52 minutes ago, UK Eagle said:

Yup. That insufferable press conference gives me hives

Ballerina looks to have flopped badly for its budget, so it's another example of the consumer not wanting to watch a film with a girl boss in it. Speaking of which Iron Heart is out in 2 weeks and looks to be another corker

Spoiler

Sasha Baron Cohen is Mephisto in this and apparently Disney know the series is a turd because they filmed it a long time agol

I disagree that audiences don't want a female lead. I'm interested in Ballerina from the trailer and I like Ana de Armas, she was good in her limited role in the Bond movie. I think when you have a popular series and then do a spinoff, it's a challenge regardless. For example the Bourne Legacy with Jeremy Renner. Not a bad movie in it's own right, but it's hard to spinoff a popular series.

There are many shows and movies with female leads, many women in sci-fi, fantasy and action that are liked and respected. While I think there are some people who simply don't like diversity or see any diverse casting as "woke" and are resistant, I think most people don't really care they just want good stories and characters. I think a good Marvel example is Yelena. She wasn't just a pretty fact, she was a trained assassin, had humor and was tough. I haven't seen Thunderbolts yet, but I enjoyed her in the Black Widow movie and in Hawkeye.

2 hours ago, UK Eagle said:

Yup. That insufferable press conference gives me hives

Ballerina looks to have flopped badly for its budget, so it's another example of the consumer not wanting to watch a film with a girl boss in it. Speaking of which Iron Heart is out in 2 weeks and looks to be another corker

Spoiler

Sasha Baron Cohen is Mephisto in this and apparently Disney know the series is a turd because they filmed it a long time agol

Ballerina was awesome

29 minutes ago, Mike030270 said:

Ballerina was awesome

I'm hoping to see it this weekend

22 hours ago, NOTW said:

I disagree that audiences don't want a female lead. I'm interested in Ballerina from the trailer and I like Ana de Armas, she was good in her limited role in the Bond movie. I think when you have a popular series and then do a spinoff, it's a challenge regardless. For example the Bourne Legacy with Jeremy Renner. Not a bad movie in it's own right, but it's hard to spinoff a popular series.

There are many shows and movies with female leads, many women in sci-fi, fantasy and action that are liked and respected. While I think there are some people who simply don't like diversity or see any diverse casting as "woke" and are resistant, I think most people don't really care they just want good stories and characters. I think a good Marvel example is Yelena. She wasn't just a pretty fact, she was a trained assassin, had humor and was tough. I haven't seen Thunderbolts yet, but I enjoyed her in the Black Widow movie and in Hawkeye.

I disagree - box office and minutes watched have declined consistently for girl boss movies - fans are not watching it I don't mean to be sarcastic or glib but.... The Marvels died on its ass. Echo died on its ass. Batgirl got canned for a tax break. Star Wars died on its ass in variety of ways because the Force is Female. Indiana Jones ided on its ass. The Wheel of Time, The Rings of Power, Furiosa. Agathe Harkness, Dr Who Etc.

What did well? Top Gun, Deadpool, Barbie (great marketing, docent film), Oppenheimer, Wicked (great conversion of the theatre show),, House of the Dragon etc. Are there good female leads? Hell yes and I want those to be more present than the girl boss stuff. Sigourney Weaver is effing great in the Alien films. Sarah Connor is great in the early Terminator films. Cersei Lannister is largely awesome as a character. Rhea Seehorn is so good in Better Call Saul. The problem isn't women, it's the process and top down mandates that are killing the business.

21 hours ago, Mike030270 said:

Ballerina was awesome

Undoubtedly, but for the budget, its a dud. The original John Wick was super cheap (40m), so made a little money. Ballerina won't make its budget back.

1 hour ago, UK Eagle said:

I disagree - box office and minutes watched have declined consistently for girl boss movies - fans are not watching it I don't mean to be sarcastic or glib but.... The Marvels died on its ass. Echo died on its ass. Batgirl got canned for a tax break. Star Wars died on its ass in variety of ways because the Force is Female. Indiana Jones ided on its ass. The Wheel of Time, The Rings of Power, Furiosa. Agathe Harkness, Dr Who Etc.

