No matter what your age, we all have toys that helped shape our childhoods. For me, I can rattle them off as easily as I can name my siblings: Transformers, MASK, Thundercats, GI Joe, Masters of the Universe. And all of them remain popular today, consistently adapted into every form of media you can imagine. Okay, except for Thundercats which has yet to get a live-action film but you know it will happen someday.
Netflix has a new docu-series coming up, titled The Toys that Made Us, which looks into the influence He-Man, GI Joe, Star Wars, and Barbie have had over the years. And this isn’t just a recitation of facts, it will talk to the people whose lives have been touched by these great toy lines, from the collector to the guy who grew up with them and never let go.
Check out the trailer now, and watch the 8-episode series when it debuts on December 22nd.
Well, I didn’t expect Disney to formally respond to Star Wars: The Last Jedi‘s low audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, but that’s where we are now. Even though the film had an astronomical box office debut, too much of the conversation (even here, I must admit) has been about the supposed reaction from audiences who may not have been buying what Rian Johnson was selling. But as we speculated yesterday, it looks like the whole thing was a work, orchestrated by disgruntled fans who just wanted to hurt a major Disney property. The clues were there because the Cinemascore, which doesn’t rely on a bunch of nerds clicking on a website, was very positive.
But in case you still think The Last Jedi just wasn’t very good, here is the final piece of evidence…
Right. So some loser with not enough real drama in his life came up with this shit, and there is even more stuff like this around the Internet from other losers. Well, I guess they got the attention they wanted because Disney has responded to the low scores. In short, they really don’t give a fork and will sit back counting that sweet sweet cash…
Rian Johnson, the cast, and the Lucasfilm team have delivered an experience that is totally Star Wars yet at the same time fresh, unexpected and new. That makes this a Star Wars film like audiences have never seen – it’s got people talking, puzzling over its mysteries, and it’s a lot to take in, and we see that as all positive, that should help set the film up for great word-of-mouth and repeat viewing as we enter the lucrative holiday period.
Score trolling is something IMDB has been dealing with for years and it was only a matter of time before it hit Rotten Tomatoes. Disney may have shown the best way to handle the response to it, though. Sit back and count that money.
Hey, it says SPOILERS right there in the headline, so if you’re still reading then obviously you’ve already seen Star Wars: The Last Jedi. There will be no mercy shown here to fools you keep going forward.
I spent all of last week talking about the many great things Rian Johnson did in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but what really stuck out to me was his handling of the major “mysteries” that have been racking fans’ brains for two year. One of those was the mystery of who Snoke really was. From the moment we enter his red room, with Rey captured and a conflicted Kylo Ren, parallels to the confrontation between Luke, Vader, and Palpatine are unavoidable. And with that come obvious expectations, expectations which Johnson tossed aside with the flick of a lightsaber switch, and the prompt dissection of Snoke.
That he died in such a dismissive fashion with no reveal about his backstory has led to some calling him a disappointing villain. I even thought so the first time I saw the movie, but came to see Snoke’s death quite differently upon a second viewing. But what was Johnson thinking about when he made the decision to pull the trigger on that scene? At a recent Q&A captured by EW, he says he came to a point where it just made sense to move the story forward and focus on the more interesting character, which was Kylo Ren…
When I was working on the character of Kylo, I came to a place where I thought the most interesting thing would be to knock the shaky foundation out from under him at the beginning of this movie…By the end of this film, he’s gone from being a wannabe Vader to someone who is standing on his own feet as a complex villain taking the reins.”
“But then the question is: What place would Snoke have at the end of that?…That made me realize the most interesting thing would be to eliminate that dynamic between the ‘emperor’ and pupil, so that all bets are off going into the next one. That also led to the possibility of this dramatic turn in the middle, which could also be a really powerful connection point between Kylo and Rey.”
“It would have stopped any of these scenes dead cold if he had stopped and given a 30-second speech about how he’s Darth Plagueis…It doesn’t matter to Rey. If he had done that, Rey would have blinked and said, ‘Who?’ And the scene would have gone on…and I’m not saying he’s Darth Plagueis!”
