By George Robbins
Disney is by far one of the largest media companies in the world in this day and age and it’s no surprise that they get caught up in a lot. They have their hands dipped in so much that it’s no surprise when something ends up happening and they have to fix it somehow. This has happened on a number of occasions in the past, but now so more than ever, it is becoming an issue. This pandemic has made it all the more apparent that Disney is doing everything they can just to make money without actually paying attention to what else is going on in the world. At least, this is what many people are thinking right now as time goes on and things just keep looking worse.
The biggest controversies that we have extensively been hearing about over the past couple of months have been surrounding the reopening of parks and the release of ‘Mulan.’ To put things simply with the parks, people feel that Disney Parks reopened the gates to their parks way too soon and Disney essentially said that they didn’t feel that way. On top of them apparently allowing people to work who tested positive for the virus only complicated this even more. The thing with the release of ‘Mulan’ is just a little more complicated because it involves a couple of things people are upset about. One of those things is the fact the movie had a $30 price tag on top of a subscription fee and the other thing was a little more serious than that.
Many attentive fans out there who watched the movie through saw in the credits a mention about where the movie was filmed. This mention was a thanks to the Xinjiang province which is near Uighur Muslim internment camps in China. These camps are widely known to be a part of what is perceived to be a mass cultural genocide and this mention being put in the movie has sparked outrage among the community. Disney president of film production Sean Bailey recently replied to the outrage by defending the decision to film in that area, saying that those scenes “comprised 78 seconds” of the final film. This doesn’t really do much to quell the anger though as many believe that this is seen as Disney trying to avoid any issues on both sides. Many believe now that Disney simply doesn’t care about human rights issues and only care about placating their money.
By George Robbins
Pixar is a studio that has created many films over the years that have captivated audiences and made them glad to go out to the movies. In fact, Pixar movies have essentially helped raise entire generations of children who were fascinated by the animation they had seen on screen. Pixar easily found their place among the movie industry and ever since, they have done their best to make sure they stay near the top of the animated movie scene. Recently, many people believe that Pixar just isn’t what it used to be and that we have seen a decline in overall movie quality, but it is just Pixar moving with the times. We can look to their past to see just how well they’ve done over the years.
What started Pixar’s ascent to the top of the animation food chain was when they made ‘Toy Story‘ and released it in theaters back in 1995. At the time of release, ‘Toy Story’ was a movie unlike anything that had ever been seen before. CGI animation was very much a newer technology at the time, and although CGI was used in plenty of films, there were no films that could do it well. ‘Toy Story’ was a completely animated film made with CGI, so everything blended in much better than it usually would in a live-action film. Without a doubt, it was a technological marvel for its time and it still holds up today.
Although their older films still hold up pretty well, they did not just leave them as they were and they kept improving the tech they would use. This is how we ended up with movies like ‘The Incredibles’ which took a breakthrough in CGI technology for the movie to look as good as it does. Eventually, like everything else, the movies they produced just started looking better and better and now they have some of the most popular franchises in the world. This will never change at this point and they have mostly been working on compelling stories to make people interested in their films. Many of their stories land pretty well, but not every single one is a masterpiece.
Coming up for release in a couple of months time is the movie ‘Soul’ which has been made by Pixar. The movie follows the soul of a man as he tries to guide the soul of a child in a bid to get his life back before it is too late. The movie was forced to delay its release due to the pandemic and it will not actually have a theatrical release, but we will get to see it this year. In fact, the movie is set for a release on Christmas Day of this year. Early reviews for the film have rated it fairly well and they have called it a return to form similar to their best films. This gives us high hopes and expectations for Pixar’s new film and we know it will not disappoint come Christmas Day.
By George Robbins
The Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU, is easily one of the biggest franchises in the world at the moment and it seems it will easily stay that way for the foreseeable future. There is not many franchises that can actually reach the same heights that we have seen with MCU films and the only other one known world wide is Star Wars. The Star Wars franchise is one that has maintained its popularity for many years now and will continue to hold its popularity for a long time. The big difference between the two franchises is that the side content for each is what determined the popularity over time. Star Wars maintained its popularity through the use of canon side-content instead of just the mainline movies.
