Seth Paxton

Re: Fantastic Four 2 (July 4, 2007 release)

I don't understand how this is a logical reply to someone discussing how the film "didn't bomb" by frontloading well and then effectively bombing. Plus your logic also has plenty of examples to contradict it. Harry Potter 1 made MORE than Harry Potter 2, so the whole X2 made more angle is just silly. What about Spider-Man 2, also came in lower than Spidey 1.

Where is the "it can only improve" for those films? They didn't bomb of course, but they didn't make $100m more either. Plus, X-Men was the first of the Marvel franchises and the new birth of comic flicks. The quality of that film put faith in the minds of audiences for future comic films. After a few duds mixed in its clear that you can't just stamp "Marvel" on something and ship a hit (Elektra, Punisher) even if the character was in a "hit" already or was a very popular comic.


Making more on the sequel has consistantly appeared to be based around the WOM and the legs a film has, or its acceptance on video (like Austin Powers). FFour ended up viewed as a letdown and I don't think they are going to have the audience there that they think they will.

Tom Cruise took the main hit for the MI3 failure, but what was overlooked was that the first film done mostly well by DePalma set up interest in a sequel, which meant a bigger take. But the disappointment of Woo's sequel left many audiences gunshy about the quality of the 3rd film.


I agree with others who said that Tim Story and the lead casting (Alba, Gruffudd) really hurt what was otherwise not a bad effort. I'd be much happier about a sequel if Story was pulled off the project and someone more capable came on board.


And speaking of that, it seemed clear to me that Ratner's inability to dial in on personal conflicts and character development, even when it was in the script and already established for him, hurt X3 and kept it from reaching the Singer X-Men level.

Direction is an art and when you put hacks or weaker producer-controlled directors in charge of a project, any project, it's going to suffer. Raimi, Singer, Nolan - these were directors that had already proven to have a real craftmanship and vision.

What bugs me is how Marvel is trying to crank these things out regardless of having the right people available to do the work, as if the characters themselves can carry the load. One reason Batman Begins was so strong was the cast itself. If you look at the director, cast, cinematographer, etc and think about the kind of film you might get if they were put on a dry costume drama or a police procedural and you think that those films would suck with that talent, then you are still going to have a problem on these comic projects.


Heck, give Dr. Strange to Cronenberg and you might get something really brilliant. Hand Power Pack to Alfonso Cuaron and a surprise hit shows up with the public demanding more.

But put Spidey in the hands of Uwe Boll and people will stop going. Writers and directors don't magically get better just because they are handed a franchise.

And this is relevant because if Tim Story or other directors put a damper on the box office of Marvel characters its possible that Marvel will mistake the audience's dislike of bad direction with the audiance's weariness of comic charcters in general.



One positive is that I am pleased that Marvel was willing to put Silver Surfer on the screen. With today's CGI and FX work there is no reason why they can't nail this.

And for the Avengers, I'd love it to be Vision, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye...though they could work a pretty cool angle by bringing out Iron Man or Cpt America first on film and then using them as the partial link into the Avengers film. Just keep the villans in their own film lesser than the challenges the Avengers team would face and use that greater threat as their incentive to joining/starting a team.

2007 film list 2005 film list 2004 film list 2003 film list 2002 film list

ChrisBEA

Re: Fantastic Four 2 (July 4, 2007 release)

I always thought that the Blade sparked the Marvel renaissance. Granted, it wasn't a blockbuster, but it was a solid film that held its own at the box office, and was quality.

2008 Film List / 2007 Film List / 2006 Film List / 2005 Film List / 2004 Film List
My Blog

JoSAN

Re: Fantastic Four 2 (July 4, 2007 release)

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here, Seth. All I was doing was responding to the comment "I can't believe they're making a sequel - this thing is going to bomb". This negative comment is based on the incorrect assumption that the first movie "bombed" and, therefore, the idea of making second one must be a ludicrous one.

