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OT: Dune Part Two

Aside from Avatar 2 which Disney acquired and then distributed, Guardians 3 is the only movie for Disney that made money last year. And it barely made money. That said, you’re right. It was already a successful franchise with a guy leading the franchise that they let do his own thing. And thankfully so.

Edit: I wonder what James Gunn would have done with a Star Wars film. That would have been interesting. But he parlayed his fantastic work into a gig leading DC now so his Disney ship has sailed. And to think that they fired him a few years ago before deciding to bring him back.
Wait... Do you expect Dune Part 2 to make money theatrically? The production and especially marketing budget was extremely high. I believe it was just under 200M production budget and roughly the same marketing budget. Could be close. If it doesn't, should WB change their way and just make more Wonkas and Barbies?

Did Aquaman 2 fail due to ideology? Flash? Because that one and the other certainly didn't turn a profit theatrically.

I just think there's a lot of oversimplification here. Disney needs to make better films. Whether or not all their leads are females/trans/etc. is irrelevant. See Barbie... A movie far more "woke" than anything Disney has done was an enormous success. You all do realize that a Barbie or two in that film were played trans people, no? Or, maybe you didn't see it... I don't know.

Black Panthers 1 & 2 did pretty well. Pretty "woke." 2nd one is dominated by female leads. But, generally speaking, both were well liked.
 
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Wait... Do you expect Dune Part 2 to make money theatrically? The production and especially marketing budget was extremely high. I believe it was just 200M production budget and roughly the same marketing budget. Could be close. If it doesn't, should WB change their way and just make more Wonkas and Barbies?

Did Aquaman 2 fail due to ideology? Flash? Because that one and the other certainly didn't turn a profit theatrically.

I just think there's a lot of oversimplification here. Disney needs to make better films. Whether or not all their leads are females/trans/etc. is irrelevant. See Barbie... A movie far more "woke" than anything Disney has done. You all do realize that a Barbie or two in that film were trans, no? Or, maybe you didn't see it... I don't know.

Black Panthers 1 & 2 did pretty well. 2nd one I'd dominated bt female leads. But, generally speaking, both were well liked.
As far as female leads, etc…I mean female leads isn’t a new thing and no one ever seemed to notice or care for 100 years of film making whether a man or woman is the lead. The same with minorities, etc.

There are influencers who cover cinema online who hate gratuitous woke nonsense, and make a lot of money discussing it on their channels…yet they thought Barbie was fine. It’s Hollywood…what can you do, right? I think the problem people have with the disney flicks over the past couple of years is that it’s often gratuitous crap and the movies haven’t been good. Focus on making good movies that people will want to see. That’s all. Making good movies used to be the priority. Not anymore.

As far as Dune 2 I haven’t followed it. I’m sure it needs to make at least 800 to break even and figured it would make well over a billion. But maybe not? I haven’t checked the box office numbers.
 
As far as female leads, etc…I mean female leads isn’t a new thing and no one ever seemed to notice or care for 100 years of film making whether a man or woman is the lead. The same with minorities, etc.

There are influencers who cover cinema online who hate gratuitous woke nonsense, and make a lot of money discussing it on their channels…yet they thought Barbie was fine. It’s Hollywood…what can you do, right? I think the problem people have with the disney flicks over the past couple of years is that it’s often gratuitous crap and the movies haven’t been good. Focus on making good movies that people will want to see. That’s all. Making good movies used to be the priority. Not anymore.

As far as Dune 2 I haven’t followed it. I’m sure it needs to make at least 800 to break even and figured it would make well over a billion. But maybe not? I haven’t checked the box office numbers.
It would be shocking if it made 1B. I think something like 700M to 800M WW which should be enough turn a profit though. And, which is also excellent for a movie like Dune. I guess it could do 1B but the legs will have to continue to be insane and its going to lose and never get back all its premium screens once the new Ghostbusters hits theaters in about 10 days. After Ghostbusters, Godzilla x Kong will take the premiums and so on... Spring break occurring intermittently right now should help it and Kung Fu Panda 4 to continue to hold well on weekdays though.

Now, with all that said, let's not forget how much Blade Runner 2049 lost theatrically. Same filmmaker. Essentially same production team. It didn't have any choices that others say plague Disney stuff. And, it was excellent. I'd say considerably better than Dune 1 & 2 even. Just never know sometimes...

Again, I just think people often oversimplify why some movies do and don't turn a profit. There are many factors. Generally the biggest factor regardless of casting, wokeness, whatever is making something a lot of people like...

Domestically, Incredibles 2 is the highest grossing animated film ever (not adjusted for inflation) and the lead hero and villain are women. Frozen and Frozen II completely shunned the classic ideas of a prince and are both in the top 10 as well. Across the Spider-verse is there too and the lead is pretty much Spider-Gwen with a heavy, heavy, heavy allegory to her story being about coming out of the closet.

