Initially making my prediction for Inside Out 2's gross I suggested the $600-$850 million range for where it would finish up. As I write the movie is approaching twice the high end of the range I predicted--$1.7 billion. This has partly been a matter of the movie's extraordinary domestic performance, the movie surpassing the $650 million mark over Labor Day weekend.
I did not make a prediction about Despicable Me 4 prior to its release, but after its fourth weekend I did have something to say of its gross--and contended that there was a good chance of the film's failing to reach the $800 million mark. A month later it surpassed the $900 million mark (and has now taken in $930 million, and counting).
Both movies proved "leggier" than I expected, even fairly late into their releases. Where the original Inside Out fell just short of its quadrupling its opening weekend gross domestically, the sequel, even with a far bigger opening, managed a bigger multiplier over its North American run (4.23 versus 3.94 as of September 8). Likewise where I thought Despicable Me 4 played out at about the $290 million mark it had hit in North America, and the $700 million or so it had made globally, it proved to have quite some more way to go with even better late run holds than Inside Out 2 managed (its weekend grosses falling just 22 percent in the weekend right after my comment, with the pattern more or less holding afterward, adding almost $70 million more to its take).
In fairness that works out to Inside Out 2 being a somewhat bigger hit than we might have expected even late in a run which made clear that it was a giant hit early on, and Despicable Me 4 not showing quite so much erosion of its gross as seemed the case a few weeks ago but still indicative of a downward trend in the now rather long-running franchise's fortunes (though not so much so that a Despicable Me 5 seems fairly plausible). Still, they have been remarkable performers, especially given the lowering of expectations that 2023 suggested for such movie--which I am still inclined to think is indicative of the bigger picture that the focus on just a few successes entails. After all, i these films have cleaned up that reflected the comparative weakness of the competition as pretty much everything else aimed at the same market performed rather poorly (from IF to the adaptation of Crockett Johnson's children's classic Harold and the Purple Crayon) in a generally thin summer, enabling the few strong prospects to "clean up" (just as Top Gun 2 did two summers ago). It will take more than that to evidentiate any really broad revival of moviegoing beyond the levels seen in the last three years, and I think that anyone arguing for that on the basis of the evidence would do well to wait and see how the rest of this year goes.
Monday, September 9, 2024
Monday, August 5, 2024
Deadpool & Wolverine's Second Weekend
Deadpool & Wolverine followed up its record-breaking domestic debut (revised up to $211 million from the initially reported $205 million) with a second weekend take of $97 million that has raised its grand total to $396 million.
This works out to a 54 percent drop from the film's first weekend gross to its second. This is not small--but it is also a good deal better than was seen for many past Marvel films (many recent installments having drops in the 60-70 percent range, and typically at the high end of that range), and the more surprising not only in light of this being a "threequel" with a massive debut, but the highly gimmicky and cult-y nature of the material. Indeed, the Boxoffice Pro forecast for the movie had a 50-60 percent range for the likely drop, resulting in an $80-$100 million take, so the movie did about as well as could be expected.
The result is that the movie that looked as if it could be "super front-loaded" may have decent legs after all. Based on that 54 percent number--which on the basis of comparison with other films suggests to me that the movie may have taken in just 65-70 percent of its final North American gross--it is not only clear that the movie will blast past the half billion dollar mark in North America, but I suspect it will end up in the $550-$600 million range. As the film has been doing more than equally well overseas (the international gross is in the vicinity of $428 million at last report) it seems certain to break past the billion-dollar mark as well, though by how much remains to be seen. Right now we have a 52/48 international/domestic split in favor of the international market, which, if it were to hold through the movie's run, would (extrapolating from the "low" $550 million figure for North America) translate to a global finish in at least the $1.15 billion range. However, should the proportion end up matching that for Deadpool 2 (57/43 international/domestic), as the movie proves just that little bit leggier that would get it up to the $600 million North American finish, we could be looking at a global gross as high as $1.4 billion (so, more or less what I guessed back in June, it seems).
In either case we have a franchise best for the Deadpool and X-Men sagas. It would also be (Spider-Man apart) the MCU's highest-grossing film since before the pandemic, in real terms. The movie would also beat Joker's record for an R-rated film, if we leave inflation out of the matter, while should it reach the higher end of the $1.15-$1.4 billion range discussed here it will probably beat Joker in real, inflation-adjusted, terms as well.
No matter how you look at it, this one has been a winner commercially. However, I still stand by my earlier judgment that a Hollywood which has salivated after a hit like this one for quite some time is all too likely to draw the wrong lessons from it--seeing it not as a matter of a movie winning by giving audiences "something completely different" and especially by appealing deeply to a selected audience and pleasing them and not worrying about anyone else, but as a green light to just go on barraging audiences with superhero movies plain and simple, very likely to their cost.
This works out to a 54 percent drop from the film's first weekend gross to its second. This is not small--but it is also a good deal better than was seen for many past Marvel films (many recent installments having drops in the 60-70 percent range, and typically at the high end of that range), and the more surprising not only in light of this being a "threequel" with a massive debut, but the highly gimmicky and cult-y nature of the material. Indeed, the Boxoffice Pro forecast for the movie had a 50-60 percent range for the likely drop, resulting in an $80-$100 million take, so the movie did about as well as could be expected.
The result is that the movie that looked as if it could be "super front-loaded" may have decent legs after all. Based on that 54 percent number--which on the basis of comparison with other films suggests to me that the movie may have taken in just 65-70 percent of its final North American gross--it is not only clear that the movie will blast past the half billion dollar mark in North America, but I suspect it will end up in the $550-$600 million range. As the film has been doing more than equally well overseas (the international gross is in the vicinity of $428 million at last report) it seems certain to break past the billion-dollar mark as well, though by how much remains to be seen. Right now we have a 52/48 international/domestic split in favor of the international market, which, if it were to hold through the movie's run, would (extrapolating from the "low" $550 million figure for North America) translate to a global finish in at least the $1.15 billion range. However, should the proportion end up matching that for Deadpool 2 (57/43 international/domestic), as the movie proves just that little bit leggier that would get it up to the $600 million North American finish, we could be looking at a global gross as high as $1.4 billion (so, more or less what I guessed back in June, it seems).
In either case we have a franchise best for the Deadpool and X-Men sagas. It would also be (Spider-Man apart) the MCU's highest-grossing film since before the pandemic, in real terms. The movie would also beat Joker's record for an R-rated film, if we leave inflation out of the matter, while should it reach the higher end of the $1.15-$1.4 billion range discussed here it will probably beat Joker in real, inflation-adjusted, terms as well.
No matter how you look at it, this one has been a winner commercially. However, I still stand by my earlier judgment that a Hollywood which has salivated after a hit like this one for quite some time is all too likely to draw the wrong lessons from it--seeing it not as a matter of a movie winning by giving audiences "something completely different" and especially by appealing deeply to a selected audience and pleasing them and not worrying about anyone else, but as a green light to just go on barraging audiences with superhero movies plain and simple, very likely to their cost.
The July 2024 Box Office--and What it Means for the Year So Far
The summer saw its share of tepid, or worse, franchise performers back in May and June--Planet of the Apes, Mad Max, Bad Boys. July added to the list with Despicable Me, A Quiet Place and Twisters (not Mad Max-caliber disasters, the numbers for the first two strictly speaking respectable, but still, disappointments compared to the business their predecessors did that make the trend of diminishing returns on investment in these franchises all too clear).
However, the press, true to its function as courtiers to the rich and powerful, have opted to instead emphasize the successes of Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine.
Of course, there is no denying the fact that Inside Out 2 went above and beyond at the box office, outgrossing the hugely successful first film by a rough third after inflation, domestically as well as globally, in the process of amassing its $1.5 billion in ticket sales. And Deadpool & Wolverine, if just opened, has taken in over $800 million in its first ten days in release. In the process the two movies added over $430 million to the North American box office for the month. Still, that total has not been spectacular. As of July 28 the North American box office July has seen $1.178 billion in ticket sales--which sounds like a lot until one remembers that in July 2023, even with all its underperformers and outright flops (Elemental and The Flash and Indiana Jones from the prior month, Mission: Impossible and Haunted Mansion that month), the box office did about $1.36 billion in business (and more like $1.4 billion in the June 2024 dollars that give us a much more useful picture), while the 2015-2019 norm was more like $1.6 billion when adjusted for inflation. The result is that in real terms the July 2024 box office probably did just 84 percent of the business it managed in the previous July--and 74 percent of the 2015-2019 norm.
The weak total is testimony to the fact that if Hollywood--indeed, Disney--managed to score two real mega-hits in the June-July patch, they are exceptions to a generally grim situation that has only gone so far in brightening the outlook for the season and the year. The above figures, after all, translate to the three summer months of May-June-July 2024 taking in just 83 percent of what the box office did in the same period a year earlier, and a mere 62 percent of the 2015-2019 norm. The result is that where in January-April the 2024 box office took in just 75 percent of the total for 2023, and 45 percent of the 2015-2019 norm, this improvement still leaves the take for the year at 84 percent of what the box office managed in 2023 by the same point, and 53 percent the 2015-2019 norm--which is to say, just over half.
In short, for all the exultation over a couple of successes these past months, Hollywood's longtime crisis goes on--and seems all too likely to go on doing so. Indeed, we may see some backsliding in the weak month of August given that, Deadpool likely having made almost half its money in those last six days of July, while the traditional "dump" month's releases do not look very promising (no one expecting Borderlands, or new installments of Alien or the Crow to sell out theaters, and indeed the three unlikely to make in their whole North American run what Deadpool did in its opening weekend, or even what it made just by Saturday night). Meanwhile the hoped-for hitmakers of the fall months--retreads of Joker, Gladiator, etc.--all look to me very risky indeed, and likely to test what Hollywood is so clearly hoping for, namely that the trend of franchise films of the kind they so love to sell the public losing rather than making money has run its course and they can press on with their familiar (lazy, crass, creatively bankrupt, intellectually stultifying, widely despised) business model rather than face up to the necessity of change at which last year hinted if they are to stay in business, the more in as the courtiers, like all examples of their kind, encourage the Caesars of the studios in the absolute worst of their behaviors.
