Deeply funny how Disney drastically scaled-back the red carpet premiere of this, probably to keep Zegler from sticking her foot in her mouth yet again.

https://variety.com/2025/film/columns/d ... 236333285/

This is a total disgrace on Variety's part.

Two days until it opens (if you count Thursday previews), still not one review from a "real", reputable critic.

Lolol

Even that limp-dick Captain America sans Captain America managed to claw its way up to (almost) $400 million. This is gonna be another The Marvels/Wish-sized megabomb for The Mouse.

Monterey Jack wrote: ↑Wed Mar 19, 2025 10:24 am Even that limp-dick Captain America sans Captain America managed to claw its way up to (almost) $400 million. This is gonna be another The Marvels/Wish-sized megabomb for The Mouse.

I thought I heard last week that they expect that the full ron of it in the US is only supposed to gross about $114million, which is pretty catastrophic for Disney. It's not something I am interested in watching.

Exactly, seems like all people use today is a worldwide number because the domestic one -- really the one that counts the most -- is so bad.

The younger generation in particular doesn't understand foreign revenue is split up differently. Disney doesn't just pocket all of it. In addition to theater owners there are local distributors who take a cut, more so than domestic sharing.

AndyDursin wrote: ↑Wed Mar 19, 2025 11:29 am The younger generation in particular doesn't understand foreign revenue is split up differently. Disney doesn't just pocket all of it. In addition to theater owners there are local distributors who take a cut, more so than domestic sharing.

It used to be that an underperformer in the U.S. could be "saved" by a large foreign take, but that's much less so today, especially in the post-Covid world where certain countries have become picker about what American movies to import. The animated film Ne Zha 2 just became the first movie ever to gross more than a billion in its country of origin (China) alone. In fact, it's sailed past two billion in barely over a month's release, and is currently the fifth-highest grossing movie of all time. Is it any wonder China and the like no longer want our stale-assed cinema? If studios want to survive, they need to start making movies cheaply enough to eke out a profit within the U.S. alone, with any foreign take merely being gravy. It's INSANE that movies like Snow White and Brave New World needed to gross about $600 million just to break even, let alone make any money back. That is just terrible business. The Disney of 2019 could get away with being so spendthrift (what with having seven movies gross over a billion), but those days are long gone, with Deadpool & Wolverine and Inside Out 2 being rare exceptions. And I'm not seeing Thunderbolts* pull in $1.3 billion.












*because it will suck.

Also, studios going all-in on streaming has cut the legs out from under what used to be the most lucrative aftermarket for movies...physical media. VHS was a huge addition to movies' grosses in the 80s and 90s, and DVD got even bigger during the format's heyday in the 2000s. Batman Begins made over $170 million in DVD sales alone! That, more than the movie's merely okay box-office take, is what probably made WB agree to a sequel.

Well the reviews are coming in, and are as expected.... Largely tepid. Of course, as expected many of the reviews rush to defend its titular star, but even so, most critics are clearly not into it otherwise.

So.... To break down the response.....

Enthusiastic: The Hollywood Reporter

Positive: San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, Variety, The Globe and Mail, IGN, Indiewire, Paste

Mixed: Slashfilm, Chicago Tribune, Rogerebert.com, Seattle Times, Collider, BBC, The Telegraph, Time Out, Consquence

Negative: Screen Rant, Slant, New York Post, The AV Club, The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Beast, Playlist, Film Verdict, Irish Times, New York Magazine, Screen Daily, Polygon, Empire

Hated it: Boston Globe, The Wrap, Austin Chronicle, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, The Times, The Independent

Hilarious that the RT rating is over 20% lower than The Little Mermaid (which already got a "failing grade" of 67%), and that every critics' pull quote is exactly the same, fawning over its fashionably diverse leading lady (to "stick it to the racist, incel fanboys" ), while saying that no other aspect of the film works.

AndyDursin wrote: ↑Fri Jul 14, 2023 10:44 am

From what I've heard, these characters are actually in the movie, which leads me to think what a Frankenstein patchwork this movie turned out to be.

Not even the people who did want to see it seem very happy with it. One tracking firm said that only 39% of the people who did turn up and see it said they would recommend it to a friend.

Here's the seating chart for my usual theater for this Sunday at 6:00 PM...not one seat pre-sold.