I bet J.J. Abrams is like, “Dude! You didn’t leave me anything left to do!” Seriously, I’ve always been a fan of The Sopranos’ approach to finales, which is to have the big stuff happen in the penultimate chapter, so you can deal with the fallout next. I’m really curious to see what Abrams does with Episode 9, and if he rolls back anything Johnson has done.
The response to Star Wars: The Last Jedi has been deafening, overwhelmingly positive. The box office was huge, very nearly record breaking (If it wasn’t for that pesky The Force Awakens), and there is already a palpable buzz for what director Rian Johnson plans to do with his upcoming trilogy. So everything’s all good, right? Well, not exactly. If you check out Rotten Tomatoes you’ll see that critics loved it to the tune of 93% positive and a “Certified Fresh” rating. But audiences? Inexplicably that number sits at 56% and officially “Rotten”. What gives? The Force Awakens and Rogue One had audience scores well into the 80s.
I’ve posited that the audience scores were weighed down by trolls wanted to stick it to Disney a little bit, but also by angry fanboys who thought the film should’ve answered all of their questions (Do we really need to know who Snoke is? Come on.) and taken fewer risks with some of the long-established characters. Well, there’s more evidence to suggest this is true.
While the Rotten Tomatoes score is weak, its Cinemascore is vastly different. I often cite Cinemascore in my box office roundup each week to explain certain trends, and here it shows that audiences gave The Last Jedi an “A” grade. That flies in the face of Rotten Tomatoes and suggests, yes, that there are some bitter folks out there with too much time on their hands and not enough real shit to worry about.
1. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (review)- $220M
The Force was strong with…oh Hell, everybody is probably starting off their box office analysis with that opening line. Star Wars: The Last Jedi blasted off with an incredible $220M domestic and $450M worldwide. The U.S. haul is the second biggest opening weekend ever, just behind, you guessed it, Star Wars: The Force Awakens‘ $247M. As great as that number is, it’s actually the first Star Wars movie (trilogies only) to open smaller than its predecessor. Kinda wild. Dammit, obviously we need to blame that mediocre Rotten Tomatoes audience score for such a disappointing debut. Let’s be honest, that score is from people who are upset the film doesn’t go exactly as they wanted, not because it was bad. Anyway, I’m expecting a run closer to what Rogue One did last year, even with a few semi-big movies hitting in the next couple of weeks. In other words people will be crowding theaters well into 2018 to see this, which is great for Disney because the next Star Wars movie is only a few months away when Solo: A Star Wars Story arrives in May. That’s right, no waiting a year for the next one, folks.
2. Ferdinand (review)- $13.3M
Nobody expected John Cena’s muscle to be enough to overcome the Star Wars juggernaut, but even so the $13.3M opening for Ferdinand is disappointing. The animated film about a peaceful bull who refuses to fight is, perhaps, the final project from Blue Sky, the company behind the once-popular Ice Age and Rio franchises. Ironically, it’s because their home at 20th Century Fox was just bought up by Disney who already have their own animation studio, plus Pixar, so what’s the need for one more? These numbers aren’t likely to help the case to keep them around, either.
3. Coco– $10M/$150.8M
4. Wonder– $5.4M/$109.2M
5. Justice League– $4.1M/$219.4M
How much must it suck for Warner Bros. that Star Wars: The Last Jedi surpassed Justice League‘s $219M total in just one week? Kinda says it all. It now sits at $633M worldwide, though. Disappointing but not a complete disaster.
6. Daddy’s Home 2– $3.8M/$96.5M
7. Thor: Ragnarok– $2.9M/$306.3M
8. The Disaster Artist– $2.6M/$12.9M
9. Murder On the Orient Express– $2.4M/$97.2M
10. Lady Bird– $2.1M/$25.9M
While there has been a continued over-analysis of Rotten Tomatoes and its impact on box offices, mainly because studios need a scapegoat for their own failures, I’ve maintained one position on the whole thing: Rotten Tomatoes scores don’t mean shit. We put too much emphasis on critic scores when audience scores are just as important, and there are too many hit movies with low scores to draw any kind of correlation. All of this is a long-winded way of getting around to the news that audiences don’t seem to be digging Star Wars: The Last Jedi all that much.
