I would but I don’t have the inside knowledge. For all I know the director made exactly what they intended and that was apparently terrible. Maybe they cut scenes, maybe they added unnecessary scenes, maybe there was push from the studio.

Ultimately a film is what the director creates. If the writing wasn’t good it’s up to them to figure something out how to improve it. If the producers try and force changes it’s up to the director to either make them fit or convince them otherwise.

Obviously you pick your battles and a film is a collaborative project, but the director is the captain, they guide the ship, they guide the film.

Yeah I wasn’t even going to touch on that. AFAIK he was just a “regular dude” when this film came out. But chances are he was just hiding it. If the DCEU didn’t die I suspect the future of these films and the lead actor would be a huge problem.

That sounds absolutely plausible.

The film also has the most egregious bit of product placement I’ve ever seen in the film, which I have to imagine is a push from the studios/finance.

For those who haven’t seen the film, the film deals with gods and other mythical creatures. One of those creatures is a unicorn. One of the characters, a young girl, loves unicorns. However these unicorns are less friendly horses and more fantasy war machines. Luckily they can be tamed by “ambrosia” aka “nectar of the gods”. So when the unicorns appear and begin to attack everyone, good or bad, the little girl tames them using… SKITTLES. And I swear a character even says “Taste the Rainbow”. Basically Skittles save the day and defeat the bad guy in the film. They are core to the story.

At the time of its release the first Shazam film was solid and generally fit in the “good” section of the DCEU.

However by the time Shazam 2 came out it was bad and generally fit in the “bad” section of the DCEU.

I don’t think Shazam 2 was poorly directed, but the story didn’t work at all and was ultimately a mess. So with that, it’s difficult to blame anyone other than the director.

I’m glad Sandberg is taking another swing at something big because they seem like a nice person and I think they can do a good job.

I don’t mind going out to a theater on occasion, but honestly I usually prefer to watch films at home. I can start them whenever I feel, pause if needed, have plenty of food/drinks, and can invite a friend or two over if they’re interested.

I’m still confused by what happened with this film. I knew it was coming out, but I didn’t get around to seeing it opening weekend, then by Wednesday of the next week the headlines stated that it was leaving theaters and heading to streaming.

I would have seen it in theaters, but once the streaming was announced I didn’t mind waiting another week or two.

I just saw it and enjoyed it.

I feel like it didn’t have any time to build momentum, just kicked almost straight to streaming.

If you watched Sonic 1 & Sonic 2, it’s a no brainer to watch Sonic 3. I think Jim Carrey is the best part of all three films.

Additionally, the story loosely follows the 3D Sonic games storylines, so if you grew up with those games it’s fun to see them come to live action.

If you have no attachment to Sonic or his games, you’ll still enjoy some parts, like Jim Carrey, but otherwise you’ve just got to accept the premise and be fine with whatever is happening.

If your main draw is Keanu, I mean he’s in the film, but he’s a talking hedgehog so… You know… Set expectations.

Mine was when Master Chief showed up in the post-credits and suggested he and Steve should team up and then both shouted “It’s time to play Xbox™ One™”

This is devastating. There are so many choices to make when it comes to Val I refuse to single one out. Truly rest in peace.

People have been doing this without AI for years. AI just means these are just pumped out with more frequency and faster. The YouTube algorithm loves to recommend,

“Official Spider-Man 4: Homeward Bound The Incredible Journey Trailer | Tom Holland, Zendaya | Marvel Cinematic Universe | Official Trailer 2025 Fan Trailer”

See, it isn’t misleading, they clearly stated it was a fan trailer.

If the YouTube algorithm didn’t recommend it, people wouldn’t make it. If they were clearly labeled, the videos wouldn’t get the views. If giving this money to studios kills this style of content I’m all for it. Of course, I’m sure that won’t be misused.

Edit: Oh! Had I but read the next article in this community, https://lemmy.world/post/27579531

I would agree the cats out of the bag, so there may not be anything that can be done. The keys aren’t going to those who can afford a server farm, the door is wide open for anyone with a computer.

The interesting follow up to this is what Disney does to a model trained on their films. Sure lawyers, but how much will they actually be able to do?

Deadline understands that Sony will keep the Stolen Picture brand and creative IP alive within its family of labels, but is liquidating the legal entity. No employees are impacted.

Sony took full control of Stolen Picture in 2022 after originally buying into the outfit in 2017. As part of the 2022 deal, Pegg and Frost resigned as directors and have since stepped away from day-to-day operations.

The brand “Stolen Picture” hasn’t put out a project since 2020 and it didn’t include either of those projects.

I’m not sure what they brought or what value it has.

Basically, yes.

If I were an alien and you walked up to me and said, “Good Morning”, and I looked around and everyone else said “Good Morning”, I would respond with "Good Morning ". I don’t know what is “Good” or “Morning”, but I can pretend I do with the correct response.

In this example “Grok” has no context on what is going on in the background. Musk may have done nothing. Musk may have altered the data sets heavily. However the most popular response, based on what everyone else is saying, is that he did modify the data. So now it looks like he did, because that’s what everyone else said.

This is why these tools have issues with facts. If 1 + 1 = 3, and everyone says that 1 + 1 = 3, then it assumes 1 + 1 = 3.

There was a thread a few weeks ago discussing the decline of theatres. The one, and only, suggestion from theater owners was to have a 90 day minimum theatre time before films moved to streaming/physical media.

At the time that idea seemed silly to me. Usually if I want to see a film, it’s opening weekend I see it. Maybe the second week, but usually before the second weekend.

But this film is leaving theaters less than a week after release? I saw Mickey 17 was announced to be leaving before being in theaters for 2 weeks.

I guess I understand the complaint from theatre owners now. Maybe 90 days is too long but shit you gotta draw a line somewhere. You gotta give films a chance if you want theatres to stay open.

So many films post pandemic have their “Exclusively in theaters” taglines, but for how long?

Kano was my favorite part of the first film, glad to see him returning. Karl Urban is a much older, but I think fun looking Johnny Cage.

Oh I agree, I was just being pedantic because OP said “Marvel”.

Since I’m already being pedantic, technically produced by Marvel Entertainment.

I think George Lucas would agree with you.

While he directed the first film, Empire and Jedi had other directors. When it came to the prequel series Lucas really tried to get someone else to direct, but everyone turned him down as the project was “too daunting”.

Lucas is best as the idea guy.

Since you phrased it ambiguously, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is amazing.