What I was pointing out was that the movie didn't bomb; it was, in fact, a box office success story. I'm not talking about what someone thinks of the movie personally; everyone has different tastes. All I'm talking about here is monetary facts and in that regard, Fantastic Four was more successful than Batman Begins. And please don't all knee-jerk react by saying "but Batman was better, blah blah blah..." You can't compare them since the two comics these films were based on are like black vs. white, Citizen (Bob) Kane vs. Wizard of Oz. I'm talking about simple math, here. Batman Begins cost $150M to make and made $371M worldwide. Cost divided into profit gives it a success factor of 2.47. By comparison, Fantastic Four cost $100M and made $330M worldwide, or a success rating of 3.30. Ergo, if Batman Begins was not considered a financial bomb, then Fantastic Four certainly wasn't.

I then went on to compare the closest movie to FF, which happens to be X-Men, another Marvel super-hero team film that had a fairly modest first outing at the box office. If someone can make the emotional prediction that FF2 will "bomb", I can certainly make the more logical prediction that it won't. Some people here on the board predicted that FF would make less than $18M on its opening weekend, while I predicted over $50M, which is what happened.

If you want to talk about word of mouth, then look no farther than this... All the Internet negativity surrounding FF in the year before its release. Then the bandwagon bashing it got by the critics (25% on the Tomato-meter). And what happened? People went and saw it anyway and (gasp!) they had fun. They told their friends and they went to see it again. Compared to the praise that Batman Begins got (83% on the Tomato-meter), the fact that FF did so well makes it the overcoming-all-odds success story of the year!

Yet, still, it's amazing how most people on the Internet still talk about FF like they were convinced it made no money (old habits die hard, I guess), yet everyone in the real world see it as a hit it was. The movie was #11 that year worldwide, well ahead of "obvious" hits like Wedding Crashers and 40-year Old Virgin.

Moving ahead with the X-Men comparison... Look at X3. Disappointment seems to reign on the message boards but the movie is currently ahead of X2 by $28M on the same 11th day of release.

With the revealed inclusion of the Silver Surfer, then later Galactus, FF2 will quite probably go where fans wanted X3 to go... a space epic. X3 didn't opt for that (and logically so. It is not necessary for Dark Phoenix to have anything to do with aliens or space to talk about the dark side of human nature. Conversely, that is the very point of the Surfer/Galactus threat). FF2 will give fans that, hence my optimism for its continued, and growing, success.

AlexCremers

Re: Fantastic Four 2 (July 4, 2007 release)

Conclusion: it doesn't matter whether these movies have any artistic values or not. Just gather a bunch of attractive actors, make them do unbelievable stunts and people are happy.

Chris Atkins

Re: Fantastic Four 2 (July 4, 2007 release)

JoSAN:

Is being #11 worldwide in 2005 really something to brag about, from a box office perspective?

Not to mention the fact that many other genre films badly outperformed FF (on gross) in 2005: Harry Potter, ROTS, Narnia, War of the Worlds, King Kong, Batman Begins.

Finally, I ask you: if you are a film exec, and you are looking at the returns on Batman Begins and FF, which sequel are you having more confidence in at this point?

I'm not trying to bash FF...though I did not enjoy the movie...and I am hopeful for FF2, but let's not pretend that FF was a "success story" by any reasonable definition of that word.

My 2008 Film List
My 2007 Film List
My 2007 Top Ten
My 2006 Film List
My 2006 Top Ten
My 2005 Top Ten

Kevin Grey

Re: Fantastic Four 2 (July 4, 2007 release)

Okay JoSAN, how about these numbers- Percentage of FF's total made opening weekend: 36.2%. Percentage of BB's total made opening weekend: 23.7%. Batman Begins had substantially better legs than Fantastic Four which tells me that the the BB sequel has a helluva lot more potential at increasing on the gross of it's predecessor than FF does.

Never confuse opening weekend numbers for how well liked a film is- Opening weekend the film quality is generally unkown so the numbers are pretty much only indicative of how well the studio marketing machine did it's job and how much potential a franchise might have on name alone. How well it holds up later tells the story of how much the audience liked it. The fact that FF was able to pull a 50+ million opening weekend is a great indicator that audiences are interested in a FF film. The fact that it dropped so quickly after that is a pretty strong indicator that audiences didn't necessarilly warm to Tim Story's take on the franchise.

