Universal’s Pictures 'Dark Universe' Doesn’t Need America (public rejects Hollyweird garbage)

Screen Rant ^ | 18 hours ago | By John Orquiola 

[drewh]

Is Universal’s Dark Universe dead on arrival? There is certainly no lack of doomsaying about the prospects of Universal Pictures continuing their plan of building a shared movie universe with their array of classic movie monsters in the mold of Marvel Studios. The Mummy, starring Tom Cruise and Sofia Boutella as the titular monster, is the opening chapter of Universal’s Dark Universe, and after its opening weekend performance, the consensus is that the future of the Dark Universe looks bleak. When the final numbers for the weekend of June 9-11, 2017 were tallied, The Mummy grossed $31-million – hardly a blockbuster or a solid foundation to build a new movie universe around.

A narrative quickly formed that The Mummy was a failure, and thus the Dark Universe as a whole was finished before it started. There’s ample rationale to support this conclusion: Tom Cruise’s star at the domestic box office is on the wane; The Mummy was buried by the legitimate cultural phenomenon of Wonder Woman; and most damning, The Mummy was simply not a very good movie.

There’s also the reasonable judgment that Universal Pictures, which unveiled the Dark Universe concept just a couple of weeks before The Mummy opened with a logo, a trailer for the concept, and a photo of the movie stars they assembled, announced their grand ambitions without actually having a movie the public had already embraced to build off of. Even the Dark Universe logo that kicks off The Mummy seems like an act of hubris: Universal was putting the sarcophagus before the horse with Dark Universe.

Tom Cruise as Nick Morton and Russell Crowe as Henry Jekyll in The Mummy Universals Dark Universe Doesnt Need America

So The Mummy and Dark Universe are finished, end of story? Not so fast. Beyond the borders of North America, there’s a different story to be told. The Mummy opened overseas to $140-million, giving it a total worldwide gross opening weekend of $172-million. It opened at number 1 in 52 markets, including China. This earns back the film’s $125-million budget, before marketing costs. It also ranks as Tom Cruise’s biggest global box office opening ever; Cruise’s appeal remains strong in international markets, thanks in part to the popularity of his Mission: Impossible franchise. While Wonder Woman continues to be celebrated as the number one movie in North America, it doesn’t hold that distinction elsewhere. The Mummy is the biggest movie in the world at the moment.

It’s no secret that the international box office has only grown in importance in recent decades. Hollywood tentpoles that underperform in the US can recoup their costs and then some in other countries that are far more receptive to big-budget movies. A recent example is Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, which led the lowest-grossing Memorial Weekend in years and is perceived as another example of the waning star of Johnny Depp (who is also scheduled to headline the future Dark Universe entry The Invisible Man). While Pirates 5 has only grossed $135-million in the US since Memorial Weekend, its worldwide take to date is $600-million. Pirates 5 has easily earned back its $230-million budget, and while Dead Men Tell No Tales ranks as the lowest grossing Pirates film, there’s still an appetite for Captain Jack Sparrow’s antics overseas and Disney likely will proceed to set sail with a sixth Pirates.

[DiogenesLamp]

Yes, I had been so disappointed in the last three Pirate movies I almost didn’t bother watching this one. It isn’t as good as the very first one, but in my opinion it is the best one since the first one.

[LeoTDB69]

As for pirate movies, I’d prefer a Yellowbeard sequel.

“Us Yellowbeards are never quite as dangerous as when we’re dead!”

[edh]

“Wonder Woman sucked and the only reason it’s a “cultural phenomenon” is because nobody will stand up and say so because GRRL POWA! “

A few of my friends that I trust with movie reviews tell me that Wonder Woman was really good and that it wasn’t “forced down your throat” PC garbage. (they all hated the new Ghostbusters FWIW).

I’ll wait for the home release regardless.

By the way, if you want to tweak a liberal, tell them that you couldn’t care less about female leads in action films ... so long as the woman is smoking hot ;-). Trust me, their heads melt and their blood boils :-).

[chris37]

Sick and tried of CGI BS and Tom Cruise.

Do something else, find new talent.

[Little Ray]

I agree with your friends.
WW was pretty darn good.

[longtermmemmory]

1. themoviespoiler.com has saved a fortune in wasted time since it supplies complete start to finish summaries.

2.wonder woman was rewritten to appeal to non-usa audiences (ww II to ww I)

3.distributors have become desperate to put an openining on more screens on opening day because reviews and word of mouth have become so fast a bad movie will be texted out DURING a bad movie.

[longtermmemmory]

and PC garbage is pc garbage no matter how gentle.

[ontap]

Another flop....looks like Cruises career has run it’s course!!!

[drewh]

p;us WW has a female director... more GIRL POWA!

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

” The Mummy opened overseas to $140-million, giving it a total worldwide gross opening weekend of $172-million.”
“This earns back the film’s $125-million budget, before marketing costs.”

Nonsense. The box-office take is split with the theaters. Only about half of the domestic box-office gross take goes to the movie company (and substantially less than that in foreign markets).

[alternatives?]

I wonder what the box office proceeds would be of a film of Hillary live on election night from 8:30 to 11:00?

Talk about girl power.

[LS]

Wonder Woman was just ok. At the time, I gave it a B-.

