Suicide Squad

I know it's getting trashed by critics and it's getting hammered on Rotten Tomatos.

I'm not going to go into the movie that deeply, but I felt I should comment.

One, I don't know what people's problems are, I enjoyed it. Mind, I DO try to enjoy movies. I'm cheap and easy. I had a fun time. It's not Guardians, but it's good/fun. (OTH, I think Batman: Assault on Arkham is a much better movie and a much better Suicide Squad movie.)

Margot Robbie KILLS as Harley. I don't know how they could have a made a better choice. If there is a problem in this movie it's that they didn't give her more to do. (Or that we didn't see more of Katana.)

Joker is not in the movie that much. I .. don't want to talk about the Joker. I'd rather people go see the movie and THEN we can talk about the Joker. A great Joker I think. But... <shuts up.> This is mostly me I think, and I don't want to bend someone before they see it. Really Joker isn't in the movie that much, and he could have been left out and it'd play the same. So, it's more of a curiosity than a deal breaker for the movie.

It's no wonder to me that they're making a Harley Quinn movie. But .. I'll show my hand a bit and say I'd rather have a Harley/Ivy movie than a Harley/Joker movie ....

They do show Batman in the trailer so I don't think this counts as a spoiler. If you are expecting a lot of Batman, don't. He's barely a cameo. Don't get your hopes up. He is used well for what he's used for.

Amada Waller is aces. I even liked Will Smith Deadshot, even though he's pretty much "Will Smith Character, Deadshot". Smith's got a lot of Charisma, and he does his job. If you hate Will Smith, well, you'll hate Deadshot and if Robbie's ass isn't enough for you, you'll probably then hate the movie.

My biggest complaint is the Squad becomes "family" and that part seems to happen too quickly/easily. OTH, they're all in solitary so maybe it's not.

Honestly, my take on the reviews is the trailers were pretty great, and I think people expected a 10/10. It's a 7/10, and they felt cheated. Then factor in nerd rage + nerd DC rage over BvS, and people are acting like it's a 3/10. It's NOT THAT BAD.

(You also might want to take into account I'm easy, but hopefully someone else will chime in and say what they thought. But I'm not hip, i'm not afraid to actually like something. I just read the Rolling Stone review and honestly I think the guy who wrote it IS too hip to actually LIKE something.)

People also complained about the music being disjointed. To which I say "that was the POINT". It's used perfectly to highlight each member of the Squad, and it does it's job really well. I think people who complain about it are complaining about it violating some rules on how music "should be" in a movie, and forgetting that rules can be broken when it makes sense, and actually *should* be broken when they make sense. I think this is one of them, and the music is perfect for setting tone/characterization. There are many here much more knowledgable about the craft of making tv/film, you'll have to tell me if you agree with me. (I'm actually interested in hearing what others have to say about it. )

You might not understand fully what is going on in Act 2, but I think Act 3 pretty much tells you what is going on/why things happened. I read some reviews that seemed confused, it wasn't that complex, but it also wasn't too stupid either. I thought it worked out well.

The REAL thing you need to know is that even though this is a DC Movie, STAY DURING THE CREDITS. You'll know it when you see it and then there isn't anything after that. I tend to stay in effects laden movies anyway, those people worked really hard, I can sit for a few minutes and watch names crawl over the screen and chill out a bit and ponder their work for a bit. Talk it over with friends.

And let me know if you think it's shit or not. That way I can put a warning on all my reviews "... and I actually LIKED Suicide Squad so ..."

I disagree with some of the specifics TWOT, but agree with the sentiments.

I am going to compare it to GHOSTBUSTERS, which i am going to say is similar. There both basically superhero movies, but well. Going to do a spoiler.




one of the things that i have heard is that the original cut of the movie was like 4 hours long, and for this and other reasons...you can kinda get the sence that a lot get cut out-there is hooks to scenes that don't exist any more left and right, but it has the werid effect of this. This is a movie about friendship, but we don't really get that story. They cut that out and using in place a lot of jokes and funny scenes.

