The Biggest Flop Of All Time?

[@GlennPegden]

"Noah, he's got a massive arc" genuinely made me laugh out loud.

[@Paulypies]

Richard’s dad jokes are unstoppable in this ep.

[@michaelkinahan1829]

Pure quality 😂

[@DallasJenkinsOfficial]

Appreciate the thoughtful response and discussion! "Noah has a massive arc" is other level.

[@Emperortyping]

Couple of bonus points. Concord numbers emerging now say $350-400million all in Sony are doing it again. Look at their deal buying bungie for 2 billion to produce marathon which is currently on the same trajectory as concord for next year. And nobody was playing fortnite before battle royale, that was a quick rebrand of a failed game to take advantage of the success of PUBG.

[@GuitarJosh161]

Bungie seriously need to stop Marathon. If they carry on, it needs a serious USP. I am deeply attached to Destiny now, but it has avoidably been dying for a few years now. Resources have been diverted to Marathon (no doubt at the behest of Sony), and they have become creatively bankrupt - attached to a cycle that hasn't changed since 2020, nothing particularly 'new' about game modes, Exotic Missions, Raids or Dungeons. They SERIOUSLY need to take a look at Warframe at depth. That is a game that has garnered a constant and committed community through developer/player trust that has been compounded by very strong community engagement, mechanical risk-taking (RNG maps, then open-worlds, totally new avatar mechanics, different game modes per planet, etc.). You don't hear about layoffs, player drop-offs, a lack of engagement or quality dips... ever. It suffers from a few kinks in the armour, like timed crafting and monetised colours, but otherwise has an almost flawless design for both business and the player. Bungie need to ditch Marathon, and put that kind of effort in righting the ship for Destiny 2. Especially if they want to dodge another Concord situation.

[@asl2025]

What's wild about the Concord flop is Sony and the game's developers saw this as an anchor franchise akin to Star Wars. Sony, on top of the development cost (credible sources put it closer to $400 million) Sony also bought the development studio, Firewalk Studios. According to the same source the cost of the purchase is not included in that $400 million. The level of delusion at Sony over this game was absolutely insane.

[@JarrodMakin]

I'm glad it's acknowledged that while the videogame industry has been worth way more than Hollywood for decades, it still feels like it's niche. News coverage regarding games almost never makes newspapers and other mainstream media despite being enormous money makers and a huge part of many people's lives

[@cyanmanta]

The thing about live service games is that for every Fortnite, LoL, WoW, EVE, Final Fantasy XIV, etc, there are hundreds of failures. It's a very risky market because it takes a lot of time and money to create them and it's impossible to know in advance which games are going to last. It's feast or famine.

[@robbieshand6139]

Agreed. All the big games publishers want to have the next Fortnite with its endless billions of revenue but just creating the game itself isn't enough, you need a staff like an army to constantly add updates, bug fixes, new content as well as prepare new seasons. It's a huge ongoing commitment that costs as much as several mid-tier (or AA) game budgets combined and even successful games can quickly fall by the wayside (a la PUBG). The chances of creating the next Fortnite are one in a million and the publishers don't seem to realise how much money and talent they are wasting in the pursuit. I think this is one of the reasons why the industry is such a bad state at the moment: instead of spending a reasonable amount on a smaller scale single-player game, make it the most polished it can be so it has a great chance of getting noticed and making a decent profit (e.g. the original Arkham Batman game), studios are wasting eye-watering sums on live-service games that no one wants and then firing everyone when it fails.

[@travisolson9413]

Interesting segment on video games. I feel like you can't talk about entertainment without mentioning video games in all of their many forms. I think this is a world that should be mentioned more in the mainstream and I loved your thoughts on these topics. Great job as usual.

[@wobaguk]

As a big fan of imdb, the smart move is looking at the score bar chart for a film rather than the top line score, were you see the 'bell curve' distribution of scores, which shows you where the 'real' average is, then big spikes of 1 and 10 which are your review bombers, blind fanboys and people trying to counter review bombers.

[@loneeldritchknight7362]

The sad thing is the video game industry has been filled with stories like Concord in the last four years. WBD posted a $250 million dollar loss for their live service game Sucide Squad, while the Marvel Avengers closed down after two and a half years.

[@DrCalamityJan]

Speaking of religious films, my husband and his mate went to see the passion of the christ way back when. When Pilate asked 'whom shall you have me release?' My husband yelled 'release Brian!'.

[@CT99234]

Brilliant! Shake that man's hand from me.

[@alanhill6974]

welease Bwian!

[@LeonEvans_Guyver1]

@@alanhill6974 HE'S A WOBBER

[@markricketts5282]

I hope someone replied welease woderick

[@tricia9559]

That’s fabulous I actually laughed out loud.

[@andybrice2711]

Are there actually any great films which have been effectively "review-bombed" though? I'm not convinced that a small group of gatekeeping man-children really manage to sway the scores that much. If the audience score is that bad, it usually means the film has failed to achieve broad appeal.

[@PianoKwanMan]

Not a film, but the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony was Review bombed, all because a select few thought it was about them, but it wasn't

[@andybrice2711]

@@PianoKwanMan But again: The opening ceremony just wasn’t very good. I watched quite a lot of it, unaware of any political controversy, and I thought it was strange, slow, boring, and disjointed, lacking atmosphere and spectacle, with poor camerawork, and an over-reliance on stars who weren’t even French.

[@PianoKwanMan]

@@andybrice2711 i enjoyed it thoroughly, though. So, maybe I'm anti-review bombed it by showing its praise? And if we go down the anti-review bomb, Les Miserables original production was a flop, but a few said it was good and through word of mouth the public liked it, even though the experts despised it

[@andybrice2711]

@@PianoKwanMan Well, sure, it’s all largely a matter of taste. Apparently the French audience mostly liked the ceremony. But I think most of the bad reviews were because a lot of people just didn’t enjoy it. Not because of the few people who found it offensive.

