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Everything Everywhere All At Once showed the MCU how the Multiverse is done.
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00:00Now, the success or failure of a movie is never just down to its quality.
00:04Timing is also hugely important. Knowing when to release a film free of obvious competition
00:08can make all the difference at the box office, and in terms of overall reception,
00:13it's probably smart to create some distance from other similarly themed movies.
00:16After all, films with something in common that release close together will inevitably be compared,
00:21and generally speaking, one of these movies will be considerably better than the other.
00:25And in extreme cases, the better movie doesn't just outdo the lesser one,
00:28it decisively shows it how things are done, and basically embarrasses it in the process.
00:33So let's take a look at them as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com,
00:36and these are 10 movies that embarrassed other movies released at the same time.
00:40Number 10. Avatar The Way of Water Embarrassed Black Panther Wakanda Forever
00:45This past holiday season was the battle of the aquatic-themed mega-budget blockbusters,
00:49as Black Panther Wakanda Forever faced off against Avatar The Way of Water.
00:53Now, Wakanda Forever was released first in mid-November, just five weeks before the Avatar sequel
00:58to solidly positive reviews, even if most critics agreed that it didn't match the brilliance of its
01:03predecessor, quite understandably given Chadwick Boseman's untimely death. With its primary antagonist
01:08being Namor, the king of an Atlantis-like civilisation, the bulk of the film is centred around water,
01:13and director Ryan Coogler did a mostly solid job with it. But then Avatar The Way of Water came out,
01:18and the mind-boggling visual majesty of James Cameron's long-gestating sequel made Wakanda Forever's
01:23seafaring action look, well, kind of like a crayon drawing crudely scrawled on a napkin by comparison.
01:29This is particularly apparent in their especially water-based third acts, widely considered both to
01:34be the strongest part of Avatar 2 and the weakest section of Wakanda Forever. Cameron obviously had
01:39the major advantage of time and money, whereas basically all Marvel movies are on a strict
01:43production conveyor belt due to their interconnected nature. Even so, The Way of Water showed what can be
01:49achieved by a filmmaker at the top of their game with all of the resources that they need to
01:53achieve their vision. No matter how good a director Coogler is, there was no way for him to compete with
01:57that. 9. Inglourious Bastards Embarrassed Valkyrie
02:01Don't feel too bad if you don't remember Valkyrie, Bryan Singer's World War II thriller that was
02:06released at the tail end of 2008 and starred Tom Cruise as Colonel Klaus von Stauffenberg,
02:11a German army colonel who plots to assassinate Adolf Hitler. It came and went upon a firm wave of
02:16indifference, and its fate as being forgettable was categorically sealed the next summer when
02:20Quentin Tarantino released his similarly themed Hitler assassination movie Inglourious Bastards.
02:25It of course goes without saying that Tarantino's film was very different. While Valkyrie was based
02:30on true events, Bastards was fashioned more as a subversive revisionist history of what Tarantino
02:34wishes had happened. Despite the inherent ridiculousness of his film, it's in many ways easier to take
02:40seriously than Valkyrie, given that large swathes of the ensemble cast are Europeans and therefore
02:44can speak German and or French, as makes them inherently more believable in their roles.
02:49In the case of Valkyrie, Singer opted for a cast consisting primarily of British character actors
02:54and Tom Cruise, and rather than have him affect a German lilt, he simply had the cast speak in
02:59neutral accents. Despite being the more serious and high-brow of the two films, Valkyrie was a box
03:05office disappointment and failed to even receive a single Oscar nomination, whilst Bastards was a box
03:10office smash, received eight Oscar nominations and even won one, Best Supporting Actor for Christopher
03:16Waltz. And 15 years on, have you heard anybody talk about Valkyrie? Yeah, case closed.
03:208. Upgrade Embarrassed Venom
03:23The first Venom film may have been a colossal box office success, but critics weren't convinced
03:28that Tom Hardy's admittedly amusing performance could compensate for the low-effort script and
03:32rather generic dated superhero movie treatment. But four months earlier, a considerably more creative
03:37and well-executed riff on the Venom concept was released to cinemas, and that film was Upgrade.
03:43Just as Venom focused on Eddie Brock becoming a host to an alien parasite which grants him
03:47supernatural powers, Upgrade centers around Grey Trace, a man who is rendered quadriplegic by botched
03:52mugging and implanted with a chip which gives him control of his body back. The rub, though,
03:57is that the chip also turns Grey into a brutally efficient killing machine. The narrative comparisons
04:01speak for themselves, as does the uncanny resemblance between Hardy and Logan Marshall Green.
04:05And on a mere $3 million budget compared to Venom's $116 million budget, Upgrade proved a far more
04:12satisfying version of that basic setup. Furthermore, the director of Upgrade got a mind-boggling amount
04:17of production value out of his tiny budget, whereas Venom's visuals were frequently garish and pretty
04:22ugly at times. Upgrade is therefore proof-perfect of what a smart, talented filmmaker can do with
04:27minimal resources, compared to the crass excess of Venom's generally lousy superhero shenanigans.
