My Pet Peeve About Superhero Films

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https://www.axios.com/china-hollywo...ent-e14e57de-c0ba-4569-a221-314825785c81.html


One of President Xi Jinping’s most powerful tools for increasing China’s influence is Hollywood.

The bottom line: The Chinese film market is massive and growing — and Hollywood studios are willing to play by the Communist Party’s censorship rules to access that market. Now China is using Hollywood tactics to take its market for itself.

The leverage
The Chinese market is as crucial to U.S. film studios — 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Disney, Sony pictures, etc —as it is to any other U.S. industry.

  • China's box office has grown from $863 million in 2000 to almost $8 billion today and the country is adding around 25 theater screens per day.
  • It's the top international box office outside the U.S., making $5.9 billion more than Japan, which comes in second, according to IHS Markit. American studios make a small percentage of box office receipts from movies shown in China, but that‘s still a big part of revenue.
  • The total U.S. box office was $11 billion in 2017, making up 27% of total, global box office dollars.
The China effect: At times,Hollywood studios will even create and alter content to appeal to Chinese consumers and avoid censorship by the Communist Party.

  • The result is that, often, “Hollywood films make a better case for China than China’s own films do,” Stanley Rosen, an expert on Chinese society at the University of Southern California, tells Axios.
  • For example: In a remake of the 1984 cult classic “Red Dawn,”the studio swapped out Chinese villains for North Korean ones at the last minute to avoid China’s ire. This is typical, Rosen says. You’ll rarely see Chinese bad guys in Hollywood productions.
  • If a film bothers the Party, the government will not only ban the film, but also ban the studio itself from showing future films in China. Those bans are so difficult to deal with that Disney once hired Henry Kissinger to help win back Chinese trust, says Rosen.
  • And U.S. films praise the Chinese as well. In the John Cusack film “2012,” the actor Oliver Platt remarks on the speed of technological advancement in China, saying, “Leave it to the Chinese.”
The takeover
Chinese firms have long been investors in Hollywood studios, and lawmakers are starting to see their investments as avenues to spread Chinese influence, Rosen says.

  • U.S. senators have challenged bids for American studios by Dalian Wanda Group, a Chinese real estate conglomerate. In a letter, Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote: "I am concerned that these acquisitions reflect the strategic goals of China’s government and may not be receiving sufficient review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States."
  • Chinese tech giant Tencent is co-financing the production of the upcoming "Terminator" film and taking over its distribution in Asia.
  • Yes, but: These investments have started to plateau, and some major deals have been cancelled. Still, while the U.S. government can curb Chinese investment in American studios, it has little control over the market leverage China has over Hollywood.
And now China is upping investment in producing its own Chinese movies — but not without leveraging Hollywood's tactics. It's been fairly successful.

  • The recent Chinese blockbuster Wolf Warrior 2, a patriotic movie about a Chinese soldier rescuing Chinese nationals from conflict in Africa, broke records by bringing in $780 million.
    • One big reason why the film was successful was the Hollywood help it received. Marvel's Russo brothers traveled to China with their stunt team to help with production.
  • Not only is China making its own popular films, the Chinese government also censors foreign movies and even holds country-wide blackout days when only Chinese movies can be shown in theaters.
 
1maGoh said:
You see, I hate Batman. I don't like Superman, but I hate Batman.

Why? Because doorman is so powerful that he really shouldn't be about to be defeated... But Batman can defeat him. The Flash thinks and perceives time at the attasecond level (the smallest measurement of time) and moves so fast that he shouldn't even get touched every by other really fast guys... But Batman can beat him. The list goes on and on. No matter the "person", no matter the powers, Batman can defeat them. It's soooo stupid and way beyond believability.

The movie trilogy Batman was great because he was a flawed person. He's great by himself with villains like the joker and penguin. Once you put him on the Justice League? Forget it. He could never hang with that group as a regular human. It's impossible. But somehow he still does because... Batman!
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I would never get into the Justice League stuff.
 
PA Ram said:
Well, I tell you this Dieter the Brock, the day that Captain America and Hulk start arguing in Chinese I'm done--out.

The industry--like any industry, will chase profit--no matter where that is. They make few movies for my age group--particularly in the summer. That doesn't mean I can't enjoy these films but I'm not the biggest fan of them. I watch less films these days in a theater because there just isn't that much to attract me.

