What do you think, readers? Anyone seeing the Bond series pull off the needed feat of reinvention to keep the franchise chugging along through another decade or more?
Thursday, October 19, 2023
The "Who Will Be the Next James Bond?" Chatter: A Note
As the claqueurs of the entertainment press endeavor to keep people talking about James Bond, and especially the unannounced next Bond film, on the basis of nearly nothing in the way of actual information, they have devoted much attention to speculation about and suggestions regarding the recasting of the lead, in the main going over the same list over and over and over again. (Yes, they are still talking about Henry Cavill. And Idris Elba. And all the other names you have heard three billion times already, as well as lots of names you have probably never even heard of at all. Like this Aaron Taylor-Johnson person they aren't shutting up about now.)
This seems to me to put the cart before the horse--given that the vision for the character, which is in turn a matter of the broader vision of the series, is what would make a particular actor more or less suitable to the role, especially with this not merely a matter of recasting but rebooting something that has already been repeatedly rebooted, and some serious change apparently in order after the uneven performance of the last film. (The point cannot be emphasized enough--No Time to Die was the series' weakest performer in North America since Licence to Kill, and probably not just here but elsewhere James Bond, like Indiana Jones, has failed to renew his fan base, with all that this promises for interest in a series that has only had one new film out since 2015.)
Do the series-runners have a new vision? One that actually stands a chance of appealing to a broad public? The silence on everything important to that possibility (the more obvious amid the noise about nothing at all, or what may yet turn out to be nothing at all) makes it difficult indeed to tell--but I am personally struck by the tallness of the order. The Bond movies, after all, succeeded by inventing the high-concept action-adventure franchise film--and kept the series going by adapting to that genre's evolution, putting up the ever-bigger budgets required for the first-stringers and shamelessly imitating every other success out there (from Jaws and Star Wars in the '70s to Jason Bourne and Christopher Nolan's Batman saga in the '00s). But now the whole game looks like it is drawing to an end--implying that a viable reboot will have to deliver a more fundamental overhaul of the series. And given the extreme reluctance of Hollywood to break with its longtime standard operating procedure, it seems to me that no one is offering any model for what the series might do on this score--forcing that much heavier a burden of imitation on those who would hope to bring Bond back to the screen successfully. If they do so it will be a striking feat--in marketing terms, if not artistically. But I cannot picture any possibility that would work (emphasis on the latter, as the claqueurs have not been short on ideas--the problem instead that all the ones I have heard from them have been completely unconvincing).
What do you think, readers? Anyone seeing the Bond series pull off the needed feat of reinvention to keep the franchise chugging along through another decade or more?
What do you think, readers? Anyone seeing the Bond series pull off the needed feat of reinvention to keep the franchise chugging along through another decade or more?
Saturday, October 14, 2023
Captain Marvel 2 vs. Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and Captain Marvel 2's Likely Box Office
In the wake of Boxoffice Pro's announcement of its tracking data-based projections for the domestic opening weekend and overall run of Captain Marvel 2 the figures have been making the rounds of the "armchair movie executive"-oriented entertainment news outlets. Given that the figures suggest the movie's performing much less like the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) Phase Three-released original Captain Marvel than they do The Flash (with an opening weekend in the $50-$75 million range and an overall run in the $120-$190 million range, vs. the half-billion dollar hit that first film was in today's terms), there has not been much room for even the most grade-on-a-curve-minded of the claqueurs of the entertainment press to pretend this is anything like good news for the movie. (Indeed, "abysmal" reads the headline at one such site.)
Since I had weeks ago suggested that the movie might be the MCU's equivalent of the DCEU's The Flash this was not exactly a shock to me--but I admit that there was some room for people to think otherwise, and not simply because they were cleaving to old predictions like Screen Rant's guess back in January.* One reason is Guardians of the Galaxy 3's performance this past summer, which it seems worthwhile to revisit.
In raising the matter of Guardians of the Galaxy 3 one should start by acknowledging that the movie did not buck the trend of MCU films making less (in inflation-adjusted, real terms) than their immediate series predecessors--the movie making a good deal less than Guardians of the Galaxy 2, as against the quarter-to-half drop seen with the other movies. However, in comparison with the latest Thor, Black Panther, Ant-Man films, it held up rather better--the drop about 20 percent relative to Guardians of the Galaxy 2. This could have been taken as meaning Captain Marvel 2 might not do too badly relative to its own high-performing predecessor. However, there were at least four significant differences undermining any such analogy (which was why, even months ago, I did not see Captain Marvel 2 breaking $700 million, let alone a billion):
1. Considering the case of Guardians of the Galaxy 3 it is worth remembering that the film was initially seen as a disappointment--its opening weekend gross softer than anticipated (a rough one-third drop from what its predecessor managed domestically). However, the film turned out to have surprisingly good "legs"--better than its predecessor (so that where the second Guardians movie made 2.65 times its opening weekend gross, Guardians 3 more than tripled the take from its first three days), implying a particularly strong audience response. That suggested that a film audiences liked might do a bit better than some of those that had gone before it, but it could not be taken for granted that this would happen with other Marvel movies (while, again, the film still ended up with 20 percent less grossed than its predecessor).
2. Just as Guardians of the Galaxy 3 proved an exception in its good legs, making it a questionable point of comparison for Captain Marvel 2, the first Captain Marvel was also an outlier--as it was released in the most fortuitous possible circumstances for such a movie. Not only did it come out during the MCU's Phase Three, but it came out mere weeks before the absolute peak of the franchise with the release of Avengers: Endgame, maximizing interest; while the claims made for the film as a "social justice first," if redounding less to the film's benefit than did the similar claims for Black Panther a year earlier, probably helping as well. The result was an exceptional boost to the film which must be credited with helping it become a $1 billion+ hit. Their absence (because Phase Five is a long way from Phase Three, because a sequel is by definition not a "first"), which makes the film less of an event, means that the drop can be expected to be that much sharper here--hence my use of Black Panther rather than the other Marvel films as a basis for my own projection (though going by the current numbers even that may have been overoptimistic).
3. Guardians of the Galaxy 3 had the benefit of considerable good will toward Guardians of the Galaxy 2, whereas Captain Marvel left audiences divided. A Rotten Tomatoes score may have its limitations as an indicator of audience feeling, especially as the claims of a campaign against the film led to the changes in its tabulation of general audience input, but all the same, where Guardians of the Galaxy 2 had an audience score of 87 percent, Captain Marvel had, and has, a mere 45 percent.
