Template talk:Infobox film

Prequels & Sequels in the Infobox

Currently the film Infobox doesn't identify a film's prequels or sequels even when they're explicit, and I don't think that's helpful. I think most Wikipedia users would agree it's helpful to have the prequels and sequels if they exist in the Infobox. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chachilongbow (talk • contribs) 05:41, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

See Template:Infobox film#Preceded by and Followed by. Gonnym (talk) 08:27, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I think it could have been helpful, but the problem we had circa 2011 was constant disputing of using an out-of-universe or in-universe order, and what to do about spinoffs. Like should The Phantom Menace be listed in "Followed by" on Return of the Jedi, for example, or not? Where would something like Rogue One today even fit if it's "between" main films? It's not worth the hassle, and the lead section is the best place to define what films came before and after, in either context. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 13:22, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Navboxes are also quite helpful to avoid this problem. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 17:11, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Navboxes are easily superior IMO, and renders the infobox debate moot. Betty Logan (talk) 09:17, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Yep. Something we had before and slowly got trimmed away. Honestly, the sequel to a film and specific context to how it relates to it is usually mentioned within the lead either way. No real benefit of it being added here in an infobix that is bloated as it is. Andrzejbanas (talk) 07:02, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Even if it could be made to work, the infobox is already becoming longer and longer because of the number of studios/countries/producers/release dates as more and more people are credited for contributing 1% to a film, which makes hte infobox bleed into other sections and break formatting, adding more will only make that worse from an organisational and style perspective. As others have said it's covered by navboxes and should typically be covered in the lead as well. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 14:12, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

add the entry "subject".

I was trying to add a subject parameter to some random film article i was editing, and found that there is no such parameter. It seems like an important thing to have, the book template does have this parameter.

I request that this parameter be added. Alexander Shipfield (talk) 20:40, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

I believe you are thinking about what would be the equivalent to a "genre" parameter for film. This has been discussed previously (first here and several times after) and current consensus is not to include such parameter. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 20:49, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not talking about genre. I'm talking about Subject. For example the film An Inconvenient Truth's subject would be climate change. Alexander Shipfield (talk) 20:55, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

That isn't something still I feel there is consensus for. Looking at the documentation for its use in the book infobox as you mentioned, it is only for non-fiction work, so if that were similarly applied here, that would cover a very limited subset of film article, where that info can easily be conveyed in the lead and body. I don't see this as something appropriate for this infobox. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 20:59, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

There's also a plentitude of "Films about..." categories. Including Category:Climate change films. DonIago (talk) 01:50, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

I feel like this wouldn't be a helpful addition. This is surely something that would be in the opening paragraph of an article and we'd just be regurgitating information. Andrzejbanas (talk) 17:32, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Film infobox in film series

As we are getting more and more articles about film series, I often, if not regularly see the infobox applied to film series. I'm not really against this per se, but it does come into complicated territory as we already have had discussion in the past on how the cast should be attributed in an infobox for an individual film, how should it apply to film? Or should we even be using this infobox in a "film series" article at all? Andrzejbanas (talk) 17:35, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Just some examples to reference:

• Pirates of the Caribbean (film series) and The Twilight Saga (film series) applies numerals to films, assuming a reader would be familiar to what films are in what order at a glance.
• Friday the 13th (franchise) opts to use template:Infobox media franchise
• Articles like Spider-Man in film, Captain America in film, Dracula (Universal film series) opt to not use an infobox.
• X-Men (film series) seems to ignore more extensive cast and crew items, but also includes unsourced production companies.
• The Invisible Man (film series) limits it to just basing the source and films.

I'm sure a case by case basis would be good, but should we have some basic guidelines for these? Andrzejbanas (talk) 17:41, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