Star Wars has had many pieces of media released over the years to give more context to the universe in which everything inevitably takes place. This has been shown through novels, comics, toy lines, and even television shows over the years and it has given the franchise something to latch onto. Nothing has been able to really establish itself so well as a worldwide phenomenon until the MCU came along. When the first ‘Iron Man‘ film released, no one really knew what was going on and the film itself is held up as this piece of media that really changed the world of cinema. What followed was a series of films that no one really expected and a franchise that would turn a lot of things upside-down.
After the next few Marvel films released, the Marvel Cinematic Universe became an established franchise. People recognized pretty quickly that it had the potential to reach. and even top, the Star Wars franchise in popularity. This is how we ended up with Disney being the company which would end up purchasing Marvel Studios which was working on making the new films for the MCU. Disney would go on to take control of both the MCU and and the Star Wars franchise, giving them the most profitable franchises across the world. What they came to quickly realize was that while they had a lot of the pieces for their franchise puzzle, they didn’t have them all.
Unlike the DC franchise, control of every character in that universe was not under the umbrella of a single company. DC is owned by Warner Bros. which has control of the intellectual property rights of every single character so that they can make whatever piece of media they want about them. Marvel is a different story in its entirety and many of the characters from the Marvel comics were not a part of the MCU. Many of the Marvel Comic book characters were given to companies such as Fox some years back. This is why they had control over the entirety of the X-Men for so many years and why the MCU never so much as mentioned them.
For the longest time, no one knew if the X-Men or any related characters to their comics would end up being a part of the MCU. Fox had been making those films since the late 90’s and they continued doing so all the way up to the point where the studio was essentially bought out by Disney. If not for this, they probably would have just kept making those films and their films weren’t really doing so great with the last of them tanking critically. Things were not looking so well for them, but now those characters have a good chance of becoming a part of the MCU now that they are under the same umbrella company. It will probably be a long time off before we get to see them, but it is the best chance we have at seeing a good X-Men movie.
Furthering the hope that we can see the X-Men characters in MCU films is the fact that Spider-Man has been made such a huge part of the MCU. For those unaware, Spider-Man, and characters related to his comics, are owned by Sony and have been for many years. Luckily, a deal was made where Marvel Studios could use Spider-Man in their films, thus making him a part of the MCU. This means that there are now plenty of different interactions we could end up seeing in the near future in regards to other characters from the Spidey comics. Now that the MCU has complete control over X-Men characters, things should work out even better for them in theory. We just have to play the waiting game from now on to see just how they plan on integrating the characters into their shared universe.
As previously stated, the movies under the Fox umbrella of Marvel movies were never going to be a part of the MCU and that still isn’t changing. The characters themselves are highly expected to become a part of the larger universe, but it will be some time before we actually get to see them in action. Even though those movies may not be a part of the MCU as a whole, they are definitely important to the cinematic shared universe at its core. This stems from the fact that the movies are still based on the same comic books and it will continue to be that way forever. There is nothing we can do about the past except to accept the fact that these movies existed and that the MCU wouldn’t be what it is now without them.
Before ‘Iron Man’ released back in 2008, there were plenty of superhero films which released based on Marvel characters. I just discussed those movies which came from Fox and Sony and they helped open the roadway for the MCU films we have now. The superhero movie genre existed, but it just wasn’t perfected to the point where the masses would enjoy it until ‘Iron Man’ came out. It seems Disney is now acknowledging this fact with the label they have given to these other films. Disney has officially re-branded these non-MCU films as Marvel Legacy movies on Disney+. This just shows what these movies mean to the industry and hopefully going forward it will remind people of what we have now due to what we had before.
By George Robbins
I’m sure by now that just about everybody has seen ‘Avatar’ which was a phenomenon that nobody wanted to miss out on when it first released back in 2009. At the time, the movie was a technological marvel and it drew in crowds in droves to see the movie that everyone was talking about. The biggest selling point at the time for the movie was the fact that the 3-D technology that was used for the making of the film made viewing the movie an experience no one wanted to miss. It was a masterpiece of its time and it still kind of holds up today, its just that it doesn’t hold up as well. The movie industry moves quickly and even 10 years means nothing to them nowadays because technology is always vastly improving.
