Cinema Issues: Too Big To Fail, But Failing Anyway The Pedro Pascal Story

Gladiator 2, The Fantastic Four and seemingly the Mandalorian and Grogu all have one thing is common, they either flopped or are predicted to. As we write this piece the Mandalorian is a few days away and it has a low critical rating and bad projections.

What went wrong? Pedro Pascal burst onto the screen after Game of Thrones and Narcos and seemed on a one man mission to take over Hollywood and for a long time he was in a number of things. However, the warning signs were coming.

Pedro became increasingly outspoken, he became worse than Mark Ruffalo and a female equivalent to Rachel Zegler. Zegler at least had the ignorance of youth Pedro doesn’t. He went on blast at the last US election attacking people if they didn’t vote the way he wanted them to, then you had the creepy thing with Vanessa Kirby and the touching, then you had this position on trans issues. Pedro’s brother has delusions that he is a woman as such Pedro defends the idea that someone can become another sex, an idea that is bunk. Pedro also frequently attacks people he deems transphobic or who don’t support the community enough. Can you see where this is going?

Even recently on the press tour for Mando he kissed a late night host on the mouth rather than you know promote the movie. He has become emboldened by the left wing who view him as the perfect modern man to chase this progressive wave.

The issue is as we have seen time and time again in the culture war the dyed hair crowd of bluesky fame, not only don’t come out for the TV and films they spend all day defending against bigots, but when they do they are such a tiny part of the audience the project still fails. As such they shouldn’t be chased.

With his recent string of flops the ground looks set to swallow Pedro alive. Yes the Materialist was a success on a modest budget but in terms of franchise fare it looks like it’s over. If Mando flops those at Lucasfilm and Disney would be wise to hang that dead albatross around Pedro’s neck and blame him and his divisive statements. One wouldn’t be surprised if in a month after the release of Mando if we hear that Pedro has been sacked in the role, possibly maybe even that Reed Richards will be recast for Secret Wars.

Sadly Pedro is just another example of a Hollywood elitist who thought they were an activist rather than an actor.

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Cinema Issues: The Odyssey To Inject Modern Dayisms Into Fantasy

First they came for the Lord of the Rings and we were silent, then they came for the Wheel of Time and we murmured, then they came for the Witcher and voices started to rise, now they are coming for real world myths and fables and folks are angry.

(The above example is figurative) we were loud about all of these things bar the Wheel of Time as we actually care about fantasy. However, the point remains folks are really really angry about the Odyssey.

Elon Musk is arguing that Nolan is giving into DEI here despite previous saying he doesn’t want to take a political stance in his films for awards. However he could get them without this. He is also far too big to be succumbing to studio pressure. There is only one reason to cast a woman pretending to be a man as Achilles, and to make Helen of Troy black and that is because he wants to. There is a school of thought that Nolan may have always had these tendencies and have had to hold back or been held back by people yet now thinks that he can get away with it.

It is a conscious choice to inject modern language into the film or to have a rapper be an analogue to the bards of old in the film, whilst fiercely screaming about accuracy elsewhere. Or to do things like talk about diversity whilst a Latina man does white face, or to have the costumes look like they are from Spirit Halloween. Nolan seems to want to take a stand with this film for good or for ill and it could be his first flop.

The access media keen to always do what their studio masters want have already begun running ops for the film, incorrectly using mythology to explain it away or saying it doesn’t matter. A particular favourite is to point out that Jesus isn’t white and so that explains why Helen of Troy is now black, it doesn’t explain a damn thing it shows you they are floundering.

Nolan has started to make statements so far not attacking the audience but how long will it stay that way. We’d guess not long.

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Cinema Issue: TDS And The Boys

Straight off the bat the Boys isn’t anything like the fantastic graphic novel in any way, that was the first sign of things to come. The graphic novel had something to say this show is the safety most made by committee thing ever.

However, the thing that really began the terminal decline of the boys was when Eric Kripke decided to make it about his dislike of Trump. Homelander in the comics was never supposed to be a stand in for Trump, yet in the TV show it is pretty damn clear. Every week a old political event from serval years ago is trotted out, now done by Homelander, with the writing going you should be outraged.

