The Four Color Media Monitor

Well, the box office results came in, and Comic Book Movie admits the Aquaman live action movie sequel's resulted in a shipwreck, much as the analysts figured it would:

Heading into the weekend, we knew Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom would likely struggle, but the hits keep on coming for a sequel which has been unable to catch a break since its low-key "premiere."

The final DC Extended Universe movie sank yesterday with a $10.5 million haul which saw it lose second place to The Color Purple (a Broadway adaptation). Over the four-day weekend, it also grossed a lower-than-expected $38 million, with a mere $27.7 million over the three-day weekend.

That's more than Blue Beetle but less than The Suicide Squad, a disastrous result for a movie that serves as the follow-up to a blockbuster, Aquaman, which grossed over $1 billion worldwide in 2018.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom isn't exceeding expectations like its predecessor, something which doesn't bode well for the days and weeks ahead.

Oh well. I'd rather read the sea king's comics tales up to the turn of the century anyway. These live action ventures have not proven to be sustainable in the long run, and after all the PC humiliation the comics material at DC/Marvel took since the early 2000s, it's hard to watch and appreciate any of these live action films when the original illustrated source material is being desecrated even worse than the movies are.

I thought of taking a look at some of the reviews themselves, plenty of which are already negative, and came across the Toronto Star's review, which while negative, dismayingly served as apologist for a certain co-star whose role was reduced to about 20 minutes of footage in the finished edition, based on her bad behavior:

The second: “How much of Amber Heard has been cut out of it?” Answer: A lot. She’s been reduced from Jason Momoa’s co-star to cameo status.

Nobody was expecting this “Aquaman” sequel to be a winner. Not with all the reports of delays and reshoots. The changes included trimming Heard’s scenes to placate Johnny Depp fanboys, following her courtroom defeat in a defamation suit sparked by Depp, her former husband.

Gee whiz, who knew there's still some idiots out there who believe Heard's side of the story, and don't even consider her alarmingly crude behavior revealed over the course of the trial, which she even admitted to. Has it ever occurred to the reviewer that Depp's got lady fans too, who're just as appalled with Heard as the men are? Most peculiar somebody decided to sweep all that under the rug and pretend certain parts of the lawsuit never existed. If there's anybody to be mad at, it should be Heard, for making false accusations against Depp, and also the studio executives who bewilderingly never made any attempt to replace Heard with a different actress. The whole notion it couldn't be done is laughable, since the James Bond movies went through several different actors playing the role, and the finished films were judged by merit and acting talent. Certainly in the past century. Had Warner Brothers tried to replace Heard with another actress, chances are it could've at least minimized the damage from a PR viewpoint, yet they classically failed when they doubtless had the chance.

Things don't look to improve under the aforementioned James Gunn's stewardship, and if WB's got a remake of Aquaman planned, it'd be better not to get wet with that project either. There may have once been a time these adaptations could've generated excitement, but now, it's way too late.

Labels: Aquaman, dc comics, msm propaganda, politics, sales