4. Captain Marvel 2's promotion has suffered from significant weaknesses. There has already been a delay of the release date (the movie bumped from July to November), connected with claims about reshoots and questionable VFX work (which was a problem for Ant-Man 3), none of which is ever encouraging. The film's budget has recently been treated as something of a scandal (unfairly, I think, but it happened all the same). An early trailer, perhaps reflecting the belated VFX work, made the movie look cheap by MCU standards, and if a later trailer made a more favorable impression that way some damage was probably done. There is also the promise that this will be a relatively goofy MCU movie--an approach that smacks of "tired franchise," and probably did not help Thor 4. The fact of a tie-in with Ms. Marvel may not be helpful (given that the general audience that makes big grosses possible does not want things to get so intricate and sprawling as to require complex investment), while the attempt to broaden the audience by airing the show on the Disney-owned ABC broadcast network so much more widely accessible than Disney Plus has not been a great success. And amid the continuation of the actors' strike the actors have been less visible "on the media circuit," and may remain so, to the film's disadvantage. I cannot see any comparison between this collection of troubles, and the promotional effort for Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (which still produced that film's weak opening weekend).
In the face of all that one might still have hoped that Guardians of the Galaxy 3's relatively good reception was indicative of, and conducive to, warmer feeling toward the Marvel brand, and that Captain Marvel 2 would derive some benefit from that--but if it has done that it has not happened in anywhere near the degree that it would need to do to make the movie anything but a flop-in-the-making, at least going by what we see at the moment.
* Screen Rant projected that Captain Marvel 2 would make $950 million in January--while also guessing Ant-Man 3 would be a $1 billion hit, and Guardians of the Galaxy 3 take in $1.2 billion. Alas, all that seems very far away now.
Since I had weeks ago suggested that the movie might be the MCU's equivalent of the DCEU's The Flash this was not exactly a shock to me--but I admit that there was some room for people to think otherwise, and not simply because they were cleaving to old predictions like Screen Rant's guess back in January.* One reason is Guardians of the Galaxy 3's performance this past summer, which it seems worthwhile to revisit.
In raising the matter of Guardians of the Galaxy 3 one should start by acknowledging that the movie did not buck the trend of MCU films making less (in inflation-adjusted, real terms) than their immediate series predecessors--the movie making a good deal less than Guardians of the Galaxy 2, as against the quarter-to-half drop seen with the other movies. However, in comparison with the latest Thor, Black Panther, Ant-Man films, it held up rather better--the drop about 20 percent relative to Guardians of the Galaxy 2. This could have been taken as meaning Captain Marvel 2 might not do too badly relative to its own high-performing predecessor. However, there were at least four significant differences undermining any such analogy (which was why, even months ago, I did not see Captain Marvel 2 breaking $700 million, let alone a billion):
1. Considering the case of Guardians of the Galaxy 3 it is worth remembering that the film was initially seen as a disappointment--its opening weekend gross softer than anticipated (a rough one-third drop from what its predecessor managed domestically). However, the film turned out to have surprisingly good "legs"--better than its predecessor (so that where the second Guardians movie made 2.65 times its opening weekend gross, Guardians 3 more than tripled the take from its first three days), implying a particularly strong audience response. That suggested that a film audiences liked might do a bit better than some of those that had gone before it, but it could not be taken for granted that this would happen with other Marvel movies (while, again, the film still ended up with 20 percent less grossed than its predecessor).
2. Just as Guardians of the Galaxy 3 proved an exception in its good legs, making it a questionable point of comparison for Captain Marvel 2, the first Captain Marvel was also an outlier--as it was released in the most fortuitous possible circumstances for such a movie. Not only did it come out during the MCU's Phase Three, but it came out mere weeks before the absolute peak of the franchise with the release of Avengers: Endgame, maximizing interest; while the claims made for the film as a "social justice first," if redounding less to the film's benefit than did the similar claims for Black Panther a year earlier, probably helping as well. The result was an exceptional boost to the film which must be credited with helping it become a $1 billion+ hit. Their absence (because Phase Five is a long way from Phase Three, because a sequel is by definition not a "first"), which makes the film less of an event, means that the drop can be expected to be that much sharper here--hence my use of Black Panther rather than the other Marvel films as a basis for my own projection (though going by the current numbers even that may have been overoptimistic).
3. Guardians of the Galaxy 3 had the benefit of considerable good will toward Guardians of the Galaxy 2, whereas Captain Marvel left audiences divided. A Rotten Tomatoes score may have its limitations as an indicator of audience feeling, especially as the claims of a campaign against the film led to the changes in its tabulation of general audience input, but all the same, where Guardians of the Galaxy 2 had an audience score of 87 percent, Captain Marvel had, and has, a mere 45 percent.
4. Captain Marvel 2's promotion has suffered from significant weaknesses. There has already been a delay of the release date (the movie bumped from July to November), connected with claims about reshoots and questionable VFX work (which was a problem for Ant-Man 3), none of which is ever encouraging. The film's budget has recently been treated as something of a scandal (unfairly, I think, but it happened all the same). An early trailer, perhaps reflecting the belated VFX work, made the movie look cheap by MCU standards, and if a later trailer made a more favorable impression that way some damage was probably done. There is also the promise that this will be a relatively goofy MCU movie--an approach that smacks of "tired franchise," and probably did not help Thor 4. The fact of a tie-in with Ms. Marvel may not be helpful (given that the general audience that makes big grosses possible does not want things to get so intricate and sprawling as to require complex investment), while the attempt to broaden the audience by airing the show on the Disney-owned ABC broadcast network so much more widely accessible than Disney Plus has not been a great success. And amid the continuation of the actors' strike the actors have been less visible "on the media circuit," and may remain so, to the film's disadvantage. I cannot see any comparison between this collection of troubles, and the promotional effort for Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (which still produced that film's weak opening weekend).
In the face of all that one might still have hoped that Guardians of the Galaxy 3's relatively good reception was indicative of, and conducive to, warmer feeling toward the Marvel brand, and that Captain Marvel 2 would derive some benefit from that--but if it has done that it has not happened in anywhere near the degree that it would need to do to make the movie anything but a flop-in-the-making, at least going by what we see at the moment.
* Screen Rant projected that Captain Marvel 2 would make $950 million in January--while also guessing Ant-Man 3 would be a $1 billion hit, and Guardians of the Galaxy 3 take in $1.2 billion. Alas, all that seems very far away now.
The Expendables 4: The Second and Third Weekend Box Office Gross, and Beyond
The result is that after 21 days in release the movie had yet to hit the $16 million mark--while after the next three days seems unlikely to get much above it. The result is that where the low end of Boxoffice Pro's already lowered projection just before the movie came out had it making $24 million in North America, this seemingly puny target for the series looks hopelessly beyond its reach, as the same goes even for $20 million.
