|
Fantastic Four had an opening weekend gross of 11 million dollars on an apparent (though probably even higher) 120 million dollar budget and is projected to maybe make another 20 million before its run ends. The Director committed career suicide this weekend tweeting that the movie was butchered and he's sorry it sucks. Fox has lost a hundred million dollars, and a franchise they were hoping to reboot is now completely dead. Any chance of a sequel or even the characters being sold for a big profit is now gone. What movie has done this much damage in recent memory? How the gently caress does this happen? How is it possible there will be a bigger bomb than Mortdecai this year? How does a 120 million dollar movie based on an existing popular comic IP at the height of the comic-movie trend that I've seen ads for on TV lose 110 million loving dollars? How do bombs like this happen? Fair enough, they hired a director who had never worked with money before. Fair enough, the movie had a hellish production. Fair enough, Fox and nerds hated the casting. Fair enough, it went over-budget and they had to do months of reshoots. Fair enough, they re-edited the movie without the director weeks before release. Fair enough, the script was edited (again without the director knowing) a week before production began. Fair enough, the commercials weren't that great. Fair enough, the director himself tweeted an apology for the movie existing on opening weekend. Fair enough, the reviews were awful. Fair enough, the studio probably never believed in it in the first place and made it just to hold onto character rights. All that combined doesn't spell "hundred-million dollar bomb" to me though - so what the gently caress happened here? Any goons know what could have caused this atomic bomb? Anyone even seen it? EDIT: 
Calico Heart fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Aug 9, 2015 |
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 16:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 07:54 |
|
|
I was excited for this film because the teaser looked really good, as did the trailers. The reviews are what is being cited as the reason for why people are not going into the theater to see this movie. I had no idea about the other issues with the film or what the director said until this thread. Gonna have to go find that tweet now.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 16:30
|
|
|
This is purely anecdotal, so feel free to dismiss it out of hand, but literally everybody I'd ever talked to about the new Fantastic Four movie (prior to its release) had the reaction of "oh, that's going to bomb"/"why are they trying that again?" which makes me really wonder why they did. Like, I'm sure they were thirsting for that Marvel money, and maybe that blinded them, and they (maybe?) know more than me about what properties can be salvaged and how to sell a product, but in this case it just seems like it was a given fact that this film was going to be a disaster. I can't fathom how it ever got momentum with that kind of gloom hanging over it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 16:32
|
|
|
Anonymous Robot posted:This is purely anecdotal, so feel free to dismiss it out of hand, but literally everybody I'd ever talked to about the new Fantastic Four movie (prior to its release) had the reaction of "oh, that's going to bomb"/"why are they trying that again?" which makes me really wonder why they did. Like, I'm sure they were thirsting for that Marvel money, and maybe that blinded them, and they (maybe?) know more than me about what properties can be salvaged and how to sell a product, but in this case it just seems like it was a given fact that this film was going to be a disaster. I can't fathom how it ever got momentum with that kind of gloom hanging over it. One of the things is in order to hang onto the rights, Fox needs to make a Fantastic Four movie every ten years (or something like that), hence the terrible cheap unreleased Corman movie in the 90's. It's likely the deadline was coming up and they figured they would rather go for it themselves than let the rights default back to Marvel. They probably figured Trank had made a superhero movie off a non-IP before for cheap and made money, so he could do it again. Marvel even approached Fox offering to buy some of the cosmic characters (like galactus/silver surfer etc) from them and they said no.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 16:36
|
|
|
It'll do about $26 million opening weekend. The 11 mil figure is just for Friday. Still, it's a bad number, and given the terrible reviews and buzz I wouldn't be shocked if this doesn't even clear $70 million domestically. Fake edit: current imdb score is a fantastic 4.0 
CopywrightMMXI fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Aug 9, 2015 |
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 17:15
|
|
|
