#i wonder if this has to do with the hits disney's taking lately?

[oveliagirlhaditright]

I do have to say... I kind of am worried about Kingdom Hearts IV.

[kimberly-spirits13]

How the Batfam Reacts to Dick and Jason Dating a Black Widow HC

Dick:

• He met you on a mission where you were partnered together

• Dick immediately recognized the emblem on your suit showing that you were a Widow

• He was suspicious at first thinking that you were still with the organization until he heard you talking about it

• “Dreykov stood no chance against the freed widows.” He heard you explaining to Wonder Woman, “I hope that they’re doing well on Themyscira”

• He knew that if you were in cahoots with Diana, you must be sound

• When you were on the mission, you started talking a lot

• You thought he was funny and charming and he thought you were smart and witty

• Dick liked that you could handle yourself in situations and that you had grown from everything that had happened to you, not crumble from it

• When the mission was over, you two exchanged numbers

• One day, a few months later, you texted him and said that you were looking to move to Gotham

• You wanted to know if he’d go look at apartments with you since he knew Gotham better

• He was so excited and despite him trying to play it cool, everyone knew that he was up to something

• He made the excuse that Wally was doing some apartment shopping and wanted to hang out that week

• Let’s be honest, when you find your apartment you probably hook up or have a Disney binge night

• After a wild weekend, he heads back to the manor and is glowing

• Always on his phone

• Is in a good mood

• Sneaks off during patrol

• The works

• Everyone knew that he must be dating someone, it was so obvious

• When everyone finally finds out that he’s dating a Widow, it’s because they follow him to your apartment

• He’s there to work on some detective stuff that was going around in Gotham

• You had your monitors set up and your suit laying over the sofa when Tim, Jason, and Steph broke in through the window

• You pushed Dick behind the coach, rolling to take cover while you drew a Glock that was tucked in your waistband

• “Stand still, hands where I can see them!”

• “Y/N/N, those are my siblings!” Dick said tackling you, “idiot siblings at that”

• “You’re dating a Widow?!” While Jason still had his helmet on, his sense of surprise was evident

• “You’re dating a Widow and you called her by a nickname?” Steph gawked, “Never in all my days-“

• “You guys can’t tell Bruce!” Dick said frantically, “Tim don’t you dare touch that com”

• “Too late.” Damian came into the apartment, giving it a once over and glaring at you, “So this is the distraction that has been plaguing Grayson.” “Is he paying you to court him?”

• Bruce came into the apartment later to haul his kids out after they had basically interrogated you about life and how you and Dick were dating

• Bruce was suspicious of you at first, as he is, but after a few weeks, you were invited to patrol with everyone

• You and Jason trauma bonded and shot guns together

• Cass and Damian liked you since you were an assassin, and a skilled one at that

• Steph liked you cause you were pretty and badass

• Babs and Timmy thought you were intelligent and a good friend to have

• Bruce and Alfred eventually come around, Bruce likes that you’re loyal and intelligent

• Alfred likes that you’re not a crazy clout chaser

• Everyone adjusts really well to you quickly, and you easily become part of the family

Jason:

• You two met while you were rehabilitating on Themyscira with Diana as your mentor

• You and Artemis had quickly become friends and she had you come with her on a mission

• You needed something at a faster pace that you could exercise your skills with

• Artemis introduced you to Jason and you two hit it off quickly

• She noticed this and had you two paired up for a mission

• She’s not Artemis anymore y’all, she’s Cupid/ Eros and she just shot Jason Todd in the butt with an arrow

• He’s so gushy over you

• Puppy dog eyes and everything

• At first he’s like, it’s got to be the Russian accent

• But after a few hours, he knew it definitely wasn’t the accent

• When you’re still living at Themyscira, he asks Artemis to take you on as many missions as possible so that he can see you

• When you’re finally done living on the island, he’s the first to offer a new place

• Wants you to live at once of his safe houses in Gotham

• You would accept the offer but you already had gotten an apartment

• Jason was so depressed about it until you told him that it was in Gotham

• “What- you’re like my only friend. I’m not moving to LA or something.” You told him

• He was just puppy eyes and gushy

• Everyone saw a change in his demeanor and they were suspicious of what was going on

• Steph and Dick followed him one night to your apartment where they saw you in your widow suit and him in his red hood suit eating messy burgers and fries

• His boots and helmet were strewn about on the floor and weapons were littering the kitchen table

• He probably has his head in your lap at one point for you to string your fingers through your hair

• They’re both excited and rush back to the cave to spill the beans

• A few days later Dick tells Jason that he should invite his new gf over

• “You dickhead how’d you know about that! We’re you stalking me?”

• Maybe Dick was

• When you showed up to the manor, Damian immediately challenged you to a sparing duel

• Everyone but Jason was hesitant and when you landed the kid on his butt he was beaming with joy

• That’s when you earned Cass and Tim’s respect

• Damian liked you now too, but he wasn’t going to admit it after that beat down

• Bruce got to know more about you mainly from Diana

• Since he trusted her, it was easier to not be so suspicious about you

• Alfred liked you since you brought out the good in Jason and you were good help when he needed it

• The entire family ends up liking you really quickly, but you have to start setting boundaries about them coming and crashing in your place at some ungodly hour of the night

• Sometimes, the last thing you want to see at 4am is Dick Grayson sprawled out on the coach with his dogs out

• Jason is always welcome though

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

Just when I thought I had seen everything and held a glimmer of hope that Marvel/Disney might learn from their mistakes, I see this:

Unbelievable...

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that these executives who have known privilege their whole damn lives wouldn't know how to take criticism.

Most people have no issue with female-led movies. We have an issue with scriptwriters, directors and studios who can't be arsed to write them well and flesh them out and think that by showing them kicking ass that means they're already strong and everybody should kiss the ground they walk on.

If we didn't want female-led movies then Wonder Woman or Captain Marvel wouldn't have hit $1b. The first CM movie was wonderful but The Marvels is NOT a sequel at all. Hell, the other day I saw a Disney+ commercial on TV to promote the movie releasing on the platform and in the entire spot Carol doesn't even say a thing! It's entirely focused on Kamala and Monica.

You can't write one-dimensional characters like Sylvie or Captain Carter and expect us to fall in love with them just because you write all the characters around them drooling over them. Look at Layla, the women in Black Panther/Wakanda Forever, Wanda in WV... we love those because they're written well.

I can't even speak about what exactly Marvel has been doing lately that could be classified as "female empowerment". Do they think showing female characters is feminist? Just having them there speaking and doing things? That's feminist? The bar is that low? 🤦‍♀️

Please just stop. Have an actual meeting, learn how to take criticism and make good movies or we're out. It really is that simple.

[justanothercinemaniac]

I’ve seen a lot of news outlets discuss how removing content from streaming services that isn’t available anywhere else is done as a tax write-off. But I haven’t seen nearly as many talk about what else is going on here: residuals.

The entertainment industry is famous for, “creative,” (aka shady) accounting tactics that take money that would’ve gone to creatives and use it to pad the pockets of executives. There’s even a Wikipedia page for it called Hollywood Accounting. So it’s unsurprising that we’ve seen a lot of crappy, “cost cutting,” measures over the last year that have made projects like the Batgirl movie unavailable to the public despite being finished or near-finished.

The prevailing narrative here is that these are done as tax write-offs, where the less a title makes the less the studio has to pay taxes on its production costs (I think. To be honest the tax details are a little over my head, I just know they say burying these titles saves them money). But how does that work with titles that have already been out for months or, in some cases, YEARS. For example: Disney+ removed Stargirl & Artemis Fowl from their platform three years after those films were released. So how big can a tax write off really be?

That’s where residuals come in. For those who don’t know, residuals are a form of income artists like actors and writers get when their project is broadcast. You get a check with an amount based on how many times it’s on TV or viewed on streaming. Now, the way streaming residuals are structured are already inherently broken. Ideally, the more successful a show is the more residuals the artists make. But streamers don’t SHARE how much people are watching their shows so they can just say whatever & pay their artists a tiny amount while padding their pockets. This has been happening with Suits on Netflix lately, which it turns out is HUGE on the streamer but the creatives involved aren’t being fairly compensated.

