nightmaster

I honestly don't think it could have gotten a much better week in which to debut, and it still didn't take the #1 spot at the box office. If it couldn't pull in the moviegoers these past two weeks, what would it have done over the summer competing against releases like ROTS, Wedding Crashers, Batman Begins and Fantastic Four? It MIGHT have done a bit better with a weekend at the end of summer, but that's probably wishful thinking as well.

JasonF

Who (outside of a couple hundred thousand comic fans) cared about the X-Men before the Bryan Singer movie? Who cared about Daredevil, which opened to $40 million on a desolate weekend and could have done a lot more if the movie hadn't been god-awful? Who knew enough people cared about Spider-Man to let it open at over $100 million?

das Monkey

I have no idea what's going to happen, but let's not compare Wonder Woman to Spider-Man. I suspect a lot will depend on who gets the role anyway.

das

JasonF

Well, it's too early to make comparisons, like you say. Wonder Woman could be another Spider-Man; it could be another Elektra. Most likely, it will be somewhere in between. My only point was to say that Wonder Woman has as much of a built-in audience as almost any other comic book movie.

das Monkey

I guess you missed my point. I was saying we should not compare Wonder Woman's built-in mass appeal to Spider-Man's. I disagree that Wonder Woman carries that kind of weight with the average viewer.

das

The Cow

You are way off on this.

Matthew Chmiel

Spider-Man did huge for one reason alone: it was a superhero film in a (shortly) post 9/11 world (especially since the film takes place in NYC).

X-Men might've made more money if Fox didn't rush the film through post-production. It also helped that it was released during a pretty much lackluster summer.

Daredevil got lucky due to Spider-Man and X-Men's success. It also helped that it had zero competition.

Adam Tyner

I agree. Also, are teenage boys willing to walk up to a ticket counter and proudly say "one for Wonder Woman"? Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but I have a hard time picturing Wonder Woman breaking the $100 million mark the way Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Batman Begins, Spider-Man, or The Hulk did.

Spider-Man grossed just over $400 million domestically, and the sequel wasn't far off. They're two of the highest-grossing movies in the history of the industry. Even Batman Begins, a critically adored movie with a well-established, heavily marketed character, came in at half that total. JasonF, do you sincerely think Wonder Woman has any shot of even remotely approaching that?

Maybe time will prove me wrong, but a Wonder Woman movie seems about as likely to be a breakthrough hit to me as an Aquaman movie. Both characters are well-known, and they've both had incredibly well-written comics based on them at varying times, but...familarity and appeal aren't necessarily the same thing.

JasonF

The average American -- before the Spider-Man movie -- had heard of Spidey, may have read some of his comics as a kid, and probably skipped over his strip in the newspaper every day. His comic book probably has 100,000 readers or so.

The average American has heard of Wonder Woman, and may have watched her TV show as a kid. Her comic book probably has 40,000 readers or so.

Don't over-estimate Spidey's pre-movie popularity (or under-estimate Wonder Woman's).

moocher

The internet JW fanboys severely overplay his appeal to the general public. Just because he does WW does not mean it will be successful or even any good for that matter. The stuff he has done so far has appealed to only a niche/cult audience. Most folks in the general public don't like/don't care about JW. That is proven by the fact that his shows could not make it on a major network and his movies have flopped at the boxoffice (both Buffy and Serenity).

I believe he puts out some damn fine stuff but the fanboys need to realize that he does not have wide appeal. Neither does WW. If WW is successful next summer, I will be (pleasantly) surprised.

JasonF

Probably not. I guess if the stars align and they combine the right cast with the right script and the right production design and the right marketing, it could happen, but it's extremely unlikely.

My only point was to say that Wonder Woman doesn't have a significantly smaller built-in audience than any other superhero. In fact, prior to five years ago when everyone started doing superhero movies, I would guess she'd be on everyone's top 5 list of most well-known superheroes. People have heard of her. They remember Linda Carter. They remember the invisible jet and the magic lasso.

B5Erik

To me Joss' Wonder Woman movie has the potential to score anywhere from $50 Million to $200 million depending on how good it is and how well it is marketed.

My guess, at this very early stage, is that it will take in somewhere between $75 - $125 million. It really is too early to make a guess based on anything but character recognition and previous superhero movie grosses, though, so my "guesstimate" is just a gut feeling.

If Joss writes it with the same wit as he did Serenity, and has that Buffyverse sense of style and flair it could do fairly well - or it could go over the audience's heads. It will be interesting to see how it pans out. I'll tell you this - I wouldn't have been interested in a Wonder Woman movie at all if Joss wasn't doing it. (OK, if James Cameron or someone like that did it I might be interested, but that wasn't going to happen...)

seymouru

I had heard that Kate Beckinsale was now the front-runner for the WW role. Is that still true? If she gets the part, I'm there!

Patman

I hope not.

resinrats

Since the movie won't be making tons of money, it might make enough to greenlight straight-to-DVD movies. Would fans want that? Take the production costs down to where the TV show was. So say $2M budget for a movie about the length of 2 episodes. Might not get huge SFX scenes but I'm betting fans would be fine with the level the TV show was at. This route could get fans more stories and the studio wouldn't be invested in much and DVD sales would probably turn more profit per disk.

Matthew Chmiel

Considering the television show cost more than that per episode, I assume that's not going to happen. Most direct-to-video films released by major studios cost around $5-10 million to produce. A direct-to-video Serenity sequel probably would cost Universal somewhere in the ballpark around $15-20 million.

Silt

Kate Beckinsale in a WW suit?

resinrats

Why would it cost $15-$20M if they made it as they made the TV show? Since a DVD movie would be like a two-part episode, it would cost as much as 2 episodes would. This would mean not movie level effects but the level they had in the show. They have the Serenity set so they just have to put it back together (assuming they didn't destroy it completely.) I'm sure Firefly fans would agree that the story is more important than seeing big flashy FX shots.
Frankly, I haven't see the Firefly cast landing big roles so its not like they are not availible. You even have 2 less people to get to agree to do the movie.

Adam Tyner

It doesn't work like that. With a TV show, you can amortize costs over a larger number of episodes. Your costs would be higher doing things on a one-off basis.

animalmystic

^truth






Got a quick question about a part in Serenity. What is on the screen when River looks at the TV? Is it a commercial? Cartoon? TV show? Wash makes reference to it, something like the Fruity Odie Bar?? I did a Google search and only found technical aspects of it (directed by) can somebody explain what this is? Also was this ever mentioned/featured in the Firefly TV show at all? Thanks

Animal

pilot

closing due to length..go to the new thread at http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread.php?t=440970