However, the press, true to its function as courtiers to the rich and powerful, have opted to instead emphasize the successes of Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine.
Of course, there is no denying the fact that Inside Out 2 went above and beyond at the box office, outgrossing the hugely successful first film by a rough third after inflation, domestically as well as globally, in the process of amassing its $1.5 billion in ticket sales. And Deadpool & Wolverine, if just opened, has taken in over $800 million in its first ten days in release. In the process the two movies added over $430 million to the North American box office for the month. Still, that total has not been spectacular. As of July 28 the North American box office July has seen $1.178 billion in ticket sales--which sounds like a lot until one remembers that in July 2023, even with all its underperformers and outright flops (Elemental and The Flash and Indiana Jones from the prior month, Mission: Impossible and Haunted Mansion that month), the box office did about $1.36 billion in business (and more like $1.4 billion in the June 2024 dollars that give us a much more useful picture), while the 2015-2019 norm was more like $1.6 billion when adjusted for inflation. The result is that in real terms the July 2024 box office probably did just 84 percent of the business it managed in the previous July--and 74 percent of the 2015-2019 norm.
The weak total is testimony to the fact that if Hollywood--indeed, Disney--managed to score two real mega-hits in the June-July patch, they are exceptions to a generally grim situation that has only gone so far in brightening the outlook for the season and the year. The above figures, after all, translate to the three summer months of May-June-July 2024 taking in just 83 percent of what the box office did in the same period a year earlier, and a mere 62 percent of the 2015-2019 norm. The result is that where in January-April the 2024 box office took in just 75 percent of the total for 2023, and 45 percent of the 2015-2019 norm, this improvement still leaves the take for the year at 84 percent of what the box office managed in 2023 by the same point, and 53 percent the 2015-2019 norm--which is to say, just over half.
In short, for all the exultation over a couple of successes these past months, Hollywood's longtime crisis goes on--and seems all too likely to go on doing so. Indeed, we may see some backsliding in the weak month of August given that, Deadpool likely having made almost half its money in those last six days of July, while the traditional "dump" month's releases do not look very promising (no one expecting Borderlands, or new installments of Alien or the Crow to sell out theaters, and indeed the three unlikely to make in their whole North American run what Deadpool did in its opening weekend, or even what it made just by Saturday night). Meanwhile the hoped-for hitmakers of the fall months--retreads of Joker, Gladiator, etc.--all look to me very risky indeed, and likely to test what Hollywood is so clearly hoping for, namely that the trend of franchise films of the kind they so love to sell the public losing rather than making money has run its course and they can press on with their familiar (lazy, crass, creatively bankrupt, intellectually stultifying, widely despised) business model rather than face up to the necessity of change at which last year hinted if they are to stay in business, the more in as the courtiers, like all examples of their kind, encourage the Caesars of the studios in the absolute worst of their behaviors.
Review: The Goslings: A Study of the American Schools, by Upton Sinclair
As Upton Sinclair tells us in 1923's The Goose-Step it was his intention to write just one book on education in America. However, the project grew and grew until he had far more material than he thought appropriate for one book. Accordingly he opted to produce two, the first of which was the aforementioned The Goose-Step--the two hundred thousand words of which Sinclair devoted to, as Thorstein Veblen had put it a few years earlier, "the Higher Learning in America"--while the equally voluminous follow-up he published the following year (1924) discussed the education America's students got before college in what we would today term "K-12" (hence, The Goose-Step being followed by The Goslings).
Coming to The Goslings after his first book I found Sinclair telling much the same story, not least the reality of control of the educational system by business (in part directly, in part through institutions they own like the so-called fourth estate, and in part with the help of conservative allies from the Catholic Church to the anti-Catholic Ku Klux Klan)--with the same results at the education system's lower levels as at its higher ones. Thus the teachers of the "goslings," at least as much as their counterparts in the professoriat, are subject to an exploitative and tyrannical treatment that, for all the pretenses, illusions and expectations that teaching is a "white collar," "middle class" and "professional" occupation ever encouraged by the pious praises conventionally bestowed upon those from whom "convenient social virtue" is demanded, so that they enjoy neither "the status of a free citizen, nor of a professional expert," but a mere hired hand who has their personal life surveilled, scrutinized, and when it is not to the liking of their employer, punished, in a way not only unknown for the free citizen or the professional expert, but most hired hands. Just as much as in the colleges what passes for education is a combination of intellectual stultification and political indoctrination ("patriotic," pro-capitalist, anti-leftist, etc.), with the relentless censorship exercised in such subjects as history and economics, the priority accorded athletics, the inculcation of "school spirit," playing their part in all this. And just as much as at the level of the colleges there is a combination of penuriousness and graft, as the businesses both fight to pay as little tax as possible, and then pillage the schools of what money they do get. From the ways in which the siting of school construction is decided in connection with real estate interests, to the way in which business is permitted to exploit the mineral and other resources on lands allotted the schools for their support in return for next to nothing, to the ceaseless rip-off in the putting up of the buildings and the provision of supplies from furniture to textbooks (the latter, a national-level racket dominated by a single firm, the American Book Company at its peak having ninety percent of the market), said businesses relentlessly cheated the taxpayer and shortchanged the children.
The similarity with the story Sinclair tells of the country's colleges is all the more apparent in that Sinclair tells it in much the same way, with the first half of the book largely given over to a tour of the relevant institutions across the country, the reports from which establish patterns he analyzes in the more "big picture"-oriented second half of the book. Still, the image Sinclair presents of conditions in the elementary, junior/middle and high schools has its own distasteful features, reflecting their different problems. After all, this was a period in which relatively few went to college, and especially relatively few of the less privileged groups. The result is that at the K-12 levels America's schools educated a far larger part of the country's population, and a population much more diverse in every conceivable way, while in spite of the measure of "standardization" imparted by the multiple levels of the machine (local schools under county and state administration) and national-level governmental and private organizations (like the National Education Association), did it in a much more diverse range of institutions, from the "little red schoolhouses" of the country's rural regions, to private finishing schools for young ladies from wealthy homes--with all the problems collectively entailed in their operation, and their relation to society at large. (Not the least of these was that the expenditure of what government money the schools do get is distributed in extremely disproportionate fashion, with public schools attended by the children of the well-off apt to be very different from the "dark, unsanitary fire-traps" run on two half-day shifts for the children of the poor in the very same school district, in a way that simply had no parallel at the college level.) The faculty teaching in those schools were also very different, in part because the barriers to entry were far lower, with one reflection the handing of faculty positions out as the spoils of local machine politics. (Horrid as their policies were, Sinclair never wrote of the colleges he discussed making anyone a professor just because they were a ward heeler's brother!) Meanwhile, in contrast with college teaching, teaching in K-12 was "feminized" ("a world which is five per cent male and ninety-five per cent female"), with all the inequities this tended to entail (from a refusal of employers to grant equal pay to equal work, to the harassment and worse to which the female teachers were so often subject by male administrators, perhaps the more in as so many of them were there just for what they could get). Certainly if the country had its religious colleges the opposition of some religious interests to the provision of secular education had no part in The Goose-Step at all comparable to what Sinclair describes here--with the same going for conduct of those employers outraged that children were being sent to school rather than toiling in their fields, mines and factories, and that when they grew up their educations might extend beyond the little they needed to know to perform the menial tasks they required them to perform on the job. And even where the problems were fundamentally the same they tended to have a sharper edge here--as with the "Won't somebody please think of the children!" sanctimoniousness and hysterics of what Sinclair called the "Babbitts" intent on persecuting instructors over anything they regarded as slightly amiss in their private lives, or politically unorthodox in their teaching. (While John Scopes had not been arrested for teaching his students about evolution when Sinclair published his book the fact that he was shortly after is rather telling of the situation that prevailed.) Indeed, on the whole the world of K-12 education as Sinclair presents it can seem even meaner and shabbier than that of higher learning in The Goose-Step--to which earlier book Sinclair in fact returns in this book's last chapters, discussing the response that earlier book received (frank interest from a good many of the sympathetic or at least open-minded, sneering sanctimoniousness from "kept" reviewers ever eager to bash him, disdain from the college administrators he called out for their conduct, the more in as they could not deny what he showed them to have done).
In conveying this picture--a more complicated picture than Sinclair's preceding book presented--Sinclair is well-served by his all too rare combination of gifts as journalist, social thinker, activist and novelist, not least extensiveness and thoroughness as a researcher, a sociological imagination and social vision, a body of relevant personal experience, an eye for telling details and anecdotes, and a lively writing style on fine display in the short, punchy, chapters he favors here as in his other Dead Hand books. Aside from making a good deal more readable a book that can at times seem as if it will bury its audience in minute details that risk monotony given the comparative constancy of the corruption and other failures he describes from coast to coast (that corruption, at least, one thing all those national institutions helped standardize), they enable him to produce from them an image which is comprehensive, yet not lacking for nuance--his treatment of such subtle and delicate matters as many teachers' conflicted attitude and muddled thinking regarding their status within society again and again ringing true (and in a way that shows Sinclair to be sympathetic and respectful, but also not in the least blinkered about human weakness by simple-minded idealism here).
