I don't hate this, but I don't love it.

This movie is a mess. It's a hybrid of Snyder, Whedon, and most of all studio mandated notes. Kevin Tsuijhara's 2-hour runtime mandate absolutely prevents this from being more than it could be.

This feels like a video game cutscene with all of your favorite superheroes doing cool poses, catchphrases, and no soul. Ninety percent of this movie has a look of a green screen background in the worst way possible. Also, Henry Cavill has an uncanny valley thing going on as they had to green screen his mustache off his face due to Mission: Impossible six.

All the connective tissue is missing. I literally did not give a shit about Cyborg and Aquaman. At least Cyborg they give you scenes with his dad that don't connect, but poor Aquaman gets a throwaway line from Mera for his whole backstory. I shit you not if you are not familiar with these characters, you are going to be lost. I'm still waiting to be introduced to Aquaman and Cyborg properly cause those Quicktime files in BvS are not a fucking introduction. And Atlantis looks like shit.

The plot just moves from one action set piece to the next. Steppenwolf is the most generic villain I've seen in a comic book movie with the most generic motivations. It's clear the set up for New Gods and Darkseid got axed.

There's barely a camaraderie built for this team. I never got why they would work together.

Batman is moving towards the traditional take on him (thank God), Wonder Woman looks bored most of the time, The Flash gives this movie some much-needed life, and Superman I'll save for last due to spoilers.

This is a step sideways for the DCEU. This is a film I never want to see again. There's some stuff that gives promise to the overall
DCEU that has me excited as well as future Flash, Batman, and Superman movies. And those two end credits scenes? I want to see those movies.

BvS launched the vilest fandom on Earth. Mostly composed of men thirty and older. Think about this, grown men getting mad that people actually hate a movie featuring children's characters.

This didn't make me mad more than make me indifferent for the two hours I was watching it. I mean it's better than BvS and Suicide Squad by default cause you gotta be trying really hard to make something that bad.

*SPOILERS*
Superman's resurrection is garbage. He's evil for five minutes then comes back to being good five minutes later. So sloppy.

..and start over.

but they won't (at least not right now).


*skatin' the rings of saturn*


..and miles to go before i sleep...

and make a shitload of money

It would need some serious adjustments to make it work as a movie but that could be dope.

..the audience would have to care about the characters.

unfortunately, any progress made in that department over the last decade (most notably, nolan's trilogy and "man of steel") was completely sabotaged by "BM vs SM."

WW gave them a brief reprieve (box office and retail), but is mostly a gimmick film to round out the JL.

they've had more than 10 yrs of wetting the appetite of audiences with tv franchises like smallville, green arrow, the flash, & gotham. they're about to waste what should be one of the simplest alley-oops in film history.


*skatin' the rings of saturn*


..and miles to go before i sleep...

on a bare bones level (IMO)

Audiences haven't seen a movie that does what crisis did the problem (among the others you provided) is that who would the villains be? They basically have none in the DCCU.

..they've somehow taken a multi-layered multiverse full of diverse characters and rendered it one dimensional and paper-thin.

it makes absolutely no sense.


*skatin' the rings of saturn*


..and miles to go before i sleep...

Is it explained why the king of the atlaneans is a dude bro?
Why is the flash wild young and goofy?
Is batman deadpan funny or Ben afflect trying to deadpan?


I don't have any interest in this really.

>Is it explained why the king of the atlaneans is a dude bro?

They try but not much character development is given towards him. At all.

>Why is the flash wild young and goofy?

The Flash is literally one of the few things that works in this.

>Is batman deadpan funny or Ben afflect trying to deadpan?
>
Batman is deadpan funny and works for the most part. The entire cast makes the most out of what is given.

Marvel seems to be killing them in the theaters but at least DC has the edge right now with the books.

That's what I don't get. They are sitting on some great scripts in the DC animation department.

If they just filmed any of their animated movies as a live action movie, it would be head and shoulders above what they've put out so far with the exception of Wonder Woman. Like the recent Killing Joke. They should have saved that script and just filmed it with Affleck and Leto.