Which brings us to Squad....Which is a movie i do like, maybe a lot i am not sure. But vauge spoilers



Where we come to the comparision: I think both of the movies are good. They are probabbly an edit or two from being great. But there kinda flawed in the same way. They are little to obsessed with show us characters and show how cool they are...that they kinda sacrifice letting the characters be and change and grow together. And thats problematic in a movie.

Just my two cents. I'm pulling for DC, and wanted to like it. I really did. But...

It's bad. Bad in that it's not really bad, per se, it just sort of is, it just kind of exists. It makes a passing attempt at being a movie, but it never tries to be good. As a writer, I watched scene after scene just peter out, with no laugh line, no zinger, no punctuation of action or anything. It's just lazy scenes of nighttime gun battles strung together with almost no story, no sense of urgency, and the creeping sense that it's just silliness cobbled together to appeal to...well, somebody. Robbie is a superstar waiting to happen, in they literally gave her nothing to do. Will Smith tries, but he's Will Smith. Enchantress actually came off as a little creepy, her design was cool, but not enough to drive what thin business served as the story. Davis and Affleck (I know, but I think they guy is great in almost every movie, Argo, The Town, Hollywoodland, Gone Girl, and yes BvS, etc) seem almost out of place; their talents are so above this movie they stick out.

I love comic book movies, but it's efforts like this that awaken that little voice in my 40-something head: "You've seen this before, a million times. This isn't good, and deep down inside you know it, and it bores you. Go see a grown-up movie."

The WW trailer is incredible. I'm holding out hope for that one.

AuGoose wrote: I. LOVED. IT.

That was excellent. I know all eyes are on Harley, but I went in with one burning question, one character that would make or break not only the movie, but the whole damn franchise for me:

Is Amanda Waller supremely hard-core?

Yes. Yes, she is.

((psst! HARD. CORE.))

I'm glad I didn't steer you wrong!

Finally got to see this movie late last night when I was able to sneak out to the cinema with a friend.

In short, I give it a 7/10. Certainly not as deep as Batman v Superman (As most of you know, I loved that movie). but a lot more fun. The audience I saw it with laughed through the whole thing and cheered at the end. (On a side note, I did notice that the group that seemed to cheer the loudest was young women. I guess they were really into the Joker/Harley relationship.)

Honestly, I did not see the twist at the end coming and was totally surprised when it happened. The mid credits scene was good also.

I have no idea what is up with the critics. Don't even get me started on them. I saw one review complaining that they called The Joker "Mr. J." instead of "The Joker". I mean, really? That's your complaint? Oh well, it's not even worth complaining about anymore because I can't fathom how anyone can take them seriously at this point.

Favorite characters:

1. Harley Quinn (Do I even need to give a reason?)
2. El Diablo (Surprisingly, I was more emotionally invested in his arc than any of the others.)
3. Deadshot (Will Smith owned this role. When he was in a scene actually shooting stuff in his mask, I turned to my friend and said: "That's Deadshot!"
4. Waller (Can't leave out The Wall. Absolutely ruthless, like she should be.)

Notice that I didn't say The Joker. He simply wasn't in it enough for me to judge. Hopefully he gets another movie to showcase his talents. I liked what I saw though.

AuGoose wrote: I. L

Suicide Squad had exactly 1 misstep as far as I was concerned: a transition that was unclear on how rapidly the central crisis was developing - give me like 45 more seconds of the big bad ramping things up before Task Force X is activated and we'd be fin. Otherwise it was a runaway train by design.

So going to own that when it comes out on disk.

I like that in the scene that established the city was destroyed we see twhree girls dressed for A prom complaining that this was suposed to be the' best night in there life'.

thats a weridly small detail that the movie largely got right.

My Review of Suicide Squad. (This is long and with SPOILERS!!!!!! <--- You have been warned)

It’s that time of year again. Another DC movie out, time for Kikass to kick-some-ass

Except this time, I can’t really bring myself to do it

What I am going to do is try to review this with an open-mind.