The more and more the show has felt the need to fight the culture war the worse it has got. At least in the beginning they hit both sides but as the show went on it just went one way.

Even the fans that cheered on every Trump parallel and thought oh it was so timely are starting to call it out. A one trick pony becomes clear to everyone in the end . The final season so far is hated by many fans as they are starting to see it for what it is.

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Cinema Issues The Death Of DC

In this edition of Cinema Issues we will be discussing the state of DC, in terms of films and tv shows.

When the new Gunn lead DC was announced immediately after the previous DCEU failed attempts were made to win fans back however it has been a series of large scale mistakes that have hurt this universe to the point where it could be rebooted once again in the near future.

Firstly, announcing the slate so far in advance was an error, it made it look like they were trying to copy Marvel it also allowed everyone to see each time they missed a deadline for a film and then that to influence the narrative. As was the case with the Authority.

Secondly the focus on characters has been wrong, of you wanted to do something interesting you could have focused on characters that had not been adapted before. However they went straight for Superman, it appeared they were going for all the old favourites, however, then they neglected to make a Batman film.

Thirdly the new universe is inherently confusing. As certain elements of the old DCEU carry over it becomes unclear what is canon and what isn’t. What is the fate of Blue Beetle?

Fourthly is the fact that James Gunn is the wrong man for the job. He does odd ball well, he could have been good for a Creature Commandos or Doom Patrol, but Superman? He just didn’t get it, and the film underperformed. There is also the ego issue, Gunn seems to have developed megalomania, he named the Justice Gang after his own initials, he debated taking on a Stan Lee like role in the DCEU, he got himself animated into the Creature Commandos logo and he puts his wife in everything. The DCUs fascination with Krypto who here is based on Gunn’s own dog is just another example.

Finally you have the fact it has already gone negative. Think about the MCU at its peak, did it attack the audience and call them names? No that came later as the cracks emerged. We are a TV series and a film into Gunn’s DCU and we already have stars attacking fans with Milly Alcock deciding to consistently bad mouth men.

Supergirl does not look like it will do well, Lanterns has already angered fans by viewing the Green part of the name as dumb, and Clayface who the hell cares.

The DCU has half its hull missing and is sinking, what we are seeing now is the final attempts to save the doomed ship.

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Cinema Issues: Folks Are Realising Star Wars Is Dead

The projections for the Mandalorian and Grogu is that it will open to 80 million dollars worldwide on its opening weekend. Which for a film of it’s size and with the brand behind it is dire. Likely this is why Kathleen left earlier this year as she didn’t want this to on her, but it is.

This is a result of treating your fans like crap for years, and for constantly attacking them from creatives down to actors. For goodness sake the man playing the Mandalorian hates half the American public and compared them to the KKK. It is a result of not making films for them and instead making films for a group of people who don’t like Star Wars and likely never will.

It will be very interesting to see where this goes if it does open as low as people say. One would imagine heads would need to roll immediately, as someone who lives not too far from Galaxies Edge it is becoming clearer and clearer that the brand is dying and quickly at that.

They need to listen to the fans they called toxic for so many years, they need to cancel everything if this fails and start over with a new slate of films and shows.

Star Wars can be saved but it needs drastic intervention soon.

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Cinema Issues: Seperating The Art From The Artist

In this edition of Cinema Issues we are talking about the recent underperformance critically of the new Michael Jackson biopic.

So an interesting comparison point for this is what happened with Scream 7, in which due to Melissa Barrera being removed from the film, for her abhorrent comments, critics tore the film apart for Palestine.

Whereas here the film is being torn apart by critics due to its sanitisation of the child abuse accusations leveled at Michael Jackson.

In both instances something from the real world is influencing critical scores. One would argue the key difference is that the Barrera issue does not effect the overall quality of the film as it is not as though a section of the film is missing, or that the full story isn’t being told, the story therein was changed. The film you get with Scream 7 removes any trace of her, whereas by accounts with Michael it is incomplete and sanitised and that matters in a biopic. People want warts and all.

With the broader discourse around Jackson there was a question of whether this film should have even been made, as many people consider him to be a monster. There are also plenty of fans of the artist who disagree, however the polarisation is at the heart of Jackson’s legacy so to not cover it is cowardice.

