• Bosht@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Literally never heard this movie was being made except for 2 posts here, both of which happened after the movie opened in theaters. Marketing team obviously wasn’t doing shit.

    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Considering he had to finance everything himself, there wasn’t a ton of marketing and it’s a very controversial movie (in the sense that no one wanted to help him with financing/releasing it)

  • thessnake03@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Even adjusting for inflation, Pluto Nash still wins. It opened to $3.5M in today’s money.

    I feel like there hasn’t been much marketing for Megalopolis. Could be a factor. I’d say the long run time doesn’t help, but Oppenheimer counters that point.

    • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Oppenheimer had the advantage of people knowing basically what the story was about. The poster for Megalopolis doesn’t really tell me what it’s about beyond Adam Driver apparently being an architect.

      It’s the same reason everything is a reboot or remake: A lot of the marketing cost has already been taken care of with the first movie.

      • brap@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Agreed, not heard of it outside Lemmy. Perhaps I’ve insulated myself from ads a little too well.

          • Kellamity@sh.itjust.works
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            2 months ago

            Coppola was heavily involved in the production of the film where some of the abuse happened, and during the fallout he allegedly tried to sue the victim of the abuse for breach of contract

        • jonne@infosec.pub
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          2 months ago

          I’ve mostly heard about the controversies (the fake AI quotes in the trailer, some alleged #metoo stuff on set, …). Reviews seem very mixed, some reviewers hate it, others love it, which makes me think some of them just don’t ‘get’ it?

        • Altima NEO@lemmy.zip
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          2 months ago

          Yeah but usually if something is good, people will want to discuss it. This has gotten no hype, no post release discussion. It’s a ghost.

          Really odd for such a big budget movie.

    • Sabin10@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      This is the second time I have heard about this film, the last time being the release of the first teaser trailer. Studios love to spend 70 million marketing budgets on broadcast TV advertising and completely missing their target audience. In the case of sci-fi, most of us are more responsive to online marketing campaigns and this film has the online presence of an Amish priest.

      • SSTF@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        In the case of sci-fi, most of us are more responsive to online marketing campaigns and this film has the online presence of an Amish priest.

        Even then, who is this movie for? Scifi nerds who liked Cloud Atlas but wished it was more incoherent and Roman themed?

    • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      aubrey plaza was on the daily show talking about it, so i assume they were doing the usual TV talk show tour.

    • bitwaba@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      You need to adjust the Pluto Nash budget for iflation as well. It was a ~$100 million budget in 2002.

      Makes me wonder how many other movies did worse when we consider adjusting their budget to inflation.

  • Pjonathan@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    This is the first time I’m hearing about this movie, likely terrible advertising plan

    • RoidingOldMan@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Really? I’ve been hearing about it for months. It was having trouble finding a distributor for theaters, despite the budget and the star power, which was seen as a bad sign. It’s being marketed as Francis Ford Coppola’s last big budget movie.

  • mostNONheinous@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Maybe if the trailer didn’t tell you how great and misunderstood Coppola and his works have been and how stupid people were for panning them when they came out, more people would have been compelled to see it. Not that it was pretentious, just arrogant to say hey come watch this this sure fire masterpiece. Also it looks like politics mixed with Inception so maybe too much for people to bother right now? Having said all that I would like to see it, just don’t need to go to the theater for this one.

    • TheImpressiveX@lemmy.mlOP
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      2 months ago

      Having said all that I would like to see it, just don’t need to go to the theater for this one.

      From what little I’ve heard, there’s a 4th-wall-breaking scene that involves one of the characters interacting with an audience member (the theater apparently has someone come in and participate). So if nothing else, I guess you could see it in theaters for the novelty?

      • Naboo_calls_for_aid@sopuli.xyz
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        2 months ago

        Ah, so from what I’m reading it’s confusing now, but will be more confusing at home with a broken 4th wall break segment.

      • aasatru@kbin.earth
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        2 months ago

        I think that was just in Cannes or something.

        Edit: It seems I’m wrong! Basically it’s up to the cinema to include it, but it doesn’t change all that much. I had my information from reading a review by a reviewer who thought he had witnessed something completely unique.

      • Odo@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        My theater didn’t do that. There was one segment that was framed a bit differently, which I suspect is where the interaction would have been, but it played more like a short press conference and had no interaction.

      • ApollosArrow@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        This most certainly did not happen in my viewing. I am now curious what scene this would have been or if it was just cut out.

    • Soup@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Also, if your paraphrasing is accurate and we’re not playing a game of telephone here, regardless of how past experiences were later treated that’s kinda like saying “you’ll probably hate this unless you’re the kind of person who’ll still only appreciate it once a few critics tell you to in a few years.”

  • njm1314@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Are these Studios just getting ripped off by marketing? I literally never saw an ad for this. The first time I saw a trailer for this film was in an article about how bad it was bombing. Where was all the marketing money going?

    • roscoe@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      Every second or third post on Lemmy is about privacy or ad-blocking or piracy or pi-holes or bitching about ad injection.

      Not that any of that is a bad thing. (The bitching isn’t bad, the things are.)

      But you can’t be surprised when you don’t hear about shit. When you reclaim your eye-holes from Madison avenue you need to seek things out.

      • njm1314@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I’m not sure where on Earth you got the impression that I only consume media through Lemmy.

      • pyre@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        yeah but this is a movie, not a product. we usually hear about them from people, not necessarily ads. we might not see many ads but other people we talk to and hear from do, and practically no one in my life and media consumption talks about it. compare that to Barbie.

