By David Futrelle
Reactionary dinguses and #Gamergate leftovers have been raging against Captain Marvel for weeks (months?) now, claiming that the movie is little more than secret SJW propaganda designed to genocide white men or something. Now that the movie has hit theaters at last, you might be wondering how well their Captain Marvel boycott is going?
Not very, it turns out. Far from tanking, the film is actually racking up impressive numbers at the box office, with industry observers currently projecting a $150-$160 million weekend in North American theaters alone, way up from initial projections of $100 million.
So how is the angry mob responding? By declaring the box office numbers to be a big hoax, fake news, no collusion! (Oh, wait, they actually think there is collusion.)
Naturally, the positive reviews the film have gotten are supposedly fake as well:
As it turns out, there actually ARE some fake positive reviews of the movie out there. Namely 100 or so identically worded reviews up on Google. So of course the Captain Marvel foes — who only a few weeks ago bombarded Rotten Tomatoes with so many “don’t want to see” votes that the site disabled that feature — are now accusing SJWs and/or Disney of fraud.
Huh. So a huge multinational corporation pushing a major film is going to try to game the reviews by … hiring some troll to post 100 literally identical reviews on Google? Knowing that anyone who saw more than one of the reviews would instantly realize they were fake? I’d say the chance that Disney (or even freelance SJW “shills”) are behind this, rather than some anti-Captain Marvel troll trying to make Disney look bad, are probably about, well, one in 160 million.
Even Jack Posobiec, the Nazi-adjacent professional troll who’s been pushing for people to see Alita: Battle Angel instead of Captain Marvel, has been sounding a bit defensive today:
You know you’re WINNING when all you can offer is excuses.
UPDATE: The numbers from Saturday night are in:
Captain Marvel, starring Brie Larson, shattered the glass ceiling in its box office debut with $455 million in worldwide ticket sales, including $153 million in North America.
The tentpole’s global launch reps the biggest ever for a female-fronted film — eclipsing Beauty and the Beast ($357 million) — as well as the second-largest for any superhero pic behind Avengers: Infinity War ($640.5 million). Overall, it’s the sixth-best worldwide bow of all time, and the international opening of $302 million is the fifth-biggest ever ahead of Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($281 million).
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Imagine being so threatened by a popcorn movie because it features a female lead. It’d be funny if it weren’t so pathetic.
That Jack Posobiec character seems to have quite an inflated sense of self importance.
And considering how he’s a known plagiarist and offers no apology for it, the guy certainly has delusions of adequacy to go with it.
When they say each Star Wars movie since Last Jedi has tanked they know that there was only one, right?
I went to see it yesterday with not one, but two men of my acquaintance, both of whom are science-and-engineering-types. We all thought it was fun. I don’t expect a fun movie to change the world, myself. Ah, well, logic is not what we expect from certain….sources.
I’m assuming most of the decision-makers at Disney would look bewildered and say, “Poso who?”
The confidence of a mediocre white man, indeed…
So if Captain Marvel makes way closer to 100 million than 160 million, you admit your entire SJW worldview is a fraud. Good to know.
Look, I love a good popcorn movie. I don’t need Captain Marvel to be some deep-thought impressionist movie. I prefer shot ‘em ups. If the shoot ‘em up has a good plot or gets into an interesting question, or has good actors making real people out of comic book characters, all the better. And I really couldn’t care less if the genitals of the hero are innies or outies.
Just imagine being so tied up in the manosphere that you can’t enjoy a popcorn movie.
Tree Larson? Is that supposed to be a sick burn. I don’t even get it? Is there some sort of significance beyond tree and Brie rhyming? Are trees supposed to be bad? Because I really like trees! They’re pretty, they’re tall, they house all sorts of birds and other animals, they provide shade on hot days, their wood is very useful, maple syrup comes from them, many fruits and nuts come from them and they make our air breathable for us. So where’s the insult?
I saw it last night and thought it was great, but I am a long time Marvel geek who will likely never tire of the MCU. The only downside was that even my sleepy little theater was packed. The only time I have ever seen that mall so crowded has been Christmas and the ushers had to redirect people so that we didn’t leave isolated seats open because it was a full house… for the 6:30pm showing.
@JenniferAndLightning
(sarcasm mode) Well the only Logical Explanation for that has to be the Disney payed all those other People to be there in order to make it look like Captain Marvel is a moive that people actually want to see.
Maybe they were trying to say her acting is ‘wooden’ and/or She’s a dumb as a tree? But even then it’s a pretty weak insult.
If I was on the Alita promo team, I’d be a bit annoyed at Posobiec pushing it for such crap reasons.
I just saw it. I thought it was great. Goose the ferkin cat stole the show.
@Lainy
That’s not right fair – it’s in the rules that any cat steal the show in every film they grace with their presence.
(The affinity between cats and horror movies means they’re often by far the best actors in the show, too)
Liked it: my review, such as it is, is on the Brie is a cheese thread.
I’m just confused about why Alita is the anti-SJW alternative. It’s two hours of a young women learning about the callousness of the privileged class and the importance of social mobility. How do the reactionaries not despise it?
She’s got huge eyes, nice moves, and looks like a sexbot. Anything in there for the fools NOT to like?
Ripley from Alien is one of my favorite characters, but I always root hardest for Jones the cat when I watch it.
Well, Captain Marvel is also about a conventionally attractive woman kicking ass and it doesn’t seem to help there.
Although I suppose I shouldn’t expect anything better from the people who missed that Star Wars started out as the story of a diverse coalition heroically opposing evil white guys in fashy uniforms.
Ha! Best bit of Alien for me is a blink and you miss it moment when Jones hisses at the alien (seen only as a shadow, the first time on the Nostromo) and the shadow flinches backwards slightly.
Yep, that’s a cat alright. 🙂
All I can conclude is that they didn’t hear any feminists excited for Battle Angel, saw the Rotten Tomato consensus was mixed, found that no one involved with the movie had made any overt calls for social justice and then assumed that meant the social justice side hated it, so they latched on to Battle Angel as an alternative to Captain Marvel. Joke’s on them since after it debuted Rosa Salazar happily framed Battle Angel as a pro-immigration, anti-Trump wall story.
I personally liked Battle Angel, although it has some of the worst dialogue I’ve ever heard in a movie and hated how it killed all but one of the Black characters. I want to see Captain Marvel soon too.
Went with the family to see Captain Marvel at the end of my last day at home (and we were almost late to a prior weekend plan because of it, totally worth it.) No spoilers, but I totally called to my brother how Nick Fury lost his eye. It was probably one of my favorite Marvel movies so far. How hard do you think the Nazis’ heads would explode if you told them that none of the main heroes are white men? The closest thing is Agent Coulson and he gets all of about two scenes.
I’m planning on seeing Alita at some point as well, although probably not in theaters. A guy I watch a lot on YouTube (D from NODE) got to hang out with the cast and was giving the film a good endorsement on Twitter, so that definitely puts it on my radar. I was also pretty impressed with the CGI. It may not be the best movie ever made, but it seems entertaining enough.
@Talonknife
The best part of that in prior movies fury has said “the last time I trusted someone I lost an eye”so he’s really salty about this betrayal even though it seems they made up.
I would imagine some of the “George Soros pays for everything I hate!” crowd will latch on to this.
These people are really bad at making the movies they dislike tank. It’s almost like they don’t have an impact. Then again when it comes to products like razors and more apparently sales get raised by riling them up.