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Most of them.
Marvel movies and well basically all of Hollywood are basically a massive money laundering scheme under the auspices of the DOD/USAF.
Ask GPT. Even it knows.
The SW Sequels. I admit that I didn’t hate TFA, but the other two were very very very shit.
The prequels as well.
I’m gonna go in a different direction than everyone else here.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl
is a big budget movie that had absolutely no business getting made, because:
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Pirate movies have always been box office poison. Less than a decade earlier, Cutthroat Island made the Guinness Book of Records as the biggest box office bomb of all time, the latest in a series of pirate-themed failures. The only vaguely pirate-themed movies that had ever had anything you’d call success was Muppet Treasure Island and Goonies, and you could argue that Goonies wasn’t really a pirate movie, it had some pirate theming in it. In 2002, Disney’s Treasure Planet, basically Treasure Island IN SPAAACE had proven a box office flop. Treasure Planet is a well-written, well-made, well-advertised, well-reviewed pirate movie that failed at the box office. What idiot would bankroll another pirate film?
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It was a movie based on an old ride at Disney World. It was their fourth attempt at this, they made a TV movie based on Tower of Terror in 1997 that they’re apparently not proud of, 2000s Mission To Mars was a “commercial disappointment” and 2002’s The Country Bears was a critical and commercial flop. Yeah the year before they made Pirates of the Caribbean, Disney made a G-rated pastiche of the Blues Brothers out of The Country Bear Jamboree. They decided to do that and nobody stopped them. No movie based on a theme park attraction had ever made its money back.
The public’s reaction to the announcement was “They’re making a movie based on WHAT?” This wasn’t going to work. This movie had no business being made.
The film achieved massive critical and commercial success as the 141st highest grossing movie of all time taking $654.3 million against it’s $140 million budget and spawning four sequels.
Everything you said was why it made so much. No one saw it coming and it was entertaining. I still think the first two are solid. After that it fell off. But the third is decent just because of Jack Sparrow’s father being Keith Richards.
You can bag on all you want but it’s movie. The main objective is to entertain. And it does that on many levels. It’s not necessarily cinema but most of these movies are not considered high class cinema. They are blockbusters whose main objective is to make money while entertaining.
The first one, in terms of cinematic story telling, is actually incredibly good (I don’t know how much that contributed to things); if you’re interesting, this video essay points out a bunch of stuff I hadn’t noticed, the first time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhdBNVY55oM.
Also, entirely agreed about the first two.
Oh I thoroughly enjoyed the film. I went to the theater to see it 8 times, with 5 different girls.
It turned out fantastic. But it had absolutely no business being made. And that was the assignment of this thread.
I loved that Tower of Terror movie. Knowing the lore made the ride so much better once I finally got to experience it.
It’s apparently not available anywhere, no streaming service carries it.
Stremio carries it:
But to be fair, it’s a piracy service, so it carries everything. But a damn good piracy service, though. So much so that I canceled all my streaming services and just use Stremio now.
Treasure Planet is a well-written
Ehhh…; don’t get me wrong: I still absolutely love it. But I absolutely get why it flopped, too.
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Borderlands. How did they spend that much money and none of the decision makers stop and think “nope this is crap”
Still have to see it. I’m in no rush, but since I am a Borderlands fan, I have to know.
It’s really bad. Like, nearly unwatchable.
I’ve seen far worse movies, movies that are truly unwatchable.
I know nothing about the source material and I get the impression that’s the difference here between those who think this is a terrible movie instead of just another mediocre comic book movie. As someone who had never read comics, they’re all equally meh to me but I wouldn’t call any of them unwatchable.
Fair enough. It’s one of my favorite games, because I played it through with my best friend right before he passed away in an accident, so it’s really emotionally valuable to me. Seeing what they did with the movie was pretty offensive in that regard, to me.
I stopped watching at “Fyrestone”
Oh God. Im looking forward to hating it!
so like get the boys together, take a few shots of tequila and smoke something dank AF
then watch it?
Are you familiar with Edward 40-Hands?
Participants have a 40oz of Steel Reserve (or similar) duct taped to each hand. You may not remove the bottles until both are empty. The tradition is to watch old kung fu movies but this movie is absolutely acceptable. I advise wearing gym shorts; you WILL need to piss before you are done.
LOL I can’t say if I have ever had more then a sip of a Steel Reserve. One of my best friends growing up developed a bad case of alcoholism and he drank those things religiously. I would rather just smoke some weed and get a little buzz then fucked up drunk like those are guaranteed to do !
Every Jurassic Park movie after the 2nd one.
JP3, yes. I liked the original Jurassic World, but they’re getting a bit tiresome now. It’s clear it’s a money grab.
Avatar.
You mean, “Dances with Smurfs”?
It’s clearly ripping off Pocahontas, not Dances With Wolves.
Alien pocahontas
Smurfgully
Incredible summary. 10/10.
Avatar at least had the excuse of existing to push 3D and mo-cap technology.
Not sure about Avatars 2-5…
There’s five of them???