So what does this have to do with burying projects? Well, if no one can watch a tv show or movie in any (legal) way that means the studios aren’t obligated to pay the folks who worked on that project their residuals. And if they were paying enough residuals on a title that removing it saves them millions or billions of dollars, that essentially means they’re stealing millions of dollars from those artists.

What’s more - as a WGA picketer I know pointed out - studios may be worried the removed content could end up being a HUGE HIT. What’s wrong with that? Because if it becomes that big and people notice, actors and writers will wonder where their residuals are. So they’re not removing these projects because no one is watching them. If no one was watching them, they’d be able to take a tax write off and not worry about expensive residual payments while keeping it available. The fact that removing the shows saves them money means people ARE watching it.

TL;DR - Studios removing exclusive streaming content isn’t just about tax write-offs, it’s about keeping residuals from the artists too.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Don't know if this has come up, but since the new part of Chapter 7 just dropped the other day, I just got hit with an idea on what Sebek's UM is or might be.

It's often a major joke that he is very loud and yells all the time. But what if that's because it's part of his UM that seeps out unconsciously? Like a sonic based attack or ability of sorts that doubles as a literal foghorn alarm clock (which is a nice parallel if you think about it since Silver is always sleeping). And if he's possibly twisted from Maleficent's lightning, what follows lightning? Thunder. And what happens when people are sleeping at night and there is a particularly loud thunder clap overhead? They wake up!

Also, think about it! In the second Halloween event, we find out that Sebek sings opera. And what is a common trope in media involving opera? Being able to break glass with your voice.

If my theory is right, Sebek's UM is meant to shatter the sleep spell around them because HE IS A LITERAL WALKING ALARM CLOCK!!!! 😂

I haven’t thought too much about what Sebek’s unique magic could be, but this is an interesting idea! Since unique magic is tailored to the individual, taking circumstantial evidence (personality, skills, etc) into account to predict the nature of it is fair. It’s similar to the line of thinking that leads many to suspect that Ace’s unique magic will be to copy others’ magic (since Ace himself is known to imitate his peers’ voices and picks up on new skills like dancing quickly; additionally, copying skills can be seen as a parallel to his mirror, Deuce, whose unique magic also relies on ‘borrowing’/using the power of others).

I like that this proposal for Sebek’s UM ties back to sleep and dreams, which seem to be very important for episode 7 given… recent events 😂 (I wonder if his loudness will actually be a plot point??? Imagine Sebek singing like a dejected Disney princess to save the day—)

I forgot where it was exactly, but I do remember reading a fairy tale retelling which featured a princess that was able to use her gift of song to disorient her enemies (literally by singing so high-pitched that it ruptured eardrums) and to summon animals to fight for her (though the latter sounds like a skill Silver would have, not Sebek). It’d be super coincidental if Sebek ended up having similar abilities due to the loudness of his voice.

Something I wonder is?? Not just what Sebek’s UM is but if he already has it or not!! He was apparently a late bloomer when it came to developing his general magical abilities, so I wonder if this also extended to his UM. Sebek seems to be perpetually locked in a state of identity crisis since he’s always holding up one half of his lineage and putting down the other half. Does this inability to accept and to recognize himself as he is preventing him from unlocking his UM…? Or has he already acquired it through sheer force of will and training??? I want to know so badly!! (If Sebek doesn't have his UM yet, it might also be interesting to see him and Ace bond over their feelings of inadequacy?? And then maybe unlock their UMs one after the other like Deuce and Epel did!)

I also think 🤔 Is Ortho able to acquire a UM…? Because it would be cool to see him also bond with Ace and Sebek over that detail! (I feel like those three, or at least Ace and Sebek, are still trying to figure out their identities and learning to be comfortable with who they are, thus perhaps leading to a lack of UM.) And do you know what that means???? 👀 It means we have a red (pink), green, and blue trio without their UMs… PINK, GREEN, AND BLUE LIKE FLORA, FAUNA, AND MERRYWEATHER, THE THREE GOOD FAIRIES…

[thewickedbohemian]

Something of a bonus round to my musical idea poll (as I remembered a few others I had I didn't put on there because there was already too many options)

Some clarifications/notes on each

For those thinking due to not just it being a video game but the kind of game it is that What Remains Of Edith Finch would be unstageable, just look at Fun Home as if WROEF could be a musical I could see it having that sort of structure. Only issue would be how exacting one has to be for casting biracial characters as Lewis, Milton and Edith Jr. are all half-white-half-Indian but otherwise I think this really could pop off (I mean as much as a musical that might share similar target demographics to This Is Us could be said to "pop off"). Y'know, with the right set designer the visual style could be amazing on stage and since my vision for the sound of this show ever since I had the idea that WROEF could work on stage is basically "PNW indie folk" because it's set on Orcas Island, Washington maybe an indie artist from that area could help with the music

I feel like the only reason (unless there's some rights thing I'm not aware of) we haven't had a Dead Poets Society musical is who the hell do you get to fill the shoes of the late great Robin Williams and not just because that's what I'm stuck on too

some of the stuff in the first Librarian movie might seem difficult to technically pull off on stage but I think there's shows that have done similar and while I did find a surprisingly perfect dream casting for movies-era!Flynn (Daniel Radcliffe, close to the right age, right amount of geeky-yet-still-charismatic and wouldn't it seem perfect for him to step back into another fantastical hero's journey 20-ish years after Harry Potter) I haven't really got a lead on who'd work for anyone else

The main issue I see (if this is a thing Disney would do) with bringing Inside Out to the stage is not what you'd think as (while some would still take some creativity) some of the seemingly-unstageable parts could be pulled off with creative use of stuff like projector-screens. No, the issue is I don't think there's ever been an existing musical that would have the physical aspects (as of course they'd have to be able to pull off the part acting/singing/dancing/wise too) of casting rely as much on actors' figures as this would as Sadness would have to be short and chubby, Anger would have to be short and stocky and Fear would have to be tall and skinny and I worry either these kinds of requirements would potentially be accidentally-a-little-noninclusive or at least make casting this show an absolute bitch

I specified movie and/or book for Wonder (which I had to clarify what I meant for because that's a vague title) because idr how they differ plot-wise. But yeah I think this could totally work and hit the same kind of Tonybait vibes as Dear Evan Hansen was attempting but with a much less morally-problematic story (and Daveed Diggs and Mandy Patinkin were both in the movie so they could perhaps reprise their roles in a stage version)

I'm surprised no one's ever seriously thought of a Scott Pilgrim stage musical before given that the seeds of a musical are there in the movie, maybe it's because it'd have to avoid both of the problems that plagued Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark (effect/stunt-induced actor injuries and, in the words of the great Neil Patrick Harris, "death-defying budget overruns") in addition to how specific the ethnicities of some of the characters (and therefore actors) have to be. But figure those out easily and you could get a potential sci-fi cult-classic on the level of Be More Chill (though that's not to say it couldn't be even more successful)

So which of these shows would you most want to see on Broadway if they could be?

[luulapants]

The name Jasmine?

Most names that are also English words aren't very interesting, etymologically-speaking, but Jasmine, thankfully, is not just an English word. The flower name comes to us from French (jessemin) ultimately from Persian (yasaman) and Arabic (yasamin). It's a very old word found in some of the earliest Arabic texts.

The English name of the flower has been around since the 16th century, but the name only came into common usage in the US in the 1970s, and then it was primarily used by Black Americans. If you're wondering if Disney's Aladdin had anything to do with its rise to common usage, it's actually the case that princess Jasmine was given an already-popular name! Jasmine hit the top 30 in 1990, two years before Aladdin came out, and stayed in the 20-30 range until 2006. It's on a very gentle decline now, still at a healthy #190.

The tricky part is determining the extent to which the name existed in various languages before and after the popularity of Jasmine in the Anglosphere. Few combined databases include any records from Iran or various Arabic-speaking countries, and the US is the only country with consistent, searchable data pre-1950. Before then, we tend to look for notable people as indicators of a name's commonality, which is further complicated by the fact that this is a feminine name and women were given fewer opportunities to become notable in ye olden dayes.

