Official On-Going Dragon Ball Super Movie #2 Thread: "Super Hero"

[FoolsGil]

So I really enjoyed this movie, and I just found out in the few hours that internationally it did gangbusters...But it wasn't well received in Japan. Makes me wonder how this will play out in future movies or a new series. (if they do it) The international voice of Dragonball is the strongest it ever been. And surprisingly Toei has been willing to play ball internationally. But if the Japanese fans don't care for what's coming out, will Toei choose to cater to Japan first and international second, no matter how much money we could throw at them?

[Lord Beerus]

So I really enjoyed this movie, and I just found out in the few hours that internationally it did gangbusters...But it wasn't well received in Japan. Makes me wonder how this will play out in future movies or a new series. (if they do it) The international voice of Dragonball is the strongest it ever been. And surprisingly Toei has been willing to play ball internationally. But if the Japanese fans don't care for what's coming out, will Toei choose to cater to Japan first and international second, no matter how much money we could throw at them?

Japan remains Dragon Ball's biggest market by a wide margin. If there are any business decisions that will be made regarding how the franchise is handled, the Japanese will always be the ones to take into consideration the most. Every other market internationally is secondary.

[GreatSaiyaman123]

So I really enjoyed this movie, and I just found out in the few hours that internationally it did gangbusters...But it wasn't well received in Japan. Makes me wonder how this will play out in future movies or a new series. (if they do it) The international voice of Dragonball is the strongest it ever been. And surprisingly Toei has been willing to play ball internationally. But if the Japanese fans don't care for what's coming out, will Toei choose to cater to Japan first and international second, no matter how much money we could throw at them?

This Japanese audience X International audience reminds me of how Toriyama said RoF was written for the western fans who felt BoG didn't have enough fights. Broly follows the same action > comedy feel, but Super Hero breaks the mold and finds a perfect balance IMO. I think poor advertisement + pandemic are to blame for the movie's lukewarm reception, not the movie itself.

[FortuneSSJ]

Super Hero is the only modern DB movie with the perfect balance between light and serious moments. And excels in both. The light moments are cool and the fights are great. The fact that it still has more blood than the other three movies combined surprises me.

That's the balance I would like them to follow onwards. Preferably in 2D this time.

[Super Saiyan Swagger]

Super Hero is the only modern DB movie with the perfect balance between light and serious moments. And excels in both. The light moments are cool and the fights are great. The fact that it still has more blood than the other three movies combined surprises me.

Piccolo getting his ass handed to him by Cell Max is the most brutal thing I've seen from this franchise in years.

[Cipher]

So I really enjoyed this movie, and I just found out in the few hours that internationally it did gangbusters...But it wasn't well received in Japan. Makes me wonder how this will play out in future movies or a new series. (if they do it) The international voice of Dragonball is the strongest it ever been. And surprisingly Toei has been willing to play ball internationally. But if the Japanese fans don't care for what's coming out, will Toei choose to cater to Japan first and international second, no matter how much money we could throw at them?

It's worth a reminder that the leak and Toei and late delay threw the movie out of sync with its own promotional campaigns and partnered branding deals in Japan.

I don't know to what extent, but it's basically a certainty the delay hurt its box office to some degree.

[MCDaveG]

I remember this long lost debate, that was something like Western audiences care about the B characters like Piccolo, Tenshinhan and would like them to be more prominent than it being Vegeta and Goku all the time VERSUS Japanese audiences are happy with status quos and obvious and Goku and Vegeta it is... might have been rumor or someone making it up.

But I do wonder, what was the deal in Japan with this movie... from my point of view as an old fan and embracing the wider cast getting some spotlight in Ressurection F and enjoing this fun movie, where Gohan and Piccolo get into the spotlight again as the strongest warriors, I don't think that bad marketing and timing will hurt famous and big IP movie that hard.
Yes, the viewership will be weaker, but there is also word of mouth, fandom etc. and that makes me wonder if Japanese audiences had some issues with the story and characters, setting and what else.

