@therealsilvermane

I believe EVERY Hollywood movie lost money during the pandemic, maybe with the exception of F9 as it got a China pass and made over $200 million there. Also, Marvel Studios is 100% responsible for Spiderman No Way Home. Sony is just distributing the thing. They're like the luckiest studio in the world. Marvel Studios does all the creative leg work and Sony gets half of the profits or whatever the deal is.

I don't think the underground club was just a way to have Wong and Abomination cameo. It was a fun action movie way for Shang-Chi and Xialing to meet each other for the first time since they were kids. It's part kung fu movie, after all. It also shows that Xialing has the leadership and entrepreneurial skills to take over the Ten Rings organization at the end.

Kind of disagree on this point. Shang-Chi isn't a Kung Fu master. He's the son of a 1,000 year old Chinese warlord who is trying to escape his legacy by staying hidden in a job that's low on the totem pole. Asian people love karaoke. If there's one thing that's accurate in the movie, it's that. Katy wouldn't necessarily know he's trained in the martial arts if he hides it. They don't live together. He could do things like push-ups or his forms in his studio apartment alone and Katy would never know. He doesn't need to go to a dojo or something. It's already a part of him, especially that he got from his mother. Why shouldn't the daughter of a 1000 year old Chinese warlord have the "stuff" to create her own underground empire? It's totally believable.

Unpopular opinion: Paul Thomas Anderson's movies are pretentious and boring. Mostly pretentious.

Exactly my thought. I heard it was going to be a fresh take on Batman, more like the detective guy. This Pattinson version looks and acts like a clone of the Nolan Batman.

Yes, that's how awful they are. It took every bit of strength I had not to walk out of Venom 2. Poor Carnage's key issue value is sinking as we speak. The only redeeming thing was that unexpected credit sequence where Sony's lame-o-verse gets to rub knees with the glorious MCU.

Also, F9 had a budget of $200 million. I wouldn't call that low budget. Yes, Venom 2 had a lower budget of $110 million, but I hope Venom 2 isn't somehow your idea of how superhero movies should be made. And Ghosbusters Afterlife is going to have to rely mostly on domestic numbers because the Ghostbusters hardly has worldwide appeal.

Shang Chi had a reported budget of $150 million. Godzilla v Kong had a budget of $160 million. Both made about the same worldwide but GvK got to screen in China where it made $190 million. Shang-Chi was obviously designed not only for the American market, but especially for the China market but the Chinese government unexpectedly prevented the movie from screening there, severely taking away a market it was, in part, made for. That's kind of hard to predict that a country that loves a certain product would suddenly shut its doors to that product.

I've trained in martial arts for quite a while. Aikido in particular. A large part of the way Aikido works is it allows the practitioner to use an opponent's energy or weight against them. Many martial arts use that way. It allows someone of lesser weight to take out a person much bigger than themselves. The UFC is cage fighting, not real world fighting. In the UFC, you can't throat punch an opponent or kick them in the gonads or use wine bottles against them. As for Kate earning something, she has not earned anything in the show yet. She is not yet an Avenger or a super-hero, she just wants to be. I'm not really justifying anything. I'm trying to point out to you what's in the show. It's all there. The show is well done. If there's a knock on anything, IMO, it's that I'm a little unclear of Kate's motivation in the present day. She wanted to be a protector, so did she lose focus along the way and that's why she was doing the bell tower prank? What was she waiting for to use her skills responsibly? Was she waiting for Clint Barton to come along or is this business with her mother the first time she's experienced adversity that threatens her family, thus prompting her to awaken? I'm assuming it's the latter.

The OP says in his first post that he is tired of the Marvel super hero formula. Surely he wasn't talking about the Venom movies? (Now those are tiring) The only other Marvel movies are the MCU.

You talkin' to me?

Hawkeye obviously has a problem with branding.

Now we're giving excuses? So does that mean I get to use the "didn't screen in China" excuse now?

You mean is anyone else tired of the MCU? I'm not. Give me more please. And judging by the MCU's pandemic box office numbers, Disney+ premium streaming numbers for Black Widow, and the viewership numbers for every Disney+ show so far, I think a lot of people feel the same way.

Practically every movie in 2020 and 2021 has lost money, because we - are - in - a - pandemic. Or is your beef with the entire moviemaking industry? Because your above accusations and description of the poor business model is applicable to pretty much every big budget movie. Maybe send your complaints to Warner Bros first as Wonder Woman 1984 and The Suicide Squad have each only made about $165 million worldwide this year?

