RIP Morbius

[payn]

Well, I agree Morbius is DOA. But I think it's because it's an awful movie as opposed to it being buried by Sonic or whatever.

Edit: Also, it wouldn't surprise me that when this movie is finished bombing, that's IT for the Shared Spiderman Universe or whatever Sony's calling their MCU adjacent ripoff.

Oh I'm sure more Venom is on the way.

 

[Ryujin]

What's wrong with hot women action movies again?

Nothing, but they neither break new ground, nor generally make any sort of momentous cultural impact.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

There are a lot of dimensions at play when evaluating a film. Financial success, cultural success, artistic success, etc... You may not think much of Get Out, but it hit more of these dimensions than Atomic Blonde did.

There's no multiverse in which I'm saying I like Atomic Blonde more or as much as Get Out. My point is that word of mouth is mostly a non-factor now, and in any given year it's really only helped maybe one or two movies. For example, The Others famously opened weak but became a box office hit over an incredibly long period, solely because of word of mouth. But word of mouth didn't appear to play a major part in other movies that year, and more often makes something a cult classic long after audiences blinked and missed it.

So it's not some ever-present element. It's once in a while, and seems to usually matter more for lower-budget movies than for blockbusters.

But to get out of the weeds here, my point is really that there's just no quantifying quality based on box office. That doesn't work. The only thing you can maybe associate box office with is mass appeal, but even then the marketing is a non-quality-related factor, so are the competing movies in the same opening weekend, whether it's R-rated (keeping a lot of the younger, walk-in "let's just go to any movie" audience out), etc.

Or, put another way

The Last Temptation of Christ made $33.8M when it opened in 1988.

The Passion of the Christ made $612M in 2004.

Adjusting for inflation, Last Temptation still only made about $54M in 2004 dollars.

If you want to argue that box office is an indicator of quality, not a whole slew of other business decisions and random factors, I'd love to hear how the numbers show that Mel Gibson's blatantly anti-semitic and ultraviolent vanity project--whose marketing efforts included helping evangelical communities organize bus trips for parishioners to see the movie en masse--is clearly a better movie than Scorsese's.

 

[payn]

There's no multiverse in which I'm saying I like Atomic Blonde more or as much as Get Out. My point is that word of mouth is mostly a non-factor now, and in any given year it's really only helped maybe one or two movies. For example, The Others famously opened weak but became a box office hit over an incredibly long period, solely because of word of mouth. But word of mouth didn't appear to play a major part in other movies that year, and more often makes something a cult classic long after audiences blinked and missed it.

So it's not some ever-present element. It's once in a while, and seems to usually matter more for lower-budget movies than for blockbusters.

But to get out of the weeds here, my point is really that there's just no quantifying quality based on box office. That doesn't work. The only thing you can maybe associate box office with is mass appeal, but even then the marketing is a non-quality-related factor, so are the competing movies in the same opening weekend, whether it's R-rated (keeping a lot of the younger, walk-in "let's just go to any movie" audience out), etc.

Or, put another way

The Last Temptation of Christ made $33.8M when it opened in 1988.

The Passion of the Christ made $612M in 2004.

Adjusting for inflation, Last Temptation still only made about $54M in 2004 dollars.

If you want to argue that box office is an indicator of quality, not a whole slew of other business decisions and random factors, I'd love to hear how the numbers show that Mel Gibson's blatantly anti-semitic and ultraviolent vanity project--whose marketing efforts included helping evangelical communities organize bus trips for parishioners to see the movie en masse--is clearly a better movie than Scorsese's.

Im not saying, nor have said, that box office is an indicator of quality. I said its one of many factors that can help evaluate quality. I'd point to old Mel's example there as a cultural impact that gave the film some legs. I cant really speak to either film's quality because I haven't seen them. Though, I would consider seeing them because they both hit financially, and culturally. I may not like the content, but I can expect that these films were executed well. I dont expect them to be good just because they made money alone.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Im not saying, nor have said, that box office is an indicator of quality. I said its one of many factors that can help evaluate quality. I'd point to old Mel's example there as a cultural impact that gave the film some legs. I cant really speak to either film's quality because I haven't seen them. Though, I would consider seeing them because they both hit financially, and culturally. I may not like the content, but I can expect that these films were executed well. I dont expect them to be good just because they made money alone.

Despite its small budget, Last Temptation is not considered to have "hit financially." It's considered a flop, especially given how much press it got from high-publicity protests by religious groups, which didn't translate to the sort of success that other "banned" art sometimes receives.

So does that mean it loses a key factor that would appear to elevate its quality? Or is box office just box office, running parallel to quality, but inexplicably tied to our sense that whatever or whoever makes a bunch of money probably deserved to?

