Weekly Box Office and Film Discussion Thread

[D'Snowth]

I heard the strangest thing about DEADPOOL the other day: a mother is petitioning to have the movie's rating lowered from R to PG-13. Know why? So she can let her eight-year-old kid see it. Uh . . . PG-13 is still a bit mature for eight-year-olds . . . but like I should talk, I was the only kid growing up who wasn't allowed to watch PG-13 or R-rated movies.

 

[MuppetSpot]

Hey I thought Deadpool was going to be rated x.

 

[Drtooth]

The Deadpool in the Wolverine movie was an extremely odd choice. It's like Marvel or FOX wanted the writers to put him in the movie but the writers found him annoying so they took away the thing that made him Deadpool...his mouth.
He was barely even the same character,they might as well have named him something completely different. And now that the whole X Men continuity has changed and this new Deadpool is supposed to be in the same universe,what part of time did they change that turned creepy mouthless Slenderman Deadpool into the scary murderous Spiderman that he is now.

It's not so much Deadpool was found to be annoying so much as they wanted to shove Deadpool in the movie and when the same producers that wanted him in the movie put a leash on the character because he was upstaging Wolverine. Which, frankly, is what Deadpool would have done anyway.

I heard the strangest thing about DEADPOOL the other day: a mother is petitioning to have the movie's rating lowered from R to PG-13. Know why? So she can let her eight-year-old kid see it. Uh . . . PG-13 is still a bit mature for eight-year-olds . . . but like I should talk, I was the only kid growing up who wasn't allowed to watch PG-13 or R-rated movies.

Deadpool isn't a child-friendly character. Sure, they had a "Super Hero Squad" figure....

And he was on Ultimate Spider-Man .
With HEAVY alteration mind you....

And there was talk of him being in the unproduced 3rd season of Wolverine and the X-Men.

But other than that he's pretty much an adult comic nerd character. The movie pretty much had to be R or it couldn't have gotten made, at least the way the filmmakers wanted. That's part of the reason the Deadpool movie took so dang long to get off the ground.

Come to think of it T.J. Miller is in this film, and he was in Big Hero 6 as well. Technically, he was in 2 Marvel films. 3 if you want to get on the anal retentive technicality of Transformers starting out as a Marvel comic.

On that subject, apparently Danny Trejo wants DC to make a Lobo movie featuring him as the title character. Hope that happens.

 

[Drtooth]

A day late, but Comic Book Resources gives a nice essay on why Deadpool is an R rated character

It's a mix of cussing and violence. PG-13 films are not the hard R that parental groups say they are. The Wolverine (the relatively good one that didn't feature Deadpool) had so many gore indiscretion shots in it, I swore I was watching a 1980's Super Hero cartoon.

Well, not really, but he sure as heck didn't slash bloody gashes into his enemies. On screen, anyway.

The downside is Deadpool's probably not going to be asked back to Ultimate Spider-Man anytime soon.

 

[mr3urious]

Kung Fu Panda 3 dominated this weekend, earning $41 mil. over the weekend. A little less than the first two installments and a lot less than Home, but it at least made more in its opening than Norm and The Nut Job, so DW should take this victory in stride.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/

 

[Drtooth]

January wasn't a good place for the movie. I have a feeling that, while it makes sense to distance itself from Star Wars in December and Zootopia in March, they planned on tying this film's release to Chinese New year since the film was pretty much tailor made for a Chinese box office market. Even used their new (and obviously cheaper) Chinese studio to animate this. That said, I really hope they don't make another one because, well... non-spoiler it closes the franchise out nicely, the more spoilery explanation...

Spoiler

Po becomes a master of Chi, therefore making him incredibly powerful to the point that even Shifu needs to take lessons from Po. Po's character arc is complete. While I wouldn't rule out loving to see another KFP cartoon series at some point, another movie would just be redundant. Plus, if Po gets too powerful, where's the drama in that unless they pull a DBZ and keep giving him villains on an escalating scale of more powerful?

The film was pretty much as good as you'd expect. The villain wasn't as strong as the second film, and it felt like the film was trying to do too much in a short time frame. Plus, it really feels like some of it would have fit into the KFP:LOA cartoon.

 

[Muppet Master]

Kung Fu Panda 3 actually did very respectable buisness. That $41 million opening weekend is just $6 million below it's $47 million opening for the second movie, still sad that they dumped the movie in such a strange time, it could have made way more money, if they were to make

 

[mr3urious]

I'm sure this movie will make a ton of money in China, where it was co-produced. So many American studios pander to the Chinese audience because that's where the big bucks are nowadays, but even then KFP has been praised by critics over there for being very respectful to their culture and customs, and wondering why they're studios can't do anything like that.

 

[MuppetSpot]

Was the other Disney animated film (can't remember) trailer released?

 

[Drtooth]

I'm sure this movie will make a ton of money in China, where it was co-produced. So many American studios pander to the Chinese audience because that's where the big bucks are nowadays, but even then KFP has been praised by critics over there for being very respectful to their culture and customs, and wondering why they're studios can't do anything like that.

If Cracked's to be believed Chinese audiences actually hate when we pander to them, but there's no denying there's something special about Kung Fu Panda. Hilariously when the first movie came out, I remember someone on some forum complaining about how it's going to be racist and disrespectful because Asian Bear type creature doing Asian martial art. And frankly, it could have very well been. Dreamworks did release Sharktale none too long before that. But not only was KFP a love letter to kung fu movies, it was the turning point for their studio. I really think that the KFP and HTTYD franchises are something special that brought Dreamworks out of the "we need to make another Shrek" doldrums of fart jokes, obnoxious high pitched voiced twerp characters (trying to make more "Gingerbread Man" type characters and failing), and goofy pop culture references.

That said, I heard China banned one of the Shreks once.