Batman v. Superman

[doc7924]

Very good summation.

I'll add this, Superman killing Zod is not out of character.  In extreme circumstances he has resorted to that very measure.  However, it has always left him in a moral quandry (which I assume was what that horrid screeching thing he did in MoS was supposed to represent).   

I also have no issue with there being wanton massive destruction as he attempts to stop Zod, since Zod wants to "kill all humans" and Superman is attempting to stop him.  That makes sense.  (However, Superman callously adding to the destruction rather than try to move them away from the "kill zone" does not sit well.)

But...

There is NO WAY that should have been the first story told with a new Superman who is "new" to the Earth.  The renegade Kryptonians story should always be told well after Superman is established as a trusted hero on Earth and his refusal to kill is also well established.  That lends the story serious gravitas and an emotional core that actually means something to the audience.  Otherwise, the whole shebang is just a disaster-porn movie with superheroes. (MoS, I am looking at you)

I also had no problems with Supes killing Zod. He clearly had no choice as Zod himself said he would never stop. (Just wish Supes did it before he vaporized that family)

In contrast in the story where he killed the bubble Earth Zod and others, I don't think he should have. They already lost their powers to the Gold K, and they claimed that 'someday, maybe' we will our powers back. It wasn't like the immediate danger in the Man of Steel.

And I don't even know how the Green K killed them since it was established that Green K only affects super powered Kryptonians.

But I enjoyed MoS a lot, even though it went against a lot of established Superman lore and I thought making Jor-El such a bad ass was a bit much.
 

[Arcana]

Here's Forbes' take on the profitability of Batman v Superman:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/400-million-warner-bros-put-073500621.html

Bottom line: in terms of return on investment, better than X-Men Days of Future Past, not as good as Ant-Man.  Deadpool, unsurprisingly, was the absolute undisputed king of return on investment for superhero and superhero-like movies.

[ricodah]

Batman vs Superman storyboard art shows shocking alternate ending to the movie.

Spoiler for Hidden:

[HalcyonS]

Are they naming the baby Martha?

[Vee]

They thought about it but given how often you have to call a kid's name they worried that Bruce would constantly lose his train of thought.

[CG]

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/the-final-box-office-verdict-for-batman-v-145633263.html

Looks like Batman v Superman will be topping out at less than $900 million in box office.

[Arcana]

I think my final verdict on the movie's performance is that if this was a Batman movie that had only brief cameos of Superman and Wonder Woman, those numbers would be a success.  If the Marvel movies themselves didn't exist, this would also be considered a success.  But given that BvS features all three of the most important Justice Leaguers, given the fact that it already uses some very significant story telling ammo you can't easily reuse, and given that Marvel has set the standard for what's possible in a movie like this, you'd have to consider this performance to be significantly underwhelming.  I wouldn't call it a massive failure: it could have failed much worse.  If there's a bright side it is that the numbers may represent a floor of performance of sorts if they can improve the future movies.  But those numbers tell me the movie was not successful on a level you'd expect for the material.

[FatherXmas]

Well finally saw the latest installment in the DC Cinematic Murderverse.

Okay, that was a little mean but Snyder needs to be bitch slapped repeatedly for offing

Spoiler for Hidden:

Mercy and Jimmy.

Fortunately all the spoiler reviews (yes I did not go in blind) at least allowed my to bridge the gap between various 20 second scenes in the movie.  At it's core, there is the bones of a good movie but it lacked a coherent narrative with the various sub-plots.  It felt like the editing process was trying to assemble a lot of short key scenes together and realizing you forgot to film the bits between them.  It was a ton of vignettes assembled in an order that tried to make sense.

Really liked Batman.  WW was alright for what we saw of her.  Overall the film wasn't the stinking pile of dren that some reviews made of it but it was held together by chewing gum and bailing wire so as a film it was meh.  As a superhero film, it's several notches above meh but Civil War is going to destroy it in the box office, reviews and fandom.

[doc7924]

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/the-final-box-office-verdict-for-batman-v-145633263.html

Looks like Batman v Superman will be topping out at less than $900 million in box office.

That's so sad that it only made 900 million. Poor Warner Bros.

[Excidia]

It was a ton of vignettes assembled in an order that tried to make sense.

I made a very similar comment about Civil War.  I loved most of it as a comics fanboy, but it wasn't a great movie and left me feeling hollow.  I still hope it makes tons of money so they make more of them.

e-

[hurple]

That's so sad that it only made 900 million. Poor Warner Bros.

Word through the grapevine is they needed at least $1 billion to "break even" worldwide.

