Archive Page 2174

August 2023

The inevitable: Manga importance swells at ComiCon – Publishers Weekly

As has been noted in numerous places online: American comic book publishers owned the whole cake for decade-after-decade and then they blew it. Now in bookstores around the country Manga is eating up 7/8ths of the title display (based on observations at B&N, for example) as compared to "graphic novels," and presumably, the sales reflect this, But, who knows, very little in the way of numbers are being shared, it is like the streaming wars for online TV: nobody is able to produce a reliable, clear chart showing actual hard numbers. And like with streaming, comic book sales have indications that the numbers could be even worse than what is being estimated, which is pretty lousy.

American comic books still rule the roost in direct market comic book shops, but even the beginning of a shift there is detectable, with manga titles that (at best) getting back wall display are now starting to get a little closer to the front, and they're showing up a lot more if a store has a "family-friendly" section, and maybe that is a key to what the problem is for an industry that at one time was primarily the domain of kids.

Some Box Office July 27, 2023

Barbie storms the box office with a massive social media response that should help feed ticket sales for the next several weeks if not the rest of summer, a phenomenon overshadowing the otherwise pretty-good start for the Tom Cruise Mission Impossible 7. Indy V is hanging in there with terrible numbers for the franchise, and The Flash is already showing up on VOD. Oppenheimer is about where you could expect it to be in the case of a bio-pic, but to turn really good numbers that match director Chris Nolan's career, Oppenheimer is going to have to stay in theaters long enough to build up more ticket sales. With the avalanche of big summer titles starting to thin out, that might just happen.

One thing is clear by looking at the title spread: comic book based movies are still turning over good money, and the genre (which we have argued has hoed the multiverse story trick too much and this has threatened to take over the whole superhero genre) is only foundering (Shazam 2, Ant-Man 3, Flash, Eternals etc) because the films aren't very good or the pre-publicity (The Flash) is awful. The appetite for fantasy and adventure, perennial Hollywood subjects, is still strong enough to churn out these numbers below.

Films ranked by International earnings:

• $837,851,917 Worldwide - Guardians of the Galaxy III
• $676,388,104 Worldwide - Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
• $548,101,075 Worldwide - Little Mermaid
• $430,921,572 Worldwide - Barbie
• $418,582,679 Worldwide - Transformers Rise of the Beasts
• $376,085,899 Worldwide - Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning
• $357,638,165 Worldwide - Elemental
• $336,406,911 Worldwide - Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
• $267,904,543 Worldwide - The Flash
• $231,058,779 Worldwide - Oppenheimer
• $130,993,464 Domestic Only - Sound of Freedom
• $46,291,710 Worldwide - Asteroid City

Recently finished in theatres:

• $2,320,250,281 Worldwide - Avatar: The Way of Water
• $1,307,168,400 Worldwide - The Super Mario Bros. Movie
• $721,294,128 Worldwide - Fast X
• $463,616,575 Worldwide - Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
• $427,259,159 Worldwide - John Wick: Chapter 4
• $207,954,502 Worldwide - Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
• $133,438,006 Worldwide - Shazam! Fury of the Gods
• $25,326,625 Worldwide - Renfield

She's alive, she's dead, she's joining the X-Men

Kamala Khan Ms Marvel news at Yahoo Entertainment and she's got a new superpower story at Screenrant

Original plan for end of The Flash was to segueway into a Ben Affleck Batverse – Bounding into Comics

Rembrandt and Van Gogh now doing comic book covers "canvas sized"

Story at Bleeding Cool

Bad Idea Comics is a relatively new comics publisher from Dinesh Shamdasani, Atom Freeman, Joshua Johns, Karl Bollers, and Anthony Militano. A direct-to-retailer publisher, eschewing digital, variants, and trade paperbacks in favour of one-cover one-per-person comic book sales from big comic book names, and some very silly promotional ideas. Such as the latest for their Matt Kindt and Lewis LaRosa comic book Megalith. They are going to print copies of the four issues of the comic at canvas size and charge $275 for the set. Oh and give the comic book variant covers by Claude Monet, Rembrandt van Rijn, Vincent van Gogh, and Leonardo da Vinci while doing so.

The Megalith Canvas-Size set scheduled for May 2024.

Bad Idea Comics Web Site

Remastered 4K Batman Mask of the Phantasm is coming – Superherohype

Yikes: Dark Horse describes the ratio of Manga sales to other publishing output, and its not good – Bounding into Comics

The Comic-Con Apocalypse that didn't happen

Story at Hollywood Reporter

This was the year that San Diego Comic-Con was supposed to collapse. After all, with Hollywood studios pulling out and stars not able to promote their work, all due to the double whammy of the actors and writers strikes, why would people even bother to attend? Well, about 150,000 attendees did, indeed, show up. There were no mass hotel cancellations nor mass refunds issued for badges, which were purchased months in advance. And an interesting thing happened on the way to the Comic-Con apocalypse. There was a renewed focus on comics and other graphic arts, even as Hollywood showed up in a diminished capacity.