Again, not as much you because you engage in intelligent discussion, but others simply oversimplify to troll while not realizing the themes, etc. of other highly successful films that they give as the only reason Disney stuff fails. Disney needs to employ better filmmakers and make better movies. Their output has been weak as of late. That's their issue.
 
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It would be shocking if it made 1B. I think something like 700M to 800M WW which should be enough turn a profit though. And, which is also excellent for a movie like Dune. I guess it could do 1B but the legs will have to continue to be insane and its going to lose and never get back all its premium screens once the new Ghostbusters hits theaters in about 10 days. After Ghostbusters, Godzilla x Kong will take the premiums and so on... Spring break occurring intermittently right now should help it and Kung Fu Panda 4 to continue to hold well on weekdays though.

Now, with all that said, let's not forget how much Blade Runner 2049 lost theatrically. Same filmmaker. Essentially same production team. It didn't have any choices that others say plague Disney stuff. And, it was excellent. I'd say considerably better than Dune 1 & 2 even. Just never know sometimes...

Again, I just think people often oversimplify why some movies do and don't turn a profit. There are many factors. Generally the biggest factor regardless of casting, wokeness, whatever is making something a lot of people like...

Domestically, Incredibles 2 is the highest grossing animated film ever (not adjusted for inflation) and the lead hero and villain are women. Frozen and Frozen II completely shunned the classic ideas of a prince and are both in the top 10 as well. Across the Spider-verse is there too and the lead is pretty much Spider-Gwen with a heavy, heavy, heavy allegory to her story being about coming out of the closet.

Again, not as much you because you engage in intelligent discussion, but others simply oversimplify to troll while not realizing the themes, etc. of other highly successful films that they give as the only reason Disney stuff fails. Disney needs to employ better filmmakers and make better movies. Their output has been weak as of late. That's their issue.
Good post. One thing I wanted to mention a few days ago. As an example, I’ve heard about the LGBTQ+ stuff in spiderverse but I don’t care enough to pay any attention because I don’t really care for animation. Although when my kids were little I enjoyed all the Disney/Pixar stuff, so much so that we took out kids to Disney parks probably 3 dozen times through the years. But what I wanted to say was that I believe the same guys who did spiderverse were also the guys the Kathleen Kennedy fired from Solo a Star Wars Story. So sometimes today’s Disney hires talented people and they still don’t know how to make them successful. Just completely mismanaged.

Disney almost went belly up in the 80’s but then they hit gold with Little Mermaid, Beauty and The Beast, Lion King, etc.

But today, what they are doing in movie making hasn’t been working. They’re in a massive slump. Can’t imagine their incredibly bad decisions for the live action Snow White is going to pull them out of it. But Deadpool might!!
 
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Good post. One thing I wanted to mention a few days ago. As an example, I’ve heard about the LGBTQ+ stuff in spiderverse but I don’t care enough to pay any attention because I don’t really care for animation. Although when my kids were little I enjoyed all the Disney/Pixar stuff, so much so that we took out kids to Disney parks probably 3 dozen times through the years. But what I wanted to say was that I believe the same guys who did spiderverse were also the guys the Kathleen Kennedy fired from Solo a Star Wars Story. So sometimes today’s Disney hires talented people and they still don’t know how to make them successful. Just completely mismanaged.

Disney almost went belly up in the 80’s but then they hit gold with Little Mermaid, Beauty and The Beast, Lion King, etc.

But today, what they are doing in movie making hasn’t been working. They’re in a massive slump. Can’t imagine their incredibly bad decisions for the live action Snow White is going to pull them out of it. But Deadpool might!!
Deadpool and Wolverine should help. They picked a very safe filmmaker that I imagine won't make crap film but also won't make a spectacular film.

Solo was a bad idea from get go... What Lord/Miller were planning to do with it is exactly what people are complaining about as far as I understand. Lando was gonna be straight bisexual I believe among some other drastic changes. Was gonna be super meta and along the lines of their Jump Street movies in tone.

Slumps for giant studios are generally cyclical. Not long ago WB was in a huge slump now they're doing much better. They still have legacy stuff like Inside Out 2 and Toy Story 5 which one would think essentially can't bomb or even come close to that. Likely be big hits. In addition to stuff like Avatar, Deadpool.

Original animation is suffering now. People thought Illumination was invincible because of Super Mario and the recent Minions Rise of Gru movie then Migration happened... Which did fine but Elemental (Pixar/Disney) essentially doubled its gross WW and was also an original.

Disney literally owned the box office for a decade. A hubris type slump was inevitable. Same type of thing hsppened with WB after the Dark Knight trilogy. They'll bounce back just like WB has lately.

Sony is the one I wonder about most. Without Disney making their Spider-Man movies, they'll likely be done. Spider-verse movies have helped too. Paramount is struggling a bit too. Universal is hanging in there mostly due to Nolan (who WB inexplicably chased away).
 
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