20 thoughts on “The Avengers”

  1. Whedon’s single motion-picture directing experience, 2005’s Serenity, was a bomb.

    Well that’s disappointing. Its box office gross was about 40 mil, about what was spent making it. Not exactly a “bomb”. And that was despite all those civil war dog whistles.

    1. Well that’s disappointing. Its box office gross was about 40 mil, about what was spent making it. Not exactly a “bomb”

      Half of the gross goes to theaters, though. Then there’s the distribution cost (producing and shipping all the prints).

      On the other hand, DVD sales are more important than box office these days.

      1. On a lot of movies they’ll have a running total of initial Box Office and video rentals to date. Serenity only has the initial Box Office numbers.

        But if it broke even 7 years ago, it’s bound to have made money by now on rentals and sales.

        1. It didn’t break even if the gross equaled the production cost. To break even, the net must equal the production cost.

          1. From Wiki (referencing BoxOfficeMojo):

            The box office income outside the United States was $13.3 million, with a worldwide total of $38.9 million, slightly less than the film’s $39 million budget, which does not include the promotion and advertising costs.

            From Digg (Feb ’06):

            After disappointing movie ticket sales, it seemed that Joss Whedon’s Serenity would en[d] up as a failure in the books. Think again. Over 2 million DVDs sold, plus rentals and TV rights add up to more than $60 million.

            And Wiki again:

            On June 23, 2006 a number of fans organized and spread word of “Serenity Day”, on which all fans were proposed to purchase a copy of Serenity in an attempt to convince Universal that a sequel would be profitable. … The impact of the event could be seen from Serenity reaching #2 in the Amazon DVD Charts.

            FWIW.

            I guess I like Ken’s succinctness the best:

            We can only hope Joss makes many more bombs like Serenity in the future.

  2. Serenity cost about 39 mill to make. Not sure if that includes marketing. Marketing which was piss-poor. And despite it’s mainstream failure, Serenity got excellent marks from critics and remains a genre favorite.

    1. The marketing was fan-driven. The most blog hits I’ve ever gotten in one day for a single post was for my review of the movie Serenity; hundreds of bloggers were given tickets to advance screenings in exchange for their reviews.

  4. We can only hope Joss makes many more bombs like Serenity in the future. It would seem that’s assured with this Avenger movie. Finally a real/reel must see.

  5. I get Whedon’s habit of whacking central characters at random times but two in one movie? Dude, yer not doing yourself any favors for the sequels…

    Curse you, Fox, for doing a Star Trek on Firefly, and curse the browncoats for not making them walk it back.

    1. And Fox pulled the plug on ‘Doll House’, and ‘Jurassic Lost’ too soon too! I liked both of those.

      But they brought back that P.O.S. with ‘Breaking In’, and they’re killing it again.

      And while we’re piling on Fox, is it just ME, or are they starting to do the same things the Big 3 used to do, by not giving shows a chance. Or by moving them around, and when people can’t find them to watch, they kill the show for low ratings.

      Fox used to have bigger stones than to act like that.

      1. Fox cancelled The Tick quite a while back, so this is nothing new. They’ve always seemed to have issues with giving new shows a consistent time and showing the episodes in anything resembling a rational order.

      2. I used to be a House fan, but they kept moving it around. And when they finally stuck it on Monday night, they may or may not show it depending on what special they decided to put on Monday night. Ratings got low enough and they loss several central characters. It just never recovered. Bones also jumps around. I’ve given up on their shows. I pretty much stick to BBCA, Discovery, and History channel when not watching sports.

        Oh, and Roku which has lots of Firefly, Serenity, Doll House, and Battlestar Galactica. It also has House, Bones, and Lie to Me.

        1. I forgot that they killed ‘Lie to Me’.

          If you’re looking for better shows than the Big 3 can put on, try some of the stuff on USA or A&E. We like those shows better than anything on regular TV.

          1. Is that the guy who could tell when Jay Carney is telling a whopper? No wonder they let him go because you don’t need anyone to tell you that . . .

          2. ‘Lie to me’ had all sorts of problems, but it too suffered from the shuffling.

            Fox’s ‘The Finder’ is a ripoff of USA ‘Psych’, and the latter is more entertaining.

  6. All fox’s cool shows go to FX; Justified, Sons of Anarchy, Wilfred, Archer, The League, It’s Always Sunny, American Horror Story, and I’m sure I’m forgetting some.

  7. Which movies is he comparing it to? Does “The Incredibles” count? (Disney did a comic book after the movie, so it wasn’t an adaptation.)

    I still think Disney should have let Brad Bird direct.

    Interesting that Disney now owns both Marvel and Pixar. Maybe we’ll see “The Avengers vs. The Incredibles”?

    What would happen if Mr. Incredible fought the Hulk? My money’s on Bob Parr.

    There are other possible crossovers. What about Iron Man vs. Gizmo Duck? Tony Stark vs. Uncle Scrooge?

  8. Alas, this is probably the last great superhero movie, at least using Marvel characters, because Disney now owns Marvel comics and I fully expect the kidifying and the political correctness infecting the rest of Disney’s work to make it impossible for this kind of movie to be made again. Avengers is the last movie in the Marvel-Paramount contract that predated the merger.

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