There are 2 out already, Cameron is making till 5 right now.
Edit: Till 5 or more, I can’t remember.
There’s like three or four already out. Or something. Whatever the actual number is, I’m always amazed.
Only two out so far. The third is arriving in December.
The third is arriving in December.
Lmao see? I had no idea even one sequel was out
Movie magic at it’s finest
2 completed and released with 3 more in the pipeline.
There are sequels???
Avatar 2 came out in '22. Same basic plot, but the water effects are stunning.
3 is completed and will be out for Christmas. 4 and 5 are in the pipeline.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar:_Fire_and_Ash
(All the trailers on YouTube so far are AI Bullshit, be warned).
Avatar 4 and 5:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_4
“it is scheduled for release on December 21, 2029.[8][9] A sequel, Avatar 5, is in development and is expected to be released on December 19, 2031.”
Same thing for the sequels. Here’s an article about it. Maybe it’s the passage of time, but I’d say 2 is much more visually stunning than 1
Yeah, I watched it in a 3d cinema at the time and it was a great experience. Not the pocahontas story, but the cinematics. Avatar 2 was just shit. It’s like they’re pretending to be a real scifi franchise by building an entire world.
Avatar was always about being a visual feast, which Avatar 2 definitely succeeded in IMO. I like them for what they are, great popcorn flicks.
I love the first movie, everything after is just more of the same. It feels uninspired.
i love that the answer to “which one?” is “doesn’t matter, they suuuuuuck”
I mean yeah it was a shit film but it obviously had “business” being made because it was the highest grossing film ever for a while. I think it was the start of Holywood going out their way to crack the Chinese market (or at least the first time they did it successfully).
At first I thought you meant the first Airbender movie. Which also fits the criteria here.
I know it’s just rehash Pocahontas but I enjoyed it. Suspend all that crap for a second and just enjoyed it
This but nickelodeons avatar live action remakes.
The Room starring/produced by/executive produced/screenwritten/bankrolled by Tommy Wiseau
Hehe, any money for that movie is big budget.
precisely
Maybe vampires?
A lot of the Movies Sony makes now. Morbius, Kraven, etc.
How dare you slight the cohesion and vision of the Whatever Sony Has The Rights To Cinematic Universe?
FWIW I much prefer Sony’s Spider-Man over Disney’s.
I was playing Spider-Man 2, where Kraven is a major character, when this movie came out and I wasn’t even aware of it. It is also now available on Netflix.
i first heard of kraven from the game, spiderman instead of the movie, i think the GAME cutscenes are better than the movie.
I’d like to add Uncharted to that, please.
Those are big budget? I thought they were great low budget movies
The Minecraft Movie
It _could _ have been great. But it ended up - like the Mario movie - being a formulaic piece of drek.
Both movies were loved by their target demographic: children
What, they dont make every movie for aging millennials to monetize their nostalgia? I call bullshit, see marvel.
My kids didn’t like it because there wasn’t enough Minecraft in it.
The question blocks weren’t good enough, eh?
I’m curious why you watched it
I thought both of them wouldn’t end up as clip art movies.
And I have kids.
I feel better knowing I’m not the only one who didn’t like the new Mario movie for the same reason.
Ok but which mario do you prefer? The new one or the 90s Mario Brothers?
The 90s one at least has some creativity and is hilarious for the fact it is nothing at all like the games.
Hmm, I wonder if they kept the story and actor voices but CGI’D it… nah that couldnt possibly.
The trouble with something like that is we already have the 90s Mario movie, and the actors’ performances (visual as well as voice) and the delightfully bonkers direction and production design are the best things about it. There’d be absolutely no benefit to throwing everything but the soundtrack out and redoing it line-by-prerecorded-line as a cartoon, when if you want a Mario cartoon which looks like the games you can more easily just make a new cartoon (which is what they did.)
I do a movie night once a year and every year we do a different theme. Sometimes it’s a pretty normal and straightforward theme, the first year or two I did it was Robert Rodriguez movies (this party is nominally a Cinco de Mayo part) but we quickly ran out of those, so we pick a random theme every year
One year the theme ended up being "movies that got a better “remake’” (we watched the worse versions)
I believe that theme was 2023, it’s been a wild fucking 2 years so I can’t remember all of the movies we watched, we usually manage to squeeze in about 3
But I remember David Lynch’s dune was on the list, as was the Super Mario Bros movie. None of us had actually seen the new Mario movie, so we just kind of took it on faith that it had to be better.
If I had a point to this story, I’ve long since forgotten what it was, but I’ve typed it out and I’m gonna post it.
90s by far
it was fine. it checked the boxes and the kids loved it
as a family friendly movie, it’s a good one for everyone
That’s the problem.
Why the hell is Mario fighting Donkey Kong to the song “Thunderstruck?”
Because that is the least common denominator between them.
They couldn’t take any of the music from any of the Mario games for that scene? Of course not; most people wouldn’t know it’s music from a Mario game.
