Flop Patrol: Summer Movie Edition

Building on the success of our list about the Super Mario Galaxy Movie and it’s ties to other Nintendo properties, we are bringing you a new list but with a different twist.

This is a look ahead piece to the summer box office where we look for potential flops and discuss the obstacles some of summers biggest films have to overcome.

To get the easy two out of the way first, first you have Supergirl. The narrative has already been spun around why Supergirl will inevitably flop, misogyny and men thinking they own female bodies. This can be referenced if you look at how Milly Alcock is talking about the fans and audience ahead of the film’s release. Not only did the trailers look like a reskin of Guardians of the Galaxy but now with an unlikeable messy woo girl as the central character, people have not taken to the tone or the style of the film, naturally this means they hate women (sarcasm). To see a young starlet start attacking the audience for a film 4 months before release suggests they are well aware it will flop as well.

Secondly you have Masters of The Universe. Making a male brand a girl brand in order to chase diverse dollars is nothing new it has been being done now for the past decade. However, with the fact the lead is talking about drawing on traditional masculine and feminine values and the fact they are making a He-Man Barbie to go alongside the film you can see where this is going. The trailer also has a prominent displaying of pronouns, this film seems to have some people tricked thinking it won’t be what it appears to be, maybe it’ll not be woke, but there is no evidence of that and lots to the contrary.

For the third entry a bit of a surprise choice that requires some set up. We are not saying this film will lose money, we are using the term flop term more broadly to mean a film that underperforms expectations and that isn’t as huge as people think it will be. More of a traditional disappointment than a flop, but this isn’t called flop and disappointment patrol. The film is Spider-Man Brand New Day, now before you scream it has a massively viewed trailer, views can be bought and bots exist. A little more context, Marvel is dying the landscape towards superhero films is very different than it was when the last Spider-Man film came out. If the rumors of X-Men, Punisher, Hulk and more are to be believed then there is a good chance that people may think that it is too crowded and not enjoy it. The film will do a certain amount of business as baseline however if the word of mouth on the film is bad it may cut into its legs at the box office leading to that previously mentioned underperformance.

As we move into the next few we get away from politics and move into the idea of audience interest.

Fourthly, there is the live action Moana. Why this needed to be made so soon after the original Moana is a joke, as was the horrible CGI in the trailer. You may say it is silly to say this could flop as kids are not a picky audience, but we raise you this, Moana is not coming out in a space that is uncontested, where it is all parents can take their kids too. It’s caught between two massive kids movies that will attack it from both sides. On the one side you have Minions 3 and the other you have the next Paw Patrol film. Once again we talk about the art of the release date and say that this one is setting Disney up for a losing battle.

Fifthly and this comes out a week apart from our Sixth entry is The Mandalorian and Grogu. This comes down to one thing alone, franchise fatigue and years upon years of mismanagement. Star Wars should be a massive brand and shouldn’t appear on lists like this, yet thanks to Disney + it has become viewed by many as a TV brand, whilst the last batch of films drove fans away en-mass. The fact we are now a little over a month away from a big new Star Wars release and the hype level is entirely muted does not suggest good things for the franchise in any way.

Sixthly is Mortal Kombat the seuqel. The first film was impacted by the pandemic and this one took a long time to come out, but once again hype levels are flat. The studio behind this film seems to have taken the fact that some corners of the gaming world paid attention to it as a sign to press ahead. However we would not be surprised if interest has been overstated and this film suffers a fatality at the box office. Video game films are far from a sure thing despite the success of Mario and Sonic.

Lastly you have a film that could go either way. That is Scary Movie 6 or Scary Movie, this comes entirely down to the comedy, there is already a backlash against the film, will this effect it or draw more people in, will it mock all sides or just target the ones in the red hats, this will matter as well, will the parody be good or more like the Haunted House. Comedy films, parody films have struggled greatly at the box office these last few years so this is far from a sure thing.

Did we miss anything you think may flop out let’s us know by commenting on the post!

Nintendo Nostalgia List: Super Mario Galaxy Movie.

This piece will be a little different from some of our other fare, it will be a list in essence of the various other Nintendo franchises referenced in Super Mario Galaxy Movie. So that we can discuss where Nintendo might go with it’s shared universe next.

The most prominent one and the one that they announced before the film was even out was Fox from Star Fox, unlike a lot of the others he plays a role in the third act of the film and could be viewed as a supporting character. It seems a little odd for them to feature Fox so prominently despite the fact they haven’t made a Star Fox game since the Wii U era, but who knows rumour has it, this might be setting up a new game announcement and or a spin off film. This would jive also with the fact that they introduced the rest of team Star Fox as well.

The Pikmin also appear during the same hub based sequence that gives us Fox, however they have far less to do and are more or a background cameo you can see them spill out of a craft of their own. These creatures from Nintendo’s series of puzzle/real time strategy games could see a film of their own down the line or perhaps an animated TV show.

Mr Game and Watch is a call back to the 80s era for Nintendo and could be called the deepest cut of the film. He is created by Luigi during the third act of the film using Bowser Jr’s magic paintbrush and defends the Mario Brothers and Yoshi.

R.O.B is again a call back to an accessory from back in the day and is probably the most obscure reference over all.

A final point we wanted to touch on, but this might be slightly off base as we aren’t seeing other people talk about it. The magical paintbrush that Bowser Jr has and how it uses paint as a weapon, which looks very similar to the video game Splatoon in which paint is used in various ways. This could be a reference to Splatoon existing within the Nintendo verse as there is no clear indication as to where Bowser Jr got it from.

There is the list, we tried to do something a bit different and focus it only on other Nintendo properties, rather than listing the various Mario characters cameos. Let us know if we missed anyone out.