A Spirited 15 Rounds ...

smile

Well-Known Member

Rodan75

Well-Known Member
Oh, we shouldn't kid ourselves. There is no shortage of talent. What about all these women/gay/black/Hispanic/etc. etc. directors that we keep hearing can't get work? Surely some of them are talented enough to helm a Marvel or Star Wars film. Let's not pretend Gunn was some irreplaceable entity.

Mangold seems to be inferring about Rian Johnson as well - well, Rian Johnson in my eyes has proven himself to be a hack, so I guess that is in the eye of the beholder.

If I were a person who frequented The Mary Sue, I would see these statements as problematic as it presumes that only middle-aged "CIS" straight white guys can handle big budget superhero and sci-fi features.
He is referring to Rian, but also how poisonous making these films is now.

Do you seriously believe minorities or LGBTQ filmmakers will be able to get these jobs with the use of weaponized harassment?

I totally don't think that Gunn is irreplaceable, and per my posts yesterday, I think the business side may have a stronger case against Gunn than the 'Disney morals side'. (Not getting GoTGv2 to $1B)

But if you take both the Gunn situation, along all of the other situations that have occurred with Directors recently...damned if you do well...fired if you make a mistake. Talented, experienced Directors who have choices, won't choose Disney and these movies are too big for rookie Directors to handle or face scrutiny on.

It is a real problem that is creeping up for Disney.

It isn't the end of the world, but it is a talent management concern that Disney has to face.
 

Rodan75

Well-Known Member
I’ve never understood why Disney wouldn’t want to keep these rights to themselves in general. Wouldn’t you want to make the Disney Channel more valuable or something?

Well...I think Turner is essentially paying more for the SW Movies than Disney thought they could make off of them broadcasting the films themselves. (which is interesting)

I'm assuming this is for exclusive rights, since it seems 2nd run rights are with Netflix and would expire in 2019. So there would still be a limited release window on Disney Streaming for any new Star Wars movies released after 2019 before being windowed into Turner. I wish the Bloomberg article would have been a bit more specific.

The good and bad news is that FX bought a bunch of broadcast rights to Marvel movies as well, so those just get reabsorbed into the Grand Disney Machine. But if payments were ongoing, then Disney is losing a revenue source.
 

AEfx

Well-Known Member
He is referring to Rian, but also how poisonous making these films is now.

Wait, you guys confuse me. I thought that the Gunn situtation was wholly unique, now its typical?

Why does everything have to be looked at as a crisis? Gunn gets fired, what about the what, 15 other Marvel directors that somehow have managed to stay employed? Now we suddenly have to worry about finding directors?

I have a hard time with looking at everything through this one lens.

Do you seriously believe minorities or LGBTQ filmmakers will be able to get these jobs with the use of weaponized harassment?

You are avoiding my question, but I won't avoid yours.

You are creating a boogie man now. Somehow folks like Patty Jenkins and Ryan Coogler have made superhero films just fine.

In any case, they didn't go after Gunn because he was a minority. Should "they" start attacking people just because of their minority status, that's a bridge to cross then.
 

AEfx

Well-Known Member
I totally don't think that Gunn is irreplaceable, and per my posts yesterday, I think the business side may have a stronger case against Gunn than the 'Disney morals side'. (Not getting GoTGv2 to $1B)

But if you take both the Gunn situation, along all of the other situations that have occurred with Directors recently...damned if you do well...fired if you make a mistake. Talented, experienced Directors who have choices, won't choose Disney and these movies are too big for rookie Directors to handle or face scrutiny on.

It is a real problem that is creeping up for Disney.

It isn't the end of the world, but it is a talent management concern that Disney has to face.

I guess I just disagree because of the sheer math involved. The Director's Guild of America has over 16,000 members. While I don't like why it is happening, there is just no shortage of talented people who are just waiting for their chance. Everyone in Hollywood is replaceable. And most of them aren't going to give a turd about any of this and would give anything for the chance to work on a big budget Disney picture. Surely there are enough of them that don't have shady pasts to keep the cameras rolling.
 

Pi on my Cake

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
Yes
I totally don't think that Gunn is irreplaceable, and per my posts yesterday, I think the business side may have a stronger case against Gunn than the 'Disney morals side'. (Not getting GoTGv2 to $1B)

But if you take both the Gunn situation, along all of the other situations that have occurred with Directors recently...damned if you do well...fired if you make a mistake. Talented, experienced Directors who have choices, won't choose Disney and these movies are too big for rookie Directors to handle or face scrutiny on.

It is a real problem that is creeping up for Disney.

It isn't the end of the world, but it is a talent management concern that Disney has to face.
Wasn't Gunn a rookie director? At least to big budget movies. And Whedon had basically only done tv before Avengers. Same with Russos.

Disney isn't picking random people of the street, but by big movie standards they tend to mostly go for rookies and unproven talents.
 

TeriofTerror

Well-Known Member
Interesting statement with a good example. For me, centrist or moderate means that I have an individual point of view and that I can choose a more liberal or conservative opinion on a issue by issue basis. And that I don’t have to pick a team and tie myself in knots to justify illogical choices. And that I believe most issues can have a satisfying solution thru negotiations and compromise.

