Avengers: Infinity War

I thought it was a nice touch that the line that kicked off the appearance of public super heroes, Stark announcing “I am Iron Man” at the end of the first MCU movie, is the line that ends the action in this one, bookending the entire thing

Yes, Pepper Potts in an Iron Man suit, as in Iron Man 3.

I totally forgot about her in the suit there. Did she fight? I just remember like 300 iron men flying around an abandoned factory fighting fire-breathing ... Iraq war vets?

I told one of my kids that while a good memory of the other films was not necessary, the better you remember them and the more familiar you are with them the better much of the fan-service payoff in this is. But really, it's the time travelin' "look how far we've come" final film in a long running series of overlapping characters, of course it's going to be fan-service-y.

Re: Black Widow, Captain America had to put all the cosmic cubes back where they got them, right? Which means giving it back to Dead Red Skull? Which can mean all sorts of stuff.

They’d return it to the planet, right? He didn’t possess it, he was just stuck as its sentry

I think that's just going to be glossed over tbh.

The fight scene at the end wasn't best served by everyone having to have a turn, though I understand that's one of the points of the movie.

But yes, Captain America showing up to return it only to find the Red Skull would be messed up

There were a lot of things that could be nitpicked and I appreciate there were unexplained things all over the place. Hopefully that doesn’t mean we get a spin-off to “solve” every plot piece, though.

I saw somewhere that the Black Widow movie was always intended to be a origin/prequal, and therefore it may or may not have ScarJo.

Since we're in spoilers, the highlights were Ruffalo Hulk (particularly when he's trying to blend in as the OG Hulk) and Lebowski Thor.

Also I can hear some of Captain America fandom setting shit on fire about the Straightwashing of Steve Rogers

"Straightwashing"?

The current state of Hulk was really bleak! The jokes about Thor got more laughs in the theater and his status was more fleshed out, but Hulk being a shadow of both his former selves acting like he’s a mascot.. sheesh

Thor’s apartment shack was a gift to everyone who liked the short film about his time in Australia with a roommate and I loved that

I've already heard the term "Thorbowski."

Re: Vision, I suppose Captain America could have just returned the stone to him, right? Anyway, like I said, lamp shading and hand waving at the same time seems like a good way to avoid these headaches, there's really no reason they need to be worked out logically.

I kind of consider that* to be a different level of nitpicking than the more 'practical' questions, like does this mean that half of Peter Parker's class is now college-aged? And is the next Spider-man film set in 2023?

Or as my girl, who is both smarter and grimmer than me, pointed out - unless the Earth was producing twice as much food as it needed 'just in case', Thanos is about to be proved right.

*but this distinction may only exist in my head

thanos wiped out half of all living things, which presumably includes crops and livestock, so it’ll all work out fine *cough*

i mean in that they all returned to life, one assumes

that was the implication of them looking out the window and seeing birds on the tree outside avengers hq where there were none

"Clark Gregg?"

isn't he dead? I can't keep any of that shit straight. I think he's dead on Agents of Shield, which I don't watch.

No one knows what the deal with the Black Widow movie is. I believe ScarJo is confirmed to be in it. So is someone named Florence Pugh who is a lot younger and looks an awful lot like her to me; what I read was that she was playing opposite her but I could see her playing a younger version.

I was sitting next to a bunch of teen super fans and one of them lost their fuckin mind when cap picked up mjolnir

Like, if you are going to do that at all in this movie, that's pretty much the time you are going to do it.

just got out of the movie. more thoughts later, but greatly amused that Thor is now full on Australian.

audience i saw it with clapped loudly at two bits: cap picking up mjolnir, and avengers assembling.

One of the trailers before was for Men in Black International, so I assume Hemsworth has not gone full Bale / Phoenix.

Had he not said the latter yet? It was a weird time to do it, because he waited until after they had assembled. Then again, he was staring at Thanos, so maybe he didn't notice them all lined up around and behind him. "Avengers! Asse ... oh, hey guys, didn't see you there. Let's get him!"

While I thought the Thor stuff was maaaaaybe not as funny as it thought it was, I do absolutely love how they kept him like that for the whole film. No magic "restore me to my former glory!" moment, the closest he gets is braiding his beard.