What did well? Top Gun, Deadpool, Barbie (great marketing, docent film), Oppenheimer, Wicked (great conversion of the theatre show),, House of the Dragon etc. Are there good female leads? Hell yes and I want those to be more present than the girl boss stuff. Sigourney Weaver is effing great in the Alien films. Sarah Connor is great in the early Terminator films. Cersei Lannister is largely awesome as a character. Rhea Seehorn is so good in Better Call Saul. The problem isn't women, it's the process and top down mandates that are killing the business.

Undoubtedly, but for the budget, its a dud. The original John Wick was super cheap (40m), so made a little money. Ballerina won't make its budget back.

So you just cited examples of female leads that did well, and there are many more. So it's not that people do not want to see female leads, that alone is not a factor. There are movies and shows with male leads that also flop. It's quality. And if people perceive something's main objective is to be "woke" or forced diversity with an agenda, that is a factor. The marketing for the live action Snow White for example.

It's pretty rare that you're going to have 4 or 5 movies in the span of 4 weeks make monster money. Lilo & Stitch has been a monster, MI has made good money but it is currently under it's budget. Final Destination was a bit of a surprise looking at the figures and Karate Kid hasn't been huge considering Cobra Kai was pretty popular. It has made over half it's budget with 57.1 million total including overseas markets. It's not going to be a flop

On 6/13/2025 at 7:35 AM, UK Eagle said:

I disagree - box office and minutes watched have declined consistently for girl boss movies - fans are not watching it I don't mean to be sarcastic or glib but.... The Marvels died on its ass. Echo died on its ass. Batgirl got canned for a tax break. Star Wars died on its ass in variety of ways because the Force is Female. Indiana Jones ided on its ass. The Wheel of Time, The Rings of Power, Furiosa. Agathe Harkness, Dr Who Etc.

What did well? Top Gun, Deadpool, Barbie (great marketing, docent film), Oppenheimer, Wicked (great conversion of the theatre show),, House of the Dragon etc. Are there good female leads? Hell yes and I want those to be more present than the girl boss stuff. Sigourney Weaver is effing great in the Alien films. Sarah Connor is great in the early Terminator films. Cersei Lannister is largely awesome as a character. Rhea Seehorn is so good in Better Call Saul. The problem isn't women, it's the process and top down mandates that are killing the business.

Undoubtedly, but for the budget, its a dud. The original John Wick was super cheap (40m), so made a little money. Ballerina won't make its budget back.

I don't think they marketed well for Ballerina. Seemed like they expected fans of the John Wick movies to just show up

The movie Megan has been advertised like crazy. The first movie was actually pretty good but I think the story of AI vs AI is pretty stupid but it'll probably do well at the box office

On 6/13/2025 at 2:58 PM, NOTW said:

So you just cited examples of female leads that did well, and there are many more. So it's not that people do not want to see female leads, that alone is not a factor. There are movies and shows with male leads that also flop. It's quality. And if people perceive something's main objective is to be "woke" or forced diversity with an agenda, that is a factor. The marketing for the live action Snow White for example.

That list was the tip of the Iceberg; it was a 10 minute brain dump, but there are so many more out there, sadly.

If you look at the standard of films/tc, they replaced the men in that awful Ghostbusters film, it flopped and any criticism was called sexist/boob. Particularly in comic films, there are gender and race swaps of beloved characters that feel like a quota is in [;ace. In others like the female characters are already perfect, so have no hero's journey. Kim in Better Call Saul had a great arc because she was flawed all the way through. Rey Palpatine was just perfect and came across as charmless and boring.

Forcing diversity and not talent, updating properties for the "modern audience" etc has lead to a big downturn in the business, not helped by Hollywood's extra curricular activities. The lack of success shows the customers don't want it at the volume we've had it and its been consistent for 5+ years now. Hollywood ain't caught up and is increasingly loaded with massive debt

The Acolyte was perhaps the absolute epitome of everything wrong in the TV and Movie industry. Bad writing, bad directing, bad acting, full on Hollywood ,etc.

19 hours ago, Mike030270 said:

I don't think they marketed well for Ballerina. Seemed like they expected fans of the John Wick movies to just show up

The movie Megan has been advertised like crazy. The first movie was actually pretty good but I think the story of AI vs AI is pretty stupid but it'll probably do well at the box office

I only knew of Ballerina because of people saying it was out and was wasn't the best. The concept is kind of neat but it needs to be made at the fraction of the price for what they did with it. I heard a lot of good things about Megan, but for moderness, I just got around to watching the 3:10 to Yuma, which was bloody good.