So, yeah, in that regard, only $900 million is not so good.

[doc7924]

Word through the grapevine is they needed at least $1 billion to "break even" worldwide.

So, yeah, in that regard, only $900 million is not so good.

I grew up in the 60's and 70's - if a film made $30 million it was considered a big success. These days it costs $30 million just for catering probably.

[Arcana]

Word through the grapevine is they needed at least $1 billion to "break even" worldwide.

So, yeah, in that regard, only $900 million is not so good.

If by "the grapevine" you mean "the internet" that's mostly a lot of repeated random wild guessing.

Technically speaking, a movie like BvS could be said to need "at least a billion dollars" in theater revenue to "break even" but that's a very sketchy statement.  First of all, the studio gets to keep something like about 50% of domestic and around 40% of international revenue.  For BvS that means about $163M domestic and $215M international goes to Warner, for a total haul of about $378M.  That is technically more than the movie's budget.

However, there are other costs.  One guestimate I've seen calculated by Forbes put the total costs including marketing, distribution, and participation and residual costs to talent at about $384M for a total overall cost of about $634M.  By that reckoning BvS was a huge loss.  But if we look at Avengers: Age of Ultron we see that its budget was about the same $250M as BvS: if we project its overall costs to be similar, AoU's total domestic and international revenue to Disney would be about $459*.05 + $946*0.4=$608M.  In other words, if we look at the estimated costs of AoU verses its theater net revenue it *also* loses money.  The reason why AoU isn't considered a disaster is that AoU makes a lot of money elsewhere: AoU made over $300M in rentals, on demand, streaming, and video sales.  When factoring in estimates for all sources of revenue, BvS is likely to make some money: between 20% and 30% net profit for the studio after all expenses.  By that same reckoning, Age of Ultron also loses money in the theaters but overall ends up making about 90% profit when all is said and done.  A lot better, but neither actually lose money.

For BvS, and for that matter Age of Ultron, to have actually broken even from first release theater revenue alone they would have had to make $1.5 billion at the theaters.  Age of Ultron comes admirably close, but it doesn't get there.  The first Avengers movie does: using these estimates as a guide, a rough estimate for overall costs of The Avengers comes in at about $558M in budget, distribution, participation, and other costs (The Avengers budget was slightly lower at $220M and I'm presuming its overall costs were proportionately lower), against about $670M in total worldwide net theater revenue (assuming similar distribution splits).

I'm not exactly sure where the billion dollar number comes from, but it seems to be just an internet game of telephone.

[Arcana]

I grew up in the 60's and 70's - if a film made $30 million it was considered a big success. These days it costs $30 million just for catering probably.

In the 60s "big" movie budgets were typically in the $5-$7M range, so $30M would be a reasonably big success, but in the 1960s it was still possible to achieve mega numbers because of the lack of competition: The Sound of Music played in theaters for like five years and made over $200M over that time.  Of course, that was the exception, but "big" movies could draw a lot of money back then: Thunderball made over a hundred million worldwide as well.

In the 70s, though, $30M would only be a success for a smaller film.  "Big" budget event movies like Jaws and Star Wars began to increase expectations even though both also had modest budgets.

I do remember when Terminator 2: Judgment Day became the first movie to officially have a budget of over $100 million and we were all like oohing and aahing over that..  A lot of people wondered if James Cameron could possibly make that budget back.  Then of course Cameron became the first person to spend over $200 million on a movie and people wondered if he could ever possibly make that budget back with a period piece movie about star crossed lovers aboard a doomed ocean liner.  I wonder if Cameron wants to film five Avatar sequels simultaneously just so he can be the first director to spend over $300million in one production.

James Cameron is the anti-John Carpenter.  Most of the time, the more money you give Cameron the more successful the movie will be (at least commercially).  The more money you give Carpenter, the less successful the movie will be.  If you want a great movie from Cameron, give him a blank check.  If you want a great movie from John Carpenter, give him a Home Depot gift card and bag of cheetos.

[Vee]

I'm wondering how DoJ will do in home release. Even before it hit the theaters there was already talk of it having a lot of deleted scenes. I could see it doing well on bluray if people thought there was extra content that made it more comprehensible.

[hurple]

If by "the grapevine" you mean "the internet" that's mostly a lot of repeated random wild guessing.

No... by "the grapevine" I mean people I know who work in the film industry.  And I don't mean as gaffers or gofers.     

And thanks for taking the time to show off that you know how to add and subtract, but you're waaaaaaaaaayyyy over-simplifying the equations and waaaaaaaaaaayy under-thinking the total situation. 