Thankfully, it seems men in the Arab world did use variants of this name at one point. Jazmin Hiaya, probably of Almohad descent in Northern Africa, was a military leader in Al-Andalus (modern Spain) in the late 10th and early 11th centuries. It's harder to create continuity between this early example, though, and the more modern female name.

The next earliest notable I can find is Yasmin Zahran, 1933, Palestinian archeologist, well before the Jasmine craze. Others include Yasmeen Lari, 1941, Pakistani architect, and Yasmine Zaki Shahab, 1946, Indonesian anthropologist. I was also able to find a few incomplete marriage church records for Iranian women named Yasmin born as early as 1870. All of this indicates that the Arabic and Persian feminine name significantly predates the English.

There are about 20 other languages, at least, that have their own versions of this name, which may be influenced by other names or come from the flower itself. There are a few notable Serbian Jasminas born in the 1960s, and a popular 1962 Greek song that used the name, so the name in that region clearly reached popularity on its own. Other than that, again, it's hard to tell.

Our final piece of the puzzle: why did the English Jasmine take off in the first place? I can't say with any level of confidence. I found no notables born in the right age range to inspire a surge that started when it did. If I had to venture a guess, I would point toward its prominence in the Black community along with the rise of Black Muslim groups like the Nation of Islam and Moorish Science Temple. NOI had 20,000 members by the '60s and had attracted prominent figures like Malcolm X and Muhammed Ali. It would make sense, in this context, for Jasmine to become popular specifically because of its Arabic roots.

[trashquisitor-shirozora]

Oh my god the Mandalorian s3 decisions being a push to make Bo Katan more marketable for women makes so much sense.

I’ve been watching the flames of season 3 for afar wondering what possibly possessed them to sideline the wildly popular duo of Din and Grogu in favor of this Bo Katan stuff, aside from the obvious future content advertisement… it’s because it’s popular with women…

Like it’s a known pattern that corporations hate when something they’ve created aimed at men is disproportionately popular with women because they strive to keep a very distinct line between Boy things and Girl things. Anything Star Wars is for men, except the acceptable Girl Things like Leia and Padme and Asoka. But then the Mandalorian became wildly popular with women and they can’t just cancel a cash cow like the Mandalorian without milking everything they can from it so they’re like “well let’s bring in Bo Katan she’s for the Women now start making the toys”

I am so late to this but that meant time to simmer and seethe over Disney's decisions before and lately, and things I've read over the years about how corporations market to their target audiences, and how little things have changed.

I saw rumors and theories that KKKennedy (y'all sorry I keep calling her that but iykyk) meddled a LOT with The Mandalorian and Jon even threatened to quit, but at the end of the day the Mouse House has the final say and we're stuck with their decisions. I really don't know how the final numbers will look, how it'll affect their merch sales, and what it means for the future seasons of The Mandalorian. Maybe the hard pivot to redeem Bo-Katan for the bajillionth time will be the new cash cow or the canary in the coal mine (for The Mandalorian; I'm sure Ahsoka will be a hit no matter what). Maybe they gambled right or they've lost too many viewers who wanted Din and Grogu to be the heart and soul and center of this particular show. It's called The Mandalorian after all. If they want to claim that it could be any Mandalorian who's The Mandalorian of these season, then maybe Season 2 should've followed a different Mandalorian and established this before scamming us with Season 3. They were already trying that with TBOBF before having Din and Grogu steal the show.

But now that I've seen those rumors and theories, I could not fucking stop thinking about what happened when the ST was rolling out and when Rogue 1 and Solo came out. I could not stop thinking about the casting choices for Rey, Jyn, and Qi'ra, could not stop thinking about how white and brunette they were. I could not stop thinking about KKKennedy and others talking about how they wanted to bring more female fans to Star Wars, acting like Star Wars was exclusively a male space, which, what a fucking insult. I could not forget pictures of her wearing "The Force is Female" shirts and pushing this message so fucking hard that it would keep showing up in critical reviews of TLJ/TROS/ST as proof that Disney didn't know what it was doing.

Rey, Jyn, and Qi'ra were lucky to not have the kind of long history that Bo-Katan already had in the gffa by the time she made her live-action debut. It didn't take much to google her involvement in TCW and Rebels, and see what she'd done. I've seen commenters say she redeemed herself in Rebels by rallying the Mandalorians but are you sure about that? Are we still having trouble with writing redemption arcs after the fucking horrible one Disney put Kylo Ren through to the detriment of every other character not named Rey?

I wouldn't have minded Bo-Katan having greater involvement in Season 3 if she didn't basically take charge of not just the COTW but also the entire show. Watch out for the new merch of her with the Darksaber now. Probably the most we'll get out of Din is whatever happens to him in the season finale because Disney gotta make more money, amirite? Grogu got a new accessory so that Disney can sell new versions of him, so why not Din?

I truly envy the poeple who are having a good time or don't need to have these thoughts constantly in their heads while watching. I didn't have a good time and I can never turn those thoughts off. I don't have the luxury so I'm never shutting up about this.

ftr I unfollowed Okiro after the billionth time he called Din, Grogu, and Bo-Katan "Clan of Three". what the fuck had she done to earn equal footing?

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hi dear librarian! 1/? I was wondering if there's a term to describe a phenomenon that plagues so many films nowadays and partially responsible for the downfall of BBC Sherlock and MCU: it appears that the creators/screenwriters are afraid of or uncomfortable dealing with strong negative emotions. It's very obvious in Sherlock S3,S4, and MCU after Infinity War. They immediately interrupt an emotional scene with a quip, joke, or a solution. It really disturbs the plot flow, emotional buildup,

2/? and the tension of the show. E.g., in Sherlock S3E1 the reunion scene and the underground scene, in S4 the ghost Mary non-stop quips before the emotional hug. In S2, they really shouldn't have revealed Irene or Sherlock survived immediately after the event. I don't know what the writers were afraid of. Without a proper buildup, the resolution doesn't feel satisfactory. I'm very happy that in GOTG 3 they avoided this problem and it's probably the only MCU film worth seeing recently. 3/3 Another example is the Thor series. I know Thor 1 has many plot flaws, but they got the aesthetics right and with a Prometheus type of self-sacrifice, it feels like a proper fusion of technology and mythology. But later they wrote Thor as a laughing stock for his depression and in his own 3rd and 4th film, every remotely serious emotional scene was undermined by something. Just why?! That's part of the reason people say MCU doesn't feel relatable anymore. Thx for reading and stay cool!

Hey Nonny *HUGS*

Thank you for this insightful ask, and my answer is essentially this: shareholders and studio meddling, and probably bad writing by people who think they know better. A lot of the MCU, for instance, is SO boring and repetitive right now because they're too afraid, it seems, to stray from "what is safe", stuff that won't have people bitching at them, or they're trying too hard to recapture what made the Infinity Saga so amazing. They spent TOO long being praised and in turn stopped trying so hard, and under Chapek, dude was a greedy bastard who worked Feige to stress. I'm glad that they pulled back, it seems, and I hope it stays that way, hopefully so they can make new movies up to the quality of GOTG 3 again. Studios like Dreamworks and Indie studios are taking risks, and it's paying off, because people are bored with the sanitization of Disney and Marvel. Everything has to have no true villain in Disney.

That's not to say I don't still enjoy Disney, I do, but Marvel as-of-late has put out more flops than fantastics. And I suspect some of it is studio and shareholder meddling. It's a miracle Gunn got to do what he wanted for GOTG3, and I'm glad he did. With Thor 3 I feel like Taika got raked over the coals because he had to follow whatever plan they wanted for his vision. I dunno. Marvel for me is so hit-and-miss these days.

As for Sherlock... I think part of it was BBC meddling and another was ego-tripping, because Mofftiss continually put out winner after winner of seasons, so they thought, because just the TWO of them got an Emmy for TAB, well, they're good enough to get it for a WHOLE SEASON! (which, for the record on my opinion, I think Mofftiss are better at ONE SHOT episodes, not an entire series on their own... they run out of ideas and then throw whatever their weird fanboy fantasies want, and without a third writer to reign them in, we get S4). So yeah, that's what I mean by bad writing as well. I BELIEVE Moffat or his wife owns Pinewood Studios that they film in, so like... it's literal studio meddling, LOL. But yeah sometimes a writer or director can also be too big in their britches, and whatever they say, goes.