Just nuts:

https://deadline.com/2019/04/avengers-endgame-breakeven-profit-after-opening-weekend-box-office-marvel-1202603237/

With an estimated global opening weekend on course for $1.1 billion, Disney Avengers: Endgame will make what most successful superhero movies earn in a theatrical lifetime. At this level, film finance experts tell Deadline that the Anthony and Joe Russo-directed sequel will near cash breakeven tomorrow on Sunday, which is unheard of for a major studio tentpole during its opening weekend. Last year, the duo’s Avengers: Infinity War clicked into profitability after ten days.

yikes

i hope that means natalie portman is in line for a nice performance bonus

Impressive! What is the Avatar total at?

Answer: 2.88 billion USD.

Er, 2.788, to be accurate.

From three days ago:

A $1.132 billion global launch (more than the current $1.091 billion global cume of Captain Marvel), followed by a 2.4645x multiplier (with the obvious caveat that different territories will react to the film differently), will get the MCU finale to $2.789 billion worldwide, or just over the $2.7875 billion gross of Avatar. Yes, I’m rounding up a little for coherence, but that’s the gist of it. Either the fourth Avengers movie opens 36% higher around the world this weekend, or it opens pretty close to $1.1 billion and turns out to be a leggier blockbuster. Heck, it’ll need a similar multiplier and an $887 million-plus debut just to top Titanic’s unadjusted $2.1875 billion global cume.

So, is Avengers: Endgame on track to be the second-biggest global grosser of all time? Well, maybe, but it’ll still need something resembling legs to go along with a likely monstrous opening weekend. For the record, even a projected $950 million launch (yes, that’s optimistic) coupled by a similar multiplier would give the film “just” $2.341 billion, or nearly half-a-billion dollars behind Avatar. Heck, an $900 million launch followed by a 2.33x global multiplier (think Fate of the Furious) won’t even get it past $2.1 billion. None of this counts as a “bar for success,” but it just shows that not even Earth’s Mightiest Heroes may be a match for the self-proclaimed King of the World.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2019/04/24/avengers-endgame-titanic-avatar-james-cameron-star-wars-jurassic-world-box-office/#f3ab3435f093

global... cume, huh

jesus, so the cost w/ marketing of this thing was over a billion dollars

u gotta spend money to make money babey!

think of the caterers

I saw it reported that marketing was over $200 for this one, and I bet the film cost $400 to make. I really don't see how marketing and budget hits a billion unless they are talking about the cost for both IW and Endgame together, which is how I saw it reported at one point.

March 1, 2017:

Pinewood Atlanta Studios is currently hosting a film with the largest production budget ever, Chick-fil-A CEO and Pinewood Atlanta Studios co-owner Dan Cathy announced at an African American Film Critics Association luncheon Feb. 28.

"We now have on the lot down there now the largest film production ever with a $1 billion budget," Cathy said.

Due to studio agreements Cathy could not name the film, but Marvel's "Avengers: Infinity War" and its sequel are filming back-to-back at Pinewood.

Man, though, Disney in 2019: Captain Marvel tops a billion, this tops a billion, Star Wars will top a billion and god knows how much Frozen 2 will make.

Oh, and Toy Story 4!

And Lion King Redux.

I think the breakeven happens around $1.1 billion because that's when the studio's split reaches the cost of production and marketing. You have to subtract the theatres' split.

Ah. So even if the film only ("only") cost, say, $600 million to make and market, it has to make twice that before it starts pocketing pure profit, because a chunk is going to the theatres?

Yup. Thus that report etc. Linked article says the film cost around $350 million.

"Straightwashing"?

As in, The Man is clearly forcing an obviously gay character into a straight relationship.

Wait what ? There are jokes about his ass. From guys. And him.

Btw it wasn’t the mess I expected and I kinda liked it. Obviously plenty of ott and wtf moments but it’s part of the package !

Oh sorry I read the straightwasing argument too quickly!

While I thought the Thor stuff was maaaaaybe not as funny as it thought it was, I do absolutely love how they kept him like that for the whole film. No magic "restore me to my former glory!" moment, the closest he gets is braiding his beard.

Yeah Thor is the greatest one in this. Including the final scene !

I mesn HIS final scene

Just got back. I really wanted to like this more, but all of the time travel stuff was so confusing and inconsistent. Plus, they had multiple scenes where they were basically saying that OTHER time travel movies were bullshit, which was pretty funny considering how little this made sense. Like what was the whole conversation with the Ancient One about? Also, the rules around the infinity stones were incoherent.

As always, the dialogue was snappy, and the acting was great. Plenty of emotional scenes interspersed with good humor.

Think they were trying to posit that you can't go back in time and change the recent past (ie Back to the Future) as it's already happened and so what happens instead is that you just create a new multiverse timeline.

So 2014 Thanos getting snapped won't have altered the events of Infinity War