I went into this film not knowing a great deal about the Suicide Squad. Apart from Harley Quinn and Joker, I had very little idea of who Captain Boomerang, Katana, Rick Flagg, Deadshot, etc. were. So I went into this film as an average film watcher.

The Good:

I’ll start with the good.

As much as I was dreading them focusing on the sexuality of Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn so much, I would be lying if I say I didn’t enjoy it a bit

However, having said that, Margot Robbie was outstanding as Quinn.

I thought she was the best part of the movie. She brought a great level of craziness to the character and of course, she is a very attractive woman.

To my surprise, I actually thought Will Smith was ok as Deadshot. Yes, there was a lot of “Will Smith-being-Will Smith-being-Deadshot”, but I felt it was toned down quite a bit, to the point where, yeah I saw him as Deadshot.

My biggest surprise was the character of El Diablo. I had no fucking clue who this guy is or was, but from that portrayal, I wanted to know more about him. In the amount of time he was given, I thought Jay Hernandez brought a great deal of charm and humanity to the character.

Amanda Waller was, from my understanding of the character, pretty on point. Viola Davis is a well-respected actress and I actually felt she really cared about this character (unlike some talented actors who just phone in their performances in films like these).

The rest of the cast were….er……fine I guess. Even Cara Delevigne, who I think is a pretty good actress (can’t wait to see her as Laureline in Valerian). The problem is they didn’t have much to do, though this is a problem with the script and directing more than the talent of the actor (we’ll get to that in a bit).

The Bad:

Oh my, oh my, where to begin. This film has no plot. Literally, the plot is go kill the bad guy. There is some slight twist in the middle, but yeah, for all intents and purposes, the plot is “go kill bad guy and stop blue-beam shooting into the sky”.

Now, a simplistic plot like that is fine, I guess, if you have an interesting villain. However, here you don’t.

Hoola-Hooping cgi mess is not interesting. And while I guess the struggle between June and Enchantress, and her relationship with Rick Flagg, could make for some interesting exploration, the film instead breezes past that and we spend most of the time with CGI Cara.

Ok, simplistic plot and weak villain. At a stretch, one could give those a pass, IF we had interesting character development. But oh no. Again, we have none. Zero. Zip.

The one redeeming aspect of this point though is El Diablo. He had, probably, the best attention to his character. He had a backstory, but more importantly, he had an arc.

Bad thing he did --> feeling of remorse and change in his character ---> Heroic self-sacrificing arc --> Redemption.

^This is a character arc. More of the characters in Suicide Squad should get one.

Sticking with characters, while I love watching Margot Robbie and her sexy ass, or even a wise-cracking Will Smith in small doses, someone should have mentioned that this was an ensemble piece. Why focus on Harley and Deadshot almost exclusively?

Deadshot has no arc. He is still the same person at the end he was in the beginning. Harley Quinn has no arc. She does nothing but beat people with a baseball bat and show her ass. She is the same person at the end of the film as she was in the beginning.

If you are gonna have a main focus or two, make them interesting.

The last thing I would say on characters is that of The Joker. I gotta admit, I was apprehensive about Leto’s Joker. And while I don’t think he is the worst interpretation, I found myself a LOT more interested in watching him, especially the dynamic between him and Harley.

See, that would have been an interesting arc for her.

1) She starts off enamored by him; 2) but through the abusiveness of their relationship, she comes to realize it just won’t work; 3) and she leaves him at the end.

^ This is a character arc Harley could have had. A semi-interesting one to boot.

But instead….ah fuck it. Let’s butcher The Joker’s role to pieces and have more Margot ass on screen. GRRR!!!!

Ok, ok. Bad plot, weak villain and paper-thin characters. Let us say we could give all that a pass IF the action in the film is great, and entertaining to watch.

WRONG! Suicide Squad fucks this up also. The action is bland, generic, forgettable.

In fact, the whole film is shot in a boring, flat style.

