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That's why I think Aquaman is a coin flip.

On one side, everyone will remember the great adventuring time they had with the first one, forgetting all the DC nonsense that's come between then and now, and race to see the follow-up. Instant billion dollar film. DC cheers as the DCEU goes out with a bang.

On the other side, everyone does remember WW84, Josstice League, BvS, Black Adam, Blue Beetle and, worst of all, The Flash... and just avoids even going near it. DC cry as the DCEU goes out with a whimper.

 Overread wrote:
Not only aren't you going to the cinema, but a lot of people are no longer watching just 4 TV channels. They aren't even watching them beyond the news or a specific show; instead they are streaming. Streaming from services that don't want to advertise the next Disney film because either they are advertising their own stuff to keep you on their service and/or because you've paid to get ad-free.

So I figure that's having an impact too - films are having to advertise along with everything else and have potentially lost that captive market of direct advertising; meanwhile your direct advertising vector of your streaming service is more concerned with keeping streamer bums on seats and thus advertising itself.

I think this is definitely a thing. I can't even remember the last time I saw a movie trailer that I didn't specifically go looking for. And when I go back over movie release lists from the past few years looking for stuff to watch, I come across a lot of movies that I've either never heard of, or heard about when they were in development and then forgot about.

Studios need to find new and better ways to advertise.

 insaniak wrote:
Studios need to find new and better ways to advertise.

Unskippable Youtube/TikTok ads.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
Studios need to find new and better ways to advertise.

Unskippable Youtube/TikTok ads.

Ways that won't alienate people.

ccs wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
Studios need to find new and better ways to advertise.

Unskippable Youtube/TikTok ads.

Ways that won't alienate people.

Umm... skippable YouTube/TikTok ads!

 insaniak wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Not only aren't you going to the cinema, but a lot of people are no longer watching just 4 TV channels. They aren't even watching them beyond the news or a specific show; instead they are streaming. Streaming from services that don't want to advertise the next Disney film because either they are advertising their own stuff to keep you on their service and/or because you've paid to get ad-free.

So I figure that's having an impact too - films are having to advertise along with everything else and have potentially lost that captive market of direct advertising; meanwhile your direct advertising vector of your streaming service is more concerned with keeping streamer bums on seats and thus advertising itself.

I think this is definitely a thing. I can't even remember the last time I saw a movie trailer that I didn't specifically go looking for. And when I go back over movie release lists from the past few years looking for stuff to watch, I come across a lot of movies that I've either never heard of, or heard about when they were in development and then forgot about.

Studios need to find new and better ways to advertise.

Yeah every so often I get one of those 10-20 latest movies collections trailers on youtube and I watch it and realise that I've probably only heard of one or two of the biggest names in the list. Then I forget about it because I don't see another video like that for ages. For me I also started trying to avoid trailers because we've gone through a long phase of trailers trying to show almost every major twist and turn a film takes; in films that are often fairly light on plot to start with. Which kind of feels too spoilery for me and thus I don't want to spoil the experience. OF course this means I also miss out on the film even being released

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
That's why I think Aquaman is a coin flip.

On one side, everyone will remember the great adventuring time they had with the first one, forgetting all the DC nonsense that's come between then and now, and race to see the follow-up. Instant billion dollar film. DC cheers as the DCEU goes out with a bang.

On the other side, everyone does remember WW84, Josstice League, BvS, Black Adam, Blue Beetle and, worst of all, The Flash... and just avoids even going near it. DC cry as the DCEU goes out with a whimper.

Hey! Blue Beetle was actually pretty fun. At least for the price of the subscription and my kids enjoyed it

Disney CEO thinks The Marvels under performed because there weren't enough executives on set.

"Quality needs attention ... It doesn't happen by accident. Quantity, in our case, diluted quality," he said, per NBC News.

With The Marvels in particular, Iger said part of the reason it's falling short is because it was shot during the COVID-19 pandemic, and therefore "there wasn’t as much supervision on the set, so to speak, where we have executives [that are] really looking over what’s being done day after day after day.

I remember when I didn't know who that was and didn't have to see to his idiot opinions.

The covid bit is questionable. The IMPACT of Covid on their production methods is not. Things changed a lot and the quality drop did start from there. Though I wouldn't say it was covid that caused oversight on quality control to step away. It was Bob Chepeks insane production schedules.

Anything filmed during covid was done with minimal staff on set since they all needed to be vetted. I don't think that really impacted the quality of this movie though. A lot of Marvel films pre-COVID were about this good or worse. It may have impacted the ability to coordinate with other projects though.

Still nothing like the impact we saw early on, like US Agent's new assignment being given in a giant empty room with people standing ridiculously far apart.

I don’t think anyone is arguing The Marvel was affected by COVID, as we’re now two years out of lockdown in the UK at least.

