Captain America: Civil War and Where Marvel Movies Went Right And DC Movies Failed

It's amazing.  Avengers:Age of Ultron was heavily criticised and yet, on first watching it I realised that it was an "establishing movie" -introducing concepts and characters to spring-board into other movies.  After all, you can't make a movie and introduce a whole bunch of characters suddenly because most people going to these movies do not and have not read a comic book.

So, I saw the trailers to Captain America: Civil War and read all the "Yeah, these will be the best bits of the movie to pull us in!" and "That is just freakin stupid -all those characters in one movie: it's a road-crash at full speed!"

Now, I then read all the complaints about "some backwater country gets to see this before America!" and ruder remarks.  Well, now the US has seen the movie and the reaction was that those who had said this movie would be "garbage" (those brave enough to admitting having said that) have praised it.  Even Comicbookgirl19 was a little surprised. SPOILER FREE review!  But BAD LANGUAGE ALERT!

And four hours ago, Rebecca Ford at Hollywood Reporter wrote http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-captain-america-civil-891684

Box Office: 'Captain America: Civil War' Rockets to $75M Friday for Huge $180M Debut

by Rebecca Ford

Courtesy of Marvel Studios

The Disney and Marvel superhero film is poised to have the fifth best opening weekend of all time.

Disney and Marvel's Captain America: Civil War continues to do mighty business at the box office, earning an estimated $75.3 million Friday on its way to $180 million for its domestic debut -- the fifth best opening weekend ever.

The stellar tally from industry estimates gives the superhero film the eighth best opening day in history, just ahead of The Twilight Saga: New Moon ($72.7 million) and behind The Dark Knight Rises ($75.8 million).


The film, which centers on a disagreement that forces the Avengers to choose sides between Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), is expected to take at least the fifth best opening ever, jumping ahead of Iron Man 3's $174 million debut. It could even come closer to matching Avengers: Age of Ultron's huge $191 million opening from 2015 (Age of Ultron earned $84.4 million Friday).

Civil War, which features many Avengers stars including Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Anthony Mackie and Jeremy Renner, has garnered strong reviews, currently holding a 91 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It also earned a strong A overall CinemaScore (and A+ in several demos).

Directed by the Russo brothers, the film also introduces some new faces to the Marvel cinematic universe including Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) and Spider-Man/Peter Parker (Tom Holland).
Civil War, which is kicking off the summer season, is also soldiering to big numbers overseas after beginning its rollout last weekend. It will easily surpass $300 million internationally.

Disney will take the No. 1 and No. 2 spots this weekend domestically with The Jungle Book set to place second in its fourth weekend out. It will earn another $23 million to bring its domestic tally to around $286 million.

And 2 hours ago Chris Cabin at Collider.com wrote this: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-captain-america-civil-891684

 

Friday Box Office: ‘Captain America: Civil War’ Eyes Smashing $180 Million Opening Weekend

by Chris Cabin     

Here’s one for your News of Shocking Events file. Captain America: Civil War, the latest blockbuster to be launched by the indomitable MCU, is eyeing an absolutely tremendous $180 million weekend from current projections, according to Variety. This would mean that the film is looking to unseat Iron Man 3, arguably the very best Marvel Studios production to date, in the best opening weekend rankings, which is kinda hilarious. Ya know, with the Civil War thing and all…nevermind.

Image via Marvel

Friday box office numbers has the Chris Evans-led film, directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, coming in with an astounding $75.3 million, beating out all pretenders to the throne. This number lands the blockbuster in the seventh spot on the best Friday opening rankings, trailing the likes of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part II, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Jurassic World, Marvel’s The Avengers, and, sigh, Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice. Pretty impressive company, at least when one considers the monetary intake of the those films. In terms of quality, less so.

