r/movies • u/ChiefLeef22 r/movies Contributor • 4h ago

Article ‘The Odyssey’ Proves It: Audiences Want Movies Made the Hard Way | This year's breakouts like 'Project Hail Mary' and 'Obsession' were made by filmmakers who sweated. While CG-stuffed franchise disappointments such as 'Supergirl,' 'Moana,' and 'The Mandalorian and Grogu' looked lazy.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/odyssey-box-office-2026-practical-effects-1236652219/
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u/Calfzilla2000 4h ago

Yes, a ton actually. There was several scenes that were all puppets. They built a tiny ship for the Anzellans and Grogu to fly around in.

Unnecessary to include that movie in with Moana and Supergirl (the latter of which I liked too but probably had A LOT more CGI than The Mandalorian and Grogu did).

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u/jpvieux 3h ago

Did supergirl or mando even flop Or are they included just cause they didnt make a billion money's and a certain crowd online like to be very vocal about their hate for certain groups? I think we need to reevaluate what we consider successful.

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u/DGanj 3h ago

Supergirl absolutely did. It's not going to ruin the studio but it was a failure (from a ROI standpoint)

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u/Morgan-Moonscar 3h ago

And unless Clayface and Superman II (Man of Tomorrow) make a lot more, it's gonna ruin a few careers.

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u/KitWalkerXXVII 3h ago

Clayface's budget is being cited as $40 million, which is pretty modest by studio feature standards. Not saying it's a guaranteed hit, but it would have to bomb pretty hard to flop.

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u/Master_Bruce 3h ago

And I mean, the Clayface story is great, so it’d be really hard to fuck it up

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u/Josh_Butterballs 3h ago

Great movies can still flop. Conversely, bad movies have done really well before at the box office. Shawshank Redemption is a famous example of a good movie failing at the box office when it released

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u/Master_Bruce 3h ago

I mean flopping is only in correlation to how much money it makes at the theaters, quality is quality for all time

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u/Josh_Butterballs 47m ago

That’s what I’m saying though. Clayface can be good but still flop. WB cares that it makes money or else it’s not a very compelling reason to keep the DCU going at least not in a way that doesn’t feel like an afterthought

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u/djc6535 2h ago

Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow is a great story too. Anything can be fucked up.

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u/never-fiftyone 3h ago

Studio execs: "hold my beer"

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u/mateushkush 3h ago

So far these execs banked on b-villain solo film from a horror auteur. As far as comic book films go, this one is a risky but smart move.

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u/AggressiveCuriosity 2h ago

Horror seems to be going mainstream right now. A good moment in time for the move if there ever was one.

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u/Omatzus 18m ago

Clayface is more like D-villain

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u/Master_Bruce 3h ago

“What if clayface just liked playing with clay the whole movie? Totally turn it on its head”

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u/Corgasm_ 3h ago

Studio execs: "it's morbin time"

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u/dumbass_tm 2h ago

But nobody other than deep comic book nerds actually care for clayface. The general population will see the name and not even register it. The trailer has to be extremely good for it to do “well”

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u/paecmaker 1h ago

TBH after watching the trailer, if I didn't know about Clayface before I would never have guessed it was connected to comic books.

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u/StoneGoldX 2h ago

There are like 17 Clayfaces with plenty of stories between them. It's very easy to fuck up. If you're just talking BTAS, that was an eventual Clayface story, not the Clayface story.

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u/Omatzus 15m ago

It feels a lot like Sony's Spider-Villains-Without-Spider-Man movies.

Many people are tired of comic book movies. This is definitely so if they don't even include characters that the audience actually cares about.

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u/danzanzibar 1h ago

Its DC. Theyll find a way.

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u/CrowdyFowl 7m ago

Counterpoint - who actually gives a shit about Clayface

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u/feed_me_moron 2h ago

If it's even halfway good, it'll make like 10 times that. Unlike the Spiderman villain movies, this doesn't look like it's trying to make an antihero out of the villain. Just a straight up body horror movie

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u/Omatzus 13m ago

Backrooms and Obsession didn't even make $200m and $300m respectively. Zero chance Clayface makes $400m.