Filming began on 26 July2021, and we were getting back to normal by then if memory serves. Sure you’d still take precautions, but much of that was “get your jab and any scheduled boosters”.

But, it did directly impact preceding movies, which set a tone for this batch of post-Endgame movies.

I still feel that’s overblown, as going over a list of what’s been released? I’ve enjoyed the vast majority of it no less than I enjoyed the preceding movies.

I also think it was effected by diseny+

Why go to the cinema when you can wait a month or two then see it as a free bonus on top of the rest of the stuff you see on disney.

Even if you just subscribed for 1 month it would still end up a hell of lot cheaper than going out to the cinema.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I don’t think anyone is arguing The Marvel was affected by COVID, as we’re now two years out of lockdown in the UK at least.

Filming began on 26 July2021, and we were getting back to normal by then if memory serves. Sure you’d still take precautions, but much of that was “get your jab and any scheduled boosters”.

But, it did directly impact preceding movies, which set a tone for this batch of post-Endgame movies.

I still feel that’s overblown, as going over a list of what’s been released? I’ve enjoyed the vast majority of it no less than I enjoyed the preceding movies.

That was SUPER early into the vaccination. I got mine in April that year and I was just after healthcare staff. Getting back to normal sure, but normal was kind of being redesigned on the fly. Hollywood was trying to keep filming and there were multiple productions shut down when someone on the crew got sick so they were all pretty much operating on skeleton crews with the stars kept as isolated as possible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kale wrote:
I also think it was effected by diseny+

Why go to the cinema when you can wait a month or two then see it as a free bonus on top of the rest of the stuff you see on disney.

Even if you just subscribed for 1 month it would still end up a hell of lot cheaper than going out to the cinema.

In theory you go to the theater to see it to prep for the next thing that will be out before the current things is on D+. That doesn't really work when the schedule is a mess and the hype for the next thing is confused at best.

It seems the majority of people who saw The Marvels found it enjoyable, to one degree or another, and I'm not sure how having more MBAs on set to tell wardrobe and make up how to do their job would have made it better. The issue on how much money it made seems like more of a problem on the marketing end compounded by general malaise for big budget film making (probably television as well) at the moment.

 Ahtman wrote:
Disney CEO thinks The Marvels under performed because there weren't enough executives on set.

"Quality needs attention ... It doesn't happen by accident. Quantity, in our case, diluted quality," he said, per NBC News.

With The Marvels in particular, Iger said part of the reason it's falling short is because it was shot during the COVID-19 pandemic, and therefore "there wasn’t as much supervision on the set, so to speak, where we have executives [that are] really looking over what’s being done day after day after day.

Well, he is right about the Quantity diluting quality.

The anti-WFH sentiment is just par for all corporate leaders who have spent a ton of money on HQ buildings. They need to justify those as assets still on their balance sheets. Disney has spent a lot of money on buildings. Therefore, of course he sees WFH as bad.

Maybe instead of supervising the set, somebody should have supervised the script writing...

Script writing is one thing. Directors and actors get on set and decide to improv or do some other stuff. The words on the page don't translate to the screen directly. You need oversight of the entire process.

Another complication is the cutting of the film. Alien 3 is a fantastic example of how a very bad cut can tear a film's logic and story a part.

Consider that there were films like Gangs of New York which apparently had 8 hours of material cut from the final version. That means a MASSIVE amount of story and development was made that never got finalised and was cut out of the final show.

This can sometimes be where you see a directors cut that really improves a film because they put back the parts that were cut so that the film would fit to the cinema's time constraints.

This is one area that streaming films might have a boon because you can do much longer films and people can just hit pause and such.


So sometimes a great film cuts hacked to bits and the story is disjointed and poorly done because so many development and connecting parts were stripped out. It's one of those moments where you realise that its something they won't have seen during the production because each segment was perfectly fine originally, it just hacked apart.

If a film requires extensive extra material to complete the story/character arcs/themes etc. then it is in all likelihood still badly written.

'It was well written when it was five times the length' is not synonymous with 'it is well written'.

If the writers aren't able to tell a functionally complete story within the allotted run time, then they have no business writing for projects with the sort of budgets Disney is throwing around.

Besides which the Marvels was cut down significantly due to a longer cut being even worse, supposedly (yay more musical numbers!) so I'm not sure that just adding more material would really help.

Its not "well written when it was 5 times the length".

Again, directors ask actors to do stuff. Actors improvise on the day.

The script could be perfect. Then you improvise and that shot you really like doesn't fit with earlier shots anymore. So you need reshoots to put it together cohesively. Which mean previously shot material is cut.


More and more i think movie making is chaos when it doesn't need to be and that chaos begets more chaos.