2 hours ago, UK Eagle said:

That list was the tip of the Iceberg; it was a 10 minute brain dump, but there are so many more out there, sadly.

If you look at the standard of films/tc, they replaced the men in that awful Ghostbusters film, it flopped and any criticism was called sexist/boob. Particularly in comic films, there are gender and race swaps of beloved characters that feel like a quota is in [;ace. In others like the female characters are already perfect, so have no hero's journey. Kim in Better Call Saul had a great arc because she was flawed all the way through. Rey Palpatine was just perfect and came across as charmless and boring.

Forcing diversity and not talent, updating properties for the "modern audience" etc has lead to a big downturn in the business, not helped by Hollywood's extra curricular activities. The lack of success shows the customers don't want it at the volume we've had it and its been consistent for 5+ years now. Hollywood ain't caught up and is increasingly loaded with massive debt

The Acolyte was perhaps the absolute epitome of everything wrong in the TV and Movie industry. Bad writing, bad directing, bad acting, full on Hollywood ,etc.

I only knew of Ballerina because of people saying it was out and was wasn't the best. The concept is kind of neat but it needs to be made at the fraction of the price for what they did with it. I heard a lot of good things about Megan, but for moderness, I just got around to watching the 3:10 to Yuma, which was bloody good.

Whoever has been saying that is wrong. The movie was great. It also has pretty high audience scores on RT so it seems like those that have watched it liked it

22 hours ago, Mike030270 said:

I don't think they marketed well for Ballerina. Seemed like they expected fans of the John Wick movies to just show up

The movie Megan has been advertised like crazy. The first movie was actually pretty good but I think the story of AI vs AI is pretty stupid but it'll probably do well at the box office

It's also been released at the wrong time of the year. There are the family friendly movies in Lilo & Stitch and How To Train Your Dragon which have killed it at the box office. That also doesn't include the blockbuster in MI - The Final Reckoning and Thunderbolts (which hasn't been a huge Marvel success yet made 380 mill globally and 188 mill in the USA).

For comparison, when Chapter 4 released, Creed 3 was the biggest movie for March with 145 million in the USA having released at the start of the month. John Wick made a whopping 94 million it's opening week but ran against pretty much nothing. Shazam was a huge flop and released the week earlier. Dungeons and Dragons and Air were decent movies and released a week and 2 weeks after John Wick. Super Mario released like 3 weeks after John Wick and destroyed just about everything making 490 million in April vs John Wick's 73.5 mill and Dungeon and Dragons 73 mill for the month. If they release at the end of March it probably makes a sheet ton more money with Snow White being a flop and Mincraft/Sinners not releasing until April.

The first M3gan was decent even though all the promos were centred around the stupid dance. The second one looks like a sequel that's not needed but they'll try and cash in. I'll probably go check it out anyway when they have a cheap screening for it.

3 hours ago, UK Eagle said:

That list was the tip of the Iceberg; it was a 10 minute brain dump, but there are so many more out there, sadly.

If you look at the standard of films/tc, they replaced the men in that awful Ghostbusters film, it flopped and any criticism was called sexist/boob. Particularly in comic films, there are gender and race swaps of beloved characters that feel like a quota is in [;ace. In others like the female characters are already perfect, so have no hero's journey. Kim in Better Call Saul had a great arc because she was flawed all the way through. Rey Palpatine was just perfect and came across as charmless and boring.

Forcing diversity and not talent, updating properties for the "modern audience" etc has lead to a big downturn in the business, not helped by Hollywood's extra curricular activities. The lack of success shows the customers don't want it at the volume we've had it and its been consistent for 5+ years now. Hollywood ain't caught up and is increasingly loaded with massive debt

The Acolyte was perhaps the absolute epitome of everything wrong in the TV and Movie industry. Bad writing, bad directing, bad acting, full on Hollywood ,etc.

First, let's look at what I already said, which is agreeing with this point about forced woke/diversity/agenda, quoted below.

