I would put Edgar and Will above Eric on the annoying assholes list, but for different reason(s)... and thought addressing the abuse part of the story was pretty well done.
My guess is that they'll give Wrath a limited push and/or put it on streaming and then beg Lee to do a direct sequel. Which is clearly what the studio seemed to want in the first place judging from the way they stole the edit from Sebastian to give us that end credit scene and how much Rise lore is involved in this movie.
It's a big one; I still have no formal opinion of anything except the end credit scene. Warner Bros. definitely failed when it came to marketing this one, there was next to no build-up or hype for it, and they failed to pick a Deadite out of the lineup and show them off to the audience as the next big thing, the way they did with Ellie and Mia, which is why both of those characters became iconic Deadites. There was very little huckstering and selling of how horrific it's supposed to be and I don't know if that's because Bruce wasn't out there shaking hands and kissing babies for the first time but the whole affair was muted and felt studio-driven. I mean: Deadite-themed hot dogs?
I mean, none of the Evil Dead movies (besides 2013) use the actual logo from the marketing material.This is a minor nitpick: for anyone who saw the movie, did you find it odd that they didn't use the Evil Dead Burn logo at all and instead used this lazy one for the title?
AOD will still hold the title of worst box office. As Bruce has famously said many times over the years "(AOD) had a budget of 13 million and it made 13 million."
The marketing for Burn has just been strange. I mean, so much stuff was given away in trailers... there were all these social media collaborations (myself among that bunch), the buses and taxies, the billboards taking over New York, the themed food and drinks... but it's just... very corporate to me. They were throwing out a wide net and the fish were swimming through...
That is true but at least the logos didn’t look lazily slapped on.
But then that makes the bigger question "who is the target audience?" Because it didn't satisfy me as a hardcore Evil Dead fan, and I sure as hell wouldn't recommend it to my friends or family (not like I would ED2 or AOD). There's gonna be people who like the brutality, but I think the word of mouth about that is getting out and killing the casual moviegoer's interest. I mean I certainly wouldn't watch this if it wasn't Evil Dead.
The screening I saw was about 1/3 full, but all of the others around it were full except for the 1st 2 rows... and the movie has made 13 million domestically and another 27 million internationally. Oh, and for those who are curious about the numbers Evil Dead 2013 had a 25 million dollar opening weekend and Rise did 24 million.
Burn did what it was supposed to do and set up a bunch of lore, and what they did/didn't do with Burn in terms of a lack of info early on followed by a deluge will have to change with Wrath if they want to close the 10 million dollar gap between Rise and Burn on opening weekend and become the most successful of the new Evil Dead movies.
I think there were 15 people total at mine.
Apparently Sébastien was swapping story notes with Francis Galluppi, so it definitely seems like Burn is the "mystery box" movie that is gonna be explored by Wrath.