So yeah, I dunno. It's honestly a mix of everything and fatigue with the unoriginality of content these days. I think that's why I don't really watch anything anymore unless a trailer REALLY grips me, or it's recommended to me by a Lovely. I stick mostly to old-faves because I know I won't be disappointed, or fandom-related content.

What do y'all think?

[marciabrady]

Hi, I really love your crits ❤ but I'm wondering why you dislike Frozen so much? I'm a huuuge fan of Aurora and Mulan myself, and I hate more and more every 3D/live action film and terribly miss 2D animation, but I must say I really loved Frozen (only the first one!!), I saw it together with my sister, who's also my bff, so maybe that's why it appealed to us, there were also some traits we felt like we had in common with these characters... and maybe it's also the thing we didn't see the film with English dub, which didn't the best (totally agreed with your take on K Bell! I'm not a fan of her personally). And I know this movie has a lot of flaws, but at the same time it was really easy for me to ignore them - until F2 I guess, it brought up all of my problems with this franchise lol Anyway, I just wanted to ask - bc I think it can be the problem with all of the new (3D) princesses - aren't they a bit bland? I was thinking about it the other day, what's characteristic for Anna and Elsa and... well, he's extrovert, and the other introvert I guess? And Anna is romantic? But there's no hobby, no distinct personal trait, nothing. On the other hand Rapunzel was briefly shown to can/like literally ALL! You make candles? Play guitar? Sew? Sing? No problem, she's just like you, you can identify with her. And the bland princesses? You can easily project yourself onto them if you will, it's not same they like to, it's say, paint - but it's not said they hate/can't do it either, right? Sorry for my rambling, it's quite late, and I've just finished my weekend Disney Princess movie marathon. Anyway, love your blog and take care xxx

So I wouldn't necessarily say I hate Frozen, I just strongly dislike certain tonal elements to it but I generally don't really think about it because it didn't resonate to me. Frozen to me doesn't really feel like a film but rather a commentary on other films? With all of the "you can't marry a man you just met" lines and how all of the plots that occur were clearly planted in order to combat criticisms of the Disney Princess line: ie them not being active, or physical, or being too naïve, or lovesick which is why I think Anna is treated as a joke pretty much. So I feel like I'm watching a commentary track where this film is retroactively beating up the previous films on which it was based on and whose success made that endeavor possible? And honestly...I think that's what a lot of people like about it. At the time it came out, I never really heard anyone talk about the value of the characters- rather the emphasis was on "Elsa's the first Princess who didn't need a man! She's independent! Unlike the other princesses, she's a BADASS" or them applauding how Hans killed the Prince Charming trope (which I think is largely reductive, and not even inventive as Gaston had accomplished that previously, but I digress). In general, most of the elements people find revolutionary about this film are anything but- this film essentially just takes elements from other films and infuses it with a lot of meta-textual criticism and added in some sparkly magic to divert toddlers. I even read a book about women in animation and the author said that a woman contributed the idea of Anna being gassy (which I hate btw, it's not charming it's uncouth and I don't think men or women should openly act like that lol) and how it was game changing for how women were depicted when Princess Fiona already did that over a decade earlier?

Apart from the elements I mentioned above, as I touched on in my previous response, Kristen Bell's voice gives nothing to me. I don't like how Anna is treated as a joke, I think it's visually very boring, I don't like the 3d design, and I have no object permanence for the plot because it feels like there's just a lot happening to keep people from being bored without any weight behind it. I'm also not a fan of the universe, with the trolls and just none of it makes sense? Like they go through hoops to try to hit us over the head with how strong Elsa and Anna are as female leads and how men are useless but then Elsa runs away from her own kingdom and Anna leaves it to the attention of Hans while she goes off in search of Elsa??? I don't know, it just all isn't for me lol I know a lot of people like it and they're certainly entitled to, I just think it isn't to my taste.

[radarsteddybear]

Highlights (or should I say lowlights?) from the Making of Frozen II documentary on Disney+:

It is important to note that the documentary begins 11 months from the film's premiere. At this point, the movie's already been in production for like 4 years.

The female director (Jennifer Lee) looks to be inches away from a mental breakdown the entire time

Jennifer Lee is also the film's writer and at one point describes getting up at a quarter to five every day so that she can write from 5am-7am, get her daughter to school, goes to work all day, comes home, does whatever is needed at home, then writes some more. On Saturdays, she writes from 5am-1pm. I don't know anything about the process of making an animated (or non-animated, for that matter) film, but it seems absolutely unhinged to me that so much script writing is required this late in production. Especially coupled with how much of the film's plot and motivation are still unknown at this point.

Jennifer Lee was also promoted to Chief Creative Officer or something at some point in there, so she has a million and one things to do for that on top of everything for Frozen II.

So, yeah. She seems to be in a constant state of being on the verge of tears and is only holding it together through sheer willpower.

Disney seems to be trying to pass this off as joy and happiness and excitement about pieces of the film finally coming together, and Lee probably believes that's what it is, too, but I think this woman just needs some sleep.

The script finally gets locked 5 months out from the film's premiere. Which, like, I totally get having it open for edits along the way, but this was. a lot more than just edits.

It takes them ages to figure out who/what the voice calling to Elsa is and where she's following it to, which is like. the entire plot of the film. And in my opinion (and from what I remember, having only seen the film once back when it came out), as a result, this is one of the weakest plot points in the whole movie, which is really unfortunate because it has everything else it needs to hit really solidly.

5 months from the premiere, they keep talking about how everyone's putting in 14 hour days 6 days a week, and they keep referring to it as overtime, but I have no idea whether or not the animators and visual effects artists and everyone else working on the film actually get paid overtime? I sure hope so (which leads to another question: is the money actually worth it?), but in this economy, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't.

At one point, one of the supervising animators talks about how he spends the whole day split between meetings and supporting the animators so he has to come back to work after putting his kids to bed to actually get his own animating done. He describes this as a "treat" because he enjoys animating so much.

Disney (and other studios, I'm sure) needs to get their act together re: division of labor and organizing everyone's time, wow.

The visual effects artist who did Elsa's dress transformations in both Frozen I and II: "In Frozen I, I had a year. But this, it's been...four days." (Note: It does end up being more than 4 days, but, uh...not by much.)

I seriously think the movie, especially the story, would have been better if everyone could have taken like. a month off from work

The film's editor talsk about working 14-15 hour days, getting up at 3am so he can get to work by 3:30, use the on-site gym for half an hour, then start editing by 4am. Whoever's in charge of setting all these timelines and whatnot is in desperate need of taking a course in proper time management because this is unhinged.

I wonder if all the Frozen II statues/decor Disney put up around the animation studio towards the end of production come out of the film's budget.

It's fun to get to watch the actors record their lines and songs, though.

As was watching the animator who did part of Kristoff's song with all the reindeer put videos of her own face in the scene to figure out how she was going to animate them all.

[ovrarches]

Your actor AU is making me really excited, SO, expect from me a lot of questions about it. But let's start slow: What about Laf? Does he have an important role in this AU besides being Jefferson's brother? And how is their relationship? Do you have things planned for him? 👀 AND, I was wondering if Hamilton did know about the reputation of Jefferson, I have two opposite hc about it and I wanted to hear your thought: either Hamilton has already heard about him when he was a kid, because a lot of comrades were fans of this serie while he hated it with a burning passion (or just didnt understand what was the big deal about, so mainly indifference and a bit of annoyance). OR Hamilton just doesnt know about it, since while he was in the Nevis, it wasnt that popular, so when people talk about Jefferson and his ancient role, he's like "who?" AND ANOTHING THING, does Jefferson is going to have a Miley Cyrus/Britney Spears moment? Like you know, doing shocking things to break his old childish image? (Like, you already suggest he thinks about it, but would he REALLY do it?) As always, you rocks, you always came with the best ideas of AU.