Second, what I said prior was that I disagree that SOLELY because of a female lead, people won't see a movie. There are obviously lots of examples of female leads that men have watched and enjoyed. Alien with Ripley, The Hunger Games, Resident Evil, Terminator for example. This started with Ballerina, which is a spinoff. They've already done a TV show spinoff on Peacock as well. It's to be expected that spinoffs may not be as successful. I thought the trailer for Ballerina looked good. I don't go to the theater much but I will definitely watch when it's on streaming. They've tried male spinoffs that also didn't work like The Bourne Legacy.

Now regarding race swapping, that's different than casting diverse actors such as having a John Wick universe spinoff with a woman. There are some gender/race swaps that simply don't matter for the character. For Salt, the books had a male but for the movie they cast Angelina Jolie. The remake of The Omega Man (Charlton Heston) cast Will Smith in I am Legend. The race of the character did not matter. The Batman cast Jeffrey Wright as Jim Gordon and his race didn't matter either, he's a great actor and I think fit the part well.

Hollywood tries too hard to overcorrect and force diversity. For a long time, there was the opposite: the white washing of characters. White actors have played parts of various cultures throughout film history, even in more recent movies. There have been horrible racial and cultural stereotypes. Look at Breakfast at Tiffany's and Mickey Rooney playing a racial stereotype Chinese man for example. Movies with characters that are supposed to be Middle Eastern, Hispanic or other cultures and they're played by British white guys. Or the white savior plot device where a white man is the star in a movie about Japanese samurai, Naive Americans, etc.

Now there is internet reaction to a comic book series for Black Panther where a white man becomes Black Panther, the Ryan Gosling joke meme coming to life.

I wish they would just embrace true diversity vs forced diversity, and just focus on good stories and hiring the best actors to play the roles. Because most people don't avoid movies solely based on race or gender. There are movies with leads that are women or people of color that have brought in big box office numbers.

On 6/13/2025 at 8:58 AM, NOTW said:

So you just cited examples of female leads that did well, and there are many more. So it's not that people do not want to see female leads, that alone is not a factor. There are movies and shows with male leads that also flop. It's quality. And if people perceive something's main objective is to be "woke" or forced diversity with an agenda, that is a factor. The marketing for the live action Snow White for example.

42 minutes ago, Mat said:

Whoever has been saying that is wrong. The movie was great. It also has pretty high audience scores on RT so it seems like those that have watched it liked it

The vibe out there is its ok to good and the box office reflects that - nothing wrong in that. at all.

But as an example to the contrary, Sinners had a constant vibe of really good, etc and has had good legs to it (I had no idea it was out or who was in it initally). I don't see Ballerina doing that - and that is the issue Hollywood has. Films last a week or two and largely head to streaming to die. If DVDs and BluRays were still promoted, it would stand a chance of making its money back.

1 minute ago, NOTW said:

First, let's look at what I already said, which is agreeing with this point about forced woke/diversity/agenda, quoted below.

Second, what I said prior was that I disagree that SOLELY because of a female lead, people won't see a movie. There are obviously lots of examples of female leads that men have watched and enjoyed. Alien with Ripley, The Hunger Games, Resident Evil, Terminator for example. This started with Ballerina, which is a spinoff. They've already done a TV show spinoff on Peacock as well. It's to be expected that spinoffs may not be as successful. They've tried male spinoffs that also didn't work like The Bourne Legacy.

Now regarding race swapping, that's different than casting diverse actors such as having a John Wick universe spinoff with a woman. I thought the trailer for Ballerina looked good. I don't go to the theater much but I will definitely watch when it's on streaming. There are some gender/race swaps that simply don't matter for the character. For Salt, the books had a male but for the movie they cast Angelina Jolie. The remake of The Omega Man (Charlton Heston) cast Will Smith in I am Legend. The race of the character did not matter. The Batman cast Jeffrey Wright as Jim Gordon and his race didn't matter either, he's a great actor and I think fit the part well.

Hollywood tries too hard to overcorrect and force diversity. For a long time, there was the opposite: the white washing of characters. White actors have played parts of various cultures throughout film history, even in more recent movies. There have been horrible racial and cultural stereotypes. Look at Breakfast at Tiffany's and Mickey Rooney playing a racial stereotype Chinese man for example. Movies with characters that are supposed to be Middle Eastern, Hispanic or other cultures and they're played by British white guys. Or the white savior plot device where a white man is the star in a movie about Japanese samurai, Naive Americans, etc.

