Captain Marvel Projected Opening

Well it started tracking  at $140 million, which frankly was a rosy as predictions go.

Now it’s down to $100 million, give or take $20 million.  Largely I suspect this has a lot to do with the shocking arrogant and rather vicious public statements of Brie Larson.  She was hired at $5 million which is an impressive first paycheck.  It strongly indicates that Disney/Marvel wants her to be a the masthead of the post Infinity Wars Marvelverse.

The problem is that you can’t really buy your percentage for a masthead. The audience has to find either the actor or the character likable.

Jack Sparrow worked (at first) because everyone liked the goofy, spacey pirate and Depp himself was having one of his rare sober periods in the early 00s.

Robert Downey has always had charisma but after he had gotten clean he had the kind of story that everyone likes, the comeback story.

In the first case the character overshadowed the actor and in the second, the actor overshadowed the character.  Neither of these elements will be in play for Captain Marvel.

I’ve been pretty neutral about most of the superhero movies.  I’ve enjoyed a few and have been only mildly entertained by others.  But here’s the thing; I don’t recall ever rooting for one to fail before and now I am.  I will be pleased as punch if Captain Marvel tanks. I’ve never felt that way about a superhero movie before and it’s entirely due to the lead actress screaming at me over her politics.

I am at this point wondering if the Left Leaning Deathroll is in play here.  If you want example of the LLD, it is when a product is doomed to fail so the guy in charge of it goes as far Left as possible to make himself a hero.

When Chris Chibnall was made the new showrunner of Doctor Who, I suspect he said, “yes,” without thinking about it.  But then when he finally got down to the business of looking at brass tacks he discovered that he taken custody of a champion race horse…that was on it’s last legs.

There really wasn’t anything more that could be done with the series.  The glory days of David Tennent were long over.  Moffat while having had moments of absolute genius during the Russell T  Davies tenure, had clearly run out of ideas during his own. Moffats various attempts to revitalize the show, severly weakened  long standing narrative constraints and precepts which further debiliated a show that was already running out of steam.

For example when the reboot opened the Doctor absolutely hated and feared the Daleks.  He was pretty kumbaya about every other species in existence but he had genocided his entire race in order to wipe the Daleks out. Then Moffat brought back a new Dalek empire that the Doctor wasn’t frightened off.  Then he reversed the genocide of the Time Lords but then went with the half measure of walling them off again.  Moffat was clearly so bored by and disengaged with the Doctor that he basically turned Doctor Who into the Clara Oswald Show.

When Chibnall agreed to head the show, he quickly discovered that the patient couldn’t be saved, which meant that he needed to ensure that at least he wouldn’t get blamed for it’s inevitable death.

Doctor Who had always been pretty Lefty but it has never beaten you over the head with it’s politics and suddenly it does, each and every week.

When the show does get canceled, Chibnall and the BBC will claim that they were punished for telling truth to power in the age of Trump. Rather than having to say, sorry there was nothing I could. If you are a Hero of the Resistance you will always get a new job.  If you are some shmuck who just couldn’t turn things around you won’t.

This is the Left Leaning Deathroll.

I am beginning to suspect that that is what is in play with Captain Marvel.

 

However, here is Grace Randolph with a different view.  While I don’t agree with her politics she does provide a decent explanation as to how film tracking is done.