Ahhh ok sorry for the late response I had to take a bit to think about Laf and Thomas’s backstory. Thank you for enjoying my au ideas!!! :’))

What about Laf? Does he have an important role in this AU besides being Jefferson's brother? And how is their relationship? Do you have things planned for him? 👀

They have a good relationship! They have very different personalities though and disagree on a lot of things, including Thomas’s choice to return to acting which Laf finds stupid for good reason. Quick backstory: the trauma of being a child actor™ eventually caught up with them after they left their Disney contract so they were messy as fuck in their late teens/early 20s (mostly in their private lives, so to the public it seems like they disappeared post-disney and popped up years later all grown up). Like between the two of them, at least one was gonna end up in prison or dead in a dumpster so they made the mutual decision to leave the industry for good.

Idk if I see him doing much in this au, he’s having a blast running a company and building their luxury sneakers line. I think he and Alexander would really hit it off if he came on set to say hi to Thomas, leading to Alex calling Laf “the good twin” around Thomas lmao

AND, I was wondering if Hamilton did know about the reputation of Jefferson, I have two opposite hc about it and I wanted to hear your thought: either Hamilton has already heard about him when he was a kid, because a lot of comrades were fans of this serie while he hated it with a burning passion (or just didnt understand what was the big deal about, so mainly indifference and a bit of annoyance). OR Hamilton just doesnt know about it, since while he was in the Nevis, it wasnt that popular, so when people talk about Jefferson and his ancient role, he's like "who?"

Alex is a few years younger than the twins so he was their target audience at the height of their popularity, although obviously they were much more prominent in the US. He probably caught a couple of episodes, enjoyed their movies, and didn’t think much of it until meeting Thomas. When he does bring it up it’s to mock Thomas or accuse him of calling in favours from old friends to get onto their current project

AND ANOTHING THING, does Jefferson is going to have a Miley Cyrus/Britney Spears moment? Like you know, doing shocking things to break his old childish image? (Like, you already suggest he thinks about it, but would he REALLY do it?)

He wouldn’t……. he always threatens to because “it seems like it’s what you have to do these days for a little attention, what has Hollywood come to🙄”, but realistically he’d be too embarrassed to sink that low and he’s still frustrated about all the dumb things he did in his teens; you go a lil crazy after falling from grace as America’s Sweethearts to a sentence or two on page 16 of a teeny pop magazine.

Prior to returning to acting, he was always talking to Laf about how they should’ve/could’ve done this or that to further their careers if they hadn’t gone off the rails and lost focus (ignoring that that happened because they were literal children who were extremely sheltered and abandoned by the adults in their lives after aging out of profitability) and they’re lucky no one cared enough to publicize their more unflattering moments (Laf tunes him out). So yea I think he’s too proud to, and it’s not the type of reputation he wants, he’s going for more Meryl Streep rather than Britney Spears type

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

SUPERHERO CHOOSINESS

It’s strongly being suggested that the superhero movie bubble is bursting…

There’s the more mixed critical reception of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s remarkably stuffed but hasty Phase Four, and then there’s the equally fast Phases Five and Six… whose ending feature AVENGERS: SECRET WARS is still set to open in the summer of 2026… Meaning that this Multiverse Saga only will last five years, compared to the eleven year span from IRON MAN to SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME… Like, wow!

And not only are there a lot of movies, but there were plenty of shows. So many from 2021-2022 alone: WANDAVISION, THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER, LOKI Season One, WHAT IF…? Season One, HAWKEYE, MOON KNIGHT, MS. MARVEL, and SHE-HULK: ATTORNEY AT LAW. In addition to those, you had the “Special Presentation” featurettes WEREWOLF BY NIGHT and the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY HOLIDAY SPECIAL.

For me, it was starting to become homework to keep up with what was going on. And this is coming from someone who has seen all but two Marvel Cinematic Universe movies in a theater. The two that I missed were THE INCREDIBLE HULK, and BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER.

Then of course you have the DC movie-verse, which is being hard-reset in a few years under the new leadership of James Gunn and Peter Safran. Prior to that, it was an always-changing mess of visions and intentions. Faithfuls kept up with the series, some left afterwards because of these changes, general audiences seemed to stick around for most of the movies. It’s a clustercuss of its own, and further discussing that will likely get me into hot waters… But what happened with The Rock and his apparent strong-arming of the DC movie-verse with his BLACK ADAM project and plans really shows just what kind of directionless mess the whole thing was for ten years…

So we’re now left with a few movies that were locked and ready to go before the Gunn/Safran take-over, the first of which, SHAZAM! FURY OF THE GODS… Opened with roughly $30m. A pretty blah take, and well below the $53m take the first SHAZAM! took in back in 2019. It’s been said before, but the whole “these won’t matter in the long run” attitude has probably deflated attendance… But many other things do as well… People being choosier with movies, ticket and concession prices being absurdly high… A statistic in 2014 stated that the average American family hits the flicks four times a year. I believe it. I’ve been working at a movie theater since August of 2015, and I see what I charge my customers… Both movies and for snacks… Yeah, I do not wonder why… Especially in the pandemic era, that people are choosier with movies. I feel we see the same thing with animated movies as well. Those are also usually four-quadrant family titles... And then around the corner, them being on streaming. Be it Disney+ for an MCU movie, or HBO Max for a DCU movie.

A month earlier, ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA opened pretty great with $106m. That was way above ANT-MAN AND THE WASP’s mid-70s opening weekend haul, and an overall fine opening for an MCU movie... but the legs? Abysmal so far. It looks to barely score a 2x multiplier, which is pretty bad… It might be the first MCU movie to completely miss that. I don't even know if I'll make time for it, myself. (I've missed a lot of movies in theaters lately because of other lifestuff going on at the moment.)

What does this all tell me?

Is it truly superhero movie fatigue? Are audiences catching on to the perceived problems of these big budget shared universe movies?

Here’s what I think is happening…

Choosiness...

I, in true form, am going to relate this to animated movies… And I mean “animated movies”, because let’s face it… There’s lots of animation in your average MCU or DCU movie. QUANTUMANIA, from the looks of it, is an animated movie with some real people in it. Much like GRAVITY, AVATAR and its sequel, Jon Favreau’s THE JUNGLE BOOK, LIFE OF PI, etc. etc.

Once upon a time... $100m at the domestic box office was a magic number for an animated feature film. And I mean a $100m gross on the film's first ever theatrical release, not $100m via the original release and added theatrical re-issue totals (like classic pre-Renaissance Disney films, like SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS and 101 DALMATIANS)...

Only Disney scored $100m domestic totals for their animated movies. Hybrid WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT, released through Disney's Touchstone banner, broke the barrier first and grossed $156m in the summer of 1988. Then, an all-animated movie broke the barrier nearly four years later in early 1992... That was Disney's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, which got to its high total through strong word-of-mouth and legs throughout the holiday and post-holiday season. It was slow to start in November 1991, because back then... Theater-to-video release windows were longer. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was released in American movie theaters in November 1991, and the videocassette and LaserDisc release wouldn't be until... October 1992!

So, an unreachable number for everyone else. Don Bluth, former Disney animator and hot competitor, seemingly peaked with AN AMERICAN TAIL and THE LAND BEFORE TIME, both of which collected in the upper-40s at the domestic box office. His last box office hurrah, the 20th Century Fox-released ANASTASIA (now owned by Disney), grossed $57m by the end of its run in early 1998. Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes hybrid movie SPACE JAM came very close with $90m, two years prior. BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD DO AMERICA put up a decent fight, with over $60m in 1996/97. That was a record high for a TV-to-movie animated adaptation back then, beating out A GOOFY MOVIE, JETSON: THE MOVIE, DUCKTALES - THE MOVIE: TREASURE OF THE LOST LAMP, and plenty of others.

