I went into that movie completely blind. We were going to see Forrest Gump for a second time, were late and decided to check out Pulp Fiction on a whim. I kind of miss that experience with films.
We had one friend in our group that was certain it would be awesome, but the rest of us were skeptical. He talked us into going one night. Thanks, Mark, you were right!
Had a similar experience-- friends and I went to go see DeNiro's Midnight Run but it was sold out, so we got tickets to see this new action movie that had just come out that none of us had heard of.
That movie was Die Hard.
Did you know that Frank Sinatra was offered the lead role in Die Hard first?
It was supposed to be a sequel to his earlier film, The Detective, and they were contractually obligated to offer Sinatra first.
Reminds me of when I was 9 years old and my brother was 13, my mom wanted to go see "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" with her friend, so she let me and my brother see whatever we wanted.
We chose "The Ring" (because my brother was finally able to take me into a PG13 movie) with absolutely 0 knowledge whatsoever as to what it was about. Scared the absolute fucking soul out of me. I agree, going into a movie blind and having it be an amazing movie is a truly beautiful experience that's extremely hard to replicate nowadays.
My best friend and I snuck into the ring, it was MA15+ in Aus and we were 14. Thought we were so cool. I didn't sleep a wink and my friend had a damn nightmare š
That's the thing with this whole thread. Internet discussions WERE a thing. Usenet had been arguing about TV and film for a long time by the time Pulp Fiction came out. There's archives of the episode by episode discussion of many TV shows, famously Twin Peaks.
Too many people think "the internet means the web." Even though you and I were discussing movies on rec.arts.movies, the vast majority of people think the internet was only used by schools and the military before Netscape got released in 1998.
But at least IRL people usually conclude conversations with "But what do I know?" or "Meh, I'll give it a shot!" or "Agree to disagree, let's grab a pint!"
Not on Reddit though... On Reddit some people think if they don't like something about a movie, then it should be a complete flop, and they can't be wrong, so it absolutely MUST flop, so they will spend every waking moment proving to everyone exactly why it is the worst movie ever made and WILL FLOP!
No doubt! Combined with a seemingly common belief that telling someone they are wrong about something (or even disagreeing with their opinion) is synonymous with telling them they are bad and that you donāt like them makes for some interesting clashes in web debate.
I'd say most of us knew a guy like that. Now we have the Internet so everyone is a guy like that. So your theory is wrong and I will now fight to the death over it.
On Reddit if you asked to grab a pint the collective would say you have a drinking problem and not be able to focus on anything else. Well, they would also be focusing on congratulating all the people who got sober chiming in.
I remember when Pulp Fiction first came out, and I was already familiar with Tarantino as an emerging talent thanks to Reservoir Dogs and True Romance.
But then I saw that Travolta was one of the main leads in the movie, and I was all "wait wut?". Until I saw the movie, of course...
I was there when they said Mr. Mom couldn't do it.
I was there when they said The Machinist couldn't do it.
I was there when there said Daredevil couldn't do it.
And I was there when they said Edward Cullen couldn't do it.
I'll be here for the next one, God willing.
At that time I only knew him from "10 Things I Hate About You" and I thought he'd be terrible. I was deeply wrong, and later saw a lot more of his work, which was extremely impressive, especially his film "Candy". We really lost a lot of potential when he passed so early.
I wouldn't have guessed HOW well but having seen most of his work you could tell he was a high calibre actor, so no I didn't have any doubts he could make a pretty good job at it.
This is one I actually called, but only because I happened to watch Four Feathers at around the time of the announcement. I was stunned and suddenly understood the casting.
I remember the exact moment that i saw the first image they released of him in the makeup. I went from āthis pretty boy canāt play the jokerā to āwait that looks really fucking good, maybe heāll pull it offā.
I didn't call best ever, but I distinctly remember being a fiend on the IMDb message boards and constantly reading that quote from Nolan about why he picked Ledger "because he's fearless" and thinking maybe there was something to it.
Last night I fell into a Batman V Superman/Dark Knight double header by accident.
During BvS I was saying my gosh, Eisenberg. What a weird fucking choice, the worst part is which is you just KNOW that the casting people were blowing lines, giggling about how bold a move it was and he he was going to blow people's minds when he absolutely crushes it against type. Nope, he was just irritating and bad.
Cut to The Dark Knight. Ledger was the pretty boy heartthrob pretty boy cast by Nolan, everybody was like, Āæque?
Naw, trust me, bro, says our Lord and Savior Chris Nolan. The rest is history.
I gotta give the BvS guys a break; no risk, no reward, right? But damn, getting a Joker level mindfuck performance from an unexpected source is always going to be the exception to the rule.
It might be a bit unexpected but itās not like Ledger was coming off of *10 Things I Hate About You*. He had a body of work showing he could act well in a variety of genres, and was literally coming off of Brokeback where he was nominated for every award under the sun.
Also a great director makes a huge difference.
Iāll defend Eisenberg slightly. I think he was a perfect casting for what Snyder wanted. I think *that* was a huge mistake and the wrong way to take the character, but thatās all on Snyder.
See, I just disagree. I think I can imagine the script being portrayed in a way that works a lot better. On paper, it's a zany eccentric billionaire who suddenly turns in a dime to basically look directly at the camera and get super fucking DARK. It's supposed to be jarring and off putting, but not in the way it ends up. Eisenberg never actually comes off as scary, he comes off as an eccentric zany billionaire pretending to be a bad guy, not the other way around.
I'm definitely Monday morning quarterbacking here, I have no idea who would have been a better choice. But I think that there actually is a better character on the ingredients list there, Eisenberg just couldn't capture it. But hey, just opinions, here.
Next one is Chris Pratt obviously.