There is the idea that it is safer not to lean to one side or the other in terms of the film so the idea to just not cover it at all makes sense. However, then you set up white washing accusations.

Moreover, in terms of the accusations you can white wash a great deal many things, child abuse is not one of them. The fact that he was accused so many times of it leaves a bitter taste in a lot of people’s mouths, so the idea of separating the art from the artist becomes a lot harder to do.

Whilst normally the critics would be wrong to bring politics into their reviews, they are right to do so here as they are pointing out how a massive section of the film/Jackson’s life is missing and it’s a white wash.

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Cinema Issues: The National Democratisation Of Cinema

In this edition of Cinema Issues we are talking about the rise of international cinema.

For a long time Hollywood has been a dominant box office force, this has led to them becoming an out of touch echo chamber where they think they can tell people how to live and think. In terms of cultural imperialism this was doubly true, a lot of world markets struggled to maintain cinema industries or their own as their narrative offerings were often torn apart by the American studio films.

However Hollywood seems sick, maybe that sickness is coming from one ruling class of people who cannot see the culture has changed and that people want something different. Maybe that sickness is coming from the sea of nepo babies and diversity hires who don’t understand how to make good films anymore, or the focus groups they use to test films. One thing is for true and it is that Hollywood is in decline the box office is shrinking in the west and more and more studio fare is flopping.

In this climate Indian Cinema, Chinese Cinema and Japanese Cinema are all stepping in and achieving greater and greater success not just in their own markets but globally, including in the US market. People are starting to see Hollywood for what it is and move away move to these other things that are offering something fresh.

Many American productions are also moving abroad which in turn is moving resources and people out of California.

The world is shifting whether Hollywood likes it or not.

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Cinema Issues: Is Woke Dead?

In this edition of cinema issues we are discussing the broader progressive movement in films and tv and checking it’s pulse.

So before we get into it a quick highlight reel, the Acolyte was canned after one season, Starfleet Academy was cancelled, Doctor Who had series worst views, lost its deal with Disney and now is in limbo beyond a Christmas special, the Rings of Power has been a huge failure and has lost millions of viewers season on season, the Wheel of Time was cancelled, the Witcher was aborted.

It is pretty safe to say being an overly progressive show or film isn’t safe anymore, there is a question to be made that it never was, but now it is definitely for the chopping block. Audiences across the board have rejected things like Snow White and Tron 3, and are sick and tired of media preaching progressive views at people.

The thing is they did this to themselves they suffered from what we called California Syndrome wherein they believe they are modern day saints or apostles preaching the progressive bible and must stick it into everything. This is what happens when an echo chamber forms and any other form of thought is labelled toxic and removed. Even once safe brands like Marvel have started flopping, last year marvel made 3 films each flopped. One side stepped the natural successor to Cap and had Falcon take his place so they could go look we have a black Captain America, the next was a team up focusing on mental health, the final was a Sue Storm origin film that showed that strong women are the real heroes. All of them lost money.

The question this piece asks is it over? No is the answer. The fact remains that the people in the industry still ascribe to the Californian Creed and will still try to push for it, the only difference will be that the money people will tell them no, and they’ll be forced to either do their own stuff or scale it back. So whilst the tide is reversing the battles are not done. The fact is you can still see vestiges of it in new releases, remember these projects often take years to make and so are not reflective of the current alignment. Look at two big releases this summer, Masters of the Universe wherein they are making a Barbie Doll for a masculine franchise and the lead is saying he is borrowing from traditional masculinity and femininity. This shows you it’s still there. Additionally look at Supergirl wherein the lead has already 3 months before release gone on the war path to scream that anyone who doesn’t like the film is a sexist and that men think they own women’s bodies. As you can see the sickness is still there, the idea of entitlement that they are deserving of having people watch, the idea of attacking fans, the idea of wrong think and punishing people for it, is still very much alive in Hollywood.

It appears there is a growing split between studio heads, the people with the money and the talent. In many ways this is going to get worse and will lead to the wider use of AI to remove the creatives. The studio heads can see the writing on the wall and want a pull back from progressive nonsense, Bob Iger said this ages ago, but the talent still wants to virtue signal. The only way to reach them is to make sure their offers of work dry up by not watching their projects.