Quite naturally The Goslings rounds out what Sinclair had to say in The Goose-Step. Of course, just as is the case with Sinclair's other Dead Hand books a hundred years have passed since he published The Goslings. (Indeed, 2024 is the hundred-year anniversary of the book's initial publication.) Still, contrary to the hopes Sinclair expressed at the time, society simply did not change in the way he thought it would--such change, much more than the narrower reforms he explicitly recommended (effective labor organization for teachers enabling them to fight for their rights, and the rights of their students, etc.), the real solution to the problem he described, with the reforms merely steps toward that which Sinclair himself wrote would be far more feasible if the responsible persons thought in terms of that larger social picture. (Certainly it seemed to Sinclair that teachers' coming around to thinking of themselves as working people, and being in solidarity with other working people, was essential to that unionization he described doing much good.) And American society in its essentials remaining what it was in Sinclair's day, so do its schools remain. Thus do the battles over education Sinclair described--the demand for honest administration of government monies and what people all too often get instead, the clashes between the champions of the public and of the private sector, the treatment of schools as battlegrounds by culture warriors, the struggle of teachers for recognition of their rights as citizens and claims as professional experts and those denying them, among much, much else--remain the battles filling up the headlines in our own day. In fact, what I have said of Sinclair's other books, and particularly the best of them, seems worth saying again here--that reading Sinclair's now century-old book we are likely to learn far more about the problems of our own time than they are likely to reading a good many more recent works (the more in as so few of them are likely to be written from a viewpoint at all like Sinclair's own, never mind presenting it so forthrightly). The result is that I would deem Upton Sinclair's The Goslings essential reading for anyone seriously interested in the problems of the American education system past or present, just like his earlier The Goose-Step, with it in fact seeming to me well worth reading the two books together as two volumes of a single study.
Coming to The Goslings after his first book I found Sinclair telling much the same story, not least the reality of control of the educational system by business (in part directly, in part through institutions they own like the so-called fourth estate, and in part with the help of conservative allies from the Catholic Church to the anti-Catholic Ku Klux Klan)--with the same results at the education system's lower levels as at its higher ones. Thus the teachers of the "goslings," at least as much as their counterparts in the professoriat, are subject to an exploitative and tyrannical treatment that, for all the pretenses, illusions and expectations that teaching is a "white collar," "middle class" and "professional" occupation ever encouraged by the pious praises conventionally bestowed upon those from whom "convenient social virtue" is demanded, so that they enjoy neither "the status of a free citizen, nor of a professional expert," but a mere hired hand who has their personal life surveilled, scrutinized, and when it is not to the liking of their employer, punished, in a way not only unknown for the free citizen or the professional expert, but most hired hands. Just as much as in the colleges what passes for education is a combination of intellectual stultification and political indoctrination ("patriotic," pro-capitalist, anti-leftist, etc.), with the relentless censorship exercised in such subjects as history and economics, the priority accorded athletics, the inculcation of "school spirit," playing their part in all this. And just as much as at the level of the colleges there is a combination of penuriousness and graft, as the businesses both fight to pay as little tax as possible, and then pillage the schools of what money they do get. From the ways in which the siting of school construction is decided in connection with real estate interests, to the way in which business is permitted to exploit the mineral and other resources on lands allotted the schools for their support in return for next to nothing, to the ceaseless rip-off in the putting up of the buildings and the provision of supplies from furniture to textbooks (the latter, a national-level racket dominated by a single firm, the American Book Company at its peak having ninety percent of the market), said businesses relentlessly cheated the taxpayer and shortchanged the children.
The similarity with the story Sinclair tells of the country's colleges is all the more apparent in that Sinclair tells it in much the same way, with the first half of the book largely given over to a tour of the relevant institutions across the country, the reports from which establish patterns he analyzes in the more "big picture"-oriented second half of the book. Still, the image Sinclair presents of conditions in the elementary, junior/middle and high schools has its own distasteful features, reflecting their different problems. After all, this was a period in which relatively few went to college, and especially relatively few of the less privileged groups. The result is that at the K-12 levels America's schools educated a far larger part of the country's population, and a population much more diverse in every conceivable way, while in spite of the measure of "standardization" imparted by the multiple levels of the machine (local schools under county and state administration) and national-level governmental and private organizations (like the National Education Association), did it in a much more diverse range of institutions, from the "little red schoolhouses" of the country's rural regions, to private finishing schools for young ladies from wealthy homes--with all the problems collectively entailed in their operation, and their relation to society at large. (Not the least of these was that the expenditure of what government money the schools do get is distributed in extremely disproportionate fashion, with public schools attended by the children of the well-off apt to be very different from the "dark, unsanitary fire-traps" run on two half-day shifts for the children of the poor in the very same school district, in a way that simply had no parallel at the college level.) The faculty teaching in those schools were also very different, in part because the barriers to entry were far lower, with one reflection the handing of faculty positions out as the spoils of local machine politics. (Horrid as their policies were, Sinclair never wrote of the colleges he discussed making anyone a professor just because they were a ward heeler's brother!) Meanwhile, in contrast with college teaching, teaching in K-12 was "feminized" ("a world which is five per cent male and ninety-five per cent female"), with all the inequities this tended to entail (from a refusal of employers to grant equal pay to equal work, to the harassment and worse to which the female teachers were so often subject by male administrators, perhaps the more in as so many of them were there just for what they could get). Certainly if the country had its religious colleges the opposition of some religious interests to the provision of secular education had no part in The Goose-Step at all comparable to what Sinclair describes here--with the same going for conduct of those employers outraged that children were being sent to school rather than toiling in their fields, mines and factories, and that when they grew up their educations might extend beyond the little they needed to know to perform the menial tasks they required them to perform on the job. And even where the problems were fundamentally the same they tended to have a sharper edge here--as with the "Won't somebody please think of the children!" sanctimoniousness and hysterics of what Sinclair called the "Babbitts" intent on persecuting instructors over anything they regarded as slightly amiss in their private lives, or politically unorthodox in their teaching. (While John Scopes had not been arrested for teaching his students about evolution when Sinclair published his book the fact that he was shortly after is rather telling of the situation that prevailed.) Indeed, on the whole the world of K-12 education as Sinclair presents it can seem even meaner and shabbier than that of higher learning in The Goose-Step--to which earlier book Sinclair in fact returns in this book's last chapters, discussing the response that earlier book received (frank interest from a good many of the sympathetic or at least open-minded, sneering sanctimoniousness from "kept" reviewers ever eager to bash him, disdain from the college administrators he called out for their conduct, the more in as they could not deny what he showed them to have done).
In conveying this picture--a more complicated picture than Sinclair's preceding book presented--Sinclair is well-served by his all too rare combination of gifts as journalist, social thinker, activist and novelist, not least extensiveness and thoroughness as a researcher, a sociological imagination and social vision, a body of relevant personal experience, an eye for telling details and anecdotes, and a lively writing style on fine display in the short, punchy, chapters he favors here as in his other Dead Hand books. Aside from making a good deal more readable a book that can at times seem as if it will bury its audience in minute details that risk monotony given the comparative constancy of the corruption and other failures he describes from coast to coast (that corruption, at least, one thing all those national institutions helped standardize), they enable him to produce from them an image which is comprehensive, yet not lacking for nuance--his treatment of such subtle and delicate matters as many teachers' conflicted attitude and muddled thinking regarding their status within society again and again ringing true (and in a way that shows Sinclair to be sympathetic and respectful, but also not in the least blinkered about human weakness by simple-minded idealism here).
Quite naturally The Goslings rounds out what Sinclair had to say in The Goose-Step. Of course, just as is the case with Sinclair's other Dead Hand books a hundred years have passed since he published The Goslings. (Indeed, 2024 is the hundred-year anniversary of the book's initial publication.) Still, contrary to the hopes Sinclair expressed at the time, society simply did not change in the way he thought it would--such change, much more than the narrower reforms he explicitly recommended (effective labor organization for teachers enabling them to fight for their rights, and the rights of their students, etc.), the real solution to the problem he described, with the reforms merely steps toward that which Sinclair himself wrote would be far more feasible if the responsible persons thought in terms of that larger social picture. (Certainly it seemed to Sinclair that teachers' coming around to thinking of themselves as working people, and being in solidarity with other working people, was essential to that unionization he described doing much good.) And American society in its essentials remaining what it was in Sinclair's day, so do its schools remain. Thus do the battles over education Sinclair described--the demand for honest administration of government monies and what people all too often get instead, the clashes between the champions of the public and of the private sector, the treatment of schools as battlegrounds by culture warriors, the struggle of teachers for recognition of their rights as citizens and claims as professional experts and those denying them, among much, much else--remain the battles filling up the headlines in our own day. In fact, what I have said of Sinclair's other books, and particularly the best of them, seems worth saying again here--that reading Sinclair's now century-old book we are likely to learn far more about the problems of our own time than they are likely to reading a good many more recent works (the more in as so few of them are likely to be written from a viewpoint at all like Sinclair's own, never mind presenting it so forthrightly). The result is that I would deem Upton Sinclair's The Goslings essential reading for anyone seriously interested in the problems of the American education system past or present, just like his earlier The Goose-Step, with it in fact seeming to me well worth reading the two books together as two volumes of a single study.
Wednesday, July 31, 2024
Deadpool & Wolverine's Opening Weekend Gross, and What it Means for Marvel--and Hollywood
As pretty much everyone who follows these things at all expected, not just the entertainment press but the mainstream press is singing the success of Deadpool & Wolverine in the wake of the film's opening weekend.
