Death of the Blockbuster or Birth of a New Hollywood?

Answer: Both

This past weekend was the worst Memorial Day box office opening in almost three decades. It’s not just the bean counters at the top that are feeling the pinch: Hollywood workers in general, especially those who are not living in mansions or working in executive suites, are struggling. The strikes did some damage, but the studios’ failed streaming campaigns caused greater hemorrhaging.

Changing attitudes are not making things easier for the blockbuster factory either. Fandoms are actively avoiding movies they think are hurting their favorite brand. Furiosa, the biggest bomb this past weekend, was a prequel to the 2015 feminist entry of the Mad Max series (which many critics absurdly called the best movie of the decade). Franchise fandoms may bring diminishing returns, but political fandoms (like Trump’s) get larger by the second. Can famously liberal Hollywood tap into that? It might try; Shane Gillis has his own show on Netflix.

But that’s just one iron in the fire, and the conservatism that will be promoted will not successfully tap into (or create) American patriotism like the movies of 1984, say. What’s more, the global market for Hollywood, which began in earnest in the late ‘90s, is in extreme peril now. It is hard to have the world buy your movies when pretty much the whole world is against you at the moment.

Many “death of Hollywood” thinkpieces have been churned out. This is not one of them. As this ReelTakes TikTok says, Hollywood is not dying; it’s changing.

@reel.takesStop paying unjustified salaries. Stop hiring bad writers/directors and allowing lazy storyboarding / lazy scripts with no actual vision. Stop underpaying and overworking VFX workers and then having them redo their work when you reshoot because your movie is awful. Stop pummeling people with terrible marketing for movies they don’t want. Simplify, refocus, lean out budgets and staff on productions. Refocus on mid budget and small budget movies that can make back money with streaming partnerships. Figure out who the actual movie stars are, and stop throwing obscene money at actors who are no longer actual stars. The film industry isn’t dying, just in need of a few tweaks. Which should be coming due to failure after failure. #film #filmtok #movies #movietok #cinema #entertainment #hollywood #actor #filmmaker #filmmaking

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Bloated budgets are part of the problem. Superstars are getting paid way too much. The other part of the problem: bad writing. The blockbusters of 1984 all had great stories with strong characters. Beverly Hills Cop wasn’t a great Eddie Murphy movie. It helped make Eddie Murphy great. When was the last time you saw a star-making turn? Hit Man was dumped in the theaters by Netflix with hardly any advertising or publicity. It is supposed to be Glen Powell’s big break. But Hollywood has a different perspective on what a star is. In the 20th century, good scripts made great stars. Today, actors are paid for cosplay. There is a sad possibility that Powell may primarily be remembered for filling out his fighter pilot costume in Top Gun: Maverick.

The crystal ball shows a Hollywood with smaller budgets. Or a re-evaluation of what a normal budget is, anyway. Cult film Hundreds of Beavers (when’s the last time you heard “cult film” regarding a contemporary movie) was shot on a shoestring budget and self-distributed. Through word of mouth and online buzz, it more than made back its money. Hundreds of Beavers (which I haven’t seen yet) is the inverse of Snakes on a Plane. Snakes on a Plane was a Hollywood film that got mocked many months before its release. The title — and the revelation that foul-mouthed star Samuel Jackson was attached — led to memes and fan-made trailers (including the infamous line that was later added to the actual movie: “I’m tired of these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane”). The actual release fell short of studio expectations because, at that time, Internet culture was not synonymous with culture. Hundreds of Beavers, of course, had no pre-release hype. Unlike Snakes, Beavers was confidently stupid, from the page to the screen. It might not be a Clerks-level success, but its profit margins were good enough to to get it profiled in Variety.

Another relatively bright Hollywood story: Civil War (a movie I did watch) is the biggest movie on Amazon right now. This is months after it was the biggest theatrical release in A24 history. Furiosa bombed because it fit the standard idpol Hollywood playbook: make a dumb, borderline generic. blockbuster, but have a woman in the lead to shield it from rejection by critics so the Rotten Tomatoes score is high. Something like Civil War is the exact opposite. It doesn’t conform to the prevailing political agenda. Neither did Dr. Strangelove. Yes I am actually comparing the two films. It's not literally like Dr. Strangelove; it's not a satire, I wouldn't even say it's as good as Strangelove. But it does fill the role Dr. Strangelove did. Dr. Strangelove’s release was like Kubrick whispering to the ‘60s. “Hey, become the ‘60s already.” That's what I think future generations need to understand about it. Between Dr. Strangelove and the Beatles, 1964 was when the ‘60s started.¹ Civil War can play a similarly pivotal role for this decade. It is not a franchise, it is not a star vehicle, but of all the films out there, it feels closest to the emerging zeitgeist.

Another thing about it: it is not a blockbuster in the traditional sense of the word. We are so familiar with the idea of a blockbuster, especially a summer blockbuster, that we forget there was a time when these types of movies did not exist. Jaws was the first summer blockbuster and it created a rough template for how Hollywood would do everything ever since its release. Star Wars would of course cement the foundation of the tentpole model.

This is why we are having difficulty grasping that our current moment might mean the end of blockbusters. As Chris Nashawaty, author of The Future Was Now, says in the linked Wired article, the blockbuster moment “was always going to be something that couldn’t last forever; I’m frankly surprised that it lasted as long as it did.” He also says that Barbie and Oppenheimer succeeded because they were smart. Hollywood will need to meet that challenge to survive.

This all scans. But for our exact moment right now, I believe Hollywood must also tap into the disillusionment the youth feel, much like it did in the ‘60s. But in the ‘60s, TV, its biggest threat, did not tap into the youth as seamlessly as its current threat, TikTok, does. TikTok at this point has spoiled the youth. No other media outlet gives voice to all the Gen Zers that are not Biden supporters, that are indifferent to “the most important election ever.” When TikTok is banned, Hollywood will need to meet the emerging youth with something smart and relevant. It must learn how to stop worrying and love the mind. It seems to have already stopped worrying and love the bomb.

1. Bob Dylan’s Freewheeling Bob Dylan would qualify, but without the climate created by the cynicism of Strangelove and the youthful energy of The Beatles, there was a possibility Dylan would have been an eccentric star that no one tried to emulate. He certainly would not have become a rocker.