For the record, my favorite film this year was Sicario: Day of the Solado. Benncio Del Toro did not wear a mask.
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Sicario was good but did not live up to the first in my estimation......but......great reservation with the ending.
I really hope they don't head down the road I think they are.....an unkillable Del Toro and that irritating skinny teenage gang member taking on the corrupt government.
Could go south real fast.
 
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1maGoh said:
You see, I hate Batman. I don't like Superman, but I hate Batman.

Why? Because doorman is so powerful that he really shouldn't be about to be defeated... But Batman can defeat him. The Flash thinks and perceives time at the attasecond level (the smallest measurement of time) and moves so fast that he shouldn't even get touched every by other really fast guys... But Batman can beat him. The list goes on and on. No matter the "person", no matter the powers, Batman can defeat them. It's soooo stupid and way beyond believability.

The movie trilogy Batman was great because he was a flawed person. He's great by himself with villains like the joker and penguin. Once you put him on the Justice League? Forget it. He could never hang with that group as a regular human. It's impossible. But somehow he still does because... Batman!
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Well... except that's not how it went though. Half of the super heroes evaporated into thin air and were fucking fucked (aka graveyard DEAD).

Then........... NO ENDING
 

But guess what, NO ONE CARES about that when we watch it. Instead, we're in awe that Thanos is the first villain to be equally as terrifying and actually accomplished his mission.

We know that a super hero movie will have the *gasp* hero over come the *gasp* villain.

We enjoy the stories, the characters, the humor, the struggles that these movies have. Contrary to what you may think, these are not all loud noises all the time.


It's called the Soul Stone. At least attempt to learn about it before complaining about it.


Umm you don't know that. There are consequences after every Marvel film, whether it be with the character or events. I.e., battle of Sokovia causing the divide that broke up the Avengers.

In fact, with the Russo Brothers directing, you KNOW something serious is gonna come out of the events of Infinity War. And I'm not 100% on board that in IW Part 2 Thanos will be defeated.


And it's with this statement I know one of two things. Either:

1. You didn't watch the movies

2. You did but didn't bother to pay attention to the story or all the little details each of them have.

I'm not here to tell you you have to watch these movies. If you don't like the superhero genre you don't like it. My issue is when you or anyone else make statements like "enjoy the special effects" you are generalizing the MCU into typical mindless explosion fests. When in fact the MCU is much more than that, and it's taken a decade to grow to where it is now.
 
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1maGoh said:
You see, I hate Batman. I don't like Superman, but I hate Batman.

Why? Because doorman is so powerful that he really shouldn't be about to be defeated... But Batman can defeat him. The Flash thinks and perceives time at the attasecond level (the smallest measurement of time) and moves so fast that he shouldn't even get touched every by other really fast guys... But Batman can beat him. The list goes on and on. No matter the "person", no matter the powers, Batman can defeat them. It's soooo stupid and way beyond believability.

The movie trilogy Batman was great because he was a flawed person. He's great by himself with villains like the joker and penguin. Once you put him on the Justice League? Forget it. He could never hang with that group as a regular human. It's impossible. But somehow he still does because... Batman!
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I'm only mentioning this cause you seemed so stressed out about it. Batman is not real. He's a fictional character! There is no real Justice League...and there is no Flash!
 
I SAY LEAVE THE MASK ON!
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WHAT ??? I definitely did not know that. Hopefully you are just guessing that's what's going to happen.

If not... it's an even bigger pet peeve than the ridiculous 2.5 hour run time. Although,,, that did afford me time for a half hour nap during the middle... I woke up and there was still a whole hour of the scrotum chin badguy left. WTF was THAT too btw.
 
Every time Hollywood spaffs another $200m that could go to original works on yet another god-awful superhero movie my soul dies a little.

Each to their own of course and they're obviously extremely popular. I'd just rather shit on my hands and clap than sit through one, personally.
 
Karate61 said:
I'm only mentioning this cause you seemed so stressed out about it. Batman is not real. He's a fictional character! There is no real Justice League...and there is no Flash!
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It's really not Batman that bugs me. I hate Batman, but it's really all the Batman fanboys who act like Batman is so much better than other heros because he's just a guy. That makes him less believable within the context of his stories to me. I got into a lot of arguments about it when I was in the Army.
 
