Just got home from seeing the new Indiana Jones movie. I enjoyed It. Better than the Shia lebouf one IMO. It felt more like the originals.
Couldnāt pay me to see it. Should have ended with Last Crusade.
It was better than expected for sure. It did feel more like 1 and 3 and less like 2 or 4.
The entire point of that movie was to show Indiana Jones as a sad, broken old man, as part of a plan to sweep aside everything Lucas created and replace him with Phoebe Waller-Bridge. They had an entire new series of movies then a TV show setup with PWB to star as the new āimprovedā Indiana Jones.
But word got out of their plans, and they had to re-shoot the end of the movie because of the outcry from fans for how badly they were intentionally ruining Indiana Jones.
Still, even with the re-shot ending, the PW-B Helena character reportedly punches Indy and knocks him out at the end of the movie. Kathleen Kennedy has stated that was her intent. She wants nothing left of Lucas in that property or in Star Wars. Nothing of the classic male archetype character - wants it all debased, stripped from memory and replaced. I cannot support the way she is intentionally tarnishing all of the classic Lucasfilm IPs, and I will not watch her do it.
Seems like a lot of fans agree with me. She spent nearly $300 million making that movie (shot multiple endings and storylines) plus an equivalent amount trying to market it, and it will not come close to earning back what was spent. Last # I saw was $60 million box office take so far. Disney / Lucasfilm is going to take an absolute bath in losses on this one. A bomb of historical levels.
Even though Disney/Lucasfilmās Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is looking to hit the bottom rung of its tracking projection of $60M Sunday morning, thereās no question this is a disastrous result for the finale to a historically beloved franchise film. Cāmon, Indiana Jones is one of the reasons why Disney shelled out $4 billion for Lucasfilm. Global start here at $130M, is $10M less than what we were seeing; Nancy will have more. The fan-loathed Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull had a $272.1M global start, unadjusted for inflation/currency swings back in 2008.
Sad sad end to one of my favorite movie characters all time. And while I am not surprised given her intent, Iām not happy about it. She should have just left the entire franchise and character alone. Should have stopped after Last Crusade. That was the perfect ending to the story / character.
Per Screenrant, the Indy movie needs to make $800 million just to break even. Iāll be surprised if it even hits $500 million. It could be a lot less even.
KKs hatred of male archetypes is causing her to run Lucasfilm / Disney into the ground. Sheās going to take the entire damn studio down with her. And ruin every IP I loved as a kid. Sheās already killed off Star Wars. She is the absolute worst.
The theater was pretty empty, on a nearly 100 degree day, so what I experienced in person lined up with what youāre saying.
With all the Netflix, Max, etc options Iām not sure Iāll ever go to another theater. Combine that with crazy mofoās with guns and hell Iāll just pass
The math gets really murky on making high end movies for streaming Hootie. The streaming model GREATLY prefers quantity over quality. They just want inventory to keep you subscribed. So they make a whole bunch of crap and even some of their better stuff still doesnāt have the quality control that you are used to in the cinema.
Not that cinema is there right now either. Marvel, streaming, and the death of DVD sales have changed everything. DVD sales used to basically fund smaller budget and risk taking movies. Those mid budget movies that were okay with spending say $20 million in todayās dollars and only getting back $30-$40 million. Those donāt get made anymore.
The only releases that are justified these days are Marvel type movies with huge CGI budgets etc. But then the studio heads took another turn philosophically based on large investor money demands (not getting into politics - refuse to), and a combination of that and production schedules that were just about churning out product dropped the quality control so low that almost all of those movies have become a joke. Little bit of āMarvel fatigueā from moviegoers too - combined with a complete lack of new ideas.
So what we get are extremely poorly written superhero movies, made on the cheapest CGI budgets from effects studious being almost whipped at their desk chairs to spit out effects shots just to meet a release schedule, along with digging up every old IP possible and āreimaginingā them with whatever the studio headās agenda is, and wellā¦ The movies mostly suck nowadays.
The writing is the worst part of it for me. It has completely tanked. Like from All-Star levels to like NAIA levels, but somehow the writers and the studios are even more smug. And that goes for the streaming market too. Itās full of awfulness.
If I were the czar of Hollywood I would make two rules to change the industry and I wouldnāt relent on either one of them:
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Nothing gets made without a worthy script, and the ending is decided before the first shot is filmed. This may sound stupid but studios are āscrapbookingā movies now. They shoot dozens of endings / alternate scenes and then try to cobble together a movie from them after numerous test screenings. Every bit of that is reflective of a lack of any proper guidance and most importantly, a well developed script. The result is ballooning production costs. And itās not sustainable because a bunch of these movies are absolutely bombing and the studios lose tens and often hundreds of millions of $.
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Entertainment is priority #1. Nothing more to say here other than repeating what Tarantino said months ago - entertainment and quality are no longer the priority in Hollywood. No wonder he is quitting.
I love PWB. But itās a little sad that she and ātheyā canāt find her own vehicle to showcase her talents.
Also surely there would have been a way to give her an opportunity to pick up the reigns on the franchise without debasing Harrison Ford and the existing legacy.
Yes KK IS absolutely the worst.
I donāt understand why heās quitting. HIS movies are still great!!!
He is the master of tight set piece dialogue driven drama. I know everyone loves his violent stuff and all the other homage stuff, but IMHO thatās not where his masterclass is taught. No one does heavy dialogue scenes with as much dramatic tension as Tarantino does.
Definitely not a current release but still one of the best WWII films ever made:
https://twitter.com/ATRightMovies/status/1676159220326998018
Iāve watched that movie so many times. Grew up with it.
Iām a little surprised they havenāt remade it, although it would be useless. Its basically a perfect movie.
One of my favs!
I watched Sound of Freedom this weekend. I thought it might hit hard because of the subject matter but was still surprised by the intense emotions it generated. Itās very good but heavy, not a popcorn flick.
This probably applies more to streaming TV but itās illustrative of my earlier discussion:
https://twitter.com/CultureCrave/status/1677077045912956928
Nolan did this with Interstellar too.
Itās amongst the best in the series per multiple reviews.
I think itās gonna do gangbusters in the theaters. Reports are that itās selling out opening weekend shows.