Meanwhile there is little sign of succor from overseas. Box Office Mojo currently reports the international gross as $14 million. Curiously China, where the movie had an $11 million opening weekend, is not included in that, but the less-than-stellar opening being tripled would still leave the movie far from $100 million worldwide.
As I often do when making such claims I thought I was being overly pessimistic when I said the movie might not break $100 million. And as has often happened this year after testing my "pessimistic" prediction against the reality, my pessimism seemed like optimism--as, given the massive loss the backers seem certain to take on this movie, another franchise "bites the dust."
Friday, October 13, 2023
What Will Captain Marvel 2 (aka The Marvels) Gross at the Box Office? (Opening Weekend and Domestic and Worldwide Theatrical Gross Predictions)
Back at the start of May I predicted that Captain Marvel 2--aka The Marvels--would pull in some $600-$700 million globally on the basis of its, in line with the softening grosses of recent Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films, and an analogy in particular with the Black Panther films, its making not much more than half what the preceding film in its series did. Nothing I saw in the following five months made me change that--excepting my allowing for a greater possibility of the gross collapsing outright in the manner of The Flash given how we have seen this happen again and again this year.
Now Boxoffice Pro has made public its tracking numbers--domestic numbers only, of course, but these are still important and telling, and I will discuss these first before I go onto the worldwide gross figure that was my original concern.
Right now Boxoffice Pro projects an opening weekend in the $50-$75 million range, and a gross in the $121-$189 million range.
Yikes.
After all, at the low end of the range these really are Flash-like numbers (that movie having taken in $55 million on its opening weekend, and gone on to a $108 million gross in its entire run), while the high end of the range is not very much better (more like what was hoped for The Flash in the weeks before its release, even after the delusions about its being the greatest superhero film ever fell apart).
I think this makes the point--but in the interests of thoroughness let us compare these numbers with what the original Captain Marvel made back in the spring of 2019. That movie opened to $153 million, and had a domestic run in the $427 million range--or $185 million in its opening weekend and $517 million in its overall run in September 2023 dollars, respectively.
This works out to the current expectation being that the movie will, in inflation-adjusted, real, terms, open 59 to 73 percent lower than the original, and eventually pull in 63 to 77 percent less; that, in other words, it will be lucky to make two-fifths what the original Captain Marvel did, and may make just one-quarter what it did, domestically.
By comparison Black Panther 2 made a bit over half what the first Black Panther did globally in real terms--which means that the current projection for Captain Marvel 2 is that even at the high end of the range it will suffer a significantly worse drop relative to its immediate series predecessor than any of the recent Marvel Cinematic Universe films, while in absolute terms hauling in even less than Ant-Man 3 (which was being called a flop with some $214 million in the till, over an eighth more than the best projected for this movie).
In fairness, a movie might find some compensation overseas for its domestic underperformance--but given this shortfall the compensation would have to be positively enormous for this movie, and this is not how things have been working out lately for the MCU, or for Hollywood generally. Indeed, the international market has often been the problem--this a much more significant factor in Ant-Man 3's overall performance than its domestic underperformance.
Let us thus take the domestic/international split the original Captain Marvel managed as a relatively optimistic scenario, especially since no recent Marvel release has managed to make quite so much of its money in the international markets--roughly 38/62 according to Box Office Mojo. This works out to a multiplier of 2.65, which applied to the $189 million gross that is Boxoffice Pro's high estimate has the movie, in this positive scenario, barely cracking $500 million. Applied to the low end of the range it finishes up with about $320 million. And should the movie manage to do only relatively as well overseas as, say, Black Panther 2 did (with a 53/47 split), with this applied to the $121 million figure, this would amount to $230 million--less than The Flash (and a fifth of the $1.13 billion Captain Marvel made before adjustment for inflation).
The result is that the $600-$700 million gross I had wondered might be overly bleak can now seem optimistic, with the worldwide gross now looking more like $500 million at best and perhaps as low as $250 million, and the domestic gross, which I cannot picture breaking $200 million, perhaps ending up closer to $100 million (or: $100-$200 million domestic, and $250-$500 million global).
Of course, we still have a month to go--but as has been seen time and again with franchise films this year BoxOfficePro's projections have tended to trend downward rather than upward in the case of such films in the weeks preceding their release (this certainly the case with The Flash, Indiana Jones 5, lesser disappointments like Mission: Impossible 7, etc.)--while reading Boxoffice Pro's commentary I was struck by the use of the phrase "alarmingly low" in relation to its pre-sales, which the site informs us are not just "69 percent behind the pace of Guardians Vol. 3," but also 72 percent behind [Ant-Man 3], and 42 percent behind Eternals" at present. (Eternals!) The result is that by the week of the movie's release the prognosis might be still worse than it is now--while even if it got no worse than it is at present there is no way to see this as anything but a prediction of disaster for this film, and another big blow to an already badly tottering MCU, and along with it, the badly tottering superhero genre, Hollywood franchise action film and "blockbuster" generally, and Hollywood studio system altogether.
Now Boxoffice Pro has made public its tracking numbers--domestic numbers only, of course, but these are still important and telling, and I will discuss these first before I go onto the worldwide gross figure that was my original concern.
Right now Boxoffice Pro projects an opening weekend in the $50-$75 million range, and a gross in the $121-$189 million range.
Yikes.
After all, at the low end of the range these really are Flash-like numbers (that movie having taken in $55 million on its opening weekend, and gone on to a $108 million gross in its entire run), while the high end of the range is not very much better (more like what was hoped for The Flash in the weeks before its release, even after the delusions about its being the greatest superhero film ever fell apart).
I think this makes the point--but in the interests of thoroughness let us compare these numbers with what the original Captain Marvel made back in the spring of 2019. That movie opened to $153 million, and had a domestic run in the $427 million range--or $185 million in its opening weekend and $517 million in its overall run in September 2023 dollars, respectively.
This works out to the current expectation being that the movie will, in inflation-adjusted, real, terms, open 59 to 73 percent lower than the original, and eventually pull in 63 to 77 percent less; that, in other words, it will be lucky to make two-fifths what the original Captain Marvel did, and may make just one-quarter what it did, domestically.
By comparison Black Panther 2 made a bit over half what the first Black Panther did globally in real terms--which means that the current projection for Captain Marvel 2 is that even at the high end of the range it will suffer a significantly worse drop relative to its immediate series predecessor than any of the recent Marvel Cinematic Universe films, while in absolute terms hauling in even less than Ant-Man 3 (which was being called a flop with some $214 million in the till, over an eighth more than the best projected for this movie).
