant characters. sure you have Ember, Wade, Clod and Gale up at the top but why are Marco and Polo there? Lutz too. and the rest of the characters featured are all seen in the previously mentioned teaser and really aren’t that relevant at all in the final final.

the animation in this film was wild! everything is so polished and the rendering is just beautiful. i loved the little details of each of the elemental people. my favourites were the water people for sure and i especially loved the water bubbles present throughout their bodies that come and go throughout the film. the setting for the film worked really well with it all feeling colourful and lively with the colours of elemental city and fire town contrasting each other but eventually at the end of the film after fire town is rebuilt and the other elements begin to mix in with the residents of fire town more you can see more colours as they begin to harmonise together. my favourite scene has to be the scene of all of the flowers blooming as Wade and Ember swim around the tree it was truly spectacular!

the film’s story at its core is about the experience of being a child born to immigrant parents and the challenge of trying to fill the shoes of your parents who worked so hard to give you a good life and sacrificed everything to do so. i won’t go too in depth on this because i’m not the one to talk about this because i haven’t experienced any of that, i can’t begin to imagine what those emotions must feel like but i can sympathise with them and understand as an outsider. the film also features xenophobia between the different elemental people with most of it being prejudice against fire people, “elements can’t mix” is something that’s repeated several times throughout the film but it’s not until Wade and Ember touch each other’s hands for the first time is it found that elements can indeed mix. these core parts of the film’s story come from Sohn’s own personal experiences being born to Korean immigrant parents, growing up in new york during the 70s and marrying outside of the korean culture he was brought up in.

i appreciate that Ember was able to come to the realisation that running her dad’s shop wasn’t what she wanted to do with her life and that it wasn’t her dream. and i also appreciate that her father was accepting of that and that the shop was never the dream it was Ember herself who was the dream, she was everything that they had worked for. i’m glad that in the end both Ember and her father got happy endings as Ember gets to follow her passion of glass making and her father gets to retire from working the shop everyday.

as for Ember and Wade’s relationship (a major part of the film) they’re cute together. they genuinely want to be around each other and despite their elemental differences and being total opposites they make it work because they make each other happy. they go against the long standing “elements don’t mix” that they were taught and they show everybody that they can. i didn’t really feel too strongly for the pair of them initially (though to be fair it did start with Wade writing every code violation the store came under and Ember desperately trying to get the notebook back from him before he could ruin the family business) but they grew on me. i didn’t enjoy the kiss scene but that’s just a personal thing that i don’t like seeing in movies there’s nothing inherently bad about it. it was funny seeing all the kids in the cinema’s reactions to it though.

there were some iffy jokes in there that i didn’t think we’re very funny and more felt simply weird. of course obligatory mention of the “just a bit of pruning” joke but also the “hanky panky” joke at the end when Ember and her dad are saying goodbye. that last one just confused me like are they allowed to say that in a kids a film?

my favourite character in this movie is no doubt this one water person from the first teaser who as far as i’m aware isn’t present in the final film (or at least i couldn’t spot them that is)

rest in peace to this one water person in particular.

before i wrap this review up i just want to say that prior to seeing the film in my graphic communications class me and my friend were redesigning film posters and originally my friend made a poster entirely consisting of Gale and only Gale. it was a very low quality collection of Gale images as the film was just out in america. very funny considering that they just kept on using the same model for her in all of the promotional art that features her including the theatrical poster featured at the start of this post. gotta love that big smile and vacant stare, it truly looks like there isn’t a thought behind those eyes.

jokes of Gale aside i think that ‘Elemental’ is a good little film that (except for the weird jokes) did a good job of portraying the message it wanted to portray. the way that the world building was set up makes it feel like Disney/Pixar is going to milk a few more films or shorts or series out of it but personally i think that this film is good enough on its own. i really don’t think it needs a sequel but disney will be disney and no doubt there’ll be something else on the horizon if they deem it a big enough success.

overall i’d rate this film a ★★★ and a half stars out of five!

[denimbex1986]

'Since winning the Best Actor Oscar in 2019, Rami Malek’s career has taken a turn for the… less Oscar-winning. Perhaps it’s because he received that honor for the much-maligned Bohemian Rhapsody, a film whose accolades astounded and annoyed critics aplenty. But subsequent roles in films like Bond entry No Time to Die and last year’s box-office flop Amsterdam were either similarly criticized or, in the case of the latter, far from substantial to start with.