Maybe you'd make an exception and see Last Temptation anyway, based purely on cultural impact. But now it's another exception to the rule, yet another flop that somehow beat the odds and is widely considered high quality, same as Blade Runner, The Big Lebowski, Fight Club, It's a Wonderful Life, Shawshank Redeption, and so on. So at what point does financial success reasonably fall out of the discussion of quality entirely?

 

[payn]

Despite its small budget, Last Temptation is not considered to have "hit financially." It's considered a flop, especially given how much press it got from high-publicity protests by religious groups, which didn't translate to the sort of success that other "banned" art sometimes receives.

So does that mean it loses a key factor that would appear to elevate its quality? Or is box office just box office, running parallel to quality, but inexplicably tied to our sense that whatever or whoever makes a bunch of money probably deserved to?

Maybe you'd make an exception and see Last Temptation anyway, based purely on cultural impact. But now it's another exception to the rule, yet another flop that somehow beat the odds and is widely considered high quality, same as Blade Runner, The Big Lebowski, Fight Club, It's a Wonderful Life, Shawshank Redeption, and so on. So at what point does financial success reasonably fall out of the discussion of quality entirely?

Hard to say. I suppose after you have actually seen for yourself the product? The financial piece is just the tip of the iceberg and thus has the most visibility and gets a disproportionate amount of attention.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Hard to say. I suppose after you have actually seen for yourself the product? The financial piece is just the tip of the iceberg and thus has the most visibility and gets a disproportionate amount of attention.

Definitely agree about the disproportionate part. But I also don't think that every movie is a complete mystery. To me that's like thinking you're as likely to find a book you'll like by blindly grabbing something off the bookstore shelf, rather than going with a writer you're already into, or someone they recommend. Likewise, if you love a director they probably aren't going to make a movie you find completely terrible. A screenwriter whose movies you've liked is another signal (if maybe a weaker one, since their contributions can be overridden by virtually anyone on or off set). Apologies if this is coming across as condescending--just giving examples of things I think are much better (but still not perfect) indicators of quality.

But I also put a lot of stock in certain film critics, especially when it comes to movies from filmmakers without a track record. And if there's one pretty consistent through-line on this forum when it comes to movies and TV, it's that critics are a bunch of fun-hating eggheads who are out of touch with the rest of us. Never mind when those same critics champion stuff that's totally low-brow and bonkers, because how dare they give a Marvel movie a B instead of an A++++++++++!

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

But I also put a lot of stock in certain film critics, especially when it comes to movies from filmmakers without a track record. And if there's one pretty consistent through-line on this forum when it comes to movies and TV, it's that critics are a bunch of fun-hating eggheads who are out of touch with the rest of us. Never mind when those same critics champion stuff that's totally low-brow and bonkers, because how dare they give a Marvel movie a B instead of an A++++++++++!

There is a weird undercurrent of anti-intellectualism when it comes to certain topics (like cinema) on the forum.

Which, given the forum's organizing purpose, seems .... interesting.

 

[James Gasik]

We're fantasy gamers! Critics have almost always despised any movie we like! It should come as no surprise that we don't particularly care for their opinions.

 

[payn]

Definitely agree about the disproportionate part. But I also don't think that every movie is a complete mystery. To me that's like thinking you're as likely to find a book you'll like by blindly grabbing something off the bookstore shelf, rather than going with a writer you're already into, or someone they recommend. Likewise, if you love a director they probably aren't going to make a movie you find completely terrible. A screenwriter whose movies you've liked is another signal (if maybe a weaker one, since their contributions can be overridden by virtually anyone on or off set). Apologies if this is coming across as condescending--just giving examples of things I think are much better (but still not perfect) indicators of quality.

I am talking in generalities, not specifically myself. Questions posed earlier were asked why people recognize certain movies over others and why they care about financial info and such. I think you keep focusing on the financial piece and disregard my comments about critical review, cultural impact, etc..

But I also put a lot of stock in certain film critics, especially when it comes to movies from filmmakers without a track record. And if there's one pretty consistent through-line on this forum when it comes to movies and TV, it's that critics are a bunch of fun-hating eggheads who are out of touch with the rest of us. Never mind when those same critics champion stuff that's totally low-brow and bonkers, because how dare they give a Marvel movie a B instead of an A++++++++++!

I agree with this. Folks get pissed because popular movies that are not good get the appropriate critical response. For them, the cultural impact and experience overrides the critical response. They are also likely to point to financial numbers as support for their position. Ultimately, its a matter of taste and method of evaluating a film. Critics understand the nuances of creating the work and have the experience and background to critique. Fans often have their own criteria and an emotional component that can lead to entirely different conclusions.