I read that they are having script problems with the solo Flash movie, Flashpoint...they did Flashpoint as an animated film, and it was great.

WB set the template decades ago for superhero animation with DC so it would only make sense that it would be better. I can't name one serious Disney TV outing other than Gargoyles. Maybe Tron Uprising?

The problem isn't as easy as making a Live Action movie using an animated movie as a lot of animation is style and art direction: you can make everything look however you want and get away with it. I mean, that looks like what they tried to do with all this green screen stuff. It would work in a cartoon.

So fucking great.

Had a feeling it would be. All these early "great reviews" before the gag order or whatever was lifted read like serious propaganda

but once they started showing off the action and how quippy it was trying to be i was out.

>BvS launched the vilest fandom on Earth. Mostly composed of
>men thirty and older. Think about this, grown men getting mad
>that people actually hate a movie featuring children's
>characters.

This sticks out like a sore thumb, mainly because it has absolutely nothing to do with JL. Seems Hellyeah (and whoever else) legitimately got under your skin and this addition to your review just invites more of that sort of response.

20 critics and I all had a long talk yesterday about the dirth of death threats received over not liking these films.

Ten critics it got so bad they had to have the police get involved.

And to Hellyeah's credit, he didn't try to hunt me down and threaten to not only kill me, my brother and my roommate and rape all the women I know.

Its a flashback to the star wars/star trek 'beef' but back then where it would be a bunch of dudes having a chill debate in the corner of comic con...

....2017 its all 4chan-ized with niggas swatting each other.

Its just the way the world is now. Like as a fan the Marvel movies ain't that great for niggas willing to online jihad for it, but we gotta chose sides and ride or die *throws up gang sign*. It just seems more egregious because like bwood says these are basically kiddie movies

Threatening people I care about and going to such lengths to track me and other down?

Over this shit?

>Threatening people I care about and going to such lengths to
>track me and other down?
>
>Over this shit?

Yeah, that's far above basic forum assholia.

I stand corrected. Stay safe out there. I had no clue it was poppin off like that.

dude's whole body is CG and his face looks mad fake (plastic/cg) among all that fake imagery. Should have just put him in a suit.

Cause I liked Man of Steel and to this day still can't fathom some of the vitriol over it.

Wonder Woman>>MOS>>>SS>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>BvsS


______________________________________________________________________________

cscpov.blogspot.com

"There's a fine line between persistence and foolishness..."
-unknown

"To Each His Reach"

Sure they could've toned it down on the destruction, but I thought it was solid.

This was Superman's first outing.

I think it's perfectly in line for a young hero with his powers, fighting such immensely powerful foes after a lifetime of being surrounded by relative insects, to lay waste to their surroundings in a major way.

IMO that's just about the most realistic portrayal of how things would pan out if these things happened in the real world.

Superman felt, well Super and genuinely conflicted and not mopey the way he's been since. And Zod's ride or die boo? Wooo, I sat there cackling at her glee when she was blowing shit up...great villians all around.

I get some of the points people had against it (though the pointed turndown in rampant destruction/get the citizens out of the area in a few subsequent movies made me laugh) but didn't think it was a bad film by any stretch. I'd definitely watch that again before BvS

Then again, I didn't think Superman Returns was BAD, just boring, which is a separate sin.

Which made no sense because they had the best villian character actor of the modern era, Kevin Spacey (RIP) playing Lex Luthor.

I still don't know who fucked that up; was it bad direction or a bad character choice by Spacey. It's like he was in a separate movie...you had Superman being all adult with a kid and shit and suddenly Spacey comes on the screen looking like he's channeled Adam West's "Batman" 1960's tv show.

Hackman’s Lex and his crew are in some kinda Abbott and Costello movie. The tone’s all over the place.

Well, at least we have Clancey mutherfunkin Brown.