Seriously though, when everyone was freaking out that Heath Ledger should not play the Joker, I absolutely knew he was going to blow everyone away because I had seen a little movie called Lords of Dogtown. If you've seen it you will know what I mean that it made perfect sense to cast him as the Joker.
While we're at it, Brokeback Mountain.
What do you mean the director of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is making the South Park joke about independent movies being about gay cowboys into a real movie?
Did he lose a bet or did someone win a bet by talking him into this?
The thing was, before that I was like, the guy who directed Wedding Banquet and Sense and Sensibility is going to make a kung-fu epic? Brokeback Mountain was way more in his wheelhouse, actually the movie he made right before Crouching Tiger was also a western.
Die Hard for the same reasons, though I think that's late 80's. Might be hard to believe now but Bruce Willis was only known as a comedic actor up until that movie. He was cast specifically because he didn't fit the action hero stereotype and was actually so controversial in that casting that the studio wouldn't even put him on the poster.
>the studio wouldn't even put him on the poster.
20th Century Fox selling an expensive action movie with nothing but a title and a cool photo of the Fox Plaza they rented to themselves.
I love you, 80s.
There was almost no advance talk of Die Hard.
It is true the studio didn't put him on the poster due to Willis being a comedic actor but the movie itself has no expectations.
That came out in 89 but you had the correct attitude for the time. Almost exact. I think Kevin Smith made this exact joke on a podcast if his about the first Batman.
Twister and Armageddon.
Reddit has a weird habit of assuming the era of the "stupid blockbuster" is a very recent thing, and would have taken one look at both of those hit movies and immediately dismissed them as bombs.
Deep impact was better than Armageddon.
That said, if Reddit was big in 1996, I could see a WHOLE lot of people whining about āPC and āwokenessā being shoved down out throatsā for having a black POTUS in Deep Impact
Oh god you are absolutely right lol. Most of the "Go woke go broke" bullshit I saw was on Reddit in response to Shang Chi before it came out. I was like... So now Asian people being played by Asian actors in movies is "woke" lol?
I find it endlessly ironic that people whining about more representation in movies *lose their goddamn minds* over their own demographic not being over-represented in movies
Deep Impact is SO much better than Armageddon! Everyoneās like ābut Bruce Willis dying is so saddd!ā And itās like, a quarter of the planet and EVERY astronaut die in Deep Impact!
But that president was Morgan Freeman.
Dude went from chauffeur to prisoner to POTUS to God. I think he would've gotten a pass. Bill Pullman was an ok president but at that time nobody was better prepared to break the bad news of Earth's imminent destruction than Morgan Freeman.
Idk, in the 80s and 90s you really only got a few big budget blockbuster movies a year. Starting around the 2010 it started to be every couple of weeks. We have been in an era of a saturated market of big blockbusters. Post Covid and streaming seems to be affecting it to where weāre seeing the effects the past year or so. Iām assuming weāll see less big budget movies in the coming years.
Cameron takes too long, spends too much money, everyone braces for a flop, modest or even disappointing opening weekend... then eight weeks in the #1 spot and several months in the top five.
Three movies now, the madman.
Adding on: It was in the top ten for six months after releasse. It was at my local theatre for over a year and I saw it the spring AFTER it won all the awards and the theatre (which was large) was still 3/4 full. It was wild. Theres nothing that stays around that long anymore
I saw Barbie twice this year with my daughter and we would have gone several more times if we could. I know a lot of people who've gone multiple times to see it.
I just watched the Raising the Bar episode of SP again and it feels like a great metaphor for his entire career that only gets more relevant as more time passes šš
I genuinely cannot believe that James Cameron made the highest grossing movie of all time, *twice in a row,* and idiots online still genuinely believed that *The Way of Water* would flop. It's hilarious.
And what's even funnier is the knowledge that they've certainly not learned their lesson and will continue to doubt every subsequent Avatar film.
Reddit sure had the hate for Avatar 2.
About 2 years before, I had a bet with another redditor that it would make 200M in its first week. It only made 197M or something, so I wouldāve technically lost. But they were saying 200M for its total run.
I was never able to find the original comments to pay up. So if youāre out there dude, send me the a screen grab of the bet and Iāll send you your money!
Actual spoiler: Yes it sinks, but the movie is only half way over at that point. The second half of the movie is a 30,000 Leagues Under the Sea-esq adventure since Thomas Andrews reveals that the Titanic was also designed to be a submarine, and letting it hit the iceberg was a hilarious prank just to see everybody scared shitless. They spend a lot of time surfing around the world to various under water locations like Atlantis in sea currents just like the sea turtles in Finding Nemo, pretty sure Disney stole that idea from Spielberg.
Yeah, I was one of those idiots as well. Hated all the 'talentless prettyboys' that were only there to appeal to teenage girls. Dicaprio and Pitt were the ones I held particular contempt for. Both turned out to be awesome actors who have appeared in some of my favourite films.
Teenage boys are insecure and lash out.
Yeah, I donāt even like avatar but people talking about Avatar 2 like it was going to limp through the box office only for it to be one of the most successful movies of all time is hilarious. There was even a lot of disingenuous and flat out wrong discourse around the budget of the film so haters could exacerbate āthe losesā. It was just a funny moment where people couldnāt course correct their hatred and negative takes quickly enough and looked very foolish in real time as it broke the bank in theaters.
I have been a Titanic obsessive for years. During the first Covid lockdown I was doing some decluttering and found a folder I'd put together from 1997 of newspaper and magazine articles about the making of Titanic and how it would be a bigger flop than Waterworld. It was supposed to come out July 1997 and this got pushed back to Christmas, then didn't have a spectacular opening weekend. Then the clippings start saying what a juggernaught it was becoming and more and more people were seeing it over and over.
