Primal's ponderings: Movie Goals: 2018 So how'd I do?

Obviously I didn't do one of these last year but I can get into how many movies I watched. I think I hit most of my "want to see in theaters" movies in 2018. I know I missed a few due to schedule, funds, sibling availability, and forgetfulness. A few movies came out under the radar and thus were missed completely. A few fell into "let me play a few more matches" hole of I was having more fun gaming and it wasn't THAT much of a must see for me. I will use this blog as the format for how I do these posts in the future INCLUDING the Movie Goals for 2019 list. Which I will try and type up by FRIDAY (yes I am marking this post as well as putting a DEADLINE on myself for 2 posts) because I think ONE of the movies I want to see for 2019 comes out this week so BOOM.

Now as far as 2018 is concerned(enough with the stalling) I went to see 15 movies last year, I hit MOST of the movies I wanted to see ESPECIALLY the big comic book movies. I still haven't finished all of the movie trailers posts I need to get back to those, but yeah will do it this way the movies I actually went to first, movies I was first high on but then kind of chilled later, and then the movies I was still high on but just missed. So lets get into it

2018 My Year in Movies

The big movies of course were: Black Panther, A Wrinkle in time, Ready Player One, Avengers Infinity War, Deadpool 2, The Incredibles 2, Ant-man and the Wasp, Venom, Creed 2, Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse, and Aquaman.

Cream of the Crop

Black Panther, Avengers: IW, and Incredibles 2 the cut off for this is 300 million which while Aquaman is close technically most of that money happens in 2019 so I can't really put Aquaman on the 2018 list. 500 million+ is insane, pretty much all of these movies broke 1 billion worldwide (yes, Aquaman has made 1 billion world wide, but it hit 1 billion in 2019 it's overseas box office is insane). Disney going all Scrooge McDuck in the box office this year even the 600 mil worldwide from AMatM isn't really anything to sneeze at(But more on that later). Seriously on it's own Marvel made the ENTIRETY of Disney's purchase price back in 2019. 4 billion dollars in one year. Even with the SNAP. And of course the Incredibles 2, it may have been a good 14 years too late but it took the box office by storm too. Me and the bredren checked it out while we were out of town. LOVED IT. Jack Jack was everything I wanted him to be, as was Edna and her love for the tyke.

Now the SJW hate flower FREELY in 2018 anything that seemed DIVERSE, FUN, and IN TUNE with more than just the majority never really got it's full props REGARDLESS of how much it made in the box office. Hell the success of one movie(in my opinion) dumped it's hate on another movie since it stayed climbing the charts. Black Panther was everything you could have wanted it to be with the restrictions placed upon it with Marvels rights situation AT THE TIME IT WAS SHOT, and Infinity War proved that Disney has No PROBLEM dusting 4.5 billion dollars. Seriously, the Russo brothers and Disney pulled no punches and had half the world begging to trade in THE OTHER KID as the dust settled. Because just as you thought "oh no, we are gonna lose this character" they pull the okie doke and snatch your heart with someone else. Oh and by the way, they got me I thought NOBODY had a pair that large, not for THE LOGO, like come on now who kills the character SYNONYMOUS with the company? So yeah I was cleaning the goatee when it happened cause I wasn't ready.

Kicking in the Door

Venom, Deadpool 2, and Ant-man and the Wasp don't break 300 million. They all made money, they all pretty much banked World Wide but domestically were good but not Ba-boom in any other year these movies would be the talk (and before anyone mentions 2 movies that SHOULD be on here because they made money but seem glaring, these are movies I SAW in 2018 in the THEATER I'll talk about movies I missed near the end) HILARIOUSLY they are in order of earnings even though I didn't know who made more. Venom is of course the surprise hit(once again, Aquaman is making Dough but it's gone keep rocking into 2019 so It's coming up) After The Amazing Spider-Man 2 didn't mean expectations all of the movies planned after it were cancelled, INCLUDING Venom. And with the ratings fiasco(they wouldn't just come out and admit it was going to be PG-13 to reach a broader audience), the tepid early reviews, and people unsure of where it fit in the cannon it made bank. Deadpool 2 didn't make as much DOMESTICALLY as the first one but still did well world wide. And Of course Ant-man and the Wasp did better domestically than the first outing.

Deadpool 2 had a lot of fun with itself, it obviously had a bigger budget. It lost it's original director, made even more fun of both the comic books AND Fox Studios but it just didn't make as much money. It was a fun movie, I laughed the whole time, the villains were awesome as were the cannon fodder deaths. And as ONLY Deadpool would do, the after credits scenes EPIC, I hope you stayed to watch them. Now I know they did a RERELEASE of the Deadpool movies but I haven't seen Once upon a Deadpool yet thus it ain up here.

One of the FUNNIEST fauxtroversies of the year was peoples lack of math skills. Because of the Wasps prominence in the movie people forgot how to do math. It made more than the first one, so of course it was a flop. Wait what? Yes that was one of the saltiest takes of the year I can ignore the TDK dumps of BP talk, when you have More money both in your fictional universe as well as at the box office jealousy is to be expected. But when you are basically facing yourself seriously making more money is making more money even if you want to be mad that the girls are allowed to play. Some of the more ridiculous arguments were that since it was a Marvel movie, it should have made 1 billion dollars. Black Panther and Iron Man 3 are the only solo movies(and with Rhodey in both sequels it is a stretch to call Iron Man 2 and Iron man 3 Solos but wasn't the full team so, meh) to have reached that feat, Civil War was basically an AVENGERS movie, Cap just got Top Billing it was technically the sequel to Age of Ultron as they finished up the Sokovia business. It was in line with most of the other Sequels world wide Box office numbers.