>I still don't know who fucked that up; was it bad direction or
>a bad character choice by Spacey. It's like he was in a
>separate movie...you had Superman being all adult with a kid
>and shit and suddenly Spacey comes on the screen looking like
>he's channeled Adam West's "Batman" 1960's tv show.

he usually makes Da Poo Poo

sucks because Brandon Routh as Superman could have been a thing. Ditto for Spacey (RIP) as Lex

Eaisly. It's imperfect but still an excellent Superman movie.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Iron Man
Thor: Ragnarok
Hellboy II
The Avengers
Blade 2
The Invincibles
Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm
Guardians Of The Galaxy
Chronicle
Unbreakable
Captain America: Civil War
Spider-Man 2 (and Homecoming, for that matter)

are all better. Hell, even Doctor Strange and Ant-Man are better.

I've been a DC head since the 70s but their movies are garbage.

.

I never felt character growth or development. And every time the story would require showing conflict they cut to an explanation scene.

To me, it's a perfect cast given absolutely nothing worthwhile to do.

I mean those smirks while reigning down destruction and slapping up Superman? Dr. Doom would be proud.

That was an amazing character by an awesome actress

Not that it's a perfect film (louis lane sucked and lawrence fishborne was wasted), but it's highly underrated.

nor the darkness. That's Batman's thing IMO.

but as a movie it's... OK. I see it the same way I look at the very first Bayformers movie. Begrudgingly "OK" if you turn off your critical eye for enough.

but BvS was bullshit. should have just been a Batman movie that referenced events of MoS, but never actually showed Superman until the very end.

I could tell from the trailers was going to be a problem. So I'm sure your review on the rest is probably on point
----------
IG : @h_n_z

nm

cgi-ification.


peace & blessings,

x.

www.twitter.com/poetx

=========================================
I'm an advocate for working smarter, not harder. If you just
focus on working hard you end up making someone else rich and
not having much to show for it. (c) mad

.
.

"I cannot see how nature could have created itself. Only a supernatural force that is outside of space and time could have done that. ~ Francis Collins

Batman V. Superman and Suicide Squad were so bad that I threw in the towel on all superhero films (sorry Marvel you didn't deserve this). I'm done with the DCEU but I've been asked more than once if I'm coming with them to see Justice League.

I might come back and watch this film when it hits HBO next year. Other then that....I'm just waiting for February to come.
---------------------------------------


---------------------------------------

I did enjoy Deadpool

but I no longer get hype for comic book movies.

Black Panther is the only one I will see in the theatre

special shoutout to the Killing Joke adaptation and Batman & Harley Quinn. those were especially bad.

Holy shit how did I forget those?

>special shoutout to the Killing Joke adaptation and Batman &
>Harley Quinn. those were especially bad.

because they brought back the GOATs
but fucked it up with a Batman as R.Kelly storyline

I took him to Thursday night showings of Civil War and Ragnarok (he was at his mom's house for Homecoming, but we would have gone), so he might want to do the same here. I'll go for him, but I have no real desire to stay up to watch this tonight. Maybe after turkey day I'll see it. I'd rather get sleep (or see Thor again)

Use your judgment wisely this weekend.

I'll take the crab juice.

V.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/markhughes/2017/11/24/justice-league-disappointing-holiday-box-office-makes-any-fantastic-beasts-comparisons-moot/#5727c87848f5


NOV 24, 2017 @ 03:15 PM
61,392
'Justice League' Disappointing Holiday Box Office Makes Any 'Fantastic Beasts' Comparisons Moot

Mark Hughes , CONTRIBUTOR

I write about films, especially superhero films, & Hollywood.
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

The Thanksgiving holiday weekend is underway in earnest, and several films are vying for better positions at the box office as audiences choose between a slate of offerings with lots of family appeal. Holdovers Justice League, Thor: Ragnarok, and Wonder had to make way for Disney-Pixar's new animated release Coco as it continues to play higher than anticipated, at the expense of any second-place challenger. Which means Justice League's hopes for an upset victory or even a photo finish appear to be quickly vanishing, with Coco now on pace to take $75+ million and Justice League's totals being continuously revised downward, currently around $61+/- million.