A lot of the time technology in the movie industry is what helps determine what films will actually end up making a decent amount of money when they come out. This results in movies going into what is essentially an arms race in order to try and beat out other films when it comes to tech. This is what happened with the original ‘Avatar’ because it was the pinnacle of movie tech at the time and the word of mouth from that alone made it popular enough to hold the top spot on the Box Office for 10 years. What really gave the movie its edge was the 3-D tech that made the film what it was and made people want to see it.
That 3-D technology that made the movie so popular actually helped make the film as much revenue as it did and it kicked off the age of 3-D in movie theaters. This made it possible for the movie to bring in approximately 80% of its revenue because it was just impressive in general and people were impressed with the 3-D. The upcoming ‘Avatar 2’ movie will not have the same edge as the first film though as 3-D films died out almost immediately after the first film released and over the past few years, there have been no films which actually use it anymore. This has essentially created insurmountable odds against the new film and its has given it a huge hurdle that it must overcome. We will just have to wait and see what happens when the film releases next December.
By George Robbins
The ‘Jurassic Park‘ series is one that has captivated the world over a couple of generations now and it has changed the movie industry as a whole. The series took the concept of dinosaurs which captivated the world and put those dinosaurs on screen fully realized. While the dinosaurs we saw may not have been true to their real life counterparts, what we were given was something astounding. We got the chance to see incredible lifeforms which came before us and what they probably looked and acted like. This was a huge opportunity the likes of which had never really been seen before then and it changed approaches to monster genres moving forward.
The original films were based on the book by author Michael Crichton who created a fantastic adventure fantasy centered around these things which have fascinated people for years. Although the story was not completely adapted the way that it was told in the novels, we still got an incredible story about what it would be like to bring prehistoric creatures into a modern age. The result of which was kind of interesting as it essentially became a meta-commentary about itself as time went on. By the time we reached the ‘Jurassic World‘ part of the series, it circled back on itself.
What I mean to say is that by the time of ‘Jurassic World’s’ release, the original trilogy was definitely beloved but people were so used to it by that point that it just wasn’t as fascinating anymore. This became something of an important plot point in its own right in the film and we got something new that we didn’t really expect. That was the fact that, in the story of the film, people were generally getting tired of the dinosaurs in the film as they weren’t really anything new in that universe. Therefore, they cooked up an entirely new dinosaur in a lab in order to get people’s attention. Just like the plot the film, the movie itself was essentially the same and it didn’t pay off as well as expected. This is something that happened both on and off of the screen.
The movie was most definitely a financial success, but there is no denying the fact that there were many who came out of it disappointed by certain aspects. This is mostly due to the people who were in love with the original trilogy and that love is making its way back in for the final film in the new trilogy. ‘Jurassic World: Dominion‘ is set up to be the final film in the new trilogy and they have already made it known that they are essentially going back to basics for this one. The movie will not feature any kind of new hybrids or anything like that and it is bringing back the original cast. This is all great news for fans, but that is not all as it has been confirmed that the movie will see dinosaurs essentially let loose upon the open world.
‘Dominion’ was one of the first films to start up production again after the start of the pandemic and they have been working hard to get the film finished. They don’t actually have to work so hard now though because even when they were shut down, they didn’t actually lose out on time. They were able to get in a fair bit of CGI work during their shut down and now, the film’s release has been delayed pretty much a year to summer of 2022. They just had to temporarily shut down for the next two weeks because members of the team have tested positive for the virus. Although they are only a few weeks away from being done filming, it isn’t too big a deal and they will still have plenty of time to finish this much anticipated film.
By George Robbins
Movie theaters are kind of in trouble right now and that doesn’t seem to be something that will change any time in the near future. It has already been discussed at length, but theaters are very much losing revenue due to this pandemic and nothing will change the fact it is going to continue. Not only is it going to continue, but from what we can glean from the near future, it is going to continue for a long time moving forward. The pandemic has essentially made it near impossible for theaters to actually make money during this period in time due to the restrictions in place. With those restrictions, there are way too many obstacles in the way for theaters to actually bring people in.