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u/Awsomethingy 1h ago

That’s what people were saying about Woman of Tomorrow. Such great source material you couldn’t mess it up

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u/Coolman_Rosso 2h ago

Low for a CBM, while relatively high for a horror film. Interesting to see how it does

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u/Dunkelz 1h ago

And unless Clayface and Superman II (Man of Tomorrow) make a lot more

Is there any indication that Superman 2 won't be a hit? The first did great and that's dealing with the Superman/DC movie flop fatigue, which in my eyes it has reversed especially with the talk its been getting months after release.

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u/Morgan-Moonscar 25m ago

Superman didn't make nearly as much as they hoped, despite it being a critical success.

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u/Dunkelz 6m ago

It made over $600m on a $225m budget, I think they're pretty happy with that. I would honestly expect Man of Tomorrow to see a significant increase on that with how well the first was received.

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u/GrowingPeepers 3h ago

If those ruined careers means no more generic superhero movies then I'm ok with that.

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u/never-fiftyone 3h ago

I think we all know it won't mean that

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u/GrowingPeepers 3h ago

But we can hope.

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u/Morgan-Moonscar 3h ago

The prospect of the Epstein class (Daddy and Baby Ellison) turning Superman & Batman into Trump/Saudi propaganda isn't exactly anymore appealing.

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u/GrowingPeepers 3h ago

Well I didn't ask for that either.

Howbout just no more superman and batman?

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u/coolRedditUser 3h ago

I don't care for Superman but loved the latest one, so I'm not really feeling this

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u/Dismal_Bluebird1312 41m ago

I really enjoyed Superman. Heard Supergirl was awful and skipped it, but I’ll still go see Superman 2 if it’s not terrible

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u/FCKWPN 3h ago

Jared Leto is feverishly morbin' off in a corner somewhere thinking about those box office numbers.

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u/Timetraveller4k 2h ago

I liked that they expanded the superman/supergirl universe to outside earth. While this had a pretty weak and slow story line - I’m hoping this changes the trajectory of the future stories. Before the superman movie the franchise was getting darker and darker…

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u/TomClancy5873 3h ago

James gunns dcu not getting to a good start

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u/DGanj 2h ago

It's one bad movie; there were some stinkers in MCU phase one. The first Marvel movie after Iron Man was Incredible Hulk, and people basically forget that movie exists. Gunn's Superman was well received and even though it's a weird choice Clayface seems interesting, them you have Man of Tomorrow looking positive so far.

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u/Muppetude 3h ago

I think Mandalorian was just a box office disappointment, making way less money than predicted. But Supergirl was a bonafied flop, where it did not earn back its production and marketing budget.

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u/PartyPay 3h ago

I've seen lots of people online say M&G was a fun movie, not amazing but still worth the watch. Feels like a bad include on the article's list.

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u/Nihil157 2h ago

I think it fit right in with the show but could have just been another season basically. They saw the extra money and went for it. It didn’t ruin any of the franchise but didn’t really advance much either.

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u/Omatzus 10m ago

Basically the film came out 3 years too late.

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u/lotga 30m ago

If you enjoyed The Mandalorian show, you'll enjoy the movie. If I could make any complaint it would be that it feels a little too much like 3-4 episodes of a Disney+ show stitched together. You can even see where they would have ended episodes on cliffhangers a couple times.

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u/PENGUIN_WITH_BAZOOKA 3h ago

Mando is probably going to take off once it arrives on Disney+.

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u/abetterroadahead 3h ago

I’ve been saying this since the initial box office numbers were coming in. It was never going to be a disappointment to Disney/Star Wars. Having it in theaters helped gain a lot of money back, not all, but the rest will come from D+ numbers, engagement, and viewership.

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u/drscorp 3h ago

I haven't seen it, but I'm interested to know when it 'became' a movie. Moana 2 started out as a TV show to be released for D+ and then at some point they cut a bunch of stuff, turned it into a movie, and made a billion dollars, so compared to that it's gotta be at least a little disappointing.

