Apparently the budget of Joker 2 has been the subject of some critical comment--specifically because it was (reportedly) much larger than the budget for the first film.
Apparently Todd Phillips has had something to say in reply, remarking that reading the items in the press "[i]t seems like they're on the side of the multinational corporations," and indeed "sound like studio executives."
The reason for that, of course is that the entertainment press does significantly represent the views of the corporations, and the studio executives, just as the business press and the press generally represents the views of corporations, executives and the rest--as, of course, social commentators going back at least to Upton Sinclair have explained to the public over and over again. And negatively remarking a big budget has been part of their repertoire for pushing an agenda--specifically attacking a movie and its makers as "out of control" in that way we saw so much of when the studio bosses were out to crush the New Hollywood.
Of course, the desire to see New Hollywood crushed extended far beyond studio bosses looking to regain control of the industry to include those on the right ideologically hostile to the movies Hollywood had started making (and has rarely dared to make since).
Is there something like that afoot in the case of Phillips and Joker 2? Given how uncomfortable the first Joker made the elite stratum from which those who write for the upmarket review pages derive (not least because of those aspects of it that were what we think of as "New Hollywood") it does not seem wholly inconceivable that there would be. If this is a matter of what is actually in the second Joker movie, rather than just a residue of the critical hostility to the first film, then the movie may well have more bite than I suspected.
Monday, September 9, 2024
The Possibility That Arthur Fleck is Not the Real Joker: Some Thoughts
While Todd Phillips has dropped hints that Arthur Fleck's "Joker" may not be the real Joker since 2019, the hints have grown more numerous and stronger in the run-up to the release of the sequel. Indeed, as Kaitlyn Booth recently remarked over at Bleeding Cool News that Joker increasingly seems to have been "one of those times when an original story has some recognizable IP painted over it to make it more appealing to the general public."
In other words, Mr. Phillips and company pulled a bait and switch on the public, making them think that a movie titled Joker about a homicidal lunatic clown in Gotham City with a grudge against the Wayne family was a Joker origin story until, after the movie became a cultural phenomenon, no longer requiring the ruse--and even finding the ruse an inconvenience, because the gap between the sales pitch and the actual movie was getting awkwardly large as people looked at Fleck and said "This man's no criminal mastermind," and the follow-up seemed likely to mean even more dissonance for anyone really looking for the Joker--they backed away from the earlier marketing in a manner they hope will allow fans to ignore or forgive the earlier deception.
It is easy enough to picture Hollywood pulling such a maneuver--given that, to the little extent that it shows any alertness or creativity, we are more likely to see it in the smoke and mirrors of its public relations and marketing efforts than in the cinematic art that is the raison d'etre of those efforts, and given too the fact that a movie about "just Arthur Fleck" rather than the Joker would have made nowhere near the stir that Joker did. Still, given that if the movie was far from perfectly faithful to the Batman mythos the makers of the film displayed enough cleverness in utilizing the relevant elements that the character of the Joker plausibly contributed a good deal more than a paint finish--that if the film Todd Phillips made was not truly a Joker story, the Joker was at least an influence, or even creative point of departure, for what he did in the end put before the audience.
In other words, Mr. Phillips and company pulled a bait and switch on the public, making them think that a movie titled Joker about a homicidal lunatic clown in Gotham City with a grudge against the Wayne family was a Joker origin story until, after the movie became a cultural phenomenon, no longer requiring the ruse--and even finding the ruse an inconvenience, because the gap between the sales pitch and the actual movie was getting awkwardly large as people looked at Fleck and said "This man's no criminal mastermind," and the follow-up seemed likely to mean even more dissonance for anyone really looking for the Joker--they backed away from the earlier marketing in a manner they hope will allow fans to ignore or forgive the earlier deception.
It is easy enough to picture Hollywood pulling such a maneuver--given that, to the little extent that it shows any alertness or creativity, we are more likely to see it in the smoke and mirrors of its public relations and marketing efforts than in the cinematic art that is the raison d'etre of those efforts, and given too the fact that a movie about "just Arthur Fleck" rather than the Joker would have made nowhere near the stir that Joker did. Still, given that if the movie was far from perfectly faithful to the Batman mythos the makers of the film displayed enough cleverness in utilizing the relevant elements that the character of the Joker plausibly contributed a good deal more than a paint finish--that if the film Todd Phillips made was not truly a Joker story, the Joker was at least an influence, or even creative point of departure, for what he did in the end put before the audience.