While there is some great set design, I found the presentation of it nothing special. Functional would be the best way to describe it.

There were some really, REALLY, nice moments to be fair. The way Enchantress first transformed in that boardroom was genius. The introduction to the characters, with the flashy graphics and fast-cut scenes, was brilliant. But that’s it. Everything else, while not terrible, was just…..bland.

The last thing I want to touch on is the editing. This film is a fucking mess. Whoever edited this should be shot. (Yes, yes, I know about the “two versions” backstory).

Flashbacks jump in at the wrong spots, scenes seem to have been butchered together, ending abruptly or starting abruptly. It feels very jarring and pulls you out of the movie.

It also feels like there are some scenes shot JUST TO HAVE IN THE TRAILER! The main example I can think of is the “Harley stealing something from the shop window”. That scene is nothing more then to have her ass in the trailer.

And the funny one-liners. GRRR!! They seem so forced. Harley’s ones she pulls off for the most part, but Deadshot (who gets most of them) just fall flat. WHY HAVE THEM???? Have some balls and fucking do a dark comic book film. For fucks sake, this book of all is the one that should have been dark and serious-like. Not fucking Super…..Ah fuck you Warner Brothers!

Conclusion:

This film was frustrating to watch and appreciate. A massive case of studio interference has turned what, potentially, could have been a fun, yet dark, tale of slightly unhinged misfits banding together, into a stinking piece of randomness.

Is it worse then BvS? No. Hell no. I found this FAR more entertaining than BvS.

But it does have a LOT of the same problems.

However, unlike BvS, there seems to be a half-decent comic book movie buried in there. I would love to see Ayer’s original cut of the film, even though he says this IS his cut. I call bullshit on that. There are scenes in the trailer that didn’t make it into the film for starters. And tonally there is a lot of bouncing around (compare the first trailer to the second and third).

So, where does this leave WB and the DCEU?

Not in a good spot that’s for sure.

However, thinking about it, there is one way this could turn out good, even if only from a personal perspective.

Imagine MoS, BvS and SS as the Star Wars prequel trilogy. They are cannon, but fans groan and bemoan that fact. The real DCEU starts with Wonder Woman

However, on that, I would like to add that she has:

1) A female lead who has never headlined a major blockbuster feature;
2) A director who has one, albeit outstanding, film to her name;
3) And a comic book icon who has never had a big-screen adaptation.

That’s a hell of a load for the Amazonian Princess to lift.

Hopefully she is up to the task. /fingerscrossed

Peace.

/K

Part of the problem with the Harley Joker stuff is that from what i understand stuff they reshoot-which isn't inherently a problem but goes to the ending.

lfan wrote: This is fairly on topic and a brilliant read. Although I disagree with how BAD the recent DC Movies were, I cannot disagree with much more of what she says:

www.vulture.com/2016/08/this-open-letter...rner-bros-execs.html

Njoy!
ElF

I'd say she cranked the hyperbole up a bit ... but I agree with her.

"It's time to wake up and make the fucking donuts, Kevin.".

I sure hope she's wrong about Wonder Woman! OTH, Suicide Squad's trailers are better than the movie by a wide margin, and I LIKE the movie. I hope that's not the case for WW.

Suicide Squad does give the aura of "The best fix we could do", but fixing a movie is best done AT THE START, rather than at the end. i.e. fix the script, before you start shooting. Unless you are Ridley Scott and you're working with Russel Crowe. Then you can get a Best Picture out of only having a 27 page script ...

Or Marvel and get lucky and have Favreau working with RDJ for Iron Man + the freedom to make things happen.

But Zack Snyder isn't Ridley Scott. And I like Cavill, but he's not Russel Crowe. (Ben Affleck on the other hand, you can probably wing a movie with as I think they winged Good Will Hunting)

And few actors are RDJ.

I disagree with a lot of this.