[Super Saiyan Swagger]

I understand that the delay would've had some kind of negative effect on the Japanese box office, but it made like almost half of what Broly made in Japan. Super Hero did 18.5M USD vs Broly's 34.5M USD. That's really bad.

The movie making way more money in the US than Japan is actually hilarious and embarassing. The film released in the US 2 months after Japan, got leaked online and still managed to make $38M USD.

I think its poor performance is due to a lack of a TV anime, piss-poor marketing and of course the delay. A stupid card game isn't enough to entice Japanese audiences to go out and watch the film. Same can be said about the DB Heroes web anime that's somehow been going on for 5 years now jesus fucking christ. I could rant for hours about the current state of Dragon Ball, but I should seriously dedicate time to things that actually matter.

[JulieYBM]

It is absolutely a waste of time to complain about Dragon Ball's financials. They don't pay you enough to do so—in fact, they don't pay you at all!

[GreatSaiyaman123]

It is absolutely a waste of time to complain about Dragon Ball's financials. They don't pay you enough to do so—in fact, they don't pay you at all!

It’s actually worse - you are paying them!!

[MCDaveG]

I would refrain from comparing Broly to Super Hero by the profit alone, because we all know that the numbers went down in cinemas all around the world after Covid. People are more used to stay at home and I am not 100% sure about now, but all the movies last year performed worse than expected. In Japan, the restrictions were longer and tougher in some aspects than in the rest of the world.
Going in general, it is indeed lower, but not so much https://www.statista.com/statistics/653 ... dmissions/
Another thing would be, which movies it ran against and which Broly did?
Besides the "maybe" failed marketing.

If we want to really measure success of the movie, we would have to check the production, marketing and overall costs with the money earned from screenings. Plus studios also set their predicted benchmark on how much income will be considered success.

The question would be, was Broly widely succesfull and brought in twice the money than studio expected?
Or was it moderate success? And how Super Hero performed in that regard?

[JulieYBM]

It is absolutely a waste of time to complain about Dragon Ball's financials. They don't pay you enough to do so—in fact, they don't pay you at all!

It’s actually worse - you are paying them!!

I know, right? Fuckin' travesty. I look at all of my Dragon Ball stuff and think "Damn, I should've spent all of this money on bigger boobs."

[QuakingStar]

I'll be honest, it sounds to me like people just like to complain a lot. They aren't looking to actually enjoy themselves apparently.

[capsulecorp]

In general, I think fans could stand to spend a lot less time thinking about the financial aspect of DBS. It's not interesting, none of us are qualified to do so, and tbh who even cares?

[YamiGoku]

I don't know what they expected, they made Super Hero in 3D after Broly amazing animation and on top of that they spend 0 money on advertising...

I know Super Hero looks good, but the fact that is in 3D may have turned a lot of Japanese people off and on top of that they didn't show even a fraction of the care they give to the promotion of Film Red, some people find out there was a new DBS movie just because they went to the theatre and saw the Movie poster there.

The only embarrassing thing happening is the lack of care for the biggest franchise they have and the fact they just expect people to show up not matter how little effort they put in the product or in this case the lack of advertising, BUT, even then people around the world still went to watch the movie and made them a lot of money.

If they put half the love they give to One Piece in Dragon Ball they'll be swimming in money, but I guess that's not necessary because Dragon Ball is still doing good... but at the same time we expect it to have the same success as if the anime was still on/just finished and without telling the masses HEY there is a new movie, WATCH IT!

[kemuri07]

I would refrain from comparing Broly to Super Hero by the profit alone, because we all know that the numbers went down in cinemas all around the world after Covid. People are more used to stay at home and I am not 100% sure about now, but all the movies last year performed worse than expected. In Japan, the restrictions were longer and tougher in some aspects than in the rest of the world.
Going in general, it is indeed lower, but not so much https://www.statista.com/statistics/653 ... dmissions/
Another thing would be, which movies it ran against and which Broly did?
Besides the "maybe" failed marketing.