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u/abetterroadahead 2h ago

Sure if you’re comparing two different franchises. Animation with voice actors vs puppets and people. While they might not clear a billion, they probably found new ways to save money too for future projects.

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u/EnvironmentClear4511 2h ago

If you believe the director, their ideas for a possible season 4 of the show are separate from the movie. And honestly, I think that's to the film's detriment. 

It's an enjoyable enough film if you don't expect too much, but nothing changes to speak of. If you skipped the movie and watched Mando season 3 and then jumped to season 4, the only difference you'd notice is that he has his old ship back. 

There was no real plot or character progression. 

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u/morkman100 2h ago

The almost entire point of the Grogu stuff now is merch and IP (for the theme parks). The actual show/movie has moved so far away from the season 1 success and quality, but the merch prints money.

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u/TipTup85 1h ago

Yeah D+ still needs material and they made back a huge chunk that would've instead been a few episodes direct to D+

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u/Tipop 1h ago

<Yogurt>… and merchandising!!</Yogurt>

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u/SandpaperTeddyBear 2h ago

I think so.

I do understand why critics were so meh on it, but I genuinely enjoyed it

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u/Joey-WilcoXXX 1h ago

It belonged on D+ to begin with. It truly was just three/four episodes of Mando stitched together.

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u/MoogleKing83 2m ago

I'm one of those that will watch it on Disney. I enjoyed the show but saw no reason to make a movie out of it, especially since the show itself felt just as good quality wise as a movie.

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u/Muppetude 3h ago

I’m sure it’ll get plenty of views. But if that doesn’t translate into gaining a lot of new subscribers or retaining a significant number that would have otherwise cancelled, it will still be seen as a financial disappointment.

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u/timmyintransit 2h ago

i'd argue too the Mandalorian was a box office disappointment because the "vibe" per se around it was one of actual disappointment. like, i saw it in the theaters and thought it was fine, but also mostly...meaningless? like it had no gravity and left no impression.

compared to supergirl where it flopped because it didnt even break into that larger discourse (and instead just existed in the ether)?

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u/BillyYumYumTwo-byTwo 1h ago

It was such a bizarre feeling movie! It felt like it was for 8 year olds, as opposed to the other Star Wars films which are fun for 8 years olds but for all ages. I don’t need a character to spell out their moral dilemma and explain to me why they have to the hard, but right, thing.

I didn’t really see any ads for it, so I don’t know if it was targeted towards kids…? If not, it should have been. “No gravity and left no impression” is a really good way of phrasing it.

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u/gin_and_toxic 2h ago

The numbers aren't bad at all: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt30825738/

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u/Muppetude 1h ago

I mean those numbers aren’t great for a movie whose production budget, when including marketing costs, was likely close to $300 million. Keep in mind that while studios get almost the full cut of domestic ticket sales, internationally they often have to split profits with the theaters or distributors. So while they likely made a small profit, it was definitely a disappointment.

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u/GeronimoRay 2h ago

There was no way Supergirl was going to be successful. Not sure why they wasted their time.

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u/evanwilliams44 1h ago

Mostly because its marketing budget was in the hundreds of millions. If they had done that movie cheaper it would have been a decent summer flick and a minor success.

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u/TheDaemonette 2h ago

I found the problem I had with Madalorian was it seemed like someone had a good idea for a double or triple episode story and pitched the idea as a movie instead but it got stuck somewhere inbetween the two - not good enough for a movie and better than a normal episode.

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u/SpideyFan914 3h ago

Not sure about Mando, but Supergirl flopped hard. As of yesterday, it made $121M worldwide. Budget is $170-186M.

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u/pants_pants420 3h ago

mando was about ~$350 million on a $165 million budget. not quite a flop, but definitely a bit of a disappointment

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u/Doctor_Kataigida 3h ago

One thing that's so hard to take into account now is how many people would have seen it, but aren't because they're just waiting for it to come out on streaming. Like, I love the original Moana, and I am curious to see the new one. But I heard it's not great.

And while that used to not be enough to deter me (because I would've had to purchase a VHS/DVD anyway), now I can at least entertain the idea of just having a "movie night" with no (additional) cost (since I have D+ for other reasons anyway) instead of seeing it in the theater. I imagine folks approached Mandalorian and Grogu a similar way.

