FRIDAY BOX-OFFICE: X-Men Predicted to Defeat Captain America

[PortalThinker113]

The Godzilla dip seems like it is a completely different situation than Amazing Spider-Man 2's. Spidey was going up against no one but Neighbors, as most other films had fled the post-Spidey weekend in apparently unfounded fear. Spidey took a 72% drop up against nothing but an R-rated comedy. That's absolutely a bad thing, no matter how you look at it.

Godzilla, on the other hand, got one week to itself and then had to face up against one of the year's biggest films (X-Men: Days of Future Past) over the Memorial Day weekend. That's heavy competition, not to mention that there obviously is quite a bit of overlap between the intended audiences of those two films. I'm sure WB was hoping for a smaller drop than 62%, to be sure, but the huge presence of X-Men competition would make a big difference. Godzilla didn't drop as much as Spidey even with the extra competition!

OP: I'm going to see Days of Future Past this afternoon, so count me among that pretty damn large box office total. This film actually has the potential to be the biggest film of 2014, box-office wise. The only movies I could see dethroning it would be Transformers: Age of Extinction (ugh), Mockingjay: Part 1, or How to Train Your Dragon 2.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Perhaps you dont know what the actual classic fairy tales are

How could I not? People have been banging-on about that one since before the gritty re-tellings were even a thing.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

**snips**

Hey bob, Ted was released in 2012, its 2014 now so you might want to amend the "last year's Ted line to reflect the calendar. Just sayin'. I only remembered that because it released on my 32nd birthday...

OT: Good for them...

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

I'd like to see what the international take was for Godzilla. That movie was like a funhouse mirror of the Transformers series.

"Hey, what happens when we get all the military resources that Michael Bay gets, but finds out it's about as impotent as all the firecrackers in a value pack?"

 

[Remus]

I saw it, I liked it, LOVED seeing

Spoiler

En Sabah Nur and his horsemen

in it. Oh and

Spoiler

X3 was wiped off the map so we might see an actual Phoenix rise in a movie

 

[Saetha]

Yeah, I'm getting tired of all the "dark and gritty" fairy tale stories, too. I don't even know where that bandwagon came from but God, I'm sick of everyone jumping on it.

It came from Grimm's Fairy Tales [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimms%27_Fairy_Tales], which in turn came from the classical folklore that all the stories were based on.

Pretty much every one of the "classic" fairy tales you're familiar with originally came in the form of "evil showed up, and everyone died horribly". They were cautionary tales against all sorts of things, and there were no happy endings in them.

Yeah, I know about some of the original Grimm versions. Cinderella's sister cutting off her toes, Rapunzel getting knocked up by the prince, all that. But the thing is, they don't use the original tales, usually. They just do darker versions of the Disney ones. Once Upon A Time and the Kristen Stewart Snow White and now Maleficent. I'm just getting sick of the whole fairy tale motif. And the Wicked rip-offs.

Or at least use tales that Disney hasn't touched. Tam Lin, Ivan and the Grey Wolf, something. Why does everything have to draw from Disney, Oz, and King Arthur?

I wonder how many of these people have read Rich Burlew's Start of Darkness? I don't want to like Maleficent, I don't want to sympathise with her. I want to be able to continue loving to hate her without any excess "oh-no-she-was-actually-good-once" bagage.

Why is it that a webcomic writer can figure this stuff out when paid corporate executives can't?

Because Wicked made buttloads and now people think any "traditional villain was good guy once (If not all along)" story can make buttloads, too. And if we know anything, it's that corporate executives don't really care what they're doing so long as it increases their profit margins.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Well...at least this year can't possibly be as awful as last year...right?
Days of Future Past isn't going to be Man of Steel.

I'd like to see what the international take was for Godzilla. That movie was like a funhouse mirror of the Transformers series.

"Hey, what happens when we get all the military resources that Michael Bay gets, but finds out it's about as impotent as all the firecrackers in a value pack?"

I was also thinking of Bay's Transformers when watching Godzilla (saw it last night), but more crossed with a Roland Emmerich disaster film; using the blandest parts of both.

From Bay, we have:
-Extreme over-emphasis on the military (over the titular monster, no less)
-A cast lead by a nice safe boring white guy whom we follow around because he is inexplicably important to the plot, despite it making no sense. (Why is he the only bomb tech who knows how to do analog? He wasn't even in his teens in 1999, and everyone else in the service looks his age.)

But on the Emmerich Side, there's:
-Stupid cliche plot being given in chunks by Dr. Exposition and his assistant, Nurse Convenience, who inexplicably know everything but keep it to themselves because...reasons.
-Lots and lots of shots of regular folks getting caught in the "natural disaster" (though to be fair, this was done by Godzilla well before Emmerich even touched a camera; but the style reminded me heavily of Emmerich)
-Contradictory plot elements that whizz past you so fast the movie hopes you don't pick them apart. (the Fridge Logic is strong with this one)

Hell, Aaron-TJ even kinda looks like Shia LeBouef in this (older and less panicky).

Cranston was the only guy actually acting in Godzilla '14.

Spoiler: Warning, Cliche Predictable as Fuck Plot Spoilers Inbound

Naturally, that's why his part was cut short by the Plot Convenience Fairy and her Sad Music attack about a third of the way in. Seriously, he survives his fall and injuries throughout the entire night, untreated, only to die when given care? Wow, the military really is painted as being supremely incompetent, right down to their medics.

I swear Cranston's role was cut short just because of how he was acting everyone else off the fucking screen.

He was given a manic, obsessive role, and pulled it off well. That is NOT easy to sell convincingly, because even the slightest change in character will make "manic and angry" look completely hilarious.

 

[MasterOfHisOwnDomain]

Cranston was the only guy actually acting in Godzilla '14.
[...]

I agree with you entirely, but, man, put some spoiler tags in the rest of your post. I personally was not expecting that during the film, and I don't think other people will either, so be fair.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Cranston was the only guy actually acting in Godzilla '14.
[...]

I agree with you entirely, but, man, put some spoiler tags in the rest of your post. I personally was not expecting that during the film, and I don't think other people will either, so be fair.

Ah, true.
I know that there's some pedantic asshole on this site who would look for any excuse to flip their lid over such obvious, trivial things.