This Summer Kevin Bacon . . . Discovers What Everyone Else Knows
Back when publicizing his horror film MaXXXine (it came out in July) actor Kevin Bacon claimed to have had a special effects makeup artist create a disguise for him so that he could try going about experiencing life as a non-celebrity.
According to Bacon the disguise worked--and very well--in that when he went to a shopping mall "no one" there recognized him.
Apparently he couldn't stand more than a few minutes of this, talking about people "pushing past me, not being nice. Nobody said, 'I love you,'" while he "had to wait in line to, I don't know, buy a f---ing coffee or whatever." And he concluded "This sucks. I want to go back to being famous."
I have no idea how seriously Bacon intended for us to take his remarks, which can seem like a parody of entitled, clueless privilege. (Is it really the case that complete strangers tell him "I love you" and that he was shocked to not have strangers tell him "I love you?" Did he really have no notion of what it is to stand in line for a cup of coffee?) Still, the relation of the anecdote did seem interesting in that in a society where the conventional injunction is to "Be grateful for what you have" (stiffened with endless regurgitations of propaganda already stale two centuries ago about how the rich have it harder than the poor) Mr. Bacon admitted that, yes, a "regular person" is treated pretty badly by other regular people and it is far, far better to be a celebrity. To, as Upton Sinclair put it in Money Writes!, be "waited upon, flattered, caressed, loved, stared at, cheered, photographed, talked about" the way a celebrity is. And that this is why, in spite of so many celebrities' self-pitying whining about how hard it is to be famous, a "victim of such conditions" as ordinary people endure--living the life of a nobody, treated as a nobody, with all its material deprivations and psychological injuries--"driven to desperation" makes extraordinary efforts in the hope of sudden transport to the world in which the Kevin Bacons live, and is all too often disappointed, staying in the same world they can't bear and dying that much more and that much painfully of the fact every day.
That's reality.
According to Bacon the disguise worked--and very well--in that when he went to a shopping mall "no one" there recognized him.
Apparently he couldn't stand more than a few minutes of this, talking about people "pushing past me, not being nice. Nobody said, 'I love you,'" while he "had to wait in line to, I don't know, buy a f---ing coffee or whatever." And he concluded "This sucks. I want to go back to being famous."
I have no idea how seriously Bacon intended for us to take his remarks, which can seem like a parody of entitled, clueless privilege. (Is it really the case that complete strangers tell him "I love you" and that he was shocked to not have strangers tell him "I love you?" Did he really have no notion of what it is to stand in line for a cup of coffee?) Still, the relation of the anecdote did seem interesting in that in a society where the conventional injunction is to "Be grateful for what you have" (stiffened with endless regurgitations of propaganda already stale two centuries ago about how the rich have it harder than the poor) Mr. Bacon admitted that, yes, a "regular person" is treated pretty badly by other regular people and it is far, far better to be a celebrity. To, as Upton Sinclair put it in Money Writes!, be "waited upon, flattered, caressed, loved, stared at, cheered, photographed, talked about" the way a celebrity is. And that this is why, in spite of so many celebrities' self-pitying whining about how hard it is to be famous, a "victim of such conditions" as ordinary people endure--living the life of a nobody, treated as a nobody, with all its material deprivations and psychological injuries--"driven to desperation" makes extraordinary efforts in the hope of sudden transport to the world in which the Kevin Bacons live, and is all too often disappointed, staying in the same world they can't bear and dying that much more and that much painfully of the fact every day.
That's reality.
The Box Office Run of It Ends With Us: A Few Thoughts
Boxoffice Pro's first projection for It Ends with Us had it opening in the $20-$30 million range. However, they revised their estimate upward considerably over the following weeks, so that it stood at $45-$55 million just before release, expectations to which the film lived up with a $50 million debut. Since then the movie has not had spectacular holds, but at least decent ones, with the result that 31 days into its North American run it has amassed $141 million. Meanwhile the movie is doing well abroad, actually outearning its domestic gross in the international markets (the split 46/54 in their favor), such that it has already broken the $300 million barrier ($309 million collected at last count), which is very good for a $25 million romance put out in high summer, and enough to mean that, while the movie is already out of the running to be one of the year's top ten grossers, it may yet prove one of its top ten profit-makers when Deadline makes up its list of the year's Most Valuable Blockbuster next spring, way ahead of many movies that grossed much more (or failing that, a near-certain spot on the accompanying list of lower-cost moneymakers, of the kind rarely going to non-horror films).