When he silently popped up an hour or so into Oppenheimer, then, it seemed like the latest meager appearance from a once-buzzy actor. (By 2019, he’d already won an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and an Oscar.) That Malek ends up starring in one of the film’s most searing, powerful moments came as a gigantic surprise. And it was a welcome one—J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) had his own unqualified win, all thanks to Malek’s Dr. Hill.

As Hill, Malek plays one of the scientists working on the Manhattan project, albeit not with Oppenheimer directly. Instead, he works with Dr. Enrico Fermi (Danny Deferrari) at a lab in Chicago. While Fermi’s team create the nuclear reactor, both Fermi and Hill remain steadfast about the atomic bomb not being used directly on cities.

Despite holding this belief, Malek’s Dr. Hill is a man of almost no words. Instead, he mostly appears alongside Fermi, trying to offer Oppenheimer a petition to look at: the Szilárd petition, which 70 scientists signed and sent to President Truman in protest of bombing the Japanese. The two times that this occurs, however, Oppenheimer knocks Hill’s hand away in frustration. It’s a humbling role for Malek, as he is seen primarily as a minor annoyance in his scant appearances.

For much of the runtime, Malek’s Oppenheimer performance was so small as to almost appear like the result of a Faustian bargain. Yes, he could be in one of the guaranteed biggest movies of the year, but only if he agreed to keep his mouth shut the entire time. By the second time he showed up and said nothing, I openly laughed. Unpopular Best Actor winners stay losing, I guess.

Except that in Oppenheimer, this oft-mocked Best Actor honoree reminds us how he managed to collect all those awards in the first place. Malek holds his tongue for much of the film, only to let it rip as the film reaches its denouement—set years after he was but a petition-holding no-name in Oppenheimer’s periphery.

Oppenheimer’s structure includes two parallel timelines: one following the journey of the physicist’s horrible creation, the other following the events surrounding Lewis Strauss’s (Robert Downey, Jr.) congressional confirmation hearing. He was up for a Cabinet position in Eisenhower’s White House, a long-held dream of his that he’s been masterminding for years. The film builds up to revealing why Strauss is such a meaningful figure in Oppenheimer’s life: Strauss conspired to have Oppenheimer named as a communist, based on his petty dislike for the man. Being that this was the mid-’50s, such a claim was among the worst possible accusations a government employee could face.

The film establishes this as a thrilling courtroom drama, in which we root for the beleaguered “father of the atom bomb”—something that, at that point, is otherwise hard to do. We know that much of what he’s being accused of is neither relevant to his scientific achievements nor accurate; the assertion that Oppenheimer opposed the hydrogen bomb so as to set the Soviets up for a win against the States was a clear falsity.

Strauss himself admits to his aide, played by Alden Ehrenreich, that his great dislike for Oppenheimer encouraged him to help get the scientist’s government clearance revoked and effectively end his career. But he’s a charmer, and public opinion has long soured on Oppenheimer; Strauss’ confirmation for the Cabinet seems all but assured—until Dr. Hill is brought in to testify at the hearing.

Hill shows up to quietly, confidently, clearly call out Strauss for his wrongdoing. As the then-chairman of the Federation of American Scientists, his word held clout—so when he said that Strauss’ unfair damnation of Oppenheimer stoked the ire of the entire scientific community, it meant something. Malek’s typically measured cadence lends his performance a rousing gravitas, especially from a character who had up to this point been a distracting piece of wallpaper. Sitting before Congress, Malek’s Hill offers a searing indictment of Strauss, the character we have come to learn is Oppenheimer’s villain, all in a scant two minutes.

To tout Malek as a surprise witness at Oppenheimer’s turning point feels like the film showing all of its cards in the eleventh hour. It’s made more effective by the fact that his presence was felt before, albeit for the opposite reason. As Hill, he was largely a nonentity in Oppenheimer’s crew. In his one big scene, in which he forcefully shames Strauss for manipulating Hill’s fellow scientists into affirming Oppenheimer’s alleged communism, his presence is impossible to ignore; if he had more lines as an even smaller part of the large ensemble, perhaps his damning piece of testimony would have felt like less of a secret weapon.