[@andybrice2711]

@@PianoKwanMan Regarding Les Miserables: There are works which have mass appeal, but fail to impress critics. Because those critics are either more discerning, or more snobbish (depending on how you look at it). You can see that same distinction in the difference between Rotten Tomatoes’ critics and audience scores.

[@samuelloification2749]

Star wars is a poor example given Rogue One and The Force Awakens got good reviews. Maybe the Last Jedi was just rubbish. Other good films like Hidden Figures, The Favourite etc have good ratings. Again, maybe Ghostbusters was crap

[@CityofLight11]

Rogue One and TFA getting positive audience scores does indicate that it's not about quality of writing, at least.

[@PaulStargasm]

Rogue One wasn't that highly praosed when it came out though. Think there's a bit of reconning going on here...

[@direnova6284]

I'm 65 and I'm a hardcore gamer, I believe it's the prime art form of the day. It has all the arts working in tandem with cutting edge tech. Music, fashion, art design, story telling, movies, TV series are all following the lead of games design. Non-gamers might not be aware of this but many of the art forms they consume have elements that are old hat to gamers. Yet many people my age look at it with disdain, based mostly on ignorance and the fact that they suck at it (as do I ).

[@TheChodax]

Hmm, terrible storytelling in 99 percent of those games though. Horrible regurgitated drivel for the most part.

[@oldhedders]

@@TheChodax For the most part, complaining about the storytelling in a videogame is like complaining about the fact that "I, Claudius" is shot on tape and isn't in HD. It's true, but it's missing the point rather. The purpose of most games is not to tell a story; the story is just there as a peg to hang the game on, and the brilliance (or otherwise) lies in the game itself. There are of course *some* games that are first and foremost about the story, games like The Last of Us or The Dark Pictures Anthology, but they're a fairly small subsection.

[@dize3672]

I'm a woman and I genuinely thought Ghostbusters was awful.

[@CT99234]

I can't imagine a ghostbuster remake with a male cast would have been any better. Remakes just tend to be awful. Apart from maybe The Fly and The Thing.

[@grammapolice]

The movie had a talented cast but the producers decided that was enough and the project didn’t need a script. Many of the cited cases are due to cynical filmmakers deciding ALL they need is a diverse cast or a progressive subject but not a quality script.

[@verngriffiths5933]

Great cast, terrible movie

[@mrsdorough81]

Me too! Also not a fan of the last Jedi and the character Rey and I am really tired of hearing that there is something wrong with me for not liking both movies. 🤷‍♀

[@ghostbusterscollector8593]

@@CT99234 That's the point. Had the Ghostbusters remake starred men, it would've been just as bad. For the vast majority of people, their criticism and derision of the film was simply because it was terrible. Poorly conceived and very poorly written.

[@adamwhitehead7289]

It might be worth covering Star Citizen, the most successful crowdfunded project and the highest-budgeted video game ever made. As of this morning, it has raised just under $728 million and has been in development for 13 years with no release date set. Some have accused it of being a scam, which it isn't fully because you can play an early build of it now, but the development (much of it here in the UK in Manchester) has been long, torturous and without an end in sight. People are still contributing and buying elaborate spaceships for the game. Its an interesting story.

[@brighton22k]

The only show with a pilot episode at the start and a Pilate episode at the end

[@fantustiq]

Captain Marvel and Ghostbusters were terrible. The studios cited "review bombing" because it was easier than admitting they made rubbish films

[@dorkangel1076]

They were nowhere near bad as made out. Captain Marvel was the 5th most successful film of 2019. Only beaten by Avengers Endgame (of course), The Lion King, Frozen II and only just slightly behind Spiderman: Far from home. Solid mid tier film. Same with Ghostbusters 2016. Separate it from the originals (which most of the whining was about) and it's fine.

[@fantustiq]

@dorkangel1076 "fine" is absolutely the best thing that can be said about either of them, tbf. Ghostbusters at least had some fun performances in there. The actors did as well as can be expected with what they had, but the worst thing about it was that it was boring as hell. Captain Marvel was also boring, with some of the worst dialogue ever. Each to their own though, I'm not going to have a pop at anyone for enjoying these films

[@fantustiq]

@dorkangel1076 ahhh I just realised I've mixed up Captain Marvel with "The Marvels", my mistake. You're right, Captain Marvel was a decent film, I enjoyed it. Ghostbusters and The Marvels were pants though

[@dorkangel1076]

@@fantustiq Dammit, I liked The Marvels too...

[@christianstanding]

When your favorite entertainment podcast talks about the Chosen, you know it's going to be a good day.

[@benhayward2597]

Never thought that I'd hear Concord getting a shoutout on this channel, great to see it be discussed. The reasons for its failure appear to be many and various (I should say I am not one of the ~600 people who paid money for it), but can essentially be summarised as the game wasn't daring enough. It seemed to play it safe and had no obvious USP that would make people want to play it - besides some distinctly ugly and unhelpful character designs. In film terms it would be like comparing Indiana Jones 5 (The something Maguffin) to The Empire Strikes Back, one is bland the other is impactful. Live Service Games live and die by their player numbers as Richard correctly pointed out and need to come out with a rollout plan which keeps players engaged. A great example that Richard mentioned is Helldivers 2, which was also published by Sony, which has a games master who works for Arrowhead (the developer) manages the various unlocks and enemy factions for the war the players are engaged in. It also sticks out that Helldivers 2 is extremely funny and has a clear identity. That is not the case for Concord. I suspect that the profits from the former will be used to eat the loss for the latter.

