'Avengers: Endgame' Shatters Box Office Records (usatoday.com) 236
Avengers: Endgame has already earned more money in just five days than 17 of the 21 previous films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe did in their entire theatrical run (including Captain Marvel). The Wrap reports that it's the first time in history a movie has earned over a billion dollars in just its first weekend.
It demolished the record $640,521,291 global box office opening for the previous Avengers movie, Infinity Wars, in 2018. This weekend the sequel earned $1,209,000,000, with both Avengers films earning more than the next-biggest-opening films The Fate of the Furious and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
In fact, "In one fell swoop, Avengers: Endgame has already made more than movies like Skyfall, Aquaman and The Dark Knight Rises grossed in their entire runs, not accounting for inflation," reports USA Today: To accommodate demand, Disney released Avengers: Endgame in more theaters (4,662 in the U.S. and Canada) than any opening before. Advance ticketing services set new records. Early ticket buyers crashed AMC's website. And starting Thursday, some theaters even stayed open 72 hours straight. "We've got some really tired staff," says John Fithian, president and chief executive of the National Association of Theater Owners. "I talked to an exhibitor in Kansas who said, 'I've never sold out a 7 a.m. show on Saturday morning before,' and they were doing it all across their circuit."
Not working in the film's favor was its lengthy three-hour running time. But theaters added thousands of showings for Endgame to get it on more screens than any movie before to satiate the frenzy.
For an industry dogged by uncertainty over the growing role of streaming, the weekend was a mammoth display of the movie theater's lucrative potency. Fithian calls it possibly "the most significant moment in the modern history of the movie business.... We're looking at more than 30 million American and more than 100 million global guests that experienced Endgame on the big screen in one weekend," Fithian says. "The numbers are just staggering...."
Disney now holds all but one of the top 12 box-office openings of all time. (Universal's Jurassic World is the lone exception...) After its acquisition of 20th Century Fox, Disney is expected to account for at least 40% of domestic box-office revenue in 2019, a new record of market share... The company's Captain Marvel -- positioned as a kind of Marvel lead-in to Endgame -- rose to No. 2 in its eighth weekend in theaters.
Comscore reports that the movie accounted for 88% of all ticket sales this weekend -- and that the total weekend box office of $400 million was the largest ever. Theatre owners hope this will also mean more ticket sales in the future, with millions of moviegoers exposed to trailers for upcoming films. And whatever happens, "This has got to be the biggest weekend in popcorn history," a senior media analyst for Comscore told USA Today.
"Think of the gallons of soda and the hot dogs sold!"
It demolished the record $640,521,291 global box office opening for the previous Avengers movie, Infinity Wars, in 2018. This weekend the sequel earned $1,209,000,000, with both Avengers films earning more than the next-biggest-opening films The Fate of the Furious and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
In fact, "In one fell swoop, Avengers: Endgame has already made more than movies like Skyfall, Aquaman and The Dark Knight Rises grossed in their entire runs, not accounting for inflation," reports USA Today: To accommodate demand, Disney released Avengers: Endgame in more theaters (4,662 in the U.S. and Canada) than any opening before. Advance ticketing services set new records. Early ticket buyers crashed AMC's website. And starting Thursday, some theaters even stayed open 72 hours straight. "We've got some really tired staff," says John Fithian, president and chief executive of the National Association of Theater Owners. "I talked to an exhibitor in Kansas who said, 'I've never sold out a 7 a.m. show on Saturday morning before,' and they were doing it all across their circuit."
Not working in the film's favor was its lengthy three-hour running time. But theaters added thousands of showings for Endgame to get it on more screens than any movie before to satiate the frenzy.
For an industry dogged by uncertainty over the growing role of streaming, the weekend was a mammoth display of the movie theater's lucrative potency. Fithian calls it possibly "the most significant moment in the modern history of the movie business.... We're looking at more than 30 million American and more than 100 million global guests that experienced Endgame on the big screen in one weekend," Fithian says. "The numbers are just staggering...."
Disney now holds all but one of the top 12 box-office openings of all time. (Universal's Jurassic World is the lone exception...) After its acquisition of 20th Century Fox, Disney is expected to account for at least 40% of domestic box-office revenue in 2019, a new record of market share... The company's Captain Marvel -- positioned as a kind of Marvel lead-in to Endgame -- rose to No. 2 in its eighth weekend in theaters.