04:327. Rocketman Embarrassed Bohemian Rhapsody
04:36Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody was released in October 2018 to rather mixed reviews,
04:41but enormous box office success, netting over $900 million globally. It was also nominated for
04:47five Oscars, including Best Picture, of which it won four, most notably a Best Actor award for
04:52Rami Malek. And while in pure box office dollars and Academy Awards, Bohemian Rhapsody wins out,
04:57in terms of actual filmmaking quality, you know, the thing that really matters, it's effortlessly
05:01smoked by Elton John's biopic Rocketman. Released the very next May, Rocketman had a lot of superficial
05:07similarities to Bohemian Rhapsody, a splashy biopic of an iconic gay British musician starring a respected
05:13on-the-rise actor that was clearly gunning for awards. And though Rocketman garnered just a fraction
05:18of Bohemian Rhapsody's box office while receiving just a single Oscar nomination for Best Original Song,
05:23which had at least won, history will definitely be much kinder to it. While Bohemian Rhapsody was a
05:28relatively vapid Wikipedia page biopic which seemed vaguely embarrassed on fully engaging with Mercury
05:33as a gay man and a flawed human being, Rocketman went in entirely the opposite direction. A warts-and-all,
05:39R-rated biopic that managed to be stylish and entertaining, Rocketman was topped by a stellar
05:44Taron Egerton that proved infinitely more Oscar-worthy than Malek's more surface-level impression.
05:49Above all else, it showed Bohemian Rhapsody what was possible if the producers weren't centrally
05:54preoccupied with making a sanitized biopic to appease the broadest of general audiences.
05:596. Captain America Civil War Embarrassed Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice
06:04Batman v Superman was one of the most anticipated superhero movies ever, and with the momentum of some
06:09truly fantastic marketing behind it, it seemed to be destined to be both a fun wish-for-filment exercise
06:14and a commercial hit. But reviews were not kind to say the least, with many critics tearing into
06:20the film's needlessly convoluted script, which with its excess of subplots and muddled motivations
06:25turned a seemingly basic slam-dunk concept into a rather frustrating slog. Plus, there was only a few
06:30minutes of Batman fighting Superman, you know, the thing that people actually paid money to see.
06:34Consequently, Batman v Superman turned a more modest profit than expected, grossing just,
06:39and I use just lightly here, $873.6 million, while initial projections had it going as high
06:45as $1.5 billion. But less than six weeks later, Marvel showed DC how it was done,
06:51with the release of the immeasurably more entertaining Captain America Civil War,
06:56which similarly focused on beloved superheroes fighting one another, albeit with greater narrative
07:00clarity and more actual fighting. The audience reaction to the two movies was night and day,
07:05and to top it all off, Civil War ended up grossing almost $300 million more than Batman v Superman.
07:11On a broader level, it was indicative of how Marvel Studios had a successful interconnected
07:15cinematic universe, which patiently built up to this event, whereas Warner Bros., well,
07:19they tried to rush their way to it and consequently fell flat on their face.
07:235. Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio Embarrassed Robert Zemeckis' Pinocchio
07:27Last September, Disney released their live-action remake of their animated classic Pinocchio
07:32direct to Disney+, with Robert Zemeckis directing and Tom Hanks starring as Geppetto.
07:37Now, critics and audiences alike didn't have many kind things to say about it,
07:40lambasting the unnecessary changes made to the source material and expressing a general
07:44feeling that it just failed to justify its existence. Almost exactly three months later,
07:49though, Guillermo del Toro's stop-motion take on Pinocchio was released on Netflix,
07:53a deeply affecting, beautifully shot and startlingly original take on the timeless story.
07:58The gulf of quality between the two Pinocchio films is staggering. Zemeckis' film feels like
08:03a soulless, perfunctory exercise for the most part, while del Toro's feels the result of an
08:08artist at the peak of their powers telling something with every earnest fibre in their
08:12being. Unsurprisingly, most of the many rave reviews for del Toro's version couldn't help but
08:16take potshots at Zemeckis' vastly inferior predecessor. While del Toro's Pinocchio is likely
08:21to win the Best Animated Film Oscar and endure as a surefire classic, Zemeckis' effort seems to be
08:26destined to disappear into the streaming ether. 4. Never Say Never Again Embarrassed Octopussy
08:33Believe it or not, in 1983, two James Bond films were released within a mere four months of each
08:38other. The Roger Moore-starring Octopussy and Never Say Never Again, which brought Sean Connery
08:43back into the fold for one last go-around. Never Say Never Again was produced following a legal
08:48battle between Thunderball writer Kevin McClory and Bond author Ian Fleming, with McClory winning the
08:53rights to the novel's plot and characters. This allowed McClory to produce his own adaptation
08:57of Thunderball, that, while existing outside of the official 007 continuity, was for all intents and
09:02purposes a James Bond film. Octopussy was released first to easy box office success, though critical
09:08and fan reception has been firmly mixed ever since. It is, after all, the one where Bond dresses up as a
09:13clown. Never Say Never Again, though, followed up and, despite not being part of the legit Bond canon,
09:18proved a far more worthy experience. Despite his age, it was a hoot seeing Connery reprise the 007
09:24role once more. And, compared to the toe-curling acting in Moore's film, it took itself a little
09:29more seriously whilst still being a ton of fun. While Octopussy was the more commercially successful
09:33of the two, though both were major hits, Never Say Never Again endures as the critical fave and just
09:38damn right better movie. For a film produced as a result of a bitter lawsuit, that's pretty impressive.