In fairness, a movie might find some compensation overseas for its domestic underperformance--but given this shortfall the compensation would have to be positively enormous for this movie, and this is not how things have been working out lately for the MCU, or for Hollywood generally. Indeed, the international market has often been the problem--this a much more significant factor in Ant-Man 3's overall performance than its domestic underperformance.
Let us thus take the domestic/international split the original Captain Marvel managed as a relatively optimistic scenario, especially since no recent Marvel release has managed to make quite so much of its money in the international markets--roughly 38/62 according to Box Office Mojo. This works out to a multiplier of 2.65, which applied to the $189 million gross that is Boxoffice Pro's high estimate has the movie, in this positive scenario, barely cracking $500 million. Applied to the low end of the range it finishes up with about $320 million. And should the movie manage to do only relatively as well overseas as, say, Black Panther 2 did (with a 53/47 split), with this applied to the $121 million figure, this would amount to $230 million--less than The Flash (and a fifth of the $1.13 billion Captain Marvel made before adjustment for inflation).
Of course, we still have a month to go--but as has been seen time and again with franchise films this year BoxOfficePro's projections have tended to trend downward rather than upward in the case of such films in the weeks preceding their release (this certainly the case with The Flash, Indiana Jones 5, lesser disappointments like Mission: Impossible 7, etc.)--while reading Boxoffice Pro's commentary I was struck by the use of the phrase "alarmingly low" in relation to its pre-sales, which the site informs us are not just "69 percent behind the pace of Guardians Vol. 3," but also 72 percent behind [Ant-Man 3], and 42 percent behind Eternals" at present. (Eternals!) The result is that by the week of the movie's release the prognosis might be still worse than it is now--while even if it got no worse than it is at present there is no way to see this as anything but a prediction of disaster for this film, and another big blow to an already badly tottering MCU, and along with it, the badly tottering superhero genre, Hollywood franchise action film and "blockbuster" generally, and Hollywood studio system altogether.
Monday, September 25, 2023
The Expendables 4 Had its Opening Weekend. How Did it Do?
The Expendables 4 made its debut at the North American box office this weekend.
Few seem to have expected it to make much.
It actually made less than that.
Following Thursday night previews that took in $750,000 (the first time I can remember seeing such numbers for a $100 million franchise sequel come in below seven figures), the movie made about $3 million opening day leading to expectations of an $8 million opening weekend, which were more or less fulfilled. (The movie's take was ultimately $8.3 million.)
I cannot count myself shocked--or even really surprised--by this underperformance given that the expectations were already so close to nothing to begin with (Boxoffice Pro having thought $10-$15 million, and inclining toward the lower end of that range). Still, the number is in, and makes for such a weak start that even Top Gun 2-like legs would give the movie just a $50 million domestic gross that would have to be considered a dismal failure for a movie like this--all as, with very poor reviews from the critics (16 percent from "All Critics," 14 percent from the "Top Critics" on Rotten Tomatoes) and audiences unenthusiastic (the "All Audience" score is just 68 percent), any such prospect seems remote in the extreme, and the film doing relatively well to get to $20 million (less than what Barbie made in Thursday night previews alone) is far more likely. Meanwhile its overseas performance shows little sign of making up for it. (As it did so often in the '10s the Chinese box office came to the rescue of Expendables 3. But Expendables 4 opened with a mere $11 million there last week.) The result is that, again, $200 million looks like a longshot for this movie--which, even more than before, I think could fall short of $100 million worldwide, adding to the lengthening list of 2023's big-budget franchise flops, though, again, the hole this movie puts in the studio books will scarcely be noticed next to the likes of those put in them by The Flash or Indiana Jones 5.
Few seem to have expected it to make much.
It actually made less than that.
Following Thursday night previews that took in $750,000 (the first time I can remember seeing such numbers for a $100 million franchise sequel come in below seven figures), the movie made about $3 million opening day leading to expectations of an $8 million opening weekend, which were more or less fulfilled. (The movie's take was ultimately $8.3 million.)
I cannot count myself shocked--or even really surprised--by this underperformance given that the expectations were already so close to nothing to begin with (Boxoffice Pro having thought $10-$15 million, and inclining toward the lower end of that range). Still, the number is in, and makes for such a weak start that even Top Gun 2-like legs would give the movie just a $50 million domestic gross that would have to be considered a dismal failure for a movie like this--all as, with very poor reviews from the critics (16 percent from "All Critics," 14 percent from the "Top Critics" on Rotten Tomatoes) and audiences unenthusiastic (the "All Audience" score is just 68 percent), any such prospect seems remote in the extreme, and the film doing relatively well to get to $20 million (less than what Barbie made in Thursday night previews alone) is far more likely. Meanwhile its overseas performance shows little sign of making up for it. (As it did so often in the '10s the Chinese box office came to the rescue of Expendables 3. But Expendables 4 opened with a mere $11 million there last week.) The result is that, again, $200 million looks like a longshot for this movie--which, even more than before, I think could fall short of $100 million worldwide, adding to the lengthening list of 2023's big-budget franchise flops, though, again, the hole this movie puts in the studio books will scarcely be noticed next to the likes of those put in them by The Flash or Indiana Jones 5.
How Has Blue Beetle Done?
Alongside the DCEU film The Flash Warner Bros. Discovery had another superhero film coming out this summer, Blue Beetle. It hit theaters in North America in August 18--and six weeks on has collected some $70 million. It has taken in an additional $53 million internationally at last check.
This works out to a grand total of $123 million.
This is, admittedly, a bit better than may have been anticipated for it--the North American component of the gross, indeed, exceeding the high end of Boxoffice Pro's mid-July expectations ($55 million). However, it is a long way from making the $100 million+ film profitable, even if one assumes commensurately strong earnings in streaming and other post-theatrical distribution--and thus also a long way from justifying the decision to "upgrade" what had originally been a straight-to-streaming project to a bigger budget and a theatrical release.
Notably this is in spite of the film seeming to be actually well-liked--rather better-liked, in fact, than the far more expensive and heavily promoted The Flash, to go by the Rotten Tomatoes scores (a critics' score of 79 vs. 63 for The Flash, an audience score of 92 vs. 83 for the other movie).
It seems at the very least more evidence of the difficulty of getting audiences to buy tickets generally--and the difficulty of getting them to do so in particular for superhero movies, especially as those features of a superhero film that may make it stand out are, alas, not the kind of thing that tidily fits into high concept marketing schemes.
This works out to a grand total of $123 million.