The movie would seem to confirm the trend I saw last year--namely that the profit-makers reflected careful selection of movies that had a limited but still appreciable audience of very interested filmgoers, and low costs (the animated features based on Nickelodeon animated franchises, Taylor Swift's concert film, Five Nights at Freddy's, in a way even the animated Spider-Man film and Oppenheimer), rather than a mindless pouring of money into gargantuan franchise-based productions in the faith that "Make it and they will come" (which, of course, failed so miserably that year). Right now, as the entertainment press fixates on successes like Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine they seem determined to stick with that "Make it and they will come" business-as-usual approach--but I say again that things may not go the way they hope, and if only out of the concern for the bottom line demanded by their Wall Street masters the studio bosses would do well to attend to this movie's example.
The movie would seem to confirm the trend I saw last year--namely that the profit-makers reflected careful selection of movies that had a limited but still appreciable audience of very interested filmgoers, and low costs (the animated features based on Nickelodeon animated franchises, Taylor Swift's concert film, Five Nights at Freddy's, in a way even the animated Spider-Man film and Oppenheimer), rather than a mindless pouring of money into gargantuan franchise-based productions in the faith that "Make it and they will come" (which, of course, failed so miserably that year). Right now, as the entertainment press fixates on successes like Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine they seem determined to stick with that "Make it and they will come" business-as-usual approach--but I say again that things may not go the way they hope, and if only out of the concern for the bottom line demanded by their Wall Street masters the studio bosses would do well to attend to this movie's example.
The Summer 2024 Box Office: How Did it Go?
How did the summer of 2024 as a whole go at the box office? The four month period saw theaters take in about $3.59 billion (and only marginally more, $3.62 billion, if they treat the summer season as having extended from the first Friday in May to Labor Day).
By contrast the figure was $3.95 billion in the summer of 2023, about 10 percent more before inflation.
This is a retreat, not an advance, for the box office. And given that the May-August gross in the pre-pandemic years of 2015-2019 averaged $5.4 billion in June 2024 dollars (even with the numbers skewed downward by how Marvel put out its big Avengers events in the last weekend of April rather than the first weekend of May in 2018-2019) it seems safe to say that this summer's gross was a third down from the pre-pandemic average in real terms. It is also the case that even more than the summer of 2023 the summer of 2024 was, to the extent that Hollywood managed at all, carried by just a handful of hits--the three biggest movies of the summer of 2023 accounting for 34 percent of that summer's gross (Barbie, Spider-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy taking in $1.33 billion of the summer's near $4 billion), but the three biggest of 2024 accounting for 44 percent of that summer's weaker gross ($1.6 billion of the $3.6 billion), testifying to how little business the rest of the releases did.
Of course, allowing that some will incline to the view that this was because this summer was a bit on the thin side where big movies were concerned--and I do not entirely disagree. Still, the summer still had Planet of the Apes, Mad Max and Bad Boys, for which there were some hopes (certainly Mad Max did a lot worse than its backers and cheerleaders thought it would), while some hoped for a lot more than they got from the original IF and the not-so-original Twisters--while it is worth remembering that if 2023 had lots of big movies many of them also proved big flops (most obviously The Flash, Indiana Jones and Haunted Mansion, all as to varying degrees Fast and Furious, Transformers, The Little Mermaid, Pixar and Mission: Impossible disappointed). Thus the explanation still leaves us facing the reality that Tinseltown is trying very hard to ignore--that if as Inside Out and Deadpool and Despicable Me demonstrate franchise movies can still make it big after all, only the most in-demand ones are likely to pay off big as films from the weaker franchises underwhelm in a market not what it used to be.
The result is that I stand by what I said earlier this year: within the existing structurally downsized market, rather than mindlessly milking any and every franchise with megabudgeted productions they would be obliged to choose their projects more carefully, and make them with an eye on the budget, with August's biggest in-month success, It Ends with Us, reaffirming that reading of the situation. Even now the movie is not of the year's top ten hits in North America (standing at #11 it can be expected to keep falling down the list as the year progresses)--but even if it did not have the makings of a "tentpole" there really was a sizable audience out there for the material, and between its low budget, and one might add its rather robust overseas earnings (the movie a far bigger hit there than Twisters, and the Quiet Place prequel), such that it may well prove one of its top ten profit-makers when Deadline presents its list next spring.
By contrast the figure was $3.95 billion in the summer of 2023, about 10 percent more before inflation.
