Avengers: Age of Ultron

[doctornick]

The funniest thing is how there's this air of "disappointment" surrounding this film which has made over $1.3B worldwide (6th highest grossing movie ever at this point and second highest grossing among MCU films). It's going to pass HP & the Deathly Hallows pt 2 for 5th place all time and will probably end up somewhere above $1.4 billion worldwide.

This film is an unequivocal box office smash and has overall has had more positive reviews than negative. It's been a big success even if it will ultimately fall short of the box office of the first film.

 

[flynnibus]

The funniest thing is how there's this air of "disappointment" surrounding this film which has made over $1.3B worldwide (6th highest grossing movie ever at this point and second highest grossing among MCU films). It's going to pass HP & the Deathly Hallows pt 2 for 5th place all time and will probably end up somewhere above $1.4 billion worldwide.

Sounds like the same "MK is the #1 theme park in the world.. how can you call it anything but a success' defense.

St. Anger debuted at #1 in 30 countries.. and went double platinum. It is also a complete turd. It had commercial success because millions of people would buy an album because it was from Metallica... period. It's called 'brand loyalty' or inertia. Even a complete stinker would cruise to huge numbers because of what preceded it. Avengers is the same... it was going to make hundreds of millions even as a mediocre film because of what it was... before it was even made.

Millions would see the film because of it's pedigree alone. It's a good film... but successor to Avengers 1? Nah..

 

[Bairstow]

Saw it yesterday and thought it was a tremendous step down from the first one. It certainly didn't look cheap, but the formulaic quip-fight-quip-fight-quip-fight rhytm became so predictable that I quickly lost patience with the movie. There's some good stuff in there from the various character actors, but it's all twice as bloated and half as fresh as it was in 2012.

The very worst thing was the product placement, which was even more egregious than what you see in the Bond films. The Beats headphones and constant Audi shots were bad enough, but the insinuation that it's Quicksilver's Adidas sneakers that make him super-fast was just gross.

And there wasn't even a Rocket Raccoon cameo!

Overall I much rather wished I had been seeing Fury Road again.

 

[doctornick]

Sounds like the same "MK is the #1 theme park in the world.. how can you call it anything but a success' defense.

Well, my comment was related more to the news articles that are insinuating the film is a "disappointment" because it either (1) won't match the box office take of the original or (2) won't reach the numbers than some predicted (it missed the opening weekend predictions and some had lofty expectations of closer to $2 billion worldwide).

I'm suggesting that the movie is a huge financial success and knocking it for not meeting massive financial benchmarks is silly. Studio execs should hope that most films "disappoint" in this fashion, earning hundreds of millions of dollars in profit. (Let alone the related merchandise sales.)

Millions would see the film because of it's pedigree alone. It's a good film... but successor to Avengers 1? Nah..

Now that's a different issue. I liked The Avengers better, but IMHO both films are great. And as I said before, Age of Ultron has generally quite positive reviews. I feel like the typical consensus online is "good film, the original is better"; not not really damning considering how well received the first movie was.

 

[Matt_Black]

Yeah, the film made $1 billion worldwide in about a month. If that's failure, hook me up for some of that action.

 

[flynnibus]

I know any money should should like great money... But the companies live in worlds of expectations. You can make 4 billion... But if you were expecting to make 5 billion... Hold on tough its gonna get rough

The studios are banking on the films to meet certain targets. Even high revenues can still miss the targets.

 

[flynnibus]

I'm suggesting that the movie is a huge financial success and knocking it for not meeting massive financial benchmarks is silly. Studio execs should hope that most films "disappoint" in this fashion, earning hundreds of millions of dollars in profit. (Let alone the related merchandise sales.)

Like it or not... Thats the world of business. You forecast... And plan around targets. The public world is not as forgiving as schools and kids sports where everyone gets a "great job" for doing something.

If disney banked on much higher returns... A miss is still a miss.

 

[NMBC1993]

the formulaic quip-fight-quip-fight-quip-fight rhytm became so predictable that I quickly lost patience with the movie.

