Fandom: Hollywood’s Only Hope

As you may have heard, Julianna Margulies is the latest celebrity to have shoved her foot in her mouth on the whole Gaza thing. No big mystery here. Before October, there were quite a few thinkpieces about the death of movie stars. Stars have been replaced by IP and, although Marvel has been taking it on the chin lately, I have yet to see anyone write about the end of franchises, let alone fandoms.

As I have written about before, fandoms are massive. For many, they are modern religious communities. Many fandoms have had their faith tested with woke reboots of their favorite characters and stories. If Hollywood is going to keep on as the world’s biggest supplier of American capitalist soft power, this is a very clear opportunity: stop with the woke reboots and give the fans what they want; sparkly military propaganda.

This does not sound like an impossible scenario. Disney’s honcho Bob Iger recently pledged to focus on entertainment instead of messages in the movies coming out of the Mouse House in the future. Sounds easy right? There is a huge terror of Hollywood losing the pro America pro Israel narrative against the TikTok youth. Here is an opportunity for the biggest US propaganda blitz since the 1940s and the biggest anti-terror campaign since the ‘80s.

If only it were as easy as bibbidi bobbidi boo. Some franchises are struggling, some are too new to withstand risks with their new fanbases…very few are ready for a major gung-ho overhaul. Let’s look at some potential franchises, yeah?

Avatar

Avatar has a massive fanbase and the movies print money themselves. Small hitch: Avatar is in no unsubtle terms an anti-colonialist narrative. The risk of audience capture from the TikTok insurgents is too great a risk. Plus, the way James Cameron works, best case scenario for Hollywood, we see a film that tries to correct the Gaza narrative by 2043.

Marvel

The franchise that is most hurting right now might be the best one to resurrect and take Hollywood to Kingdom Come. There are a few speed bumps though. A boycott of Marvel for the upcoming Captain America film with the Israeli superhero Sabra is one clear obstacle if the boycott works.

@stackthedeckThe least we can do is nothing and frankly we need to do more to free Palestine #fandom #marvel #marvelcomics #comics #captainamerica #mcu

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

This may truly become a murky scenario though: if Captain America bombs, will it mean that the boycott worked or that there is superhero fatigue in general? Even the comments in the TikTok above do not seem so sure. So yeah, Marvel does not look like a great opportunity to fight audience capture from the new resistance either.

Call of Duty

Video game movies are HOT right now. In 2020, Sonic crushed it. This year, Mario and Five Nights were massive hits. It seems like a no-brainer that a militaristic video game adaptation is THE move. If only projects this big were easy to rush release. As of now, there is no talk of a greenlit Call of Duty adaptation. This is what Hito Steyerl was talking about with the defense of the poor image. Compressed digital videos convey information faster than large scale film franchises. By the time a Call of Duty film that corrects the Israel-Gaza narrative is released, there may already be a lasting peace in the region.

The Legend of Zelda

The Legend of Zelda would be a major win. How big? I hate fantasy — from LOTR to Harry Potter to Game of Thrones — yet I am excited for The Legend of Zelda film. Even if it ends up being a major deep-state jingoistic op. Will it? Well, Avi Arad, the Israeli-American producer involved with many of Marvel’s biggest hits, is one of Zelda’s producers. But it is unlikely to be released before 2027. Also, the actual Zelda experience itself, which was more about gameplay and discovery than the more cinematic elements of games like GTA, might not translate to the big screen, especially a live action film. So it looks like the only hope for the military propaganda mega-fandom franchise machine is…

Star Wars

This is not to say that even this franchise is invulnerable to counterculture influence or that a pro-military message will definitely work here. Days after October 7th. Mark Hamill got guff for standing with Israel, with many quipping that he supports the Empire. And this TikTok uses George Lucas’s own interview with James Cameron to prove that Star Wars has been and will always be an anti-colonialist narrative.

@natehyungReplying to @Zach Devlin Star Wars was a condemnation of populism and the theme was seen all throughout. pop·u·lism /ˈpäpyəˌliz(ə)m/ noun a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups. “[Being an empire] isn’t the right thing to do and we’re still struggling with” George Lucas#greenscreenvideo

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

But what we mustn’t forget is that Star Wars, more than most fanbases, has had an army of hardcore fanatics that are seething at the wokewashing of the franchise and would love nothing more than, say, a Star Wars film where Jawas get nuked. In Phantom Menace, the Tusken Raiders and Watto were both considered anti-Arab stereotypes. Why not just create a movie about evil Tusken raiders that need to be zapped? The last three Star Wars films and pretty much all of the Disney Plus shows have been accused of excessive diversity. There hasn’t been a new Star Wars film since 2019. The appetite is there for a kick-ass, ‘murica Fuck Yeah-style tentpole with Wookies and tie-fighters. As of 9/20, Star Wars is still the biggest entertainment franchise out there.

All told, the next Star Wars film is slated to drop in 2026. This has always been the problem with Hollywood. It is a giant, but it has always been a slow-moving giant. It was like this in the ‘60s too by the way.

From Easy Riders, Raging Bulls:

Because movies are expensive and time-consuming to make, Hollywood is always the last to know, the slowest to respond, and in those years it was at least half a decade behind the other popular arts. So it was some time before the acrid odor of cannabis and tear gas wafted over the pools of Beverly Hills and the sounds of shouting reached the studio gates.

And that’s just it. Right now, the youth seem to be more pro-Palestinian than pro-Israeli. Right now, the youth are more anxiously awaiting the next TikTok at the swipe of the thumb than they are the next Fast and Furious at the theater. So, like most multi-million dollar businesses, Hollywood will try a variety of strategies. Something for the resistance, something for the fanboys. But, like most movements, the protest movement will die down. Escapism will be the order of the day again. This will probably be driven by the second wave of Generation Z in the 2030s. When that happens, it may be time for a new entertainment franchise that synthesizes all the previous entertainment blockbusters of the past, much like Star Wars synthesized Flash Gordon, Arthurian legend, samurai films and Westerns. Then, a new force might awaken.