This is a retreat, not an advance, for the box office. And given that the May-August gross in the pre-pandemic years of 2015-2019 averaged $5.4 billion in June 2024 dollars (even with the numbers skewed downward by how Marvel put out its big Avengers events in the last weekend of April rather than the first weekend of May in 2018-2019) it seems safe to say that this summer's gross was a third down from the pre-pandemic average in real terms. It is also the case that even more than the summer of 2023 the summer of 2024 was, to the extent that Hollywood managed at all, carried by just a handful of hits--the three biggest movies of the summer of 2023 accounting for 34 percent of that summer's gross (Barbie, Spider-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy taking in $1.33 billion of the summer's near $4 billion), but the three biggest of 2024 accounting for 44 percent of that summer's weaker gross ($1.6 billion of the $3.6 billion), testifying to how little business the rest of the releases did.
Of course, allowing that some will incline to the view that this was because this summer was a bit on the thin side where big movies were concerned--and I do not entirely disagree. Still, the summer still had Planet of the Apes, Mad Max and Bad Boys, for which there were some hopes (certainly Mad Max did a lot worse than its backers and cheerleaders thought it would), while some hoped for a lot more than they got from the original IF and the not-so-original Twisters--while it is worth remembering that if 2023 had lots of big movies many of them also proved big flops (most obviously The Flash, Indiana Jones and Haunted Mansion, all as to varying degrees Fast and Furious, Transformers, The Little Mermaid, Pixar and Mission: Impossible disappointed). Thus the explanation still leaves us facing the reality that Tinseltown is trying very hard to ignore--that if as Inside Out and Deadpool and Despicable Me demonstrate franchise movies can still make it big after all, only the most in-demand ones are likely to pay off big as films from the weaker franchises underwhelm in a market not what it used to be.
The result is that I stand by what I said earlier this year: within the existing structurally downsized market, rather than mindlessly milking any and every franchise with megabudgeted productions they would be obliged to choose their projects more carefully, and make them with an eye on the budget, with August's biggest in-month success, It Ends with Us, reaffirming that reading of the situation. Even now the movie is not of the year's top ten hits in North America (standing at #11 it can be expected to keep falling down the list as the year progresses)--but even if it did not have the makings of a "tentpole" there really was a sizable audience out there for the material, and between its low budget, and one might add its rather robust overseas earnings (the movie a far bigger hit there than Twisters, and the Quiet Place prequel), such that it may well prove one of its top ten profit-makers when Deadline presents its list next spring.
The August 2024 Box Office
August was, by 2024 standards, a fairly good month for the North American movie box office--only the second month this year to overtop the gross of the corresponding month in the prior year, after March. Just as in March this was principally attributable to the success of a single film--the second part of Dune in March, and Deadpool & Wolverine in August, with the latter film's contribution the more striking. Deadpool, after all, came out the month before, and had the first six days of its spectacular-from-the-first run before August 1, during which it took in $280 million (about as much as the second Dune movie made in its whole run), before accounting for over a third of the month's entire box office revenue. (For comparison purposes consider that where Deadpool accounted for 35 percent of the gross, even that savior of the summer of 2023 Barbie the year before managed just 28 percent.)
This is partly a matter of Deadpool's real draw, but also the lack of other really big successes in late July, and certainly in August (which probably helped the already seemingly played-out Despicable Me 4 and Inside Out 2 add $80 million or so to their takes over those weeks, all as Twisters picked up a little more than that, but not much more). After all, the adaptation of the hit video game Borderlands failed just as badly as the buzz said it would, as did the attempt to relaunch the Crow franchise, while if Alien: Romulus will probably break the $100 million barrier it will not be by much. Indeed, the only performer in the lot I would count as worth much of a fuss in any commercial sense, and that mainly relative to its low cost, is It Ends With Us, the $25 million budgeted adaptation of the Colleen Hoover film likely to approach $150 million before it is finished in theaters.
The result is that, with Deadpool and other July releases doing so much to carry the box office (including a Despicable Me 4 bespeaking the franchise's being past its peak, and a Twister movie a far cry from the phenomenal success of the 1996 original) and the successes of August's own releases mainly that by a lower standard, "fairly good" is a very different thing from "sensational." August 2024's final tally of $892 million is just a bit better than the $813 million North America's movie theaters grossed in August 2023--about 10 percent better before inflation, maybe 6 percent after it when those figures are in, while if one removed the highest grosser from each month (cutting Barbie out of August 2023 just as they cut Deadpool out of August 2024) they would find that August 2024 was actually a weaker month than its 2023 counterpart (the gross down by 4 percent in real terms, perhaps). Meanwhile, even with Deadpool's help, if August 2024 bested August 2023, it would seem to still be well down from the $1.08 billion or so August averaged in June 2024 dollars, with just 83 percent of the 2015-2019 average for the month--an improvement over the figures for past months, like the atrocious 43 percent of the pre-pandemic norm seen in May, but all the same, no grounds to imagine business is returning to pre-pandemic levels, precisely because hits like Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine do not grow on trees, however much Disney acts as if they do just that.