If we want to really measure success of the movie, we would have to check the production, marketing and overall costs with the money earned from screenings. Plus studios also set their predicted benchmark on how much income will be considered success.

The question would be, was Broly widely succesfull and brought in twice the money than studio expected?
Or was it moderate success? And how Super Hero performed in that regard?

I mean this is the correct answer. But there are people with an honest to god grudge against Super Hero purely because of its usage of 3d. Therefor it's evil and awful and the worst and it not making "all of the money" is proof of its failure.

[JulieYBM]

Damn, you ever just think about how funny and cute the Piccolo and Pan scenes are?

I would refrain from comparing Broly to Super Hero by the profit alone, because we all know that the numbers went down in cinemas all around the world after Covid. People are more used to stay at home and I am not 100% sure about now, but all the movies last year performed worse than expected. In Japan, the restrictions were longer and tougher in some aspects than in the rest of the world.
Going in general, it is indeed lower, but not so much https://www.statista.com/statistics/653 ... dmissions/
Another thing would be, which movies it ran against and which Broly did?
Besides the "maybe" failed marketing.

If we want to really measure success of the movie, we would have to check the production, marketing and overall costs with the money earned from screenings. Plus studios also set their predicted benchmark on how much income will be considered success.

The question would be, was Broly widely succesfull and brought in twice the money than studio expected?
Or was it moderate success? And how Super Hero performed in that regard?

I mean this is the correct answer. But there are people with an honest to god grudge against Super Hero purely because of its usage of 3d. Therefor it's evil and awful and the worst and it not making "all of the money" is proof of its failure.

Dragon Ball Super beat me up and stole my live-saving medication and for that I should be allowed to hold a weird personal grudge about it for years and years, I say.

[Kazuya Mishima]

I understand that the delay would've had some kind of negative effect on the Japanese box office, but it made like almost half of what Broly made in Japan. Super Hero did 18.5M USD vs Broly's 34.5M USD. That's really bad.

The movie making way more money in the US than Japan is actually hilarious and embarassing. The film released in the US 2 months after Japan, got leaked online and still managed to make $38M USD.

You've got to bare in mind that the exchange rate was weaker when Super Hero came out when compared to Broly. So rather than it being 18.5M USD against 34.5 USD it was really 2.5B vs 4B JPY so closer to about two thirds of Broly.

The movie had no real hook in the marketing, that was the problem. Except for it being CG which the Japanese don't much care for... its selling point was just that it was more Dragon Ball.

[dragonballhero]

Damn, you ever just think about how funny and cute the Piccolo and Pan scenes are?

I'm going to be honest here... I know I'm probably going to come off as all kinds of weird for saying it, but I honestly feel as though Super Hero WOULD have been my favorite Dragon Ball movie of all time... if only Piccolo was a solo act or only he and Pan dealt with the RRA.

Again, I know it sounds really crazy, but I legit feel as though Gohan sort of getting shoved into the plot (in-universe, by Piccolo) sort of took me out of it more than I thought it would. I don't hate Gohan or anything, but I think I would have found it more fun if Piccolo (and Pan) solo'd the RRA here.

[JulieYBM]

Damn, you ever just think about how funny and cute the Piccolo and Pan scenes are?

I'm going to be honest here... I know I'm probably going to come off as all kinds of weird for saying it, but I honestly feel as though Super Hero WOULD have been my favorite Dragon Ball movie of all time... if only Piccolo was a solo act or only he and Pan dealt with the RRA.

Again, I know it sounds really crazy, but I legit feel as though Gohan sort of getting shoved into the plot (in-universe, by Piccolo) sort of took me out of it more than I thought it would. I don't hate Gohan or anything, but I think I would have found it more fun if Piccolo (and Pan) solo'd the RRA here.

Gohan absolutely has no place in this film and it's so fucking clear that the film would be soooooo much better if it was just Piccolo and Pan.