To hit with the non genre thing.Regarding the e hobbit movies-i do think the Second was the best one, but you do defiently get a sence that the movies learn and change as they went on. Yes they made a lot of mistakes in the Unexpected Journey and its a dull slog thats to long by half, But Smaug is a really great-that i kinda of like better then a lot of LOTR. If The Battle of the Five Armies isn't quite as good and has flaws of its own, you see how they do try to listen to critics -if anything i think the movies problem is that it moves a little quick.

(also Jersey Boys: fine little biopic, not going to change the world but i see the slight)

But To the heart-i got to like Batman Vs Superman-and the longer i sit with Man of Steel i think i kinda like it to. And i think a large part of that is..Zack Synder. Its a huge budget, special effects, thats flawed yes-but its a movie with something on its mind-an to comment on it directly-

Batman is Trump.

Or i think some of the ideas of anti immigration that He kinda of esposes. Batman is a republican in this movie, which is something that i think most Batman movies dance around, but i think fairly explict here. And while this may not be the forrum to discus what this specifically-thisn't really a forrum for politics- i do think is by itself kinda of a balsy thing to do in a 200 million spectacle. Its a movie with a lot of neat images and scenes-that i wasn't bored.

(i will coment that this doesn't mean Superman is Clinton or a democract, he kinda represents the well meaning other-but thats not here or othere)

Which i am kinda of increasingly am with Marvel movies. You never really get a wiff to much of the real world. I think you can say the 5 Rings are suposed to Taliban, but its highest grade cartoon of it . Most of there movies have kinda o blank bad guys/evil coprorations that you have seen in movies for decades.It can Be funny, have good special effects and action scenes-but ehhh.

Civil War i think was its most intresting when it vaugely suggested a kind of Non Proliferation message with its villian and liked there take on it but that felt all of five minutes Tere where momments when the characters and script business had momments - the Chet Baker Scene was cute--but it kind of bored me as it turned into an endless version of Superheros kinda of play fighting each other. Its a captian America-and i think can admire that Chris Evans finds a balance of humor in it-but hes kind of a borring character. He doesn't ever seem to doubt his desicions or have any real arc. He is who he is for three movies and 2 group movies.

Which is not to say your wrong for liking it-but i kinda like how DC isn't doing that-well Green Lantern was an obvious attempt to do it-but when that movie failed they pivoted. There tendency to spend 300 millions and make hasty changes at the last minute is sloppy, and cold feeti will be the first to say. but its something bigger then doing it in the first place

. Sucide Squad is a movie with a lot of warts but to make one last point. Its a movie that suposed to be Equivlent to Gaurdians of the Galaxy- a lot of big bombastic characters in adventures-but theres a scene at the end of both of them where the characters have to decide if there going off into battle likely to die. and While the scene in GOTG is funny, and you do get a sense that Pratt does worry that he is going to die- its kind of minor. The Scene in Squad is fairly devistating-yeah its a cartoon, but it does reach a certain unconfterable pathos for all of it. The movie is flawed, pacing problems a plenty, and i am glad if nothing else the movie does it exist.

@AuGoose

Huh. Well, I guess I have a better understanding of why the movie doesn't click for so many.

I think what's killing this movie more than anything else is that it does for sociopaths what Mystery Men does for losers. And there's a lot more people in the general audience ready to cheer for loveable losers than there are people who want to cheer for mass murders (no matter how sympathetic).

While I do like to engage in discourse regarding film (art in general tbh), this line of argument does not help your cause

It is basically tantamount to the “You’re too dumb to get it” argument used in, hmm, pretty much every DCEU movie that has been released.

What is it about DC fans and their unwillingness to admit that maybe, just maybe, the movie was badly made?

That letter is gold. Pretty much (talking specifically) sums up their handling of the DCEU and, in particular, their stupid corporate close-minded-ness. They just keep telling themselves the same bullshit everyday - "We are making great films. We have great storytellers, creative people, artists, making fantastic films". Its a simmilar scenario to, and parallels can be drawn, to George Lucas and the prequel trilogy. Lucas surrounded himself with "Yes Men" and whatever he said flew. And the prequel trilogy was a disaster.