Comscore reports that the movie accounted for 88% of all ticket sales this weekend -- and that the total weekend box office of $400 million was the largest ever. Theatre owners hope this will also mean more ticket sales in the future, with millions of moviegoers exposed to trailers for upcoming films. And whatever happens, "This has got to be the biggest weekend in popcorn history," a senior media analyst for Comscore told USA Today.
"Think of the gallons of soda and the hot dogs sold!"
skip the soda... (Score:5, Insightful)
""Think of the gallons of soda and the hot dogs sold!"
Zero gallons of soda, at least, not to the people who knew the 3-hour run time,
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Ha. I don't need to eat and drink, and still I have to pee and poop a lot and often from my old body. :(
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how many hotdogs to the gallon?
i'll go see it in a few weeks (Score:2)
when the good seats at the real IMAX in NYC clear up. not paying $25 a ticket to sit on the edge
Had to be said... (Score:3)
Re:Had to be said... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Alright then: I, for one, welcome our old Disney overlords.
Re: Had to be said... (Score:2)
Ya, everyone thinks of the mouse as all sweet and lovable Steamboat Willy, but that little fucker is all teeth and claws in the courtroom.. teeth..and..claws!
Probably as bland as every "record-selling" media (Score:3, Informative)
I will happily leave it to others to pay their record sales.
Re:Probably as bland as every "record-selling" med (Score:5, Insightful)
I have one request to anyone out there. If you are ever in a brainstorming session with a bunch of script writers working on a movie, and one of them suggests time travel in order to work around some issues with the plot, please slap them about the head with a wet river trout (keep one handy just in case) until they beg for mercy, then slap him some more, until he is disabused of the notion that time travel makes for good plot. It rarely is, and it’s better to err on the side of caution. As this movie proves.
Re:Probably as bland as every "record-selling" med (Score:5, Insightful)
This was far better than Infinity War. It actually has a story. Infinity War is just a sequence of fights.
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Fights, and improbably bad decisions. I've not kept up with the movies very well for the last decade or so, but at some point they stopped being very entertaining. Black Panther and Infinity War left me bored for half the movie. And the bad decisions being made repeatedly at every turn by heroes who are supposed to be heroic killed much of my interest because whenever Thanos shows up you know the heroes are going to ineptly resist for a couple minutes then just hand over a stone.
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I also liked the 'Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves" scene.
https://youtu.be/drGx7JkFSp4 [youtu.be]
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You are so much cooler than everyone else, with such elevated tastes... can I subscribe to your newsletter or podcast?
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Extrapolating from previous super-hero movies...
I have doing that for a long time now, because these superhero movies are just "product" in the same way that a Big Mac is a product. The same thing every time.
That seems to be what the general public wants, so I have no problem with it, and it is easy enough to avoid paying any money to the factories that churn this rubbish out, but I'm pretty sure I have seen this movie, probably several times, just with slightly different characters and sets.
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this is most probably a very bland, very average piece of entertainment, without anything original or uniquely new.
It was actually really good. Unless you have a heart of stone, you'll like it.
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There are some genuinely good films in the Marvel universe, and the first Avengers movie is a genuinely brilliant bit of work.
Until then no-one had managed to do an ensemble superhero film that really worked. In fact except for the sequels no-one has done it since, including Justice League. Whedon deserves a lot of credit.
Too cool for school (Score:2)
Extrapolating from previous super-hero movies and "record setters" in other media (like "Gangnam Style" or the "T-Series" channel") this is most probably a very bland, very average piece of entertainment, without anything original or uniquely new.
You know that's exactly the sort of snooty comment that gets you labeled as a "hipster". If you don't like the movie, that's fine. Nobody will care I promise. But stop looking down your nose at the rest of us who enjoy the movie for what it is and the fun we have watching it. I don't personally like the sport of basketball but I understand why other people do and I don't think less of them for it.
I will happily leave it to others to pay their record sales.
How's the view up there on your high horse? You know that none of us are impressed at you for that attitude
But... piracy! (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought piracy was killing hollywood? But this is a 'geek film' - it should appeal to exactly the same demographic most suspectable to piracy. Why is it still raking in the money?
Could it be that hollywood *lied* to us with those claims of billions of dollars of lost revenue and an industry in ruin?
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Worth noticing that the first torrent CAM for Endgame hit the interwebs on the 25th.
Doesn't look like piracy made any difference whatsoever on the box office.
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They've got this one locked up tight. No rips available out there on the torrents. I though I found one but it was a film from another genre: Assvengers: End Games. Worth a watch, though.
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Superhero movies are "geek films" being geeky is just trendy now and everyone wants to think they are one of us. Mostly though, they've just transformed our cult classics and culture into pop culture.
