Why do the Actors Matter?

[Ruin Explorer]

Whoever saw a character with the nickname "The Merc with the Mouth", cast a guy who is built for off the cuff responses, and then took away his mouth should never work again.

I can practically smell the writer's room when he came up with that and I can assure you that it smelled of:

1) A not insignificant amount of BO/flop sweat.

2) Slowly rotting take-out.

3) Whiskey. Unclear if cheap or expensive.

4) Whatever cocaine smells like.

And you know that the guy who did it thought he was the bloody smartest man who ever lived for thinking "How cool and ironic would it be if I took away the Merc with a Mouth's mouth! < snorts a line > I am a genius! < snorts a line, attempts to drink whiskey, dumps it down his shirt > No, I AM A GOD!!!

I see it was one of either David "Game of Thrones" Benioff or Skip Woods. Look at what they'd written up to 2009, my guess is Skip Woods, because jesus christ those are some trashy movies and absolutely have the same vibe as that decision. Swordfish, particularly, is a movie that could never have existed without the help of so much cocaine.

 

[Ryujin]

I can practically smell the writer's room when he came up with that and I can assure you that it smelled of:

1) A not insignificant amount of BO/flop sweat.

2) Slowly rotting take-out.

3) Whiskey. Unclear if cheap or expensive.

4) Whatever cocaine smells like.

And you know that the guy who did it thought he was the bloody smartest man who ever lived for thinking "How cool and ironic would it be if I took away the Merc with a Mouth's mouth! < snorts a line > I am a genius! < snorts a line, attempts to drink whiskey, dumps it down his shirt > No, I AM A GOD!!!

I see it was one of either David "Game of Thrones" Benioff or Skip Woods. Look at what they'd written up to 2009, my guess is Skip Woods, because jesus christ those are some trashy movies and absolutely have the same vibe as that decision. Swordfish, particularly, is a movie that could never have existed without the help of so much cocaine.

Where "Swordfish" is concerned I think that the extent of the 'writing' only went as far as, "Let's pay Halle Berry enough to go topless, then just wing the rest."

 

[TiQuinn]

The specific issue here for me is with the discontinuity between how Banner has been written in the MCU and Ruffalo's performance. What I don't buy isn't "Ruffalo could be a Bruce Banner" - he totally could be - but rather "Ruffalo could be a Bruce Banner whose defining secret is that they're 'always angry'", because I don't believe the latter from his performance, whereas that seemed to be exactly Norton's portrayal.

It was a cute little line, good for a one off, but had was never reflected in the character, and really never used again as far as I know.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It was a cute little line, good for a one off, but had was never reflected in the character, and really never used again as far as I know.

I would argue - admittedly from a sort of inverse perspective - that in fact it is used in literally every subsequent appearance of the Hulk in the MCU, because Banner never has any problems turning into the Hulk, well, not "lack of anger"-related ones (that I recall, I may have MCU amnesia though, feel free to correct me), whereas in at least some of the comics, Banner often can't just snap his fingers and be the Hulk (of course some versions can - Comics Everybody!). It's a very useful justification for never, ever, ever having to again think about why and when Banner could "Hulk out", and instead having him change into the Hulk at will (and out of it almost as reliably), which for my money, makes him a significantly less interesting character.

 

[TiQuinn]

I would argue - admittedly from a sort of inverse perspective - that in fact it is used in literally every subsequent appearance of the Hulk in the MCU, because Banner never has any problems turning into the Hulk, well, not "lack of anger"-related ones (that I recall, I may have MCU amnesia though, feel free to correct me), whereas in at least some of the comics, Banner often can't just snap his fingers and be the Hulk (of course some versions can - Comics Everybody!). It's a very useful justification for never, ever, ever having to again think about why and when Banner could "Hulk out".

Yeah, as a pure excuse that one never explains, it works, but also…what a missed opportunity to do something interesting with the character.

 

[Ryujin]

I would argue - admittedly from a sort of inverse perspective - that in fact it is used in literally every subsequent appearance of the Hulk in the MCU, because Banner never has any problems turning into the Hulk, well, not "lack of anger"-related ones (that I recall, I may have MCU amnesia though, feel free to correct me), whereas in at least some of the comics, Banner often can't just snap his fingers and be the Hulk (of course some versions can - Comics Everybody!). It's a very useful justification for never, ever, ever having to again think about why and when Banner could "Hulk out", and instead having him change into the Hulk at will (and out of it almost as reliably), which for my money, makes him a significantly less interesting character.

His only real issue in changing is when the Hulk alter ego is too afraid to come out, after getting curb stomped by Thanos.

 

[Staffan]

His only real issue in changing is when the Hulk alter ego is too afraid to come out, after getting curb stomped by Thanos.

As I recall, he had some issues in Ragnarok as well. There's a scene where he's planning to jump out of their ship onto Bifrost and Hulk out on the way down and have a Big Hero Moment stopping Fenrir and, well... doesn't. At least not for a while.

 

[Kaodi]

But there are exceptions, that is for sure - I can immediately think of one person I know IRL who is that smart, that educated, and proper scientist (and kinda famous, many of us have probably ready some of their work) who is an extremely nice, warm, kind, decent person, more so than most people (and only about as socially awkward as Ruffalo's Banner).

Why do people always have to play the, "I know someone and you might know who they are but I am not going to tell you," card? Now I want know! (I have possibly played this card myself before; does not mean I have an answer.)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I vaguely knew Brian Cox before he was famous. But some of the older, less famous professors were warmer and wittier. I guess that is where he learned his media persona from.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

But they don't. Returns for reboots, rehashes and endless sequential iterations are way down. Compare returns for, for example, the new Jurassic World reboot compared to the original Jurassic World movie, much less the original Jurassic Park movie (adjusted for inflation.) Granted, that's less recasting than rebooting with new characters, but the point is the same. The idea that the public demands endless iterations of the same thing is false. Interest fades relatively quickly.

But they kinda DO demand it. The reasons why box office is down pretty much across the board is because during the pandemic the studios got impatient and even more greedy and decided to all but eliminate the window between theatrical exhibition and streaming. They effectively trained casual movie theater goers to wait for movies to hit streaming and the studios (in order to keep their own internal accounting hidden) doesnt like releasing those streaming numbers.

Aside from a few major releases (Oppenheimer, Barbie, and a variety of movies with children as the target audience like Minecraft) movie box office is down across the board. It's not just superhero movies or remakes or sequels.

And despite the clamoring for original content? People dont support that in strong enough numbers with their dollars. THAT'S why we keep getting a deluge of sequels and remakes, people go to what they know.

And it's not like remakes or adaptions haven't been around since near the beginning of Hollywood. For example, within 10 years between the 30's and the 1940's version there were like three versions of the Maltese Falcon. A bunch of movies that we now consider classics are either adaptions or remakes sometimes of films were originally released (in their country of origin) just a few years prior.