In both cases, the Star Wars prequels and the DCEU, the thing that kept them afloat were the most die-hard fanboys.

And that is how you change the course. Stop defending this drivel that is coming out of the studio and they will be forced to do better.

"Maybe Wonder Woman wouldn't be such a mess. Don't try to hide behind the great trailer. People inside are already confirming it's another mess. "

Fuck me this is worrying. Whelp, there goes my theory about the DCEU being saved by Diana

Peace.

/K

lfan wrote: This is fairly on topic and a brilliant read. Although I disagree with how BAD the recent DC Movies were, I cannot disagree with much more of what she says:

www.vulture.com/2016/08/this-open-letter...rner-bros-execs.html

Njoy!
ElF

People are really taking this letter seriously?

Wow, the gullibility of people on the internet to believe anything that reinforces their preconceived notions just astounds me sometimes. I guess negativity towards WB/DC sells and gets idiots to click on their website. I've just stopped visiting clickbait sites such as this. No need to give them the business.

People are really taking this letter seriously?

May I ask why people shouldn't?

Peace.

/K

kikass2014 wrote:

People are really taking this letter seriously?

May I ask why people shouldn't?

Peace.

/K

At best it's unsubstantiated. So, if you are relying on the person in the letter being "in the know" to make it valuable to you, then that is a mistake.

If however, you are reading the analysis and reasoning in the letter, and addressing those points, there is no worry where the viewpoint came from, wether you agree with them or not. Just don't accept things said as gospel truth, because we have no idea who this person is.

But geeks love to over-analyze and make grand inferences off scant information. Just remember that if we're taking "Wonder Woman is going to suck" as truth, well, no one who really knows is probably talking, and many who area talking don't have any real info and probably have a biased viewpoint.

One only has to look at the pre-release hoopla over Ghostbusters to realize that a lot of people get emotionally wrapped up in these things (Pro/con) and then make all sorts of biased statements and take them as TRUTH.

There are a lot of people who'd like to see WW Fail just as there are who'd like to see it succeed.

At best it's unsubstantiated.

Totally agree.

So, if you are relying on the person in the letter being "in the know" to make it valuable to you, then that is a mistake.

I'm too long in the tooth for this to happen

However, to go into a little more depth, you are right and I agree. The person could be lying or telling the truth. So, how do we determine our position on what they say? Well, I tend to see what they say, first, before I see who they are. Then, I look at what they say and see if I can marry it up with info from other sources. To me, yes what they say does carry more weight then not, because there is a lot of other sources that say similar things (for example the "Two-Cut Story" about Suicide Squad).

Thus, one can take a position that this person, at best, is more likely to be telling the truth, then not.

Sure, we can't say they are 100% genuine, but surely one must say that the balance is more on the side of "This person is genuine" rather then "This person is chatting shit". Hence the slight worry.

Peace.

/K

This morning i got into a long Discussion on Facebook about Marvel Vs DC movies(as you do. Don't lie you've been there).

As part of that i made 2 charts which i thought to share(also cause i spent like an hour on it and wanted to use it twice), and think its relevent to this discussion

The first one is pure box office of MCU and DCU films combined.



In it you can see-that There are a Ton more Marvel films(honestly should have added the Batman Movies, but there seperate speerate)..and you can see that DC films...are in the middle. BVS did better then Guardians, not as good as the bigger marvel movies but agian there are more and it is more established They seem to be doing okay. Sucide is towards the bottom yes, but its still in theaters. if i where a guessing man i would say it would do probabbly about as well as Iron Man a movie that well....

Then in fairness i think you may see the problem



There in the middle in terms of rough profitiablity(budget vs Return)...but agian middle you can say the problem is the DCU isn't as good as budgeting, which is a valid comment-Man of Steel in particular seems to be a really expensive movie for what they got-but that said . BVS is i towards the straight middle here.-and tats something getting better. Its aproxiamtly at iron Man which is better. Where Sucide Lands-hard to say...one thing i do notice is...these numbers except for the 4 huge hits of marvel, these numbers are reasonably close. especially the early films in each universe.