Now there is internet reaction to a comic book series for Black Panther where a white man becomes Black Panther, the Ryan Gosling joke meme coming to life.

I wish they would just embrace true diversity vs forced diversity, and just focus on good stories and hiring the best actors to play the roles. Because most people don't avoid movies solely based on race or gender. There are movies with leads that are women or people of color that have brought in big box office numbers.

The issue is, so many bad female lead films and TV series have been **** out and heavily promoted as great, good, fantastic, that people no longer trust the process. I am one of those people. There is such little objectivity to say, this is a bit of turd but have fun - reviewers will just say 9/10, soooo good. etc And your comment on Balerina is correct. Watching it on streaming is less of a risk and should be a cheap and fun action film - not with a big ish budget it can't make back.

I don't want a white person playing a character like a Hispanic or Japanese; the character is created as it was for a reason - but course correcting the other way is not better . I did chuckle at seeing the roles reversed for the White Panther and seeing how angry some people got about changing his race.

I know some Harry Potter fans are biblically angry about Snape being race swapped for "reasons" in the TV series. I've seen 2 hours of HP films at best and not read any of the books, so have little attachment to that cult, but I get why people are angry. They have a vision in their head of Snape being a pale white man....

I gave up on Hollywood altogether as soon as I heard that they'd made Matlock a woman.

Lol this discussion should really get moved out of this thread

1 hour ago, NOTW said:

First, let's look at what I already said, which is agreeing with this point about forced woke/diversity/agenda, quoted below.

Second, what I said prior was that I disagree that SOLELY because of a female lead, people won't see a movie. There are obviously lots of examples of female leads that men have watched and enjoyed. Alien with Ripley, The Hunger Games, Resident Evil, Terminator for example. This started with Ballerina, which is a spinoff. They've already done a TV show spinoff on Peacock as well. It's to be expected that spinoffs may not be as successful. I thought the trailer for Ballerina looked good. I don't go to the theater much but I will definitely watch when it's on streaming. They've tried male spinoffs that also didn't work like The Bourne Legacy.

Now regarding race swapping, that's different than casting diverse actors such as having a John Wick universe spinoff with a woman. There are some gender/race swaps that simply don't matter for the character. For Salt, the books had a male but for the movie they cast Angelina Jolie. The remake of The Omega Man (Charlton Heston) cast Will Smith in I am Legend. The race of the character did not matter. The Batman cast Jeffrey Wright as Jim Gordon and his race didn't matter either, he's a great actor and I think fit the part well.

Hollywood tries too hard to overcorrect and force diversity. For a long time, there was the opposite: the white washing of characters. White actors have played parts of various cultures throughout film history, even in more recent movies. There have been horrible racial and cultural stereotypes. Look at Breakfast at Tiffany's and Mickey Rooney playing a racial stereotype Chinese man for example. Movies with characters that are supposed to be Middle Eastern, Hispanic or other cultures and they're played by British white guys. Or the white savior plot device where a white man is the star in a movie about Japanese samurai, Naive Americans, etc.

Now there is internet reaction to a comic book series for Black Panther where a white man becomes Black Panther, the Ryan Gosling joke meme coming to life.

I wish they would just embrace true diversity vs forced diversity, and just focus on good stories and hiring the best actors to play the roles. Because most people don't avoid movies solely based on race or gender. There are movies with leads that are women or people of color that have brought in big box office numbers.

I do agree with the argument that hollywood tends to push the diversity. The race swapping doesn't need to happen. Just create a new character for that race

1 hour ago, UK Eagle said:

The vibe out there is its ok to good and the box office reflects that - nothing wrong in that. at all.

But as an example to the contrary, Sinners had a constant vibe of really good, etc and has had good legs to it (I had no idea it was out or who was in it initally). I don't see Ballerina doing that - and that is the issue Hollywood has. Films last a week or two and largely head to streaming to die. If DVDs and BluRays were still promoted, it would stand a chance of making its money back.