While that's still a fine result for the weekend and represents an acceptable 53% decline from its opening weekend, there's a larger and more disturbing trend taking place through the holiday week and weekend that bode ill for Justice League's longterm prospects. And make no mistake, the distance between Coco and Justice League in five-day and three-day comparisons is not really very close if these numbers hold up, representing quite a different outcome than the toe-to-toe battle for first place many were predicting heading into the holiday.

Before I get started breaking down the numbers, a quick but important note is unfortunately necessary first. It's absurd to even have to remind you that I liked Justice League, gave it a good review, encouraged fans and mainstream audiences to not only see it but to also bring friends and family to see it too. I'm not an evil puppet trying to ruin things fans like, I'm not a secret paid ninja working for Disney (a common but ridiculous and childish conspiracy theory perpetuated by fans who accuse anyone saying bad things of being a spy), and I'm not discussing financial information and facts at a business news outlet for any other reason than the fact it's literally what we do here and a normal, honest thing that I'd be saying about any major blockbuster suffering this same situation while a large group of fans argue and deny what's happening.


I can like a movie and be hopeful as a fan that it does well, and I can hope fandom stops arguing and spreading negative behavior and tone amongst themselves or stop attacking media and other fans who have differing opinions, but when I sit down to do my job here, I have to look at the truth and the facts and then talk about them as best I can. The hope is that it explains what's going on, overcomes myths and falsehoods perpetuated on social media, by fans, and by some folks who feed on fans' hopes and wishes just to promote themselves or their claims. At this point, having a serious discussion about not only Justice League but also the DCEU, what might happen, and what maybe should happen requires being frank and realistic about the whole situation. As not just a writer but a fan and someone who loves cinema, I want -- and feel I must -- talk about all of these things openly and try to overcome blind spots or misleading perceptions that get in the way of useful, worthwhile discussion and understanding.

So enough of the qualifiers, then, because the math says what it says. Let's be very blunt and honest about what's happening: Justice League has the lowest domestic opening weekend of the entire DCEU, and the lowest domestic opening weekend of any live-action superhero movie in 2017 except Logan -- which, by the way, only fell $5 million shy of Justice League's domestic opening. Justice League also had the lowest domestic first Monday of the entire DCEU, and the lowest domestic first Monday of any live-action superhero film this year except Logan, which it only beat by a couple of million bucks.

Many fans trumpeted the film's domestic 41% rise on Tuesday, but that's a highly misleading and pointless argument for a few key reasons. First of all, 41% sounds like a big number, except the literal dollar amount was just $3 million, so let's not ignore the context in favor of big-sounding percentages that belie what's going on. Second, the reason for that jump on Tuesday is simply that North American schools began dismissing children for the Thanksgiving holiday starting Tuesday, and then each subsequent day of the week had a larger percentage of schools dismissing for the holiday as well. Notice, though, that the daily box office for the movie didn't continue to climb.

And that's where the story for Justice League is now really starting to become clear. You've probably heard some YouTubers and fans pointing to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them as a hopeful example of how Justice League is actually performing well -- so this story goes, anyway -- and has a chance to top $800 million worldwide. Beware false hopes, though, because the comparison was already deeply flawed to begin with, and now this weekend has shattered that wishful thinking.


Fantastic Beasts got an A grade from audiences, enjoyed overwhelmingly positive reviews, followed the wildly successful and beloved decade-plus Harry Potter franchise, and played against a Marvel movie (Doctor Strange) with less powerful legs than Justice League's competitor (Thor: Ragnarok) and a Disney film (Moana) that likewise didn't have quite the same marathon-run potential as this weekend's new Disney-Pixar release (Coco). Compare that to Justice League's B+ audience score, bad reviews, and following a DCEU that had a decidedly mixed reaction from audiences and critics, as well the aforementioned tougher competition at the box office. Right off the bat, then, you should be able to tell that any serious comparison between the two is hard to make.

Now look closer and notice that Fantastic Beasts, with all of those advantages, finished with an $814 million total at the global box office. That cume is significantly lower than Justice League realistically needs to make in order to avoid being yet another underperformer for the DCEU. It's lower than Wonder Woman and Batman v Superman, despite being the DCEU's big team-up movie that everything was building towards, despite the intention to launch other solo spinoff movies for Flash, Cyborg, and of course Aquaman (whose own solo outing is already finished and releases in 2018).