In fact, Disney *themselves* missed $100m on occasion. HERCULES, made up at Feature Animation, the mainline studio, just missed it with a $99m domestic gross in 1997/98. The Disney MovieToons GOOF TROOP movie, A GOOFY MOVIE, made less than $40m stateside. THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS made an impressive $50m back in the day, and became a massive cult classic through video and TV. Hybrid JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH, which was also a Henry Selick-Tim Burton Skellington Productions joint, missed $30m.

Then there was a little movie called TOY STORY... The first-ever all-digital animated feature film.

By the end of its theatrical run in early 1996, TOY STORY grossed $191m domestically... No doubt helped by being a Disney release and being the first of its kind, and a genuinely really good movie that audiences loved. So in a way, the only movies to make $100m domestically *before* TOY STORY were Disney Feature Animation movies (BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, ALADDIN, THE LION KING, and POCAHONTAS), and a hybrid movie made by Amblin and Richard Williams Animation but released by Disney...

So Disney still had $100m under lock and key, and TOY STORY was their first non-Feature Animation endeavor since ROGER RABBIT to get it...

Believe it or not, the first-ever animated movie that was a NOT a Disney release, to score $100m domestically... Was... THE RUGRATS MOVIE. No doubt getting there off of the show's sheer popularity at the time. Despite first airing on Nickelodeon in 1991, some seven years earlier, RUGRATS seemed to be at the peak of its popularity in the late 1990s, after the show was renewed for more seasons following highly successful re-runs and the few specials that Nick and studio Klasky-Csupo did after the show's early seasons. I was there. I was 6 when THE RUGRATS MOVIE came out, and I felt the hype. Everybody I knew back then watched and liked the show, I watched it frequently with my sister back in the day. RUGRATS was one of those cartoons that everyone knew and everyone watched. Almost as ubiquitous as THE SIMPSONS, I'd argue. Paramount released THE RUGRATS MOVIE, and it broke that barrier, in addition to being the highest grossing TV-to-movie adaptation animated movie... By a country kilometer.

THE RUGRATS MOVIE came out in November 1998, just one month before DreamWorks rolled out THE PRINCE OF EGYPT, the second animated movie to cross $100m domestically... Two months prior... ANTZ came out, and grossed an impressive $90m. Pixar's sophomore feature A BUG'S LIFE opened, infamously, amidst this four-movie fall shakedown, and won the race with $163m.

So two not-Disneys made $100m domestically, and two not-Disney Feature Animation movies made $100m domestically... This was a turning point in theatrical feature animation, and it would come to benefit - for a brief while - all CGI animated movies.

We'll focus on those now...

1999 saw the release of Pixar's TOY STORY 2, which broke $245m. That was above every Disney animated movie *except* THE LION KING. Wow!

In 2000, Disney released their hybrid live-action/CG feature DINOSAUR, which has been counted as a Walt Disney Animation Studios canon movie since 2008... While that movie didn't make enough money to justify a sequel or to keep the collaboration studio behind it (The Secret Lab) alive, it still broke $100m domestically.

2001... DreamWorks' SHREK and Pixar's MONSTERS, INC. break past $250m domestically. Paramount/Nickelodeon's pilot movie JIMMY NEUTRON: BOY GENIUS takes in a respectable $80m. 2002... Newcomer Blue Sky's ICE AGE makes over $175m domestically. By this point in time, several hand-drawn animated movies... From all the studios: Disney, DreamWorks, 20th Century Fox, Columbia, etc. Largely losing money theatrically, with few exceptions in between. Many of them are missing the titan $100m threshold. For context, only Disney Feature's LILO & STITCH broke that barrier in mid-2002. CGI movies seemed foolproof. Guaranteed blockbusters...

2003 brought Pixar's FINDING NEMO, which became the highest grossing animated movie of all-time, unseating THE LION KING... Then SHREK 2 came out the year after, made that record look like nothing, becoming the first animated movie to break **$400m** domestically. In addition to SHREK 2, 2004 saw the release of DreamWorks' other CG hit SHARK TALE ($160m+), Pixar's THE INCREDIBLES ($260m+), and Warner Bros.' motion-capture pic THE POLAR EXPRESS ($160m+). In 2005, DreamWorks' MADAGASCAR came super-close to $200m, Blue Sky's ROBOTS cleared $120m...

So, unstoppable, right?

The one exception seemed to be the 2001 release FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN, a mocap feature based on the game series of the same name. That one puttered out at $32m domestically, and fell well below its hefty budget with all the worldwide take factored in... But this seemed like an anomaly more so than anything. You also had a few super-limited releases of foreign CG films, like KAENA: THE PROPHECY, which was a French film.

2005 was when it all seemed to be up... VALIANT, a British animated movie distributed stateside by Disney, performed quite badly... Despite it being a CGI movie and touting "producer of SHREK" cred. Disney Feature's first all-CG feature, CHICKEN LITTLE, managed to make more than $100m domestically, but its worldwide total didn't measure up to the budget. HOODWINKED!, an independent venture that only cost $8m to make, was released by The Weinstein Co. at the end of 2005. It made less than $60m domestically.

Then... 2006 happened...

The features that crossed $200m domestically: Pixar's CARS, and only CARS. ICE AGE: THE MELTDOWN and Warner Bros.' HAPPT FEET came very close. ICE AGE 2 won the race worldwide.

The features that crossed $100m domestically: DreamWorks' OVER THE HEDGE.

Everything else... Missed $100m. Some movies got by on being lower budget, like Sony Animation's debut picture OPEN SEASON, and the Nickelodeon TV show launcher BARNYARD. But some of the big flops included DreamWorks/Aardman's FLUSHED AWAY, the Disney-released Canadian feature THE WILD, and Warner Bros.' THE ANT BULLY. CGI and celebrity casts and talky scripts couldn't save them. Then you had movies that just did abysmally, like Fox's EVERYONE'S HERO, and DOOGAL: the Weinsteinized version of THE MAGIC ROUNDABOUT.

For a little while, computer animated movies were a novelty for audiences. No one had seen anything like TOY STORY when it first came out in Thanksgiving 1995. Like, this wasn't an episode of REBOOT or a glossy production company ident... This was over 70 minutes of fully animated 3D characters in convincing 3D environments, that stayed watchable the whole time, and on top of that... It was really well-written! Lots of people tend to make remarks about TOY STORY's more, dated, visual qualities... But it remains a classic because of the passion that went into it. And despite some of the aspects that didn't age well, it still *looks* appealing and watchable. Woody and Buzz and the rest of the gang have pretty much kept the same designs over the sequels and shorts/specials, only the human characters have seen slight design changes that matched the much-better rendering over time. (It's already a big difference with Andy and his mum from TOY STORY 1 to 2.)

But enough about that. My point is, audiences ate CGI up circa 1995-2005. Big time. It was the future, it was the **way** to make animated movies. Even with CG incorporated into them, hand-drawn movies failed to keep up. Whether the movies did actually appeal to audiences (TARZAN, LILO & STITCH) or not (TITAN A.E., TREASURE PLANET)... It just wasn't enough. $171m from TARZAN just didn't compare to, say, SHREK's $267m haul. When even your best isn't enough...

Capitalism, ya know?

But soon, audiences began choosing what computer-animated family movies they'd go to see, not seeing all of them each and every calendar year. In 2007, for every RATATOUILLE, there was a HAPPILY N'EVER AFTER. Even a good film like SURF'S UP that year had trouble. Release that movie in 2002, it would've made **bank**... In 2007, it had a hard time appealing to audiences. Let's apply this to 2008 as well. WALL-E and KUNG FU PANDA do great, THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX - a book adaptation - makes $50m and fails to double its budget. So every year, there are the family-friendly CGI movies that do pretty great! And then the ones that lose money.

And eventually, it caught to everybody. Even the heavies.

Pixar saw their first money-loser in 2015 with THE GOOD DINOSAUR, breaking an astounding 15-film hit streak.

Disney Feature Animation's CHICKEN LITTLE did so-so, MEET THE ROBINSONS two years later outright lost money. BOLT did so-so as well. They wouldn't have a genuine CGI flop until STRANGE WORLD, because we gotta mulligan RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON and ENCANTO. Ya know, COVID and release strategies and such.