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Pretty much sums it up. Baseball attendance in ALL OF 2019 thus far is pegged at 11M (http://www.espn.com/mlb/attendance). 30M Americans saw Endgame in theaters... last weekend. Avengers is more american than baseball.
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Of course they lied. There is a HD telecene (essentially someone scanned a print of the movie) on The Pirate Bay right now and it doesn't seem to have stopped people going to see it.
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Two serious flaws in your chain of assumptions:
1a- Superhero movies are mainstream, not "geek". This has been true ever since Superman (1978).
1b- Comics themselves have been mainstream for most of their history. That is - until the crash of the early/mid 90's. But the major characters/franchises have remained more-or-less mainstream.
2- Not all geeks are pirates, not
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"1a- Superhero movies are mainstream, not "geek". "
Geek is mainstream now.
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I've seen some really impressive home theaters. Ones I'd much rather go to than a movie theater with a chair that sucks after an hour with two more to go.
Great movie (Score:4, Informative)
Calling the top (Score:2)
I'll go out on a limb. This is the peak for movies (In terms of single release revenue). The format is controlled by a very small set of companies who are extremely risk adverse. They don't want to put resources into anything that isn't part of a proven recipe.
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I have a feeling that it will be as well, although for technological reasons. Film as a medium has dominated entertainment spending since about the 1930s, so it's coming up 100 years old. VR experiences are likely to take over within the next decade or two.
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Not to mention that games like Red Dead Redemption 2 made over $1B in their opening weekend as well.
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The next one won't. Most people that bought RDR2 stopped playing it before completion.
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I would agree that it was somewhat less fun than RDR1, despite its huge investment in really great looking graphics, simply because there weren't enough new good ideas for game-play and story missions in it.
Given that the difference between buying the physical RDR2 disk and selling it after having played through it was only about ~20 USD, it was still a fair price for quit
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"This movie is making grown men cry." I don't know how in a movie that clearly is like, we can just get people from other timelines etc. There's no loss.
Home! (Score:2)
I do want to see it, but will probably wait for the Bluray from Netflix.
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>"If you can get to a really tall IMAX screen, I highly recommend it. The entire movie was filmed for IMAX's taller aspect ratio."
Thanks for the info. I didn't know it was shot that way. I wonder how badly it is cropped for 16:9 or wider. Hmm...
Brie Larsen must be happy then (Score:5, Funny)
It's kind of hard to tell though.
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Superhero movie, depth? Eh what?
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Aquaman was deep. At least 1000 fathoms...
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No it was mediocre.
Token appearance by a hyped figure that did nothing for any appeal that heroine could have had for future movies.
A whole token femi-girl power group appearance that meant nothing.
A villain that needed infinity stone superpowers in past to stand up to several heroes suddenly is powerful enough without them to fight them and hero's superweapons even when combined?
stones needing special thing to wield on the level of Stormbreaker and MjÃlnir suddenly can be used with a mere earthly earl
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Is this actual ticket sales? (Score:2, Insightful)
Are these actual sales to people going to see the film or another case of the publishers prebooking a lot of seats to get the numbers up, with the film playing to fully booked yet half empty theatres?
Opening weekend sales figures have lost whatever credibility they ever had because of that.
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I went on Wednesday (opening day here in Australia) and the cinema I went to (one of the cheapest in Brisbane) was completly sold out by mid morning (across all 12 sessions being run that day). And the session I was in was definitely full of people so it wasn't a case of tickets being sold but no actual bums in seats)
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Are these actual sales to people going to see the film or another case of the publishers prebooking a lot of seats to get the numbers up, with the film playing to fully booked yet half empty theatres?
Opening weekend sales figures have lost whatever credibility they ever had because of that.
Clearly, they are filling the seats from captives in Hillary Clinton's child sex ring.
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Was that ever been confirmed? It makes very little sense to arrange something like that. To have real impact on number, you would need to do that at a scale that people would notice. It makes no sense to fully book some room and let them run empty. It would be better to book 10 seats out of every theaters, which I don't think is happening either.
For these movies, opening nights typically see full theaters. I drive by my movie theater regularly and I can tell when a marvel movie is released because parking o
Re:more pictures should be posted (Score:4, Insightful)
I had the same thought as the above poster, consider the captain marvel debacle, where disney was basically caught buying a substantial number of tickets to create hype. The idea simply sickens me. All those photos of near empty "sold out" theaters was very damning.
