Yet if you listen to what whiny AICN fanboys tell you, Batman was a smash hit and Superman was a disaster.
Well to be fair Superman Returns had an insanely high budget ($260M or something) so limping to $200 Million is hardly an impressive feat.
$70 million of that was overhead from 12 years of failed attempts at totally remaking the character under Jon Peters, Tim Burton, JJ Abrams, and others. That includes all their pay-or-play contracts (Nic Cage got $17 million bucks to play Superman and ended up pocketing it), pre-production work, and ideas like Krypton never exploded, Lex Luthor is a Kryptonian sleeper agent, Superman doesn't fly and has a knife-emblem he can kill people with, Luthor and Brainaic merge to create a slug creature called Lexiac, and so on.
Not that it matters. The naysayers ended up liking those ideas much better than the movie that was made.
Well its interesting that you say this. Personally I didn't know there was fan hate for Superman Returns, I didn't follow the movie and didn't see it so I never picked up on any of that.
From the moment it was clear that Tom Welling wasn't going to change his mind and play the adult Superman, the fans were against the movie. Brandon Routh was crucified simply because he wasn't Welling, and the movie was ripped apart because it wasn't a Smallville-based project with the show's cast. Everything else snowballed from there. I followed this progress of this movie from the Peters/Burton era up until the final film, and the hatred levied against Singer and Routh was CNB-caliber. You're lucky you missed out on it.
But in terms of end results, the movie made $200,081,192 at the North American box office. Compare this to Batman Begins, which fanboys absolutely loved - it made $205,343,774. Pretty much the same as Superman. (Superman has the edge in total worldwide grosses). Yet if you listen to what whiny AICN fanboys tell you, Batman was a smash hit and Superman was a disaster.
And the media has parroted that line of thought. I've seen a lot of articles touting that Returns was a failure and a disappointment. Never mind that it got good reviews. So did King Kong, and that film's been branded a bomb. Good reviews mean nothing if the fandom hates it (often for stupid and selfish reasons), and the media will pick up on that.
What does this tell us? That the rantings of fanboys on the net mean absolutely nothing.
Actually, I think it proves that the fanboys are in power. Returns was slagged as garbage before even a frame of it was shot. Not one of the actors in it was given a fair chance, Routh least of all. Everything about it was prejudged because of what it wasn't, not because of its own merits. By contrast, the fans brainwashed themselves into loving every single thing about Begins without reservation simply because Bale was in the lead role and Schumacher was gone. (Personally, I thought Begins was atrocious and Returns was much better than it got credit for, but you can't say that without getting your intelligence insulted by the fandom.) The fact that the fandom declared Returns a failure and the media's since picked up on it says it all for me. The fanboys do have the power to sink a movie if they so choose. And CR, from what I've seen, is suffering the same fate as Returns. Prejudging. Boycotts based on who the lead actor isn't rather than whether or not he's up to the job. (Some of the anti-Craigers are the same people who boycotted Returns because Routh wasn't Welling. That to me says a lot.) Incessant personal attacks on the cast and crew. Gleeful anticipation of the film's failure. How is this any different from Returns, which suffered as a result of this same behavior? The absence of a Pirates-like competitor that can be used as a means to kill the movie is the only difference I see.
I would like nothing more than to judge CR based on its own merits. Then again, I wanted to do the same with Returns. But if the fandom is so selfish that it'll kill a franchise because it's not going the way THEY demand it should go, then how am I not supposed to be concerned about it? Many would argue that Timothy Dalton got a bum rap because he wasn't Pierce Brosnan, Craig IS getting a bum rap because he's not Brosnan, and Routh was doomed from the beginning because he wasn't Welling (who always makes a big deal about never wanting to be Superman.). I can't believe for a second that the lunatic fringe has no power because they've shown time and again that they do. I can't help but be concerned that even if this is a quality movie, it'll suffer because of what it isn't, and Craig will end up paying the price.
And this'll be all I'll say on this subject, because there's nothing left for me to say and to be honest, it's too depressing a subject.
Edited by Moore Baby Moore, 03 November 2006 - 10:59 PM.