The Honorable Mentions

Solo: A star wars story, Ready Player one, Creed 2, and A Wrinkle In Time are the next grouping they made 100 million or more but didn't soar to the 200 million strata save one. Solo is the interesting one, it made over 200 million domestically but didn't make what folks expected it to world wide. That is the only thing that knocks it to the next tier if it made 200 domestic and was in the 500 million plus range world wide you couldn't tell them nothing, it's more like 300 million. I enjoyed it and felt it was a good movie but I can fully understand why some may not have liked it. The ones who were on the SJW warpath though can get dunked for most of this year they were just annoying and tone deaf. Good not great Star Wars movie but as it is Star Wars less than 500 million at the box office is underwhelming.

I personally think Ready Player One should have been 2 movies. It did decently domestically and well overseas the story just felt rushed in a few parts as compared to the book. Yes pretty much everything was in the movie that is in the book, but I would have enjoyed a little more character development as well as a few more of the game worlds and puzzles.

Creed 2 and A Wrinkle in Time both made 100 million, each made only about 50 million internationally but for the stories they told and the projected audiences if it WASN'T for Black Panther they would have been awesome feel good stories. Creed 2 found a way to recapture lightning in a bottle as well as give closure to one of the most heartbreaking moments in cinema. And honestly as someone who LOVED the book growing up if you asked me would AWIT every become a movie, I would laugh at you, say "sure one of those animated shorts where they basically took the best parts and jettisoned the rest" and them snicker some more. Because Ava Duvernay was initially approached to helm Black Panther there was a campaign by people angry that BP didn't flop who dedicated their time to complaining that a kids movie did. Ryan Coogler blocked out the sun until Ready Player one came out, and even then nothing even approached his numbers until Infinity War in April. Then the dam broke and movies started making 200 million plus again.

The Flops

Thankfully I didn't catch too many flops this year as a matter of fact the only TRUE flop I caught was Pacific Rim Uprising, and that's because it didn't make it's budget back. It sputtered out around 59 million Domestic, it did OKAY overseas but those anemic domestic numbers OUCH. Now some might want to put Bumble Bee in here too but I disagree it's still in the Box Office doing okay numbers and is doing OKAY world wide, but son come on now AQUAMAN it should have come out either sooner or been pushed back. I don't know if it was the LACK of Idris Elba, the less compelling bad guy(String conspiracy Meme dude) or that for the most part it was TOO rehashy with the first movie. Was it terrible no but it didn't really hit the GOOD bad movie beats it needed to to reach cult status. It isn't a bad binge watch for the weekend but you probably glad you didn't fork over the 20 bucks at the theater for tickets and popcorn.

Still Trucking

Aquaman, Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse, and BumbleBee since these 3 movies came out near the end of the year they are still making decent money going intto 2019 with their first major challenge being Glass which opens Friday. Jason Mamoa is now the highest grossing DCEU film WORLD WIDE. He doesn't have far to go to catch The Dark knight rises as the top DC film period but he still has to walk a few weekends to get that extra 50 million. Domestically Wonder Woman was still better by a good 120 but I am pretty sure Warner Brothers is going to give it the time to catch up. This will only be the second time they have done well at the box office AND BEEN PRAISED versus hated for what they put on the screen. Batman V Superman made money but EVERYONE hated it.

Spider-man into the Spider-verse has to be the most self aware Sony movie ever. It understood that YES it was beating the Spider-man origin story drum again(thus it made fun of that fact every chance it got), it also understood that it was cramming a lot into one movie, and found a way to knock it out of the park. Understand this is MILES origin story as Spider-man, yes Ghost Spider/Spider-Gwen/Spider-woman(umm when did she take on THAT title, I thought that was J Drew), as well as an OLDER Peter Parker, Spider-man Noire, Spider-Ham(WHAT) and Penni Parker which hey give me a Mech Spider ANY DAY. It cleaned up the things from the Ultimate Spider-man run for Miles that seemed Hamfisted, found a way for him to NOT be alone in a world where CURRENTLY he is the only superhero, and made you give a damn about ALL of the Spider-folk without seeming to push anyone aside. This movie made me smile the whole time.

BumbleBee is the Transformers movie we all wanted. They LOOK LIKE GEN 1 (Take that Micheal Bay, even though you are still attached to the property) this is all we wanted, robots looking like robots, kicking metal, and being awesome. This is apparently a PREQUEL to the Micheal Bay run so there are some things we have to take with an unfortunate TON of salt. Ain no grains, knowing that we gone go from this to the BUG BOYS sucks. The explosions were nice but the fact that Micheal Bay does not respect how strong and how much but Optimus Kicks is a problem. As I mentioned earlier our favorite Bug turned Camaro is the unfortunate also ran in this race since Aquaman is killing the box office and Into the Spider-verse just keeps on trucking. Bumble be is a good 25 mil below it's production costs domestically and with all the new movies coming out I don't know if it will last in the theaters long enough to pick it up.