In fairness, where this one movie is concerned Hollywood's courtiers, do have something to sing about. We first heard of the likelihood of a $200 million+ opening weekend over a month ago--and we have seen those heady expectations validated, the movie taking in $205 million in North America alone. Granted, the number looks a little less sensational when, in spite of the efforts of certain "experts" in economics, we remember that there is such a thing as inflation, and that when we adjust for it the number is not so very much better than the opening grosses of the preceding Deadpool movies (the original Deadpool's $132.4 million opening on Valentine's Day weekend in 2016 the equivalent of $175 million in June 2024 dollars, Deadpool 2's $125.7 million opener in May 2018 the equal of $157 million last month), but post-pandemic it is a considerable achievement for a sequel to match, never mind exceed, its predecessors, in such terms, especially when they were so spectacular.* Moreover, even if the movie does turn out to be fairly front-loaded, this launch is so large as to all but guarantee a really robust final gross. (If the multiplier for the opening ends up being a mere 2.5, as with so many big openers, the movie will still gross a half billion, while even a "super front-loaded" 50 percent would still give the movie a very respectable $400 million stateside.) The international markets, which have already topped the domestic for a worldwide take of $438 million (so that the movie will before Tuesday doubtless breach the mark where in January I still thought it would finish, $450 million), mean that just as with the prior two Deadpool movies the global take should be rather more than twice the North American take, such that I would be very surprised if the movie finished under $900 million, and even its failing to exceed the billion-dollar mark by a healthy margin.
And quite predictably the press is making the most of it, and not at all innocently. I previously remarked how Hollywood was salivating for Inside Out 2's success as a validation of the associated model of filmmaking, and indeed an excuse to greenlight more big splashy sequels to animated hits of the past--and we very quickly heard of Shrek 5 coming our way (with, I am sure, much, much more to come, if it already hasn't). So did it also go with discussion of the prospects of Deadpool & Wolverine. The expected reception of the film (commercially, at least, living up to the very high expectations thus far) has doubtless contributed to the timing of the announcement of a slew of decisions showing us how much more Marvel Cinematic Universe is headed our way--with the Russo Brothers helming more Avengers, including a film to precede the two-part Secret Wars event (really pushing it, aren't they?), Avengers: Doomsday, as Robert Downey Jr. (wait, didn't he play a Marvel character before?) takes up the role of Victor Von Doom, with the character, like the Fantastic Four whose nemesis he is, likewise to appear in the movies (hence, Doomsday).
Altogether, with the summer's two big Disney sequels raking in the cash Hollywood would, I am sure, dearly love to think that 2023 was just a bad dream, and they can go back to business as usual. Alas, the long downward trend that halved per capita ticket sales in North America between the Great Recession's hitting home in the century's first decade and 2022 has not gone into reverse--while for all the talk of the MCU's rescue Deadpool & Wolverine may not be the vote of confidence in that cinematic universe that Hollywood wants to believe it is. After all, like so many of the hits of idiosyncratic 2023, the R-rated, "edgy," "meta" Deadpool strikes me as less a mass audience movie of the kind that Marvel and its Hollywood rivals traffick in (product with an appeal more broad than deep, as with the standard MCU film) than one making its money from a narrower but very devoted following that one could call cult-like, the smaller portion of the audience that cares about really caring about it, and the astute impresario giving those people what they want without minding other opinions so much--as this film promised to do in such details as giving Wolverine his traditional costume. (Indeed, the cult nature of the franchise, and the obvious accent on pleasing them--in contrast with what we so often see with big blockbusters--seems to me one reason why there is such a gap between the audience that rushed to give it its 97 percent score, and the slighter enthusiasm of the critics.) That the cult is relatively large obscures, but does not change, the fact. Also obscuring it is this being a summer and a year of weak competition for action fans generally, and superhero fans particularly (who have not had a really big superhero movie since Aquaman 2, and not had a really promising-looking first-rater since Guardians of the Galaxy 3 way back in May 2023), leaving Deadpool fans that much hungrier; some critical reservations apart, the intensity of the media's cheer-leading, which both likely helped Deadpool achieve its extraordinary gross; and, helping bring in people who might not be all that interested ordinarily in Deadpool the inclusion of Wolverine (who has an overlapping but probably broader fan base, and whose inclusion has been a gimmick not easily repeated). However, if that reading of the film's reception is correct then Deadpool's success would suggest continuity with the trend we saw through 2023 rather than rupture--the success of movies carefully aimed at a part of the audience which really wants to see them, and which give them what they really want, rather than trying to interest "everybody"--all as anyone treating this as grounds for great confidence that there will be a solid turnout for more conventional MCU fare like Captain America 4 or The Thunderbolts next year, especially in the more crowded seasons into which they seem likely to launch, is probably making a big mistake.
In fairness, where this one movie is concerned Hollywood's courtiers, do have something to sing about. We first heard of the likelihood of a $200 million+ opening weekend over a month ago--and we have seen those heady expectations validated, the movie taking in $205 million in North America alone. Granted, the number looks a little less sensational when, in spite of the efforts of certain "experts" in economics, we remember that there is such a thing as inflation, and that when we adjust for it the number is not so very much better than the opening grosses of the preceding Deadpool movies (the original Deadpool's $132.4 million opening on Valentine's Day weekend in 2016 the equivalent of $175 million in June 2024 dollars, Deadpool 2's $125.7 million opener in May 2018 the equal of $157 million last month), but post-pandemic it is a considerable achievement for a sequel to match, never mind exceed, its predecessors, in such terms, especially when they were so spectacular.* Moreover, even if the movie does turn out to be fairly front-loaded, this launch is so large as to all but guarantee a really robust final gross. (If the multiplier for the opening ends up being a mere 2.5, as with so many big openers, the movie will still gross a half billion, while even a "super front-loaded" 50 percent would still give the movie a very respectable $400 million stateside.) The international markets, which have already topped the domestic for a worldwide take of $438 million (so that the movie will before Tuesday doubtless breach the mark where in January I still thought it would finish, $450 million), mean that just as with the prior two Deadpool movies the global take should be rather more than twice the North American take, such that I would be very surprised if the movie finished under $900 million, and even its failing to exceed the billion-dollar mark by a healthy margin.
And quite predictably the press is making the most of it, and not at all innocently. I previously remarked how Hollywood was salivating for Inside Out 2's success as a validation of the associated model of filmmaking, and indeed an excuse to greenlight more big splashy sequels to animated hits of the past--and we very quickly heard of Shrek 5 coming our way (with, I am sure, much, much more to come, if it already hasn't). So did it also go with discussion of the prospects of Deadpool & Wolverine. The expected reception of the film (commercially, at least, living up to the very high expectations thus far) has doubtless contributed to the timing of the announcement of a slew of decisions showing us how much more Marvel Cinematic Universe is headed our way--with the Russo Brothers helming more Avengers, including a film to precede the two-part Secret Wars event (really pushing it, aren't they?), Avengers: Doomsday, as Robert Downey Jr. (wait, didn't he play a Marvel character before?) takes up the role of Victor Von Doom, with the character, like the Fantastic Four whose nemesis he is, likewise to appear in the movies (hence, Doomsday).
Altogether, with the summer's two big Disney sequels raking in the cash Hollywood would, I am sure, dearly love to think that 2023 was just a bad dream, and they can go back to business as usual. Alas, the long downward trend that halved per capita ticket sales in North America between the Great Recession's hitting home in the century's first decade and 2022 has not gone into reverse--while for all the talk of the MCU's rescue Deadpool & Wolverine may not be the vote of confidence in that cinematic universe that Hollywood wants to believe it is. After all, like so many of the hits of idiosyncratic 2023, the R-rated, "edgy," "meta" Deadpool strikes me as less a mass audience movie of the kind that Marvel and its Hollywood rivals traffick in (product with an appeal more broad than deep, as with the standard MCU film) than one making its money from a narrower but very devoted following that one could call cult-like, the smaller portion of the audience that cares about really caring about it, and the astute impresario giving those people what they want without minding other opinions so much--as this film promised to do in such details as giving Wolverine his traditional costume. (Indeed, the cult nature of the franchise, and the obvious accent on pleasing them--in contrast with what we so often see with big blockbusters--seems to me one reason why there is such a gap between the audience that rushed to give it its 97 percent score, and the slighter enthusiasm of the critics.) That the cult is relatively large obscures, but does not change, the fact. Also obscuring it is this being a summer and a year of weak competition for action fans generally, and superhero fans particularly (who have not had a really big superhero movie since Aquaman 2, and not had a really promising-looking first-rater since Guardians of the Galaxy 3 way back in May 2023), leaving Deadpool fans that much hungrier; some critical reservations apart, the intensity of the media's cheer-leading, which both likely helped Deadpool achieve its extraordinary gross; and, helping bring in people who might not be all that interested ordinarily in Deadpool the inclusion of Wolverine (who has an overlapping but probably broader fan base, and whose inclusion has been a gimmick not easily repeated). However, if that reading of the film's reception is correct then Deadpool's success would suggest continuity with the trend we saw through 2023 rather than rupture--the success of movies carefully aimed at a part of the audience which really wants to see them, and which give them what they really want, rather than trying to interest "everybody"--all as anyone treating this as grounds for great confidence that there will be a solid turnout for more conventional MCU fare like Captain America 4 or The Thunderbolts next year, especially in the more crowded seasons into which they seem likely to launch, is probably making a big mistake.
The Narrative of Twisters' Success
In hailing Twisters a success the press is telling a story that goes as follows:
The narrative was just as false, simple-minded, and irresponsible then as it is now, even if it was not necessarily false and simple-minded in all the same exact ways. After all, Top Gun 2 was not a mere "heartland" hit but a national and global one for which that "liberal coastal elite" supposedly averse to flag-waving, militaristic display and the rest cheerled with a rarely seen unanimity and breathlessness. (Just check out the Rotten Tomatoes score--and for that matter, how it compared with how critics evaluated the original Top Gun back in 1986, the score almost 40 points higher even when it was basically the same movie.) Thus did the movie break the $700 million barrier domestically, and stop just short of $1.5 billion globally.
By contrast with that spectacular box office performance, Twisters is as yet . . . not a great success. Nor showing any sign of becoming one. I do not see it taking in even a quarter of what Top Gun 2 did globally, or a third of what it made domestically, even before we bring the considerable price inflation of the last two years into the matter. Indeed, the math indicates the possibility of the movie's losing money.
However, there are those unfortunate constancies in the narrative.
That the great, the only, consequential political divide in America is a regional/cultural divide between "Blue" and "Red."