JoSAN

Re: Fantastic Four 2 (July 4, 2007 release)

Because it is pointless to argue about individual tastes, Alex, my post was based on the objective stance of how much money FF made, which clearly shows that, financially, FF certainly deserves a sequel and the statement that "it bombed" is simply incorrect. If you, personally, didn't like the movie, then nothing I or anyone else can say will change your mind. However, I think the very inclusion of the Silver Surfer and Galactus in the sequel will probably draw back most, if not all, of those people who openly criticized the first movie.

Your take on that is completely subjective to the fact that you didn't like the movie, Chris. I notice how you place Batman Begins on your list of those films that "badly outgrossed" Fantastic Four. Is the difference between being #11 and #9 not a more paultry thing to brag about? About an equal number of people saw FF as saw BB. (The difference of 4 million more tickets is easily accounted for if only 10% of the people who saw Batman Begins went twice, which has nothing to do with word of mouth spreading to non-fans as it does the diehard fan who sees the movie 4 or 5 times).

It is obvious that you liked Batman Begins and not Fantastic Four, Chris, but - factually - both were in the same class of success. (Something that I know seems to bother a lot of Bat-fans who don't care to admit it! ) Batman made $41M more, but FF made more profit because it cost $50M less to make. Period.

The fact that FF was able to pull a 50+ million opening weekend is a great indicator that audiences are interested in a FF film. It seems to be an important indicator to those in the business of knowing such things. And it does, in fact, show the anticipation of the audience to want to see a movie that soon. Despite all the bad press, FF still pulled in $56M opening weekend. The fact that all the nay-sayers were shocked (or jealous) of that fact only proves that it was indeed a "success story". The movie overcame all those negative odds. Batman Begins had far more positive reviews and yet only pulled in an initial interest of $48M (when a lot of people were expecting $100M+). Why? Because Batman was old news to them at the B.O. while FF was new and fresh and part of the increasingly popular Marvel line of movies.

No it doesn't, Kevin. By and large all movies drop off from their opening weekend values fairly quickly, especially during the summer, with the next new hit around the corner. FF opened in #1, pushing down both WotW and BB, a fact that nay-sayers said wouldn't happen. They wanted FF to be another Catwoman but the fact is all those FF crtics are the ones that needed their claws filed.

My Conclusion: Regardless of what you thought of Fantastic Four, it was as profitable as Batman Begins, which will have a sequel (se-pre-quel?) too. Avi and Tim will do their best to try to make everyone happy as it is in their best interests to do so. I'm sure Batman Continues makers will also try to improve upon the things that audiences disliked as well (ie. Batman's accent, hard-to-make-out fight scenes, Katie Holmes, etc.). Sequels are a chance for directors & writers to improve. As much as I think that Tim Story made a movie that was suitable to a comic book like the Fantastic Four, I also wanted more.

Here's hoping FF2, and all sequels, do just that; improve and make having a sequel worthwhile. I think we audience members deserve that.

Kevin Grey

Re: Fantastic Four 2 (July 4, 2007 release)

So what does it tell you when a movie actually doesn't drop off fairly quickly?

Malcolm R

Re: Fantastic Four 2 (July 4, 2007 release)

Given its box office, I don't know how you can say it wasn't.

While the quality of the film could have been better, it certainly wasn't as dire as some other franchise launches, such as Lara Croft Tomb Raider, that spawned sequels that "disappointed" financially. After all the negativity and teeth-gnashing that preceded the FF release, I was pleasantly surprised by the film and look forward to the next.

If I were a studio head, I'd have no hesitation in green-lighting a sequel to FF.

That thing's uglier than a chipmunk's behind.
Emerson Cod, Pushing Daisies

My Home Away From Home

TheBat

Re: Fantastic Four 2 (July 4, 2007 release)

you also have to remember that fantastic four stopped the slump that the movies were having that summer.. who would have expected F4 to be that movie.
the comic book convention in san diego was the next weekend after F4.. might have taken some of the audience away from it. the next week it did pick up a bit better.

Jacob