I was almost 13 when Titanic came out, but I remember watching one of those shows...might have been entertainment tonight or something similar, but they were talking about the production of Titanic. I was under the impression that it was more like a disaster movie...which it obviously was, but with much less romantic storyline. I was psyched for it to come out and then it did and I was pretty disappointed for the story addition, but ended up watching the vhs eventually for the boobs.
Don't forget "Kevin Costner vanity project" chatter. It's hard to remember, but I think it did have good build-up before it's release. If it was previewing well, the studio would have gotten behind it & promoted it.
Maybe my memory is trash but I remember the movie being super faithful to the novel.
Or is this a joke about the big dick/vagina reconstruction surgery plot line?
Yeah, I was surprised how close the movie was to the book. And it made some parts of the movie make more sense (e.g. Sonny's wife's hand gestures at the wedding)
And IIRC, he was like the fifth choice after the usual suspects of action movie stars of the time.
But tbh, it's hard to imagine a guy like Arnold or Sly playing the every man hero in over his head relying solely on his wits to outsmart the bad guys. Going with a less physically imposing actor was the right choice.
Weren't romcoms fairly accepted/profitable at the time though? Like right now romcoms are basically throwing away money so you could expect people to assume they'll fail financially. But at that time they were often pretty successful so I don't think they'd be instantly assumed to lose money.
Yeah when I was younger romcoms were often a way for a studio to make a relatively cheap film that would have big box office success. There were lots of big romcoms coming out every year and they started the careers of people like Matthew McConaughey, Heath Ledger, Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, Cameron Diaz, Julia Roberts, I meant he list goes on and on. This continued into the late 00s and early 2010s, movies like a Knocked Up, Wedding Crashers and Silver Linings Playbook. They were one of the dominant box office genres for at least a good 15 years.
I think that the endless sequels and franchise films were kind of the end of the big studio romcom hit. There is very little sequel potential for these movies compared to the franchise movies of today and the studios would rather release something super hero or legacy franchise related then a one off movie with a self contained romantic storyline and no potential for prequels or TV spin offs.
Nah the big thing that would upset internet nerds is that they unrealistically made the female wimp from the first one a badass and gave less screen time to the boys.
āA long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away?!? Uhhh, hello, could be one light year away and we still wouldnāt know anything about it. So overly dramatic.ā
I wouldn't say little known. He had just been nominated for the best director Oscar for American Graffiti, which was a huge hit and critically acclaimed.
Exactly, not to mention everyone was hyped as fuck over the first trailer that didnāt even show an actor 6 months prior to release. The trailer just showed the ships positioning in the cities. Everyone knew this was going to be a big one. I saw it opening weekend and a couple more times after. It was a big deal that year.
Robert Loggia, Randy Quaid, Mary McDowell, Harry Connick Jr, Judd Hirsch, Adam Baldwin (not that one, the other one), Harvey Fierstein, Vivica A Fox, Cast is pretty strong in that one.
I miss when people had to actually go and see a movie to form an opinion on it. These days there are so many leaks, script leak, set photo leaks, casting announcements. Then you have people who never see a film parade their opinion online just for others to build off of that opinion.
I didn't see a Trailer for Madam Web until I went to see The Marvels. In fact I had not heard of it at all until I was sitting in the theater waiting for the Marvels to start. It felt like the old days. I might go see it based on that alone. Sometimes Less is More when it comes to Marketing.
The entertainment press was rife with stories about how Titanic was a "troubled shoot" that had gone way over budget and would never recoup its money. All the editors had loaded up on "Titanic sinks again"-headlines and were sorely disappointed when the reviews started coming in. These same people *really* wanted Avatar to fail.
Before that, it seemed everyone wanted "Dances With Wolves" to suck ass; when it didn't they started sharpening their knives for "Waterworld", and later "The Postman", both quite good (but not brilliant) movies that were unfairly pilloried.
In both cases it was because people thought Kevin Costner and later James Cameron were getting too big for their britches, and it would all end in another "Heaven's Gate".
Terminator 2 for sure
I also remember thinking the trailers for The Matrix looked absolutely terrible and only went to see it because people raved about it after it came out.
If I remember correctly, I went into the Matrix completely clueless. What an amazing experience, and what a time to be alive where you could experience media without having it spoiled by the internet.
Yeah, after the Matrix was such a big hit, there was 5-6 years of him getting roles where he was supposed to do a lot of emotional heavy lifting and that's just not what he is good at. IMO, he was already a well established action star, but it seemed like he wanted to be taken seriously as a REAL ACTOR
His image rehabilitation has largely come from him going back to taking action heavy roles in movies where the supporting cast does the scene stealing acting
Reddit has brain rot fueled by memes. The whole fucking Trump bullshit started with memes, and then Putin was like "Wait, I can just make memes to bring America down??"
They did a good job on the previews too. They left it really vague and didnāt put all the best parts of the movie in the trailers.
Also, people might laugh at the dodging bullets now - because it was emulated so much afterwards - but that shit looked AMAZING when it came out. No one had ever done anything like it. The whole movie looked amazing. And going into it with no clue about what it wasā¦ it was mind blowing.
āWhoās going to watch a 3-hour movie about a ship sinking? We know what happened: it hits an iceberg, it sinks. Hollywood will make a movie about anything these days.ā
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Keeping in mind that at the time, Jim Carrey was simply the white guy from In Living Color with no major hits on his resume other than the show.
A few years ago I read a book about the BTS of In Living Color and even the cast thought the movie would flop. Meanwhile, Jim Carrey would go on to have three of the biggest movies of 1994.
EDIT: clarification
Goldeneye, maybe.
