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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,
00:12it'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 achieve
01:53their vision. No matter how good a director Coogler is, there was no way for him to compete with that.
01:589. 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 Quentin
02:21Tarantino 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
02:39easier to take seriously than Valkyrie, given that large swathes of the ensemble cast are Europeans and
02:44therefore can 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 highbrow of the two films, Valkyrie was a box
03:05office disappointment and failed to even receive a single Oscar nomination, whilst Bastards was a
03:10box office smash, received eight Oscar nominations, and even won one. Best Supporting Actor for Christopher
03:15the Waltz. 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 that
03:28Tom Hardy's admittedly amusing performance could compensate for the low-effort script and rather
03:32generic dated superhero movie treatment. But four months earlier, a considerably more creative and
03:37well-executed riff on the Venom concept was released to cinemas, and that film was Upgrade.
03:42Just 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 minimal
04:27resources 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 Rami
04:52Malek. 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,
05:00it's effortlessly smoked by Elton John's biopic Rocketman. Released the very next May,
05:06Rocketman had a lot of superficial similarities to Bohemian Rhapsody, a splashy biopic of an
05:10iconic gay British musician starring a respected on-the-rise actor that was clearly gunning for
05:15awards. And though Rocketman garnered just a fraction of Bohemian Rhapsody's box office while
05:20receiving just a single Oscar nomination for Best Original Song, which had at least won,
05:24history will definitely be much kinder to it. While Bohemian Rhapsody was a relatively vapid
05:29Wikipedia-page biopic which seemed vaguely embarrassed on fully engaging with Mercury as
05:33a 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
06:09some truly fantastic marketing behind it, it seemed to be destined to be both a fun wish-for-filment
06:14exercise and a commercial hit. But reviews were not kind to say the least,
06:19with many critics tearing into the film's needlessly convoluted script,
06:22which with its excess of subplots and muddled motivations turned a seemingly basic slam-dung
06:27concept into a rather frustrating slog. Plus, there was only a few minutes of Batman fighting
06:32Superman, you know, the thing that people actually paid money to see. Consequently,
06:35Batman v Superman turned a more modest profit than expected, grossing just, and I use just lightly
06:40here, $873.6 million while initial projections had it going as high as $1.5 billion. But less than
06:48six weeks later, Marvel showed DC how it was done, with the release of the immeasurably more
06:53entertaining Captain America Civil War, which similarly focused on beloved superheroes fighting
06:58one another, albeit with greater narrative clarity and more actual fighting. The audience reaction
07:03to the two movies was night and day, and to top it all off, Civil War ended up grossing almost
07:07$300
07:08million more than Batman v Superman. On a broader level, it was indicative of how Marvel Studios had a
07:14successful interconnected cinematic universe which patiently built up to this event, whereas Warner
07:19Brothers, well, they 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 direct
07:33to Disney+, with Robert Zemeckis directing and Tom Hanks starring as Geppetto. Now, critics and
07:38audiences alike didn't have many kind things to say about it, lambasting the unnecessary changes made to the
07:43source material and expressing a general feeling that it just failed to justify its existence.
07:47Almost exactly three months later, though, Guillermo del Toro's stop-motion take on Pinocchio was
07:52released on Netflix, a deeply affecting, beautifully shot and startlingly original take on the timeless
07:57story. The gulf of quality between the two Pinocchio films is staggering. Zemeckis' film feels like a
08:04soulless, perfunctory exercise for the most part, while del Toro's feels the result of an artist at the
08:08peak of their powers telling something with every earnest fibre in their being. Unsurprisingly,
08:13most of the many rave reviews for del Toro's version couldn't help but take potshots at Zemeckis'
08:18vastly inferior predecessor. While del Toro's Pinocchio is likely to win the Best Animated Film Oscar and
08:23endure as a surefire classic, Zemeckis' effort seems to be destined to disappear into the streaming
08:28ether.
08:294. 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 other.
08:38The Roger Moore-starring Octopussy and Never Say Never Again, which brought Sean Connery back into
08:43the fold for one last go-around. Never Say Never Again was produced following a legal battle between
08:48Thunderball writer Kevin McClory and Bond author Ian Fleming, with McClory winning the rights to the
08:53novel's plot and characters. This allowed McClory to produce his own adaptation of Thunderball,
08:58that, while existing outside of the official 007 continuity, was for all intents and purposes
09:02a James Bond film. Octopussy was released first to easy box office success, though critical and fan
09:08reception has been firmly mixed ever since. It is, after all, the one where Bond dresses
09:12up as a clown. Never Say Never Again, though, followed up and, despite not being part of the
09:17legit Bond canon, proved a far more worthy experience. Despite his age, it was a hoot seeing Connery
09:23reprise the 007 role once more. And, compared to the toe-curling acting in Moore's film, it
09:28took itself a little more seriously whilst still being a ton of fun. While Octopussy was the more
09:32commercially successful of the two, though both were major hits, Never Say Never Again endures
09:37as the critical fave and just tamright better movie. For a film produced as a result of a bitter
09:42lawsuit, that's pretty impressive. 3. Mortal Kombat Embarrassed Double Dragon
09:47and 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
10:27considerably greater financial success while receiving far more favourable reviews. Now,
10:32that isn't to say that Anderson's film is perfect by any means. Reviews are still firmly mixed here.
10:37But Mortal Kombat successfully 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 Mortal
10:50Kombat Annihilation received worse reviews than either of its competitor films, whilst also flopping at the
10:55box 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
11:06obviously covering the market on big budget renditions of the concept, by way of Spider-Man
11:10No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Now, it's impossible to deny the success of
11:16either of these movies, both of which turned immense profits and were well-received by critics and fans
11:21alike. But Sandwiched Between Them was an indie film that came totally out of nowhere and demonstrated
11:26how an imaginative multiverse movie was actually done, and on a fraction of the budget no less.
11:31Everything Everywhere All at Once was released in March to rave reviews and, on a mere $25 million
11:35budget, grossed over $100 million globally. The directors of the film, both called Daniel,
11:40one called Kwan, and one called Shinat, used their kitchen-sync filmmaking ingenuity to produce
11:45visually dazzling results despite their minimal VFX budget. And on a pure conceptual level,
11:50it's surely the most unique take on the multiverse that we've yet seen. And as entertaining as the
11:55aforementioned MCU movies were, they're multiverse-faring shenanigans, but they seemed a bit
11:59boring by comparison. I mean, sure, it was fun seeing three iterations of Spider-Man hanging out,
12:04and Sam Raimi got compellingly freaky with the Doctor Strange sequel, but given the limitless potential of
12:09the worlds presented therein, both films barely felt like they scratched the surface of their multiversal
12:14potential. And number one, The Bourne Identity Embarrassed Die Another Day
12:18It's often said that Austin Powers and 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 The
12:28Bourne Identity. Released five months before Brosnan's final outing as 007, The Bourne Identity was in many
12:34ways a Bond film without the branding, a kinetic, globetrotting spy thriller focused on a protagonist
12:39with the initials JB. It proved a major critical and commercial success, and to this very day is
12:45credited 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
12:54became tough to get excited about another silly Bond movie, and so it's little surprised that Die
12:59Another Day's joyless ride left critics and fans alike rather indifferent. Though Die Another Day was a
13:04massive box office hit regardless, more than doubling Bourne's financial haul, it ultimately brought
13:09Brosnan's tenure as 007 to an unceremonious end, before Bond producers rebooted the franchise with
13:15Daniel Craig in 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
13:34I 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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