[@michaelnaylor-hodgkinson991]

Can we have top 5 UK dramas...or 10. I live in Cambodia and so forget how much I love our stuff. You put me on to Slow Horses and I loved it so much. More please. Ps. I've not been home for nine years.

[@frankc.357]

I'm an American but was familiar with both of you before this and all I can say is see you next Tuesday

[@philg1882]

The “Bible-verse”, surely

[@Doomedcreatures]

if the cinema was £3.99. it would be packed 24/7

[@l3eatalphal3eatalpha]

3.99 for two hours in a warm, comfy seat where you can fall asleep? Spoons would have profits warnings.

[@TheCynicalJedi]

Something to keep in mind when it comes to some of these older games that are still vastly popular is that a big part of that popularity is due to the huge modding community for those games, Minecraft being a shining star example of that Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout's 3, New Vegas and 4 as well, there was a full overhaul mod for Fallout 4 released recently called Fallout London, it's essentially an entirely new game built on the skeleton of Fallout 4 AAA game publishers don't seem to have realized that their idea of live service is essentially how MMORPGs work, but for different genres - Release base game content with _"regular"_ content updates (Expansions) and either implement a real money store for skins and/or battle pass system for monetization or do all of that and also charge for the game too The MMO side of the industry quite clearly shows that there's a ceiling on how many games using that template can be ultra popular at any one time because they all want all of your free time World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy 14, Runescape? - League of Legends, DoTa 2, Smite - Other games exist in those genres but they don't see nearly as high player counts, those are the three anyone would usually know about too

[@axellsabode]

RT score isnt an average of all scores its the % of people who scored it over whatever the fresh score is. so something that gets 90% isnt getting 9/10 from everyone, instead 90% of the people rated it over that Fresh score which it 7/10. This is very often misunderstood.

[@SeanNoonan]

Amazon MGM Studios have a video game themed TV series releasing sometime late this year with each episode focusing on a different video game... one of which is Concord! There's an A-list cast attached to it too, so I'm wondering who has put their voice to the flop. Arnie? Keanu? Wild!

[@Nick_Barre]

5:46 The massive ark line is sublime. Richard finds the gag, crafts it, then places it the second there's a gap.

[@wonderrob3225]

I remember going to E3 the year after " Ocarina of time " made more money than "Armageddon" It was no longer an electronics industry convention but a big time Hollywood convention

[@Diegesis]

Best part of my week. Love your guys's takes so much

[@richardmilburn1431]

Shocked this doesn't get more views, especially with Richard Osman. Always find it really interesting and entertaining and (bar the Now TV plugs) there's way less adverts than on podcast audio listening

[@mezzer34]

First person shooter games like Concord are, almost exclusivly, free to play. They rely on ingame purchases to make money. They are free because such games live and die based on their playerbase. No players, no game. And nobody wants to spend £40 on Concord when well established titles are free, and already have players and a community around them. Thats the reason the game failed. Sony didn't understand the market they where entering

[@acquiescence5331]

If the price point was the factor, then the (free to all) beta would've pulled in way more players than it did. I think Concord's failure goes beyond its asking price to be honest. It was doomed from the very start. It's just a fundamentally unappealing product that everyone hated at first sight.

[@TheGreatSteve]

Concord failed for multiple reasons.

[@jeffparker1617]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y5PIc5Z5lLaHrtk A game developer on Concord's failure

[@swanchamp5136]

I would say that live service games have been receiving a lot of criticism anyway for the lack of content they tend to start with then they dlcs tend to be lacking as well, then the loot box controversy being so close to gambling, some games suffer from pay to win. There's also fashion trends, so hero shooters have been on the out for a while now anyway, Battlefield 2042 suffered from trying to bring in hero shooter aspects as well as other issues. The market is already full of existing hero shooters and their sequels didn't do too well because of fatigue of that genre. Plus this game was barely advertised just suddenly appeared and all the media was about how it failed before most people knew the game existed.

[@EastyyBlogspot]

Concorde there was a lot of mixed information...like some say 8 years some say 6 or 5 and some people say cost 200 million and some say cost well over 400 million......but it the end it does not make the blindest bit of difference...still took time and a lot of money. With a hero shooter people have to watch a trailer and see characters that appeal to them and if it does not then they have failed as no one will try the game.

[@gromcom]

If you didn't like Ghostbusters you're sexist but if you like Joker you're an incel... OK

[@geoffsmith1479]

Having read Marina's 'stuck in the 90's, trying to be as cynical as she thinks she is' vacuous opinion pieces in the once-readable guardian, I would have predicted her one-track commentary here virtually word-for-word

[@tonythesuperperson]

Nice to see you talk about games. The chase of live service money and the stumbles caused by it (especially Sony) is such an interesting and important entertainment story

[@dribblywildman7744]

Maybe the movies and shows listed were review bombed because they are crap, rather than because they have women in the roles. I have seen most and would consider myself a feminist. I would also say that the female-led ghostbusters is an insult to the legacy of the original two films.

[@averyintelligence]

thats true but i also think the point is that people seem MORE offended when its female cast or anything they perceive as 'woke'. the people who detest 'woke' stuff are ironically highly offended by bad films MORE when made by people they take pleasure from seeing 'fail'. some actors are notoriously unskilled like cameron diaz, ryan renolds, gwyneth paltrowe, dwayne the rock etc... (not my opinion) all have bad ratings on multiple movies yet they dont really fit the woke peoples narrative so they dont show them the same distain as they show the so called 'woke' people. james corden is an example of someone they will mock (and they should cos his role in cats was shite and the whole movie was shite) but they probably wouldnt mock The Rock even though The Rock never really acts and essentially plays himself in every roll. the anti woke people will hide behind "well the movie itself was good so i overlooked the fact the acting was shit". Yet if the rock was a woke woman they'd be making big noise about it. we know thats facts. imagine if the rock johnson was actually lizzo. imagine the hate all the films would get just because of that. we know its true. and yes im aware the movie as a whole is being rated by you can also see from the actors ratings what im saying must be based on something like i suggested. its too coincidental to not be im not gonna go out of my way to critique a shit movie that i dont really care bout. otherwise id be critiquing 80% of movies. if i care about a political narrative then i may go out of my way to leave a rating. not to mention the films lik eghostbusters were critiqued before release lol you can see on twitter that people had a distain for the movie beofre even watching it. same goes for that disney movie that came out a few years ago where they cast a black girl as the main character. everyone was hating before it was even released so this doesnt really support your point although the movies are probably shit. both can be true and we can be dialectical