09:433. Mortal Kombat Embarrassed Double Dragon and Street Fighter
09:48The mid-90s saw Hollywood turning to video games for some rather easy profits, resulting in the
09:53development of several films based on popular fighting games, namely Double Dragon, Street Fighter
09:58and Mortal Kombat. The low-budget Double Dragon came first in November 1994, releasing to near-universal
10:03critical disdain and flopping at the box office, failing to recoup even its tiny $7.8 million budget.
10:09The very next month, the considerably more anticipated Jean-Claude Van Damme starring
10:13Street Fighter was released, which while grossing almost $100 million worldwide, was trashed by
10:18critics. Outside of Raoul Julia's superbly campy performance, that is. The next summer,
10:22Paul W.S. Anderson decided to show these movies up with Mortal Kombat, which was both a considerably
10:28greater financial success while receiving far more favourable reviews. Now, that isn't to say that
10:32Anderson's film is perfect by any means. Reviews are still firmly mixed here. But Mortal Kombat
10:37successfully translated the style, tone, and atmosphere of the games to the big screen,
10:42as Double Dragon and Street Fighter both categorically failed to do.
10:45But Mortal Kombat ended up falling flat on its face soon enough, though, when 1997's sequel
10:50Mortal Kombat Annihilation received worse reviews than either of its competitor films, whilst also
10:54flopping at the box office. Oof, talk about a fatality.
10:582. Everything Everywhere All at Once Embarrassed the MCU
11:01Now, the multiverse is the big cinematic trend right now, with the Marvel Cinematic Universe obviously
11:06covering the market on big-budget renditions of the concept, by way of Spider-Man No Way Home
11:11and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Now, it's impossible to deny the success of either
11:16of these movies, both of which turned immense profits and were well-received by critics and
11:20fans alike. But Sandwiched Between Them was an indie film that came totally out of nowhere and
11:25demonstrated how an imaginative multiverse movie was actually done, and on a fraction of the budget,
11:30no less. Everything Everywhere All at Once was released in March to rave reviews and,
11:34on a mere $25 million budget, grossed over $100 million globally. The directors of the film,
11:40both called Daniel, one called Quan and one called Shinut, used their kitchen-sync filmmaking
11:44ingenuities to produce visually dazzling results despite their minimal VFX budget, and on a pure
11:49conceptual level, it's surely the most unique take on the multiverse that we've yet seen.
11:53And as entertaining as the aforementioned MCU movies were, they're multiverse-faring shenanigans,
11:58but they seemed a bit boring by comparison. I mean, sure, it was fun seeing three iterations of
12:03Spider-Man hanging out, and Sam Raimi got compellingly freaky with the Doctor Strange
12:06sequel, but given the limitless potential of the worlds presented therein, both films barely felt
12:11like they scratched the surface of their multiversal potential.
12:15And number one, The Bourne Identity Embarrassed Die Another Day
12:18It's often said that Austin Powers in the film 9-11 collectively killed the Pierce Brosnan era of
12:24tongue-in-cheek James Bond films, though in reality the primary culprit is actually Doug Liman's
12:28The Bourne Identity. Released five months before Brosnan's final outing as 007, The Bourne Identity
12:34was in many ways a Bond film without the branding, a kinetic, globetrotting spy thriller focused on a
12:39protagonist with the initials JB. It proved a major critical and commercial success, and to this very
12:44day is credited with reinvigorating the stagnant spy genre by way of its more cerebral storytelling
12:50and gritty, intense action. The Bourne Identity was such a riveting breath of fresh air that it became
12:55tough to get excited about another silly Bond movie, and so it's little surprised that Die Another Day's
13:00joyless ride left critics and fans alike rather indifferent. Though Die Another Day was a massive
13:05box office hit regardless, more than doubling Bourne's financial haul, it ultimately brought Brosnan's
13:10tenure as 007 to an unceremonious end, before Bond producers rebooted the franchise with Daniel Craig
13:15in the grittier vein of the Bourne movies.
13:18And there we go my friends, those were 10 movies that embarrassed other movies released at the same
13:22time. I hope that you enjoyed that and let me know what you thought about it down in the comment
13:26section below. As always I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on Instagram where it's
13:29at retroj, but the O is a zero and I hope to see you over there my friends. But before I go,
13:34I just want to say one thing, hope you're treating yourself well with love and respect because you
13:38deserve all of the best things in life alright, and do not let anything or anyone else tell you
13:42otherwise. You are a massive ledge and you deserve all the best things in life, like love, happiness
13:47and success. So I want you to go out there and utterly smash it today. I believe in you.
13:51As always I've been Jules, you have been awesome, never forget that, and I'll speak to you soon. Bye.
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