X-Men: Apocalypse

Right, I'll bring everyone up to speed.

younger versions of Jean Grey, Scott Summers, and Ororo Munroe confirmed.

The film will also be set in 1983.

No exact plot details yet.

This horse isn't dead yet?

What, the X-Men movie horse?

Not when it just had another highly successful and enjoyed movie come out.

I'm not sure how financially successful Days of Future Past has been. Its production budget was $200 mil; it's made $206 mil domestically. Add to that the cost of all the marketing, and the profits depend on what proportion of the overseas money the studio is getting.

That's compared to:

X-Men: $75 mil. production budget —> $157 mil. domestic box office

X-Men 2: $110 mil. production budget —> $214 mil. domestic box office

X-Men 3: $210 mil. production budget —> $234 mil. domestic box office

Wolverine Origins: $150 mil. production budget —> $180 mil. domestic box office

X-Men: First Class: $160 mil. production budget —> $146 mil. domestic box office

The Wolverine: $120 mil. production budget —> $132 mil. domestic box office

Since the studio doesn't get all the money from its domestic box office (some of it goes to theatres, etc.), it looks to me like the franchise has been struggling ever since The Last Stand, unless they've got good overseas contracts. If they do, then they're well positioned - Days of Future Past is doing far better overseas than any of the previous movies

edited 17th Jun '14 9:41:59 AM by WarriorEowyn

The threshold of profitability for movies has been shifting over the last 15 years or so. Before if a movie doesn't make double its budget domestically, it's not successful. That's perfectly reasonable when the budget is 75 million. But when a movie has a budget in the range of 200 million, they really can't possibly expect the movie to make 400 million domestically, those movies are pretty rare. For that big of a movie if you can get about 25% over the budget (so make 250 m. on a 200 m. movie) then they consider it profitable.

One thing they've been doing is mitigating the budget/box office ratio with certain advertising/merchandising deals, not strict Product Placement within the movie but getting sponsorship so that actual box office is less important. Toy heavy movies like Star Wars and Transformers have basically already matched the budget before the movie even comes out, making the box office itself almost irrelevant. I know for X-Men:DOFP I saw some adverts for Axe body spray.

Plus, Fox has the extra incentive of if they don't keep making X-Men movies, they have to give the rights back to Marvel, so they're probably willing to set a much lower bar for how good the movies have to do in order to warrant a sequel.

Also, the movie's been out for, like, a month.

It's a bit premature to start citing its box office performance when it's still at the box office, performing.

One month, and it's already outperformed every X-Men film that wasn't X2 or Last Stand, which means it's doing really well for the franchise.

edited 17th Jun '14 10:09:56 AM by TobiasDrake

Wow, I did not realize First Class was such a failure. That is kinda sad as I really liked it. More so, because it pretty much confirms Wolverine is, apparently, what people want to see.

It made more than The Wolverine did, so I don't think it confirms that Wolverine is what people mostly want to see. I think it's problem is that it came right after The Last Stand and Wolverine Origins, which were both terrible, so people didn't trust Fox to make decent X-Men films any more. It might not have made a lot of money at the theatres, but it restored people's confidence in the franchise, which enabled subsequent movies to do better.

First Class is my favourite of the films.

edited 17th Jun '14 10:31:47 AM by WarriorEowyn

And sometimes producing a good movie "on time and under budget" is more important to the studio than if it makes money. Cause a movie can make a profit but constant fights with the director/producer makes the movie come in late and over budget, hedging what profit they could have made and making the process a miserable experience. First Class was a good movie with a solid creative team they could trust with future projects, so long as those movies don't TANK (ie less than 75% of the budget domestically, international can make up the rest) they are in good hands.

I agree with this. The performance of the previous film can have a heavy impact on the performance of the next. The Last Stand tops the charts for X-films because, despite its quality, it was riding on the success of X-Men and X2. After Last Stand and Origins, people were reluctant to get burned again, but with First Class reinvigorating the franchise - sadly, it appears to have done so through DVD sales and piracy rather than actual box office performance - Days of Future Past was set to start making some serious money again.

edited 17th Jun '14 10:46:29 AM by TobiasDrake

Another enjoyable film makes 3 out of 6? Okay, some of you liked First Class but did anyone want to see it in the first place? What is a Last Stand? An announcement of a dozen prequels? If there must be more superhero movies at least let's see some not on screen in the last decade or two. Guardians of The Galaxy haven't had anything other than that comic book revival in recent memory. Hancock may have been another Flying Brick but at least he wasn't a familiar flying brick.

I have to ask, given your current posts in the thread - you inherently have something against the X-Men movies in general where you don't think they should be making them anymore?

What does that even mean? If we went see it we wanted to see it. I don't understand the question.

I don't disagree variety is good, but it is not like X-Men is a single story. You can tell uncountable stories out of the X-Franchise. I would hate to see it die just because Fox can't seem to grasp that and keep telling the same "Xavier vs Magneto" and "humans vs mutants" over and over again.

I believe serial story telling has far more potential than a lot of vocal people seem to think.