This is, admittedly, a bit better than may have been anticipated for it--the North American component of the gross, indeed, exceeding the high end of Boxoffice Pro's mid-July expectations ($55 million). However, it is a long way from making the $100 million+ film profitable, even if one assumes commensurately strong earnings in streaming and other post-theatrical distribution--and thus also a long way from justifying the decision to "upgrade" what had originally been a straight-to-streaming project to a bigger budget and a theatrical release.
Notably this is in spite of the film seeming to be actually well-liked--rather better-liked, in fact, than the far more expensive and heavily promoted The Flash, to go by the Rotten Tomatoes scores (a critics' score of 79 vs. 63 for The Flash, an audience score of 92 vs. 83 for the other movie).
It seems at the very least more evidence of the difficulty of getting audiences to buy tickets generally--and the difficulty of getting them to do so in particular for superhero movies, especially as those features of a superhero film that may make it stand out are, alas, not the kind of thing that tidily fits into high concept marketing schemes.
"How Much Money Did The Flash Lose?" Again (The Budget Was Even Bigger Than We Heard)
These days we seem to be constantly hearing that some big-budget movie actually cost a lot more than was reported. Most of the stories I am aware of have had to do with the Marvel Cinematic Universe but this seems to have happened with The Flash as well--the circa $200 million movie actually a $300 million movie.
Given that production budgets tend to represent one-half to one-third of a studio's outlay on a big movie (there are also distribution, promotion, participations and residuals, interest) one may guess from this a total outlay on the movie of $600-$900 million.
As it happened the movie grossed about $269 million worldwide, which one might guess worked out to not much more than $130 million in theatrical rentals. It tends to be the case that big movies like these make the equivalent of two-thirds of their rentals from those post-theatrical distribution methods, like streaming and TV, but given how weak the theatrical gross was this time one could picture the movie making relatively more. So I could see the movie making $250 million when those proceeds are in--while if the theatrical flop becomes a surprise hit here, we might think $300 million.
$600 million in expenses minus $300 million in revenues is . . . still a loss of $300 million.
And $900 million minus $300 million is . . .
Well, you get the picture. Basically, this movie might, even with those later revenues counted in, easily put a $300 million hole in its backer's budgets, and possibly much more--a half billion or more not out of the question. Such is the insane gamble that a film like this has become these days . . . and time and again this year the studios are losing. Still, to go by the remarks of David Zaslav, who--in a display of the surreal disconnect between what studio executives "think" and what EVERYONE ELSE ON EARTH think, claimed that Warner Bros. franchises like the world of DC Comics, Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings are "underused"--I do not see the studios changing course very readily.
Given that production budgets tend to represent one-half to one-third of a studio's outlay on a big movie (there are also distribution, promotion, participations and residuals, interest) one may guess from this a total outlay on the movie of $600-$900 million.
As it happened the movie grossed about $269 million worldwide, which one might guess worked out to not much more than $130 million in theatrical rentals. It tends to be the case that big movies like these make the equivalent of two-thirds of their rentals from those post-theatrical distribution methods, like streaming and TV, but given how weak the theatrical gross was this time one could picture the movie making relatively more. So I could see the movie making $250 million when those proceeds are in--while if the theatrical flop becomes a surprise hit here, we might think $300 million.
$600 million in expenses minus $300 million in revenues is . . . still a loss of $300 million.
And $900 million minus $300 million is . . .
Well, you get the picture. Basically, this movie might, even with those later revenues counted in, easily put a $300 million hole in its backer's budgets, and possibly much more--a half billion or more not out of the question. Such is the insane gamble that a film like this has become these days . . . and time and again this year the studios are losing. Still, to go by the remarks of David Zaslav, who--in a display of the surreal disconnect between what studio executives "think" and what EVERYONE ELSE ON EARTH think, claimed that Warner Bros. franchises like the world of DC Comics, Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings are "underused"--I do not see the studios changing course very readily.
The Demise of the Gold Eagle Publishing Imprint, and the Collapse of the Mass-Market Paperback
That lack of coverage seemed to me to bespeak not just the decline of the imprint, or the associated genre of "paramilitary" action-adventure fiction, both of which were fairly "old news" by the mid-2010s, but the broader displacement of leisure reading by audiovisual media. The more recent collapse of sales of the mass-market paperback generally--not quite so unreported as the Gold Eagle collapse was, but all the same, getting relatively little attention--is part of the same process. No matter how much some would like for us to believe that we are just reading in a different format the decline of the paperback seems to me indicative of the decline of casual reading, light reading as other activities replace it.
Like mind-numbedly staring at videos where so-called "influencers" jabber about stupid crap--and, in line with the cultural importance accorded to said influencers and said stupid crap, get far more press coverage than the collapse of the mass-market paperback has got, or could be expected to have got, in an age in which even the "JOURNALISTS" OF THE ERA DO NOT READ!
Rethinking the Pandemic's Legacy for the Movie Business
Early in the pandemic my expectation was that the blow to an already fragile film business--the disruption of a much-weakened and eroding habit of film-going, the shutdown of many theaters, the increasing shift of even big-budget original content to streaming--would make recovery slow and full recovery unlikely (especially given that, as we have seen, the pandemic never went away). In late 2021 and early 2022 my view changed somewhat, such successes as Spider-Man: No Way Home (an $800 million hit in North America alone just as the latest mutation of the COVID-19 virus was running wild) made it seem as if not so much had changed, with the successes of Top Gun 2 and Avatar 2 in particular the following year giving the impression of a return to normal underway--and I suggested that the packed release slate of 2023 would see the box office normalize that year, since all 2022 had seemed to me to lack was the usual quantity of releases, and especially of near-sure-fire franchise sequels among them.
Of course, it did not work out that way. The movies came, of course, but the recovery of the box office that looked so dramatic between late 2021 and the spring of 2023 stalled out badly in the summer, suggesting that the continuation of the recovery much past three-quarters of the pre-pandemic level of business would be a long, slow process--the more in as to the extent that people were going to the theater they were not doing it for the same movies as before. Where in 2021 and 2022 we saw the usual sort of blockbusters lead the way--big franchise action films like the Marvel, Top Gun and Avatar sequels--2023 saw such films consistently underperform from Ant-Man 3 forward, and time and again flop catastrophically over the summer, with the process exemplified by the receptions to The Flash and Indiana Jones 5, and less dramatically, the newest Fast and Furious, Transformers and Mission: Impossible films. Rather it was more idiosyncratic hits that led the way--The Super Mario Bros. Movie in the spring, Barbie and Oppenheimer in the late summer period--with these accounting for a disproportionate share of the box office as the distribution of ticket sales became ever more "top-heavy." (Where in the early 2000s the top ten films of a given year accounted for 23 percent of that year's North American box office gross, and it was more like 34 percent in 2015-2019, in 2023 so far it seems to be just under 50 percent to go by the Box Office Mojo's numbers.*)
The result is that I think my earlier, more pessimistic appraisal was the more accurate--and that Hollywood will have that much tougher a time ahead of it as, with streaming proved no substitute for theatrical revenues, those revenues come to depend on an ever smaller share of hits and, in comparison with the past years when Disney flourished by ruthlessly exploiting the viability of Star Wars, superheroes and animation (both new animated movies and live-action adaptations of its old animated classics), the movies once counted on to be winners fail to deliver, while those likely to truly be winners are ever harder to identify.**
* The calculation is based on the site's "calendar gross" rather than "in-year release" figures (some $3.4 billion grossed by the top ten films against the year's overall gross of $6.9 billion).