I would note that these articles are doing slightly different things, and therefore a standardised approach may not be available or even desirable. For example, Friday the 13th and The Invisible Man cover franchises, which are slightly different from film series. A franchise will typically cover different mediums, and may even include multiple films series. Both of the approaches taken at those articles are acceptable to me. I think the infoboxes at Pirates of the Caribbean/Twilight are convoluted messes, but X-Men's approach gets the balance right IMO. The "in film" articles are something else entirely, in that they essentially cover the film component of a franchise, which may encompass more than one series. The films in Spider-Man lend themselves well to this approach because they comprise several completely unconnected series (well, at least until the most recent film) and there is very little to connect the films to each other, besides the underlying IP, and in such a case an infobox serves no purpose. Betty Logan (talk) 09:05, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah the "in film" topics are kind of like "in pop culture" articles so an infobox would probably make more readers confused than it would help them out. Friday the 13th definitely covers more material and probably doesn't really warrant discussion with this template. I kind of agree that X-Men handles it a bit better, but I'm sort of curious about the excessive production companies that have no source backing them up. I'm wondering a seperate infobox for film series might help better fit things that focus on film without falling into the traps that Pirates and Twilight get a bit caught up in. Possibly something like Template:Infobox_video_game_series or Template:Infobox book series that could be used as an option, but I don't even know where would be the place to propose such a thing. Andrzejbanas (talk) 13:21, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

I personally would prefer we stop using this infobox for pages which are not a single film. The infobox is not meant for anything else and usages are often breaking the "key-value" pairing with section titles in the value (such as "Total (13 films):" in X-Men (film series)). This is also preventing us working behind the scenes in clearing out Category:Pages using infobox film with nonstandard dates (see same article). If an infobox is needed for film series, one could be easily created with a much more relevant set of parameters. Gonnym (talk) 20:10, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Seems like another good reason to try and adopt this. I've never attempted to make a infobox for a film series, but I do think with Gonnym's comments we should probably persue it in this direction as these infobox film was really made with singular films in mind and various other WikiProjects are way ahead of us in adopting to this. I don't think it would hurt to follow in suit. Andrzejbanas (talk) 19:53, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Co-director

Why isn't there a section for the co-director. Co-directors are a big part of movie production, and they appear in the credits of several movies, so why aren't they listed on the infobox? 1ArcticDude (talk) 22:23, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

I recommend looking through the archives for this Talk page. This has come up multiple times previously. DonIago (talk) 02:58, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Strange short description - how to fix it?

An issue with the short description was brought up at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Strange short description - how to fix it?. Gonnym (talk) 20:01, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Changes to the automatic short description

There is currently a discussion at WT:FILM regarding the automatic short description generated by this infobox and possibly adjust it. The discussion can be found here. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 16:06, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 September 2024

In the parameter "gross" replace X
"Use condensed, rounded values ($22.4 million vs $22,392,684). "
with
Y
"Use condensed, rounded values ($22.4 million not $22,392,684)."

vs is an abbrevation for the word versus. Better to avoid unnecessary abbreviations, and better yet to use simpler clearer wording "use ... A not B" -- 109.79.167.27 (talk) 19:31, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

 Not done The documentation is not protected so anyone can edit. Regardless, this change doesn't need to be made. "vs" is correct to use here. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 23:24, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Edit request 9 September 2024

Description of suggested change: Add rating to the infobox. Many times folks are looking for what is the movie rated and it would be great if it was available right in the infobox. My thought was that it would be as follows: | rating = mpaa=pg, commonsense=8+, etc. maybe the rating has the country flag next to it. Diff:

−

ORIGINAL_TEXT

+

CHANGED_TEXT

SrCarlos (talk) 11:55, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit template-protected}} template. This has been discussed and declined for over 15 years (like... it's almost in every talk page archive), and while I don't think consensus has changed, it will need to before anything can be done. Primefac (talk) 12:00, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

I've just updated {{Editnotices/Page/Template talk:Infobox film}} with wording about ratings. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 22:47, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! The editnotice has some relatively minor grammar issues that I'd clean up, but I lack the rights to do so.

Suggested text:

"Common edit requests are to suggest the addition of another crewperson or the film's rating to the infobox:

Requested crew additions have included production designer, art director, set decorator, costume designer, choreographer, and executive producer. The general consensus of the WikiProject Film community is to not expand the film infobox any further, but this does not preclude naming or listing them in the article body.

For more information regarding the exclusion of a film's rating from the infobox, please see Template:Infobox film#Ratings and WP:FILMRATING.

Please see the template talk page archives for more info regarding both requests, as each have come up numerous times in the past." DonIago (talk) 02:45, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

 Done - Favre1fan93 (talk) 00:03, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Favre! DonIago (talk) 02:44, 12 September 2024 (UTC)