As others have said more eloquently, the more folks are forced to pick teams, the more extreme these positions get.
I would hope this is true of most of us. I don't really think most of us line up with either side 100%. To do so would be a serious sign of Kool-Aid consumption, IMHO. Blind party devotion can get scary, quickly. I think just mindlessly aligning with either side shows a lack of critical thinking and even laziness.
 

brb1006

Well-Known Member
Super Nintendo World To Be First Two-Storey Area At Universal Studios Japan
http://www.siliconera.com/2018/08/0...-universal-studios-japan/#1XsiiSxYHT0Raplb.99

Here's a fan-made design from the site.
supernintendoworld.jpg



supernintendoworld2.jpg
 

the.dreamfinder

Well-Known Member
You are avoiding my question, but I won't avoid yours.
16,000 DGA members doesn’t mean they all want to direct comic books movies or nine figure tentpole films. Marvel reportedly spoke with 70 female directors for Black Widow, but I doubt they all really wanted the job and many were just taking the meeting to please their agents and increase their market value. Katheryn Bigelow, one of Hollywood’s most experienced female directors, and the first to win the Best Director Oscar, regularly turns down big budget movies like the Alicia Vikander “Tomb Raider” as a for instance. HOWEVER, that’s not to say that only straight white guys only want to direct these films or have the requisite experience to direct them.

Additionally, there’s the issue, in the case of GotG, of Gunn being the central author of the series alongside his cast and producer Feige. Despite some folks’ personal opinions about these kinds of films, you cannot just replace one director and expect to get the same product and same financial result. That’s not how art works. It’s a very complicated, process of a large interdisciplinary team coming together to achieve the best possible version of the story.
You are creating a boogie man now. Somehow folks like Patty Jenkins and Ryan Coogler have made superhero films just fine.

In any case, they didn't go after Gunn because he was a minority. Should "they" start attacking people just because of their minority status, that's a bridge to cross then.
As a matter of fact, I brought up the issue before. This firing has set a precedent. If they can take down an established straight white male director, will they really stop there? They go after people who they see as the enemy. Gunn was the enemy because he was very vocal on Twitter about his political views. Whether he is reinstated or not, these individuals have already won in that they have helped to chill political speech of prominent entertainers, who don’t share their political views, on social media.

To reiterate, this is bigger than James Gunn and GotG, but to reverse what they consider to be major victory would send a message that this weaponized harassment doesn’t work anymore.

Also, Kevin Feige’s contract expires this year. How will that factor into this discussion? If Disney were to rehire Gunn, they could avoid having to change Vol 3’s production schedule because they fired him during vacation time with four or so months before principle photography begins.
 

AEfx

Well-Known Member
1
To reiterate, this is bigger than James Gunn and GotG, but to reverse what they consider to be major victory would send a message that this weaponized harassment doesn’t work anymore.

Yeah, you and I just see this issue very, very differently when it comes to the available directors out there. We just keep going around the same place with it. I feel you look at these things through such a narrow lens, the one that makes Gunn some 100% victim and I just don't agree. I don't like what happened, but he isn't just some squeaky clean innocent that these big bad guys are attacking. And again, which some folks just won't acknowledge, is that the far-right might have lit the SPARK, but there are a lot of people in the various marginalized communities he used to "joke" about who are not unhappy about his firing.

I think Disney will be able to find plenty of people willing to work on its projects. Let's not pretend that Gunn is totally innocent - he did what he did, and to presume that everyone must have such things in their past is just not the case. He can be sorry about it and we can forgive him, but he still did something that was really icky and wrong and this wasn't just invented of whole cloth. I'm sure there are tons of people who haven't tweeted mass amounts of kiddy sex and rape jokes that can be used against them later.

That said, this "weaponization" is a machine that the far-left loves to use and has used with great success, and we are just seeing the other side do it now. I guess I am overall grateful that you no at least see the huge problem and understand how social media has been weaponized - now I just hope that when you see it, you will continue to call it out - no matter which side is doing it.
 
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geekza

Well-Known Member
Let's not pretend that Gunn is totally innocent - he did what he did, and to presume that everyone must have such things in their past is just not the case.
Except that what he did, while not to some peoples' tastes, wasn't criminal. None of it was personal attacks, either. Since the time those tweets were written, he has changed his behavior. We're going around in circles, though. You obviously feel more strongly about those tweets than I do. Fair enough.
 

HauntedPirate

Park nostalgist
Premium Member
Gotta love Disney's sellers remorse with Star Wars and Turner. If anything highlights their short-sighted, only-the-next-quarterly-results-matter mentality, this does. It's not as if Netflix and Hulu and other streaming services just popped up in the past 18 months.
 

HauntedPirate

Park nostalgist
Premium Member
If I get some time, I may try to find out how much TWDC has spent on stock buybacks in the past 5/10/15 years. I have a feeling I won't like what I find, though.

*Sigh*...

From: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/disney-continue-share-repurchase-program-201528646.html

Disney has repurchased about $25 billion worth of its stock at an average share price of $58 per share in the past five years. The company intends to continue its share buyback program in 2016 and intends to buy back $6–$8 billion of its stock during fiscal 2016.

So roughly $31-33 Billion in stock buybacks between 2010 and 2016. Just think what even 10% of that amount could have done for the domestic theme parks in that time period. Instead, we got a half-hearted FL expansion plus Magic!!!bands. Hey, I just realized that was also the same time frame for building Pandora and it's one ride building. ;)

Also remember - These buybacks were directed and authorized by executive management, most/all of which have tens/hundreds of thousands of shares of TWDC stock (or a million-plus, in the case of Mr. Iger), either directly or in options.
 

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