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u/ledbetterus 3h ago

Plus Star Wars fans, especially fans who started with The Mandalorian, have been watching the franchise on Disney+ for 7+ years. The theater is like a completely different ecosystem for a lot fans.

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u/pants_pants420 3h ago

yeah for sure. with merch sales and disney plus viewership, its definitely not a failure.

execs are probably not overly concerned nor excited

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u/CaptainFeather 2h ago

Don't bother with Moana. It was so unnecessary and horrible compared to the original. The rock was giving uncanny valley and Hei Hei stuck out like a sore thumb. I think I would have liked it better if he was just drawn in, a la Rodger Rabbit. It was a mostly CG movie and it was not done well. May as well have just rereleased the original.

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u/charonill 2h ago

I'm sure they took that into account. I suspect the box office take is basically just to supplement and offset the higher production cost on the movie. A straight to Disney+ movie probably would not have been approved for as high of a budget.

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u/charonill 2h ago

IMO, if you think of the box office take as just a way to offset the extra production budget of a Disney+ movie, then it's not necessarily even a disappointment. They probably knew going in that a lot of potential viewers are going to just watch it on the streaming service, but having the potential income stream from a box office release probably got the bean counters to greenlight the higher budget. If it had been straight to Disney+ release, I doubt they would have been able to get the budget to do some of the stuff they wanted.

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u/Fryboy11 1h ago

Only in Hollywood is doubling your money a flop. Most people would be ecstatic if they spent $1000 on a project and made $2100 off it. You recouped your cost and made an extra $1100 in pure profit. 

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u/pants_pants420 1h ago

yeah if ur not counting the other 1000 dollars you spent on marketing, then youd probably think you got 1100 in pure profit

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u/Orphasmia 1h ago

Was it a bad movie or no one went out to see it? I wanted to catch it but didn’t feel excited enough to follow through

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u/SpideyFan914 1h ago

It was okay. Not a good adaptation of the comic, but not a bad movie, just fine. Although I don't think that's the sole reason it bombed.

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u/Training_Pirate1000 3h ago

Supergirl was actually a disaster

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u/ACKHTYUALLY 3h ago

Supergirl was a monster flop.

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u/kattahn 3h ago

Supergirl lost $150-200m.

Made $121m world wide against $180m budget + $120m marketing spend.

Mando made ~$345m ww against a similar budget, so probably broke even or lost a little, but not nearly as bad as supergirl did.

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u/Jolly-Potential-1411 2h ago

Supergirl was definitely a flop, but I would Mando was just a slight underperformance. It will make a decent profit in the long run, especially because the characters originated on streaming in the first place.

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u/LuinAelin 3h ago

Mando is probably more on the line in tickets sales but other revenue streams (licencing, cross promos, home media) mean it's probably profitable. It's done more than. Twice it's budget.

Supergirl not supassed it's box office and probably won't now Spider-Man is close

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u/No_Return3299 1h ago

I think mando made a small profit, but not as much as previous Star Wars movies did sans solo

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u/Sushi-DM 36m ago

Mandalorian had a box office that wasn't embarrassing. But, due to budget and marketing in addition to costs, failed to make a return.
So the lesson is, you can't just throw money at a popular IP and make a just okay movie out of it and expect to make 1.9 billion dollars.

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u/davFaithidPangolin 2m ago

Mandalorian and Grogu grossed $344.8 million against a $165 million production budget, I've seen estimates ranging from it needed anywhere from $440 million to $600 million to break even. Both figures seem a little extreme but I can find a lot of sources backing up at least $440/450 million.

Supergirl has made $121 million against a $170-186 million budget. Supergirl is estimated to need between $310 million to $375 million to break even (Wikipedia says $315 million).

That all said, you are absolutely right that these movies not making back their budget is kinda blown out of proportion by certain groups online using it as justification for disliking the films. Theatrical gross isn't everything, and I imagine Mandalorian and Grogu at least will probably make up that last stretch of dough through merchandising and streaming revenue. Baby Yoda is insanely marketable, and The Mandalorian was already a streaming exclusive show.