...but I thought that's what ALL those Marvel fans wanted out of an Avengers film? Endless quips/banter and mindless destruction with no real development for the villain? "That's what they do in the comics" or so I'm told

 

[216bruce]

...but I thought that's what ALL those Marvel fans wanted out of an Avengers film? Endless quips/banter and mindless destruction with no real development for the villain? "That's what they do in the comics" or so I'm told

As an old comics reader from "The Silver Age' of the 60's...yeah, that's how a lot of the Marvels were back then (I only read Howard the Duck now), especially the FF and Spidey. Very quippish. Occasionally a bad guy would 'monologue' like Buddy/Syndrome in "The Incredibles". The Marvel films are very, very close in spirit to the old comics.

 

[NMBC1993]

As an old comics reader from "The Silver Age' of the 60's...yeah, that's how a lot of the Marvels were back then (I only read Howard the Duck now), especially the FF and Spidey. Very quippish. Occasionally a bad guy would 'monologue' like Buddy/Syndrome in "The Incredibles". The Marvel films are very, very close in spirit to the old comics.

Ah I see. I kinda figured that's how those comics worked, considering I've heard several people on these boards basically suggesting the same thing as far as tone, dialog, etc (and of course the ever classic villain monolog).

With that being said, there is a trend I've started noticing lately with the release of AoU. There doesn't seem to be the overwhelming praise for the sequel compared to what took place in 2012. Using @Bairstow's post for example, there was a complaint in the quip/fight repetition. Others have stated that Ultron did not fell like a fleshed out villain, although that was the first post I've read that mentioned the product placement. What I'm trying to get at is all this backlash has furthered my worries that in a few years time, people will start to care less and less about superhero movies (and more specifically Marvel) as they don't seem to actually progress past the "quip/banter, explosion, repeat" formula. That is why I have been so vocal in my opinion that Marvel needs to focus less on jokes, banter, and fight sequences and focus more on trying to tell a compelling story (but then I'm sure no one around here wants me to start that up again).

I'll end my mini-rant with this, just because quips and jokes are a large part of Marvel's comic history, does not mean they couldn't try something different, try thinking outside the box (or at least can they just filter all the quips to one character and make him/her the "comedy guy"). I know the whole "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" rule applies but still, what's the harm in breaking from the norm?

 

[216bruce]

Ah I see. I kinda figured that's how those comics worked, considering I've heard several people on these boards basically suggesting the same thing as far as tone, dialog, etc (and of course the ever classic villain monolog).

With that being said, there is a trend I've started noticing lately with the release of AoU. There doesn't seem to be the overwhelming praise for the sequel compared to what took place in 2012. Using @Bairstow's post for example, there was a complaint in the quip/fight repetition. Others have stated that Ultron did not fell like a fleshed out villain, although that was the first post I've read that mentioned the product placement. What I'm trying to get at is all this backlash has furthered my worries that in a few years time, people will start to care less and less about superhero movies (and more specifically Marvel) as they don't seem to actually progress past the "quip/banter, explosion, repeat" formula. That is why I have been so vocal in my opinion that Marvel needs to focus less on jokes, banter, and fight sequences and focus more on trying to tell a compelling story (but then I'm sure no one around here wants me to start that up again).

I'll end my mini-rant with this, just because quips and jokes are a large part of Marvel's comic history, does not mean they couldn't try something different, try thinking outside the box (or at least can they just filter all the quips to one character and make him/her the "comedy guy"). I know the whole "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" rule applies but still, what's the harm in breaking from the norm?

I'm of the opinion that it's incredibly rare for anything in popular culture to have much of a staying power. It's the proverbial 'beating of the dead horse' with most things. Waaay too much of a good thing, waaay too fast. If it was one film a year or so, maybe. But we get overloaded with these things in a mad cash-grab by corporate greed. It started as an occasional movie, now it's a barrage of them, plus TV shows, live tours, moichandising, ugh. So, It hink eventually, no matter what Marvel does or how good/great any individual film might be, folks will have had 'enough' and move on to whatever the next 'dead horse ' ends up being. Like you stated- it's already becoming a formula and corporations love safe formulaic films. Make something unique (Tomorrowland) and get largely ignored. Off the soap box....next.