People are wary of theaters now due to the pandemic and it is for very obvious reasons as people are not sure if they are safe enough. In order to follow new standards set by the government as a means to alleviate people’s fears as well as prevent more virus cases from cropping up, theaters have been given restrictions. Mainly, those restrictions are set up as limiters for the number of people who are actually allowed to be present at one time in theaters. This is not the only limitation as theaters must also adhere to the distancing policy, so smaller theaters won’t even really get the chance to reach the limited occupancy numbers. Needless to say, these restrictions have not been easy on movie theater owners.
Beyond just the restrictions has been the fact that nobody is truly willing to put their own health at risk just to go see a movie that they can wait to see digitally. People are getting used to waiting for movies to come out at this point. There have been delays left and right in terms of movie releases and people recognize that the delays are only getting worse. This directly relates to the fact that people don’t want to take any chances by going out to theaters. This is why ‘Tenet’ pretty much failed in the domestic market where the pandemic is a pretty rough situation right now.
Domestically, no one know how to handle the virus and it is affecting the market as a whole because people are trying to navigate the pandemic. It is the same in the rest of the world, but the domestic market is where the film industry works to make a good chunk of their revenue. This is why we are now seeing so many movies being pushed back so far after ‘Tenet‘ failed to maintain an audience after its first week. The movie actually had a fairly strong opening weekend in both the international and domestic markets, but the following month or so in the domestic market was nothing other than disappointing. As such, studios came to understand that people would not be going out to theaters much for the foreseeable future.
In all actuality, people will more than likely not be going out to theaters in mass once again until there is some kind of vaccine out there. This is to be expected given the nature of the pandemic and the fact that the virus can spread so easily. People are much more wary nowadays and the restrictions keep them even more wary. If people hear that there are restrictions in place when they go out somewhere, then they are much less likely to want to stay there. With this in mind, most films have been pushed out of this year’s and, some even, from next year’s line-up by studios who still want their films to be released in theaters. Even now, nothing is set in stone and dates can once again change around at any point.
Although studios are in the same boat with everything they’re going through, they are still competing, so there is still a lot for them to think about right now. If something changes with the pandemic situation, they have to be able to very quickly move their release dates around. This makes things even more difficult to maneuver, but it still doesn’t change the fact that they are still working on making money. This complicates things heavily against movie theaters though, as at least theaters were making some kind of money when ‘Tenet’ released, but now they won’t be getting much else. They could get some money here and there with movie re-releases, but it just isn’t all that cost effective.
Due to cost effectiveness, movie theaters have been thinking about once again shutting their doors to the public because they didn’t think the current climate was a good one for them. Until recently, though, many were not really willing to take the plunge to re-close their doors, but one company did it. Regal Cinemas made the announcement that they would once again be shutting their doors to everybody and that they would not be re-opening any time in the near future. This was certainly not any kind of surprise because of the aforementioned issues with delays and people not wanting to go out to theaters. The issues now are the fact that there are still theaters that want to open their doors.
It would make sense if theaters that haven’t opened their doors back up to the public yet would be okay with just leaving their doors shut at this time. This is not the case though as many theaters still want to actually open back up again to the public as some need to bring in some kind of revenue. It is mainly theater chains that have been trying to decide whether or not to shut their doors once again. Unfortunately for the smaller theaters that want to reopen, they don’t really have much of an opportunity to do that now. Between restrictions and movie delays, they have no choice now but to keep their doors closed to people. The most interesting case of this is being seen out in San Francisco.
In San Francisco right now, a ban was made public where theaters that did reopen will not be able to sell any kind of concessions. This means that people would not be able to buy any food or drinks while they are at the movies which is how theaters make a good portion of their money. They only make a portion of their revenue from ticket sales as they have to split the money from sales with the studios that give them their films. Most of the income that they generate actually comes from concessions, so reopening their doors without being able to sell food or drink has essentially become a worthless endeavor. So even theaters that want to open up will have no choice but to stay closed in San Francisco.
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