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u/comeagaincharlemagne 3h ago

Mando was definitely a flop. It's the lowest grossing star wars film to date and it didn't even earn a profit. It only broke even.

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u/airinato 3h ago

As of right now both show a loss of $100 million budget vs box office, without including marketing.

You know you can google shit. Any time. Available everywhere you go in your pocket these days. And most of what you see online is rage bait bullshit for engagement, not actual incels and racists.

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u/Rich_Housing971 3h ago edited 2h ago

Yeah Mandalorian and Grogu is very watchable. It's also not a financial flop considering it more than broke even and has bonus value for Disney as a casual entry into the Mandoverse for those who don't want to dive directly into a series.

It was never going to be a blockbuster considering it's additional content of side content of Star Wars. It was never going to have the success of a main line Star Wars movie because its potential fanbase is already limited.

In fact, for its intended fanbase, it did reasonably well: diehard Star Wars fans, Mandalorian viewers, people curious about The Mandalorian. it's just not a movie that was intended to be a blockbuster, and there was no way to film it to make it a blockbuster.

The results aren't going to get execs to say "MAKE MANDO SEASON 4 NAO!!!!!" but they're content.

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u/axecalibur 2h ago

They could have used 5000 puppets. The script made no sense.

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u/VoiceofKane 2h ago

Not only puppets, but they also brought back Phill Tippett to do multiple stop motion sequences as well.

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u/Largeitude 1h ago

Putting Obsession and Odyssey on the same level is nonsense, too.

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u/DetectiveRiggs 3h ago

Supergirl also used a ton of puppets and practical makeup for the aliens

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u/Calfzilla2000 3h ago

Sure but a lot less, and in less critical roles, than Mando.

And I feel like a lot of the makeup and puppetry was unnecessary for Supergirl. It was a nice touch but probably ballooned the budget and bit with it.

The bus driver thing was fun though. That was worth it. But the rest of the characters just sitting around snarling was not necessary to me. A lot of them just could have been humans.

Its a feature and selling point for a Star Wars movie. I dont think its needed in a movie about Supergirl.

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u/Flexhead 3h ago

I'm still trying to figure out the Supergirl hate/apathy. It was a perfectly serviceable story, on the better side of small stakes hero-ing with decent growth for the protagonist. My issues were choice to color and fight editing. Like the ideal 7/10 movie.

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u/VerilyShelly 3h ago

Superhero fatigue along with female-lead stories need to be extra good to get accolades. Serviceable can't cut through that.

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u/MontyAtWork 3h ago

Wasn't most of it filmed in The Volume though?

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u/Calfzilla2000 3h ago

As far as I am aware, no. They built real sets.

There were some scenes that used it but ive seen pictures of the sets. They built a lot.

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u/WiggleSparks 3h ago

Supergirl had tons of practical effects too.

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u/littlealbatross 3h ago

Seriously, I loved watching them throw that Grogu puppet like it was supposed to be jumping. 🤣. I would choose a cheesy-looking practical effect over a CGI one 99% of the time.

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u/thugarth 2h ago

At one point in Mando-Grogu, I seriously thought, "Is the rest of the movie going to be a puppet adventure?" I was excited at the prospect. But then it cut back and forth between puppets and Mando mando'ing around.

Can you imagine, though? What if they did? What if one of the biggest franchises ever had a movie where it started with a mix of live action, puppets, and cgi, and then had a whole hour (out of a 2.5 hour movie) of just puppets?

This is the second time a Star Wars movie has presented a revolutionary idea and chickened out. (The other was Episode 8: What if Kylo and Rey had said, Screw the empire and rebellion and jedi and sith, let's do something new?)

That said, mando-grogu did have a lot of puppet scenes and I liked that aspect of it.

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u/thehelldoesthatmean 2h ago

I think it was included moreso because it felt like a lazy entry in a franchise that has been run into the ground. It was basically a meh marvel movie.

Whereas Project Hail Mary probably used a very similar amount of CGI but was an adaptation of an original novel.