IMO, the opening credits sequence totally was not lazy storytelling. I thought it was actually a well done, well animated opening credit sequence with music that matched the sequence's emotional beats. IMO, what was more important to show was what inspired Kate Bishop to want to be a super-hero, an Avengers-level threat that blew a hole in her family's brownstone New York apartment and which her father wouldn't survive. And the fact that Episode One's opening scene was a normal person's front row point-of-view of the Battle of New York was all the more powerful. I don't think we really needed to see a montage of live action shots of a little girl getting a bow as a gift and her training in the aforementioned disciplines. We've all seen that montage. Put it in a nice opening credits scene, the type normally saved for a MCU's end credits sequence, and let's get on to the meat of the story, Hawkeye meeting Hawkeye. This will be her true journey to becoming a hero worthy of the Avengers (or whatever team she ends up with). Anybody can learn to shoot a bow or practice martial arts. I think her situation is totally equivalent to Bruce Wayne to a point. She's a rich young city girl who saw one of her parents get taken down by an Avengers level threat, inspiring her to learn skills that would make her a protector. Sounds like somebody we know. She's just not so psycho about it all. Is Robin a better equivalent? As for how unbelievable it is that Kate could take on the Tracksuit Mafia hand-to-hand successfully, let's examine that. First, considering that she's been intently training in martial arts, gymnastics, and weapons arts for more than 10 years, is a black belt in those arts and has won numerous medals in gymnastics, the wine cellar fight sequence of Episode One is totally believable, assuming that the goons she is taking on are not world class martial artists themselves. Kate's moves are basic yet effective martial arts moves and she wields two wine bottles the way one might wield two billy clubs, which would have been effective in giving her an upper hand and shows how clever she is and a step ahead of commonplace criminals. But even how well she does against the Tracksuit goons, it wasn't completely smooth as one goon in particular tossed her around like the underweight fighter she is. I don't think the wine cellar sequence showed Kate as being unbelievably overpowered at all. It showed a person who'd been training for this fight for over ten years finally having a chance to use those skills in a real world case against a couple of commonplace goons who Clint Barton could take out with his pinkie. There are bigger challenges ahead for Kate Bishop in this show.

Please hold my beer.

You can totally spin it otherwise. Forget for a moment the heightened box office expectations for any MCU movie after the franchise's record box office of 2018 and 2019. The world is still in a global pandemic so box office is down globally. While obviously not on the same box office level of No Time to Die or F9 worldwide, its worldwide box office is right in the middle of the pack with other 2021 films. Domestic box office-wise, give Eternals a couple more weeks and it should pass No Time to Die and a A Quiet Place II. Yes, according to Rotten Tomatoes, only 48% of the critics gave Eternals a relatively positive review, but the fans have been much more kind to the movie, as 78% of RT users scored the movie positive. This beats out Ant-Man and the Wasp's RT score, another MCU movie which is not considered a flop by any means. This from a MCU movie which I believe one could classify as an "artistic experiment" and Marvel Studios taking a slight left turn from what it normally does.

Episode One's opening credits is part of the storytelling of Kate's superhero bio. When young Kate asks her mother for a bow and arrow at her father's funeral, the episode cuts to the opening credits where it shows her in cartoon cutout sequences FORMALLY training in martial arts, gymnastics, fencing, and yes, archery. She even competes collegiately which means she is good. The fact that young Kate also seems spurred to train because of her father's death and being inspired by Hawkeye to protect what's left of her family (as opposed to doing it just to be an athlete), that kind of makes her something like a female Bruce Wayne. Savvy?

Eh? How do I act like I'm the only MCU fan here? Am I the only MCU fan here? Oh, I guess if you're referring to my above post, I wasn't actually asserting that all MCU fans see a movie 140 times fluff up box office. That was just a sarcastic response to paperheart's negativity about the Eternals box office going forward though I was mostly making fun of Bosco's regular accusation that diehard MCU fans all go see MCU movies dozens of times to make the MCU look good at the box office which is ridiculous. He posts that Captain Marvel 140 times meme regularly but actually seems to take it seriously as if all MCU fans do that. If I go see a MCU movie multiple times (I'm not sure if I saw CM or Endgame more, about 7 times at the theater give or take a viewing) it's because the MCU makes such stellar and fun superhero movies one after another, not because it's a job. Although I wish it was a job.

Well after I watch Eternals 140 times starting this weekend that should put it over the top because that's what us diehard MCU fans do, spend our entire waking moments, days off, and work breaks going to the movies to artificially inflate MCU numbers. ***sarcasm***

Personally, I'm ready to move off this topic and get back to posting about how great an MCU experience Eternals was, but... When I said sticking to one's guns...I meant sticking to one's guns by completely dismissing the criteria of my argument. For instance, if I said the largest tree in the world is a sequoia tree, someone might say the largest tree is actually a redwood tree because it's the tallest. Then I come back with the criteria I used for largest tree isn't just height, but also average mass, girth, and weight. And using those criteria, the sequoia tree is actually the largest tree, even though the redwood tree is undeniably taller. And then the other party comes back again saying I'm wrong because the redwood tree is the largest due to its height. I acknowledge that the redwood tree is tallest, but again I repeat I'm not just using height as my criteria, but mass, girth, weight, etc. which is why I say the sequoia tree is the largest tree. Then the other party comes back and says I'm blind and a fanatic because I can't see that the redwood tree is the largest tree because of its height. And so and so on. And this is what I mean by sticking to one's guns.

Here's the point. My opinion obviously doesn't matter. In my opinion, Eternals is the best popular movie of the pandemic and obviously that's not shared by all. My previously off-the -cuff statement about Shang-Chi being the biggest hit of the pandemic era so far is what I think the U.S. based studios and the U.S. based movie chains believe. Going forward, I believe that U.S. studios and U.S. based movie theaters think that of all U.S. movies that debuted during the pandemic era, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings made the biggest impact with audiences and has the most upside for a follow-up film, both domestically and internationally, not accounting for China which is a mess for Hollywood right now.

I'm not really talking about Eternals per se. I'm just responding to drotto's post that all studios care about is how much money a movie makes and I responded that's not true.