DreamWorks stuff

Hate to break the news, but unless this television spot is wildly misleading, Chelsea is indeed just a villain and nothing more.

Was kind of hoping they wouldn't actually go through with Always Chaotic Evil, but alas.

Wonder if they'll lampoon Disney Fairies next by depicting fairies as The Fair Folk. Or maybe Hercules by showing Herc and the Olympians with all their unsavory parts from the myths, barring the rape.

I feel like the Fairy Godmother does the work for fairies. It would be neat to see something made for kids that show the Greek gods as the assholes that they are though.

I pointed out earlier, but the "Krakens are good, mermaids are evil" pattern really fits in the pattern established by the Shrek movies (ogres are good, the fairy and the prince are evil) the How to Train Your Dragon movies (dragons are good) and The Bad Guys (the wolf is good, the guinea pig is evil).

It took me way too long to realize how well-timed this movie's release is to The Little Mermaid remake. Pretty sure someone in this thread probably mentioned it too when doing the character design comparisons regarding the mean girl villain and Ariel.

I wonder if that was on purpose. After all, Ruby Gillman went down the pipeline surprisingly fast for an animated film.

There’s a new DW show coming. Looks very YA friendly. It’s called Fright Krewe and it’s horror themed and Eli Roth worked on it. Here’s the announcement on Twitter: [1]

ohhh interesting!

Okay, wait… yeah they deleted the tweet.

Maybe they were saving it for Annacy or something.

Edited by BigBadShadow25 on Jun 8th 2023 at 12:32:25 PM

I lost the link, but there's a novelization of The Bad Guys A Very Bad Holiday already circulating.

Hey, if anyone's interested in watching Ruby Gillman, I sure hope you guys have hundreds of friends to take with you, because as it stands, it's tracking to earn $8 million domestically. Which, if it does happen, kinda sorta gives it the second worst opening for a DWA movie, which is slightly less bad than Spirit: Untamed. (*insert cringe emoji here*)

To be abundantly clear, this is not the fault of the crew. So no harassing them or saying stuff like "hahaha you guys thought this would stand a chance against Spider-Man! Hahaha!"

The fault is firmly on the marketers who A, gave the movie a marketing campaign that's crawling with spoilers and B, convinced the studio that it could compete with something as hotly anticipated as Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. (They probably looked at ITSV's numbers and thought "pfff, we can take that.") If anything, I'll bet the crewmembers are shooting death glares at the marketers over this hiccup.

Honestly, it’s miles away from Spider Verse, its opening against Indiana Jones, and Uni only started marketing around the Mario movie. Nowhere near the head start of Puss in Boots or The Bad Guys.

Tracking numbers usually considers only pre-sales, so it's possible the number could be higher when actual in-person ticket sales start coming in. Especially if the film gets good word of mouth from current advanced screenings (there's a implication that Regal Theaters' upcoming advanced $5 Monday Mystery Movie is going to Ruby Gillman, since its the first PG family film in that line that'll release soon after.)

It is slightly annoying, in an age where people vocally complain about not enough original/non-IP films coming out (visibly mainstream or otherwise), to see initial interest so low.

That being said, Ruby Gillman has the unfortunate luck of being placed in a tail end of an unusually packed June, where films are going to be eating each alive.

I did some quick digging and yeah, June 30 is both Indy Day and Ruby Gillman Day.

That actually tracks. I somehow forgot that Word of Mouth can help a movie out immensely. Case in point, the Mario movie and everyone telling each other "hey, this is actually pretty good!"

But yeah, I'm still a bit (okay, very) concerned about its chances, though. In an inevitable battle between proven and established IP vs. original IP, how often does the latter luck out? (Not rhetorical, honestly asking.)

UPDATE: We now know what the unannounced DWA movie is! It's called Orion and the Dark, featuring Jacob Tremblay, Paul Walter Hauser and Werner Herzog, releasing on Netflix in 2024 and written by Charlie Kaufman.

Yes, that Charlie Kaufman.

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Jun 13th 2023 at 10:25:03 AM

I hope this movie is as experimental as Anomalisa in terms of animation style.

The problem with Ruby Gillman is barring some major twist that the trailers somehow managed not to spoiler, it just looks really generic. We've had the 'social outcast has a secret legacy and has to fight the well-loved Jerkass' plot plenty of times. Then there's the people who got excited for a potential LGBT plot based on the first trailer only for the subsequent trailers to crush that possibility utterly. It kind of killed interest.

Edited by PhiSat on Jun 13th 2023 at 1:07:18 PM

I've been increasingly meh on "the characters/creatures from classic stories you thought were villains are THE REAL MISUNDERSTOOD HEROES, and the archetypical good guys are THE REAL MONSTERS" stories in general. It's starting to feel real cliche at this point.

As an exception: The Bad Guys did it pretty well, but then The Bad Guys wasn't really about that.

Honestly yeah, its really started to lose its nuance and be like the black and white monster morality it once sent up.

I have no idea if this actually played a role, but it struck me that the movie was potentially ill-timed due to the "controversy" over the Little Mermaid live action remake, since the antagonist of the Ruby movie is an obvious Corrupted Character Copy of Ariel.

Like if you you like the remake you might think that the movie is a Take That! and if you don't like the remake, you might also think that this movie is a Take That!.

As a side note, when I saw the trailer, I was amused by the thought that Gillman was a Shout-Out to Lovecraft's Fish People story The Shadow Over Innsmouth. But I see that Lovecraft actually spelled it Gilman. And I also realize the obvious pun on a fish person being named "gill-man". Which I assume both works are making.

Edited by Hodor2 on Jun 13th 2023 at 1:22:41 AM

It is true that the kind of role reversals this movie is aiming for are more the norm then the exception nowadays. I still think the idea of a kraken protagonist is pretty fun regardless, but unfortunately that can only go so far when everything else about the movies plot just looks like the most by the numbers superhero origin story imaginable.

I think flopping is fine every once in a while. Dreamworks has been knocking it out of the park lately and you cant win them all. I do hope their other upcoming movies fare better.

That movie is good and good for you.

Finally! Someone posted and I can post this! I saw this new upcoming movie and wanted to comment on it!

Orion And The Dark!

I feel like The Bad Guys kinda works with all those now dated role reversals because it's still doing it to some level of depth. ie. the role reversal is more the means than the end.

Like sure the 'heroic' species is still a one note monster jerk villain (if an entertaining one) but the reversed 'evil' animals don't start off good and still posess a lot of characteristics that make them more Anti-villains/heroes. There's a character arc involved here, most obviously with Snake, whose face turn is actually achieved by still being a sneaky snake in the grass.

It does the whole Women Are Wiser thing as well for example, but the girl characters still have flaws and synergy with the male characters, it's not just a whole movie of that trope, which in this era of filmmaking is actually quite surprising. :P I'd in fact argue that besides the obvious ship teases, Diane's character could work as well male, and Webs is male in the books.

Edited by Psi001 on Jun 13th 2023 at 3:34:20 PM

I still invoke the Wolf x Snake ship because of the three words rule!

Also I do like the fact that the crew stuck with humans as background characters. Not only do the cast stand out, it highlights the whole stereotyping much more a human invention, something Zootopia missed the mark in hindsight.

Edited by Ookamikun on Jun 14th 2023 at 1:04:51 AM