This heel turn was especially striking, considering that Hill’s opinion of Oppenheimer seemed less positive beforehand. The physicist had repeatedly rejected Hill, who openly opposed the government’s use of Oppenheimer’s greatest invention.

Thanks to Hill, the film tells us, Strauss doesn’t get the Cabinet position he so badly wants—a win as much as any in a movie like Oppenheimer. And it’s the first career win Malek’s had in a while too: a moment in the spotlight that elicits gasps, applause, and a deserved heaping of praise.'

[funkymbtifiction]

Where does putting importance to numbers and rankings or not come from? I was having a discussion with my friends yesterday and realized how utterly different we are in this respect: most of them asses movies and albums just by how much they liked them or not, calling the Avengers movies flop for example. I told them they are in fact huge phenomenons because, well, they are. I couldn't get through any of them so to me they're not good either, but numbers don't lie, they are a huge success (not to mention their culture impact, people of all ages and cultures love them). I thought it was fascinating that we both agreed on whether the thing was good or bad, but to me that's purely personal, to others it's like an objective assessment, so I got curious hw typology could explain it.

Hmm. To be honest, this could be either Fe or Te-related.

Coming at it from a Te perspective, your friends were wrong, because you could use facts to prove them wrong. Saying something is a "flop" when it has made a billion dollars worldwide is inaccurate; the facts (that people ponied up to see it multiple times, which is the only way movies make bank) contradict their emotionally-driven conclusion ("I hated it, so it's a flop in my mind"). It may suck in their head, but it didn't suck at the box office. It could be that they did not mean "flop" as in unsuccessful financially, but that they meant flop in context to themselves (I didn't like it, so it flopped with ME).

Jung described Fe as evaluating a piece of art based not on what the Fe user thought about it, but the collective weight others put on it -- he simplified it to, "People say this is a good, so it must be good." IE, the worth comes from whether or not others see its worth and agree upon its worth. Which is to say that Fe collects external data about what others think and feel about something to substantiate and support their own view of it -- "we" agree that this is high art, because everyone agrees on it. Everyone likes it, ergo it's pleasing to many and therefore good or important or serves its purpose.

Whereas Fi goes, "I loved it, so it's good." The assessment is not that it is objectively good, but that the Fi likes it. Or, "I hated it, therefore it has no value to me," in defiance of what worth others found in it.

You could take this a step further and bring critics into it -- what do you look for in a critic? For some, the best critic is someone who can evaluate from a logical point of view whether or not a movie works. For others, a good critic is someone who evaluates a movie based on more than its entertainment value. Critics tend to be Ti and Fe a lot of the time -- evaluating the flaws in a movie's structure in order to determine whether the movie can please its audience without being dumbed down or full of plot holes.

Movies can be successful without being any good.

(If you want a master class in ripping movies apart with logic, check out the Critical Drinker on YouTube. He gives unvarnished, unapologetic take-downs of bad plots, bloated franchises, over-blown super-heroes, and talks about how modern movies are slowly sinking into an abyss of abysmal writing. And he's just fun to listen to, although he does swear , so it's not "little kid safe." IMO, he's STP. My personal favorite recent quote was how critics will use "this is a giant metaphor" to excuse convoluted "sh*t writing." LOL)

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

ELEMENTAL Box Office Nonesuch

So... ELEMENTAL looks to make $28-33m over the weekend... The autopsies are already being done, the expensive Pixar original is already deemed a flop... Here's what I say...

Box office is absurd: I mean really, box office runs seem more and more absurd by the year in the post-COVID outbreak era... Having to make so much money, in a very competitive field and in a time where audiences can't see too many movies a year, in around 3-4 months? Like c'mon, it's literally the infancy of a movie's existence. It's not the '00s, or even the '10s anymore.

Longevity: Especially since animated movies from both Pixar and Disney Animation traditionally have had long, ever-fruitful second lives. Whether it was thru theatrical re-releases (1940s-1980s), home video (1980s-onward), or streaming... ELEMENTAL will likely be no different by the end of the year, probably will rack up a million streams on Disney+. This has a very good "A" CinemaScore grade, so it could have very good legs over the summer, even if it doesn't top that ridiculous budget.

$200m budget... Making around $500m at the worldwide box office is a lot of pressure to put on an original animated family movie, let alone most movies, especially in this day and age.