** Exemplary of that situation seven of the ten highest-grossing movies of 2019 were Disney productions of exactly these kinds (Star Wars 9, Avengers 4, Captain Marvel, Toy Story, Frozen 2, Lion King and Aladdin), while Disney's Marvel coproduced an eighth movie on the list (Spider-Man: Far From Home), with the top six all Disney productions (of the seven previously mentioned, all but Aladdin), a truly astonishing preponderance, while every one of these broke the billion-dollar barrier globally (at a time when a billion dollars was more like $1.2 billion today, and therefore that much more substantial an achievement).
Of course, it did not work out that way. The movies came, of course, but the recovery of the box office that looked so dramatic between late 2021 and the spring of 2023 stalled out badly in the summer, suggesting that the continuation of the recovery much past three-quarters of the pre-pandemic level of business would be a long, slow process--the more in as to the extent that people were going to the theater they were not doing it for the same movies as before. Where in 2021 and 2022 we saw the usual sort of blockbusters lead the way--big franchise action films like the Marvel, Top Gun and Avatar sequels--2023 saw such films consistently underperform from Ant-Man 3 forward, and time and again flop catastrophically over the summer, with the process exemplified by the receptions to The Flash and Indiana Jones 5, and less dramatically, the newest Fast and Furious, Transformers and Mission: Impossible films. Rather it was more idiosyncratic hits that led the way--The Super Mario Bros. Movie in the spring, Barbie and Oppenheimer in the late summer period--with these accounting for a disproportionate share of the box office as the distribution of ticket sales became ever more "top-heavy." (Where in the early 2000s the top ten films of a given year accounted for 23 percent of that year's North American box office gross, and it was more like 34 percent in 2015-2019, in 2023 so far it seems to be just under 50 percent to go by the Box Office Mojo's numbers.*)
The result is that I think my earlier, more pessimistic appraisal was the more accurate--and that Hollywood will have that much tougher a time ahead of it as, with streaming proved no substitute for theatrical revenues, those revenues come to depend on an ever smaller share of hits and, in comparison with the past years when Disney flourished by ruthlessly exploiting the viability of Star Wars, superheroes and animation (both new animated movies and live-action adaptations of its old animated classics), the movies once counted on to be winners fail to deliver, while those likely to truly be winners are ever harder to identify.**
* The calculation is based on the site's "calendar gross" rather than "in-year release" figures (some $3.4 billion grossed by the top ten films against the year's overall gross of $6.9 billion).
** Exemplary of that situation seven of the ten highest-grossing movies of 2019 were Disney productions of exactly these kinds (Star Wars 9, Avengers 4, Captain Marvel, Toy Story, Frozen 2, Lion King and Aladdin), while Disney's Marvel coproduced an eighth movie on the list (Spider-Man: Far From Home), with the top six all Disney productions (of the seven previously mentioned, all but Aladdin), a truly astonishing preponderance, while every one of these broke the billion-dollar barrier globally (at a time when a billion dollars was more like $1.2 billion today, and therefore that much more substantial an achievement).
The Flash's Rotten Tomatoes Scores
In a year in which big-budget franchise action films kept crashing and burning the flopping of The Flash still stands out as an extreme case. The movie made a mere $108 million in its entire North American run (when for such a highly anticipated movie $108 million would have been regarded as a disappointing opening weekend), and not much more overseas--a mere $160 million that left it with just under $269 million in total. Especially given the film's hefty price tag--which in yet another revelation of a major film's budget being considerably larger than was originally announced, seems to have been in the $300 million range--the loss to the studio may end up in the range of several hundred million.
Interestingly, this was in spite of the film apparently not being hated. The critics' score was 63 percent, the audience score 83 percent--not spectacular, but other films with much, much worse have done much, much better, and there is room to think that the scores would have been higher had it not been for the unhinged overhyping of the movie as the greatest superhero film ever made at a moment when the standard is extremely high, the audience showing signs of becoming jaded. (Indeed, I think there is still room for the movie, given its oddities, to become a cult success.)
All of that seems to underline just how much the film market may be changing--and, much as they are evidently resisting it, forcing change on the Hollywood system of a kind not seen in a half century.
Interestingly, this was in spite of the film apparently not being hated. The critics' score was 63 percent, the audience score 83 percent--not spectacular, but other films with much, much worse have done much, much better, and there is room to think that the scores would have been higher had it not been for the unhinged overhyping of the movie as the greatest superhero film ever made at a moment when the standard is extremely high, the audience showing signs of becoming jaded. (Indeed, I think there is still room for the movie, given its oddities, to become a cult success.)
All of that seems to underline just how much the film market may be changing--and, much as they are evidently resisting it, forcing change on the Hollywood system of a kind not seen in a half century.
Balzac and the Rise of Modern Publishing
In discussing Balzac's depiction of publishing in Lost Illusions I remarked how, in contrast with so many who light-mindedly tell people that "publishing is a business" (mostly, just in the course of excusing it for the brutal way it treats writers), Balzac actually shows what that means--the essential crassness of those in control, the extreme conflict this sets up with any artistic imperative, the problems of publicity and the way they make it more important to have a "distinguished name" on the cover of a book than that the book be good, the expenses of promotion and the corruption of book reviewing, the nearly insuperable obstacles that any new arrival of whatever talent must overcome just to get their work looked at, and the rest.
Still, if all this is as true of the business today as it ever was (and set by Balzac with infinitely greater forthrightness than any contemporary person discussing the industry dares to do), it can seem the case that the entrepreneurs of the "Wooden Galleries" Balzac describes are remote from the realities of a corporatized, bureaucratized world we have long taken for granted--just as is generally the case when we consider business as it stood two centuries ago. Still, as is also the case with much we see when we look at the world of two centuries ago, and the books of Balzac, we can see that later world emergent, in a quip of the vile Dauriat's. As he remarks when, with gleeful cruelty, crushing Lucien du Rubempre's hopes, "I have eleven hundred manuscripts on hand . . . eleven hundred manuscripts submitted to me at this moment," a testament to the scale of the submissions with which a major publisher must deal. Moreover, Dauriat, quite clear on what managing such quantities of manuscripts requires, observes that he "shall soon be obliged to start a department to keep account of the stock of manuscripts, and a special office for reading them, and a committee to vote on their merits."