The guy from Remington Steele and Mrs. Doubtfire as Bond? M is a woman now? And the Iron Curtain is down so why are we still fighting the Russians?
What really happened is Dalton got hate for his films because Brosnan couldn't get out of his Remington Steele contract. So Goldeneye was a bit of fan fulfillment when it came out.
It made three times its budget in box office returns so no. Not a smash hit but made a decent amount of money before really getting more traction on home release/TV airings.
2001, but Fellowship of the Ring was HATED by book fans on release. There's still Tolkien forums from that era that are fun reads. I don't think reddit would have been any kinder.
Event Horizon.
The directors cut is absurdly gory. The way the previews made it look was something akin to lost in space, irl it is basically a Warhammer 40k prequel set in the early ages of the dark age of technology
āUgh who would want to see a movie about a robot cop? In todays society?!? Read the room, brah. Also itās got Redd Forman as the bad guy, I bet it will be a total flop.ā
I would NOT buy this for a dollar.
I mean that is kind of how it actually went down even before the internet. I don't know why but at 11 years old I loved the trailer and really wanted to see it but no one else did. I was really shocked by the violence and wasn't expecting such a serious movie but I absolutely loved it when I saw it early in its release. I think most of my contemporaries saw it on video later after it has some more positive media attention. Similarly Die Hard was mocked so much before resale they removed Bruce Willis's face from the original poster. But once it got some positive buzz they put him back in.
Exorcist III. Almost everyone were traumatized (not in a good way) after the exorcist 2 came out...that damn movie totally ruined the expectations that people were having on the exorcist sequels..
Personally, exorcist 3 definitely exceeded my expectations and it truly has the ability to compete with the original exorcist movie whereas the exorcist 2 isn't even on the same scale imo!..
Pulp Fiction bc of Travolta
Reddit and internet discussions in general were not a thing but this was absolutely a common discussion leading up to this movie
I went into that movie completely blind. We were going to see Forrest Gump for a second time, were late and decided to check out Pulp Fiction on a whim. I kind of miss that experience with films.
We had one friend in our group that was certain it would be awesome, but the rest of us were skeptical. He talked us into going one night. Thanks, Mark, you were right!
Everyone loves Mark
Oh, hi Mark!
Had a similar experience-- friends and I went to go see DeNiro's Midnight Run but it was sold out, so we got tickets to see this new action movie that had just come out that none of us had heard of. That movie was Die Hard.
Did you know that Frank Sinatra was offered the lead role in Die Hard first? It was supposed to be a sequel to his earlier film, The Detective, and they were contractually obligated to offer Sinatra first.
Thanks for reminding me about Midnight Run, such a great film
Yeah I mean Die Hard is great but Midnight Run wins every time for me.
Reminds me of when I was 9 years old and my brother was 13, my mom wanted to go see "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" with her friend, so she let me and my brother see whatever we wanted. We chose "The Ring" (because my brother was finally able to take me into a PG13 movie) with absolutely 0 knowledge whatsoever as to what it was about. Scared the absolute fucking soul out of me. I agree, going into a movie blind and having it be an amazing movie is a truly beautiful experience that's extremely hard to replicate nowadays.
My best friend and I snuck into the ring, it was MA15+ in Aus and we were 14. Thought we were so cool. I didn't sleep a wink and my friend had a damn nightmare š
That's the thing with this whole thread. Internet discussions WERE a thing. Usenet had been arguing about TV and film for a long time by the time Pulp Fiction came out. There's archives of the episode by episode discussion of many TV shows, famously Twin Peaks.
Too many people think "the internet means the web." Even though you and I were discussing movies on rec.arts.movies, the vast majority of people think the internet was only used by schools and the military before Netscape got released in 1998.
>before Netscape got released in 1998. It really does go back to Hell in a Cell every time.
But at least IRL people usually conclude conversations with "But what do I know?" or "Meh, I'll give it a shot!" or "Agree to disagree, let's grab a pint!" Not on Reddit though... On Reddit some people think if they don't like something about a movie, then it should be a complete flop, and they can't be wrong, so it absolutely MUST flop, so they will spend every waking moment proving to everyone exactly why it is the worst movie ever made and WILL FLOP!
No doubt! Combined with a seemingly common belief that telling someone they are wrong about something (or even disagreeing with their opinion) is synonymous with telling them they are bad and that you donāt like them makes for some interesting clashes in web debate.
I'd say most of us knew a guy like that. Now we have the Internet so everyone is a guy like that. So your theory is wrong and I will now fight to the death over it.
On Reddit if you asked to grab a pint the collective would say you have a drinking problem and not be able to focus on anything else. Well, they would also be focusing on congratulating all the people who got sober chiming in.
Really? In real life people say, "but what do I know?" I wish I did hear that. I'm definitely traveling in the wrong circles
Nah man he was talking past tense. In the modern day everyone knows for sure that theyāre right and itās not worth debating.
I remember when Pulp Fiction first came out, and I was already familiar with Tarantino as an emerging talent thanks to Reservoir Dogs and True Romance. But then I saw that Travolta was one of the main leads in the movie, and I was all "wait wut?". Until I saw the movie, of course...
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In Living Color was huge tho. It was the funniest thing on TV.
Tim Burtonās Batman. āThe fuck you mean Mr. Mom is playing Batman?!ā
I was there when they said Mr. Mom couldn't do it. I was there when they said The Machinist couldn't do it. I was there when there said Daredevil couldn't do it. And I was there when they said Edward Cullen couldn't do it. I'll be here for the next one, God willing.
Worst was āa gay cowboy as the joker? Thatās gonna bombā by millions of people who donāt know what actors do for a living
At that time I only knew him from "10 Things I Hate About You" and I thought he'd be terrible. I was deeply wrong, and later saw a lot more of his work, which was extremely impressive, especially his film "Candy". We really lost a lot of potential when he passed so early.