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u/NeoSeth 2h ago

Supergirl had a lot of practical effects with the various alien costumes and puppets, but I don't have much else nice to say about the film. I thought the actress who played Supergirl was great. Aaaaand... that's it.

Since this thread is talking about great stories being essential to film success, I will throw in that I was personally extremely disappointed to see such an AMAZING source story like Woman of Tomorrow get totally butchered by the film. Supergirl could have easily been much better, by following and understanding the source material.

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u/MrdnBrd19 2h ago

I'm willing to bet that The Odyssey and Mandalorian and Grogu have similar CG shot counts. Noland talks a big game, but actually uses a ton of CGI to clean up shots and for set extension which is ironically for the most part the exact same things that it was used for in Mandalorian and Grogu. M&G of course has a higher density of CG shots because it was used in more of the scenes, but since Odyssey is a bit longer I'd bet they are pretty close.

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u/hey_Hey_I_saveD_me 1h ago

Problem with Mandalorian and Grogu is that it relies on series knowledge. Most people I know will just wait when it shows in D+ as they don't really care for theatrical release and will basically take it as longer series episode.

Also in top three movies for this year are still full cgi movies - Mario Galaxy (1) and Toy Story 5 (3). And second is Michael (Jackson) flick.

The whole article is just wishful thinking that does not reflect reality.

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u/ImWhatsInTheRedBox 1h ago

And Moana failed because it's only been 10 damn years and no one wanted a live action Moana remake!

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u/Bender_2024 1h ago

I thought Mando and Grogu was good if not great and the Problem with Supergirl is people were expecting a tradition Superman "for God and country" type superhero film and got something that tried to recreate The Guardians of the Galaxy. Only without a actors who charismatic enough to pull it off. And a lackluster story at best.

There is nothing wrong with CGI. Look at the first two Pirates of the Caribbean films. They relied heavily on CGI. The same goes for Avatar and most of the Marvel movies. They were massive hits that the people enjoyed. Not because of CGI but because of good CGI that doesn't look unnatural. But mostly because they told a good story.

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u/exoriparian 1h ago

Right, and they also used a lot of CG enhancement, including in the marketing.  I liked the first season or two of the show, but haven't seen the movie and don't plan to.

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u/Huge-Cartoonist6795 41m ago

Still didn't make grogu less shit tho

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u/Omatzus 19m ago

It nearly made more box office than the other two combined

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u/HatchChileMacNCheese 3h ago

An important caveat is that they also need to make movies people actually want. Nobody wanted "the mandalorian and grogu"

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u/Wild_Marker 3h ago

Seriously, I went to watch it after hearing it was some good fun and I felt... absolutely nothing. It's not bad, it's not good, it's... it's slop, isn't it? It's the very definition of it. It's nothing. It feels like nothing. It's crazy how much nothing it is.

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u/-jaylew- 3h ago

Absolutely agree. Incredibly boring, meh movie. No surprises, complete plot armour for all protagonists, and basically no world building.

Forgot I watched it the next day.

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u/HatchChileMacNCheese 1h ago

It feels like it exists to sell another product or experience, like it doesn't have a purpose other than to funnel viewers to another thing

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u/SkyTheIrishGuy 3h ago

It’s necessary in terms of a lazy story. That movie is the embodiment of the downturn of that show, they made Grogu a recurring character because of merch. The tone clashes with what Mando initially was in its first 2 seasons.

Supergirl is more out of place to an extent, but it still deserves a mention. The character itself deserves a movie, it just wasn’t the right time and was genuinely poorly executed

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u/NefariousnessDry6211 3h ago

Made him a recurring character? It’s been awhile, but I honestly don’t think there’s a single episode without him. He’s been there from the start. The show has ALWAYS been about the two of them and their relationship from the first episode.

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u/SkyTheIrishGuy 2h ago

At the end of the season Grogu went away with Luke to get training. That was meant to be the end of the ark for those characters and they changed it because Grogu was popular and a merch machine. Grogu was not the central focus of the first few episodes.

How i’m being downvoted when this is straight up public knowledge is beyond me

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u/root88 2h ago

It doesn't matter how they made the movie. No one gives a shit. It's just selection bias by the author.