"Well, if they had made a good movie-" OK, now do every blockbuster smash hit that got mixed to negative critical reception. Heck, do this year's SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE. Critical reception/one's own opinion doesn't mean shit. If it did, CARS 2 - the go-to for "worst Pixar movie" - would've flopped hard back in 2011, regardless of any goodwill brought over from the first movie.

That William Goldman quote/marketing/blah blah: "Nobody knows anything... Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what's going to work. Every time out it's a guess and, if you're lucky, an educated one." Whatever was in that marketing... And there WAS marketing... LOTS of it... Just didn't motivate audiences to shell out lots of money for tickets and concessions to see this film in a theater where it's possibly disgusting, noisy, or... Both!

Pixar is not in a slump: This is also all subjective. And if I was a filmmaker, and I had a slump of movies that ranged from roughly 70-85% Rotten Tomatoes scores - not that RT aggregate scores mean anything anyways... That'd be quite alright! Anyways, the movies they're currently making just aren't to your liking. That's all it is... and they don't have to release a specific kind of movie. This, ideally, should be a studio where a director makes THEIR film. Not a collective. Like it used to be at one point... Speaking of which-

John Lasseter: I've seen so many people, from inside animation fan circles... to even pundits writing for major movie publications... Suggesting that Lasseter's ouster left a real hole in Pixar, and Disney Animation as well. Never mind implying that a misogynist pervert should be brought back to the studio, but this also suggests that every Pixar success is because of him... And him only. Like, all the filmmakers are just untalented hacks without him? Like he's the guy who waves a magic wand and suddenly, everyone on board made a good movie? Do you want animated movies made by FILMMAKERS? Or films determined by a small COMMITTEE? I'm also old enough to remember when Lasseter was THE problem with Pixar, that he was a dictator making every director bow to his every demand. (Which was true.)

I'm sorry, but I'm just exhausted from how people are talking about ELEMENTAL... Which I haven't even seen yet, but it feels like people are trying to write such nuanced industry-related things and outside factors off and use their personal opinions/biases to explain away these box office mishaps, wrapping it up in neat simplistic bows...

I'm just concerned about what will happen with the studio from here on out, especially after 75 people - including veterans like Galyn Susman, Angus MacLane, and Steve Purcell - were laid off.

"Make better movies, then!" Okay, how subjective, it's not like the studio's people are all sitting there not putting in effort and calling it a day. Okay? These movies take years and years to plan out, make, remake, and finish. Like Goldman said, it's all a guess each time out. A gamble. When these people are making these movies, they're making decisions that they think are the right decisions at the right time. ELEMENTAL, by all accounts, went into development around 2016-ish. Around the time director Peter Sohn had finished THE GOOD DINOSAUR... How would the crew, and the studio as a whole, had known what the world would like in 2023? What audiences' ever-changing tastes would be? What the zeitgeist would be?

And again... "Make better movies"? MARIO might've pulled in $1.3b worldwide and became one of the highest-grossing animated movies of all-time, but the critical reception for it wasn't great. Mostly mixed to negative, not as good as this movie. Or TURNING RED, LUCA, SOUL, ONWARD, even LIGHTYEAR! And even all the recent WDAS movies, including big box office flop STRANGE WORLD.

Again, it's as simple - and boring - as "They made a movie... People didn't show up."

So... What do I think happens next?

Pixar hasn't had a genuine financial success in theaters since TOY STORY 4 all the way back in 2019. ONWARD got cut off by the pandemic, SOUL, LUCA, and TURNING RED all went straight to Disney+ in most parts of the world. LIGHTYEAR lost money, this might, too... How much did ELIO cost? Why should that film be expected to make the amount of money usually reserved for a massive superhero movie? INSIDE OUT 2 is all but a lock for a huge gross... A sequel, no less.

I would hate to see Pete Docter get removed as CCO (and who the hell would they replace him with anyways? The rest of the "Brain Trust" is either no longer working there or off doing other things), but I fear that could be a very real possibility. I know most of the internet declares Docter's Pixar to be some kind of failure, but I for one like his Pixar. Even if I didn't like the films coming out now, the place is a lot more director-driven than before, and more experimental. John Lasseter would've probably fired Enrico Casarosa, Domee Shi, and Angus MacLane off of all of their films... Or would've blockaded them every step of the way whenever they tried to make something in their respective films interesting. So yeah, I don't feel Docter is the problem here... it's really all down to how Disney handled the release of many of the recent Pixar films, how much the studio spends on their films, and the marketing just not enticing audiences to go see the films.