[@markmiller6402]

I think it’s the woke thing that grates on people. Nobody had a problem with Sigourney Weaver in Alien, Gal Gadot in the first Wonder Woman film ( the second one was awful,but not because she was a woman, the writing was appalling). Milla Jovovich, in the Resident Evil franchise. All action stars, all very very good actresses.

[@billyb7852]

People had massive problems with the wokeness of the first Wonder Woman film - especially before it was released. There wasn’t backlash against Alien because the kind of far-right communities that the internet has fostered didn’t exist back then. Review bombing often occurs before something is released, so it’s not about the quality of the product, it’s about the inclusion of non-white male characters, cast or crew. Something can be bad, and many things are, but when shows or films get targeted for being woke, their actors get harassed online, people get doxxed or death threats, like it’s a level of abuse that is explicitly hateful. Consider the Rings of Power; it had a lot of problems due to poor writing or story construction, but the actors getting death threats wasn’t due to the quality of the screenwriting, that was happening before the episodes were even released, people were mad at the feminism of Galadriel or the black female dwarf character, and harassing the actresses online. Inclusivity (or “workeness” if you’re a white supremacist) is not what makes something bad, but it is what many far-right people blame, because it feeds into the whole conspiracy theory QAnon type worldview that believes that white men should be the default protagonist in every story, and anything deviating from that must have a leftist agenda.

[@CityofLight11]

I just can't imagine putting any stock in the audience scores tbh. Open online surveys (which is effectively what this is) are a terrible way to gather data.

[@PopsicleSponge]

PUBG popularized the battle royale format a year before fortnite. It wasn't the first battle royale on the market and it didn't invent the genre by any stretch of the imagination. It did however merge terrain modification and building mechanics with the BR format which appealed to lots of younger gamers at the time who had been introduced to gaming through Minecraft.

[@nathangriffiths6218]

Fortnite wasn't even a battle royale game when it was first developed, the main and original game was a co-operative survival game (now known as "Save the World" mode) and the battle royale mode was added on near the end of development, almost certainly in part due to the success of PUBG.

[@sianwarwick633]

I feel like I should eating popcorn, watching this. And, I'm thinking about Film 92. I don't live in the UK, I got ads for The Chosen (or something so close to it, it doesn't matter)

[@Galrukh]

I think World of Warcraft might be up there, maybe not the biggest but it has had millions of players for 20 years now, so you have millions of people paying 10+ dollars a month + buying new expansions every 2 years + cosmetics + gold + mounts/pets + services. It is A LOT!

[@TG-kg7xr]

The first episode of The Chosen was the Pontius Pilate.

[@portland-182]

The trend Marina is noticing is badly written projects. Nothing to do with having female actors in it. Look at the popularity of Alien, Aliens, Terminator, Terminator 2, with amazing women leads. No mention of critics handing out top marks to truly awful films with the "correct" politics. No mention of Rotten Tomatoes constantly rigging the rules to protect large corporations. No mention of organised "positive" review bombing in support of terrible movies with the "correct" politics. Concord is twice the flop you think it is. Sony spent $400 million, as they acquired the studio as well as the game.

[@guywalker1196]

The trend is more that if a franchise film that is traditionally fronted by male actors becomes fronted by a woman, it comes in for more criticism. Alien and Terminator were brand new franchises with female leads. Then there's also the element of subconscious bias. A truly great film with a female lead will likely still do well. A middling to bad film with a female lead will come in for more criticism than an film with a male lead of equal quality because the anti-woke crowd see the prominent casting of women in their genre films fundamentally as an act that compromises storytelling. So female actors become more of a target when a film isn't entirely beyond reproach. Bree Larson literally got criticised for not smiling enough in Captain Marvel. Despite the fact that there were plenty of male leads in the MCU who didn't smile much in their films. They're just not held to the same standards

[@andyhook8952]

@@guywalker1196isn’t your characterisation of ‘anti-woke crowd’ just the original fanbase/ target audience of any existing franchise that goes through this ‘DEI modernisation’ that distorts everything that made product good in the first place. You bring up Brie Larson like she’s not on record saying her movie is not for ‘straight white males’ and they shouldn’t watch it when it’s set in the comic book genre (an unbelievably male dominated industry) and was one of the last stepping stone movies before the great finale of the 10 year long MCU project.

[@guywalker1196]

@andyhook8952 "DEI modernisation that distorts everything that made [that] project good in the first place." What does that even mean? Was Star Wars good because there was basically one woman and she was a princess who wore a gold bikini once and she wasn't the central character? God, society must really hate women, because I thought it was because it was a visual spectacle retelling a classic good vs evil story with great characters and laser swords. Is the MCU phase 1 and 2 good because women were basically side characters who were either sexualised or romance interests? That's asinine. Gender swap Luke in the OT and keep all the scenes and dialogue otherwise the same. Have you distorted what was good about it in the first place? The production quality is the same. The message and themes are the same. Lule isn't even an especially masculine hero but the film is better for his male-ness? A marketing expert would say I was the target audience for the prequels. And I would've considered myself an 'original fan' whatever that even means. But I'm not self entitled enough to think the franchise should only be for me. Star Wars had plenty of comics when I was growing up. I don't like comics. So should I complain that the franchise isn't serving me? Oh, and you might want to check the record on Brie Larson. She never actually said that about Captain Marvel. She said it about A Wrinkle In Time. And no, I don't think that book, or the film adaption had adult white men as their target audience.