Rian Johnson’s film has been universally praised by critics, who as of this morning have it at 93% Rotten Tomatoes score. My own score factors into that, as well. But audiences have it at only 56% approval, which is actually considered “Rotten” and much lower than The Force Awakens (88%) and Rogue One (87%). So what does it all mean?
I think we need to get a little bit of distance before that question can be answered. If this leads to bad word of mouth that blunts its box office, then we’ll know the audience reaction was legit and had an impact. That could have far-reaching ramifications, especially for Johnson’s upcoming trilogy. Expectations might have been too high (the constant comparisons to The Empire Strikes Back couldn’t have helped), or fans just didn’t dig what Johnson did with the characters. I seriously hope it isn’t the latter.
It’s worth noting that most of the time the reaction is flipped. Critics will rip apart a blockbuster film while audiences tend to be more lenient. Case in point: Justice League, which audiences have at 80% while critics have it at 40%. How’d the box office do for that one? Not particularly well.
We’ll see how things go when the first weekend numbers come through, but my gut tells me this will have no long-term impact.
The best thing about Ryan Reynolds’ Twitter feed right now? It’s damn hard to tell whether he’s being himself or being the infamous Merc with a Mouth, Deadpool. And as you probably guessed, he has some less than reasoned, rationally considered thoughts on the new Disney/Fox deal that will send Deadpool and the rest of the X-Men franchise into the Marvel Universe…
Dude, you just keep being you. Reynolds has been risque in his public comments on the deal for a few weeks, including this hilarious tweet from a week ago…
Time to uncork that explosive sexual tension between Deadpool and Mickey Mouse. https://t.co/iUEXofWpRu
I think fans would die if they could somehow set Deadpool 3 in the Magic Kingdom, and now it could actually happen! Eh, that might be a bridge too far for the Mouse House, even if they let the franchise stay R-rated.
What happens when the directors of Avengers: Infinity War, the writers of two Captain America movies, and the director behind this year’s stellar adaptation of Stephen King’s IT all come together? We’re about to find out, and the potential for this project is off the friggin’ charts. The Russo Brothers have picked up the rights to artist Simon Stålenhag’s illustrated novel, The Electric State, which Andy Muschietti is in talks to direct and produce.
Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who worked with the Russos on Captain America: The Winter Soldier, will adapt the book, basically a series of illustrated images that form a complete narrative. Here is the synopsis:
In late 1997, a runaway teenager and her yellow toy robot travel west through a strange USA, where the ruins of gigantic battle drones litter the countryside heaped together with the discarded trash of a high tech consumerist society in decline. As their car approaches the edge of the continent, the world outside the window seems to be unraveling ever faster as if somewhere beyond the horizon, the hollow core of civilization has finally caved in.
The Russos will be producing as well, and I like how they’ve taken their Marvel experience and used it to expand their influence around Hollywood on projects like this. Obviously there are going to be a ton of eyes on this one. Muschietti’s work on IT showed what a powerful visual director he is, making him a perfect choice for director. Hopefully this comes together without too many problems. [Deadline]
I came for an alien invasion flick and a kung-fu movie broke out. Beyond Skyline is the, well, let’s just call it unexpected sequel to 2010’s sci-fi movie, Skyline, a surprisingly enjoyable mid-level hit that starred Eric Balfour. Eric Balfour! I can’t remember the last time I saw Eric Balfour and he’s the last person anyone would expect to lead a hit movie. The film was directed by the Strouse Brothers who poured every dime into some dazzling special effects that went along with a truly weird story about millennial in a high-rise as alien invaders begin zapping humans into the sky. The teasers were some of the year’s most visually striking, I might add. It ended oddly, there was some legal mumbo-jumbo that came out of it, and for years there was nothing to indicate there would be another movie.