That's beyond Docter's control, and he even partially touched upon this in a recent interview... And for what it's worth, again... Audiences... The ones who actually saw the movie already... seem to be liking ELEMENTAL. "A" CinemaScore is pretty good. SPIDER-VERSE Deux and MARIO had an "A" CinemaScore as well. If this movie has excellent legs, it'll show that people - not internet-dwelling weirdos who seem to be the authority on all things animation - actually DID like the film... It just cost too much to make. Like a modern-day CLEOPATRA or SLEEPING BEAUTY. A movie that quite a few audiences went to, but it wasn't enough to cover the gargantuan costs to make it...

Like, if ELEMENTAL cost around BAD GUYS/PUSS IN BOOTS 2/DC SUPER-PETS/SPIDER-VERSE numbers... You know, around $80-90m in budget and NOT $200m+... this thing wouldn't be written off as a flop.

I'd imagine more sequels will happen, which was always a given, but maybe more so than ever before. INSIDE OUT 2 and TOY STORY 5, they weren't going to stop there, that was a given... Docter did say in that same interview that the originals in Pixar's library are fair game for sequels. And no smart exec walks away from movies that make $1b at the box office... Unless they're something like, say, TITANIC.

Maybe there will be stricter mandates put on Pixar films to "make them more appealing to audiences"... That's very possible, as it sometimes happens at these studios. Micromanaging, ya know? Trying to create that next big hit the mechanical way, by overthinking it... Instead of just making something and seeing how it all goes. How it does at the box office is often beyond a filmmakers' control anyways... Again, what the world will look like 4 years after you've started your endeavor...

Or maybe nothing happens, Pixar has special privileges, and keeps making what they make...

To me, the smartest thing would be to either... Step back and realize how silly box office has become, that it's absurd to expect a smash hit out of something in a crowded marketplace in just 2-4 months, hinging an entire studio's future on that... Or lower the budgets of these movies...

Anyways, sorry to rant, but it's all just absurd to me... Yes, the movie may indeed lose money, but it's not clear-cut.

[jacquelinemerritt]

The Disney Renaissance (1977-1992)

Originally posted August 29th, 2014

This is the first entry in a series of posts discussing the strengths, weaknesses, successes, and failings of the Disney Renaissance. You’re likely intimately familiar with this period of Disney’s history; the Renaissance contains some of their most iconic and best work. The lens of nostalgia tends to color most discussions on this period of Disney history though; people tend to only remember the high points of the Renaissance, such as The Lion King and Aladdin, while choosing to leave out the lesser film of the era, like Pocahontas and Tarzan. In order to properly discuss the Renaissance, we’re going to need to follow it from the beginning to its end, and see how it was able to bring Disney back to the forefront of animation for the majority of the 1990s.

Before the Renaissance - 1977-1989

The 1980s were not kind to Disney. The most successful film Disney released after the death of their founder were The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh. No box office information is available on Winnie-the-Pooh, but it was highly critically acclaimed, and sold very well on home video as well as in theaters. The only film they released in that time that made over $50 million was Oliver &Company, which was crushed in the box office by Universal’s The Land Before Time, which was directed by a former Disney animator. It was in this time that Ron Clements, co-director of the critical success but commercial failure, The Great Mouse Detective, became interested in reviving a project Disney had had in the works since the 1930s: an adaptation of a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale known as The Little Mermaid.

The Little Mermaid and The Disney Renaissance - 1989

Kay Nielsen, who had worked on the original Fantasia, had proposed an anthology film that would adapt multiple of Andersen’s fairy tales, one of which was The Little Mermaid. Nielsen had even worked out some of the concept art, which is quite beautiful.

This art was used as inspiration for the look of the film, but the design for Ariel was changed into the Ariel we all know. What’s interesting about this is that the story for Ron Clements’ adaptation was made separately from Nielsen’s adaptation, and yet both of them ended up making similar changes. They both removed the role of Ariel’s grandmother, and increased the role of Triton and the Sea Witch. This small detail showcases one of the biggest reason’s for the success of the Renaissance: in both eras, the creative teams at Disney had similar ideas about what would make a story both successful and relatable.