No, the "magic number" according to WB suits was $1 bn.  Less than that, the film is a loss.  (As in, might be profitable by all accounts, but not enough to make the suits happy)

They need to do better than expected on home release to make up the difference so expect a HUGE push when that time comes and campaigns to convince the public that it's a vastly improved movie with all the additional extra footage restored!

Not that it means there won't be more films, or that Snyder won't helm them.  But, I guarantee the recent quitting of DC-film directors/producers is due to the studio suddenly coming in to micro-manage the other films to try to mitigate this same thing happening to them.  (Never mind that those micro-managers are the same ones who cheer-led this mess all the way to under-performing)  Hmmm, did Wann end up leaving Aquaman, or did he stay on (so far)? 

[Vee]

No... by "the grapevine" I mean people I know who work in the film industry.  And I don't mean as gaffers or gofers.   

Fluffers?

[Arcana]

No... by "the grapevine" I mean people I know who work in the film industry.  And I don't mean as gaffers or gofers.     

And thanks for taking the time to show off that you know how to add and subtract, but you're waaaaaaaaaayyyy over-simplifying the equations and waaaaaaaaaaayy under-thinking the total situation. 

No, the "magic number" according to WB suits was $1 bn.  Less than that, the film is a loss.  (As in, might be profitable by all accounts, but not enough to make the suits happy)

Citation please.  Whatever your sources are, no executive would peg the profitability of the movie on a vague theater revenue number, because that's not the only source of revenue.  A billion dollars might have been the whisper number for expectations, but not "break even."

[hurple]

Citation please.  Whatever your sources are, no executive would peg the profitability of the movie on a vague theater revenue number, because that's not the only source of revenue.  A billion dollars might have been the whisper number for expectations, but not "break even."

You're absolutely right.  There are plenty of other sources of revenue.  However, the "in theater" goal was $1 bn to hit "break even."  now, that $100 mil has to be found elsewhere.  And, with the movie under-performing by that much at the box office, pushing other income streams to make up the shortfall is not as promising.  So, like I said, expect a HUGE push to sell the movie on DVD/Blu/Digital later in the year. 

So, $1 bn was the "break even" number, for theaters.  There are also "break even" numbers for home video, digital, toy sales, etc... All those numbers were driven by/dependent on the $1 bn number in theaters.  A billion dollar movie is assumed to push later home sales to a certain level, plus push toy sales to a certain level, etc.  With the movie under-performing, now the figures for all those other revenue streams have to be adjusted (down), as per trending and estimates based on the performance of past projects.  However, now they need those numbers to go UP to make up the shortfall... So, my best guess, based on my experience in the industry, is that they will back off the movie and it will all but disappear (except the toys which are already out on the shelves)... And they'll hope the general public forgets the negative reviews, both critics and word of mouth... Until the push begins for home video when they'll re-sell the movie WITH ADDED FOOTAGE as *better than ever* hoping the schmos will fall for it and shell out the moolah to see it, again. (Of course, the plans for making up the shortfall is just a guess.  I wasn't "lucky" enough to be involved with this disaster.* )  (Also, of course, the extra 30 minutes or so may make this a much better movie... but only if the last scene is Jor-El waking up and realizing it's all just a nightmare and they re-boot from there.)

So, to drive all those other numbers to the desired profit level, the "break even" revenue figure for theaters was $1 bn.  Now, because the film did not reach that plateau, all other figures have to be reset and re-calculated.  So, there are new "break even" figures on all other revenue streams which will incorporate the harder sell, because the movie did not perform as it should, and the changes in advertising felt necessary to shore up the *overall* profit after the movie moves through all income outlets (TV, Netflix, DVD/Blu, toys, soundtrack, etc...) as well as the necessity to perform better than previously estimated. 

It's not pleasant to be involved in a "tentpole" production that doesn't live up to expectations.  (And wonderful to be involved in one that exceeds expectations... Joss Whedon is pretty much set for life (like George Lucas) after The Avengers)

Just to make my position clear, the cast was wonderful (except Eisenberg and Adams), it was the screenplay, direction and feel of the movie that sucked.


* - And by disaster, I mean the movie itself, not the revenue stream.  And by "lucky" I mean, bwah-ha-ha-ha!

[Vee]

Watched the ultimate edition. It seemed a bit less disjointed but I think that could be partially a function of it being my second watch. Really apart from integrating the scene that's been making the rounds since it was in the theaters I couldn't tell you where the extra half hour came in.

Definitely worth a watch if you've not seen it but if you already saw it you're probably wasting your time. I don't feel like I got anything extra out of it.