Christmas Weekend Roundup
Sonic 3 Runs Mufasa Into the Ground
The spikey blue hedgehog ran the Lion King’s old man into the ground. Sonic’s take is $62 million. Mufasa pulled in a decidedly second place $35 million.
This isn’t remotely a surprise. This loss was mostly due to Disney’s corporate arrogance. They moved Mufasa onto Sonic 3’s weekend and just assumed that Paramount would slink away with its tail between its legs when challenged by the awesome might of Disney’s biggest animation franchise.
The problem for Disney came down to kids. Those that had seen the last Lion King five years ago didn’t really want seconds. Jon Favreau delivered a lion’s share of ticket sales at $1.66 billion. The thing was they didn’t really want to see it again, the photo-realistic CG animals had realistically expressionless faces. Disney knew it was a problem and chose to ignore it because we’re Disney damn it!
Sonic on the other hand had a total redesign when fans first objected to its horrifying visage. Paramount (for once) gave the fans what they wanted and were rewarded for it.
Worse was the choice of director for Mufasa, Barry Jenkins. Clearly someone at Disney had shrieked when this story about lions who are actually black people (??) was handed to a white director. It would be corrected for the sequel. Jenkins is a black director who has always made films about black hot-button issues. There is absolutely nothing in his body of work that would remotely indicate he had the chops for a kids film and or an entirely CG film. His only qualification was his skin tone. Oh well, it’s not like Disney ever minds losing hundreds of millions.
NEXT
Superman Trailer
Krypto really did take Superman home.
Warner is very happy with the Superman trailer and for once they are right to be. While the commentary was decidedly mixed, what wasn’t was the raw number of views. 250 million views this weekend puts the Superman “teaser” trailer into Deadpool and Wolverine territory.
Granted views don’t equal ticket sales but it does reflect high public interest. It doesn’t matter if it’s positive or negative interest at this point. The one thing Zaslav couldn’t afford was for Superman to be ignored and it wasn’t. Everyone is talking about it this weekend and that’s ideal so far as marketers are concerned.
The reaction was big enough that Gunn felt he could move ahead with his plans for The Flash. And honestly, they sound bad. He’ll be using the Wally West version because… Get ready for this… “You can’t replace Ezra. That would be like replacing Wolverine or Shrek.”
That pissed off the Cavill fans who were already sore this weekend. Although, it confirms something I’d noticed. Gunn won’t be using the Justice League of America. He is drawing heavily from Justice League International.
James Gunn as I’ve repeatedly observed likes to use obscure comic book characters whose canons have been repeatedly shredded and pasted back together randomly. It doesn’t tie him down to anything and he can do what he wants. I suspect it’s why he included freaking Kypto the Superdog. Which is why he is using the JLI. The title started off in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths when the Big Seven were all in a rebuilding season. Denny O’Neil threw Keith Giffin a bone and let him use Batman but he was the only A-lister in that team. All of the others have repeatedly had their backstories rewritten.
So far we’ve seen Guy Gardner (to include his retarded haircut), Mister Terrific, and Metamorpho. Gunn has been clear about including the 1980s version of Booster Gold and Blue Beetle. And now the Wally West version of Flash is confirmed.
Because Gunn can shitcan Henry Cavill but not Ezra Miller.
Regardless, this is definitely the JLI.