So did it go, the processing of manuscripts becoming increasingly bureaucratized, with the result that Jack London described so well in Martin Eden--until the Dauriats of the world decided they would not bother with such things at all, dumping the burden of running such departments and offices on literary agents and telling anyone who came to them with such a manuscript in spite of their declaration everywhere they could possibly make it that they "do not accept unsolicited manuscripts" to "get an agent," three little words that are the "Let them eat cake" of the Dauriats of Park Avenue.
Still, if all this is as true of the business today as it ever was (and set by Balzac with infinitely greater forthrightness than any contemporary person discussing the industry dares to do), it can seem the case that the entrepreneurs of the "Wooden Galleries" Balzac describes are remote from the realities of a corporatized, bureaucratized world we have long taken for granted--just as is generally the case when we consider business as it stood two centuries ago. Still, as is also the case with much we see when we look at the world of two centuries ago, and the books of Balzac, we can see that later world emergent, in a quip of the vile Dauriat's. As he remarks when, with gleeful cruelty, crushing Lucien du Rubempre's hopes, "I have eleven hundred manuscripts on hand . . . eleven hundred manuscripts submitted to me at this moment," a testament to the scale of the submissions with which a major publisher must deal. Moreover, Dauriat, quite clear on what managing such quantities of manuscripts requires, observes that he "shall soon be obliged to start a department to keep account of the stock of manuscripts, and a special office for reading them, and a committee to vote on their merits."
So did it go, the processing of manuscripts becoming increasingly bureaucratized, with the result that Jack London described so well in Martin Eden--until the Dauriats of the world decided they would not bother with such things at all, dumping the burden of running such departments and offices on literary agents and telling anyone who came to them with such a manuscript in spite of their declaration everywhere they could possibly make it that they "do not accept unsolicited manuscripts" to "get an agent," three little words that are the "Let them eat cake" of the Dauriats of Park Avenue.
The Lies They Told the Self-Published
I'm not quite sure how things stand here these days, but back when self-publishing exploded circa 2010 the writer who endeavored to go this route was beaten over the head with the "advice" that they absolutely must make great and strenuous efforts to publicize their book if they are to have any hope of anyone reading their book at all.
As with most of the advice directed toward the self-published this was less about guiding them toward a course that would let them have the fairest possible chance than crushing their hopes of self-publication being a viable alternative to the traditional publication channels out of which they had likely found themselves already completely shut out (because the means are beyond them, or the process so distasteful or unbearable)--or to foist on them very expensive services of dubious value.
As one might guess, the advice tended to be dishonest, in the small as in the large.
Consider how such writers were enjoined to get their work "reviewed."
The truth is that they did not need "reviews." A merely good review, after all, would not necessarily do much for them, while a bad review would be damaging--quite enough, perhaps, to neutralize the effect of many positive reviews.
No, what they needed rather than reviews was claquing--not reviewers, but claqueurs. Big publishers can arrange these--and do so all the time, going by the raves one sees all the time on the covers of mediocre works. They do not necessarily have to work all that hard for it--the established author likely to be treated much more generously than the newcomer for a multitude of reasons, as their failings are given the benefit of the doubt, and the critics jump on the bandwagon, in a way that cannot happen with a "nobody," who was likely to naively send out their work to such obscure reviewers as they could get to look at it, and merely land luke-warm responses--and, reflecting how much more they needed the claquing than did the already established, the less than luke-warm sales to show for them.
As with most of the advice directed toward the self-published this was less about guiding them toward a course that would let them have the fairest possible chance than crushing their hopes of self-publication being a viable alternative to the traditional publication channels out of which they had likely found themselves already completely shut out (because the means are beyond them, or the process so distasteful or unbearable)--or to foist on them very expensive services of dubious value.
As one might guess, the advice tended to be dishonest, in the small as in the large.
Consider how such writers were enjoined to get their work "reviewed."
The truth is that they did not need "reviews." A merely good review, after all, would not necessarily do much for them, while a bad review would be damaging--quite enough, perhaps, to neutralize the effect of many positive reviews.
No, what they needed rather than reviews was claquing--not reviewers, but claqueurs. Big publishers can arrange these--and do so all the time, going by the raves one sees all the time on the covers of mediocre works. They do not necessarily have to work all that hard for it--the established author likely to be treated much more generously than the newcomer for a multitude of reasons, as their failings are given the benefit of the doubt, and the critics jump on the bandwagon, in a way that cannot happen with a "nobody," who was likely to naively send out their work to such obscure reviewers as they could get to look at it, and merely land luke-warm responses--and, reflecting how much more they needed the claquing than did the already established, the less than luke-warm sales to show for them.
Saturday, September 23, 2023
Could Captain Marvel 2 be the Marvel Cinematic Universe's The Flash?
The result is that I find myself wondering--could Captain Marvel 2 (aka The Marvels) be to the Marvel Cinematic Universe what Solo was to Star Wars, what Indiana Jones 5 was to that series, what The Flash has been to the DCEU? Compared with when I made my prediction about The Marvels four months ago, at the beginning rather than the end of the franchise flop-packed summer of 2023, I see even less reason than before for optimism about the performance of superhero sequels like this one, whether from the DCEU, Marvel or anywhere else. Yet the fact remains that my estimate for The Marvels was already fairly low to begin with--premised on what the Black Panther franchise suffered in its theatrical revenues from the first to the second film, a drop of perhaps half in the "real" worldwide box office gross not inconceivable, leaving it with $600-$700 million collected.
Since that time I have seen no reason to think the film will do much better--while certain of the disadvantages it is likely to have are clearer. The film's shift in tone to something goofier than what its predecessors offered may not go over well with audiences (it is the kind of thing that tends to bespeak a run-down series, and very likely did not help Thor 4), while the crossover element can be awkward for people who did not see (or saw but did not like) the associated series--and this all counting the more at a time when viewers are less enthusiastic than before about moviegoing, more fickle in regard to movies that just a short time ago were nearly sure-fire "events." The result is that I do think a Solo/Indiana Jones 5/The Flash-style collapse (the movie's doing less than the $600-$700 million I anticipated, the movie maybe doing just half that business) is not wildly implausible--though of course we will know more in a few weeks, when the box office tracking starts to come in.