That Hollywood is on the "Blue" and "left" side of the divide.
That Hollywood puts pushing a "left" ideology ahead of making money.
Etcetera, etcetera.
Not only does this narrative have no relation whatsoever to reality (for starters, MEDIA IS A BUSINESS, and the movie studios giant corporations owned by funds like BlackRock, a fact which has made Hollywood the neoliberal economy in miniature, with a politics to match), but the reason why so many are taking, or pretending to take, this cheap promotional maneuver seriously is that it makes for an exceedingly self-serving narrative for those who stoke the fires of culture war, and mean to go on stoking it any which way they can--which includes persons and interests on both sides of the line, who share more in common with each other than they do with the general public whatever their state, Red, Blue, Purple or anything else.
Exemplary of this is how the supposed "liberals" of the New York Times, not passing up this chance to do their bit for climate inactivism, have hailed this weather disaster-themed movie's not mentioning climate change as a great and significant gesture toward Red staters, as they cynically ignore the fact that in real life real climate denialism is a minority even among Republicans--while the hacks at the Times yet again promote the destructive lie that climate change is a matter of "cultural differences" rather than science, technology, economics and the politics of hard interest that has done so much to confuse the issue and obstruct action on the problem.
Those liberal coastal elitists out in Lalaland usually ignore the heartland, but this time somehow they ended up making a movie that really speaks to them, and lo and behold the movie was a hit and the liberal coastal elitists are just totally flummoxed by how well it did! Finally they are going to learn that they have been ignoring their natural audience all along--and may start treating it right.We have heard it all before--many, many, many times, with the very regularity with which we hear the narrative debunking the narrative itself, because as with so many such narratives it is actually one of the standard promotional packages for Hollywood's products (which is what a lot of the political nonsense we see about Hollywood is really about). To cite one of the more significant recent occasions on which this was the case, consider the reception enjoyed by Top Gun 2 (Top Gun: Maverick).
The narrative was just as false, simple-minded, and irresponsible then as it is now, even if it was not necessarily false and simple-minded in all the same exact ways. After all, Top Gun 2 was not a mere "heartland" hit but a national and global one for which that "liberal coastal elite" supposedly averse to flag-waving, militaristic display and the rest cheerled with a rarely seen unanimity and breathlessness. (Just check out the Rotten Tomatoes score--and for that matter, how it compared with how critics evaluated the original Top Gun back in 1986, the score almost 40 points higher even when it was basically the same movie.) Thus did the movie break the $700 million barrier domestically, and stop just short of $1.5 billion globally.
By contrast with that spectacular box office performance, Twisters is as yet . . . not a great success. Nor showing any sign of becoming one. I do not see it taking in even a quarter of what Top Gun 2 did globally, or a third of what it made domestically, even before we bring the considerable price inflation of the last two years into the matter. Indeed, the math indicates the possibility of the movie's losing money.
However, there are those unfortunate constancies in the narrative.
That the great, the only, consequential political divide in America is a regional/cultural divide between "Blue" and "Red."
That Hollywood is on the "Blue" and "left" side of the divide.
That Hollywood puts pushing a "left" ideology ahead of making money.
Etcetera, etcetera.
Not only does this narrative have no relation whatsoever to reality (for starters, MEDIA IS A BUSINESS, and the movie studios giant corporations owned by funds like BlackRock, a fact which has made Hollywood the neoliberal economy in miniature, with a politics to match), but the reason why so many are taking, or pretending to take, this cheap promotional maneuver seriously is that it makes for an exceedingly self-serving narrative for those who stoke the fires of culture war, and mean to go on stoking it any which way they can--which includes persons and interests on both sides of the line, who share more in common with each other than they do with the general public whatever their state, Red, Blue, Purple or anything else.
Exemplary of this is how the supposed "liberals" of the New York Times, not passing up this chance to do their bit for climate inactivism, have hailed this weather disaster-themed movie's not mentioning climate change as a great and significant gesture toward Red staters, as they cynically ignore the fact that in real life real climate denialism is a minority even among Republicans--while the hacks at the Times yet again promote the destructive lie that climate change is a matter of "cultural differences" rather than science, technology, economics and the politics of hard interest that has done so much to confuse the issue and obstruct action on the problem.
Twister 2 vs. Independence Day 2
As a decades-later follow-up to a "disaster movie" blockbuster from the summer of 1996, Twisters 2 (Twisters) invites comparison to Independence Day 2 (Independence Day: Resurgence).
Of course, the Independence Day sequel was a big flop back in the summer of 2016. Where the first movie made $300 million domestically and $700 million globally in 1996, the sequel made just $100 million domestically and under $400 million globally two decades later--which worked out to a gross of under a quarter of the original's domestic take, and about a third of its global take, in real terms. Extremely underwhelming in relation to its sensationally received predecessor (a Top Gun 2-Barbie-caliber summer hit within the context of 1996, whether one is thinking in terms of inflation-adjusted numbers or pop cultural impact), it was also underwhelming by run-of-the-mill summer blockbuster standards, given that one generally aims for a lot more than $390 million when they put up a $165 million budget for a movie, which is why the Independence Day 3 for which the movie was a clear set-up has yet to happen.
Right now Twisters seems likely to do a bit better domestically--but a lot worse internationally. The result is that I see the film finishing up with $300 to $350 million globally--just 60 to 70 percent of the half billion the Independence Day sequel grossed in today's terms, on what is probably a similar budget (Twisters' $200 million bill for the production almost as much as the $220 million Independence Day 2 cost in 2024 terms).
No one hesitated to call Independence Day 2 a flop--but the press is treating the much lower-performing Twisters as a hit. There is a real gap in attitude here--partly a matter of the American entertainment press paying inflation little mind as a general rule, and naturally paying more attention to the domestic than the foreign gross, while being eager for any good news about Hollywood's efforts, all while grading on a curve reflecting the tougher post-pandemic cinematic market getting Twisters more favorable treatment. However, there are other factors involved--alas, political factors. While there is no disputing that Independence Day 2 was a massive disappointment commercially (and probably did not generate very much audience affection), the press was eager to beat up on it for the same reason it beat up on the same year's Matt Damon movie The Great Wall--shabby anti-Chinese sentiment. (Thus did Vanity Fair spare a whole article for the ways in which the movie "pandered" to the Chinese audience.)
By contrast, the media is now trying very hard to push the narrative that Twisters is a matter of Hollywood finding success by appealing to the conservative sensibilities they equate with "real" Americans, as in Brooks Barnes' latest at the Times. It isn't a very interesting narrative--quite frankly a repeat of a very tired line, perniciously mixing the stoking of culture war with the promotion of pop cultural crapola. But then Hollywood's courtiers in the press are probably too stupid to realize how little respect they show for the intelligence of their audience.
Of course, the Independence Day sequel was a big flop back in the summer of 2016. Where the first movie made $300 million domestically and $700 million globally in 1996, the sequel made just $100 million domestically and under $400 million globally two decades later--which worked out to a gross of under a quarter of the original's domestic take, and about a third of its global take, in real terms. Extremely underwhelming in relation to its sensationally received predecessor (a Top Gun 2-Barbie-caliber summer hit within the context of 1996, whether one is thinking in terms of inflation-adjusted numbers or pop cultural impact), it was also underwhelming by run-of-the-mill summer blockbuster standards, given that one generally aims for a lot more than $390 million when they put up a $165 million budget for a movie, which is why the Independence Day 3 for which the movie was a clear set-up has yet to happen.
Right now Twisters seems likely to do a bit better domestically--but a lot worse internationally. The result is that I see the film finishing up with $300 to $350 million globally--just 60 to 70 percent of the half billion the Independence Day sequel grossed in today's terms, on what is probably a similar budget (Twisters' $200 million bill for the production almost as much as the $220 million Independence Day 2 cost in 2024 terms).
No one hesitated to call Independence Day 2 a flop--but the press is treating the much lower-performing Twisters as a hit. There is a real gap in attitude here--partly a matter of the American entertainment press paying inflation little mind as a general rule, and naturally paying more attention to the domestic than the foreign gross, while being eager for any good news about Hollywood's efforts, all while grading on a curve reflecting the tougher post-pandemic cinematic market getting Twisters more favorable treatment. However, there are other factors involved--alas, political factors. While there is no disputing that Independence Day 2 was a massive disappointment commercially (and probably did not generate very much audience affection), the press was eager to beat up on it for the same reason it beat up on the same year's Matt Damon movie The Great Wall--shabby anti-Chinese sentiment. (Thus did Vanity Fair spare a whole article for the ways in which the movie "pandered" to the Chinese audience.)
By contrast, the media is now trying very hard to push the narrative that Twisters is a matter of Hollywood finding success by appealing to the conservative sensibilities they equate with "real" Americans, as in Brooks Barnes' latest at the Times. It isn't a very interesting narrative--quite frankly a repeat of a very tired line, perniciously mixing the stoking of culture war with the promotion of pop cultural crapola. But then Hollywood's courtiers in the press are probably too stupid to realize how little respect they show for the intelligence of their audience.
Variety's "Insiders" on Mad Max: Furiosa's Break-Even Point: Some Notes
In speculating about what it would take for some of this summer's movies to reach the break-even point I was, of course, offering rough estimates based on extrapolation from a formula I developed on the basis of past observation from the limited information about films' commercial performances available to the public.
Plugging the reported production budget for the movie ($168 million) into the formula I estimated $380 million as the break-even point for Mad Max: Fury Road, which looked a long way from anything the movie was likely to make.
Since then the press has more or less been confirmed all this. According to Variety unnamed "insiders" have told them the break-even was $350-$375 million.
The same report has the studio claiming a lower break-even point than that, but, even if we assume that the studio is telling the truth (not a thing one should take for granted these days, any more than they should take it for granted in any other business), the article does not report any numbers.
