Captain Marvel; First Reviews

from the outside, looking in, I think that there will probably be some factions that are disappointed by that.

It's kind of depressing that our whole world is so politicized that we even have to like or not like movies because they might express an unpopular opinion.
I was on a debate recently about why blackface is offensive, and someone said, "well then we ought to be offended by the Wayans brothers doing whiteface" to which my response was, "they've earned the right to do that."

One possibility I've seen people float is that while someone *did* purchase excess tickets, it wasn't Disney per se but most likely scalpers who over-estimated what they could get from re-selling tickets.

It still goes to ticket sales by people who had no intention of seeing the film, but it's seen as a more realistic, less conspiracy theory possibility.

There was an article about the film from China that highlights the general comments being made.

Basically the term being used would translate as 'middle aged housewife'.

Most of the complaints I've seen in that direction are about how awkwardly the film handles the gender issue.

Up until she became a part of the Kree army, literally every guy we see in her past is some sort of jerk, and usually a sexist one at that; even the drill sergeant, whose job is to break people apart and weed out the week, is presented as a horrible person.

And her big fight song? "Just A Girl" by No Doubt.

Couple this with the fact that much of the advertising here in the US was based on her gender -> including the first trailer, that had "her" transition into "a hero" -> I think you can see why people ended up with a sour taste.

It's being reports on Box Office Mojo that Captain Marvel has breached the $1 billion mark.

The Last Jedi cleared a billion as well, but that didn't prevent it from causing the Star Wars franchise to tank in epic fashion afterwards.

Not that the MCU is in the same position as SW, as the MCU has had a string of successful and well received films. (Age of Ultron and Ant Man and the Wasp being exceptions. The former being 'meh' and a 'financial disappointment' by Disney's own admission. The latter largely due to poor marketing, again by Disney's own admission).

Nor is Captain Marvel being followed by a film no one asked for or was interested in, or proceeded by several years worth of 'toxic' marketing based on 'identity politics' where any criticism was met with accusations of sexism, racism or homophobia. Indeed CM is being followed by a film most people were looking forward too, and it seems a lot of people assumed CM would be directly connected to.

Comparing to Wonder Woman Captain Marvel at this point actually makes the former look a lot better than the latter, even though CM has made more money. Part of the discrepancy is simply down to the availability of films; CM opened on more screens, has had fewer screens close (47 compared to around 147) in the first three weeks and also opened in more countries; Wonder Woman 43 countries, CM 54.
Plus of course WW was following on from three bad films where as CM was following on from over 20 great to OK films.
The drop off is also interesting, CM's has been some 54.5% and 47%. WW 42% and 31%.

It's going to be interesting to see how CM's numbers change with SHAZAM coming out (today as of writing), especially how many screens CM loses; If Disney has been protecting the film SHAZAM would presumably be the point at which they will stop strong arming cinemas as its an inbuilt excuse for reduced figures.
One also has to ask the obvious question as to if Disney HAS been protecting CM how much that has cost them, and therefore how much of that gross box office is offset in practical terms. If Disney has been spending money to buy tickets to inflate numbers, then between the additional production and marketing costs CM may well have brought in less of a profit for them than WW did for DC.

Things may, however, be changing or due to change overall.

It has been noted that the marketing tactic for Star Wars has been based on 'mob mentality', pointing fingers and name calling anyone who doesn't agree that the product being churned out is the best thing ever. This marketing tactic has also been used for Star Trek and Doctor Who. In the short term this works to hide a fixation on 'identity politics' over actual story telling and content. But in the long term it pushes away 'fans', that is your long term customers, and doesn't actually help your product grow or gain new customers.
Star Wars is failing to drum up much interest for Episode IX (Case on point how many of you actually picked up on the rumor that the title for Episode IX is 'Skywalkers'? It was reported, but no one seemed to care enough to pass it around). CBS has seen Discovery tank, the Picard series is in real trouble and the section 31 series hasn't even been greenlit nor will be until 2020/21. And Doctor Who has to all intents been placed on hiatus; yes they are filming the next season but the release for it is such that they would have to either start filming Whitakers third season before her second comes out or extend her contract if this isn't going to be her last season.

This 'culture war' is either going to end with studios realizing that this tactic is self defeating. Or with formally beloved franchises becoming defunct for at least a decade and being replaced by other things; Studio's apparently not realizing that the 'fans' they have been alienating include the creative talent they need to keep those properties alive. (The Orville being a case in point, as a hell of a lot of Trek creative talent went over to that series)

It does seem as if Disney might be waking up to this reality due to the abysmal performance of Star Wars. And it does seem as if there are signs of a change of tactic from them as far as that franchise goes. As far as Captain Marvel goes any marketing strategy was probably worked out before Disney could fully digest how bad things were for Star Wars, and too late for them to change it; further complicated by the FOX deal limiting their options in terms of course corrections they could make.
It will be interesting to see what or how Disney deals with the box office figures for Captain Marvel, and what Lawson herself is 'allowed' to actually say. If there is crowing about the success of the film, beyond what you would expect to reassure shareholders, the MCU could be in serious trouble post-Endgame.

Endgame = 3 hours long

I can see a lot of people waiting for home video on this one.

3 hours is a long time without a pee break when your eating popcorn and chugging down 32 oz Cokes.