Spiderman: Brand New Day - most successful movie ever?

[hopkinspeter]

1 hour ago, KiwiZac said:

The sad thing about original ideas is Hollywood/the studios don't gamble on them as much anymore because a franchise/remake/sequel is guaranteed money in the bank. Original ideas do reach the screen but they generally underperform and unfortunately success is gauged by box office numbers rather than (as suggested in another of OP's threads) Is It Actually Good?

That's pretty much the whole problem with Hollywood/Hollywood movies these days summed up in a couple of sentences - I'd agree 100%.

[MikeC]

6 hours ago, Confusionreigns178 said:

I have two words for folks, here..... James Bond. How many 007 movies have just regurgitated exactly the same bloomin' storyline? Is it 25 films now?

Don't get me started! James Bond is supposedly the world's most famous secret agent. Well he ain't much of a secret agent if he's known as such to anyone outside his organisation as such, is he?  I once saw them described as "celluloid insults to Ian Fleming's talent". It's as you say: the same tired old formula.

I prefer my spies from the pens of Len Deighton or John le Carre anyway.

[quang]

2 hours ago, MikeC said:

I prefer my spies from the pens of Len Deighton or John le Carre anyway.

Yet Gary Oldman as George Smiley 🤩🤩🤩

[MikeC]

2 hours ago, quang said:

Yet Gary Oldman as George Smiley 🤩🤩🤩

Worked for me, and I thought the glasses changing to indicate flashback (Smiley gets new specs when he leaves the Circus) was a neat trick. The film was pretty faithful to the book too: as faithful as cramming a long story into less than two hours can be.

 

 

[Shoggz]

Blimey, this thread has taken a turn to the dark side!

 

I really enjoyed Spiderman: Brand New Day. I thought it was the first of the Tom Holland helmed films that nailed the 'everyday' aspect of Spidey doing his thing in NYC.

 

As for originality, yes Hollywood does now have the propensity to play it safe, but there are gems out there - I thought Project Hail Mary was both original and thought-provoking

[Erwin]

Aren't that type of movies passed their prime ?

 

It's like all those sequels.

 

Rambo

Police Academy

Jaws

Sharknado:most stupid movies ever !

etc...

[Confusionreigns178]

The thing that really irks me about most modern movies, is their utter forget-ability. I have seen something like 35 films in the last eight months (on an "all-you-can-watch". annual ticket) and can honestly say that I only have very vague memories of most of them. 

 

Why can't Hollywood produce films like One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Network, Mad Max 2, Empire Strikes Back, Back To The Future, The Terminators (1 & 2), Bladerunner, (some of) the Indy Jones movies, Apocalypse Now or Jaws anymore? Has the scriptwriting talent-pool really completely dried-up? They used to make films which entertained AND told us something about the world. Now, it seems to often a case of "stop the story, we've got ten minutes of ridiculous and un-convincing CGI to offload".

 

Movies haven't got better... they've just got louder. It's a genuine shame. 

 

Chris. 

[Dpgsbody55]

On 9/2/2026 at 12:44 PM, MikeC said:

Don't get me started! James Bond is supposedly the world's most famous secret agent. Well he ain't much of a secret agent if he's known as such to anyone outside his organisation as such, is he?  I once saw them described as "celluloid insults to Ian Fleming's talent". It's as you say: the same tired old formula.

I prefer my spies from the pens of Len Deighton or John le Carre anyway.

 

The closest portrayal of James Bond to the books was by George Lazenby in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, which may be why that movies is a favourite among Bond enthusiasts.  Roger Moore apparently agreed with you.  He thought how could a man be known in every bar in the world for his favourite drink, yet be an undercover agent?  The notion is ridiculous, so Moore played the role for laughs.  Yet while no one could accuse him of being a great actor, he was always entertaining which is the reason you go to the movies.  I still love the old Bond movies, up to and including the Brosnan era.  Each actor brought something different to the role, and they were very much an entertaining escape from reality, done with a certain elegance and charm.  For me, Daniel Craig has done some good movies, but his Bond portrayal is not for me.  Those old Bond movies had something different to anything else of the time, but now they're just another action movie.  I think they should give it up.

