Archive Page 2177

August 2023

"Against Marvel movies"

With success comes backlash, but also critical thinking about the effects of one genre dominating all the others. Story at AOL.com

Article has quotes from a hash of celebrities, including: Jennifer Aniston, Christian Bale, Francis Ford Coppola, James Cameron, Stephen Dorff , Robert Downey Jr, Jodie Foster, Roland Emmerich, Ken Loach, Simon Pegg, Gaspar Noé, Mickey Rourke, Sean Penn, Ridley Scott, Martin Scorsese, and Quentin Tarantino who says Hollywood can't wait for the day superheroes lose their "chokehold" on the industry.

Francis Ford Coppola "Martin was kind when he said it’s not cinema. He didn’t say it’s despicable, which I just say it is."

Conrad Veidt in Paul Leni’s “The Man Who Laughs” (1928), based on Victor Hugo’s novel. The film was a silent romantic melodrama - Veidt’s character was the hero; the smile was carved into his face as a boy by a Comprachico (a fictional group of people who reshaped the physical… pic.twitter.com/uc58cOO3nq

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) August 12, 2023

DC bringing more material to Webtoons: Batman: Wayne Family Adventures and Vixen: NYC in August, Zatanna & The Ripper in October 2023 – Goodereader

Has someone(s) stolen a bust of Tintin creator Herge's head in Brussels?

Story at UK Guardian [English]

James Gunn is going to approve for release Ayer's cut of the 2016 Suicide Squad? – Bounding into Comics

"Would Have Its Time to Be Shared"

Is James Gunn heading towards an adaptation of The Man Who Laughs Joker graphic novel? – MSN Screenrant

Conrad Veidt is the name.

Some Box Office August 11, 2023

Barbie remains at the top of the heap and is still generating social media buzz. This will likely continue to feed theaters with repeat-viewers and the procrastination crowd, who are usually surprised when a film "suddenly" appears on home video or VOD, because they meant to see it in a theatre first, but this is one of those times they've got a popular movie that's going to hang around long enough to scoop up their dollars, too. Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible 7 is staying right where it was in the list last week, and the week before that, which shows us that as the audience fades for the film, it is likewise fading for all of the other titles that clogged the mid-summer and that is probably what hurt MI7's chances for a humongous start, instead of the "pretty good" start it otherwise got. Indy V is crawling around the floor scraping up the last quarters from its theater run, and The Flash has just a small fingernail hold on some screens as it does the same as Indy V, but in this case it is searching for pennies. Oppenheimer is mimicking Barbie in a humble way, it being a "mini-phenomenon" and the source for social media memes and jokes, always a good sign for longevity of a title however meagre the title becomes pulling at the box office, something that promises for a decent VOD and home video run, too.

The reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is out ahead, barely, against Disney's Haunted Mansion which is another disaster for the Mouse House. TMNT has the advantage of a significantly lower budget cost ($70 – $80 million) versus the heavy investment into Haunted Mansion ($150 million+) but can either film make back its money? The complaint about Hollywood money-making in the recent past was that the margin of failure was too narrow for film releases and that's why Hollywood was depending so much on the big so-called "tent pole" movies to use a combination of stars, marketing, and CGI pyrotechnics to overwhelm any hesitancy in the potential audience and to get them to march to their seats. But it looks like that narrow margin has become much, much thinner.

With so many superhero movies tanking over the last eight or so months (basically since Eternals made it obvious), it could be that the production offices at various studios would now be turning their attention to the concept of toy-sourced films (like Barbie), with the idea that this is the next wave in popular cinematic mass-culture, but with the ongoing strike and stand-off between producers and writers, et al, Hollywood simply can't take advantage of the moment, and the question of whether this even is a moment when one genre (toys) takes over the lead from another genre (superheroes) remains to be seen.

Regarding superheroes, next week the question of whether their moment as the number #1 genre in theaters has ended comes into sharp focus again, because Blue Beetle is coming out. This year's box office has so spooked Marvel they shoved Kraven (which should have been opening up in October 2023) to August of 2024.

Films ranked by International earnings:

• $1,066,808,894 Worldwide - Barbie
• $845,431,987 Worldwide - Guardians of the Galaxy III
• $683,311,125 Worldwide - Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
• $585,219,326 Worldwide - Oppenheimer
• $566,623,843 Worldwide - Little Mermaid
• $494,559,693 Worldwide - Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning
• $427,971,807 Worldwide - Transformers Rise of the Beasts
• $426,032,520 Worldwide - Elemental
• $369,821,274 Worldwide - Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
• $268,175,458 Worldwide - The Flash
• $167,981,398 Domestic Only - Sound of Freedom
• $65,491,277 Domestic Only - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
• $65,277,492 Worldwide - Disney's Haunted Mansion
• $47,715,184 Worldwide - Asteroid City

Recently finished in theatres:

• $2,320,250,281 Worldwide - Avatar: The Way of Water
• $1,358,188,035 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

Is an Uncharted #2 coming? – Yahoo

Adam West is coming back to work for DC Warners again? Whaaaat?

