Americans don't mean what British people mean when they say this.
This thread seems to have famous women dressed provocatively, whereas the first image that came in my head was this...
Stevie was asked in an interview if he was hard. He said no. The interviewer said, "So if there's a 50-50 between you and Roy Keane..."
Stevie interjected, "Roy Keane might beat me in a fight. He won't beat me in a tackle."
When that ball dropped between them, he proved it.
Of the times I've gone absolutely off my head in a football stadium, Divock Origi is responsible for 3 of the top 10. Maybe even 3 of the top 5.
An inexplicable wonder of a career.
Happy retirement and go well, young man (which you still very much are). Thanks for the memories.
Mattel took the wrong lesson from Barbie and just spent nearly $200 million proving it.
Barbie did $1.44 billion, so Mattel raided the toy closet and greenlit films for Polly Pocket, Barney, Uno, Hot Wheels, and Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots. The thesis was simple: own the IP, print the franchise. Masters of the Universe was the first real swing at it. Nearly $200M to produce, plus a marketing budget that on a film this size usually adds $100M+ on top.
It opened to $29.3M domestic, $54.3M worldwide. A movie at this budget needs around $425M globally just to break even, so He-Man has to nearly 8x his opening weekend across the entire run. And theaters keep about half the gross, so the studio actually pocketed roughly $15M of that debut.
The gross is bad. The audience breakdown is worse. Only 5% of opening weekend was under 12. Only 6% was 13 to 17. The single biggest block, 29%, was aged 45 to 54. The people who bought tickets are the people who played with the toy in 1985.
That one data point is the whole problem with the strategy. Mattel sells toys to children. The movie built to mint a new generation of He-Man fans instead drew a reunion of the old one. Nostalgia converts once. Then those buyers age out and there's nobody standing behind them.
Barbie worked because Greta Gerwig made a movie about what the doll means, and it hit a cultural moment no release slate can manufacture on command. Mattel read that result as "the toy is the asset." The toy was never the asset.
This is also the second time He-Man has died on screen. The 1987 version grossed $17.3M on a $22M budget. Four decades and an extra $180 million later, the result rhymes.
@mackin_john That bit where his ex tells him she's engaged, and you can see his heart breaking while he's trying to act happy for her, always sticks with me. Good film, great actor.
@Knox_Harrington@StuLFC1892@LBLFC_ I think/hope he'll like Elliott. If so, I can see him getting game time on the right. He's used Brooks there plenty for Bournemouth and he's not rapid, but a good technical player.
@johngibbonsblog It was so hot. Walking out the ground you'd have thought we'd be dancing in the street, but everyone was just trudging up to the metro. Fucked.
What a career, James Milner. Been there, seen it, won it.
Hope to see him back at Liverpool in some capacity one day. One of the main cultural architects for Klopp's Liverpool.
I'd wish him a happy retirement, but there's no way he won't be working somewhere.
@themrlostman@ChannyMill You said Ireland. It's you who can't read, fat arse.
Can't tell a legitimate source from a made up one. No wonder you're stuck with Trump.
@themrlostman@ChannyMill Figures from the National Health Service, whose job it is to track these things?
You are fuckin hilarious, you. All that chlorinated chicken rotted your brain?