This matters a lot since the break-even point would have to be much, much lower than $350 million to make much of a difference to the bottom line. After all, the movie's actual global gross to date is a mere $173 million--which is a little less than half the $350 million sum.
The result is that the studio's taking a massive loss on this prequel a near-certainty. Indeed, those who referred to the $350-$375 million range as where the film had to get to in order to cover its cost anticipate a $75-$95 million loss on the movie when all is said and done.
One may wonder what such a loss means in 2024. As it happened even the higher, $95 million, figure would not have sufficed to get the movie onto Deadline's list of the biggest money-losers last year. (The list only went down to #5, which ranking went to Disney's remake of Haunted Mansion, which lost the studio $131 million.) However, 2023 was exceptionally packed with big-budget movies that flopped very hard. This year we have had a very weak and disappointment-filled box office, but because of a confluence of developments including delays in the release dates of a good many major films (two of the three Marvel movies scheduled for this year getting bumped, etc.) also fewer really costly films. The result is that if Fury Road, which likely still holds the dubious honor of being the biggest money-loser of the year so far, seems to me to still have a fair chance of making the list next year--depending on how things go for such upcoming projects as the very costly and very risky Gladiator 2.
As all this implies, the press has been fairly frank about Furiosa being a loser, compared with the way they pretended the preceding Max Max film was a huge hit--without which pretense I suspect Furiosa would have been a lot less likely to have happened. After all, Fury Road probably lost money--but not so much money that the studio's executives did not think that if they did just a little better the next time, and maybe trimmed the budget a bit ($150 million in 2012-2015, when the preceding movie was made and released, equals about $200 million in 2022-2024, versus the $168 million supposed to have been spent on Furiosa, so yeah, officially it cost around 15 percent less), they could at the least hope to eke out a profit this time, and if they got even a little lucky maybe even have the basis for a franchise of the kind that the Marvel envy-afflicted folks at Warner Bros. so desperately want (which would be all the sweeter as those who greenlit the project would find "redemption" for the loss they made with Fury Road).*
Rather a longshot to play, the "Fury Road is a hit" narrative encouraged it--and then, this past decade being what it was, the movie came out in a less hospitable marketplace, in which the North American public's moviegoing had fallen from 3-4 trips a year on average to just over two, with comparatively marginal franchises getting squeezed out in the process (Spider-Man can still draw an audience, but not Barry Allen in a solo outing, no matter how gimmick and cameo-filled). Meanwhile the "taste" for the post-apocalyptic and dystopian is clearly not what it still appeared to be back in 2015 (I suppose the more in as so many of us are aware they are living it, and not loving it). And so in the end these plans were not to be--with the same going for the prospect of yet another Mad Max movie being rushed into production. For a few weeks, anyway.
Plugging the reported production budget for the movie ($168 million) into the formula I estimated $380 million as the break-even point for Mad Max: Fury Road, which looked a long way from anything the movie was likely to make.
Since then the press has more or less been confirmed all this. According to Variety unnamed "insiders" have told them the break-even was $350-$375 million.
The same report has the studio claiming a lower break-even point than that, but, even if we assume that the studio is telling the truth (not a thing one should take for granted these days, any more than they should take it for granted in any other business), the article does not report any numbers.
This matters a lot since the break-even point would have to be much, much lower than $350 million to make much of a difference to the bottom line. After all, the movie's actual global gross to date is a mere $173 million--which is a little less than half the $350 million sum.
The result is that the studio's taking a massive loss on this prequel a near-certainty. Indeed, those who referred to the $350-$375 million range as where the film had to get to in order to cover its cost anticipate a $75-$95 million loss on the movie when all is said and done.
One may wonder what such a loss means in 2024. As it happened even the higher, $95 million, figure would not have sufficed to get the movie onto Deadline's list of the biggest money-losers last year. (The list only went down to #5, which ranking went to Disney's remake of Haunted Mansion, which lost the studio $131 million.) However, 2023 was exceptionally packed with big-budget movies that flopped very hard. This year we have had a very weak and disappointment-filled box office, but because of a confluence of developments including delays in the release dates of a good many major films (two of the three Marvel movies scheduled for this year getting bumped, etc.) also fewer really costly films. The result is that if Fury Road, which likely still holds the dubious honor of being the biggest money-loser of the year so far, seems to me to still have a fair chance of making the list next year--depending on how things go for such upcoming projects as the very costly and very risky Gladiator 2.
Rather a longshot to play, the "Fury Road is a hit" narrative encouraged it--and then, this past decade being what it was, the movie came out in a less hospitable marketplace, in which the North American public's moviegoing had fallen from 3-4 trips a year on average to just over two, with comparatively marginal franchises getting squeezed out in the process (Spider-Man can still draw an audience, but not Barry Allen in a solo outing, no matter how gimmick and cameo-filled). Meanwhile the "taste" for the post-apocalyptic and dystopian is clearly not what it still appeared to be back in 2015 (I suppose the more in as so many of us are aware they are living it, and not loving it). And so in the end these plans were not to be--with the same going for the prospect of yet another Mad Max movie being rushed into production. For a few weeks, anyway.
Twisters' Second Weekend
The press is singing the "success" of Twisters at the box office very loudly.
But how does this compare to the reality?
In its second weekend the movie Twisters raised its total to $155 million with a $35 million Friday-to-Sunday take--a figure that works out to a 57 percent drop from the gross of the prior weekend. That is better than the 68-70 percent drops we saw for Thor 4 and Ant-Man 3, but worse than, for example, the 47 percent drop we saw for Guardians of the Galaxy 3--not disastrous, but far from great, the more in as the opening weekend was not a $100 million+ debut but took in a mere $80 million. At this rate I expect the movie to break the $200 million barrier domestically--but to fall well short of the $242 million the original Twister made in 1996, when the dollar was worth about twice what it is today, all as the movie cost about twice as much as that predecessor to make. (At the current rate of week-to-week decline think $210-$220 million when its run sputters out.)
Moreover, the film is doing a lot less well than that in the international markets. Where the 1996 movie actually made more money internationally than in North America, and that without China being the market that it still is, making for a 49/51 domestic/international split, the same split is 70/30 for the new movie. That is to say, as the movie is on its way to less than half the original's business in real terms in Hollywood's home market, that is still more than twice as much as it doing internationally. Adding it all together I see a finale in the vicinity of $300-$350 million globally as most probable for the movie--versus the $496 million Twister made in current dollars, and the billion dollars to which that is equal today.
The result is that the movie is neither living up to the original's precedent, nor a savior-of-summer caliber hit in the way that Inside Out 2 has been, and that it looks like Deadpool & Wolverine is for the time being. Indeed, given a production budget that has been estimated as being as much as $200 million at this rate the movie could lose money (maybe not Furiosa money, but still, a loss such as no studio needs ever, and especially right now).
So why does the press act as if it is doing well?
Part of the story, I think, is that the folks of the entertainment press are just not very good number-crunchers--by which I mean they never made it up to pre-algebra in the course of their mathematical educations, while they have never heard of this thing called "inflation." Part of it is that, in spite of the crowing about how great the box office is, they are still grading on the post-pandemic curve. And part of it is that they are selling a line, namely that the movie is a success, just as they told everyone Mad Max: Fury Road was a success when it was actually losing money, to some extent because they are courtiers of the industry personnel who make films, to some extent because they are groupthinkers who reflexively tell the same story as "everyone else," to some extent because there may be a little more than that going on in an age in which the entertainment news page is almost as packed with the inanities of what passes for news as the front pages of the mainstream press.
But how does this compare to the reality?
In its second weekend the movie Twisters raised its total to $155 million with a $35 million Friday-to-Sunday take--a figure that works out to a 57 percent drop from the gross of the prior weekend. That is better than the 68-70 percent drops we saw for Thor 4 and Ant-Man 3, but worse than, for example, the 47 percent drop we saw for Guardians of the Galaxy 3--not disastrous, but far from great, the more in as the opening weekend was not a $100 million+ debut but took in a mere $80 million. At this rate I expect the movie to break the $200 million barrier domestically--but to fall well short of the $242 million the original Twister made in 1996, when the dollar was worth about twice what it is today, all as the movie cost about twice as much as that predecessor to make. (At the current rate of week-to-week decline think $210-$220 million when its run sputters out.)
Moreover, the film is doing a lot less well than that in the international markets. Where the 1996 movie actually made more money internationally than in North America, and that without China being the market that it still is, making for a 49/51 domestic/international split, the same split is 70/30 for the new movie. That is to say, as the movie is on its way to less than half the original's business in real terms in Hollywood's home market, that is still more than twice as much as it doing internationally. Adding it all together I see a finale in the vicinity of $300-$350 million globally as most probable for the movie--versus the $496 million Twister made in current dollars, and the billion dollars to which that is equal today.
The result is that the movie is neither living up to the original's precedent, nor a savior-of-summer caliber hit in the way that Inside Out 2 has been, and that it looks like Deadpool & Wolverine is for the time being. Indeed, given a production budget that has been estimated as being as much as $200 million at this rate the movie could lose money (maybe not Furiosa money, but still, a loss such as no studio needs ever, and especially right now).
So why does the press act as if it is doing well?
Part of the story, I think, is that the folks of the entertainment press are just not very good number-crunchers--by which I mean they never made it up to pre-algebra in the course of their mathematical educations, while they have never heard of this thing called "inflation." Part of it is that, in spite of the crowing about how great the box office is, they are still grading on the post-pandemic curve. And part of it is that they are selling a line, namely that the movie is a success, just as they told everyone Mad Max: Fury Road was a success when it was actually losing money, to some extent because they are courtiers of the industry personnel who make films, to some extent because they are groupthinkers who reflexively tell the same story as "everyone else," to some extent because there may be a little more than that going on in an age in which the entertainment news page is almost as packed with the inanities of what passes for news as the front pages of the mainstream press.