The potential for narrative now that Hollywood is in the state where multiple sequels are bankable means stories can be told in a way which have never been possible before in Hollywood. If people want to see something new happen in cinema, new properties can give you that, but the new franchise giants really can too.

Part of the audience schism comes from the distinction between Hero-Driven narrative and Villain-Driven narrative. Films are typically villain-driven, while comic books are typically hero-driven. Comics are all about the hero. Villains are little pocket-adventures that come up over the course of the hero's story, but they are by and large disposable; Spider-Man fights Doc Ock in this part of his story, then in the next issue, he fights the Lizard, and then we have an offhand beatdown of Shocker to set up his fight with Rhino, etc. etc. He'll be fighting someone else by the next story, we all know that, because this isn't about the villain, it's about Spider-Man and how all these villains influence his life.

This is because comics, like television shows, are a serial format. There's only so many times the villain can escape or elude defeat or whatever before they cease to be a serious threat, and then the only thing to do is ramp up the threat with a bigger villain. If you're going to have another season, then you need to keep coming up with new villains, because the audience is here to see the hero.

That's unusual for film. Film and books tend to opt for villain-driven narrative. The story is about the villain and the great lengths the hero must take to overcome the villain. And then the story dies with the villain. That's why sequels are so reviled with many filmgoers; because they feel that the story should have ended with the villain, because that's how film works. Star Wars has three films, and they're all about ONE villain and the efforts to take him down. Then three more films were added to it, to tell the origin story for that same villain. The Lord of the Rings, three books, three movies, ONE villain. Harry Potter, seven books, eight movies, ONE villain. The Matrix, three films, ONE villain.

For much of film's history, the idea of a hero-driven franchise was rare - although it did happen, the James Bond franchise is a perfect example - but in recent years, as Hollywood has leapt onto the sequel bandwagon, film has become more and more of a hero-driven medium. The idea that once the villain is defeated, that is the definitive end to the story, has given way to franchising new adventures with new villains to challenge the same heroes, and people who hold to the old way of thinking, that the story is about the villain and ends with the villain, reject that notion.

edited 17th Jun '14 2:01:46 PM by TobiasDrake

The best example of that I feel is the Dark Knight Saga. The Villains are self contained, but they are all stepping stones towards the struggle of saving Gothem.

Since you asked, I'm tired of the superhero genre pushing out the same stories slightly modified for different decades or forms of media. The first two are still okay but Last Stand was a severely watered down Dark Phoenix saga. Been there three, four times already and it was better each of those times. Then we got Wolverine Origins...excuse me, X-men Origins: Wolverine. Thankfully First Class was a more literal than just going to a comic story arc but then Days Of Future Past, done three times already, minimum. I suppose I could have gotten behind Apocalypse if it had come before but between this and another Wolverine movie I just want X-men to move aside for something else.

Some of the base appeal of X-men is waning. Beyond "My genetic code is better than yours" feeling played out, a strength of X-men is the kids growing up, becoming teachers to new kids. Turning back the clock kind of defeats the purpose (so does sliding the timescale but that's another topic). Then there is an air of unpredictability and distinction. Mutants can be so much, they can come from anywhere...Wolverine, Magneto, Mystique, Xavier, Wolverine. We know them already! Jean Grey too! Surprise us Fox!

edited 19th Jun '14 3:20:32 AM by IndirectActiveTransport

It kinda beats the purpose of having bought an X-Men franchise if you're going to use your new characters instead of, well, you know, the X-Men.

There are at last a hundred of X-Men out there. And more than the X-Men to the X-Franchise (X-Factor, X-Force, Excalibur, etc).

Also, the 'X-Men' don't refer to any particular group of characters. But to the team. You can have a formation without any of the "classic" X-Men, or even any character from the books, and still be an X-Men story.

I don't disagree with you. I do agree the X-movie franchise should diversify more. But I disagree with the assumption no "X-Men" movie should ever be done again just because there have been 7 movies already^note 2 of which don't even use the name 'X-Men'. The notion is just silly to me.

edited 19th Jun '14 5:44:37 AM by Heatth

The X-Men Franchise already defeats its own purpose by virtue of existing. The less you think about Charles Xaver's secret mutant army dedicated to violently enforcing the ideal that mutants can be peaceful, respectable members of society and not an army of secret bogeyman who use violence to enforce their ideals, the more you'll enjoy it.

They're the comic book equivalent of a popcorn flick. Turn off your brain and enjoy super-powered fighters punching each other for two hours, because any pretense of greater depth and meaning is self-contradictory at best.

edited 19th Jun '14 9:29:30 AM by TobiasDrake

I wasn't looking for "Greater Depth", that why I typed base appeal. Unless sticking to an interesting premise and telling new stories are the definition of great depth now.

That's the nature of internet argument I guess. I'm content to leave an argument but I check on it the next day anyway because I'm sure something else will come up.

Not to totally change the subject, but I wonder if they will use the popular "pestilence" as one of the four horseman or the Biblically correct "conquest".

edited 22nd Jun '14 5:40:00 PM by shiro_okami

Despite the rumors, looks like Bryan Singer isn't leaving.

https://twitter.com/BryanSinger/status/480861626174697472

Whatever happened to the lawsuit against him, anyway?