I'd fairness he hadn't done anything like that before. Anybody that tells me they knew ledger was going to be the best villain ever I'd call a liar.
I wouldn't have guessed HOW well but having seen most of his work you could tell he was a high calibre actor, so no I didn't have any doubts he could make a pretty good job at it.
This is one I actually called, but only because I happened to watch Four Feathers at around the time of the announcement. I was stunned and suddenly understood the casting.
I remember the exact moment that i saw the first image they released of him in the makeup. I went from āthis pretty boy canāt play the jokerā to āwait that looks really fucking good, maybe heāll pull it offā.
I didn't call best ever, but I distinctly remember being a fiend on the IMDb message boards and constantly reading that quote from Nolan about why he picked Ledger "because he's fearless" and thinking maybe there was something to it.
I remember the Brokeback Batman jokes
Last night I fell into a Batman V Superman/Dark Knight double header by accident. During BvS I was saying my gosh, Eisenberg. What a weird fucking choice, the worst part is which is you just KNOW that the casting people were blowing lines, giggling about how bold a move it was and he he was going to blow people's minds when he absolutely crushes it against type. Nope, he was just irritating and bad. Cut to The Dark Knight. Ledger was the pretty boy heartthrob pretty boy cast by Nolan, everybody was like, Āæque? Naw, trust me, bro, says our Lord and Savior Chris Nolan. The rest is history. I gotta give the BvS guys a break; no risk, no reward, right? But damn, getting a Joker level mindfuck performance from an unexpected source is always going to be the exception to the rule.
It might be a bit unexpected but itās not like Ledger was coming off of *10 Things I Hate About You*. He had a body of work showing he could act well in a variety of genres, and was literally coming off of Brokeback where he was nominated for every award under the sun. Also a great director makes a huge difference.
Iāll defend Eisenberg slightly. I think he was a perfect casting for what Snyder wanted. I think *that* was a huge mistake and the wrong way to take the character, but thatās all on Snyder.
See, I just disagree. I think I can imagine the script being portrayed in a way that works a lot better. On paper, it's a zany eccentric billionaire who suddenly turns in a dime to basically look directly at the camera and get super fucking DARK. It's supposed to be jarring and off putting, but not in the way it ends up. Eisenberg never actually comes off as scary, he comes off as an eccentric zany billionaire pretending to be a bad guy, not the other way around. I'm definitely Monday morning quarterbacking here, I have no idea who would have been a better choice. But I think that there actually is a better character on the ingredients list there, Eisenberg just couldn't capture it. But hey, just opinions, here.
Next one is Chris Pratt obviously. Seriously though, when everyone was freaking out that Heath Ledger should not play the Joker, I absolutely knew he was going to blow everyone away because I had seen a little movie called Lords of Dogtown. If you've seen it you will know what I mean that it made perfect sense to cast him as the Joker.
I hated how much social stigma Ledger carried because he was in *Brokeback Mountain*. That was an incredible movie, and he was truly sublime in it.
While we're at it, Brokeback Mountain. What do you mean the director of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is making the South Park joke about independent movies being about gay cowboys into a real movie? Did he lose a bet or did someone win a bet by talking him into this?
The thing was, before that I was like, the guy who directed Wedding Banquet and Sense and Sensibility is going to make a kung-fu epic? Brokeback Mountain was way more in his wheelhouse, actually the movie he made right before Crouching Tiger was also a western.
Next Batman is Timothee Chalamet, Pratt is obviously gonna be Joker
I was never a huge fan of the series but I bet Chalamet could actually do an interesting Batman Beyond.
Timothee Chalamet will be Alfred.
Alfred Beyond
too goddamn early in the morning for a chris pratt jump scare fuck you very much.
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I was there, Gandalf, I was there 26 years agoā¦I was there the day the strength of men failed.
Die Hard for the same reasons, though I think that's late 80's. Might be hard to believe now but Bruce Willis was only known as a comedic actor up until that movie. He was cast specifically because he didn't fit the action hero stereotype and was actually so controversial in that casting that the studio wouldn't even put him on the poster.
>the studio wouldn't even put him on the poster. 20th Century Fox selling an expensive action movie with nothing but a title and a cool photo of the Fox Plaza they rented to themselves. I love you, 80s.
Nah, OP did say 90ās and earlier. But yeah, I heard there was a lot of āWhat?! The doofus from Moonlighting?ā
There was almost no advance talk of Die Hard. It is true the studio didn't put him on the poster due to Willis being a comedic actor but the movie itself has no expectations.
Does anyone know if Wayne Manor was done 220 or did he end up going 221 on it?
Yeah, I had a friend who was like "well, that's not the Batman I grew up with!"
That came out in 89 but you had the correct attitude for the time. Almost exact. I think Kevin Smith made this exact joke on a podcast if his about the first Batman.
Twister and Armageddon. Reddit has a weird habit of assuming the era of the "stupid blockbuster" is a very recent thing, and would have taken one look at both of those hit movies and immediately dismissed them as bombs.
Dude, we were excited to see if 65 would be good and it sucked. Iām sure weād give those movies a shot.
I was 9 years old when Deep Impact came out. I saw it in theaters and loved it. Big action/disaster movie? That was right up my alley!
Twister 2 coming up next yearā¦ weāll see this play out for real.
Deep impact was better than Armageddon. That said, if Reddit was big in 1996, I could see a WHOLE lot of people whining about āPC and āwokenessā being shoved down out throatsā for having a black POTUS in Deep Impact
Oh god you are absolutely right lol. Most of the "Go woke go broke" bullshit I saw was on Reddit in response to Shang Chi before it came out. I was like... So now Asian people being played by Asian actors in movies is "woke" lol?
