That's my point though. It could have been making more if it was as good as Captain American 2. Cap was so good that audiences went to see it over and over again. With Thor 2 and IM3, there is srong disagreement between audiences as to the quality of them, whereas Cap 2 has mostly raving reviews from audiences. Thor 2 & IM3 lost out on a lot of repeat viewings because a good number of audiences didn't think it was worth repeated viewings. A movie about Thor & Loki got beat out by a movie about Cap and Black Widow. Not by much $$, but the movie quality is vastly difference. Thor 2 (65% RT) doesn't even come close to Cap 2 in terms of a good movie (89%RT). Had Thor 2 been in the 80% range, I wouldn't be surprise if it made $100 millions more.
I say this because Marvel made some really poor choices when it came to Thor 2 And IM3. The over the top humor, background characters getting unnecessary scene time, lack out character respect, lack of quality villains, and memorable fight scenes.
My friend who doesn't know much about comics hated the Mandarin twist when he saw it. He hated the anti-climatic fight between Malekith when it was interrupted so the could fit in a funny scene where Thor ends up in the train. It interrupted the flow of an epic battle in his opinion. I'm just hoping Marvel keeps their movie qualities to the standards of Avengers, IM, Thor, and Cap 2 so I can enjoy multiple viewings of them. I don't want to end up watching it once and not viewing it again because it sucks or mediocre; that, in my opinion, is such a waste of a super hero movie.
If scores on Rotten Tomotoes equaled box office success, then Michael Bay wouldn't even have the career he has. No one has made more poorly reviewed films as he has the past nineteen-odd years. Why isn't he mentioned in the same breath as Uwe Boll? Because his films have brought in billions. Saying if a film scored better on RT and had more critical respect would mean bigger box office - it's never proven to be the case. There's is no perfect formula. The Phantom Menace got more fan & critical disrespect than any other Star Wars film, but it's the highest grossing of the prequels. The highest grossing Spider Man film (no.3) got the most critical and fan disrespect, so much they eventually rebooted. Iron Man 3 grossed as much as Iron Man 1 & 2 together, despite the fan fury over the Mandarin.
It's ultimately because no one really knows what will work for an audience or not; we guess just as much as as they do in Hollywood (when William Goldman famously remarked "Nobody knows anything." For all their audience polling and marketing might, they take the same risk every time out with a big feature film.)
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"I'm not smart so much as I am not dumb." - Harlan Ellison
I would love it if Thor 3 ended up being amazing. With IM1 being great, Cap 2 being great, Thor 3 should keep the order going and be great as well, even though Cap 3 will probably be great too.
That's due to the power of the franchise though. With say Iron Man 3 the franchise was built up by IM1 and Avengers both of which were loved by fans and critics alike (of course it's neither of those who make the box office dollars. That's your general audience who make that success or failure).
Same with SM3. SM1&2 really built up the brand (plus the trailers looked awesome).
But again I'd say DVD/BLU-RAY Sales are usually a much better indicator of how many people actually loved that particular film. Becuase many people will watch a film in the cineman, but decide they hate it. Whilst they will only buy films they saw and liked. And with IM3 you can clearly see the DVD/BLU-RAY Sales were no where near as phenomenal as it's box office performance. Whilst I can pretty much guarantee CAP2 is going to sell like crazy on DVD/BLU-RAY.
What numbers do you have showing slow sales for IM3? And if that were true, then The Phantom Menace wouldn't have been a big DVD bestseller when it came out two years after it opened, and once again when the Star Wars films came to blu-ray. All the intense criticism of the prequels and the special editions, and fans just buy them in huge numbers anyway.
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"I'm not smart so much as I am not dumb." - Harlan Ellison
I'll have to find a link now. Golgo first pointed it out, but basically MOS sold quite a bit more than IM3 on Blu-Ray. Yes the Star Wars prequels all sold well on DVD and Blu-Ray. (TPM was actually first released in the time of VHS!)
Sorry I think we've confused arguments here. I'm not suggesting critics = your general audience. I'm saying box office success for one particular movie doesn't translate into people loving that 1 movie. It just means people love the franchise so the hype is strong at the time of the box office release. So a lot of the time the box office success of a sequel is due to how much people loved the earlier movies in the franchise.
And it works the other way around as well. Look at X-Men First Class. Most people would agree that is one of the best X-Men movies (and possibly superhero movies) of all time. Yet it's box office success wasn't exactly spectacular. Probably in large due to X-Men fatigue from the previous 2 less loved X-Men movies (X3, and Origins Wolverine). But I'm betting when people finally got around to watching it, they loved it, and are now all excited for DOFP.
I was only using RT as an example of how good this movie was and how it, along with other word of mouth, push this movie past Thor and other sequels. Cap 2 beat IM 2 and Thor 2. That's quite a feat for a Cap movie, a character that is way less interesting than Iron Man or Thor/Loki. This movie's quality gave it enough steam to push it past the popularity of the other characters. My point being that if Thor 2 and IM 3/2 didn't suck so much, the critical acclaim and audience word of mouth would have push for more people to see these movies that they would make even more money. If it's a good movie, it will get more people to go see it and multiple viewings; this on top of those that have already decided to go any ways.
Actually a bad movie can get multiple viewings from hype as well. I can't think of the number of times I've been dragged to a movie I've already seen (which I just thought was mediocre or even bad) because friends I were with were still dying to watch it.
And I'm guessing those are the kind of multiple viewings SM3 and IM3 got.
But yeah your right, if IM3 was as awesome as CAP2 it probably would have grossed as much as Avengers. And then would have destroyed MOS in DVD sales.
But it's building up a franchise name which is what brings in the box office numbers. Good movies build up a franchise name for the future, whilst bad movies put the franchise down for the future. CAP's franchise name has just gone up tremendously thanks to TWS. Whilst I personally think IM's franchise name has probably dropped a bit after IM3. But we probably won't notice it as Avengers 2 will just boost it again given Stark will likely be the lead role and given that Whedon will probably make a fantastic movie again.
Last edited by Darth Thor on May 22nd, 2014 at 09:47 AM
Cripes...Iron Man 3 made $1.2 BILLION. It was the biggest hit of 2013, and one of only 16 films to have broken the billion dollar barrier in the modern box office. No matter how much you think it's success was undeserved, it got loved plenty by audiences and enough by critics.
Do you think if it scored 10 points higher on Rotten Tomatoes it would have grossed as much as Avatar? There's no proof anything like that ever happens.
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"I'm not smart so much as I am not dumb." - Harlan Ellison
Yeah tbf it is hard to imagine IM3 grossing any more than it did at the box office. But being a better film certainly would have helped is DVD sales. I'm sure if there was no Avengers 2 in the Middle and we went straight to IM4 and it was another mediocre film then the box office drop would start to show.
Lucky for Marvel though IM is just to damn popular now though and Avengers 2 will help to continue that.
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