re: You knew this was coming: John Carter should have been Guardians of the Galaxy

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The problem with any huge project like this is that the artists lose a lot of control over the finished product. Producers tend to be people who lack creativity yet still want to be big, important people in show biz. Add to that the immense pressure of success and they inject the only input they know how to offer, demographic market analyses and the elimination of anything that they think might offend or confuse the average idiot consumer.

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Depends on the artist and the studio. I don't think many producers tell Spielberg what to do.

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They tend to outrank many of the artists in a project, and constantly bully them into making changes that render a film impotent and predictable - safe, in other words.

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Those decisions aren't always bad. Artists can be notoriously bad at reading their audience or assessing their own work competently.

It's all about assembling a good team of people for a finished product. It doesn't come down to one person, and I wouldn't want it to come down to one person.

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The worst part, as far as comic book movies go, is that the films have built-in audiences and will be successful regardless of quality, thereby giving producers the sense that their moronic decisions and mandates were brilliant and spot on. As a result, they have no reason to change anything they're doing, so the cycle repeats itself.

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Wrong. See Daredevil, Catwoman, Elektra, Green Lantern, Batman and Robin, Superman Returns, and a bunch more.

If anything these audiences are fickle and extremely reactive, per the reaction to Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman.

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Right. The parallels I'm drawing here are a studio taking a gamble and tackling an entirely new universe and franchise. And of course, in one instance they knocked it out of the park in all aspects of movie-making.

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Gotcha.

I mean, that's true, in theory, but different creative teams and different expectations can make different products. Guardians, I'm sure, had almost no pressure to be great. John Carter kind of did because it was representative of Disney gunning for a new Pirates of the Caribbean, so like someone said, a lot of hands got involved.

Disagree. Those movies were terrible, but they still turned a profit. I didn't say the movies were automatically going to be good, just that they would make some money. Obviously, the better they are, the more they will make, but an average super hero movie will always do well, no matter what.

See - the Star Wars prequels. Famously shitty, but made bank.

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Have you rewatched this yet?

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Why would I ever rewatch it?

I didn't go in with high expectations because I thought the 2nd one wasn't very good. I didn't read the strip so Mandarin as the Villain didn't ramp up expectations for me.I had zero expectations. The bar was set low and yet they moved the bar so low I couldn't find it with my best spelunking gear.


Need that bad boy to drill deep enough to find the lowered expectations bar.

There were so many plot mistakes in IM3, there is no way my opinion will ever go up. In fact, after seeing that youtube video that showed me about 62 nonsensical plot mistakes / directing mistakes / blatant errors, my opinion will probably get worse.

Nothing like Pepper using the blaster UNATTACHED to a power source.

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Turning a profit literally, is different from being a successful film. They made a little money back, but there's a reason we either 1) Never saw a sequel 2) Or saw a reboot from those movies They were not successful, and the profit margin wasn't big enough to reinvest.

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You can quibble over the meaning of "successful" but I think Hollywood disagrees with you, which is evidenced by the number of super hero movies we see today. Your number 1 is clearly wrong. After the crime against humanity that was Ep 1, he still made two more, and they are among the highest grossing films of all time. After the shitty second Iron Man, they still made third one, which turned a huge profit, which is the only measuring stick for producers, IMO.

You're right about the really bad ones not prompting a sequel, because fool me once.......hence the "reboots," which you're also wrong about. The reboots are a way to resurrect a franchise that has had the life wrung out of it once, without waiting 20 years. They get to distance themselves from the bad predecessors and trick audiences into flocking to the same shite over and over again.

Adam Sandler is a horrible example if you're measuring average movies in general. In fact, he's a perfect example of a built-in audience because of his prior, huge successes. The fact is that kids will flock to super hero movies, especially ones which feature characters that haven't been done before or for a long time.

I think you're confusing "good" movies with successful ones.

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You can quibble over the meaning of "successful" but I think Hollywood disagrees with you, which is evidenced by the number of super hero movies we see today.

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But let's take a look back at your point:

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The worst part, as far as comic book movies go, is that the films have built-in audiences and will be successful regardless of quality, thereby giving producers the sense that their moronic decisions and mandates were brilliant and spot on. As a result, they have no reason to change anything they're doing, so the cycle repeats itself.

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We aren't quibbling, it's important to make a distinction between "profit making" which you claim something like Daredevil was, and "successful" which something like Thor was, seeing as we are getting more Thor films, while Daredevil is being rebooted into Television.

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After the crime against humanity that was Ep 1, he still made two more, and they are among the highest grossing films of all time.

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The Star Wars films (not comic book films mind you) escape normal expectations and were written as a trilogy. And Return of the Sith was worth the other two films imo. It still wasn't as good as the originals, but good enough. Series of films can go up and down in quality. You aren't ALWAYS going to have a better film every single time. The best thing we have is that these studios with Marvel and DC can take chances on films.

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After the shitty second Iron Man, they still made third one, which turned a huge profit, which is the only measuring stick for producers, IMO.

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But that would only be true if other iterations of Iron Man or the MCU are terrible. Which they weren't. And second, was Iron Man full of moronic decisions? Yes or no? Was it a successful film? Just because Iron Man 2 sucked, doesn't mean they didn't do some things right on Iron Man. Right?

Iron Man wasn't successful because of comic book nerds, it was successful because it built a bigger audience and resonated outside of the built in audience. General People enjoyed Iron Man, that's the key. And that's the difference maker. I doubt the comic book market is big enough to support Iron Man 3 alone, much less make 1.1 billion dollars at the box office.