I think this is like Amazing Spiderman 2 was last year. The studio clearly hosed with the script and the final cut in ways that resulted in a mangled mess of a film. In this case, the studio apparently cut out three major action scenes; the ones you usually put in trailers to sell the movie and you put in your movie to give it some energy and good pacing. With Spiderman, it felt like they added three loving plotlines. I think Fox knew those scenes would cost them a lot more money than they were willing to pay, especially with all the problems with Trank, who they probably didn't trust at that point, so they just gave up on the film. After that Trank fell apart, because how are you going to film a decent movie with three of your biggest action scenes removed? Looking at the film, I'd say he directed everything until the screen says '1 year later'. After that it's like a different film altogether, especially the last act and the weak 'climax'. Why it's flopping is most of the reasons the OP listed. The Fantastic Four as a product isn't nearly as interesting to the general public as Spider-Man is, and now your new version of an already meh product looks uninteresting; no cool action shots in trailers, comic book nerds hating it after hearing about the rumours -> losing the core who hype up the film on the internet -> everyone getting a pre-emptive and collective awareness that the movie will suck -> all of the reviewers going on a hyberpole overdrive and basically competing who hates it the most etc. when it's mostly a somewhat okay movie for the first act or so and then making GBS threads the bed without any action to numb the viewers' brain = flop. I think that's one of it's problems; the movie required you to 'keep your brain on' while watching it but then you are aware of the shittiness that follows. Something like the Amazing Spiderman 2 was a huge clusterfuck but they had the money to throw in distracting effects and bright colours and sounds on the screen so people were more easily blinded to the incoherent structure etc. while watching it. But it tells something of the strength of the Spiderman brand that they still were able to make a lot of money with it, despite it being a really lovely film. So lovely that they had to reboot the franchise after it. But still, most people see a poster for a Spiderman movie and they go "Yeah, I'll see that, Spiderman is awesome", with F4 they go "I don't really care about them, I'll check out the trailer and decide" - *trailer is boring* - "I'll skip it". I don't know what they'll do with the Fantastic Four now, though. They could try to save face and release a director's cut later on, if it actually is a better version of this, and hope it catches on with the nerds and eventually with the general public. This thing is such a mess at this point that I have no idea what they'll do, but it sure is interesting to witness.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 17:32
|
|
|
I wonder if there's any "FROM THE PRODUCERS OF FANTASTIC FOUR" X-Men ads on deck they need to change now
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 17:54
|
|
|
I wonder if this means Fox will cut their losses and sell the FF movie rights back to Marvel/Disney.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 18:03
|
|
|
Hearing that they cut three action scenes now makes the weird BBC movie review I read today make more sense. The reviewer was talking about how the movie was refreshing because it focused on a bunch of depressed characters without the typical flashy action that apparently annoyed the reviewer so much. I was really confused by the review, because I thought F4 was supposed to be another flashy comic movie, but now hearing about what was cut, it all makes sense.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 18:03
|
|
|
The thing is Marvel is usually pretty great at making people give a poo poo about characters they never gave a poo poo about before. Ten years ago nobody gave a gently caress about iron man or Thor or freaking Ant Man. I feel like maybe the trailers and marketing were the biggest factor but still - why does the general public have such an apathy towards the fantastic four? Lame powers? Nuclear family no longer resonant enough?
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 18:21
|
|
|
Yvonmukluk posted:I wonder if this means Fox will cut their losses and sell the FF movie rights back to Marvel/Disney. It sounds like this went pretty much according to plan for them. They're not going to sell it. Their goal was to keep the property, and a movie going tits up isn't going to make them reevaluate that.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 18:32
|
|
|
Drifter posted:It sounds like this went pretty much according to plan for them. They're not going to sell it. Their goal was to keep the property, and a movie going tits up isn't going to make them reevaluate that. Why would they keep the property if it keeps failing and losing them increasing amounts of money?