Castor's charts are wonderful. I especially love the opening/US/Foreign breakdown. It's amazing how much a % of US sales in opening weekend, and how large foreign sales are. I guess there is a reason to keep China happy so they'll show your movie.

I also noticed something with the Marvel totals next to the DC ones.

Excluding Iron Man, *all* of Marvel's movies that had a lower Box Office/Cost than BvS, were cheaper than Suicide Squad to make. Even Guardians was made cheaper than Suicide Squad, because no one would have guessed it'd be a bit a hit as it was. (I bet GoG2 has a bigger budget.)

I don't even want to know what the budget is for Infinity War if the graphic Robert Downey Jr posted is correct .. as it has *all* the Agents of Shield, Netflix heroes (Daredevil, Cage, Jessica Jones), Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Dr Strange, the GoG, Ant-Man, the Wasp, and everyone from all the Avengers movies. It makes Civil War look like a small character film. That's a *lot* of actor costs....

I think Iron Man can get a pass, as it was Marvel's first movie that they actually made, and needed to learn what to do. Even then it was 186M to 175M (though we should adjust for inflation too..). But it shows that even though Iron Man (at the time) was considered a super-mega hit, Marvel learned a lesson from it, and came back with better budgets. They got better at the behind the scenes production costs to make a movie and kept expenses down.

When Marvel plunked down $250M to make a movie, they *all* returned in the > 4.5 BO/Cost. Though the FIRST one they did where they made the most money. That could be a bit to fatigue, Avengers was born into an easier world to sell it than BvS or Civil War was.

Marvel rightly held back on the costs for Thor, Hulk, and Captain America: FA. Once they knew what they were doing, and had judged the response, they spent more to make movies and ended up making more for it. But they still kept Ant-Man down, making it their cheapest movie...

My only comment is it'd be nice to somehow graphically note the budget in the first table (maybe with a tick or a line on the chart?).

Also, this is the production budget. Is there any way to get ahold of the advertising budget for each movie? I don't think that's part of the production budget is it?

There's also the ancillary product sales (toys, tie in promotions, etc). But I don't know if anyone actually gets those real #'s.

Anyway, double kudos to Castor for these. I really enjoyed them.

A quick comment to my above one:

I also notice if you arrange the marvel movies by production cost:

Ant-Man
Hulk
Captain America:FA
Thor & Thor 2 (tied)

This list contains their 3 worst profitability returns: Hulk, CA: FA, Thor. I don't think this is an accident either. The bad performers all came out before Avengers, which might be part of the reason that Thor 2 did better. I think Ant-Man is a surprise hit just like GoG, and the fact that people liked GoG might be part of the reason they went "Marvel seems to know what they're doing with these odd ball movies" and made people more likely to see it.

Thanks

Unfortunitly there really isn't a good way of getting P&A costs. Studios rarely surface these numbers. In the original argument it was all "but Watners spend so much advertising"-so does Marvel., but what point and what numbers hard to say. The story in the last 10 years is that these numbers are increasing-but Actual Printing Costs are down near Zero with the rise of digital projection(before it cost like 10 million to make 200 35 prints) and a lot of Advertising is on the internet which is cheeper...so i donno.

These are interesting numbers. It is worth noting with all the comments about Sucide Squad and its Reshoots,

To go back to 2008s Iron Man they wanted to do that-what they did instead was delay the movie about 6 months as they more or less CGIed a new action climax out of scraps of footage they had when they Couldn't get RDJ for it. Which is part of the reason the budget is rather high for a movie thats really not that action packed. but they got better at cutting costs.

There skill at cutting costs i think has helped them a lot, on a lot of the movies you mentioned- i think a large part of that is they have gotten better at figuring out special effects, actors

DC is actually getting a little better at this i think.