Black Widow is new Venom – Games Radar

Titan Comics new Conan the Barbarian #1 " the most sold comic in Titan Comics’ history" – Bounding into Comics

Stan Lee digital goods sell out: is this a sign of NFTs returning to favor? – Inside Bitcoins

A quieter "but still mighty" ComiCon 2023

Story at Variety MSN

What Marvel announced last year at the 2022 ComiCon and what is happening with those projects today – IGN

"Barbenheimer" has fourth-largest box office weekend in history – Variety

It’s a full-fledged box office phenomenon"

Barbie movie opens in China to 8th place – Story at Hollywood Reporter MSN

Barbie movie looking at $155 million opening weekend

Because Birds of Prey and Babylon did poorly, some have said Margot Robbie could not "open" a movie: looks like they were wrong. – Billboard Magazine

I remember seeing in the days of VHS that people paid hundreds of dollars (that's probably the equivalent of $400-$500 in today's value, considering inflation) for taped copies of the "complete" Adam West Batman TV show, recorded off of Canadian TV broadcast channels. Hung up in a series of complex rights issues for almost five decades, the show finally made it to home video on November 11, 2014.

Marvel solicitations shows the titles moving onto $4.99 price tag – Bleeding Cool

Rumor about Superman Legacy is apparently clue to DC Comics characters getting sold off

Story at Bounding into Comics

Robert Downey Jr: are superhero films over – The Daily Star

Audiences are incredibly dynamic, always embracing novel variations of genres, and they eventually move on from them," he observed astutely. "As an artiste, we must continuously exceed their expectations and offer them something fresh," added the actor.

Story of gamble on $200 worth of comic books that turned into political and film career

Story at San Diego Union Tribune

ComiCon photos – Deadline Hollywood

Barbie gets $155+ million start, Oppenheimer at $77 million – Hollywood Reporter

Thanks to the Barbenheimer phenomenon, it is the first time in history that a three-day weekend has seen one movie open to $100 million or more and another to $50 million or more.

This shows there is more than one type of audience buying tickets, and that both audience types can show up to fill theatre seats during the same time period. This was clearly true in the past when popular titles could simultaneously appear at the same cinemaplex, and now "Barbenheimer" is showing it could be true again in the future. The concept of multiple films raking in profit over the same time period might give Hollywood some hope, that is, if they're willing to make films the multiple audience types wish to see.

The inside story on The Flash "face-plant"

Story at LA Times

Hayley Atwell says Hollywood Industry "on it's knees" – Something

New Punisher, who is not Frank Castle, coming in November: SDCC Panel

Story at comicsbeat

DC and Legendary Comics announce a Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong title coming – Comicsbeat

Blue Beetle had James Gunn-mandated reshoots along with Aquaman Lost Kingdom

Story at Superherohype

I'm waiting for someone to write an article about the new DC film studio under James Gunn titled "Under the Gunn" or "DC has a Gunn at its head" or something equally intellectual.

ComiCon Museum has Stan Lee exhibit

Story at Times of San Diego MSN

Barbie movie has strong $22 million start for Thursday shows

Story at Yahoo

The headline for this info was "Barbie opening-day box office clobbers The Batman , Spider-Man , and Guardians of the Galaxy" so is the mainstream media hoping Barbie will be the giant to slay the addiction to Superhero movies (which appear to be withering on the vine anyway) and lead movie theaters into some other profit-making genre?

Everything in superhero leads back to Supes, Bats, Wonder Woman?

Story at CBS News

This will confuse the average person who has been told Stan Lee drew and wrote all comic books in the faraway past.

Wading through 85 years of comics history is a daunting task, and "Superpowered: The DC Story," a Max docuseries tries doing it in just three parts. Yet this voyage into comics history, in print and on the screen, comes at a crossroads for DC, one that suggests all paths usually lead back to Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman."

Aquaman 2 reshoots and no more Affleck Batman – Cinema Blend MSN

The original Aquaman movie of 2018 made $1,148,461,807 worldwide and over the years promises were made that the Affleck Batman was going to be in the sequel, The Lost Kingdom. But, that was then and this is now, and it looks like DC/Warners head honcho James Gunn is trying to close out as many loose ends as possible that remain from the old Snyder-etc-DC-verse while he prepares his DCU version.

Original page July 19, 2023