Spoilers Supergirl

[Pale Violet Light]

Kara and Kal.

Who loves yellow soda?

 

[Thierry-Advent]

3) It has a female lead and audiences are sexist.

BS, with two female leads and a female support role:
Black Widow broke several pandemic box office records and grossed over $379 million worldwide. The film received positive reviews from critics, with particular praise for the action sequences and for the performances of Johansson and Pugh.

 

[Cadence]

BS, with two female leads and a female support role:
Black Widow broke several pandemic box office records and grossed over $379 million worldwide. The film received positive reviews from critics, with particular praise for the action sequences and for the performances of Johansson and Pugh.

Mostly an aside, I had no clue what other movies came out in 2021 or how they did (and have no particular memory of how the ending of COVID restrictions worked on things).

Anyway, 2021 Worldwide Box Office - 2021 Worldwide Box Office

BW was the fifth highest grossing Marvel related movie of the year at $379m, behind No Way Home ($1.9B), Venom: LTBC ($506m), Shang-Chi ($432m), and the Eternals ($402m). So a bit over 12% behind eternals.

However, BW was simultaneously released on Disney+ ( Movie theater group blasts Disney for releasing 'Black Widow' in theaters and streaming at same time ) and apparently some countries' theaters declined to show it for that reason ( Why Major European and Japanese Cinema Chains Are Refusing to Play "Black Widow" - Celluloid Junkie ).

As far as critics - Rotten Tomatoes had BW at a very solid 79% Tomatometer (91% Popcornmeter) - behind No Way Home (93/97) and Shang-Chi (92/98), but destroying Venom (58/83) and Eternals (48/77).

 

[Retros_x]

For instance, there's some recent insight from THR into the trouble this movie had at the editing stage.

I highly doubt the general wide audience cares about problems in the editing.

Firstly this is a double standard.

Wasnt that the point? also comic fans are just a subset of superhero movie fans. Most movie watchers don't read comics on a regular basis. I also want to add that sexisms is most definitely not the one reason and the other reasons stated in this thread probably weigh more - but I think we also cant completely exclude it as a factor. I think female-lead movies have often a higher expectation barrier. Like a female-lead movie with a bad script has a much higher chance to bomb at the box-office than a male-lead movie that more often do reasonable well even with a bad script or general bad quality. Not saying that male-lead bad movies never bomb, they often do too of course. But a male-lead action movie can even with bad script and other problems still recoup the budget or be a minor success just with some basic action popcorn entertainment (later transformer or F&F movies, Tom Hardys Venom, Jurassic World: Dominion). I cant remember any non-sexualised female-lead mainstream movie with qualitative problems that still was successful at the box office. Make the lead sexy and eye candy and appeal to the male gaze - suddenly it works (Resident Evil movies, Underworld movies).

 

[Cadence]

BS, with two female leads and a female support role:
Black Widow broke several pandemic box office records and grossed over $379 million worldwide. The film received positive reviews from critics, with particular praise for the action sequences and for the performances of Johansson and Pugh.

Apparently I am avoiding work. Was kind of surprised to see that:

Captain Marvel in 2019 was right up with Spider-Man: Far from Home worldwide ($1.131B vs. $1.128B).

Wonder Woman in 2017 ($822m) was just behind Spider-Man: Homecoming ($880m), GotG2 ($863m), and Thor:Ragnorak ($853m) and well ahead of Justice League ($661m) and Logan ($619m). Logan was R rated and Justice League was destroyed by the critics though (39% Tomatometer, 67% Popcornmeter). In any case, 2017 was a heck of a year for super hero movie - excluding Justice League, the other five averaged 91.2 from critics and 85 from viewers.

 

[ART!]

I highly doubt the general wide audience cares about problems in the editing.

I was responding to claims about why the movie failed, not what general wide audiences knows about it's production.

 

[Morrus]

I cannot comment on the Star Wars movies/series as I do not follow those, but I did watch Masters of the Universe which I was disappointed in and would NOT classify it as a good movie. Morrus regarded MotU as better than Supergirl.
You saying that it was a good movie does not make it so.

And you saying that is isn't doesn't make it so. You haven't even seen Supergirl, yet you're determined that it be considered a bad movie to the extent of arguing with people who have seen it. That's just.. weird. Just go see it, man, and tell us what you thought of it. None of this other guff matters.

 

[Cadence]

I highly doubt the general wide audience cares about problems in the editing.

Wasnt that the point? also comic fans are just a subset of superhero movie fans. Most movie watchers don't read comics on a regular basis. I also want to add that sexisms is most definitely not the one reason and the other reasons stated in this thread probably weigh more - but I think we also cant completely exclude it as a factor. I think female-lead movies have often a higher expectation barrier. Like a female-lead movie with a bad script has a much higher chance to bomb at the box-office than a male-lead movie that more often do reasonable well even with a bad script or general bad quality. Not saying that male-lead bad movies never bomb, they often do too of course. But a male-lead action movie can even with bad script and other problems still recoup the budget or be a minor success just with some basic action popcorn entertainment (later transformer or F&F movies, Tom Hardys Venom, Jurassic World: Dominion). I cant remember any non-sexualised female-lead mainstream movie with qualitative problems that still was successful at the box office. Make the lead sexy and eye candy and appeal to the male gaze - suddenly it works (Resident Evil movies, Underworld movies).

I wonder if 2023 and "The Marvels" is the example here:

Getting past the GotG3 and Spider-Verse who were #4 and #6 in Worldwide Box Office, we have a quartet of superhero movies where it isn't clear how the critic and fan ratings relate to the take:

#15 Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania $476m (46%/81%)
#18 Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom $440m (33%/79%)
#28 The Flash $271m (63%/81%)
#38 The Marvels $206m (63%/79%)

Whereas the critically acclaimed Barbie with no real problems had no trouble winning the year with $1.447B (88%/83%). The Super Mario Bros didn't need great reviews (59%/95%) to come in second with $1.360B (granted its playing for kids and so who cares about adult critics), but neither did Fast X at #5 with its $704M (56%/84%).

Of course Blue Beetle went the other way for super-hero movies. Or maybe no one recognized it as one?

#55 Blue Beetle $130m (78% / 90%).

More to the focus of the site, Dungeons & Dragons was just behind the Marvels down at #39 with $205M but had a 91% Tomatometer and 92% Popcornmeter. I'm pretty sure what that says about the built in popularity of D&D vs. super-heroes, video-games, and fast cars.

 

[ART!]

There's too many numbers in this conversation.

 

[Dessert Nomad]

I mean, what's the definition of "good movie" here?

I think that's an important question, and I think one of the reasons people are talking past each other is differing definitions and a false dichotomy (that a movie is either 'good movie' or 'bad movie'). From what I've seen, it's not a bad movie, but also isn't a particularly impressive movie. It's good in the sense that it doesn't have any production flaws and is entertaining to watch, but it doesn't sound like it has any particular hook, or any big draw to spend money on it now instead of waiting for streaming.