when talking about men in black as a franchise there's one stat that i think is pretty telling this is the us domestic box office chart for every entry in the series minus a re-release of the second one it's also just a list of the movies in order because each entry made less than the one before it with the most recent film unable to crack NUMBER_TOKEN million dollars something the first one pulled off easily back in NUMBER_TOKEN unlike a franchise like john wick or even thor they've never had excitement really grow over time to the point where a later movie will make more than the first for whatever reason men in black has never really recaptured the excitement of that first film even as they've tried over and over again why is that well this week i wanted to dig into it and talk about where men of black has succeeded and failed in its over NUMBER_TOKEN year history i'll be honest the youtube algorithm sort of hates it when i cover old stuff so you'd definitely be doing me a favor if you liked subscribed or just left a comment down below with your own take on the series so with all that said let's get into it mib's agent l beauty brains and well you know catchment in black next weekend on kids wb the first men in black film is kind of the result of a ton of NUMBER_TOKENs trends colliding with each other the most obvious one being that decade's fascination with shadowy government agencies who are covering up the existence of aliens the x-files had started four years earlier and kind of became the face of this fascination with extraterrestrials these days the pentagon itself can put out unexplained ufo footage and it feels like people barely take notice but back then it was kind of everywhere of course including things like independence day which will smith had starred in the year before but there's another NUMBER_TOKENs trend that men in black is a part of that isn't quite so obvious it actually only exists because of the huge comic book boom in the first part of the decade the comic men in black was created by lao cunningham and published by arisel and later malibu comics in NUMBER_TOKEN. it was a very under the radar indie series which followed the mib agency as they battled not only aliens but demons vampires zombies and any other standard monster you can think of it honestly bears very little resemblance to the movie aside from the basic premise the character names and the neuralizer the memory wiping device which the movies were smart enough to keep around but used in a more comedic way the appeal of that first film is very easy to see in many ways it's a live action cartoon it moves fast it's filled with creative special effects and crucially it features will smith right as he was ascending to being the biggest actor in the world bad boy's independence day and men in black was the three movie run that really cemented him as a superstar instead of as a rapping sitcom actor and watching this first film it's very easy to see why the movie sets up a simple dynamic smith is agent j the young hotshot cop recruit who is new to the world of aliens and tommy lee jones is the stern seen it all old guy who plays the straight man to his antics and you know what it works when you add the stars strong personalities to some goofy
START_INTERACTION_TOKEN i'll be honest the youtube algorithm sort of hates it when i cover old stuff so you'd definitely be doing me a favor if you liked subscribed or just left a comment down below with your own take on the series so with all that said END_INTERACTION_TOKEN