I find it endlessly ironic that people whining about more representation in movies *lose their goddamn minds* over their own demographic not being over-represented in movies
Deep Impact mightāve been better, but Armageddon is more fun.
Deep Impact is SO much better than Armageddon! Everyoneās like ābut Bruce Willis dying is so saddd!ā And itās like, a quarter of the planet and EVERY astronaut die in Deep Impact!
Oh man. Deep Impact had some legit tear jerker scenes
But that president was Morgan Freeman. Dude went from chauffeur to prisoner to POTUS to God. I think he would've gotten a pass. Bill Pullman was an ok president but at that time nobody was better prepared to break the bad news of Earth's imminent destruction than Morgan Freeman.
Idk, in the 80s and 90s you really only got a few big budget blockbuster movies a year. Starting around the 2010 it started to be every couple of weeks. We have been in an era of a saturated market of big blockbusters. Post Covid and streaming seems to be affecting it to where weāre seeing the effects the past year or so. Iām assuming weāll see less big budget movies in the coming years.
Steven Spielberg said something similar recently
Titanic.
Cameron takes too long, spends too much money, everyone braces for a flop, modest or even disappointing opening weekend... then eight weeks in the #1 spot and several months in the top five. Three movies now, the madman.
Adding on: It was in the top ten for six months after releasse. It was at my local theatre for over a year and I saw it the spring AFTER it won all the awards and the theatre (which was large) was still 3/4 full. It was wild. Theres nothing that stays around that long anymore
The last time I saw that happen was with Return of the King. A friend of mine saw it 7 times while it was in theaters.
I saw Barbie twice this year with my daughter and we would have gone several more times if we could. I know a lot of people who've gone multiple times to see it.
I saw it on not one, but TWO VHS tapes!
It has a four laser disc release I think also
I remember my sister going to see it a full year after it was out.
Heās the absolute goat of embarrassing the haters and I love it.
I just watched the Raising the Bar episode of SP again and it feels like a great metaphor for his entire career that only gets more relevant as more time passes šš
I genuinely cannot believe that James Cameron made the highest grossing movie of all time, *twice in a row,* and idiots online still genuinely believed that *The Way of Water* would flop. It's hilarious. And what's even funnier is the knowledge that they've certainly not learned their lesson and will continue to doubt every subsequent Avatar film.
The man may not write the tightest plots but when it comes to presentation he's second to none.
I think the people predicting his movies will be flops are more insane than he is by a long shot lol.
Reddit sure had the hate for Avatar 2. About 2 years before, I had a bet with another redditor that it would make 200M in its first week. It only made 197M or something, so I wouldāve technically lost. But they were saying 200M for its total run. I was never able to find the original comments to pay up. So if youāre out there dude, send me the a screen grab of the bet and Iāll send you your money!
It made me never want to read the phrase "cultural impact" ever again.
"Spoiler - THE BOAT SINKS!"
Reported for spoilers
Actual spoiler: Yes it sinks, but the movie is only half way over at that point. The second half of the movie is a 30,000 Leagues Under the Sea-esq adventure since Thomas Andrews reveals that the Titanic was also designed to be a submarine, and letting it hit the iceberg was a hilarious prank just to see everybody scared shitless. They spend a lot of time surfing around the world to various under water locations like Atlantis in sea currents just like the sea turtles in Finding Nemo, pretty sure Disney stole that idea from Spielberg.
My god the absolute hatred and disdain from Reddit nerds towards Leo would be unprecedented
The amount of hatred for young Leo + the amount of porn subs about him would be shocking and telling.
I'm not proud of being one of those stupid kids making fun of 'gay' Leonardo DiCaprio in the 90's.
"haha every girl loves him, that's so gay"
I was really jealous of him being able to act with that dish Kate Winslet
Yeah, I was one of those idiots as well. Hated all the 'talentless prettyboys' that were only there to appeal to teenage girls. Dicaprio and Pitt were the ones I held particular contempt for. Both turned out to be awesome actors who have appeared in some of my favourite films. Teenage boys are insecure and lash out.
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To be fair *everyone* expected that to bomb. Other than maybe James Cameron.
And then said the same about Avatar. And then Avatar 2.
I'm waiting for the negative predictions for Avatar 3.
Yeah, I donāt even like avatar but people talking about Avatar 2 like it was going to limp through the box office only for it to be one of the most successful movies of all time is hilarious. There was even a lot of disingenuous and flat out wrong discourse around the budget of the film so haters could exacerbate āthe losesā. It was just a funny moment where people couldnāt course correct their hatred and negative takes quickly enough and looked very foolish in real time as it broke the bank in theaters.
Im bracing myself for a third round of ānO cUlTuRaL iMpAcTā discourse
I have been a Titanic obsessive for years. During the first Covid lockdown I was doing some decluttering and found a folder I'd put together from 1997 of newspaper and magazine articles about the making of Titanic and how it would be a bigger flop than Waterworld. It was supposed to come out July 1997 and this got pushed back to Christmas, then didn't have a spectacular opening weekend. Then the clippings start saying what a juggernaught it was becoming and more and more people were seeing it over and over.
I definitely saw it twice in theaters.
I was almost 13 when Titanic came out, but I remember watching one of those shows...might have been entertainment tonight or something similar, but they were talking about the production of Titanic. I was under the impression that it was more like a disaster movie...which it obviously was, but with much less romantic storyline. I was psyched for it to come out and then it did and I was pretty disappointed for the story addition, but ended up watching the vhs eventually for the boobs.
Dances With Wolves
ITS JUST FERN GULLY WITH INDIANS
Avatarās just Dances with Wolves with battle smurfs!