The Little Mermaid was released to massive critical and commercial success. Disney was relevant to the world once again, and now that they were back on top, they didn’t plan on falling back down.

Except, you know, the next film they released was a commercial flop.

The Rescuers Down Under and Disney Sequels (1990)

That’s a bit of an exaggeration. The Rescuers Down Under was profitable; it just didn’t do nearly as well as The Little Mermaid. It also generally isn’t remembered as part of the Renaissance either. It’s not a bad film, by any means, but this film is only part of the Disney Renaissance because it was released after The Little Mermaid. It’s tone and animation style fits right in with the rest of the pre-Renaissance Disney released, and for good reason: it’s a sequel to a pre-Renaissance film. In the end, The Rescuers Down Under wasn’t as successful as the other Renaissance films because it didn’t fit in with them at all. It wasn’t a musical, its story was on a small scale, and it was directed by an animator who worked on Disney’s biggest commercial flops before the Renaissance, Mike Gabriel.

Beauty and The Beast (1991)

Beauty and The Beast was directed by Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale who had both worked in the animation department on critically successful pre-Renaissance films before (The Brave Little Toaster and The Little Mermaid, respectively). It built on the success of The Little Mermaid’s romanticism and Broadway style and told a grand love story like nothing Disney had before. It also promotes Stockholm’s Syndrome as a valid model for relationships, and Belle is a Nice Idealist Plucky Daddy’s Girl. It was incredibly successful, both critically and commercially, and even though I personally hate the film, I do respect it for continuing the trends of The Little Mermaid.

Aladdin (1992)

It was only a year after Beauty and the Beast came out that Disney released what was then it’s most commercially successful film: Aladdin. Aladdin was also incredibly critically successful. It was the most ambitious Renaissance film to date, and it built on the style and showmanship of The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. It focused on a rags to riches underdog story instead of young romance as well, which meant that future films weren’t limited to the kind of stories told about Ariel and Belle. Now, don’t get me wrong, Aladdin is thematically romantic as hell, and the romance between Aladdin and Jasmine is played up to death, but the primary focus of the movie is on a young man who gets to be a chance to be larger than life, and his relationship with the omnipotent being that allowed him this opportunity. This film’s premise was larger than life, and the style of the Renaissance allowed it to live up to the expectations such a premise would set. Disney was on top of the world, and everyone was wondering how they could possibly top themselves.

The world was not prepared for what happened next.

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[destinyc1020]

You all are ridiculous. I get it that you all hate Timothee and it’s popular to do in the tomdaya community but don’t even try to downplay his success. Idk when and why timothee keeps being an add on to Tom and zendaya discussions. Years ago none of y’all cared for him and we wouldn’t be having this convos. Timothee mentioning zendaya twice is not why wonka is successful and thinking timothee team paid for this is all chronically online. We can say the same for Spider-Man homecoming when they milked zendaya for promo when she wasn’t even in the movie that much. B&A flopped and so did chaos walking. Comparison is inevitable in this business. Nobody likes it but it happens. They did this to Leo and so many actors, Whitney and Mariah, micheal Jackson and prince. I can go on and on. Nobody is exempt for that. They even try to compare Taylor russell to zendaya. Both Tom and timmy had sucessulful movies with ip and had movies that flopped so you guys need to stop bringing that up as a gag. Also somebody can say the same for No way home success since they added Tobey and Andrew.

Idk if you're lumping me in the category of ppl who "hate" Timmy, but in case you haven't noticed, I don't hate Timmy? The man has done nothing to me lol 😂

Maybe some Tomdaya fans don't like him due to the relentless Timdaya shipping, his fandom who seems to have an obsession with Tom and putting him down, or just due to his inattentive insensitive SNL skit.

But even despite all of this, I do not hate that man!

Anyway, you brought up some good points about comparisons. You're right! That seems to happen a lot in the media.

Even despite the media trying to compare Mariah to Whitney and stuff, weren't they sorta friends? 🤔

And you're right.... BOTH Tom and Timmy have had box office successes and some projects that didn't do well.

I haven't really seen Tom have a box office FLOP though, because the films that cone out to theaters usually do pretty well. It's the streaming projects that usually have not done well in the critics and people's opinion imo. 🤷🏾‍♀️