Amph Summer Season Box Office

Oh how they must long to have Spidey back

 

They'd definitely like to take it away from Sony before Sony screws it up any further. The reboot was easily the worst superhero movie since Captain America. I hate to think about the box office erosion with the Spidey sequel.

 

Spidey is Marvel's Mickey Mouse, he'll always be a draw and that's why Disney need him.

 

I am as unsurprised by IM3's success as I was surprised that Thor and Capt. America didn't flop completely. I don't plan on seeing Iron Man 3 in theaters, but the first Iron Man was the only Marvel film I truly enjoyed 95% because of RDJ's charisma. He doesn't have quite enough to carry the boring, nonsensical scripts of Iron Man 2 and The Avengers in my opinion, but apparently he does for audiences in general. Ruffalo is the only one of the ensemble who comes close to matching RDJ-playing-RDJ-in-a-robot-suit, and he's the only major character without his own film.

 

That's true. It really doesn't matter who plays him. Exhibit #1: Andrew Garfield. Exhibit #2: Tobey Maguire

 

Garfield was good, he was a far more comics-accurate Peter Parker.

Maguire....not so much.


Plus Spider-Man has at least as many villains as Batman (maybe more), so you could make movies for a long time.

 

The problem with that budget analysis is that it ignores DVD and bluray sales and merchandise sales. And tv rights, etc etc etc. but I do agree RDJ Is the heart of it. If he wasn't in Avengers 2, he'd be missed considerably. Hulk less so. The others not at all.

 

Without RDJ there wouldn't have been an MCU, at least not an Avengers one. RDJ was born to play Tony Stark. Any other actor and the film might have been a flop, and there wouldn't have been any Thor or Cap films made and FOX and Sony would be gleeful and continue to churn out more subpar or above subpar X-Men, FF, and Spiderman films.

 

Those revenues can be great for small movies with micro budgets that didn't spend much on marketing and big movies that were huge hits and everyone sees at least once in the theater and once at home, or in any case once at home. But if a big budget movie craps out in the theater, it often craps out in the rental market too. Being a near flop drives down its value for ancillary revenue streams. And thus do Thor and the Cap'n end up on Netflix instant streaming next to Conan the Destroyer.

 

I don't think they crapped out, they did okay. You could argue that Thor and Cap only got sequels due to an anticipated Avengers bump. Based upon IM3 numbers, that's a smrt gamble.

But I will say Disney wouldn't have them out there if the first films were disastrous failures.

 

It is a fair gamble that Avengers will create some extra goodwill for the marginal Marvel titles without broad audience appeal like Hulk, Thor, Cap. But it is a gamble.

 

it's a gamble if they cost a lot to make, there is also the opportunity to improve those movies if they want them to have enough appeal to do more. I thought Thor was better than Cap overall but both seemed rather meh next to Iron Man & Avengers. Dark World & Winter Soldier could both do better

 

They can try to make better movies, but they're stuck for now with lead actors who aren't very charismatic. I can't remember their names. Channing Tatum and Taylor Lautner? I'd agree they finally picked the right Bruce Banner on the third try, in case they ever want to try more standalone Hulk movies.

 

Does Thor need to be charismatic? His whole thing is "I am Thor! Feel my hammer wrath!" and smashing coffee mugs on the floor, don't exactly need charisma for that. Hemsworth is a decent actor and has the look for the part, that's all he needs.
I think Thor just isn't really a solo movie kind of character, seems like Marvel only did it so that he would be more known in Avengers.


Evans was fine in FF and Cap, it's the films that were a let down. He was fine in Avengers I thought

 

Yeah, I thought Captain America (and Evans' portrayal of him) was fine in the Avengers... but Captain America as a standalone movie was kind of boring to me. Same with Thor; good in the Avengers, kind of boring as a standalone movie.

Regarding RDJ... I enjoyed the irony at the very end of Iron Man 3 of hearing Tony Stark, as voiced by RDJ, end his little voiceover monologue by saying "I am Iron Man."

 

I agree, and think this is actually the much bigger problem. Bad actors can always be corrected with a new hire. The issue here is that so many of the characters are fundamentally stupid or uninteresting as stand-alones. In my opinion, basically all of them are. Yet, they've wedded themselves to an approach where, rather than sticking to ensemble films, they churn out all these solo releases. The floor has to fall out after a while.

 

Spider-Man can handle solo movies, but not every hero can.

Kudos to Marvel for getting IM solo movies to work, to me he'd always been a character who worked best teaming up with others due to his largely weak villain pool limiting his solo story potential. I enjoyed IM more in crossovers where he fought notable villains like Dr Doom. But RDJ made it work, as did Favreau. Branagh did well with Thor, but there are better Marvel character who could have solo movies.

 

Iron Man 3 passed the $200 million mark in 6 days in the U.S., hit $768 million worldwide in 13 days.

It will likely end its run earning more than Oz the Great and Powerful, GI Joe and A Good Day to Die Hard combined.

Great Gatsby won't make a dent. IM3 will likely make nearly $80 million this weekend in the U.S. alone, come close to $300 million by the end of the weekend.

 

So, The Great Gatsby.

I have never read the book though I have heard about it all my life. I know literally nothing about it aside from the title. Should I see this movie?

 

Do you like Baz Luhrmann's movies?

 

I don't know how the movie is yet, but if it's true to the book then it's a good story with good characters. It's been called the quintessential American story.

 

Moulin Rouge is the only one I have seen and I loved that. (Look at my sig)

 

If you like the Director's work (what you've seen of it) then you should give it a try. Then you might have two Lurhmann movies you like.

 

When I had to read Gastsby in high school, it really hadn't been considered an American classic for all that long. For me, All the King's Men is the great American novel of the 20th century. Gatsby might be third though. I have a copy of The Last Tycoon next to the bed that I'm trying to make myself start. No luck yet.

 

Iron Man 3 at $950 million worldwide, but took a fairly big 58% hit this weekend. Iron Man is doing better than Avengers overseas, but not nearly as well domestically. There's a chance of Iron Man becoming the movie with the fourth highest all time foreign gross, behind only Avatar, Titanic, and Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Part 2. It will need $890 million outside the U.S. for that. Worldwide, it will likely end up somewhere in the all time top ten between Toy Story 3 ($1.06 billion) and Deathly Hallows p2. ($1.34 billion), and somewhere closer to the top of that range, making it potentially one of the top 5 highest grossing movies of all time.

The domestic box office for Iron Man 3 is going to crash a bit harder than I thought. It took a big hit this weekend without much direct competition, but it could take an even bigger hit next weekend when it goes up against Trek. It could still easily hit $400 million U.S., though $375 million or less is possible.

Trek is predicted to get the second biggest opening weekend of the year behind Iron Man with ~$125 million.