This is partly a matter of Deadpool's real draw, but also the lack of other really big successes in late July, and certainly in August (which probably helped the already seemingly played-out Despicable Me 4 and Inside Out 2 add $80 million or so to their takes over those weeks, all as Twisters picked up a little more than that, but not much more). After all, the adaptation of the hit video game Borderlands failed just as badly as the buzz said it would, as did the attempt to relaunch the Crow franchise, while if Alien: Romulus will probably break the $100 million barrier it will not be by much. Indeed, the only performer in the lot I would count as worth much of a fuss in any commercial sense, and that mainly relative to its low cost, is It Ends With Us, the $25 million budgeted adaptation of the Colleen Hoover film likely to approach $150 million before it is finished in theaters.
The result is that, with Deadpool and other July releases doing so much to carry the box office (including a Despicable Me 4 bespeaking the franchise's being past its peak, and a Twister movie a far cry from the phenomenal success of the 1996 original) and the successes of August's own releases mainly that by a lower standard, "fairly good" is a very different thing from "sensational." August 2024's final tally of $892 million is just a bit better than the $813 million North America's movie theaters grossed in August 2023--about 10 percent better before inflation, maybe 6 percent after it when those figures are in, while if one removed the highest grosser from each month (cutting Barbie out of August 2023 just as they cut Deadpool out of August 2024) they would find that August 2024 was actually a weaker month than its 2023 counterpart (the gross down by 4 percent in real terms, perhaps). Meanwhile, even with Deadpool's help, if August 2024 bested August 2023, it would seem to still be well down from the $1.08 billion or so August averaged in June 2024 dollars, with just 83 percent of the 2015-2019 average for the month--an improvement over the figures for past months, like the atrocious 43 percent of the pre-pandemic norm seen in May, but all the same, no grounds to imagine business is returning to pre-pandemic levels, precisely because hits like Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine do not grow on trees, however much Disney acts as if they do just that.
What Will the Fall Movie Season Bring?
Last year, in the wake of the weak audience response to many franchise films intended for blockbusterdom, and the thinning of this year's release slate by the delays compelled by a historic "double strike" in Hollywood, the expectations for 2024 were not very high--and so far the year has lived down to them. As of August 31 the North American cinematic box office has pulled in some $5.6 billion--as against the $6.6 billion it managed in the same eight months last year (a billion behind!), and what, in June 2024 dollars, is the $10 billion the box office averaged by that time of the year in pre-pandemic 2015-2019. Moreover, it seems significant that the situation would have been far worse if not for the overperformance of a couple of hits--Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine by themselves accounting for 22 percent of the entire year's take, testifying to the general weakness of the market.
Will the box office get a much-needed bump in the year's last four months? Well, as I write this the sequel to 1988's Beetlejuice is hitting theaters, while box office analysts regard the sequel to 2019's Joker as having fairly bright prospects--both expected to open well north of $100 million. After that there is Venom 3, and Gladiator 2, and Moana 2 and a Lion King prequel, and Sonic the Hedgehog 3, among others. Those sick of sequels and prequels may be annoyed by this Hollywood-business-as-usual slate, and indeed it seems certain that some of them will prove the bad ideas some of them sound like, but all the same, I see no reason why at least some of these movies will not sell a good many tickets collectively, such that the rest of the year looks a lot more like July or even August did than May (yikes).
Still, my expectation is that this year will not refute my argument that the box office has seen a structural change--that the market has shrunk (North Americans on average going to the movies twice a year rather than 3+ as before), with franchise movies tougher sells (that they came out for more of the gimmicky, cult-y, genre-subverting postmodernism of Deadpool is a questionable basis for thinking the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been saved), with the terms of box office success altered, all as at a minimum North American ticket sales adding up to the $9 billion 2023 managed by New Year's Day seems a longshot. Indeed, this year Hollywood, running a billion dollars behind last year's box office at the same point in the year, would have to at least match the grosses of the last four months of 2023 just to hit the $8 billion mark envisaged for it last year, and considerably outdo it to reach $9 billion, all as one should remember that, as the past summer should remind all concerned, a few overperformers cannot be expected to all by themselves make up for a great mass of underperformers.