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 18:35
|
|
|
maybe people just felt like seeing a good film instead of yet another loving comic book superhero origin movie for the 100th loving time, and a remake of an already lackluster one to boot. maybe it's just me but the last thing I ever want to do moviewise is sit through a superhero origin flick AGAIN
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 18:44
|
|
|
Corek posted:Why would they keep the property if it keeps failing and losing them increasing amounts of money? Because it's a business, and you don't give up properties because one day they might make you money.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 18:48
|
|
|
My favorite (sarcasm) part of the movie: So after they all have their powers and freaking out/unable to control them, Reed escapes, leaving the others behind, promising Ben he'll come back for them. We then have a cut to a year later. Why Reed didn't come back for them sooner, considering he clearly knows how to control his powers now, I'm not sure. So the government is using Ben to go off and fight in the middle east, and Johnny is volunteering to do the same thing. Sue is refusing on moral science grounds. Her dad convinces her to help the government track down Reed, as according to her father, Reed is the only one that can use the machine to go back to the other dimension and find a cure. Sue finds him, using the Internet. Before she starts, she goes, "I need music." It's a callback to earlier in the film when Reed and her are in the Baxter Foundation library. Reed asks her, "Are you listening to music?" Sue responds with how she's listening to Portishead, and that she likes music because she likes/is good at patterns, which is all music is. So cut back to later in the film and she's using the Internet to hunt down Reed, with big cans on of course listening to music, using patterns (?) to hunt down Reed. She finds him because he's 'routing all his e-mails' through username 'Captain_N3mo'. She knows this is him because they shared two lines of dialogue earlier in the film about Captain Nemo, and how it's Reed's favorite book. It was all really bad and, this is impressive considering it's a Fantastic 4 movie, was very unrealistic. Also I'm not sure why, since Ben and Sue's motivation for helping the government was to find a cure, they all seem real chill/happy with their powers at the very end.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 19:19
|
|
|
This movie was by far one of the worst comic book movies I've seen, ever. Usually poo poo that doesn't bother me and I can ignore bothered the gently caress out of me. Most of it was with Doom. Doom's origin was great, but gently caress what came out was not Doom. He has hosed up face, he's not Darth Vader Jr. He can't explode people's loving heads. He can't make mountains. The range of powers he has in this movie is loving ridiculous. You don't have to go straight to Doom, Fox. Use the loving Moleman or whatever, have Doom get a scar during a fight between the Four and Moleman, whatever. Hell, in this movie that dimensional travel machine blows up like every 5 minutes, plenty of opportunities for Doom to get a scar and use his genius to have a more logical skill set. Sue not going to the other dimension was a bitch movie, imho. I am not in tune at all with any usual misogynistic claims, but my daughter, who knows the Fantastic Four...kinda, asked me why the girl didn't go. I dunno kid, guess the writers liked the boys only going. There's not a lot of reasons to have Sue stay behind, and doing so really cheapened her role in the movie. The entire first hour of the movie the main character was Franklin Richards, who no one gives two shits about. They spent way too much time on him. I feel like spoilers aren't necessary because you should not see this piece of poo poo movie. Comic book movies are bad, I get it, but this movie was poo poo on a whole different level.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 19:35
|
|
|