 Lance845 wrote:
Its not "well written when it was 5 times the length".

Again, directors ask actors to do stuff. Actors improvise on the day.

Then they're doing it wrong. An actors improvising scenes to make it better is a rarity.
Directors don't ask (especially not for 'stuff'). Directors, surprisingly, direct. According to a finished script in locations that were already determined. Going for a better take or a different angle, is one thing (and part of the directing process), but if they're fathing about still making scenes up and adding significantly to the run time, they're a screw-up.

Directors make script changes all the time. They’re almost as infamous for it as producers.

Voss wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Its not "well written when it was 5 times the length".

Again, directors ask actors to do stuff. Actors improvise on the day.

Then they're doing it wrong. An actors improvising scenes to make it better is a rarity.
Directors don't ask (especially not for 'stuff'). Directors, surprisingly, direct. According to a finished script in locations that were already determined. Going for a better take or a different angle, is one thing (and part of the directing process), but if they're fathing about still making scenes up and adding significantly to the run time, they're a screw-up.

Remind us again what you do for a living that gives you such insight?

Other than for idle discussion & winning trivia contests, I don't see what it matters to any of us how much footage is shot vs used. Or how much $ the studios spend on a project.

I mean, Gangs of NY was a fine film. But I'm never going to want to watch another 5+ hours worth of it. Mostly because it largely wouldn't be anything more than alternate versions of scenes, maybe some bloopers, etc.
Likewise with the $$$ being spent. I'm not financing these projects. So it's not MY problem if so much was spent on them that Disney or whomever can't turn the profits they desire. Eventually, once they've lost enough $, they'll figure their budget problem out.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Directors make script changes all the time. They’re almost as infamous for it as producers.

Not to the point that it produces 5x the footage. Scene adjustments are one thing (does this flow better, does this sound better), adding more and more and more to a movie is something else.

Directors have scripts rewritten all the time. They also have significant writing changes made during shooting. Granted, there are also directors who meticulously plan everything ahead of time and don’t need to shoot on the fly…until the studio demands reshoots.

Watch the making of documentaries for a lot of films and you’ll see a lot of directors who change the script significantly before shooting, and many who keep changing it during shooting.

i wouldn't be surprised if the 'lack of supervision' relates more to post production where versions of the film are screened for multiple test audiences, and then re-cut (and maybe reshot) to make them as (bland) acceptable as possible.

they wouldn't have been able to do this under covid conditions, and even if they had got feedback from home screenings that's a different situation from a full cinema of (hopefully excited) patrons.

I'm pretty sure we're all more likely to have both greater positive and negative reactions in a group situation (just from crowd feedback and atmosphere) so screenings would have been less useful, which is probably to the detiment of the box office (although perhaps not the technical quality of the film)

Curious if some of it comes down to timelines which is definitely something supervision can improve. The biggest issue I had with the film is just that it really needed to come out a year ago at the latest, and whatever delayed it out 18 months definitely impacts its ability to be part of the sense that things are building up to something interesting again.

 LunarSol wrote:
Curious if some of it comes down to timelines which is definitely something supervision can improve. The biggest issue I had with the film is just that it really needed to come out a year ago at the latest, and whatever delayed it out 18 months definitely impacts its ability to be part of the sense that things are building up to something interesting again.

It definitely felt like it should've come out before Secret Invasion given Furys pleasant attitude. You'd think the events of SI should be reflected somehow....

I've got 3 explanations for this disconnect:
1) The most likey explanation is....
Bad writing. Or even more likely just poor coordination between projects.

2) What I'm seeing storywise is not always being presented to me sequentially. So it's like watching a Tarentino movie.... but with superheroes & split between projects vs contained within 1 film.

3) Multi-Verse crap.
We assume everything we're seeing is following the same timeline (let's call it the 616) - unless we're specifically told otherwise (What Iff..../Spiderverse/now revealed Netflix & ABC shows & assorted scenes)
And this isn't an unreasonable assumption given Ironman----Endgame.
But there's nothing actually telling me what timeline a given show/movie is set in. I ASSUME SI & Marvels are chapters in 1 timeline. I can't really prove that though.

ccs wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Curious if some of it comes down to timelines which is definitely something supervision can improve. The biggest issue I had with the film is just that it really needed to come out a year ago at the latest, and whatever delayed it out 18 months definitely impacts its ability to be part of the sense that things are building up to something interesting again.

It definitely felt like it should've come out before Secret Invasion given Furys pleasant attitude. You'd think the events of SI should be reflected somehow....

It was originally scheduled for July 2022 and was delayed to Feb 2023 (with Thor 4 taking its place) before being delayed again Nov 2023 (and Ant Man being rushed up to fill its spot). I definitely think the film makes more sense in its original slot, where it would have followed Multiverse of Madness almost directly.