DreamWorks suffered badly in the mid-2010s, with money-losers like RISE OF THE GUARDIANS, TURBO, and MR. PEABODY & SHERMAN... It was to the point where it seemed like the lights would go out.

Blue Sky's final film, SPIES IN DISGUISE, lost money. After a streak of successes (the ICE AGE sequels) and respectable hits (FERDINAND). That likely played a big part in its shuttering, after Disney had bought 21st Century Fox's film and TV assets.

Sony Pictures Animation had some financial losses, too. The aforementioned SURF'S UP was one such flop, and there was also their Aardman collaboration ARTHUR CHRISTMAS.

So much, like a good hand-drawn animated movie, a competently-made CG film wasn't gonna cut it every single time... Even from a big studio. That's why many of those studios got smart with budgets... Especially Sony Animation and DreamWorks.

Now... Superhero movies...

Superhero movies have been around for a while. Serials, yes, all the way back to the Golden Age of Hollywood. Max Fleischer's SUPERMAN cartoons from 1941-42, every modern superhero movie owes it to those in particular. Long-form superhero movies, I believe, really got their start with the 1978 SUPERMAN movie... But you'd get a big superhero movie every once in a while, or a comic book action hero movie if you will. In the 1980s, you had SUPERMAN II - starting off the decade, and then Tim Burton's BATMAN ending the decade with a blockbuster gross. A big phenomenon. What else was in-between? Well, there was Lucasfilm's infamous adaptation of Marvel's HOWARD THE DUCK that tanked hard. You did see a brief boom in this kind of movie in the 1990s because of BATMAN '89, but plenty of those movies actually went belly-up. DC adaptation STEEL did poorly, movies like THE PHANTOM didn't make much of a mark, but you did have the TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES movie doing quite well, ditto BATMAN RETURNS and BATMAN FOREVER. BATMAN & ROBIN's not-so-great performance in 1997 put the Caped Crusader's theatrical future in limbo. SUPERMAN puttered out back in 1987 with a badly-received fourth movie. So, this was a bit of a false start, if you will? Batman, Ninja Turtles, maybe something else that did okay-ish at best... That was about it, circa 1999.

Then along came BLADE in 1998, which would be the first Marvel movie to do pretty well. HOWARD THE DUCK bombed back in 1986, and the 1989 PUNISHER and 1990 CAPAIN AMERICA went straight to video in the states.

Then, X-MEN came out in 2000, that did even better.

Then, SPIDER-MAN came out in 2002, made a **gargantuan** amount of money...

After the release of X-MEN and SPIDER-MAN, both Marvel adaptations, you saw **some** action going on. More Marvel movies came along. HULK, an ambitious film from Ang Lee, opened big in summer 2003 but had trouble staying afloat. FANTASTIC FOUR did okay in 2005 despite poor reception. GHOST RIDER did okay in 2007. SPIDER-MAN 2 and SPIDER-MAN 3 made biiiig money, and there was also a FANTASTIC FOUR sequel that also did okay. The next Batman-inspired DC movie, CATWOMAN, came about in 2004 and bombed quite badly. The year after CATWOMAN came BATMAN BEGINS, Christopher Nolan's then-bold new take on the Caped Crusader *and* the superhero movie in general. It did pretty well, a sleeper hit that relied on strong word-of-mouth. Then in 2006, a year later, you had an attempt to reboot SUPERMAN with SUPERMAN RETURNS. While it made money, it wasn't enough to cover its then-titanic budget, so it seemed like a non-starter. The other DC adaptation released amidst this was CONSTANTINE, whch did pretty well (and is finally getting a sequel after all these years). Funnily enough, amidst these Marvel and DC movies, you had Pixar's THE INCREDIBLES... A then *rare* animated superhero movie, and it did great business. There was also HELLBOY, too. Non-Marvels and non-DCs had their time to do pretty okay, too. So, superheroes had a healthier time in the early-to-mid 2000s...

But where it really all took off was in 2008...

IRON MAN started the Marvel Cinematic Universe with a BANG! in May of that year, and BATMAN BEGINS sequel THE DARK KNIGHT - no doubt accelerated by the tragic passing of Heath Ledger, who gave his iconic performance as The Joker - was **massive**. It was the first movie since TITANIC to clear $500m at the domestic box office, and make the then-magic $1b worldwide... Only TITANIC, THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING, and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST made that amount of money... Nowadays, it seems like there's one billion-dollar smash every year, excepting 2020 of course... Back in 2008, though? Magic number. Very few movies did **that** well...

And from there... Lots of hits. The MCU had barely a stumble, and their highest highs at the box office went very high. They had no trouble getting audiences to come out in big numbers for... Checks notes... Movies based on THOR, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, and ANT-MAN. Warner Bros. had tried very hard to keep a consistently successful DC movie-verse going, but despite the valleys (JUSTICE LEAGUE, BIRDS OF PREY), they too saw some big peaks: WONDER WOMAN and AQUAMAN. BATMAN V. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE and SUICIDE SQUAD made a lot of money, too, despite not meeting particular expectations. Animated superheroes brought home bacon, too! BIG HERO 6, INCREDIBLES 2, SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE, need I say more? Sony's own Spider-Man villain movies VENOM and its sequel did very well, too! Almost everybody was winning the superhero sweepstakes post-2008, with very few actual losers in-between.

But now... Well, with so many of them around, and both cinematic universes from the heavies... Again, Marvel and DC. Known commodities... We don't see any movie-verse for, say, Image Comics, no do we? Well, again, money is tight, theater visits are costly, and the movies aren't always delivering satisfying experiences when other endeavors are next door...

Last year, we saw TOP GUN: MAVERICK, a legacy sequel to a 1986 blockbuster that isn't a superhero movie in any way, mop the floor - domestically and even worldwide - with both Marvel and DC's most anticipated movies. AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER was in second place domestically, top dog worldwide. We're starting to see other movies have a say again, and smaller movies are having their fun again, too. ELVIS and NOPE did very well, as did BULLET TRAIN and THE LOST CITY. Bread-n-butter movies that used to fill up the yearly box office charts quite nicely. We see that nowadays in the form of things like WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING, THE BLACK PHONE, THE WOMAN KING, TICKET TO PARADISE, BARBARIAN, SMILE, VIOLENT NIGHT, A MAN CALLED OTTO, M3GAN, CREED III, etc.

So... With QUANTUMANIA and SHAZAM! FURY OF THE GODS past us... Here's what I think... Much like in 2006, where some computer animated family movies did great and others not-so-much... That'll happen with this year's crop of superhero movies.

I think the guaranteed hits are GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 and SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE. The former? Well, those two movies functioned well as a standalone story not connected to the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. Like you had some things here and there, like an Infinity Stone or the presence of Thanos, but they're both self-contained, VOL 2 even more-so. They're genuinely good space adventure movies that audiences actually quite dig, the characters are so likeable, and the movies have director James Gunn's authorship all over them. That's a night and day difference from many of the other MCUs... SPIDER-VERSE... Need I say more? The original is beloved, it was a passion project for everyone involved. It was not just a great Marvel or great superhero movie, it was a great movie, period. Rian Johnson himself described it as "The Velvet Underground of superhero movies." That is *high praise*.

Those are both poised, I feel, to make beaucoup bucks.