I have seen allusions to this "disney was basically caught buying a substantial number of tickets to create hype" idea, but have not seen any reporting on this from what I would consider reputable sources. I guess that might be because Disney has been flexing their media-control muscles and managed to bury all such stories, but overall this feels a bit more like the typical unsubstantiated conspiracy claim.
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I wait until I go buy a ticket at the cinema and go straight in. Ordering online is for those "must see it on opening weekend" schmucks that are silly enough to pay online booking fees.
Curious about the accounting... (Score:2)
My friend and I used what amounts to two "one free movie" coupons purchased through an organization for about half price. When used at the theater they rang up as $28 for a half second before changing to $0. For the purposes of calculating this $2billion number, do tickets purchased this way count as the $28 sticker price, the $14 we actually paid, or the $0 that showed on the register?
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I believe it'd be the $28.
Odds are that organization paid for your tickets (Score:2)
They’re still clueless, though (Score:5, Insightful)
”Theatre owners hope this will also mean more ticket sales in the future, with millions of moviegoers exposed to trailers for upcoming films.”
Theater owners have apparently not been listening to the frequent complaints regarding the endless stream of advertisements... er, trailers audience members are subjected to.
It’s one of the reasons I don’t go to theaters anymore.
Re:They’re still clueless, though (Score:5, Informative)
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And push through 30 other people in the dark to get to your seat ? Screw that.
No thanks. I will rather stay home. With a decent TV, sound system...and couple other things which take minimal effort you can possibly do, one gets better experience than at a stupid cinema where you get properly ripped off, can't pause, can't eat or drink what you want, and you have to share it with ton of strangers.
Unless it's all sound e
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Alamo Drafthouse [drafthouse.com] FTW. Plus you get this [youtube.com] as a possible PSA before the movie starts.
Re:Theyâ(TM)re still clueless, though (Score:2)
Theater owners have apparently not been listening to the frequent complaints regarding the endless stream of advertisements... er, trailers audience members are subjected to.
Just about every regular cinemagoer I know likes the trailers. Nobody likes the adverts.
They are not the same thing.
And thanks to "Hollywood Accounting" (Score:2)
Artificial Metric (Score:3)
While there may be a small increase in the number of movie-goers every year, the next blockbuster movie will break "all the records" too. Ticket prices raise every few years, making it possible for this (movie) magic accounting outperform previous records.
Dilution ruins history (Score:3)
Unfortunately, I have enough grey hair to remember when return of the Jedi came out. Up until now, there was nothing like it save maybe Titanic. There was simply buzz everywhere. People would camp out like it was a new iphone or something. Almost everyone you knew saw Jedi, even peop
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Remember (Score:2)
If you're casually interested in the film, go see it two weeks after its first release. Due to bizarre pricing structures more of the proceeds stay with your local cinema that way and less sail off to Disney.
Unless that's an old wives tale. Anyone in the know care to chime in?
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lolz, why are you bothering to repeat gossip when you have no idea if it's true? How about everyone interested in going to see it whenever the hell they want?
Don't feel sorry or feel need to support your local cinema when they're selling $5 hot dogs and $6 cups of carbonated flavored water. And $8 for popcorn?! They are doing fine, don't worry.
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Your incredibly myopic reply prompted me to look it up [stephenfollows.com].
So thanks, I guess.
Next time you're going to jump in to such a discussion, perhaps you'll first consider why your local cinema feels they need to charge $8 for popcorn.
And why Disney can do whatever they want.
Lesson lost (Score:5, Insightful)
End game is reaping the benefit of the incredible Infinity War. When you saw Avengers III, there was almost no way that you did not want to see the end. I don't think I am alone in trying to convince people to see Infinity war, even if just on Netflix.
Compare this to the equally "successful" Last Jedi. True, it did gross a great deal, but the Solo movie that followed it paid the price for Last Jedi basically being godawful. The cause and effect is obvious, but Hollywood expects seem to look at the success of just one film, instead of the good will that it inherited and the bad will it generates. I can't believe they haven't figured this out. If they had Captain Marvel would not be a thing. Identity politics is an economic loser. It did well because of linkage to end Game. The next audience will not be so hyped.
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On the contrary, Infinity War was boring as hell and the characters kept making the same stupid decisions over and over again. I watched it because End Game was coming out and now I've got no interest in watching that movie. I'm glad lots of other people don't feel that way though as I've got stock in Disney.
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Marvel's success wasn't only because of Infinity War. It was the culmination of 10 years of producing films and listening to their fans and steering in a direction which they enjoyed, something that other studios fail to take note of (I'm looking at you, Lucasfilm. Even the Senate can't save your dying franchise.).
