A place for things and stuff
https://www.instagram.com/p/BU_LhMjld61/?taken-by=henrycavill
Feeling bad you can’t get your day going without a cup of joe? Well it looks like you are in the same boat as Supes. It looks like Joss Whedon’s reshoots are well underway. Of course we all know that Wonder Woman is now the star of the JLA, and Superman? He can just continue just drink his coffee. Diana has it covered.
It is obvious by now that Wonder Woman is a huge hit. It made $103 Million in its opening weekend, and Warner Brothers executives had said they would be happy if it made over $65 Million, so the movie cleared that bar with relative ease, but what is impressive about that number is that Wonder Woman “only” made $38 Million on its opening day, so to get to $103 Million it had to hold off having the massive day to day drops that have plagued all the other DC Extended Universe films. In other words, word of mouth has propelled Wonder Woman forward while it has dragged all the other DCEU films back. A new phenomenon to be sure.
This shows what good reviews can do for a film. While without them you can still have massive opening weekends, the day to day numbers start to crash as people learn that the movie isn’t worth their time. Wonder Woman on the other hand is definitely worth your time. With that in mind it will be interesting to see how Wonder Woman fairs this upcoming weekend. Batman v Superman‘s box-office take fell a massive 69% the weekend after its opening, and Suicide Squad dropped 67% off of its opening weekend total. Man of Steel has done the “best” so far with a 64% drop off. With how well Wonder Woman is doing it will be interesting to see if it can pull off something close to a 50% drop. Still, anything in the low 60% range would be a massive improvement for DC/Warner Brothers.
While movies are about entertainment and “art” it is always kind of interesting to track the business side of the industry. Right now Warner Brothers executives are no doubt lighting a fire underneath the Wonder Woman 2 creative team, so they can get that movie rolling. Word on the street is that they haven’t even picked a time line for the new movie yet, and the only thing set in stone is that it will be in America. It will be interesting to follow, and I hope they don’t rush it too much. Here is hoping Wonder Woman’s second solo outing will be as good as her first!
CREDIT: All financial data was obtained from BoxOfficeMojo.com
My little brother and I watched every episode of Speed Race before dinner growing up. Our Mom didn’t like it because it described Speed as a “demon” in the intro song, so we had to convince her they meant “speed demon”. Anyway, Funimation has released all 52 episodes on Blu-Ray, and you can get the collection on Amazon for around $20. A word of warning though, this only has the English dub, so if you want the original Japanese version you will have to hope for a future box set, but for someone like me who is nostalgic for the crappy US dub, this is great! Go Speed Racer Go!
I left the theater last night relieved. Ever since Suicide Squad I had been worried that DC was going to screw up Wonder Woman’s first solo film in her 75 year existence, but Gal Gadot, Patty Jenkins and crew pulled it off, and more than that, they gave the DC Movie Universe the hope and charisma it so desperately needed.
Wonder Woman follows Diana (Gal Gadot) from childhood on the island of Themyscira to her first outing as a hero in World War I. This of course is a change from her comic book origins where she fought in World War II, but the time swap works well for this movie. Seeing the horrors of The Great War really drive home her belief that she needs to stop this before more people get hurt or killed, and the world has not advanced so much that a sword wielding warrior on horseback would seem that out of place, but it still has advanced enough to provide plenty of opportunity for a little fish out of water humor.
The cast of this film is fantastic. Chris Pine (the best Chris) as Steve Trevor is funny and brave, and a great guide to the “man’s world” for the Amazonian Princess. His rag tag crew is a delight, but without Gal Gadot’s charm and strength this movie wouldn’t have worked. She embodies Wonder Woman perfectly. Angry at the injustices that are all around her, but still hopeful things can be changed for the better. I also love Elena Anaya and Danny Huston as the main villains, they are wonderfully comic-book-y, but not in an over the top way. They strike a good balance between maniacal sneer and believability.
That is not to say Wonder Woman is perfect however. The final fight is a little forced and long and has too much dodgy CG. The film at two hours and twenty-one minutes could have been tightened up a bit, but man, the second act of this movie is pretty much perfect, so I will take the slow start and generic end for those moments of perfection. Watching Diana become the hero the world needed and enjoying doing it was rousing, and I am not exaggerating when I say, it made me cry a little.
We have been waiting forever for Wonder Woman to get her chance to shine on the big screen and Patty Jenkins delivered. There have only been a handful of female led superhero films, and they have all been trash, so leave it to most iconic female comic book hero of all time to finally get it right. Make sure that we don’t have to wait another 75 years for another Wonder Woman and go see this movie. When Justice League comes out this November, Wonder Woman is going to be the draw.
The Paladin warned us that his toffee popcorn was more interesting than the 24th Bond film Spectre, but I didn’t listen. It was sitting there on my Amazon Prime queue saying, “I am a Bond film, I will at least have some good actions scenes!”, but it was just a siren song. Spectre was just a long heartless slog of Bond stuff. Everyone was going through the motions, and apparently no one wanted to be part of this movie for any other reason then the money. I blame The Paladin for all of this because toffee popcorn is pretty interesting, so to be worse than that is not that bad.
I think the biggest problem with this film is its namesake. Spectre is kind of a crazy organization with volcano hideouts and moon lasers, and the new Daniel Craig Bond films are grounded and realistic. The only thing over the top about them is the action. Everything else in them is “plausible”. Nothing in Spectre is plausible, but instead of having fun with this wild evil crew, the film plays it straight. WARNING MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW. No it is not strange there is a massive underworld organization run by James Bond’s foster brother. It is totally normal for a bad guy to have a massive base in the crater of a meteor. Automated lobotomy chair? Sounds legit to me. A ring that contains the DNA of all of the recent Bond’s villains with no explanation? Why not. Anyone comment about any of this in the film? Nope. They just parade all this insane stuff in front of you without any joy or whimsy. Which makes it all land with a thud.
By now I am sure you can tell that I don’t think you should see Spectre. If it was bad in the old fashion cheesy Bond way, I probably would have enjoyed myself, but instead I was just bored, and that is inexcusable for a Bond film. Anyway, I am in an airport right now, so I am going to go see if I can track down some toffee popcorn and think about how interesting it is, and how The Paladin let me down.