With roughly $750 million worldwide being the "break even" point for Justice League, a run equal to Fantastic Beasts would still only result in $64 million supposed "profit," which must then be split in half since theaters keep around 40-50% of global ticket sales. The remaining $32 million would then have to take out any backend point for the film's stars and filmmakers who had contracts guaranteeing a percentage of the box office. Let's be generous and take just $5 million for that backend column on the spreadsheet, leaving $27 million to be divided up among the film's investors and distributors. Remember the opening of the film, when you saw all of those various company logos? Yeah, they all get a slice of the dwindling $27 million pie.

If you think that's the sort of results major studios and investors find acceptable after spending years developing a project, waiting more than a year for it to be completed and released, and investing hundreds of millions of dollars to make it happen, then you need to think again.

But notice, we didn't adjust the Fantastic Beasts box office for a more honest and realistic expectation of where Justice League would wind up due to its A audience grade, bad reviews, and harder competition. Even if all of that resulted in just a 5% comedown from Fantastic Beasts' $814 million global performance, we are talking about a final cume in the range of $733 million worldwide. Now look back up at the previous paragraph's discussion of the "break even" point and profit margins, and tell me if anything jumps out at you. Remember, all I did was reduce the box office cume by 5% to account for worse reviews, an audience score two positions lower, and stronger competition at the box office.

You might still insist the folks predicting a potential Fantastic Beasts level performance are still correct, and that even a small profit is still a profit and thus mitigates how bad things turn out for Justice League. However, if the previous facts about difference between the films and the implications of such box office numbers didn't convince you of the more likely reality for the final outcome, then the next set of numbers will. Because despite continued insistence that Justice League is performing ahead of Fantastic Beasts, that entire premise came crashing down this week and weekend.

The opening domestic weekend indeed gave Justice League a big head start on Fantastic Beasts, but look at the subsequent domestic weekday totals, and you'll see that from Monday through Thursday, Justice League's cume for the four weekdays is just about $500,000 ahead of Fantastic Beasts for the same first weekday stretch. Then, over the second weekend, Justice League is on track to take $42-43 million, or a few million less than Fantastic Beasts' own second weekend. So Justice League's supposed pacing ahead of Fantastic Beasts will -- if things continue to proceed the way they have been this week and over the start of the holiday -- rest solely on its opening weekend, and it will lose ground until eventually the dollar advantage could wind up erased.

Obviously things could pick up again next week, and maybe it'll have a stronger hold on its third weekend, but at some point we need to stop saying "wait and see" and stop ignoring the math.

Yes, it's always technically possible that anything could happen in the future -- an asteroid could slam into Earth and make this all a moot point, or millions of fans could wake up today determined to rush to theaters en mass and buy up multiple tickets to push Justice League's box office higher just because they want to help the DCEU or just to try to prove the critics and box office pundits wrong. But more likely is that things turn out generally as expected, and that we are left having to admit Justice League isn't performing very well compared to how it needed to play.

What that means for the future, it's still too early to know. And of course, the foreign box office could wind up higher than expected, with stronger holds than expected. If Justice League can hold at 50% drops every week for the rest of its entire run, and if it remains in theaters for another two months, and if international receipts account for 70% of its worldwide cume instead of just 60-66%, then it's technically possible for the film to finish near $850 million. In other words, if everything stops going wrong and instead starts going as well as possible from now on, then the best-case scenario could get it to $850 million.

But that isn't going to happen, and there's little evidence to give anyone reason to expect it or hold out hope for it. The more realistic decent-case scenario (meaning an average run from here on out) would put Justice League at around $730+/- million, and it's entirely reasonable to feel such a number is possible and likely. However, I fear the truth is that the most likely moderate-case situation is a finish in the $700 million range, and a bad-but-not-worse-case in the $650 million range.