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If the projections of $180 million are to be believed, and there’s no reason not to, it would place the film in the fifth spot as far as opening weekend numbers go. Captain America: Civil War would land behind a pretty elite class of films: Star Wars: The Force Awakens at $248 million, Jurassic World at $208.8 million, Marvel’s The Avengers at $207.4 million and Avengers: Age of Ultron at $191.3 million. For the record, the current fifth place take goes to Iron Man 3 with $174.1 million, which is nothing to sniff at.

We’ll have a clearer answer as to where exactly the number will land tomorrow, but at this point, discussing any other film seems just plain trivial. Yes, The Jungle Book is still doing well, looking to take the second spot with some $24 million, but we’ve had a handful of weekends where The Jungle Book has been the main topic of conversation. Expect the rest of May to be dominated by Captain America: Civil War, a film I thoroughly enjoyed for what it’s worth, until X-Men: Apocalypse rears its weird, blue mutant-god head.

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Image via Marvel

Now, unless I've lost my grip on reality (I'm NOT asking for your opinion on that!) that means this movie has literally kicked all the critics (pro and amateur) up their collective asses.  But why? What??

Firstly, Zack Snyder screwed up the Batman v Superman movie.  People in Japan, Germany and elsewhere are all saying that Snyder's movie was a mess and, oddly so it must be true, "It looks like three or four different stories all mixed up!"  I feel sorry for Ben Affleck but the good news is that he will be having a lot to do with the Justice League movie and he knows how to make movies. With Batman v Superman he just had to sit on his hands and do what Snyder said.

Batman was always a dark, brooding character and I think Michael Keaton's performance as Bruce Wayne/Batman was the best. Think which Batman movie number we'd be up to now if  the studios had not crapped on Burton and Keaton -we'd have a great history and an actor ready for The Dark Knight story-line.

Superman was always the bright, full of hope and humanity character but somewhere this was all forgotten. Has any Superman incarnation since Christopher Reeves been as good or so spot on?  Making Superman some maniac just does not work.

The DC Movie Universe has totally forgotten or not bothered with what made these characters, including Wonder woman, so popular.

The Marvel Movie Universe has.  

I stick by what I have always written: these are not the good old comic characters that we grew up on and meant a great deal to us before the Quesada Era killed everything.  I see these as an alternate parallel Marvel.  An Ultimate's Universe if you like.  Great actors and great scripts and movies that seemed impossible when I started reading comics -the age of Harryhausen monsters and split screen scenes.  Stan Lee wrote in his introduction to the Marvel two issue Kree-Skrull War editions back in the 1970s(?) that you could "only have this sort of epic in comics" simply because to make it a movie would "cost millions". 

But I saw Asgard, The Destroyer, Ymir, big battles -New York under attack from aliens! The S.H.I.E.L.D. heli-carrier....and because of today's technology it looked REAL!  I know the Fantastic Four and Rise of the Silver Surfer movies get criticism (mainly because of that horrendous Dr Doom!) but I enjoyed them. When the Thing is on that bridge and the collision with that heavy rig I just thought "wow".  And on dvd I watched it several times and it really does look like a real life Thing colliding with a vehicle.

The new Marvel Movie people have done one thing. They have maintained the essence of what makes these characters who they are.  Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark I thought "really?" -he's a good actor but.....and, damn, NO ONE else could even be that character now and we have seen Stark and Iron Man go from flippant industrialist to a rather serious, almost tortured soul. 

"Why does Marvel keep out-selling us?" DC used to ask in the 1960s and 1970s. DC never quite got it. Marvel were being Marvel and that meant they tried new things but kept a good continuity. Same with the movies and they've built up a great movie universe.

DC seems to think that dark, miserable characters in dark and miserable settings will work.  They are VERY slow learners. Had they developed the movies using characters established in its Smallville series which had/has a world wide fan base then "maybe".  But even now, with popular Arrow and Flash and Supergirl characters on TV -they have said those will NOT be merged into the movie universe.  Marvel has introduced its movie characters into its TV universe. It has established something DC has just been too dumb not to do itself.

But who cares what I think!