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You're right about the really bad ones not prompting a sequel, because fool me once.......hence the "reboots," which you're also wrong about. The reboots are a way to resurrect a franchise that has had the life wrung out of it once, without waiting 20 years. They get to distance themselves from the bad predecessors and trick audiences into flocking to the same shite over and over again.

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I view it as them recalibrating and trying to fix the things they got wrong. Look at Superman Returns. Outside of Routh, it's a crap film. Of the most important comic book character ever. We got a reboot 8 years later. 8 years. You said:

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thereby giving producers the sense that their moronic decisions and mandates were brilliant and spot on. As a result, they have no reason to change anything they're doing, so the cycle repeats itself.

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That's wrong. They saw the success of Batman and the failure of Superman. THey looked at the fan response because they were begging them to change it up. They weren't happy, and nerds are loud.

They changed everything they did and came out with a better overall product. That's a good thing, not a bad.

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Adam Sandler is a horrible example if you're measuring average movies in general. In fact, he's a perfect example of a built-in audience because of his prior, huge successes. The fact is that kids will flock to super hero movies, especially ones which feature characters that haven't been done before or for a long time.

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But the assumption is that built in audiences are bad. Families flock to kid and family movies and Pixar movies. Couples hit up romantic comedies on date nights. Old people see everything. In a row. On a Monday. There are your action movie fans (thanks for continuing that Stallone), your historical epic fans (Book nerds), etc.

It's the concept of the audience. You build a film that you want for acceptance by a particular audience. I mean, I'm sure James Gunn cares that people see his film, but he's probably more concerned with men from 15-35 more than anything else. For Divergent or Hunger Games, you're catering to a 10-25 year old female audience. That's built in. You satisfy them, try to bring in other audiences, and hopefully succeed.

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I think you're confusing "good" movies with successful ones.

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Not at all, what I think, or what you think, is a good movie has no bearing on a "successful," film. If you like certain types of movies, and become part of that "built in audience," then you want to see them take more chances. Reboots CAN be about rehashing the same thing for more gain, these are film BUSINESSES, therefore, at some point it's about profit. But that's a negative way to look at it.

But profit is the only thing that's going to get another movie made, in any case. If studios weren't finding ways to make some money, then we wouldn't have films.

So yeah, Iron Man 2 may have sucked and 3 was less than spectacular. But Winter Soldier was great. Guardians was great. Marvel will get some right, and get some wrong. So will DC. So will New Line. Or Disney. Or Universal. But the only way for them to keep taking chances, good or bad, is that the investment is sometimes worth the effort, and worth it big.

Besides, who knows, maybe they do Iron Man 4, maybe the fix the mistakes and knock it out of the park. Is that so hard to believe?

I agree the movies title was lame. I'm not familiar with the books and the name meant nothing to me and the previews made it look something like a Narnia level. So I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was but I saw it in spite of the title and ads, not bc of them.

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We aren't quibbling, it's important to make a distinction between "profit making" which you claim something like Daredevil was, and "successful" which something like Thor was, seeing as we are getting more Thor films, while Daredevil is being rebooted into Television.

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I'm using the word "successful" in a profit making sense, and though I agree Daredevil was crap, it still made money. I don't claim it. I know it. It actually grossed over double it's budget. However, since it was a bad movie, according to most, the audiences would not have gone to another one made by the same people featuring the same actors, but they still went to the first one, in droves. Your definition of the word seems to mandate that sequels be made. I can respect that, but I also could have retired on the money I made as a producer of that single film.

IMO, the "reboots" are an attempt by the studios to rehash the same character but regain or energize audience confidence by securing others to helm and act in them. After Spiderman 3, not much enthusiasm was left for more Toby, et al editions, but I'd still be willing to bet that a Spiderman 4 would have done well at the box office if it had been made. Also, if the character or subject was a failure, they wouldn't reboot it at all. Studios know that the audience will respond, at least initially, which is why Deredivil lives on, albeit in tv form.

I use the Star Wars prequels as an example of really bad movies that still turned huge profits because of the built-in audiences, and record profits at that. After your mention of Sandler movies, you are no longer able to claim this argument should be confined to comic book movies. Either way, there is nothing close to "chance taking" in regard to comic book movies, IMO, for the reasons previously, repeatedly stated.

And I don't agree with your statement regarding series of films. Just because a series is planned doesn't mean that it's going to happen. It has not, on many occasions, but in the case of Star Wars, very depressingly, they cold have broken our hearts three times in a row and still grossed over a billion worldwide.

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But that would only be true if other iterations of Iron Man or the MCU are terrible.

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Why? I never said Iron Man sucked, nor did I claim that every film in a series has to be bad in order for my claim to be true. I said that 2 did, IMO. But, it did extremely well at the box office and apparently didn't get enough complaints to prevent a third one. This is actually a perfect example of what I mean. They saw no reason to back away from what the were doing, and the result was an incredibly bad third movie.

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But the assumption is that built in audiences are bad.

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No it isn't. The assumption is that they will translate to a profitable film, regardless of quality. Lack of sequels means that the films were bad, not unsuccessful. If you don't agree, try telling Ben Affleck that Daredevil sucked and see if he doesn't quote BO numbers in response.

We also seem to have two different definitions of "built-in audience" in regard to comic book movies. I don't confine mine to comic book nerds and kids. These movies run the entire demographic spectrum in ways that no genre has ever done.

I'm on my pad, so these long posts are cumbersome, especially when yours are so long, and I apologize if it looks a bit disorganized in its posted form.

JC is one of my top 50 movies of all time - I still watch it from time to time (in 3d) at home - awesome stuff.

You are right, it was doomed by the marketing and the negative press (for the budget) before it was released.

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John Carter came out in 1917

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Right.

And they ripped him off and created supes.