Will the box office get a much-needed bump in the year's last four months? Well, as I write this the sequel to 1988's Beetlejuice is hitting theaters, while box office analysts regard the sequel to 2019's Joker as having fairly bright prospects--both expected to open well north of $100 million. After that there is Venom 3, and Gladiator 2, and Moana 2 and a Lion King prequel, and Sonic the Hedgehog 3, among others. Those sick of sequels and prequels may be annoyed by this Hollywood-business-as-usual slate, and indeed it seems certain that some of them will prove the bad ideas some of them sound like, but all the same, I see no reason why at least some of these movies will not sell a good many tickets collectively, such that the rest of the year looks a lot more like July or even August did than May (yikes).
Still, my expectation is that this year will not refute my argument that the box office has seen a structural change--that the market has shrunk (North Americans on average going to the movies twice a year rather than 3+ as before), with franchise movies tougher sells (that they came out for more of the gimmicky, cult-y, genre-subverting postmodernism of Deadpool is a questionable basis for thinking the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been saved), with the terms of box office success altered, all as at a minimum North American ticket sales adding up to the $9 billion 2023 managed by New Year's Day seems a longshot. Indeed, this year Hollywood, running a billion dollars behind last year's box office at the same point in the year, would have to at least match the grosses of the last four months of 2023 just to hit the $8 billion mark envisaged for it last year, and considerably outdo it to reach $9 billion, all as one should remember that, as the past summer should remind all concerned, a few overperformers cannot be expected to all by themselves make up for a great mass of underperformers.
Is a Celebrity Obliged to be a Good Role Model?
Is a celebrity obliged to be a good role model?
I admit that it's not the sort of question to which I am much inclined to give time, and have thought about it now only because of the way that, in a manner entirely consistent with the increasingly demented state of the cultural discourse in the country, Taylor Swift's personal life, in spite of a complete lack of what ordinarily makes for scandal, has become a subject not just of culture war but a matter of presidential politics (!).
I will say it again, the nervous breakdown evident in the '90s has just gone on getting worse--while the '90s seems to me especially relevant because amid the chatter I couldn't help recalling how basketball great Charles Barkley defied the conventional wisdom about that question by answering it with a firm "No."
Considering the question I find myself siding with Barkley here for the plain and simple reason that a celebrity does not surrender their rights as a citizen and bring upon themselves subjection to a higher moral standard just because they have become famous--with this especially going today with the intensity of the surveillance of public figures hugely amplified by the digital age, and the emergence of a "cancel culture" which regards any social misstep as meriting the destruction of a career, while equating accusation with guilt. ("An actor provoked by an irresponsible idiot of a director lost their temper on set twenty-five years ago--allegedly! That's just totally unacceptable! See that they never work in this town again!")
Indeed, with so few of those prone to scream loudest about morality inclined to hold even those elected or appointed to the highest public offices to any standard at all in not just their private life but their conduct as public office-holders, it seems absurd and grotesque that they should hold an athlete, or a pop singer, up to such scrutiny.
I admit that it's not the sort of question to which I am much inclined to give time, and have thought about it now only because of the way that, in a manner entirely consistent with the increasingly demented state of the cultural discourse in the country, Taylor Swift's personal life, in spite of a complete lack of what ordinarily makes for scandal, has become a subject not just of culture war but a matter of presidential politics (!).
I will say it again, the nervous breakdown evident in the '90s has just gone on getting worse--while the '90s seems to me especially relevant because amid the chatter I couldn't help recalling how basketball great Charles Barkley defied the conventional wisdom about that question by answering it with a firm "No."
Considering the question I find myself siding with Barkley here for the plain and simple reason that a celebrity does not surrender their rights as a citizen and bring upon themselves subjection to a higher moral standard just because they have become famous--with this especially going today with the intensity of the surveillance of public figures hugely amplified by the digital age, and the emergence of a "cancel culture" which regards any social misstep as meriting the destruction of a career, while equating accusation with guilt. ("An actor provoked by an irresponsible idiot of a director lost their temper on set twenty-five years ago--allegedly! That's just totally unacceptable! See that they never work in this town again!")
Indeed, with so few of those prone to scream loudest about morality inclined to hold even those elected or appointed to the highest public offices to any standard at all in not just their private life but their conduct as public office-holders, it seems absurd and grotesque that they should hold an athlete, or a pop singer, up to such scrutiny.
The Astonishing Staying Power of Inside Out 2 and Despicable Me 4
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.
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, 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.
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