Grem posted:Sue not going to the other dimension was a bitch movie, imho. I am not in tune at all with any usual misogynistic claims, but my daughter, who knows the Fantastic Four...kinda, asked me why the girl didn't go. I dunno kid, guess the writers liked the boys only going. There's not a lot of reasons to have Sue stay behind, and doing so really cheapened her role in the movie. Well when Reed when to call Ben I assumed he was going to call Sue. The whole Ben thing was bizarre. Like, just loving have Ben come with. Johnny is just pulled off the street cause his dad is leading the project. Mostly all we're shown Johnny doing is welding, which hey, Ben could loving do too. It struck me as bizarre that none of the dudes were like, "Hey we should call Sue." considering they were all flipping their poo poo when military man told them NASA astronauts were gonna go instead of them. They then turn around and do the exact thing to Sue. Have Ben come with originally, make it so the four that go are Johnny/Sue/Ben/Reed, Victor not being allowed to go for whatever bullshit reason so he gets righteously jealous and tries to go/fucks with something that causes them to all get hosed up.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 19:43
|
|
|
Honest answer? Movies based on comics were over-saturated in the market as of years ago, and people don't really like these movies as much as industry wisdom would (apparently) suggest. On top of that, nobody cares about the Fantastic Four, and nobody ever really did. Second-string comic IP, at best. Unrecognizable, unmemorable, uncharismatic, noncompelling. The biggest pop culture impact of the Fantastic Four is in the film Reservoir Dogs - that was the pinnacle. The superhero film bubble burst a while ago, and all anybody sees anymore is attempted consumer exploitation in a dead genre.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 19:47
|
|
|
The biggest pop culture impact of the Fantastic Four was reviving the superhero comic in the 60's.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 19:57
|
|
|
There's nothing less interesting about the Fantadtic Four than other comic book characters that have had hit movies. No one gave a poo poo about Iron Man or Thor 10 years ago.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 20:12
|
|
|
I really want to see this movie now just to see how big of a train wreck is really is. At least it's coming out on blu-ray very quickly.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 20:15
|
|
|
KaiserSchnitzel posted:Honest answer? I don't think you can say the bubble burst when Age of Ultron just made $1.4 billion this year (3rd highest grossing comic book adaptation ever).
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 20:18
|
|
|
KaiserSchnitzel posted:
I swear, this is completely loving dumb. NO ONE gave a poo poo about Guardians of the Galaxy until the movie came out, not in pop culture. Saying the same of Fantastic Four and giving that as a reason for why the movie sucks is retarded. You gotta be trolling with that whole post. Comic bubble, years ago, et cetera? Haha.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 20:21
|
|
|
Calico Heart posted:The thing is Marvel is usually pretty great at making people give a poo poo about characters they never gave a poo poo about before. Ten years ago nobody gave a gently caress about iron man or Thor or freaking Ant Man. I feel like maybe the trailers and marketing were the biggest factor but still - why does the general public have such an apathy towards the fantastic four? Lame powers? Nuclear family no longer resonant enough? If you told me there was going to be a movie that starred Rocky Raccoon about twenty years ago, I would not have believed you. And if you told me that movie would become a worldwide hit? I would have thought you were insane.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 20:24
|
|
|
I, John Q. Public, am not going to go and see this Fantastic Four movie because who the hell wants to see the Fantastic Four? They're stupid, they look stupid, all the previous movies have looked really dumb too. Nobody gives a flying gently caress about the Fantastic Four. If Fox gave the rights back to Marvel and then Marvel made a $200 million Fantastic Four movie themselves it'd also be stupid, because the characters are idiotic. Invisible girl, big rock man, bendy man, and fire boy. What the gently caress?