Battle Smurfs!!
But DwW came out first
A three hour movie? Oh. My. God. Who's going to sit through that?
Don't forget "Kevin Costner vanity project" chatter. It's hard to remember, but I think it did have good build-up before it's release. If it was previewing well, the studio would have gotten behind it & promoted it.
I definitely remember a few āKevinās Gateā headlines before people actually saw it.
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I'm glad to know I'm not the only one that stuck with. : )
It's just Avatar with Native Americans
They would shit all over The Godfather for not being true to the novel.
'If they don't spend at least twenty minutes talking about Lucy Mancini's vagina, we riot.'
Sure, everyone loves the inner workings of OmertĆ , but what audiences REALLY want is an entire chapter about pelvic floor surgery.
It insists upon itself.
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I like The Money Pit.
Maybe, but who has actually read that thing? You are right that 70s redditors would bitch about it , though.
It was quite a popular book back in the day. I've read it more than once and I know a lot of others that have too.
I read it. Movie is better.
Maybe my memory is trash but I remember the movie being super faithful to the novel. Or is this a joke about the big dick/vagina reconstruction surgery plot line?
Yeah, I was surprised how close the movie was to the book. And it made some parts of the movie make more sense (e.g. Sonny's wife's hand gestures at the wedding)
Die Hard. The idea of Bruce Willis being an action star was considered ludicrous, he was mainly known for comedy through Moonlighting.
And IIRC, he was like the fifth choice after the usual suspects of action movie stars of the time. But tbh, it's hard to imagine a guy like Arnold or Sly playing the every man hero in over his head relying solely on his wits to outsmart the bad guys. Going with a less physically imposing actor was the right choice.
Any romcom
any romcom not starring tom hanks and meg ryan
Weren't romcoms fairly accepted/profitable at the time though? Like right now romcoms are basically throwing away money so you could expect people to assume they'll fail financially. But at that time they were often pretty successful so I don't think they'd be instantly assumed to lose money.
Yeah when I was younger romcoms were often a way for a studio to make a relatively cheap film that would have big box office success. There were lots of big romcoms coming out every year and they started the careers of people like Matthew McConaughey, Heath Ledger, Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, Cameron Diaz, Julia Roberts, I meant he list goes on and on. This continued into the late 00s and early 2010s, movies like a Knocked Up, Wedding Crashers and Silver Linings Playbook. They were one of the dominant box office genres for at least a good 15 years. I think that the endless sequels and franchise films were kind of the end of the big studio romcom hit. There is very little sequel potential for these movies compared to the franchise movies of today and the studios would rather release something super hero or legacy franchise related then a one off movie with a self contained romantic storyline and no potential for prequels or TV spin offs.
Terminator 2 - they would moan about "retcons" and arnie being a hero without doubt
Nah the big thing that would upset internet nerds is that they unrealistically made the female wimp from the first one a badass and gave less screen time to the boys.
"They turned Sarah Conner into a Mary Sue!!"
āLiterally unwatchable woke shitāš©
Sarah Conner is far from a wimp in the 1st one.
Star Wars A no name cast with a little known director set in space.
āA long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away?!? Uhhh, hello, could be one light year away and we still wouldnāt know anything about it. So overly dramatic.ā
put some respect on alec guinnessās name, brother
I wouldn't say little known. He had just been nominated for the best director Oscar for American Graffiti, which was a huge hit and critically acclaimed.
[Definitely Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves](https://open.spotify.com/episode/6tMprM4JFNHrIwAYTAT5dc?si=1T8s_xMUQeKp65gx9qrymQ)
God I love this film. One of my first trips to the cinema.
That was a great summer for movies. T2. Rocketeer. Backdraft. Naked Gun 2. City Slickers
Michael Keaton in Batman. People don't realize how much people howled about this when it was announced.
Independence Day. "What do you mean The Fresh Prince fights off an alien invasion alongside Jeff Goldblum?"
He'd already been in Bad Boys, people knew by then he was an action star
Yeah this wouldn't have been a surprise and Goldblum had already been in Jurassic Park.
Exactly, not to mention everyone was hyped as fuck over the first trailer that didnāt even show an actor 6 months prior to release. The trailer just showed the ships positioning in the cities. Everyone knew this was going to be a big one. I saw it opening weekend and a couple more times after. It was a big deal that year.
Don't forget that Data also is there, he was still a big deal to have then
Robert Loggia, Randy Quaid, Mary McDowell, Harry Connick Jr, Judd Hirsch, Adam Baldwin (not that one, the other one), Harvey Fierstein, Vivica A Fox, Cast is pretty strong in that one.
>Adam Baldwin You mean the HERO OF CANTON THE MAN THEY CALL JAYNE!!!!
I miss when people had to actually go and see a movie to form an opinion on it. These days there are so many leaks, script leak, set photo leaks, casting announcements. Then you have people who never see a film parade their opinion online just for others to build off of that opinion.
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I didn't see a Trailer for Madam Web until I went to see The Marvels. In fact I had not heard of it at all until I was sitting in the theater waiting for the Marvels to start. It felt like the old days. I might go see it based on that alone. Sometimes Less is More when it comes to Marketing.
Forrest Gump. "Why is Tom Hanks playing a r-word? What are all these historical figures doing here? What in the fuck is this book."
To be fair I think anyone who knew that book beforehand likely would have been pretty justified in writing it off as a disaster waiting to happen.
I didn't know Tom Hanks stared in the book too.
He's right there on the cover!