Beyond Skyline somehow boasts the extraordinary beat ’em up skills of Frank “I would’ve been the Punisher ten years ago” Grillo, plus Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian of The Raid 1 & 2, the best martial arts movies…well, ever. The last movie anyone would ever expect to find these three together in is Beyond Skyline, and yet their improbable presence is the least bizarre thing about it.
Beyond Skyline finds the Strouse boys as producers and the original movie’s co-writer Liam O’Donnell making his directorial debut. And he’s got some wild ideas on how to keep this franchise going, namely by giving us what isn’t a traditional sequel at all, but a story running parallel to the original. A side-quel, if you will. This is the nuttiest major sci-fi movie I’ve seen in ages, and it’s absolutely worth every minute. This Alien meets The Raid meets trash cinema concoction stars tough guy Grillo as tough guy LA cop Mark Corley, on leave after his wife’s death and wallowing in misery. We first meet him as he’s bailing his rebellious son Trent (Jonny Weston) out of prison, just in time for the alien attack. Just as before people succumb to the invaders’ “hypnosis’ immediately upon eye contact, before being zapped into a hovering warship. Millions are gone in the span of minutes, but Mark and Trent manage to hook up with a handful of survivors, including subway conductor Audrey (Bojana Novakovic) and a blind man played by friggin’ Huggy Bear himself, Antonio Fargas.
Through plot mechanics so illogical they defy description, this motley crew somehow ends up on one of the starships which then crash lands in the middle of Laos (!!!), strange because the blind guy happens to be a Vietnam vet, where they encounter an underground resistance that seems more interested in fighting them than the aliens. Of course, with this hokey script it’s just to give us a brief throwdown between Grillo and Uwais, for which we should be grateful because it’s kinda cool even if nonsensical.
But it’s not as nonsensical as the rapidly-growing alien/human hybrid child Mark delivered on the ship and now has to protect.
Told you this thing was nutty.
That’s really just the start of it, because the film morphs crazily into a sci-fi fight flick in which Grillo and Uwais stand toe-to-toe/fang/weaponized claw with brawling extraterrestrials who are just as skilled in the ways of screen combat. Stand mouth agape as Uwais pulls off some of the same elbow & knee combo strikes you’ve seen from him in other movies, minus Gareth Evans’ killer choreography, while avoiding having his brain sucked out from his skull. If you remember the insane ending of the previous movie then you’ll have an idea where this one is going, but even then it sets up a wider universe and future movies that you won’t believe could actually happen. Beyond Skyline is beyond goofy, the dialogue is cornball, the acting suspect, but you won’t have seen anything else remotely like it and that is reason enough to want to see more. Bring on Above & Beyond Skyline or whatever the next movie will be called! I’ll be there for it.
Sometimes it’s really hard to gauge what movies to see while you’re scrambling around Sundance. Plenty of them have big names attached but you know there will be one or two star-studded films that just won’t click with the festival crowd. That was apparently the case with The Polka King, a title that virtually guaranteed nobody would be packing into those chilly tents for the screening, even with Jack Black in the lead role. I totally forgot it was at the festival earlier this year, and suddenly here is the first trailer for its upcoming Netflix release.
Jack Black stars as Jan Lewan, the real-life Polish swindler who set up a Polka Ponzi scheme that defrauded the people of Pennsylvania, all in a strange pursuit of the American Dream. The film is directed by Maya Forbes, who had another oddball Sundance entry a couple of years ago with Infinitely Polar Bear. Jenny Slate, Jason Schwartzman, Jacki Weaver, and J.B. Smoove co-star.
In some ways this looks like a northern version of Black’s stellar performance in Bernie, but something about this trailer feels off. There’s probably a reason for the discernible lack of buzz for this one, however I’d like to see and judge for myself. Small note: I did meet the real-life Jan Lewan at Sundance while on the bus in Park City, and he was every bit the big personality he appears to be in the movie.