The show sees a collection of vehicle crime-fighters, including the likes of Bam the Batmobile, Robin’s sports car Redbird, and Batgirl’s motorbike Bibi, team up as they attempt to defend the streets of Gotham City.

The article doesn't explicitly state that West's voice recorded for the episode in question, which made the "is it A.I.?" question pop up. Surely not? Story at Yahoo

Joe Quesada Connecting Covers for DC's Gotham War – Superherohype

Wonder Woman III? Yes, no? Apparently No.

Article at Variety is sure that there's no real plans for a Wonder Woman III, but they also quote this:

The actor made a potential future for "Wonder Woman 3" appear even more likely during a recently published profile by Flaunt magazine. In this interview, Gadot said she was assured by Gunn and Safran that "Wonder Woman 3" would be developed.

"I was invited to a meeting with James Gunn and Peter Safran," Gadot said, "and what they told me, and I’m quoting: ‘You’re in the best hands. We’re going to develop Wonder Woman 3 with you. [We] love you as Wonder Woman— you’ve got nothing to worry about.’ So time will tell."

The article doesn't mention the box office on Wonder Woman II, which was terrible, but in fairness it must be noted that the film was released at a time when the pandemic had crushed audience for just about everything. It discusses how Patty Jenkins, the director of the first two Wonder Woman movies, was told "no" on her treatment for a third film, but also quotes Jenkins saying that DC was facing "challenges" right now, a polite reference, probably, to the tightened money for superhero films now that there's been a flurry of bombs for DC and Marvel, both.

Wonder Woman joins the Birds of Prey in issue #3 and now they're fighting each other – Superherohype

Disney: earnings down across the board but holding steady at the parks because of Shanghai Disney and Hong Kong Disneyland

Story at MSN CNN

There's a "wild" rumour around the internet that Bob Iger, the past, current and possibly future CEO at Disney, is trimming off ABC, ESPN, etc., as has been reported for awhile now, in order to... and this is the rumour, prep the company for sale to Apple. Disney's dilemma isn't just missed revenue targets, speccifically a $460 million loss reported on the 3rd quarter earnings (see SF Gate among others) but that they've got a contractual obligation to Comcast costing somewhere around $10 billion in cash for a deal having to do with Hulu, the payment being due next January. This means Disney has got to search under the couch cushions for every nickel.

The NIB comics magazine is shutting down, but is putting all of their issues online for free downloads in hope of donated funds to keep the website online – Comicsbeat

The Nib is wrapping up ten years of publishing and closing down at the end of August. But before we go, we are making all 15 issues of our Eisner and Ignatz award-winning magazine available for anyone to download for free. That’s more than 1,600 pages of comics, including our out of print Secrets, Nature, Food, and Color issues."

The Will Eisner Awards - - marketing scheme or award for quality in the comic book arts, and whattabout Mangas?

Story at Anime News Network

Self-described as the 'Oscars' of the comic industry, the annual Eisner Awards bestows recognition to a select number of books published or distributed in the United States. From its first ceremony at San Diego Comic-Con in 1991, a small panel of rotating five to six judges confer and select the winners for works printed in the previous year. 2023 marks the Eisner Award's 35th anniversary, but it wasn't without dispute. Earlier this year, the controversial nomination of Thomas Woodruff in multiple categories led to public outcry from critics and former students. But perhaps the biggest—and continual—problem with the Eisner Awards is its whopping thirty-two categories, with manga sequestered under the questionable, Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia category. With so many different avenues to discover new stories, why should potential and longtime manga readers care about these awards?

James Gunn says Congrats to DC artists and writers who won Eisner Awards – Comicbook – "Congrats to all the folks at @DCOfficial comics who won more Eisner Awards than any other comics publisher."

With superhero animated films making box office money MSN Looper asks: how come there's no Batman Beyond animated film?

Simon & Schuster sells for $1.62 billion to KKR... deal to sell the famous publisher to Penguin Random House was stopped due to antistrust issues – ABC News – "Paramount [which owned Simon and Schuster] on Monday reported a loss of $424 million for the three months leading up to June 30, will use sale proceeds to pay down debt."

Updated Aug 11, 2023: Wall Street predators are looking to do to Simon and Schuster what was done to Toys R' Us

Simon and Schuster "is the fourth largest publisher in the United States" – MENAFN

The new owners, if the deal gets past the US Gov't, are New York-based private equity investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., who plan to use the publishing label's content to compete against the Amazon-owned Kindle and Audible brands and to get a bigger presence in the library market "which is growing fast."

New Spider-Woman #1 coming – MSN CBR – the coming series is previewed in issue #31 of Amazing Spider-Man.

Original page August 16, 2023