#fandom rivalry

The programme has come up against a number of competing series on DTV,

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that fans of Inspector Spacetime and

I don’t get the rivalry between ‘Inspector Spacetime’ and ‘Galaxy Quest’ fandoms.

One of the funniest things I’ve seen this year is this completely unprecedented rivalry between the MLP fandom and Blade Runner fandom.

It starts simply enough; My Little Pony: the Movie was slated to come out in November, but moved back a month to avoid becoming a complete washout thanks to Pixar’s Coco coming out the same month. October 6th became the final date, coincidentally the same date that Blade Runner 2049 was coming out. There were a few jokes about adult men paying for Blade Runner tickets but sneaking in to MLP instead, but nothing serious until about a week before these movies came out.

On 4chan’s /mlp/ board, one bold Anon decided to stake a claim that not only would Blade Runner completely destroy MLP in the box office, but it would go on to become a critical and commercial success, rekindling the long-lost genre of sci-fi noir films. /mlp/ proceeded to shrug off the claim with “lol who cares”

Fast forward to the opening weekend. As expected, Blade Runner comes in first to universal critical acclaim, and MLP comes in fourth with critics either loving or hating it. Seems like it’s a clear-cut winner scenario, except that Blade Runner performed BELOW expectations. It was projected to open somewhere between $43-47 million, but finished the weekend at $32.8 million, about $10 million below expectations.

Critics and investors were taken aback. Journalists started scrambling to find out what went wrong. And as Blade Runner’s budget and investment information came in, it got worse. The film’s budget was somewhere between $150-$180 million, but in order to turn a profit, it would have to break $400 million total. Sony (who, coincidentally, lost the film right to MLP because they couldn’t fucking control themselves and wanted to make it a Smurfs rehash) had invested a ton of money into Blade Runner and not only wanted to be paid back in full before anyone else, but wanted a percentage of the profits.

Blade Runner would go on to flounder in the international market too. Film critics and journalists were practically begging for international markets to save the film, but it didn’t work out. It was projected to open at $60 million internationally, and instead made $50.2 million. In the end, the film made $256.8 million, and against the $400 million it needed to break even, it was considered a bomb, with the studio set to lose $80 million, and pretty much destroyed any hope of getting a sequel.

Meanwhile, the MLP film made nowhere near as much money as Blade Runner did. But it had a far more modest budget, was marketed carefully, and thanks to its rating was open to much more audiences than Blade Runner’s “R”. It made about $21.8 million domestically and $29.6 million internationally, for a total of about $51 million. Hasbro never released the budget number for the movie, but insiders say it was between $5 and $8 million, which a supposed leaked document (which has never been verified) suggests it was closer to $25 million. Regardless, Hasbro was happy enough in the film’s performance that in an investment call in November, they said a sequel was very likely to happen. And remember, this is despite the film not going over well with critics, not only being snubbed from any sort of awards, but ALSO the film leaking online a week before release.

In other words, despite making less money and not being as favored by critics, MLP was far more successful than Blade Runner. And BR fans on 4chan were furious. They would swarm /mlp/ shitposting, pointing out all of the MLP movie’s flaws and sharing every negative review they could find, with posts like “IT’S OVER, HASBRO IS FINISHED, HOW WILL BRONIES EVER RECOVER” en masse. And it’s still happening now, especially when Justice League came out and underperformed as well (that one needed to make $700 million to break even, but only made $567 million), with DC fans and BR fans ganging up on MLP to try to make bronies hate the thing they love.

seriously

i'm so glad i don't participate in fandom outside of fanart and stuff like that