 

I also agree that Len Deighton and John Le Carre books and movies made for good spy stories.  But I've always thought that the best portrayal of an on screen spy was Edward Woodward as Callan.  Very gritty and yet down beat which is what you want as the last thing a real spy wants is to be noticed.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[MikeC]

28 minutes ago, Dpgsbody55 said:

Yet while no one could accuse him of being a great actor, he was always entertaining

He was certainly that. I recommend North Sea Highjack where he plays a very tongue-in-cheek lead role.  Yet he could turn in a reasonably serious performance, an example being as Sean Flynn in The Wild Geese.

Edited September 3 by MikeC

[TankBuster]

I watch old westerns every night on the Y tube, mainly from the 40s and 50s, also old tv series  from 50s up to the 90s. I wouldnt waste my money on the modern movies they bring out these days and I dont watch much tv as that just rubbish as well, and I have a long list of classic movies that I can watch at home to if I had a dvd player or streaming service. Cheers Bob.

[Confusionreigns178]

On 9/1/2026 at 11:04 PM, Juggernut said:

 

Here’s a suggestion: Write a screenplay for an original movie and send it in to be reviewed.

I've written a couple of short scripts in my time and, believe me, it is NOT an easy job. After a few pages, you realise you are just repeating some tired, old cliches you've seen in films decades before. Let's face it, if writing a good script was simple then every film you see would be a masterpiece (spoiler alert: they're not!).  

 

I have a lot of admiration for folks who can produce good, solid, well-structured, un-cliched scripts, but they seem to be VERY few-and-far-between nowadays (I'm really sounding like my Dad, here).

 

Cheers.

 

Chris.  

[PeterBurns]

Truly amazing that Spiderman could be the biggest movie of all time. To me the entire audience for a film like that would be teenage boys. Kind of the same group who bought Skid Row or Poison records. 

[Dpgsbody55]

22 hours ago, MikeC said:

He was certainly that. I recommend North Sea Highjack where he plays a very tongue-in-cheek lead role.  Yet he could turn in a reasonably serious performance, an example being as Sean Flynn in The Wild Geese.

 

I have both of those in DVD collection.  I'm old enough to remember him in Maverick, alongside James Garner, and as Ivanhoe before he did The Saint.  His best role is generally regarded in which he actually acted is the lead in "The Man Who Haunted Himself" from about 1970.  Moore was one of those rare actors who was liked by everybody in Hollywood, along with David Niven with whom he was a great friend.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[KiwiZac]

On 9/3/2026 at 10:26 AM, Confusionreigns178 said:

Why can't Hollywood produce films like One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Network, Mad Max 2, Empire Strikes Back, Back To The Future, The Terminators (1 & 2), Bladerunner, (some of) the Indy Jones movies, Apocalypse Now or Jaws anymore? 

Given one of the trends of discussion in this thread (original ideas) it's interesting to note more than half of the listed films - all excellent examples (I only saw Network for the first time this year and, as a reformed journalist, was enthralled) - are adaptations or sequels.

Edited September 4 by KiwiZac

[D.B. Andrus]

On 9/2/2026 at 5:26 PM, Confusionreigns178 said:

The thing that really irks me about most modern movies, is their utter forget-ability. I have seen something like 35 films in the last eight months (on an "all-you-can-watch". annual ticket) and can honestly say that I only have very vague memories of most of them. 

 

Why can't Hollywood produce films like One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Network, Mad Max 2, Empire Strikes Back, Back To The Future, The Terminators (1 & 2), Bladerunner, (some of) the Indy Jones movies, Apocalypse Now or Jaws anymore? Has the scriptwriting talent-pool really completely dried-up? They used to make films which entertained AND told us something about the world. Now, it seems to often a case of "stop the story, we've got ten minutes of ridiculous and un-convincing CGI to offload".

 

Movies haven't got better... they've just got louder. It's a genuine shame. 

 

Chris. 

 

One word - letters rearranged - kweo