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Selassie I said:
WHAT ??? I definitely did not know that. Hopefully you are just guessing that's what's going to happen.

If not... it's an even bigger pet peeve than the ridiculous 2.5 hour run time. Although,,, that did afford me time for a half hour nap during the middle... I woke up and there was still a whole hour of the scrotum chin badguy left. WTF was THAT too btw.
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I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but there are sequels for characters that died in Infinity War already announced - so we knew from the moment it happened that at least some of them are coming back.

I love the Marvel movies, and the people that don't are missing out IMO - nobody has ever done anything even close to this. There are some continuity issues, but overall what they're doing is nothing short of amazing.

At first knowing they'd be coming back bothered me - but a lot of the originals have their contracts expiring after Avengers 4 - so the logical thing is that they will have to sacrifice themselves in order for the newer characters to return - so there's still going to be some consequence. And honestly, it'll be a lot more painful to watch Iron Man bite the dust than it was for me watching some of those newer characters who I'm not emotionally invested enough in just yet.
 
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With Disney buying FOX , the Marvel Universe just got twice as big

Love it or hate it fellas , this party is just getting started

3698072-vsultroniv.jpg
 
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FrantikRam said:
I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but there are sequels for characters that died in Infinity War already announced - so we knew from the moment it happened that at least some of them are coming back.

I love the Marvel movies, and the people that don't are missing out IMO - nobody has ever done anything even close to this. There are some continuity issues, but overall what they're doing is nothing short of amazing.

At first knowing they'd be coming back bothered me - but a lot of the originals have their contracts expiring after Avengers 4 - so the logical thing is that they will have to sacrifice themselves in order for the newer characters to return - so there's still going to be some consequence. And honestly, it'll be a lot more painful to watch Iron Man bite the dust than it was for me watching some of those newer characters who I'm not emotionally invested enough in just yet.
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I wasn't joking. I had no idea.

Spoiler Alert ! LOL

It was a fun watch... all of them are really. I just don't know all of the stories. Hell, I didn't even realize how many superheroes there are... I didn't know who the hell a bunch of them even were.
 
Dieter the Brock said:
The pet peeve I have is that nobody in America realizes they are watching movies made for a Chinese audience.

It literally makes me sick

What is worse is that grown men are posting about their Marvel pet peeves without the understanding that Hollywood doesn't give a crap about you.

Whatever your Marvel Pet Peeve is it comes from your inability to think like a Chinese movie goer.

Hollywood sucks the balls of China
Get used to this fact
Stop watching this crap

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/guid/6F9FD6C8-5D05-11E8-9A01-3AAC1E962476

This tranformation has been underway for a decade:
More from 2016

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.inverse.com/amp/article/13967-what-chinese-movie-audiences-want-to-see
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More than that, Legendary Pictures was acquired in 2016 by Wanda Group and China's richest man for $3.5B and THEY make a ton of the big box films we see today even beyond the MCU.

China has money, a rapidly growing movie going demographic and a larger potential box than the US and Europe combined. Reminds me of the 80s when the Japanese had cash to burn and they not only acquired tons of properties (the US was in a pretty ugly recession in '82) and but also acquired Columbia pictures which was a scandal as well as acquiring Rockefeller Center..another scandal.

I remember that Warcraft, the movie, did only like $40M in the US and over $300M in China and there's serious discussion of a sequel because when a movie does over $400M worldwide, that's enough to want to continue that.

So yeah, a lot of the current movies are actually made to accommodate if not directed towards Chinese audiences.

I dunno if that's good or bad, but it is what it is and it's only going to be a bigger deal moving forward because money is money and even if a film only makes $11 in the US, if it grosses $500M worldwide, they gonna make more...and more like it. And that'll open up a domestic market in the US and business will be business.
 
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Dieter the Brock said:
Looks like the Chinese are with you guys when it comes to Black Panther - they want the mask on full time

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PEiY7DN8HJM

https://www.google.com/amp/s/hiphop...ortedly-too-black-for-chinese-moviegoers/amp/
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Well, yeah. No point in stating why, the video does, but...yeah.

I will admit that they needed to do a better job lighting Black Panther because there were scenes that were so badly lit that it was easier to discern the action in Frank Miller's Sin City which was dark af.

But still, it's no secret how the Japanese and Chinese feel about...well...certain things.

So, I'm totally not surprised.
 
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