It goes back to Like Green Lantern-w which did flop at the box office 219 million on a 200 million budget. A huge part of its failure is....it is all cgi. There is maybe a 1/4 to 1/3 of the movie that may as well be an animated movie- and a huge part of that is...Green Lanterns entire costume in almost every every scene is CGI. hes not wearing a real costume, but a subtly glowing animated costume. It looks interesting-not good but intresting- and its on record with adding about 50 million to the budget. (its also interesting to compare to Hector Hamound in the movie which is makeup-and does look not badly gross).

Man of Steel has some of the same issues. Except instead of an entire suit its his cape in 90% of the movie, which is CGI and pretty much every scene tht hes flying. An effect that's better, but i would argue not great.

Man of Steel 2- despite having a slightly higher budget over all still has fake cape but in some scenes less CGi Clark. And since the suit is the same from the last time the money they spent devoloping it is the same cost less to animate

Of course the same is largely true of Iron man - who after 5 movies they have reduced the cost of animating him out and making him fly considerably-cause well its the same thing after 5 movies.

But the actual humans cost more. I'll say this Iron Man 3 isn't that bigger movie then say Iron Man 2-but it has a 100 million more budget-and a lot of that Went to Robert Downey Jr. Civil War is even bigger-though except for one big battle thats not really that special effects heavy, if anything less spectacular then even Sucide Squad or arguably Antman. And the reason of course is they had to get a dozen biggisn names in for that one.

But to my point-i do think DC is in a Decent enough little place with its movies- you can say "But what about actual proffit-" there not making as much as Marvel really is per movie, but these movies do kinda of expose there intelectual property. I have said it before- Squad maybe a backdoor pilot to a Harley Quinn movie and by that measure in terms of ticket sales i think it does fine.

Mean. its Got Wonder Woman Next year which is probabbly going to do by these standards well(b Vs S did a great job of establish who she is to audiences. incuding this board to 'skinny arms') Its Got Justice Leauge, which i am not entirely sure, but lets go with well- Flash is popular, Aquaman looks cute...and i kinda conceptually like Cyborg,. Harley Quinn could be an intresting movie, and yeah i do think Sucidie Squad will probabbly get a sequal if it makes this kind of numbers actually mean anything.

Meanwhile i kinda wonder if MCU best films are behind them. I'm on record for actively disliking Antman) so its sequal-will see. The Wasp was best and worst part of the movie., Thor 3 is cutting the ellments i liked best in the original(the romantic comedy bits which were dumb but human). Avengers Movies! Guardians of the Galaxy!!...and

one of the thing i noticed when getting the numbers for this chart. Captian Marvel is coming out in 2019.....thats a long ways.

Nice charts Castor. Would love to have seen that discussion

While I can see the more positive spin on it, as a WB exec, this would have me a little worried.

The problem with this analysis, pretty good as it is, is the fact that it misses, imo, a key point.

Man of Steel and Batman VS Superman, feature DC’s MAIN STARS (Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman).

Marvel, on the other hand, don’t have their main icons – Fantastic Four and, specifically, X-Men. And they only recently got back one of them, Spiderman (in a round-about-sort-of-way).

So, that analysis can be interpreted as being even more damning in the sense that Marvel is producing, and achieving, better results, with lesser known (at the time the films were made) characters.

As a WB Exec, this would have me even more worried.

If my A-team can’t beat my competitions B-team, well, that’s a problem.

Peace.

/K

P.S.

BVS did better then Guardians, not as good…

BVS contains DC’s (heck, most of comic-doms) flagship icons. Guardians contained characters even most MARVEL fans were not aware of, or had interest in. BVS should have made double or triple what Guardians made.

I don’t think the problem is marketing. It’s manufacturing.

Well here is a twist.
Jared Leto is not happy with the final product and has not seen the film.
This is after going on a promotional tour asking us to see the movie.
Reminds me of Kate Mara and Fantastic Four last year.

uk.movies.yahoo.com/jared-leto-reportedl...-into-184403204.html