[@andyhook8952]

@@guywalker1196 bunch of strawmans there to unpack jeesh. For some reason we live in this crazy world now where everything has to appeal to everyone and gender difference and preference doesn’t exist. Pretending that Star Wars or marvel comic books aren’t aimed at a male audience is next level delusion. BTW they did gender swap Luke, it’s called the sequel trilogy and it bombed because Hollywood can’t write compelling female characters because they think representation is all that matters to bring in different demographics. It’s not a gatekeeping scenario, it’s a downgrade in quality because story and legacy have been sidelined to accommodate the prioritisation of identity politics. (Gotta get that ESG funding). The Brie Larson comments came during the marketing campaign for Captain Marvel where she directly or indirectly alienated the key demographic for MCU products. If the film wasn’t in close promixty to infinity war and endgame, I imagine the box office returns would have been severely worse as evidenced by ‘The Marvels’ performance. This wasn’t meant to trigger but wanted to provide a counter argument to the tired narrative that ‘society hates women’ and ‘the incels are review bombing on rotten tomatoes’

[@andyhook8952]

@@guywalker1196 a lot of strawmans to unpack here jeesh. Just to be clear I'm pushing back on the narrative that the reason these films are failing are because 'society hates women' and 'the incels are review bombing on rotten tomatoes'. I'm saying that hollywood has no faith in DEI projects and selling identity politics through new creations and instead secures their ESG funding by piggybacking off already established successful franchises. This becomes the number 1 priority and sidelines the quality of story and honoring the existing legacy and ultimately alienated the existing fanbase that made the franchise a success in the first place. BTW they already gender-swapped Luke, its called the sequel trilogy and coupled this with the ridiculous 'the force is female' marketing campaign and literally included in the movie the line 'Let the past die, kill it if you have to'. God forbid fans push back on that. Brie Larson made those comments on the marketing campaign for Captain Marvel. Regardless about the film she was talking about, she chose to call out a specific demographic that also happened to be the key target audience for her lesser known comic book character MCU movie. Ultimately either the 'anti-woke' crowd is so large and has so much influence to tank multimillion pound movies that perhaps hollywood should start trying to tap that market or more likely, hardcore fans are hardcore fans and are vocal but small in number and normies do what they always do which is vote with their wallet. You can have all the diversity and representation in the world, if your story sucks, no one is going to watch. After nearly a decade of films making a big deal out of how diverse and representative they are during the marketing and then turning out to be poor stories, people are now noticing the trend and see lazy tropes like race-swapping and gender swapping, as instant red flags

[@Ulleskelf]

*chef's kiss* to the Noah joke

[@bobnevermind]

There was so many jokes from Richard in this episode but this was the laugh out loud one.

[@_Super_Hans_]

cringe. just say you enjoyed it.

[@laughingatbirds]

Rotten Tomatoes is one the worst things to happen to movie criticism. It encourages movies to aim for 'OK' because all reviews are either negative or positive. There's no nuance at all.

[@James-de2hp]

I think you're underselling the failure. Way more than £200 million loss

[@coinopanimator]

400m at last count. Allegedly.

[@ChrisH78]

Loving Marina mentioning Ghost of Tsushima! Such a great game. Can't wait for the sequel Ghost of Yotei too!

[@olliesear1151]

Just to echo Glenn - Richard, when I hear your witty asides (and let's face it, a drama about Jesus is the gift that just keeps on giving...) I'm reminded of reading one of your books when Joyce has found a vegan cafe that she likes called 'Anything with a pulse', which, when I read it, I immediately saw you grinning.

[@omgror]

Films like the Ghost Busters remake and Last Jedi were particularly susceptible to racking up bad reviews because they were prominent films, that lots of people watched, but were hugely disappointing. Worse films, that were obviously going to be terrible, generally don't get any attention at all, so reviews, good or bad, tend to be few on the ground.

[@iankettle]

Yes review bombing is most certainly a thing, though it goes both ways! Those intent on promoting the movies with ‘the message’ in them also positively review bomb… But, what you’re not mentioning is that all the films are objectively AWFUL! No one is watching them… and yet… the mainstream reviews are highly pre-opening rating these films, then after opening, to save face write ‘pg 5’ article about its faults! So, please talk of both sides…

[@relayer27]

Why is it that negative, often considered reviews are classed as review bombing but 5 star ratings with scant reviews are all thought of as genuine. Professional Critics of mainstream films and shows tend to overrate to maintain their access and corporate privilege, the general public review is usually a more accurate view. Marina's view that shows are review bombed because of female leads etc is typically naive and slanted, by and large the poorly reviewed shows by the public are because they were no good.

[@axels9179]

It's pretty easy to see what gets review bombed, and that's when the negastive hype is building before the show/movie is even released. A recent example is the latest series of Taskmaster. The amount of people saying they won't be watching on every post since the series 18 cast was announced, and factor in the amount that have given the two latest episodes a 1 star rating (18,9% and 15,3% of everyone who has voted) on IMDB and it's obvious it's not about not being good, but that this series feature Rosie Jones, a female lesbian comedian with cerebral palsy we know plenty of incels and similiar muck simply hate for absolute no reason at all...

[@bsmith6646]

​@@axels9179and just as easy to see shills and paid journos give 5 star reviews about movies that are utter garbage. Works both ways.