No, we need to slam a Top 40 classic rock song in there because that’s the only thing the plebeians who see this movie will understand.
No, we need to slam a Top 40 classic rock song in there because that’s the only thing the plebeians who see this movie will understand.
See also: the Beastie Boys bullshit in JJ-Trek.
Exactly.
Idk, I think the issue here is that Mario is for plebians. I don’t know any “real” gamers who would answer a Mario game as their favorite game. Hell they likely wouldn’t be naming a platform game period. Why wouldn’t they throw in a song like that? Mario is fun for everyone, and it’s one of the video games that isn’t niche, has little to no barrier to entry and is just goofy and fun. Why wouldn’t the movie just be goofy and fun?
I don’t know any “real” gamers who would answer a Mario game as their favorite game. Hell they likely wouldn’t be naming a platform game period
2008 is over, it’s socially acceptable to like games that aren’t military shooters now
I think I was unclear. Mario is my favorite. I have been told I’m not really a gamer over it. That’s all I meant. I’m the plebian I’m talking about. Thousand Year Door on GameCube is my favorite game of all time, with Stardew as a close competitor. A lot of my gamer friends are fine calling me a gamer but I’ve definitely been hate kept over these preferences.
There are plenty of gamers who love Mario games, and there’s a huge depth of lore and music and characters they could have drawn from to make it
By using generic songs it became a movie that had a Mario skin on it.
I think I was unclear. Mario is my favorite. I’m the plebian I’m talking about. I’m a gamer and Thousand Year Door on GameCube is my favorite game of all time. I don’t mind a bit that they threw thunderstruck in. My dad was in the theater with me and my brother, and my sister, and my nephews. All of us are obsessed with Mario but my Dad and sister, and thunderstruck meant my dad and sister were enjoying that scene as much as us, even though they didn’t get the more subtle Mario Easter eggs.
I loved it. It was slop, but was good slop. I think it’s fun to watch with a friend.
Waterworld. At the time the most expensive movie ever made and the most spectacular flop of all time.
But I like Waterworld.
I “think” John Carter beat it, but yeah.
John Carter suffered from an awful title.
“Princess of Mars,” would have resonated better with marketing. And is actually one of the book titles.
I agree, but Dianey was desperate to create a new franchise. It was their response to Iron Man and the anticipated success of the MCU.
Neither of those movies were really all that terrible. I enjoyed John Carter. But clearly they didn’t connect with audiences.
It’s the name and the power concept, all around bland and forgettable. Feel like that movie was a passion project of a book fan.
Absolutely, I enjoyed both for what they were, silly fantasy/adventure movies.
Yeah, I was upset they didnt continue John Carter, it was just a fun zany scifi movie. I think it was the advertising that killed it, but if they had stuck with it I think it could have done well.
I must be on my own. I know John Carter flopped phenomenally, but I really liked it. Thought it was a great movie. Was very annoyed when I found out that there may never be a 2nd. Even if there was, at this stage it is very unlikely to be the same cast. IIRC, a lot of the blame was on Disney marketing. But IDK about these things.
Don’t worry brother, I still go back and watch waterworld. I like oceanscapes and post apocalyptic settings. Esthetic can be enough for me.
I also liked it. But i think that it was completely miscast.
It would have been a great Sci Fi miniseries, and eventually a movie. They didn’t prep the groundwork for the franchise and casted very poorly
I did some digging and apparently Waterworld somehow broke even. I remember a lot of the hype around the film at the time was wanting to see if it was really as bad as people said it was.
You fucking take that back right now…
Morbius
…But then we would have seen the main character morb all over everyone!
The Emoji Movie
Yes. You look at the title of the movie and you go, nope.
You just know there’s some producer out there who is salivating over minion merch.
It honestly was fine for a kids movie. The story was so generic that it was impossible to mess up and would work with any character/setting.
I was disappointed with how boring it was. They should’ve leaned way more into the emoji aspect.
Let me write the script. Id tackle it with the “anything goes” energy and it would be non-stop crazy nonsense.
I’m not sure how big the budgets were 20ish years ago, but these 2 for me:
- the Royal Tenenbaums
- Sideways
Both are very well reviewed by the public/reviewers and I cannot fathom why.
I personally love the royal tenebaums but the first watch i was like you. Wes Anderson is weird. Its like first you need permission to like it because its so different but once youre granted that permission, and can suspend disbelief, the world opens up to you.
I like Royal Tenebaum too. That intricate relationship between family members is so good to watch
He’s like blue cheese, not for everyone and still an acquired taste.
Cowboys and aliens.
Man pitched this fever dream of an idea in 97, was laughed out of the room.
Folks only agreed with the same guy to make it in 2006 after seeing it was based on a best selling comic book.
That comic book was written by the person who initially pitched the idea in 97. He practically paid comic book stores to carry and give away the comic book so it’d be a “best seller”.
Movie execs got hoodwinked lol
All MCU films after Endgame, also all Ant-Man films.
Edgar Wright’s version of ant-man would have been interesting.