Everything else? Well... The DC movies coming out this year are much like FURY OF THE GODS. They don't really matter, because the hard reset is coming up with SUPERMAN: LEGACY two years from now. I suppose THE FLASH could do well because of Michael Keaton **and** Ben Affleck's Batman returning, in a sort of NO WAY HOME-esque manner. I don't think much of the general public is in tune with star Ezra Miller's controversies and wrongdoing, so I think this one's appeal hinges on whether fans/audiences see it as pointless or not. I think the novelty of both Batmen being back, alongside some other DC faces (such as Michael Shannon's go at General Zod from MAN OF STEEL), could help it a bit. BLUE BEETLE? I couldn't tell ya, it'll probably come and go. AQUAMAN made over a billion back in 2018/19, and is the highest-earning DC film ever... But will fans and audiences be back for, again, a movie that seems pointless in the long run? Also at the end of the year comes the MCU film THE MARVELS, the sequel to CAPTAIN MARVEL and also a follow-up to the MS. MARVEL TV series... Plus you have Monica Rambeau in it as well, who - as an adult - was a major character in WANDAVISION. That all could help it, but I'm starting to think it falls quite short of CAPTAIN MARVEL's impressive take in 2019. CAPTAIN MARVEL had the benefit of opening right before AVENGERS: ENDGAME, the penultimate episode to the big climactic event... THE MARVELS is just, well, the sequel... With two other faces. I think it'll do pretty well, but not excellently. Disney and Marvel Studios were smart to delay the film from July to November after the CEO-switcheroo with Bob Iger this past autumn. I can only hope they delay all of the other movies, too. Like, two a year is fine, guys. AVENGERS: THE KANG DYNASTY and AVENGERS: SECRET WARS can wait. They don't need to come out in 2-3 years from now, in addition to like 10 other movies and 10-20 other Disney+ shows...

And next year, I think, will show as well where this is all going... Like, I don't see the likes of CAPTAIN AMERICA 4, THUNDERBOLTS, DEADPOOL 3, and BLADE hogging up the top slots anymore. I forgot to point out that these movies seem a lot more frontloaded. Big fans and those who were always going to be there *will* be there on opening weekend, but it collapses after that, as OTHER audiences save their money for other things that they'd rather see... Maybe the JOKER sequel, not really a superhero movie but still based on a DC villain that's tied to one of their most well-known superheroes, could repeat the massive surprise success of the original. Maybe not. BEYOND THE SPIDER-VERSE should do pretty great... I think other biggies are what's gonna surprise this year and next year, and take the Top 3 slots... A new INDIANA JONES movie, a MARIO movie, a two-part MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE epic, AVATAR 3, maybe even something like GLADIATOR 2. 2025 is when the DC hard-reset comes, so it'll be interesting to see how SUPERMAN: LEGACY does, in addition to whatever Marvel movies end up coming out that year. KANG DYNASTY or no KANG DYNASTY...

If anything, the budgeting should be smarter from here on out. Then these movies can come and go, make adequate amounts of money, give *other* kinds of movies the Top 3-5 for once, and then the wheels will spin. Something new will come along and spam up the top slots, even. Maybe we're in for an area of legacy-quels following TOP GUN 2's massive success. I really do think INDY 5 has the chance to somewhat repeat that, and GLADIATOR 2 even. How long till, say, another sequel to a beloved '80s or '90s movie drops? And then too many of those happen and they get tiresome?

All a cycle in Hollywood...

But yeah, I do see the parallels between superhero movies now and CG animated family movies circa 2006...

[mariacallous]

hmmmm, I wonder about the wider and long term impact of Harry Potter on YA and middle grades books.

I mean hers was really the first such book to make all the money in the known universe, gain mega super unstoppable popularity, that lasted for years and years and years, everyone from age 8 to 80 read them, my grandma read them (she was a big reader and was thrilled her grandkids were reading and wanted to be able to talk to us about it) did that have the effect of focusing more punishing attention on YA? did its cross over adult appeal as well as long term cultural staying power cause more people who are adults now to feel comfortable staying in YA?

I mean, yeah, at least to a certain extent?

Plus, like with the Marvel movies (but done, to a certain extent, less blatantly, at least initially, in the HP case), there's that continued and built-in buy-in that makes you keep coming back because you have to know what happens next and you have to take advantage of the latest offering. But it was executed and done more creatively and, dare I say, enjoyably.

Plus there was the same phenomenon where it went from being kind of a niche underdog thing (you're reading a book about magic? from britain?) to this mega mainstream popular thing but a lot of people didn't accept or see how it had shifted and so it became totemic, on top of the appeal it already had (like in the Christopher Hitchens review I shared last night).

But because it hit in the right sweet spot both developmentally for a lot of people but culturally (the late 90s into early-to-mid-2000s) it took advantage of (and helped create) shifts in pop culture and media consumption (plus at one point it was the progressive/liberal option since it was targeted for promoting witchcraft and satanism by a lot of the Concerned Parents and right-wing groups, so it was able to coast on that cachet for a while). I could also argue that in a post-9/11 world there was the ongoing appeal of a relatively simple message about generic good triumphing over generic evil which cuts across age groups and ideologies and which was an element of stability - yes there are individual (sometimes lots of individual) pains and suffering but the overall arc goes to a positive result.

The thing is, YA (or books that would be considered YA) have always been popular - it's never not been a profitable genre. What HP and all that did was do, in a lot of cases, what Marvel/Disney did to movies, and sort of fundamentally reshape much of how it operates and what it promotes, and the specific type of book or book series matters less as long as it can follow the general path and rules that have been laid down.

Plus, nostalgia is also always profitable (it's why a lot of trends never go away and just get cycled back - it's one of the reasons why Barbie, to use a particular example, really kind of took off in the late 80s into the 90s, because the kids who had grown up playing with those dolls in the 60s and 70s were now old enough to both have kids of their own to introduce Barbie to but also had the money and ability to indulge themselves and start collecting) and HP has that mixture of general ("timeless" I guess could be a better word) and specific appeal which continues to carry forward in a way that other stuff doesn't.

[the-sappho-of-lesbos]

What kind of things do you enjoy in a movie generally? Any movies you recommend?

I feel like this a bit of a hard question to answer because in general I’m pretty open to most movies! It’s different to novels or comics because they don’t nearly take as long to consume. So I can get invested in a wide array of different movies. As a standard though I pretty much hate all horror movies. I don’t like being scared lol. Which is why it surprised me how much I enjoyed Us.

My brother is very much into artsy films at the moment, so whenever I’m watching a movie with him he tends to pick those types. He’s found some really interesting ones too! He’s also super into “mind fuck” movies. I’ve definitely loved lots of the ones he’s showed me. That satisfying “WHAT THE HECK” when it all comes together is great.

I love anime and animated movies. Studio Ghibli in general is just an all round favourite because of the comforting atmosphere they have.

I’ve been enjoying Pixar and Disney lately as well. There newer stuff has been very impressive.

I don’t read an awful lot of sci fi but Ive noticed I tend to really enjoy a lot of the sci-fi movies I’ve seen. Whenever I watch a good sci-fi movie I get into a little kick about it and start looking up books to read that will give me a similar vibe. But I never seem to find any that make me feel the same way. So I think when it comes to sci-fi I’m definitely more of a movie person.

Sometimes I’ll occasionally want to watch a romcom but honestly as much as I enjoy romance books I don’t tend to like how rom cons are done lol. I like a lot of relationship building/ hurt and comfort stuff with my romance. Rom coms tend to be just a lot of miscommunication and wacky hijinxs lol. But sometimes they are nice to zone out too!

I guess it falls kind of into the sci fi realm for me, but I also like a good dystopian or apocalypse type movie. Surprisingly lol.

Gay isn’t a genre but I like gay movies too lolol. Though a lot can be a hit or miss for sure.

When I was in high school I was REALLY into marvel movies and the DC animated universe. I’ve massively dropped off from marvel though. I still watch them but I’m not nearly as invested as I once was.

There is that one movie coming out, I think it’s called Bones And All, I’m excited to see it. It looks super interesting.

I’m sorry that wasn’t really a good answer. I guess mainly I’ll try almost anything if it’s a movie. I’m a lot less picky then with books. But also I don’t consume movies nearly as much as I do books so that probably helps too.

I hope you have a wonderful day 💕💕

[frozenwolftemplar]

This is what has me most nervous: the fact that it's the Disney+ show retooled.

As late as last April (when the live action 'Moana' was announced), people at the studio said it was still all-systems-go on the Moana series. This decision is less than a year old, and the final product hits theaters this November. Less than a year to take what was (presumably) a story meant to be spread out over multiple episodes and condense it into one 90-minute movie. I know they're talented storytellers at WDAS, but this timetable is crazy.

I can't help but wonder if 'Wish' crashing and burning has something to do with this...🤔

First look at Disney's Moana 2

Only on theaters Nov 27, 2024.

The project is what previously was known as the Disney+ Moana series, now reworked into a feature film.