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 20:29
|
|
|
Drifter posted:I swear, this is completely loving dumb. NO ONE gave a poo poo about Guardians of the Galaxy until the movie came out, not in pop culture. Saying the same of Fantastic Four and giving that as a reason for why the movie sucks is retarded. But Guardians had great marketing and trailers. I didn't care if it was a Marvel-movie, based on comicbooks or whatever, it just looked like a fun space-action-adventure. Even if people know Fantastic Four, I don't think anyone wanted a new movie after the previous two shitshows and the marketing for this new one didn't really help. Here's an interesting article covering most of the poo poo that went behind the scenes: http://www.ew.com/article/2015/08/07/fantastic-four-josh-trank-tweet EW posted:Some who worked on the film say Trank broke, for sure, but was driven to the breaking point by the studio, and that his clash was not with Kinberg but Fox production president Emma Watts. According to several individuals who worked on the movie, the studio delayed casting and script approvals, slashed the budget by tens of millions from what was originally promised during the development phase, and tried to force last-minute script changes to the film just as principal photography was beginning.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 20:32
|
|
|
Miles Teller is a real bastard from what I've heard.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 20:50
|
|
|
Kush posted:But Guardians had great marketing and trailers. This has nothing to do with what I said. You are right, in that advertising makes or breaks movies like these, but you might as well not have quoted me. edit: I see my mistake - but 'movie comes out' for comic book movies generally includes the press buildup beforehand. Drifter fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Aug 9, 2015 |
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 20:54
|
|
|
My favorite slam of this movie is "In hindsight, it's amazing how the Fantastic Four trailer opens with 'we gave you 6 years and millions of dollars, and you gave us nothing.'" It's fascinating to me that there have been four movies with "Fantastic Four" as their title yet none of them has managed to simply take the appeal of the Fantastic Four in the comics and put that on screen. That wouldn't be too out there or "not edgy enough." Last year we all went crazy for a talking raccoon and his pet tree. We don't NEED an entire movie-length origin story for the Fantastic Four. Open the freaking movie with the team assembled and established, fighting off an army of Doombots that are trying to vandalize the Statue of Liberty into the Statue of Doom or something, then have them stop to bask in the adoration of their fans before taking their flying car off to Four Freedoms Plaza. Hell, throw in Franklin, Valeria, and the entire Future Foundation while you're at it and don't explain where any of it came from. The Fantastic Four aren't "a team of people with superpowers," they're a family unit. They're celebrities, beloved by the public, dealing with existential-level threats on a regular basis. Reed Richards is the coolest nerd dad on the planet: the Smartest Man In the Whole World who goes overboard with his zany inventions but has a love for his wife, children, and friends that enables him to prevail over Doctor Doom and Galactus every time. You don't approach it from a "well, we got to make fights for a stretchy guy, a fire guy, a rock guy, and a invisible force field lady" standpoint first and foremost. We know the "wholesome superhero family that goes through rough patches but pulls through" approach can be done and that people will react favorably to it, because the best "Fantastic Four" movie of all proved it years ago: The Incredibles. Daryl Surat fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Aug 9, 2015 |
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 21:05
|
|
|
The only thing FF's failure proves is that there is no "comic book movie bubble." People go to good movies and don't go to bad movies. Shocking.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 21:07
|
|
|
Not having seen it, there wasn't much in the trailer material to really get me excited. The teaser stuff was actually quite nice because it didn't actually feature any super powers at all. You could kind of get lost in the idea that it was some space tragedy instead. But as soon as my brain kicked in and said this was a movie about a guy who can stretch I realized I never wanted to see this movie. He's inherently goofy and the whole thing is inherently goofy. But the whole teaser was ominous and serious so it never felt like it could work. I'm probably the only person kind of warm to the previous Fantastic Four movies. I'd never recommend them to someone but they were an honest effort for the goofy premise. The first one is almost even good because of Johnny and Thing. But Jessica Alba is the prettiest worst actress working today and there's just a few too many segments that are awful in script and execution. But I never thought those movies would be better if they were more serious. Just like Green Lantern wouldn't have been better if it was more serious. If your guy has Stretch Armstrong limbs you can't make it Batman in tone.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 21:15
|
|
Yaws posted:Miles Teller is a real bastard from what I've heard. mr rear end face and the fantastic three
|
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 21:37
|
|
|
Ape Agitator posted:Not having seen it, there wasn't much in the trailer material to really get me excited. The teaser stuff was actually quite nice because it didn't actually feature any super powers at all. You could kind of get lost in the idea that it was some space tragedy instead. But as soon as my brain kicked in and said this was a movie about a guy who can stretch I realized I never wanted to see this movie. He's inherently goofy and the whole thing is inherently goofy. But the whole teaser was ominous and serious so it never felt like it could work. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 21:40
|
|
|
All the chaos and reshoots did give us one, wonderful thing: Kate mara's wig 
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 22:18
|
|
|
I said come in! posted:I really want to see this movie now just to see how big of a train wreck is really is. At least it's coming out on blu-ray very quickly. Its not really an entertaining trainwreck is the thing, just very boring. Its like someone sketched out a first draft, put in some filler dialog to outline the characters and move them from scene to scene and then it just got filmed without revision (totally forgetting to include action scenes till around an hour into the movie). I'm skeptical of the stock criticism of "too grimdark, comic movies should be lighter and sillier" and so on, but this movie has really glaring issues trying to make its conceit of a serious fantastic four fly. People complained about the Dark Knight series being too gritty but that series goal was of playing down the comic book stuff in order that it could homage Heat and so on, so you end up with a movie thats half Batman half crime drama. This movie I get the impression was intending to work as part superhero, part sci fi exploration movie and/or body horror but it doesen't do a good job of making any of its aspects compelling, feeling half baked at every turn. If there is any trainwreck comedy to be had from it its in how hard the tone shifts in the last 15 minutes of the movie to saturday morning cartoon. They even do the "we need a name" "How about, human torch and friends  " *everyone groans* gag.
