Guilty Pleasures #46 - Justice League

Over the course of 10 years and over a dozen movies, it’s all been building up to this, this is… wait no, that was Avengers: Infinity War, let’s take a look at Justice League

DC comics do not have a good track record with movies. Since launching the DC Cinematic Universe, only one of their movies has a been a critical success. But most made money at the box office, here we’re looking at DC’s first bonafide flop. The movie was a bit of a mess behind the scenes thanks to Zack Snyder quitting the project and being replaced by Joss Whedon, who rewrote parts of the script and that entailed intensive reshoots.

For the record, I hold no ill will to Zack Snyder for his decision to step down. The loss of a loved one, especially under those circumstances, is a horrible thing to go through and I totally understand his decision to step aside. Then studio then mandated the film be under 2 hours long and wanted it released by the end of 2017 so executives could get their bonuses before the merger of WB and AT&T, this in spite of some hiccups in post-production.

The extent of the reshoots brought the budget up to $300m, making it one of the most expensive movies ever made. It made $657m at the box office; once marketing was factored in that lead to an estimated $60m loss for the studio. So, where did this movie go wrong? And did it deserve to fail?

Guilty Pleasures #45 - Spider-man: Homecoming

Time to go back to Spider-man in his third iteration of the 21^st Century. I took issue with the Raimi Spider-man stories, mostly because of the dialogue which has aged terribly. I also don’t like the direction they went with the relationship between Peter and MJ (although it’s a million times better than selling their marriage to the devil)

The Amazing Spider-man movies are less cringeworthy when it comes to dialogue but have issues when it comes to storytelling and tone, with the second movie in particular being too busy setting up multiple plotlines and attempting to establish an expanded universe, rather than being a smaller self-contained story.

Sony were knocked back by the ‘poor’ performance of the Amazing Spider-man 2, dropping its sequels and I have no idea what they’re doing with Venom. They made a deal with Disney to incorporate Spider-man into the Marvel universe. My understanding of it, beyond merchandise which is another can of worms is this: Spider-man can become a part of the Marvel cinematic universe. Sony are still responsible for making (and financing) the movies, but with Kevin Feige, overseeing it as producer, as he is with all MCU movies. Sony do not have to pay Disney for any MCU characters they use, but at the same time, Sony do not get paid when Spider-man appears in any other Marvel movie. 

So, after making his debut in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, Spider-man would be in his first MCU solo movie with Spider-man: Homecoming.

The movie was well received with a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (average 7.7/10) and made $880m on a modest $175m (well, modest by Marvel standards) budget. Is it deserving of all that praise? Let’s take a look

Guilty Pleasures #44 - L: Change the World

You may remember I’m not huge fan of the Live Action Death Note Movies

Yes, that one too, but we’re focusing today on the Japanese ones. Whilst they’re mostly faithful adaptations, the pacing is far too fast, and it ends up pulling shortcuts that I ultimately didn’t end up liking. That said, I probably was a bit harsh, it could’ve been the Netflix one.

But what happens when the same crew don’t have a source material to adapt? What if they’re taking a popular Death Note character and doing something entirely new with him? Well, you get L: Change the world

Guilty Pleasures #43 - Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

When Disney bought Star Wars, it was an expensive process, and whilst Merchandise will likely make them everything they paid and more, it’s good to have a few movies to provide new toys to sell, plus they generally make the big bucks. So began a series of spin-offs, a series that may well have ended with the second one. I’ll leave my thoughts on Solo for another time, but let’s resume our look at Star Wars with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Both these spin-off films are notorious for having trouble behind the scenes. Here the film was subject to extensive reshoots under a different director (which if I think of it, sounds identical to the problems Solo had). Disney wasn’t happy with the vision the original director had for it. Still the movie was successful both critically and commercially, making just over $1bn on a $220m budget, and scoring a respectable 85% on rotten Tomatoes. Does it still hold up? Let’s take a look