        • roscoe@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 months ago

          Talking to other people is part of what I mean by seeking things out. If you do all you can to avoid ads, along with the 99% that are useless you also block the 1% that you might actually find useful.

          For example; I recently heard about this show from a friend that is right up my alley. When I looked up a trailer it’s the kind of thing that seeing a commercial once would have caught my eye and ensured I watch it. She was surprised I hadn’t heard of it because it’s on a network with a few shows she knows I like and they’ve been pimping it pretty hard for a while. Because I block the bullshit I either have to hope cool stuff comes up in conversation or seek out new stuff elsewhere.

    • A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I wonder if it’s any good, all I hear is how little money it made like that means anything to anyone but the producers.

    • Visstix@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      He sexually harassed extras on set. I’m glad this pretentious asshole loses his money.

    • unknowing8343@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 months ago

      It’s bad. It’s bad and we’ve been knowing this for months, as it premiered in some festival.

      It’s so bad no distributors wanted any piece of the cake (because the necessary costs are astronomical).

      • Richard@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        AFAIK, the movie received a 10-minute standing ovation at Cannes. It is an art film first and foremost, and probably not for the general audience that flocks to the same old, boring formulaic movies a la Marvel & co.

        • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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          2 months ago

          Every movie at Cannes gets a ten minute standing ovation. That’s normal.

          I’m excited to see this though. But I’m not going to go to the theatre for it.

          • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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            2 months ago

            But I’m not going to go to the theatre for it.

            Same here, and frankly I will never again think it is surprising that a theatrical release is underperforming. Doesn’t matter which film. Theaters are underperforming because of many factors.

            I can buy my own copy of the film for less than it would take for me and one other person to see it together once in a theater.

            • BowtiesAreCool@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Which is why for someone like me who always hated theaters for the crowded seats and annoying people and noises, it’s never been better! Subscription to see movies whenever I want, and usually less than 10 people in the theater. It’s great.

              • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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                2 months ago

                Yeah, I can understand that. While I will mourn the death of the theater experience, it has been a very slow death. It has not really been the experience I remember for a long time.

          • Crashumbc@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Not only that, they would give FFC one at Cannes for his name alone.

            Edit: what I remember about “The Beaver” doesn’t fit with Cannes, maybe AVN awards :P

    • Richard@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Not really sad. Coppola is an artist, first and foremost, and he said that he doesn’t care whether the film will be financially successful. It is a passion project financed at least partially from his own money, and to be his magnum opus.

  • flop_leash_973@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    The trailer made it seem like the kind of pretentiously boring mess that the director seemed to think had some profound message that I tend to really dislike.

    Or put more simply, “Looks like the director set $120 million on fire to win Oscars, not make something entertaining.”

    • SSTF@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      From what I’m hearing, one of the antagonists is a thinly veiled Rupert Murdoch. Sounds like $120 million to pretentiously explain that Fox News is bad to an audience who figured that out two decades ago.

      • boonhet@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        Thinly veiled Rupert Murdoch?

        Bah, 007 did it 27 years ago.

        I really wanted Megalopolis to be good, but I never had high hopes for it. I’ll probably still watch it eventually because it has a bunch of actors in it that I love + I’m a sucker for future megacities in movies and games (I’m still not over the fact that they cancelled the Star Wars game that was supposed to take place on the lower levels of Coruscant)

  • BestBouclettes@jlai.lu
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    2 months ago

    I still don’t know if it was overly pretentious garbage or an enlightening allegory of the current state of the world. But watching it was definitely an experience. The cast is great, and I found it visually beautiful and interesting.

    • Colalextrast@lemmynsfw.com
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      2 months ago

      I think its firmly both. There are a lot of great ideas in the movie, and they come across really well when you discuss it. But its also a mess of a film that cares more about allegory and metaphor than narrative.

      • nova_ad_vitum
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        2 months ago

        But its also a mess of a film that cares more about allegory and metaphor than narrative.

        So…a Terrence Malick film?

    • BowtiesAreCool@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I liked it. It was kind of a mess, but it was interesting, thought provoking, and visually very good. As much as there are improvements that could be made or changes to make it more palatable to a wider audience, I’d prefer the weird way it is, and especially movies like this over the next Disney/Corporate Movie Product TM

    • m-p{3}A
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      2 months ago

      And Dredd with Karl Urban (which is a shame, the movie didn’t get the attention it deserved).

  • BrightCandle@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    It got a lot of controversial press before its release and I can’t really recall hearing what the movie is about or it being any good.

    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Something something new Rome something something super powers that are useless something something the end

  • Bakkoda@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    The worst part about this movie is you can’t even see the original in search results anymore. Like it never existed.

  • mycodesucks@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    “… so you see, Borderlands is actually doing just fine in its theatrical release.” -Randy Pitchford

  • daqu@feddit.org
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    2 months ago

    I have no idea what this movie is about. So I watched the trailer.

    Star Wars Episode XIII: Avengers of Ben Hur?

    I have no idea what this movie is about.

    • LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I also have zero idea what the movie poster is. It looks like Adam Driver is holding a Pizza Hut logo on a stick in front of the world’s most generic mess of golden polygons. I guess that’s some sort of construction tool?

        • masterofn001
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          2 months ago

          Looks like a drafting square to be more specific.

          For the old school draftsman working with pencil on a table.

          • Crashumbc@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Yup that’s exactly what it is. Which nobody would know even 30+ years ago, much less now.

      • daqu@feddit.org
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        2 months ago

        The poster remembers me of the 1984 Apple commercial, whicht also fits bulding a better future. But that’s totally wrong.