[@axels9179]

@@bsmith6646 The difference is of course the incels and shitty people make life awful for the people involved in making a movie/show, and is vastly outnumbering the handful of "paid" reviews everybody know about (as Richard mentions in the podcast). Only an absolute idiot would say "works both ways" and try to equal a possible handful of dishonest raving reviews to the absolute vitrol and shit people like Rosie Jones face every f**k day on social media and target any project she or people like her get attached to... That's the real case about review bombing and trying to "understand it" and "explain it " by say absolute shit like "well actually, it isn't very good therefor it gets bad reviews" is just stupidity turned to 11... Again, bad stuff get bad reviews, but that doesn't explain the trend of certain movies and certain shows getting review bombed. These are things the people involved in making it are being targeted, not for what they do but for what they are and/or represent....

[@verngriffiths5933]

I'm not sure that argument holds water, as Taskmaster has had a hugely diverse cast over the years. Also, is anyone swayed by these reviews? It seems to me these shows are review bombed one way or the other (haters hating, shills shilling) sort of feels like they cancel each other out, and the show keeps/finds it's audience anyway. Regular Taskmaster fans aren't going to be swayed by these reviews whatever the reason for them.

[@relayer27]

@@axels9179 maybe lots of people don't find her funny, also the majority of contestants on taskmaster now are relatively unknown so less appealing , they've used up most of the bigger names

[@lesleyallerby1295]

Mary Magdalene's tunic in your clip shows the neckline finished by a sewing machine. Wasn't expecting a lot of historical accuracy anyway.

[@buckyohare9993]

I wonder what’s your thoughts on Critical Roll - the streamers who play dnd, very successful, I think the kickstarter to fund the animated prime series is still top of kickstarters all time most funded list…

[@derronhall495]

Don't like it. I prefer Acq Inc. but only with Perkins. I don't care for that other guy.

[@ShammyD101]

I love that your talking about 'The Chosen'. I'm not religious in the slightest but I love that series!

[@satansprguy2864]

Marina talking absolute rubbish about review bombing again. There are tons of male dominates fan bases with women that have amazingly positive engagement. This argument always falls apart with the slightest prodding but it's never addressed because they can't hold up to the scrutiny. Let's look at the examples Brie Larsen - she ripped on men and they ripped back, plus the film was the first poor output from Disney in the MCU Ms Marvel - people seemed to like the actress and her funny family but found the show boring. She Hulk was just a travesty of writing. The show should have been good. The character is liked so they messed it up! The Last Jedi is widely accepted as the worst star wars film. If it's about hating women then why was The Force Awakens so positively received? Ghostbusters - just not a great film. The expected comedic tone was off, the actresses were not performing particularly well and I say that as someone who likes some of them. I was just meh You're only noticing a trend because you're ignoring films with men that were judged to be rubbish. Rotten Tomatoes is also known for fiddling their scores and have massive links to Disney. You can't trust pro critics these days! You can usually tell a film is going to be rubbish if the studio and actors are attacking the fans before it's even been seen

[@adamwhitehead7289]

The Last Jedi is the most divisive Star Wars film. Some people really love it, some despise it. Both really, really hate Rise of Skywalker, which is comfortably the worst Star Wars film, if not the worst AAA film released this century.

[@Aethelhald]

All her opinions are garbage. It's just mainstream brainrot. They talk about Rotten Tomatoes being review bombed by "incels" because they're unhappy that a woman had a line, when in reality the stuff getting review bombed is just woke crap that nobody wants or asked for. She also fails to mention that IMDB is heavily gamed by the other side, by mainstream reviews and so on, inflating the scores for the aforementioned woke slop nobody asked for or wanted.

[@Tripoli-ys6lh]

Physical unopened copies of concord are selling online now for upwards of £200 it will be a massive novelty collectors item in the future because of how hard it bombed.

[@SUBCITIZEN666]

Check out the stories about the sound of freedom having sold out cinemas, but people went in and they were empty. Very odd.

[@TheHbase]

Maybe you shouldn't use absolute dog water movies like Ghostbusters remake and The Last Jedi as examples of review bombing.

[@stellviahohenheim]

Everybody knows that every big budget movie that flops are because of white men review bombing

[@nathangriffiths6218]

Apparently Marina doesn't think there is a difference between "review bombing" and lots of people not liking a film.

[@bazzakrak]

Richard mentioned the playerbase for Counter Strike, and in regards to earnings, Valve the company behind the game, made 1 billion dollars from the lootbaxes in that game in 2023, and then Valve also have other games they earn from like Team Fortress 2 and of course all the percentages they take from Steam, so Gabe knows how to squueze the moneybag

[@michaelt8682]

ive been personally offended and highly excited by the fact that mad men isnt in the "9.2" category.

[@cmcculloch1]

Sony had to put $200m into making the game playable after acquiring Firewalk studios (Concord been the only main title they were developing i believe) - so factoring in development costs and future projected earnings etc etc they minimum spent $300m before having to to put $200m into making the game 'playable - the was a half BILLION dollar disaster!!

[@sambeauJonez]

I worked for Realtime Worlds who produced APB. They spearheaded spending $100,000,000+ on a mega-flop online game.

[@hartshaped]

Forbes has a good article about Concord and what went wrong. The estimate is actually $400m put into the game and they thought it was going to be the “new Star Wars” and a platform seller. Reports from people involved in the development was that their was a culture of “toxic positivity” where everyone had to tow the line of how wonderful this game was going to be and critical feedback was not welcome at any stage

[@jamesabbot-cole6814]

The big problems with Live service games are time, money and interest. There is only a finite amount for people to invest in games, so companies can only compete for so much before it fizzles out. I also suspect it is a new bubble which will burst at some point.

[@stephenaskew4346]

As with games, so with drugs. Despite many flashy new pretenders, Coke and Heroin maintain a majority of addicts attention.

[@emergingloki]

Concord coverage has been huge, but not in general media. In specialist media, social media and especially KZbin it was everywhere. These are outlets that I'm guessing Richard's son is very familiar with, Dad, not so much.

