In the midst of a long article from THR (about the disastrous state of Amazon under the guidance of Jennifer Salke), we got some real Rings of Power numbers leaked by inside sources: 45% of foreign viewers stuck with the series from start to finish, and just 37% in the US. That's abominable and while Amazon has no choice but to publicly support the expensive disaster, even less people will show up for season two and one wonders how long Jeff Bezos will underwrite this nonsense. RoP is not an isolated failure and the article goes through the laundry list of bombs that have plagued Amazon since Salke was put in charge over her MeToo'd predecessor. The positive is there's a good chance that by the time season two airs things will have changed and we won't have a third season inflicted upon us.
It appears as though fears that Honor Among Thieves would disappoint at the box office are true. After a middling opening, the film has been buried by The Super Mario Brothers (Honor's second weekend dropped 63%, from 40 to 14.5 million, even falling behind John Wick, which released a week earlier). I wonder if it can hit 200 million, but whatever the final number is this is a disaster for Paramount and Hasbro. As entertaining as Honor can be, as I said in my review, it's ultimately forgettable and whatever positive word of mouth there was did not generate much new or return traffic (I will be seeing it again with one of my gaming groups, however). What's interesting to me is the personalities in the D&D scene almost universally liked the film, which means their opinions aren't relevant to a general audience (a fascinating if not surprising revelation), and probably not even the general D&D audience. One thing I didn't go over in my review that I now think impacted the film is that aesthetically there's nothing distinctive about it--looking like every other fantasy release from the last few years--one of the things that saved Avatar 2 from its simplistic writing was its distinctive aesthetic (just like the original).
As expected, Shazam 2 has become the biggest DCEU bomb at the box office (it stands at 127 million). This doesn't inherently make it the worst DC film we've had in terms of quality, but it's not good and clearly the public is tired of terrible films from DC (so the framing brand no longer has any pull--the same thing happened at Fox with the X-Men). Will Blue Beetle bomb even harder? It's too early to say, but having the director already fighting with fans over his 'edgy' Batman-line won't help (yet another example of fan-baiting).
There was a time when I wished more shows and films followed the BBC example of hiring actors who looked like everyday people, but now that everything is cast like that, I've realized the problem in doing so. The approach only works in IP requiring that element (Bob from Bob's Burgers is an Everyman, so depicting him as something else wouldn't work). When I see actors who could be my neighbours in a context that make no sense it creates ludonarrative dissonance. One of the reasons traditional myths are stuffed full of extraordinary people is because they fantastic in the first place. The heroes are meant to inspire and entertain, so they become exaggerated--no one can actually be Superman or Beowulf--the point of the stories is to encourage what's seen as good societal behaviour, not to become the mythical person (and no well-adjusted person is literally trying to be what they see on screen). The argument against this tends to lean on representation for body positivity, but this lacks studies to back it up the cause and effect (surely if what's on screen impacts behaviour, America wouldn't be the most obese nation on earth--and if one wants to argue that's a negative result created by what's on screen, you then have to explain why the rest of the world, other than Canada/UK, don't have the same problems).
There are reasons to be concerned about programs like ChatGPT, but I derive some amusement that the first people impacted by this are likely the shills--suddenly thousands of reporters become redundant since computers can easily regurgitate corporate/government talking points. Pushing beyond the news, do you need a John Campea when a computer can do what he does for almost no cost? The problem shills have is they aren't distinctive, which makes them easily replaced by programming. Of course, the serious implications of AI go much further (Amazon--and Starbucks--are looking to replace the bulk of their employees with robots--Bezos currently has about 1.6 million employees, Starbucks 400k), and the implications of sex robots hit at the heart of human relationships, but if you can't laugh about serious things you'll go crazy.
This article was written by Peter Levi
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