massive spider fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Aug 9, 2015 |
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 22:36
|
|
|
massive spider posted:Its not really an entertaining trainwreck is the thing, just very boring. Its like someone sketched out a first draft, put in some filler dialog to outline the characters and move them from scene to scene and then it just got filmed without revision (totally forgetting to include action scenes till around an hour into the movie). To be fair, this does sometimes work (for making a lot of money that is). See the Star Wars prequels.  Also, Transformers.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 22:42
|
|
|
I wish the movie had been able to go darker, TBH. We're presented with this omnipresent, faceless Military-Industrial complex that wants to use the characters as tools. The film doesn't hit you over the head with it but it actually seems to agree with Doom: the planet's hosed and it's our fault. It could have been more interesting if they showed that more, although I kinda like how all the movie's shots of "Americana" are basically totally unflattering. The few "average people" we can see in the movie are basically a slob watching football and a punk who slaps around his little brother. Also America is a junkyard, ha ha. Some really interesting dynamics are raised but not expanded on sadly----like the fact that Reed sort of always treated Ben as his Friday, or Franklin Storm getting along with his adopted genius daughter and leaving his son alienated. Those are good scenes but the film doesn't seem interested in them, which I think is why the first half of the movie feels kind of sterile and dragging.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 22:48
|
|
|
Doctor Nick posted:All the chaos and reshoots did give us one, wonderful thing: Kate mara's wig Maybe it's just confirmation bias, but holy gently caress I feel like the scenes with that awful wig are even shot worse. Like, you can tell when a scene is about to be terrible by what her hair looks like.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 22:57
|
|
|
No I agree; the reshot scenes are shot in a prosaic TV style, probably because they had to be done as fast as possible.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 23:00
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 07:54 |
|
|
Harime Nui posted:I wish the movie had been able to go darker, TBH. We're presented with this omnipresent, faceless Military-Industrial complex that wants to use the characters as tools. The film doesn't hit you over the head with it but it actually seems to agree with Doom: the planet's hosed and it's our fault. It could have been more interesting if they showed that more, although I kinda like how all the movie's shots of "Americana" are basically totally unflattering. The few "average people" we can see in the movie are basically a slob watching football and a punk who slaps around his little brother. Also America is a junkyard, ha ha. Some really interesting dynamics are raised but not expanded on sadly----like the fact that Reed sort of always treated Ben as his Friday, or Franklin Storm getting along with his adopted genius daughter and leaving his son alienated. Those are good scenes but the film doesn't seem interested in them, which I think is why the first half of the movie feels kind of sterile and dragging. See, I feel like the first half of the movie has all of these interesting threads, the awful home lives the four have, Doom being a likable character, the awesome body horror stuff from immediately after they get their powers, but then once the whole One Year Later hits, it feels like they just want to wrap it up as simply as possible. We'd think about it more highly if any of it had been addressed at all later.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 23:03
|
|