I get that some may not be into the female led assassin movies because a lot of fights just don't seem realistic when a small woman is fighting some big guy or multiple men and wins easily

Ballerina doesn't do that though. They brought it up and had an alternative solution that was implemented and it worked great

23 hours ago, UK Eagle said:

The vibe out there is its ok to good and the box office reflects that - nothing wrong in that. at all.

But as an example to the contrary, Sinners had a constant vibe of really good, etc and has had good legs to it (I had no idea it was out or who was in it initally). I don't see Ballerina doing that - and that is the issue Hollywood has. Films last a week or two and largely head to streaming to die. If DVDs and BluRays were still promoted, it would stand a chance of making its money back.

It is tied for the highest audience scores in the series with the 4th John Wick on Rotten Tomatoes with both sitting at 93%. It's a 7.3 out of 10 on IMDB which is about par for the rest of the series which is around 7.4 to 7.6. Anyone that has actually watched the film seems to have enjoyed it so the vibe doesn't seem to be poor, it's been released against some monster movies and should have come out in March to capitalize on the box office.

Sinners had a lot of hype. It was announced last year that Coogler was making something without releasing many details. The hype began building when Michael B Jordan was cast. Their working relationship has generally lead to some amazing films and Sinners was excellent.

23 hours ago, The_Omega said:

I gave up on Hollywood altogether as soon as I heard that they'd made Matlock a woman.

On 6/13/2025 at 7:35 AM, UK Eagle said:

I disagree - box office and minutes watched have declined consistently for girl boss movies - fans are not watching it I don't mean to be sarcastic or glib but.... The Marvels died on its ass. Echo died on its ass. Batgirl got canned for a tax break. Star Wars died on its ass in variety of ways because the Force is Female. Indiana Jones ided on its ass. The Wheel of Time, The Rings of Power, Furiosa. Agathe Harkness, Dr Who Etc.

What did well? Top Gun, Deadpool, Barbie (great marketing, docent film), Oppenheimer, Wicked (great conversion of the theatre show),, House of the Dragon etc. Are there good female leads? Hell yes and I want those to be more present than the girl boss stuff. Sigourney Weaver is effing great in the Alien films. Sarah Connor is great in the early Terminator films. Cersei Lannister is largely awesome as a character. Rhea Seehorn is so good in Better Call Saul. The problem isn't women, it's the process and top down mandates that are killing the business.

Undoubtedly, but for the budget, its a dud. The original John Wick was super cheap (40m), so made a little money. Ballerina won't make its budget back.

Kim Wexler is my all time favorite female tv character

On 6/20/2025 at 6:40 PM, Agent23 said:

Kim Wexler is my all time favorite female tv character

Same here. They put so much care into the character and Rhea Seehorn nailed the performance.

Which galaxy brain thought this was a good idea?

Making a new series from a popular character that had 3 highly rated series elsewhere and saying. don't watch what made it great in the first place. And we could tell by what made they had no idea who Daredevil was

The much unanticipated Ironheart is out. The shills think its great. X is far less complimentary and mocking. If anyone watches it, good luck

1 hour ago, UK Eagle said:

The much unanticipated Ironheart is out. The shills think its great. X is far less complimentary and mocking. If anyone watches it, good luck

my disney+ app on my tv isnt working right. that coupled with the anger i get when a commercial comes on is going to make me cancel it. if i can ever figure out how....

Spoiler

I liked the AI. The hood looks so goofy when wearing it lol

That's really all I have for it. First 3 episodes were pretty meh to me

19 hours ago, BFit said:

my disney+ app on my tv isnt working right. that coupled with the anger i get when a commercial comes on is going to make me cancel it. if i can ever figure out how....

Even commercial free, I get the coming up spam. I actually watched some of Andor on my PC to avoid it,

18 hours ago, Mike030270 said:

Spoiler

I liked the AI. The hood looks so goofy when wearing it lol

That's really all I have for it. First 3 episodes were pretty meh to me

I saw one comment that said

Spoiler

Did anyone in Marvel not think that perhaps it was a bad look to have Ironheart and cohorts be criminals as POC/LGBTQ? Are they not enforcing some stereotypes that exist in the ether?

And the new FF trailer is out there

I don't hate it at a;;, but it doesn't make want to see it in the Cinema either.