New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

David Mumpower: I actually wound up a bit disappointed in Days of Future Past in terms of the movie itself. Acknowledging that, I would like to counter several prior statements in the discussion. First, I do not believe Jackman is getting long in the tooth to play Wolverine because that is the genius of the character. He is centuries old and grizzled looking. That appearance in the comics affords Jackman the ability to portray the character for an indefinite period, assuming he remains willing and does not price himself out of future projects. At a minimum, Jackman is an absolute must for an Avengers project at some point. He has earned that sort of acknowledgement after seven appearances as the character.

With regards to the ongoing comparisons of Days of Future Past to The Last Stand with regards to box office, the statement is valid that a lot more tickets were sold for the Brett Ratner movie. I also agree that the seminal nature of the Days of Future Past storyline in combination with the return of both X-Men casts boosted the box office in a somewhat artificial manner. Fox stacked the deck as it were. As such, I understand Max’s argument that the expectations for this project were high.

Where everyone loses me is when the belief is espoused that the seventh X-Men project is not an excellent performer due to its failing to become the high water mark for the franchise. We are evaluating a movie that either 64% or 67% higher than the previous title, depending upon whether we use First Class or The Wolverine as the baseline. To a larger point, any project that grosses $110.6 million over Memorial Day weekend has performed exceptionally well. That goes double for Days of Future Past, which actually surpassed Avatar to become Fox's largest international debut. The latest X-Men project has already grossed over $300 million worldwide. First Class managed “only” $353 million during its entire global run. Days of Future Past will become the most popular X-Men movie in terms of worldwide box office as soon as next weekend. That is a sublime achievement.

Kim Hollis: I also think that we have to remember, when looking at X-Men: The Last Stand’s performance, that it followed an extremely popular and well liked movie in X2: X-Men United. If we’re going to argue that the quality of a previous film buys additional audience for the following film, we have to acknowledge the impact for X-Men 3 as well. After that film and the subsequent less-than-stellar Wolverine projects diminished the franchise, it is beyond impressive to me that First Class was able to elevate the X-men back to a level where Days of Future Past can be a $100 million plus earner over Memorial Day.


Edwin Davies: Days of Future Past had the second best opening of any X-Men film after 2006's The Last Stand, which is doubly impressive since it follows a pair of films that had two of the lowest opening weekends and final tallies (First Class and The Wolverine) of the entire series. Now 14 years and seven films old, how would you describe the state of the X-Men franchise?

Continued:       1       2       3       4