Despicable Me 4: The Box Office Performance the Entertainment Press Doesn't Want to Talk About
These days the entertainment press is absolutely ecstatic about the box office performance of Inside Out 2--a genuine, massive, commercial success of exactly the kind they were desperately looking for, a brand-name exploiting big-budget sequel to a past animated hit that to them seems to prove, yes, Hollywood can go on making money by doing business as usual. (Indeed, to the extent that some reviewers have found the film mediocre this is probably a comfort to those taking this view--because it is a lot easier to make "mediocre" than "brilliant," and it is mediocre that they want and need to be told is still salable.)
That press is rather less ecstatic about the performance of another brand-name big-budget animated sequel, Despicable Me 4. Deadline may sound as if it is bullish on the movie when it advertises Despicable Me as having become the "12th biggest" franchise ever worldwide. Still, the latest film's having (as the same headline reports) as of its fourth weekend taken in $632 million worldwide is not very impressive next to the $1.5 billion Pixar's movie has scored--and for that matter, the grosses of the previous Despicable Me films. The original film took in $252 million domestically and about twice that globally, but this comes to $362 million stateside when we account for inflation--versus the $290 million the latest has made while running out of steam, all as the international earnings prove no more ebullient, such that Gru's latest adventure might not match the nearly $800 million ($782 million) the first grossed in 2010 comes to in June 2024 dollars. And of course, the real benchmark in most minds is not the first film in the series but the sequels that followed--Despicable Me 2 and Despicable Me 3--and the tie-in Minion movies, Minions and the prequel Minions: The Rise of Gru. In today's terms the two Despicable Me movies and Minions blew way past the billion-dollar mark ($1.3 billion in the case of the two Despicable Me movies, the $1.5 billion mark in the case of Minions!), while the second Minions movie just missed it.
The First Five Despicable Me Franchise Films, Worldwide and Domestic Grosses (Current and June 2024 U.S. Dollars, CPI-Adjusted; Adjusted Figures in Parentheses)
Despicable Me (2010)--Worldwide--$543 Million ($782 Million); Domestic--$252 Million ($362 Million)
Despicable Me 2 (2013)--Worldwide--$971 Million ($1.305 Billion); Domestic--$368 Million ($495 Million)
Minions (2015)--Worldwide--$1.159 Billion ($1.525 Billion); Domestic--$336 Million ($442 Million)
Despicable Me 3 (2017)--Worldwide--$1.035 Billion ($1.326 Billion); Domestic--$265 Million ($339 Million)
Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022)--Worldwide--$940 Million ($998 Million); Domestic--$370 Million ($393 Million)
Should Despicable Me 4 manage to struggle up to the $780 million mark the original attained it would still confirm a trend of declining grosses for the franchise when examined alongside these other films--domestically, internationally and globally. In that Hollywood and its courtiers in the entertainment press have a reminder of the reality of the franchise fatigue that conflicts with their narrative of business being on the up and up and not having to change a thing about what they are doing--which is exactly what they are studiously ignoring as they shout louder and louder about the far more comforting performance of Inside Out 2.
That press is rather less ecstatic about the performance of another brand-name big-budget animated sequel, Despicable Me 4. Deadline may sound as if it is bullish on the movie when it advertises Despicable Me as having become the "12th biggest" franchise ever worldwide. Still, the latest film's having (as the same headline reports) as of its fourth weekend taken in $632 million worldwide is not very impressive next to the $1.5 billion Pixar's movie has scored--and for that matter, the grosses of the previous Despicable Me films. The original film took in $252 million domestically and about twice that globally, but this comes to $362 million stateside when we account for inflation--versus the $290 million the latest has made while running out of steam, all as the international earnings prove no more ebullient, such that Gru's latest adventure might not match the nearly $800 million ($782 million) the first grossed in 2010 comes to in June 2024 dollars. And of course, the real benchmark in most minds is not the first film in the series but the sequels that followed--Despicable Me 2 and Despicable Me 3--and the tie-in Minion movies, Minions and the prequel Minions: The Rise of Gru. In today's terms the two Despicable Me movies and Minions blew way past the billion-dollar mark ($1.3 billion in the case of the two Despicable Me movies, the $1.5 billion mark in the case of Minions!), while the second Minions movie just missed it.
The First Five Despicable Me Franchise Films, Worldwide and Domestic Grosses (Current and June 2024 U.S. Dollars, CPI-Adjusted; Adjusted Figures in Parentheses)
Despicable Me (2010)--Worldwide--$543 Million ($782 Million); Domestic--$252 Million ($362 Million)
Despicable Me 2 (2013)--Worldwide--$971 Million ($1.305 Billion); Domestic--$368 Million ($495 Million)
Minions (2015)--Worldwide--$1.159 Billion ($1.525 Billion); Domestic--$336 Million ($442 Million)
Despicable Me 3 (2017)--Worldwide--$1.035 Billion ($1.326 Billion); Domestic--$265 Million ($339 Million)
Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022)--Worldwide--$940 Million ($998 Million); Domestic--$370 Million ($393 Million)
Should Despicable Me 4 manage to struggle up to the $780 million mark the original attained it would still confirm a trend of declining grosses for the franchise when examined alongside these other films--domestically, internationally and globally. In that Hollywood and its courtiers in the entertainment press have a reminder of the reality of the franchise fatigue that conflicts with their narrative of business being on the up and up and not having to change a thing about what they are doing--which is exactly what they are studiously ignoring as they shout louder and louder about the far more comforting performance of Inside Out 2.
The Importance of Opening Weekend
Does Hollywood pay too much attention to opening weekends?
That is the implication of the title of an article that ran in Variety last month--or at least seems to be at a glance. What the author of that article ends up saying is more complicated, and indeed they end up mostly telling the reader just why opening weekend gets so much attention.
I certainly agree about their importance. Granted, opening weekends account for only a part of a film's gross, which in turn accounts for only part of its revenue. Still, it is a large part which tends to be strongly indicative of its larger commercial fortunes. Where those major studio releases which open wide are concerned it is a rare movie that exceeds, matches or even avoids a significant drop in Friday-to-Sunday earnings from its first weekend in theatrical release to its second. It is a rare movie that makes so much as four times its opening during its longer run, with many very successful films making much less (30-40 percent of the final take pretty typical front-loading for highly anticipated blockbusters, so that they often make less than three times that much). It is a rare movie that, after flopping in theaters, goes on to become a hit on video--which is why we hear so much about those movies that do (typically, in the fact giving producers' ideas for sequels they might otherwise not have bothered with).
There are surprises, of course. I did say "rare," after all. And it is possible that surprises are becoming more common amid the post-Great Recession, post-streaming, post-pandemic tumult of the box office. (I have had the impression that moviegoers are a bit less likely than before to rush out on opening weekend.) But even so you really can tell a lot from an opening weekend, especially the big-budgeted, high profile, releases that are the subject of most of the analysis.
And what can be told, as soon as possible, matters more, not less, because the current blockbusters-all-year-round approach to filmmaking gives individual movies so little chance to leave an impression--and are typically part of larger franchise plans, with speedy action to get that sequel/prequel greenlit and underway at a premium.
I do not hesitate to say that there is a lot for anyone who respects film as an art form to dislike about the way the film business is conducted, including this. But so long as it is conducted that way opening weekends are a natural subject of interest for those who do think about that business, and it is simple-minded or disingenuous to pretend otherwise.
That is the implication of the title of an article that ran in Variety last month--or at least seems to be at a glance. What the author of that article ends up saying is more complicated, and indeed they end up mostly telling the reader just why opening weekend gets so much attention.
I certainly agree about their importance. Granted, opening weekends account for only a part of a film's gross, which in turn accounts for only part of its revenue. Still, it is a large part which tends to be strongly indicative of its larger commercial fortunes. Where those major studio releases which open wide are concerned it is a rare movie that exceeds, matches or even avoids a significant drop in Friday-to-Sunday earnings from its first weekend in theatrical release to its second. It is a rare movie that makes so much as four times its opening during its longer run, with many very successful films making much less (30-40 percent of the final take pretty typical front-loading for highly anticipated blockbusters, so that they often make less than three times that much). It is a rare movie that, after flopping in theaters, goes on to become a hit on video--which is why we hear so much about those movies that do (typically, in the fact giving producers' ideas for sequels they might otherwise not have bothered with).
There are surprises, of course. I did say "rare," after all. And it is possible that surprises are becoming more common amid the post-Great Recession, post-streaming, post-pandemic tumult of the box office. (I have had the impression that moviegoers are a bit less likely than before to rush out on opening weekend.) But even so you really can tell a lot from an opening weekend, especially the big-budgeted, high profile, releases that are the subject of most of the analysis.
And what can be told, as soon as possible, matters more, not less, because the current blockbusters-all-year-round approach to filmmaking gives individual movies so little chance to leave an impression--and are typically part of larger franchise plans, with speedy action to get that sequel/prequel greenlit and underway at a premium.
I do not hesitate to say that there is a lot for anyone who respects film as an art form to dislike about the way the film business is conducted, including this. But so long as it is conducted that way opening weekends are a natural subject of interest for those who do think about that business, and it is simple-minded or disingenuous to pretend otherwise.
Inside Out 2's Box Office Success: A Few More Thoughts
Inside Out 2's performance at the box office continues to be sensational. Just the past week saw the film surpass two more milestones--the movie breaking the $600 million barrier domestically, and the $1.5 billion barrier globally, which, even if we adjust for inflation, makes it the highest-grossing film Hollywood has had since Avatar 2 way back in December 2022 (which was also a far more expensive movie than this animated feature). Meanwhile in getting to its domestic take of $613.4 million the film has already shown itself to not only have opened significantly bigger than the original Inside Out (again, even after inflation), but to have had longer legs (the opening weekend multiplier to the full gross already at 3.98, versus the prior film's 3.94)--this sequel with a bigger opener strictly speaking less front-loaded than its predecessor.