[@grantc8353]

My opinion of games as movies is: A game has followers for many reasons, story, design, character where as a tv show can easily be put in a box so when it’s made into a game you get a lot less people coming over because you only have the tv show audience which could be specific where as when a game is made into a tv show you get a higher uptake because the audience is more broad. Take cyberpunk, I only played that because of the anime

[@bobnevermind]

Richard is on fire with his quips and buns today. Its almost recentless.

[@DADADRTR]

His scones are great but his puns are better... As well as his profreading 😉 😂

[@DADADRTR]

Apologies, I didn't realise you were referring to his physique. 😂

[@bobnevermind]

@@DADADRTR Good comeback to my spelling error.

[@BellaRainDrops]

World of Warcraft ... started playing when I was 23 and my husband was in Iraq now 16 years later we have left the forces have 3 kids bought a house have different jobs etc and we still play it around 2 hours a night more at weekends. It is life.

[@mj-gb6tr]

5:32 Episode One... The Pontius Pilot 😅

[@snadlg]

A whole season about the crucifixion of Jesus. Sounds like someone has a cruci-fixation.

[@larshansen1978]

well, the bad reviews for the films and series with a female led cast could also be founded on the fact, that they are bad.....Mare of Easttown got great reviews, because it is a very good story, told and acted well.

[@phueal]

It's great cover for the manosphere types that some of these are, indeed, bad... But ask yourself why you're defending review-bombing. Bad movies and TV series should be poorly reviewed in their own right, they don't need a manosphere pile-on to exaggerate it. Those pile-ons certainly exist: a lot of people were primed and ready to bomb things like Rings of Power and the Star Wars sequel trilogy - long before they were actually released and we all got to see that they were, indeed, bad. Those movies didn't need the misogynistic review-bombing added to them, people were already going to acknowledge that they were bad without it; review-bombing is a separate and distinct phenomenon to bad reviews of bad media.

[@tana1234]

​@phueal the issue I think you are missing is that most of these shows go out of their way to create a gender divide or bring gender into it. How many shows come out and go this is a man's show for men, men are taking back control etc

[@phueal]

@@tana1234 and how does that relate to review-bombing?

[@tana1234]

@phueal what's the route cause of the review bombing, ask the why why why why why why and it all leads back to bad shows

[@phueal]

@@tana1234 but review-bombing is still unnecessary. If those decisions by studios result in bad shows, those shows can be honestly reviewed badly. Review-bombing is people who don’t actually care whether a show is good or not just grinding their political axe. They’re using review scores as a way to try and hurt the studio because it made a decision they don’t like, rather than as a way to communicate useful information to potential viewers. If a new Bond movie came out with Jamie Bond being played by Madonna, people should be judging that movie on whether she put in a good performance, the script, direction, etc. - including how well they feel it fits with the established IP - they shouldn’t be bombing the movie before they’ve even seen it just because they don’t like the very idea of a female Bond. That’s not them reviewing a movie, that’s them making a political point.

[@andyhook8952]

Plugging Agatha all along at the end pretty much explains why they don’t know the reasons for the downward trend of gender-swapped movies and the actual reason concord was pulled after a week.

[@MrJammie81]

Yes review bombing nothing to do with a terrible writer ignoring bellittling and pissing the fans off by changing what made the show what it was. Half the Hollywood critics are paid to watch the movie that’s why they say there great

[@bobmcdade5217]

I recently watched Rebel Ridge on Netflix because the RT critic score was 97%, which made me think it must be good. (FWIW I thought it was an enjoyable, solid thriller 7.5/10.)

[@Anthropolite]

Quite the pun-tastic input from Richard in this one!

[@cchimozmin]

Really enjoying these podcasts but I’m not sure the bad reviews for Ms Marvel and She Hulk were because women were cast as leads. Have you seen the movies? Crumbs 😣 Films like Alien and Kill Bill, just to name two, are truly great movies with extraordinary female characters. They’ve got pretty good reviews and rightly so. Also I thought Joker was an incredible film- writing, cinematography and my god the acting!! Just my two pence worth. (Probably not worth that 😜). No offence meant x

[@Cinephileofmany]

It’s not that there isn’t acknowledgment by a wider audience that these products aren’t great, it’s more the degree to which they are hated seems egregious sometimes in a way that feels forced. Lots of average or crap films come out every year, but they’re never hated as much as certain products with a certain fan base.

[@terrortorn]

They talk about Rotten Tomatoes as if it isn't corrupted by corporate shills....

[@laughingatbirds]

yeah I wanted them to tear it apart because it's an awful way to review movies.

[@acidstrummer]

I love when they talk about video games because they know so little about them.

[@stuartkempesq]

batgirl and WB might have been worth a shout in the flop/write off part

[@user-tg6vq1kn6v]

The trend is that they were also bad movies 😂

[@shia_labeouf]

Is it possible to get the audio podcast of this ad-free? Is there a paid version anywhere. The ads really piss me off and I'd happily pay not to have to endure them or try to time my skips.

[@bogroll1881]

Rotten Tomatoes is just a storefront for the major studios pretending to be a review site just take a look at it - nearly every new film or TV series is rated higher than 80

[@oliverbush3877]

I am enjoying the better recording quality and backdrop

[@andrewmontague9682]

Why throw in that recommendation for Agatha All Along at the end with no explanation of why you recommend it? The show is bloody awful, so I’d live to know why a successful author thinks it’s worth watching!

[@GuitarJosh161]

Because maybe you're wrong?

[@chevchelios77]

Know what's more interesting about that recommendation? He mentions it's a show run by Jac(k) Schaeffer who did Wandavision and then refers to them as he. I'm not meaning this to come across as pedantic but Jac Schaeffer is a woman.