For an updated view of the issue, see the author's latest on Captain Marvel 2's prospects.
How Much Would Captain Marvel 2 Need to Make to be Profitable?
We now hear that Captain Marvel 2's production may have run Disney some $275 million, including $220 million "net" (the part that came from the producer)--a hefty sum, and likely just the beginning where its expenses are concerned. Already $45 million more in current dollars than the first Captain Marvel at that stage of things, Disney's final expenditure on Captain Marvel (what we get counting distribution, promotion, participation, residuals, interest all the way through home entertainment), should we take the Deadline figures about the movie from back in 2020 at face value, came to a little over $450 million (an extra $275 million on top of the $175 million production cost).
Extrapolating from Disney's production cost, this would work out to some $560-$570 million for Captain Marvel 2.
Going by what Deadline has reported about previous films of comparable scale and type, with $560 million spent Disney needs to make at least 55 percent of that sum theatrically--$300 million+--just to cover the rest of the outlay with earnings from streaming, home entertainment, etc.. With the film's backers keeping a bit less than half of the theatrical gross I would not expect the movie to break even much below $650 million grossed worldwide, assuming commensurately strong revenue from the post-theatrical income streams.
At the beginning of this past summer movie season it seemed to me that $700 million was the high end of what the movie could be expected to make--given how Marvel's sequels have underperformed relative to their predecessors, and given how the first Captain Marvel was something of a special event (among other things, coming out mere weeks before the mega-event that was Endgame), making it more likely to suffer the drop of a Black Panther sequel than a Guardians of the Galaxy sequel. Nothing I have seen so far has made me much more optimistic about the movie's earnings prospects. The result is that I can see the movie squeaking by in the most favorable scenario, but not much more (that $1 billion mark still likely to be well out of reach), with underperformance easily translating to losses--losses that, while unhappy for the studio, are unlikely to look very significant next to what it has suffered in the wake of Indiana Jones 5's ignominious reception.
Extrapolating from Disney's production cost, this would work out to some $560-$570 million for Captain Marvel 2.
Going by what Deadline has reported about previous films of comparable scale and type, with $560 million spent Disney needs to make at least 55 percent of that sum theatrically--$300 million+--just to cover the rest of the outlay with earnings from streaming, home entertainment, etc.. With the film's backers keeping a bit less than half of the theatrical gross I would not expect the movie to break even much below $650 million grossed worldwide, assuming commensurately strong revenue from the post-theatrical income streams.
At the beginning of this past summer movie season it seemed to me that $700 million was the high end of what the movie could be expected to make--given how Marvel's sequels have underperformed relative to their predecessors, and given how the first Captain Marvel was something of a special event (among other things, coming out mere weeks before the mega-event that was Endgame), making it more likely to suffer the drop of a Black Panther sequel than a Guardians of the Galaxy sequel. Nothing I have seen so far has made me much more optimistic about the movie's earnings prospects. The result is that I can see the movie squeaking by in the most favorable scenario, but not much more (that $1 billion mark still likely to be well out of reach), with underperformance easily translating to losses--losses that, while unhappy for the studio, are unlikely to look very significant next to what it has suffered in the wake of Indiana Jones 5's ignominious reception.
On Captain Marvel 2's Budget
Another day, another revelation that makes Disney's finances look even worse than before--with, once again, Disney-Marvel's milking of the British government's system for subsidizing movies leading to the public disclosure at the root of it.
The latest has to do with the outlay for Captain Marvel 2, with some fuss now being made over Forbes' reporting the budget as $275 million, a number touted as twice what had previously been announced--the $130 million figure we heard back in April.
However, as anyone who actually read the reports back in the spring should have registered, the claim was not that the whole project cost $130 million, but that (as the title of Forbes' own April piece put it!) the production company had spent "$130 Million Two Months into Filming." The result was that, especially as $130 million seemed paltry for a Marvel movie--especially a follow-up to the big-budgeted and high-grossing Captain Marvel, especially in this age of inflation, interest rate hike- and pandemic disruption-related production budget--and so I never took it for more than part of the total sum, to be revealed later.*
Accordingly the $275 million figure we are now hearing strikes me not as some scandal, but as completely unsurprising. (In fact it seems less surprising after those other revelations we heard about what Marvel's most recent movies cost, like the far-greater sum--$1.2 billion!--spent on Avengers 3 and 4.)
And of course, the $275 million figure fails to take into account the $55 million subsidy that is, after all, how we got to hear about all this, lowering the net production cost to the vicinity of $220 million.
The fuss thus seems to me a testament to the lack of basic reading skills among those who pass for journalists in this day and age--and, in fairness, also to the way many seem to be reveling in the way that Disney has gone from being Hollywood's champion in the '10s to looking like it is in dire straits.
* The production of the first Captain Marvel cost Disney $175 million net according to Deadline. Perhaps an underestimate (given how Deadline's figures have been consistently low next to the figures we now hear about) it is equal to around $210 million today--way more than that $130 million we heard about, even before inflation, but not much less than the $220 million net production cost of the new movie.
The latest has to do with the outlay for Captain Marvel 2, with some fuss now being made over Forbes' reporting the budget as $275 million, a number touted as twice what had previously been announced--the $130 million figure we heard back in April.
However, as anyone who actually read the reports back in the spring should have registered, the claim was not that the whole project cost $130 million, but that (as the title of Forbes' own April piece put it!) the production company had spent "$130 Million Two Months into Filming." The result was that, especially as $130 million seemed paltry for a Marvel movie--especially a follow-up to the big-budgeted and high-grossing Captain Marvel, especially in this age of inflation, interest rate hike- and pandemic disruption-related production budget--and so I never took it for more than part of the total sum, to be revealed later.*
Accordingly the $275 million figure we are now hearing strikes me not as some scandal, but as completely unsurprising. (In fact it seems less surprising after those other revelations we heard about what Marvel's most recent movies cost, like the far-greater sum--$1.2 billion!--spent on Avengers 3 and 4.)
And of course, the $275 million figure fails to take into account the $55 million subsidy that is, after all, how we got to hear about all this, lowering the net production cost to the vicinity of $220 million.
The fuss thus seems to me a testament to the lack of basic reading skills among those who pass for journalists in this day and age--and, in fairness, also to the way many seem to be reveling in the way that Disney has gone from being Hollywood's champion in the '10s to looking like it is in dire straits.
* The production of the first Captain Marvel cost Disney $175 million net according to Deadline. Perhaps an underestimate (given how Deadline's figures have been consistently low next to the figures we now hear about) it is equal to around $210 million today--way more than that $130 million we heard about, even before inflation, but not much less than the $220 million net production cost of the new movie.
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