Avaitor wrote: โTue Apr 11, 2023 12:29 pm
I can understand that, but at the same time, I think there are two different factors preventing Mario from being another Ant-Man or Shazam. One is that Mario skews even younger than these do, or rather that its target demographics, children and gamers, aren't as swayed by reviews and are interested in seeing the characters. The other thing is that I think that superhero fatigue is genuinely happening, and neither the new Ant-Man or Shazam were enticing enough to get more casual moviegoers to see them. The bigger heroes (Batman and Spider-Man, really) will likely continue to still be strong draws, as will maybe the better-received films, like Guardians Vol. 3, but it does seem that MCU oversaturation and DC's struggle to catch up to Marvel is hurting their brands.
I've seen some people suggest that video game movies may be the new comic book movies, based on how well Mario, The Last of Us and Uncharted are doing. I'm not sure if that's going to for sure be it, but I definitely think that we'll see more Nintendo and Sony films and series.
Sorry for the late reply. Those are good points. It's true that
Mario has a different target audience than those two movies; I didn't take that into account. Yeah, parents probably don't rely too much on reviews when it comes to children's films. They just need something to see with their kids and this looked like fun. Plus, they know the characters, like you said. Also, something that occurred to me later is that Illumination has some reputation by now and they probably trust the studio will deliver at least an entertaining time at the movies. And gamers were excited for this video game adaptation and would've watched it no matter what.
You're also right there's some superhero fatigue right now due to Marvel's oversaturation and also several movies that have disappointed lately, so that definitely was a factor too in
Ant-Man or
Shazam flopping.
Regarding video game movies possibly being the new comic book movies, I'm not too sure about that. Historically, they've never performed that well. Though, I've heard an important element in the success of
Mario and
The Last of Us is that in both cases, the video game creators were heavily involved in the adaptations, and as a result, they're quite faithful to the games. Apparently, that might explain in part the big disagreement between critics and audiences in the case of
Mario. One of the main criticism from critics is that the story is too simple, but I've heard that was done on purpose to make it similar to the games. So, who knows, if they continue on this path and keep making faithful adaptations, perhaps they could be the new comic book movies after all, though I doubt it. Anyway, I agree we'll get more after the success of these recent titles.
By the way,
Mario continues to do really well. It has already become the highest grossing film of the year both domestically and worldwide and is pretty much guaranteed to join the billion-dollar club now.
I was just curious for why you were laughing.
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