Something that Ryan Reynolds said in a recent interview which I think is relevant to Godzilla
In a recent hot ones interview with Ryan and Hugh in press tour for Deadpool & Wolverine, Ryan had a point (while his mouth was on fire) about what engages audiences.
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I think the enemy of quality can very much be too much time and too much money.
Some films that I’ve been on, they have a lot of money and they keep throwing more money at a problem when your real problem is that you’re focusing on spectacle over character.
When you focus on spectacle as opposed to character, audiences, I think are a little inured to spectacle.
I feel like effects and CGI are not what actually sustain an audience after a movie comes out, that they in fact relate to and remember character moments, they remember a line or a moment more so than they will ‘The Earth being in peril’ or something like that.
- Ryan Reynolds
As of July 28, Deadpool & Wolverine has made over $400 million globally since opening day July 26.
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Now to be fair, Marvel is very mainstream and well known for making a lot of money. However, it can be noted that the recent Marvel films that had poor writing in character and story made less than their predecessors.
And I think the success of Deadpool was far more because of their writing rather than spectacle.
And I think the point Ryan made can be seen with the recent Godzilla films.
In each installment of Monsterverse, the spectacle overall is pretty good - but the films suffer from a lack of compelling characters to engage the audience.
Joe’s death (Bryan Cranston) is considered the film’s weakest point by far because they essentially killed the character that the audience was the most invested in.
And the recent GvK and GxK, had a some cool fights but otherwise a fairly emotionally lacking plot because they cut out so much of the human story. Yes, GxK is the highest grossing film of MV, by a couple million over Skull Island.
Meanwhile, Minus One made the best use of its budget with effects, making each scene with it count, and had a cast of characters that the audience rooted for. A foreign film that significantly increased its showings because it was so well received and more people wanted to see it. It made back 10x its budget, and the strong writing was absolutely a major reason why.
I know some of you will say that you cannot compare the monster verse and Minus One, and I would disagree with that.
People are going to compare films, and they are especially going to compare them if they belong to the same IP - which is Godzilla.
Telling people to Not compare them is very unrealistic, particularly when the Monsterverse started out with a grounded tone. There’s a reason why there are quite a few posts from people saying that they miss the tone of the story from 2014.
This is not to say that every Godzilla movie has to be the same plot about him attacking a city. A film about two monsters fighting can have a good story, as long as it invests in the human characters.
Monarch series was very successful for this, with character that Kurt Russel and his son played being very engaging, along with a well written cast.
The best Godzilla films were the ones that did not sacrifice character and strong themes for spectacle. That is a big reason why the IP has had such a long lasting legacy.
People like spectacle, but they will come back to the theaters again and again for a good story and characters.