The problem is sometimes to make something great, you have to take risks. All the Marvel movies are uniformly "fine." None of them are really great (Maybe Winter Soldier comes closest, and Black Panther has a more interesting plot than most). All of them as simply fine, and none of them are terrible. They take no risks, and they all feel like "standard playing-it-safe corporate fare." I stepped out of Logan feeling totally blown away by the quality of the film, and my first reaction was "no way could the M
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It was not great, but I wouldn't have said it was worse than Last Jedi. Certainly not many many times worse.
Solo was the point where folks attitude of "well, I'll give it a chance" had already run out.
Should actually scare you (Score:2)
Not sure it's the number of people going (Score:3)
The cost of the ticket(s) has risen exponentially. Even my 'cheap' theater now charges $15/ticket with the larger movie theater conglomerates now charging nearly $20-25/ticket and $30 for 2 popcorns + 2 soda. You're talking $60+ to go out to a theater and have a movie night.
So that's what's driving these prices, don't adjust for inflation, adjust for movie ticket prices.
Re:Stats Can Say Whatever You Want (Score:5, Informative)
I've got to admit, this is one thing that annoys me. FTS:
In fact, "In one fell swoop, Avengers: Endgame has already made more than movies like Skyfall, Aquaman and The Dark Knight Rises grossed in their entire runs, not accounting for inflation," reports USA Today
About 11 months ago, there was a list of the highest grossing movies of all time adjusted for inflation [imdb.com]. Turns out that "Gone With The Wind" [imdb.com] comes out in first place with a 3.4-3.8 billion dollar gross. Avengers: Infinity War comes in at #13 at a paltry $2 billion.
The Infinity War of Escapism versus Reality! (Score:2)
I'm only (vaguely) surprised that the waste-of-keystrokes FP wasn't modded up. Such AC tripe is another symptom.
There is something significant in this story. No, it has nothing to do with the heroic deaths of archetypal characters that never lived. Nothing about a delusional war of good and evil. No conspiracies of secret gawds. Nothing about technology, either, though I understand the emotional appeal to many of the otaku of Slashdot.
Why are so many people so desperate to escape reality?
The answer, my frie
Re: I still don't care. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't care either. Never heard of these movies.
Doesn't matter. The only important thing is to remember that torrent sites are killing the movie industry and closing down cinemas by making it impossible for anybody to earn any money.
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The only important thing is to remember that torrent sites are killing the movie industry
Or maybe because Hollywood is making movies no one is willing to pay for. Apparently Avengers Endgame earned a staggering 1.2 billion dollars in its first weekend, indicating that people really are willing to pay for a movie ticket regardless of what the torrents are doing.
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Going to Avengers movies doesn't really count as having a life.
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Getting laid counts as having a life and while Avengers movies won't do that for you, not going to Avengers movies will certainly indicate you aren't in the right social element to make that happen.
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OK, great. If you go to an Avengers movie and don't get laid then just keep going to Avengers movies, it's got to work sometime. Love your logic.
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Yes, that is what social elements are about. After all, it where the potential sex partners are at opening weekend since they will all be watching it as well.
But we all have an inner child that ensures we want to laugh at fart jokes, love shit blowing up, and secretly would love being an all powerful super thing. The things we layer on top of it "maturity" "judgement" and "pretentiousness" are all about appearance to others. People who embrace the latter to exclusion of the former are boring and people who
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Hey wait, you aren't hanging out on Slashdot explaining to one and all what a life is or is not, are you? Just checking. Better hurry, you need to catch that Avengers movie.
Re: I still don't care. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Seriously, I attended a panel with professional writers recently; one of them said that because two native american tribes were at war constantly, there wouldn't have been a "Romeo and Juliet" story in that situation.
They also mocked one celebrity as 'not really native' because he had blood but wasn't raised in the traditions; just after mocking another for not having blood, but being adopted into a native family.
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Yes, the writer didn't know that though.
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you were doing fine until you mentioned "go to church"
your imaginary sky buddy is a psychosis, sorry
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You can't be that dense.
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Thanks for sharing that. Everyone is really impressed.
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enjoy your german shit eating pr0n and latina horse f***g websites.
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were cheering and in jaw dropping awe for all 3 ho (Score:2)
At a movie that wasn't as good as predecessors in the same series? Not hard to impress you, I guess.
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Good news! Plenty of things end and resolve in Endgame. As final and resolved as death itself.