That's a surprising number. Especially so since I don't really recall any blatant product placements (well ok, I think there was one scene that stood out a little bit).
I'd say the number of brand partnerships is less a problem than how prominent those brands are displayed. I can't think of the exact movies off the top of my head, but the most egregious instances I can think of only had one or two brands. Apple and BMW, for example, have had some seriously obnoxious brand placements in movies.
I was thinking Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend.
But there are, for whatever reason, so many possibilities for what it could've been (including the mostly live action Demonlover)
Cell phones basically ruined horror movies.
This is an oft repeated idea. I don't really buy into it though.
If you're in immediate danger, a cellphone isn't really going to help you. Sure. Call the cops, or whatever. While you're fumbling with the phone, the killer has a chance to catch up to you. Maybe you drop the phone and have to leave it because the killer is so close. But "dropping the keys" is already an annoying cliche, so let's avoid that. You manage to call the cops. It'll take at least a minute to explain your situation to the dispatcher. Assuming they believe you (ie, you aren't dealing with a supernatural threat, which they'd either assume you're pranking or having a mental health episode) and immediately request a police response, it'll still be another 3+ minutes in an urban setting until the police arrive, or 30+ in a more rural setting (add on another minute or so if they don't believe you and you need to request that they send police anyway). If you're camping, staying at a cabin in the woods, or in some other remote setting, you're probably on your own for at least an hour.
So you've managed to call the police and know they're on their way. How long do you have to fend off the threat? It only takes Leatherface a minute or so to hack you into pieces with his chainsaw. Ghostface just slices your stomach open and is gone fifteen seconds later. Maybe you can lock yourself in your bedroom. That's not going to help if the second or third killer was already hiding in your closet. Or they can just dowse the house in gasoline and hide in an alleyway to see if you try to escape. It's a horror movie, they'll be able to evade the initial police response. If you're a primary target, they can just come for you later. Or just move on to the next target of opportunity.
If the threat is supernatural, walls are meaningless, and police are powerless.
That's not the only use for a cell phone. It can also be used as a light, but screen time kills battery pretty quickly (not sure about using the camera's flash as a light source, I'll assume that also drains the battery pretty quickly). But that light, along with either the ringtone or vibration motor can serve as a beacon if you're trying to hide from a threat.
The camera could be used for evidence. Well, see Blair Witch Project, et al. Horror already is capable of dealing with character with cameras, nothing new there.
TL;DR:
If your movie takes place after cell phones are commonplace, you need to establish some answers beforehand about “why dont they just call the cops?” and you need to establish those in a way that feels natural to the plot otherwise it will stick out to your viewers.
A decent movie can handle these issues easily (either taking a few seconds to show why the cell phone can't be used "right now", or having an opening kill where the character does manage to call the police and dies anyway.)
It was the opposite for me. The first episode was great, 2-3 were fine/good, and then it was just downhill from there. Overall, I didn't like the first season (iirc, my final score for the season was 4/10).
I'd still check out a season 2, but maybe not 3+ unless 2 really improves things.
I can see where the praise comes from though, I'm just adding my opinion as a reminder that it isn't universally praised.
Deadpool & Wolverine is listed under "Marvel Movies," whereas Deadpool 1 & 2 are listed under "Other Movies." This is the best source I can find that D&W is part of the MCU.
If you want to view it that way, sure, I won't disagree.
But L&T having that problem also contributes to the problems of the MCU at large, where each movie has to be some "villain of the week" that's introduced at the start of the movie and disposed of at the end, with a chance of a tease that the villain may return or perhaps a hint of some larger threat; either of which may ultimately lead nowhere. Up to to Infinity War, they were pretty good about those hints of a large threat, obviously with Infinity War and Endgame paying that off. Since then... What have we actually got? They seem to have finally settled on a new major arc, until some real life drama may have derailed that (maybe Deadpool & Wolverine will advance that plot? idk)
At least in retrospect, I think L&T could have been a more interesting movie if it had completely eschewed the villain a-plot and focused either more or completely on the Jane b-plot. Christian Bale's villain could have made for a really good ~3 movie arc, though, either beginning or ending in L&T. But yeah, the Taika Waititi humor really didn't mesh well with either a- or b-plot.
I think Endgame itself was really the beginning of the current MCU problem. They were in too much of a rush to conclude the Thanos story. Where that movie started with a scripted five year gap, we should have had that five year gap for real. Let us feel the consequences of the Snap the way the characters did. Give us the Hawkeye/Ronin and Black Widow movies (amongst others) that show everyone dealing with the catastrophe. Let the consequences of their failure to stop Thanos really hit home. (And while I'm typing all this, please conclude that story without time travel, but that's an entirely separate rant, lol.)
Use those to start a new MCU. An MCEU or whatever lol.
I personally think the current iteration has too much baggage. Too many mediocre to downright terrible movies post-Endgame that would have to be slogged through to get the X-Men or whatever else. Too many dropped plotlines, and too much wasted potential.
They've already introduced the multiverse, so they can treat the X-Men as a soft reboot. If it goes well and they have a vision that requires it, they can merge it back into the current MCU to pick up whatever plot they were already building towards, except with hopefully better writers and revitalized creators.
That, plus their output should be limited to 1 or 2 movies per year, max, and no TV shows. Or if they do have TV shows, keep them completely separate, like the Netflix shows were.
If they do that, I'd considering giving them another chance. Otherwise, if it's more or less business as usual, Love and Thunder and GotG3 will have been the last MCU movies for me (mainly because of how bad L&T was).
Mods can help a lot!
For example, there's a mod to increase the text size: https://www.nexusmods.com/eldenring/mods/650 (It hasn't been updated for awhile, so I don't know how well it'd work for recent patches)
If the game is just too difficult, there are also mods to help with that. Mods can adjust the difficulty, add FP regen, unlock summoning, etc., or completely overhaul the game (I had a lot of fun with the Convergence mod last year)
Few people have a dedicated player, but there are still plenty of video game consoles (PS3-5, XBox 360/One/S|X, Wii U?), which make great bluray/DVD players. We'll see how the next generation of consoles turns out, given how hot these companies are to cut out physical media altogether.
Everyone who is so inclined to back this project, please do so.
However, I'd highly encourage you to do your due diligence first if you've never backed a crowd funded project before, and especially so if you've never backed a video game crowd funded project. Even more especially if you'd only back a project due to extra platforms "unlocked" through stretch goals.
There's a lot that can go wrong in these kinds of endeavors (even when they're started with the best of intentions), and it's easy to end up feeling cheated by how it plays out (even in cases where something is delivered in the end).
My worry after reading that brief blurb is that Cillian would be in the first movie for ~10 minutes, basically just to pass the torch onto the new protagonist(s), who this trilogy would be centered around.
I'm tired of all these "pass the torch" movies, and I'm worried they're using the long rumored/joked about "28 Years Later" to start a trilogy, rather than close out a trilogy.
I'll wait and see how it turns out it. 28 Days Later is one of those rare movies where I actually disliked it the first time I saw it but ended up watching it again a few days later and loved it.
Spot on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_R-rated_films
That list isn't adjusted for inflation, unfortunately, so the rankings aren't entirely fair. Two things stood out to me, though. The early 00's were a little sparse on R-rated hits (you have to go all the way down to #20 before they start to become more common). And 1991's Terminator 2, adjusted for inflation, surpassed Passion of the Christ by $100,000,000, despite only being #18 (after PotC's #10).
A short list further down the page shows only the timeline of highest grossing R-rated movies at their time of release. PotC is obviously absent from that list.