Amph "On your left." - Captain America (Brave New World)

CA2 hits $700 million worldwide this weekend, coming close to doubling the box office of the first one - an amazing testament to what Marvel has been able to build in just a few years.

 

So how did it perform overall?

 

Right. Because that's exactly what happened. They introduced a brand new character who lives inside archaic computer equipment. And they didn't explain his connection or how he got there.

Or, they took an existing character from the first Captain America film, and have a brief explanation of what happened to change him. I think it's reasonable to expect that 99% if the folks watching TWS also watched TFA. Marvel doesn't want to assume that when it comes to AoU. The assumption is if you watched Avengers, you can watch AoU.

How much explanation would someone who had only seen Avengers need on Zola? And is Marvel going to make 60% of the audience, who had seen the previous ten movies, sit through it all for the minority who have seen 1-5 movies? Doubtful.

You will see the effects of IM3, TDW, and TWS in AoU. But you won't see specifics from those films to an extent that it's confusing to casual fans.

 

These aren't films, these are a franchise; it's McDonalds, to quote Jim Gaffigan. They're trying to put as many people in the seats as possible. There's not a whole lot to "get" with a talking raccoon. He's an alien. And it's a bad example anyway, since we don't know how much setup he's getting. Besides that, GotG is meant to be weird and out there.

The problem is not that they can't introduce something weird, it's that they want to make these movies accessible to the general audience--people who haven't seen these other movies. And it's going to be distracting for someone who maybe hasn't seen FA or WS, because they're going to be wondering who this Zola is. And, if these movies were made specifically for fans of the movies, that would be fine, because they already know, but these movies aren't made for fans of these movies, they're made for everyone who happens to be deciding on what movie to watch that weekend. And if they start doing things like making them inaccessible by making them basically a mini-series, it's going to start turning people away when it comes time to decide what to watch when the newest Avengers is playing, because last time the GP watched an Avengers movie, they didn't follow anything that was going on.

 

Thanks for saying it better than I could. Basically, if a buddy of mine it's watching AoU with me and asks me "who the hell is Zola?", my answer shouldn't be "you'll understand if you watch The Winter Soldier."

That being said, and my 99% was exaggeration, it's reasonable to expect the audience to accept characters from the first Captain America in the second Captain America. Less so, characters from The Dark World.

 

Yeah, well, Civil War was pretty unlikeable. Come at me, Mark Millar.

 

Exactly, to use my mother as example she didn't know who he was as she didn't see TFA. But the movie(TWS) quickly explained who he was and what he was doing without requiring knowledge of TFA, it just made it more exciting for the fans.

 

Some people though, can be confused by something if they come in late like with "The Avengers" and not understand certain things that aren't very clearly explained. People can come in fresh, but that doesn't mean that they will get everything. That's kinda why the trailers for "Thor" established the connection to "Iron Man" and "The Incredible Hulk" and part of the reason for the title "Captain America: The First Avenger". Even GOTG's advertising is marketing it as from the studio that made these previous films.

Indeed. My mom was the same way. She had only seen "The Incredible Hulk" when it was on Cinemax back in 09 and she understood the basics from the old television series and watching the 80's cartoon with me. But when she saw "The Avengers" a few months ago on Epix, she thought Iron Man was the big hero of MCU like Superman in the DCU. She didn't get the connection between Cap and the Hulk. Thor to the Tesseract. That Phil Coulson was the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. since she saw previews for AOS and not Nick Fury.

That doesn't make her stupid, just not well informed.

Indeed.

 

Oh, bummer. I was hoping that Dad, Mom, and I could go see it this weekend at our local Carmike, but it's not on the Fandango listings for tomorrow through Monday.

Guess we waited too long - and I told them I wanted to see it in theaters.

*sigh*

 

Isn't there another theater that's within driving distance that has it?

 

Just pirate the damn thing.

 

Yeah and risk getting a computer virus for doing so? Much less risk breaking the law and getting caught.

 

There's always this thing called buying a newspaper or going to your theater's website and checking to see if it's still playing and what times it's playing.

Just saying.

 

Newspaper?

 

Believe it or not, there are some still in print.

 

So I just saw this tonight. It was really good! And nobody cares about my assessment because they already saw it.

 

Nope - checked the theater's website and it's not listed there either.

 

in the arms of the angels...

 

Spot on review