>>830,832 Bar scene in NYC (or pretending to be elsewhere) says to me "expository scene". In other words: plot implausibility and/or incomprehensible chaos that needs explaining in a scene where they all sit down with a beer and tell us what's happening. That in turn says to me that this project may be in trouble.

I agree that a disaster on a $200m movie would not help, though I think the real stupidity lay with the studio in thinking that JVR was sufficiently experienced to direct such a film. TH actually hasn't done so badly in that 2 of his 4 most recent projects have been critical successes: TNM and HR (polarising, but it had some very god reviews). TNM was a big commercial success in the UK and HR was never going to make loads, though I bet it easily made its £5m budget back, which is more than CP did.

I think we have been overly distracted by ISTL being a critical car crash - though we only noticed that because it was so over hyped as the next Oscar nominated thang (and it may still be that SPC has the last laugh there as they still aren't done with us). Plus CP was massively over hyped too. The real problem with both these movies is that we weren't allowed to discover and enjoy their good points independently. We were told that they were the best thing EVAH and so of course they disappointed.