Gal Gadot is gorgeous, so you can look at her for 2 hours without too much trouble. But as usual, it had a stupid plot, unbelievable villains (the WW I Germans? Really? When do we get the Afrikaners?), and it was (as all current movies are) too long.

Above all, this, the Mummy, and the rest of the “Dark Universe” has a problem with the very essence, which is dark, foreboding, pessimistic. Gadot’s Wonder Woman is reasonably heroic, but to what purpose? Just to stop a gas attack?

Brandon Frasier’s “The Mummy” was spectacular because it was funny, campy, and very much played up his Americanism. But, sigh, on FR I speak to the choir.

[webheart]

So did you actually go and see Wonder Woman? If you had, you would be saying something quite different. It far from sucked.

First, Gal Godot is absolutely stunning and it is really hard to watch the movie while she is on the screen because she is just so nice looking. I had to close my mouth more than once.

I will grant that the scene where Steve is imploring her not to give up on mortal humans was the worst inspiration speech ever filmed, it only takes a few minutes from the total package. The action isn't excessively chaotic and you get lots of full on action scenes for the time spent.

The whole superhero genre is corny to begin with, so what? Many of us read the comics in the distant past and are happy as hell seeing how good they make the stories look. The secret is the same as with any other entertainment which is to keep it in the proper perspective. And there really is nothing wrong with putting a woman in an action movie.

[Skywise]

Yes I saw it. Twice.

IT SUCKED - BOTH TIMES.

Sure Gal Godot is stunning. Doesn’t make her a great actress or a great storyline. I found her interactions with Trevor to be flat and dull. The storyline is all over the place and they never give the character time to breathe (except for some oddly out of place sex chat on the boat). Everything else is signaling and a by-the-numbers superhero movie. She starts out as the wunderkind on her island, defeating security, inquisitive, and being independent by asking the tough questions but then is made into an naive infantile child who “learns” the truth about the real world thanks to Steve Trevor. Oh and turns out to be a god, which was hidden from her... except for the time on the island where she set off a energy pule that leveled 2 football fields.
I wasn’t expecting shakespearean storycraft here... I WAS expecting to be entertained. I wasn’t - I was bored out of my mind.

[Bratch]

Why Wonder Woman had to be set in World War I

Clare McBride

Wed, Jun 07, 2017 1:00pm

 

Spoilers below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Like her fellow star-spangled superhuman Captain America, Wonder Woman has always been closely and explicitly associated with World War II. In her 1941 debut in All Star Comics #8, Diana is specifically sent by her mother Queen Hippolyta into Man's World to help Steve Trevor fight the Nazis. For much of the decade-long run of Sensation Comics, the anthology series Wonder Woman more or less anchored, she fought alongside Steve Trevor (with the occasional help of Etta Candy and her sorority) against Nazi villainesses like Doctor Poison and Baroness Paula von Gunther.

Throughout the years, there have been some attempts to update Wonder Woman for the modern day. Some are more straightforward, like just introducing the concept of pants. Others have been just bizarre, like that time Diana gave up her powers to run a mod boutique and learn kung fu. (Oh yeah.) But despite her immortality, her origin story is so rooted in World War II that there's always a whiff of that time period about her.

So when it was announced that the first Wonder Woman feature film would be set against the backdrop of World War I, I had to double-check to make sure that there wasn't a numeral missing. At the time, I lacked all faith in the DC Extended Universe, having born witness to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, so I, quite uncharitably, assumed it was Warner Brothers trying to unsubtly stand out from the competition by using World War I as decorative wallpaper.

I'm very happy to report that I was wrong. Not only is Wonder Woman superior to Batman v Superman in every respect, it also uses its World War I setting thoughtfully and cohesively as an integral part of the story.

... up until about the third act, unfortunately, but we'll get to that.

Early in the film, Hippolyta reads baby Diana a bedtime story about the history of their people. It is the Amazons' sacred duty, she tells her, to guard against Ares, the god of war, whose return will herald the war to end all wars. Should he ever arise, it will fall to the Amazons to stop him and save the world.

Little Diana grows up believing that story word for word. When Steve Trevor falls into their lives and tells them of the great war, she believes that Ares has returned and, as the only Amazon willing to help Steve, it is her sacred duty to accompany into Man's World. Diana is supremely confident that if she just kills the right bad man, everyone will be freed from his corrupting influence and peace will reign once more.

 

 

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[LS]

Reviewer is way over thinking this.

[Windflier]

Universal's Pictures

The grammar - it hurts!

[Governor Dinwiddie]

#25: "I agree with your friends. WW was pretty darn good."

I agree. Wonder Woman was a good old fashioned action flick. There was no politics or politically correct stuff. It really is a good rip-roarin' yarn.  
 

[MarkL]

As for pirate movies, I’d prefer a Yellowbeard sequel.

“Us Yellowbeards are never quite as dangerous as when we’re dead!”

Well, he'd certainly be VERY dangerous, but they'd need a bunch of Dust Busters to get him together for the role.

Mark

[kearnyirish2]

Movies are made today with an eye towards Red China; for all their rhetoric, they love all things “American”. It is no accident that pro-US themes are downplayed in new movies...