Those figures might seem outrageously low, and indeed they are, relative to the film we're talking about and where it needed and should've played financially; but they are based on more typical weekly declines for similar films as more competition comes out, based on the audience score and reviews. The true worst-case scenario, if you really want to know how bad it could be if the film begins to have steep drops for a couple of weeks and then plummets as Star Wars: The Last Jedi hits theaters, would be about $600-610 million, and make no mistake -- while being a worst-case, those figures are entirely within the realm of reasonable predictions based on the way things have turned out so far and compared to some past worst-case situations for certain DCEU releases.

Warner Bros. knew already that Justice League had problems, which is why it got new footage and reshoots this summer, and it's why they went into the opening nervous and largely hoping to mitigate the pain while hoping perhaps things could wind up better than expected. But they knew there was a danger -- indeed, a likelihood -- of underperformance, and while it looks likely to result in a loss, they knew this was possible.

The numbers are coming in worse than feared, and it seems obvious changes will now have to be made at the studio and with the plans going forward, but there's not going to be a stoppage of DC projects and the DCEU itself won't even be cancelled entirely at this point. Remember, Aquaman releases next year, and we'll get Wonder Woman sequels because the first film was too successful to ignore. Shazam! will probably happen too, and Batman is getting a solo series of films one way or another in the next few years. It's also likely that at least one or two other projects -- be it a Suicide Squad sequel, the Harley Quinn-Joker spinoff, or one of the "elseworld" banner projects -- will continue forward in the next several months and years. Yes, DC movies will keep right on coming, don't worry.

It's the context that's questionable, but even there, consider that despite my concern and my previous writeup about the danger to the DCEU's survival after the next few years, it's also possible that the studio and execs and board of directors will consider Justice League's failure the final unfortunate chapter from the initial planning stages of the DCEU, and that they already have a new set of superior plans and leadership in place to largely ignore the outcome for Justice League and focus on the upcoming projects without much change.

After all, Wonder Woman was really an example of the new approach and planning for the DCEU, even though its release puts it a bit out of order due to Justice League's extended development and production scheduling. If the two films could hypothetically swap places on the release calendar without changing their box office results, consider how it would look now -- Justice League represents the closing chapter of the first phase of the DCEU, and Wonder Woman launches the new phase with an entirely new plan and approach and leadership. In that scenario, things look much better for the future, yes? Well conceptually, that's sort of the reality of the situation right now, with regard to the general way the business plan for the DCEU is positioned. Aquaman likewise represents the new approach going forward, so its quality and success would in theory be another sign of having left behind the first rocky stages and getting much better footing.

The big question is, can a major studio business take a big enough step back and conceive of this nonlinear conceptualization of the DCEU model? Or is the ultimate reality that despite Wonder Woman's big success, Justice League will wind up too big of a letdown to ignore, with one standout home run being insufficient to convince a board of directors and major investors to keep everything and everyone in place while investing hundreds of millions more dollars to stay the course with some of their most valuable but now-tainted IPs?

Those international box office numbers will provide better evidence for us to predict which way things are going to land, but remember the studio receives a vastly smaller percentage of foreign ticket sales -- from 30% to 40%, being generous about it, depending on the particular market -- and so while it will boost the worldwide figures it doesn't move the needle anywhere near as much as domestic box office does. And also keep in mind that when the films keep underperforming, it depresses merchandising potential as well, and so the fact Justice League comes after Wonder Woman instead of beforehand could mean those excellent merchandising sales for the Amazon princess-warrior see a negative effect from Justice League, too.

I'll have more to say in the coming days and weeks, including an assessment of various ways I think the DCEU could best move forward. For now, however, we're left with another disappointing weekend when we really dig down into the numbers, and we must await more days and more numbers to tell what comes next.

CGI was terrible and over used. Cyborg was a disappointment, they should have used J'onn J'onzz. Needed a bit more humor. The villain was a bit lackluster.

Absolute best part of it was the Flash. Aquaman was extremely handsome, though the underwater scenes looked horrid. :-( Makes me nervous for the Aquaman movie. Wonder Woman was good.

These movie is not the best superhero flick ever, but to act like this is the worst movie in existence is dramatic and a lie.

The OP was wrong.