The Dark Universe Thread

[Morris Schæffer]

I hope they don't spoil the whole thing in the trailer this time.

Let's also hope it's a set piece that's more organically weaven into the meat of the story rather than a James Bond-ian pre prologue.

[Ezee E]

I wonder if Tom Cruise just demanded a certain type of stunt scene that was never written in the movie, so they figured it out for him.

[Skitch]

The trend of music choices continues...

[Dukefrukem]

The scale and scope of this movie is much larger than I thought. I assume it's rated PG-13, but I would love for this to be R rated.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Weird how they want to distance themselves from the previous films but happily indulge in the giant-dusty-gaping-mouth and "reconstitute my form so I can take over the world" thing.

[Irish]

It looks loud and very tiring.

[Skitch]

I regret drafting this film.

[Morris Schæffer]

Looks like a stinker.

[Sycophant]

I love that the new sexy 2017 remake has a lead actor that's six years older than the original's (meaning Brendan Fraser) is NOW.

[Dukefrukem]

I love that the new sexy 2017 remake has a lead actor that's six years older than the original's (meaning Brendan Fraser) is NOW.

It's a good thing you put Brendan Fraser in there because I was thinking: Tom Cruise looks good for 136.

[Winston*]

The mummy is a woman????

[Winston*]

This ain't your daddy's Mummy.

[Dead & Messed Up]

The mummy is a woman????

The refs checked, and there's nothing in the rulebook that says the mummy can't be a woman.

Or that a pig can't play shuffleboard.

[Wryan]

That cirque du soleil shit around 1:45 is hilarious.

*wiggles furiously*

[Morris Schæffer]

The mummy is a woman????

Wasn't anuk-su-na-mun or whatever the fuck she was called in part 2 also not a mummy?

[number8]

I wonder if Crowe's Jekyll is pre or post serum here, and whether his solo movie will tell his origin or start where this movie left off.

I also wonder if asking that question is me contributing to the death of cinema.

[Spinal]

I wonder if Crowe's Jekyll is pre or post serum here, and whether his solo movie will tell his origin or start where this movie left off.

I also wonder if asking that question is me contributing to the death of cinema.

I am really bewildered by the popularity of the 'shared universe' trend. What do people get out of this?

[Dead & Messed Up]

I am really bewildered by the popularity of the 'shared universe' trend. What do people get out of this?

Something extra to yap about. Also, there is a part of my soul that is childlike and dumb and wonderful and desperately wants to see the world's most expensive CGI in the service of a giant monkey fighting a giant dinosaur.

[number8]

Quentin Tarantino said that the main reason he wants to retire from filmmaking soon is because movie theaters have become a place where people get together to watch a big television and he's not interested in servicing that.

Okay, so he was actually talking about digital projection when he said it and not anything about the storytelling, but I'm re-appropriating it because it's apt to this post. Basically the popularity of shared universes shouldn't be surprising. Critics and audiences and other tastemakers have spent the last decade talking about the Golden Age of Television and how serialized dramas have become better and more exciting than movies. We should not be too baffled that movies try to compete by scratching the same presumed itch for cliffhangers, foreshadowing, big ensembles, crossovers, and the like.

[Idioteque Stalker]

I've never been crazy about TV so that is really depressing.

[Irish]

I am really bewildered by the popularity of the 'shared universe' trend. What do people get out of this?

The same thing they get out of any other real-life franchise: Familiarity.

OTOH, I'm not sure it's as much as a thing as the publicists make it out to be. Ticket buyers seem more interested in the group team-ups than standalone films, if we look toward Marvel as the uh .. model model. (4 out of 5 of Marvel's top grossers were team-up movies.)

OTOHOH, putting Dracula and Jekyll into the same "universe" allows studios to churn out endless sequels on the promise that one movie is about the same as the others. (To look at it another way: Nobody gives a shit about "Ant-Man," but being in a "shared universe" probably helped the film from tanking.)

[Irish]

Critics and audiences and other tastemakers have spent the last decade talking about the Golden Age of Television and how serialized dramas have become better and more exciting than movies. We should not be too baffled that movies try to compete by scratching the same presumed itch for cliffhangers, foreshadowing, big ensembles, crossovers, and the like.

TV critics also habitually overstate their influence. (I mean, if we're referencing Tarantino, "Who the fuck reads TV reviews?")

I don't think it's an itch to compete on story. I think it's a way to shave advertising costs. If you're spending more money to reach less people, it helps if your target audience is already familiar with the product.

Instead of falling back on sheer spectacle, which is what Hollywood always does, they should compete on experience. The relative success of "Deadpool," "Logan," and certain horror movies bear this out. All of them offered experiences you can't get on television (most of the time, around hyper-violence).

(OTOH, both "Deadpool" and "Logan" are prime examples of television-in-a-theater, because they don't make sense outside the context of their larger series.)

[number8]

If you're spending more money to reach less people, it helps if your target audience is already familiar with the product.

I don't follow here. What does that mean? They are definitely spending more and more on marketing superhero movies regardless of what number entry it is in the franchise, so how does that shave the cost?

[Lazlo]

I don't follow here. What does that mean? They are definitely spending more and more on marketing superhero movies regardless of what number entry it is in the franchise, so how does that shave the cost?

Maybe something to do with the certain amount of built-in pre-interest guarantee-on-return that offsets the pain of outlaying all that marketing money? Like, you have to spend a ton to promote any movie. But if people have familiarity with that movie or the series or whatever that marketing is even more effective and likely to drive them to theaters. Sure you might see just as many posters or ads for something original, but with some part of a series you trust that you'll have a similar experience with the newest installment. Dunno if that makes sense.

[Irish]

I don't follow here. What does that mean? They are definitely spending more and more on marketing superhero movies regardless of what number entry it is in the franchise, so how does that shave the cost?

Super-super shorthand:

- If a company has a family of products (eg: "Crest Original Toothpaste," "Crest Whitening," "Crest Tartar Control"), then advertising one advertises them all, because each unit reinforces the overall brand. This is a product and ad strategy that revolves around marginal costs.

- It costs the studios about 3x as much to advertise now as opposed to decades past, and because of a fractured media market they reach fewer eyeballs. The challenge becomes just letting people know something exists, regardless of whether they'd actually buy it.

- YouTube views and social media mentions cannot match the viewer numbers U.S. television networks could offer back when top 10 shows had 20-30 million viewers apiece. Decades past, your consumers were all in a single location every week, like clockwork. Today, if a studio wants to introduce something new, they have to crawl all over the place hunting those viewers down, and that costs money. (It also doesn't help that print and radio advertising are largely dead.)

You can see the relative softness in this model, at least domestically, because a lot of these big budget movies don't have commiserate big returns at home. They continually must rely on growing foreign markets for their revenue.