Enrolment Tasks

Task 1:

Deadpool was a massive box office success when it was released in cinemas back on February 10^th 2016. It actually managed to get $132,434,639 in its opening weekend, making Deadpool top the chart for the release weekend. It beat Kung Fu Panda 3 (which was 1^st, the weekend before), by over $112,678,901, that weekend. Deadpool was also released on the same day as How to Be Single, which managed to place itself at 3^rd, with only $17,878,911. Deadpool made $782,621,155 worldwide, during its time in the cinema, whilst How to Be Single only made $112,143,513. So why was Deadpool so popular?

Deadpool’s first comic book appearance was back in 1991, within a Marvel comic. The character then was part of a 2004 comic book series in which the character compares his appearance to, “Ryan Reynolds crossed with a Shar Pei”. This was what lead to Ryan Reynolds being cast as Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Deadpool had always been featured within comics and films, but never got a feature film. This is one of the reasons Deadpool became a box office success. Fans of the Marvel universe had only seen cameos of the character, so for them to get a full movie dedicated to the character, it proved to be a popular success.

Whilst promoting Deadpool, the public got to see some rare, but comical advertisements for the movie. Some of these including catchy slogans, emoji’s and comical pictures.

The producers of the movie also created posters that were purely a publicity stunt. For example, one of the posters was created to make the film look like a romance film, with the cliché slogan and image. The reason they created this was because, the film was to be released on Friday 12^th February, 2 days before Valentine’s Day, meaning that a lot of couples might be visiting the cinema during that weekend. It was a clever idea to get male partners to send it to their female partners, being sneaky so that they could see the movie.

Another reason for Deadpool being a box office success was that it was an R-rated movie (15 in the UK). This intrigued a lot of people because they thought it was going to have strong bloody violence, strong language and sex references. Also, another thing that made it appealing was that China had banned it, and other Middle Eastern countries were having to make cuts to it. This was due to China having no rating system, meaning it must be suitable for all ages, which Deadpool certainly was not. Also places like India were cutting out certain scenes, but were reassuring people that it would not affect the storyline. This would have had an impact on how many Middle Eastern people were able to watch it. On the other hand, it sparked up curiosity for other countries to go and watch the film so that they could see for themselves how graphic it was.

Deadpool is quite a unique superhero character, which appealed to the Marvel fans. The film consists of multiple key aspects from different genres. It has comedy, romance and violence and also bad language. It also features Deadpool talking to the camera throughout the movie, which makes it feel like he is talking to the audience. This is unique to Marvel films as they have not done this before. Also the movie features 2 X-Men characters, Stan Lee (the co-creator of X-Men) and Rob Liefeld (the co-creator of Deadpool).

Finally, Deadpool was a box office success because they had a lower budget to create the film than any other superhero film, but they had the freedom to create it any way they wanted to. They actually had a production budget of $58 million. Comparing this to other popular Marvel films: The Avengers ($220 million), Guardians of the Galaxy ($170 million) and The Amazing Spider-Man ($230 million), Deadpool did very well to come 6^th on the opening weekend out of all of the Marvel franchise movies.

                           

Task 2:

My favourite film from the summer of 2016 was How to Be Single. This film is an American rom/com, directed by Christian Ditter. I enjoyed this film because not only does it have a great cast, but it was very funny. I enjoy watching rom/coms where you get lost within the different romantic relationships, but also within the comedy of it. I also really like how there are multiple characters, whose lives we follow, that connect with each other. The plot of the film is creative and also I really like some of the special effects that are used to give the film a more up-to-date feel.

The cast consists of:

Dakota Johnson, Rebel Wilson, Leslie Mann, Alison Brie, Anders Holm, Damon Wayans Jr, Nicholas Braun, Jake Lacy and more.

The first key aspect of the film is that we meet multiple characters some of which help the film to progress but some are just there for part of the film. However, there is one main character, Alice, that we follow throughout the movie. The film starts and ends with a scene with her in it. Some of the main characters include: Robin, Lucy, Meg, Tom, David, Josh and Ken. The only character that Alice has no interactions with is Lucy. The way all of the characters link with one another is quite creative and also helps progress the storyline along.

Another key aspect is when we are introduced to the main character, Alice, it is after meeting all of the other main characters. There is a short montage with different clips of each character doing something that represents them. Robin is at a nightclub dancing, Lucy is in a café reading a wedding magazine, Tom is flirting with his neighbour and Meg is at work in the hospital. These are all significant to the audience but also produce enigma codes. Such as, “why are they doing that?”, and “who are these people?”. We then meet Alice which also involves us meeting Josh. The scene shows chemistry between them both, but in a comical way. Suddenly, it cuts to four years later, where Alice and Josh are taking a break. This helps to bypass a lot of key factors within their relationship, but also helps to move the film along significantly.

Another key aspect in the film is that, Alice (Dakota Johnson), is narrating over a lot of the scenes. This includes the end scene, in which we see Alice hiking the Grand Canyon alone. There was a mention of this earlier on within the movie, which would have foreshadowed this ending. Normally within romance films, it always has a happy, but cliché, ending. Usually with the “guy getting the girl” or vice versa. However, during this movie, Alice does not end up with anybody, but hearing her narration you can tell that this actually is a happy ending for her character. This also links back to the title of the movie. The whole movie has explained/shown “How to Be Single”, with the main character ending up single.