[@jessicaforrister]

You can't just remake something and throw a diverse cast of people at it and expect it to do as well, you need great acting/storytelling you can't just blame people for review bombing if it is genuinely a bad movie 😅

[@Gerrcinn]

yeah the thing that constantly comes up is the "female cast..." but then there are female lead IPs that are massively beloved, It has become an easy out for poor and lazy writing to blame it on sexist fans rather than look in the mirror and say what a piss poor job they've done

[@Grainofsand439]

As well- it’s still objectification of women ( no character development, etc) masked as “inclusiveness”.

[@killthomas8373]

Nah I call BS on that, there’s plenty of bad films with male leads that do not get review bombed as badly as ones with female leads. To ignore the incredible amount of sexism in online discourse is to condone it

[@SlowMotionAtomicBomb]

Lots of people rating a movie badly because they think it's bad is not the same as review bombing. Both happened.

[@jessicaforrister]

@@killthomas8373 of course there is and always will be sexism a good example is perhaps the Witcher series I'm a fan of the ip and I loved season one, many people review bombed because the women weren't the right shade of color but it scored OK in the end then followed season 2 which I personally thought was OK not as good as 1 and the reviews seem to follow that line and then 3 came out and has been review bombed, they changed many things from the IP and the new story telling didn't hold up, yes some people didn't like the "race swaps" or the changing of some characters sexual orientation but that wouldn't of matterd if the story was really good it would of broke through the hate

[@Andrew-PoTate-O]

No one should rate anyone in public as I'm sure it will hurt more women than than any compliment will achieve. Nice one for mentioning that

[@Russellplmr]

I hated Ghostbusters remake, and Madame Webb…. How come hating the former makes me an incel but the latter in agreement??? Not all bad reviews are because of male bombing. Most are actually deserved

[@TheGreatSteve]

Who owns the foot in the bottom right corner?

[@rungus24]

Who's this George Osborne, 'not that one', who does computer game journalism or blogging or whatever? All google gives me is the Gideon osborne one. Can anyone help me find him?

[@hjt2236]

I've never heard of The Chosen but if it's based on religion... Yeah I don't think I'm the audience if it'd based on THAT book 😂

[@jija8348]

“Not that I don’t want to go to the cinema with the incels?” ? What was that for? Not the first time I thought Marina’s hot takes paint her like a silly mean girl but this one just felt really unnecessary. I’ll take my attention and time elsewhere.

[@rogerdodger0000]

My hearing is not as good as it was but I would swear that Marina calls Richard Richard OsmonD with a D.? Anyone ? Love the podcast.

[@Matthew-mp2qz]

the end seemed quite quick at wrapping up but still a good show

[@andrewb9790]

You are completely wrong about review bombing. If something is good, if it’s a good story, well written and no matter who the lead characters are, if people like it they will say so. But if the story is bad, if it’s not an enjoyable watch and especially if the makers go out of their way to usurp expectations by changing characters and sexuality for their “cause”, it’s going to get trashed, and rightly so. But it means nothing as you’re just shills for Sky and Disney. Week after week you don’t criticise anything they produce; it’s all talked up. Your love in of the Acolyte and now promoting Agatha All Along, both awful and ridiculous offerings, show you’re not objective.

[@archwombat9250]

Just try remaking Mean Girls but replacing all the cast with boys. Then make it less funny, poorly paced and with one dimensional characters. I guarantee ‘Mean Boys’ would get just as trounced as the female Ghostbusters. The issue is it was a bad film made worse because the core audience of the original couldn’t even enjoy it nostalgically.

[@averyintelligence]

i totally get your point but do have to ask, could you imagine applying the same thinking towards a Shakespeare play? The allure of a Shakespeare play is that no two are the same due to the casting giving different audiences/markets a way in which connects to them more cultrually than another casting would. i could not watch an intepretation of a shakespeare play unless modernised cos i wouldnt connect. it needs to be modernised and in new english with cultural references i understand for me to enjoy it. for example most young people would probably feel more connected to a Hip-Hop interpretation of a shakespeare play than a more traditional one. traditionalists are always gonna hate it, cos it wasn't intended for them. it was intended for people who like Hip-Hop. So it cant be too surprising to refer to something as low quality or crap if it wasn't intended to please you personally. my point is maybe an exaggerated one but it came to mind.

[@archwombat9250]

@@averyintelligence all good points and I think if the all female ghostbusters had been a good movie it could have found a new audience- but it didn’t pick up a female audience and it alienated the audience who might watch it for nostalgia by sex switching the cast.

[@phuttyyt]

It's only briefly touched on here, but the Amazon review system is so ****ed up it's not even funny. As Richard points out, some people give products a 1-star review because the postman left it on the bottom step and it got rained on or because the cover had a minor tear in it or whatever i.e. nothing based on the actual product itself. Then there's review-bombing (both positive and negative, but mostly negative) before a product is even released, and on top of that the fact that anyone can review on the site, whether they purchased the product in question - or indeed have even seen/heard/read/tried/used it - from Amazon or not. Their overall star rating should be based either entirely on Verified Purchaser reviews or on some weighted combination that doesn't allow review-bombing and non-product-related reviews to skew the results. Oh, and no reviews should be allowed at all before a product is actually released.

[@EyeDeal_666]

Some time after this video aired, it was revealed that Concord actually cost £400m........just let that sink in

[@ghostbusterscollector8593]

Any film based on the bible should be categorized in the genre of fantasy.

[@icarusandtherabbit]

Richard you can’t team up in solos, that could get you banned. But still fun when it happens. You can team up in duos, trios and squads.

[@NickAndrewsJamacian]

Gotta say with the review homing…you did name only poor movies so you can’t be that shocked they’re reviewed badly

[@fredgarvinism]

Test screenings in Wichita? wth?