It’s a shame now we live in an era wherein you have to look up an actors politics before you watch a film with them in, to go oh do they hate white people, straight people or the Jews, as these are the only groups Hollywood is allowed to go after now. Sadly actors and creatives moved away from the idea of not wanting them as a person to interfere with the project and felt the need to seek praise online by agreeing with every progressive cause they could , they openly hate you.

The issue truly is that they didn’t realise it was us that cut their checks.

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Cinema Issues: What Happened To Kids Movies

In this Cinema Issues article we are talking about the recent spate of soulless kids movies. This isn’t about any one film or even one studio but a broader issue.

There are still some kids films that manage to bring heart into their films, and that manage to feel deep rather than shallow and without personality but by and large this is an exception to the rule.

Kids films used to have substance to them and be more than just references and loud noises, they would stick to universal themes and not try and force in left wing activism, they would have stuff for adults as well as kids, rather than seemingly pitching stories that only adults would get.

It feels as though a lot of these films aren’t even aimed at kids anymore, for example Hoppers had a plot about environmental activism and a mechanism around body hopping kids wouldn’t understand that. These films market with the idea of oh look small animals to appeal to kids but when the film starts there is far more too it that just goes over the kids head.

As we’ve said time and again, almost all of these things can be traced back to two things. One due to the rise of short form content a lot of these films think they don’t have to work on good narratives and can instead just throw quick moments or scenes together to keep child engagement. Alternatively, you have the fact that the goal with a lot of films, not just kids films, for a long time has been to push politics not to actually entertain. There is the idea that if you push progressive content into kids films it’s will get them to normalise these ideas and embrace them as they age. This isn’t true and is pretty creepy to begin with.

If you have kids honestly these days the better bet is to get a steaming service and put on animated films of yore, back when they had to try and back before they needed to shove left wing messaging into everything.

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Cinema Issues: Marvel Doubles Down On Slop

So Daredevil has been sidelined in his own show. Certain members of the cast have already come out to disparage and name call the audience.

The Punisher will be a lot less brutal and almost comedic in Brand New Day

And Peter Parker is second fiddle to the community within Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man.

Can you feel that the last vestige of a brand are dying.

So the head of Marvel TV has been taking, and boy has he shown he shouldn’t be in a job. He has renewed Wonder Man for season 2, because of DEI , or maybe because it was given a two season order but this is despite the fact it was the least watched Disney + show. More people watched Echo. He claims it’s because people loved the show the numbers don’t reflect that.

Then in terms of Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man he said it is about a community telling a community tale. We’re sorry we thought it was a Spider-Man show. Also which community only has white people as villains outside of Peter and feels the need to have every single race and ethnicity ticked off on a list.

They have renewed Marvel Zombies for a season 2, that was a show we were excited for before it just became a girl boss show and a way for them to continue to include Riri despite the God awful ratings for that show.

Marvel’s efforts with Disney + have been what’s taken the brand from the heights of End Game to where we are now. Yes they made some bad films, but by and large it has been the terrible Disney + shows that have inflicted the mortal blows on the brand.

Last year the MCU released 3 films, Captain Falcon the Brave New World, The Thunderbolts, which we liked, and Fantastic Four. All of them lost money. As for Disney + you had Daredevil which was met with collective disappointment, except from us though season 2 has taken us there as well, Iron Heart, Wonder Man, Eyes of Wakanda, Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man, and Marvel Zombie non of which had any cultural staying power. Pandering hard to the black community and to women, who don’t traditionally watch a lot of superhero fare doesn’t appear to be giving them the audience they want.

Never fear when in doubt just keep doing the same thing and expect different results, the definition of insanity. Born Again season leans into overt left wing messaging and relegates Daredevil, they green light season two of Wonder Man despite the terrible ratings, Punisher, a character fans actually liked is neutered.

At this point I think Doomsday will be big but nowhere near the levels of Infinity War or End Game not even close. I think years of alienating the audience calling fans toxic, and making the projects you want to make rather than what audiences ask for has come around to bite. They did it to themselves.

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