Even fairly late into its run, even as my old expectations about the film (that it would probably just touch the original Inside Out's current-dollar gross, rather than exceed its real-terms gross by perhaps a third) came to seem to belong to another, more pessimistic, age, I did not think the film would approach, let alone surpass, the $1.5 billion mark.
I have also found myself wondering at just why this has been the case--because the more in as the first Inside Out came out almost a decade ago and was not the biggest of Pixar's hits, with what that implies about the eagerness of the audience for a follow-up, and because if the critics are on the whole favorable to the film, they have been less enraptured with the film than one might expect in a way that may count for something. (The view that the movie is a mediocrity testifying to a continued Pixar slump artistically if not commercially not at all hard to find, and this seems to me to matter rather more than the critical slights of the hugely successful Super Mario Bros. film last year.)
I suppose that the paucity of material exciting the family film audience these past few years has helped--Elemental's eventual box office success pretty marginal, Wish one of the biggest flops of the year, while there has not been much else since, with Despicable Me 4 rather less of a success than its predecessors (certainly in real terms, certainly globally). Their weakness has been Inside Out 2's strength--though of course, the "why" does not diminish the very strong possibility that, even if the Deadline review of the movie was not particularly flattering, this movie will win 2024's Deadline's Most Valuable Blockbusters Tournament.
Even fairly late into its run, even as my old expectations about the film (that it would probably just touch the original Inside Out's current-dollar gross, rather than exceed its real-terms gross by perhaps a third) came to seem to belong to another, more pessimistic, age, I did not think the film would approach, let alone surpass, the $1.5 billion mark.
I have also found myself wondering at just why this has been the case--because the more in as the first Inside Out came out almost a decade ago and was not the biggest of Pixar's hits, with what that implies about the eagerness of the audience for a follow-up, and because if the critics are on the whole favorable to the film, they have been less enraptured with the film than one might expect in a way that may count for something. (The view that the movie is a mediocrity testifying to a continued Pixar slump artistically if not commercially not at all hard to find, and this seems to me to matter rather more than the critical slights of the hugely successful Super Mario Bros. film last year.)
I suppose that the paucity of material exciting the family film audience these past few years has helped--Elemental's eventual box office success pretty marginal, Wish one of the biggest flops of the year, while there has not been much else since, with Despicable Me 4 rather less of a success than its predecessors (certainly in real terms, certainly globally). Their weakness has been Inside Out 2's strength--though of course, the "why" does not diminish the very strong possibility that, even if the Deadline review of the movie was not particularly flattering, this movie will win 2024's Deadline's Most Valuable Blockbusters Tournament.
Saturday, July 27, 2024
Deadpool & Wolverine Comes Out This Weekend
Back in June we first heard of tracking-based forecasts of a $200 million+ opening weekend for Deadpool & Wolverine. Subsequently Boxoffice Pro's first long-range forecast was consistent with this--and remained so from week to week, down to their final pre-release forecast Wednesday ($180-$200 million), affirming the expectation that this will be "the biggest R-rated opener of all time."
Will the film's opening live up to these colossal expectations?
This week the moviegoers will decide that--and decide, too, whether the movie, which may have a bit less critical enthusiasm behind it than one might have been expected, will, as the Boxoffice staff put it, prove to be "super front-loaded" so that after the record-breaking opener the movie fizzles out. Still, even as one who had been dubious about this one just six months ago after a year of watching almost every comparable film flop this one looks like just the excuse Hollywood has been waiting for to green-light another slew of superhero sequels--for better or worse.
Will the film's opening live up to these colossal expectations?
This week the moviegoers will decide that--and decide, too, whether the movie, which may have a bit less critical enthusiasm behind it than one might have been expected, will, as the Boxoffice staff put it, prove to be "super front-loaded" so that after the record-breaking opener the movie fizzles out. Still, even as one who had been dubious about this one just six months ago after a year of watching almost every comparable film flop this one looks like just the excuse Hollywood has been waiting for to green-light another slew of superhero sequels--for better or worse.
Some Thoughts on the Prospects of the American Box Office in Late 2024
Earlier this year I speculated here about, among other films, Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine (which I was then calling Deadpool 3) on the basis of the way the box office has run since early 2023--for the most part, disastrously for franchise films--which left me less than bullish about both those movies.
As it happened Inside Out 2 has been by every reasonable measure a hit--not a limited, modest, qualified success like Elemental but a genuine blockbuster that far outdid a highly successful original with a gross that, adjusted for inflation, would have made it a member of the billion-dollar club pre-pandemic. Meanwhile Deadpool & Wolverine is likely to be an equally spectacular success.
Indeed, my thought that Deadpool & Wolverine would still be likely to fall short of the half-billion dollar mark can seem to belong to another world, box office-wise.
But six months on, are we really in a different world from the one I saw in January? It will take more than one or even two hits to prove that, the more in as while Hollywood's courtiers focus attention on the successes, other films have gone on doing less well. Yes, this is the summer of Inside Out, and shortly to become the summer of Deadpool as well, but the summer also saw performances by the latest Planet of the Apes and Mad Max and Bad Boys, among others, that would tend to affirm rather than refute claims of franchise fatigue. Only the most optimistic would imagine that this year will not see any more major films get lukewarm receptions (this may in fact have just happened again with Twisters), or even flop miserably, especially given that the trend had already set in not with the pandemic, but with the Great Recession. After the crash of 2007 we saw the longtime level of moviegoing fall from 4-5 a year per capita in North America to 3-4 over the 2010s, and after the pandemic the figure's fall sharpened, so that these last couple of years it has been to 2-3--with the reality underlined by how in spite of Inside Out 2's success in June 2024 the box office in that month was still down compared with the rather anemic June 2023, never mind June 2019.
Still, I now wonder if maybe the year will not manage a few more hits than I expected. For the moment I do not find myself reconsidering what I said about Gladiator--because even in the best of times historical epics have been so hit-and-miss, and this particular film has so much against it (even before we get to the allegations of review-bombing). But I am giving the chances of the upcoming Joker 2 a rethink.
As it happened Inside Out 2 has been by every reasonable measure a hit--not a limited, modest, qualified success like Elemental but a genuine blockbuster that far outdid a highly successful original with a gross that, adjusted for inflation, would have made it a member of the billion-dollar club pre-pandemic. Meanwhile Deadpool & Wolverine is likely to be an equally spectacular success.
Indeed, my thought that Deadpool & Wolverine would still be likely to fall short of the half-billion dollar mark can seem to belong to another world, box office-wise.
But six months on, are we really in a different world from the one I saw in January? It will take more than one or even two hits to prove that, the more in as while Hollywood's courtiers focus attention on the successes, other films have gone on doing less well. Yes, this is the summer of Inside Out, and shortly to become the summer of Deadpool as well, but the summer also saw performances by the latest Planet of the Apes and Mad Max and Bad Boys, among others, that would tend to affirm rather than refute claims of franchise fatigue. Only the most optimistic would imagine that this year will not see any more major films get lukewarm receptions (this may in fact have just happened again with Twisters), or even flop miserably, especially given that the trend had already set in not with the pandemic, but with the Great Recession. After the crash of 2007 we saw the longtime level of moviegoing fall from 4-5 a year per capita in North America to 3-4 over the 2010s, and after the pandemic the figure's fall sharpened, so that these last couple of years it has been to 2-3--with the reality underlined by how in spite of Inside Out 2's success in June 2024 the box office in that month was still down compared with the rather anemic June 2023, never mind June 2019.
Still, I now wonder if maybe the year will not manage a few more hits than I expected. For the moment I do not find myself reconsidering what I said about Gladiator--because even in the best of times historical epics have been so hit-and-miss, and this particular film has so much against it (even before we get to the allegations of review-bombing). But I am giving the chances of the upcoming Joker 2 a rethink.
Second Thoughts About the Second Joker Film?
The original Joker back in 2019 was an exceedingly idiosyncratic film in many ways--an origin story not for a superhero but for a supervillain, which took a low-budgeted, action-sparse, period-set, Scorsese homage approach to telling the story of the "making of" the iconic figure at its center. However, on the basis of the character's intrinsic fascination (how many characters of any type, let alone comic book characters, have brought two different performers an Oscar?), and the controversy which surrounded the film, which substantially had to do with the film's element of social criticism, which had mainstream commentators calling for its censorship.
Of course, many a critic has treated that controversy as having been contrived--but it seems to me that this has tended to be an expression of hostility toward the kind of criticism it had to make, outside the range of subjects they approve (a movie like Jay Roach's Bombshell much more to their liking).
There are thus grounds for considerable skepticism about whether the broader public shares their view. Still, the kind of anticipation the promotion of the first film managed to generate is not easily recreated, all as the sequel arrives in rather a different world, box office-wise and maybe even pop culturally than the original did. If the idea of following up Taxi Driver with New York, New York, so to speak, seems risky, we have seen risk and oddity pay off as seemingly safe blockbusters flopped hard--all as it is easy to picture a year in which Deadpool (who appeared on screen as a villain in someone else's movie first) saved the summer box office seeing the Joker save the box office this fall.
Of course, many a critic has treated that controversy as having been contrived--but it seems to me that this has tended to be an expression of hostility toward the kind of criticism it had to make, outside the range of subjects they approve (a movie like Jay Roach's Bombshell much more to their liking).
There are thus grounds for considerable skepticism about whether the broader public shares their view. Still, the kind of anticipation the promotion of the first film managed to generate is not easily recreated, all as the sequel arrives in rather a different world, box office-wise and maybe even pop culturally than the original did. If the idea of following up Taxi Driver with New York, New York, so to speak, seems risky, we have seen risk and oddity pay off as seemingly safe blockbusters flopped hard--all as it is easy to picture a year in which Deadpool (who appeared on screen as a villain in someone else's movie first) saved the summer box office seeing the Joker save the box office this fall.
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