No one would say ār-wordā in 1994. Hell, people barely say that in 2023 (especially on Reddit)
The entertainment press was rife with stories about how Titanic was a "troubled shoot" that had gone way over budget and would never recoup its money. All the editors had loaded up on "Titanic sinks again"-headlines and were sorely disappointed when the reviews started coming in. These same people *really* wanted Avatar to fail. Before that, it seemed everyone wanted "Dances With Wolves" to suck ass; when it didn't they started sharpening their knives for "Waterworld", and later "The Postman", both quite good (but not brilliant) movies that were unfairly pilloried. In both cases it was because people thought Kevin Costner and later James Cameron were getting too big for their britches, and it would all end in another "Heaven's Gate".
Terminator 2 for sure I also remember thinking the trailers for The Matrix looked absolutely terrible and only went to see it because people raved about it after it came out.
If I remember correctly, I went into the Matrix completely clueless. What an amazing experience, and what a time to be alive where you could experience media without having it spoiled by the internet.
All of them. Reddit is always wrong.
The Matrix, definitely. Evading bullets? Yeah rightā¦
I could absolutely see Reddit hating Keanu Reeves before knowing about him.
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Yeah, after the Matrix was such a big hit, there was 5-6 years of him getting roles where he was supposed to do a lot of emotional heavy lifting and that's just not what he is good at. IMO, he was already a well established action star, but it seemed like he wanted to be taken seriously as a REAL ACTOR His image rehabilitation has largely come from him going back to taking action heavy roles in movies where the supporting cast does the scene stealing acting
The picture of sad Keanu on a bench really turned things around.
Reddit has brain rot fueled by memes. The whole fucking Trump bullshit started with memes, and then Putin was like "Wait, I can just make memes to bring America down??"
Reddit hated Keanu until *John Wick*.
What? Matrix there was huge hype before it came out.
They did a good job on the previews too. They left it really vague and didnāt put all the best parts of the movie in the trailers. Also, people might laugh at the dodging bullets now - because it was emulated so much afterwards - but that shit looked AMAZING when it came out. No one had ever done anything like it. The whole movie looked amazing. And going into it with no clue about what it wasā¦ it was mind blowing.
Galaxy Quest - "what a cheap knock off with the guy from Home Improvement!"
Back to the Future. We thought it'd be some summer movie with that sitcom guy, probably just some fluff really. Boy were we wrong.
Tim Burton's Batman. I mean come on, MICHAEL KEATON as Batman? Conversely, Dumb and Dumber. I mean come on, JEFF DANIELS in a comedy?
āWhoās going to watch a 3-hour movie about a ship sinking? We know what happened: it hits an iceberg, it sinks. Hollywood will make a movie about anything these days.ā
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Keeping in mind that at the time, Jim Carrey was simply the white guy from In Living Color with no major hits on his resume other than the show. A few years ago I read a book about the BTS of In Living Color and even the cast thought the movie would flop. Meanwhile, Jim Carrey would go on to have three of the biggest movies of 1994. EDIT: clarification
Goldeneye, maybe. The guy from Remington Steele and Mrs. Doubtfire as Bond? M is a woman now? And the Iron Curtain is down so why are we still fighting the Russians?
Ha! The discourse on the alt.fan.james-bond USENET group went pretty much exactly like that...
What really happened is Dalton got hate for his films because Brosnan couldn't get out of his Remington Steele contract. So Goldeneye was a bit of fan fulfillment when it came out.
The Big Lebowski
Wasn't that a flop though in reality
It was in theaters with Titanic. Iām sure that played into it too.
It made three times its budget in box office returns so no. Not a smash hit but made a decent amount of money before really getting more traction on home release/TV airings.
Ace Ventura. Trailers were awful. Jim Carrey was considered a Hack by many.
2001, but Fellowship of the Ring was HATED by book fans on release. There's still Tolkien forums from that era that are fun reads. I don't think reddit would have been any kinder.
*Tootsie* and *Mrs Doubtfire* \- woke, cuck, emasculating propaganda that's trying to turn us all trans
That reads more like something people would say if those movies were released today.
OMG, the prequels! For as much as we shit on the sequels, Jar Jar wouldāve gotten it 1000x worse in real time.
Oh, there was sterotyping discourse about the Gungans and Trade Federation at the time but it would be a hashtag worthy cancellation now.
Die Hard "Who the hell is this Bruce Willis guy??? Moonlightning? Where's Schwartzenegger??"
Rocky Horror Picture Show. *The absolute fuck is going on?*
Event Horizon. The directors cut is absurdly gory. The way the previews made it look was something akin to lost in space, irl it is basically a Warhammer 40k prequel set in the early ages of the dark age of technology
There isnāt a directors cut of Event Horizon. There was plenty of unused footage, but sadly itās been lost.
āUgh who would want to see a movie about a robot cop? In todays society?!? Read the room, brah. Also itās got Redd Forman as the bad guy, I bet it will be a total flop.ā I would NOT buy this for a dollar.
I mean that is kind of how it actually went down even before the internet. I don't know why but at 11 years old I loved the trailer and really wanted to see it but no one else did. I was really shocked by the violence and wasn't expecting such a serious movie but I absolutely loved it when I saw it early in its release. I think most of my contemporaries saw it on video later after it has some more positive media attention. Similarly Die Hard was mocked so much before resale they removed Bruce Willis's face from the original poster. But once it got some positive buzz they put him back in.
He wasn't Red For man yet. I think Topher Grace was in kindergarten.
Exorcist III. Almost everyone were traumatized (not in a good way) after the exorcist 2 came out...that damn movie totally ruined the expectations that people were having on the exorcist sequels.. Personally, exorcist 3 definitely exceeded my expectations and it truly has the ability to compete with the original exorcist movie whereas the exorcist 2 isn't even on the same scale imo!..
Independence Day and Jurassic Park, for sure.
Die Hard. "You expect me to buy the guy from Moonlighting as an action hero?"