The Four Color Media Monitor

And some of the mainstream press is willing to admit it. Here's an Indiewire report:

For the second time in a month, a mid-level comic book franchise opened to disappointment. “Shazam!: Fury of the Gods” (Warner Bros. Discovery) grossed $30.5 million in domestic sales.

That’s more than 40 percent down from the initial DC Comics film in 2019 (with ticket prices at least 15 percent lower). At $35 million, international territories were no better: China grossed $4.4 million in over 21,000 locations for less than a $210 per-theater average. At a reported production cost of $125 million before significant marketing costs, this will likely lose money.

WBD vacated the film’s Christmas date, trading the potential for accelerated holiday interest for access to premium screens and playing during spring vacation. Smart strategy, but the payoff still wasn’t there.

DC is not alone in this plight; Marvel’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” (Disney) struggles to reach $500 million worldwide (estimated budget $200 million, plus marketing). Don’t expect either character to return as more than part of an ensemble.

I've said it before, and will again: I'd rather all these live action adaptations be retired for a change. They don't do the source material justice, and the majority of them don't even seem to deal with the kind of issues past comicdom did, like race relations and drug trafficking (unless the modern leftist playbook is employed); the movie screenplays seem to stick, by contrast, with very generic plots, unless it's the kind of social justice ideologies that've become a sad staple of more recent productions.

On that note, I've taken a look at some of the reviews available through Rotten Tomatoes, which as of this writing stands at a tepid 53 percent, and while there are a lot of disappointed voices to read through, very few of them mention the screenplay's emphasis on Pedro Pena being homosexual, and if they do, they don't admit it's in poor taste or morally questionable. There are some things to consider, however, such as what's hinted at in this At Home In Hollywood review:

No one wants to see the venerable Dame Helen Mirren get body slammed. No one wants to see the venerable Dame Helen Mirren body slamming anyone else. Most of her villainy is done by extending her arm and and twitching her fingers, but the occasional brutal smash ups, and the ridiculous lines she’s given, are of great consternation to Helen Mirren fans.

Since the main adversaries are 2 or 3 villainesses, it makes me think of the abortive 1984 Supergirl film, putting Faye Dunaway and Brenda Vaccaro in the roles of villainesses (and the latter's lines were horrifically unfunny). Here, we have 2 actresses even older than those 2 were when that movie was filmed almost 4 decades ago. And there sure is something troubling about a movie where they made sure to virtue-signal to LGBT ideology, yet see nothing wrong with depicting women as the adversaries this time around, and at least one getting body slammed like in a wrestling arena?!? Hmm, we must be missing something. Also of note is what's told about the urban location, in Splice Today's review:

The new film, like the first, is set in Philadelphia but wasn’t filmed there, and only two places in the city, the Ben Franklin Bridge and Citizen’s Bank Park, look anything like real Philadelphia landmarks. We do, though, occasionally see the Center City skyline below when superheroes are flying through the air. As I said about the first movie, Shazam! is Philadelphia when the characters are in the sky, while it’s suddenly Atlanta when they’re on the ground. And I can’t imagine any of the actors ever actually set foot on the field of the Phillies’ stadium.

If the studio didn't do any location work in Philly for the sequel, those who're realists know why: with all the violent crime that's consumed the city as much as New York, it'd be potentially dangerous to set up shop there, even with security around. That's why Hollywood's ultra-leftist standings come off as so hypocritical: their beliefs are leading to many possible filming locations becoming unsafe, and not good for use anymore. You can almost expect a return someday to the setpieces famous at Universal City Studios, which I saw put to use in a lot of old movies and TV shows from decades gone by.

I also took a look at some comments made by actress Rachel Zegler, as reported by BGR:

“Some people out there (are) just being … senselessly mean,” Shazam! Fury of the Gods star Rachel Zegler tweeted over the weekend. “And it’s unnecessary. And I know, I know, ‘If you can’t handle the heat…’ and all that nonsense, and you’re right. But our film is actually very good. It’s just cool to hate on fun nowadays.”

Gee, where'd she been when Dan DiDio and Joe Quesada did just that in the 2000s? And if she does care about fun, she'd do well to consider that wokeness diminishes it. Let's be clear. Optimistic storytelling can't be validated solely by emphasizing political correctness, and it's shameful when entertainment writers are only willing to offer fun and joy based on injection of wokeness into the stories. There's a highly probably chance any Superman movie in the works will follow this blueprint too, which is exactly why, despite what's reported here about "Truth, Justice and the American Way" being restored in a planned film overseen by James Gunn, that's about all you can expect in terms of positivity, because if they do intend to follow what Ta-Nehisi Coates developed, then the famous classic Super-slogan will be mooted by wokeness.

But, I'm sure plenty of people realized these movie projects were going downhill no matter what ingredients were added, because the woke obsessions taint everything when put to use. So, couple that with how overrated a filmmaker Gunn is, and you can see that improvements are highly unlikely. Again, it's time for these live action adaptations to be shelved.

Labels: dc comics, golden calf of LGBT, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, msm propaganda, politics, sales