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.
Wednesday, July 31, 2024
The Narrative of Twisters' Success
In hailing Twisters a success the press is telling a story that goes as follows:
The narrative was just as false, simple-minded, and irresponsible then as it is now, even if it was not necessarily false and simple-minded in all the same exact ways. After all, Top Gun 2 was not a mere "heartland" hit but a national and global one for which that "liberal coastal elite" supposedly averse to flag-waving, militaristic display and the rest cheerled with a rarely seen unanimity and breathlessness. (Just check out the Rotten Tomatoes score--and for that matter, how it compared with how critics evaluated the original Top Gun back in 1986, the score almost 40 points higher even when it was basically the same movie.) Thus did the movie break the $700 million barrier domestically, and stop just short of $1.5 billion globally.
By contrast with that spectacular box office performance, Twisters is as yet . . . not a great success. Nor showing any sign of becoming one. I do not see it taking in even a quarter of what Top Gun 2 did globally, or a third of what it made domestically, even before we bring the considerable price inflation of the last two years into the matter. Indeed, the math indicates the possibility of the movie's losing money.
However, there are those unfortunate constancies in the narrative.
That the great, the only, consequential political divide in America is a regional/cultural divide between "Blue" and "Red."
That Hollywood is on the "Blue" and "left" side of the divide.
That Hollywood puts pushing a "left" ideology ahead of making money.
Etcetera, etcetera.
Not only does this narrative have no relation whatsoever to reality (for starters, MEDIA IS A BUSINESS, and the movie studios giant corporations owned by funds like BlackRock, a fact which has made Hollywood the neoliberal economy in miniature, with a politics to match), but the reason why so many are taking, or pretending to take, this cheap promotional maneuver seriously is that it makes for an exceedingly self-serving narrative for those who stoke the fires of culture war, and mean to go on stoking it any which way they can--which includes persons and interests on both sides of the line, who share more in common with each other than they do with the general public whatever their state, Red, Blue, Purple or anything else.
Exemplary of this is how the supposed "liberals" of the New York Times, not passing up this chance to do their bit for climate inactivism, have hailed this weather disaster-themed movie's not mentioning climate change as a great and significant gesture toward Red staters, as they cynically ignore the fact that in real life real climate denialism is a minority even among Republicans--while the hacks at the Times yet again promote the destructive lie that climate change is a matter of "cultural differences" rather than science, technology, economics and the politics of hard interest that has done so much to confuse the issue and obstruct action on the problem.
Those liberal coastal elitists out in Lalaland usually ignore the heartland, but this time somehow they ended up making a movie that really speaks to them, and lo and behold the movie was a hit and the liberal coastal elitists are just totally flummoxed by how well it did! Finally they are going to learn that they have been ignoring their natural audience all along--and may start treating it right.We have heard it all before--many, many, many times, with the very regularity with which we hear the narrative debunking the narrative itself, because as with so many such narratives it is actually one of the standard promotional packages for Hollywood's products (which is what a lot of the political nonsense we see about Hollywood is really about). To cite one of the more significant recent occasions on which this was the case, consider the reception enjoyed by Top Gun 2 (Top Gun: Maverick).
The narrative was just as false, simple-minded, and irresponsible then as it is now, even if it was not necessarily false and simple-minded in all the same exact ways. After all, Top Gun 2 was not a mere "heartland" hit but a national and global one for which that "liberal coastal elite" supposedly averse to flag-waving, militaristic display and the rest cheerled with a rarely seen unanimity and breathlessness. (Just check out the Rotten Tomatoes score--and for that matter, how it compared with how critics evaluated the original Top Gun back in 1986, the score almost 40 points higher even when it was basically the same movie.) Thus did the movie break the $700 million barrier domestically, and stop just short of $1.5 billion globally.
By contrast with that spectacular box office performance, Twisters is as yet . . . not a great success. Nor showing any sign of becoming one. I do not see it taking in even a quarter of what Top Gun 2 did globally, or a third of what it made domestically, even before we bring the considerable price inflation of the last two years into the matter. Indeed, the math indicates the possibility of the movie's losing money.
However, there are those unfortunate constancies in the narrative.
That the great, the only, consequential political divide in America is a regional/cultural divide between "Blue" and "Red."
That Hollywood is on the "Blue" and "left" side of the divide.
That Hollywood puts pushing a "left" ideology ahead of making money.
Etcetera, etcetera.
Not only does this narrative have no relation whatsoever to reality (for starters, MEDIA IS A BUSINESS, and the movie studios giant corporations owned by funds like BlackRock, a fact which has made Hollywood the neoliberal economy in miniature, with a politics to match), but the reason why so many are taking, or pretending to take, this cheap promotional maneuver seriously is that it makes for an exceedingly self-serving narrative for those who stoke the fires of culture war, and mean to go on stoking it any which way they can--which includes persons and interests on both sides of the line, who share more in common with each other than they do with the general public whatever their state, Red, Blue, Purple or anything else.
Exemplary of this is how the supposed "liberals" of the New York Times, not passing up this chance to do their bit for climate inactivism, have hailed this weather disaster-themed movie's not mentioning climate change as a great and significant gesture toward Red staters, as they cynically ignore the fact that in real life real climate denialism is a minority even among Republicans--while the hacks at the Times yet again promote the destructive lie that climate change is a matter of "cultural differences" rather than science, technology, economics and the politics of hard interest that has done so much to confuse the issue and obstruct action on the problem.
Twister 2 vs. Independence Day 2
As a decades-later follow-up to a "disaster movie" blockbuster from the summer of 1996, Twisters 2 (Twisters) invites comparison to Independence Day 2 (Independence Day: Resurgence).
Of course, the Independence Day sequel was a big flop back in the summer of 2016. Where the first movie made $300 million domestically and $700 million globally in 1996, the sequel made just $100 million domestically and under $400 million globally two decades later--which worked out to a gross of under a quarter of the original's domestic take, and about a third of its global take, in real terms. Extremely underwhelming in relation to its sensationally received predecessor (a Top Gun 2-Barbie-caliber summer hit within the context of 1996, whether one is thinking in terms of inflation-adjusted numbers or pop cultural impact), it was also underwhelming by run-of-the-mill summer blockbuster standards, given that one generally aims for a lot more than $390 million when they put up a $165 million budget for a movie, which is why the Independence Day 3 for which the movie was a clear set-up has yet to happen.
Right now Twisters seems likely to do a bit better domestically--but a lot worse internationally. The result is that I see the film finishing up with $300 to $350 million globally--just 60 to 70 percent of the half billion the Independence Day sequel grossed in today's terms, on what is probably a similar budget (Twisters' $200 million bill for the production almost as much as the $220 million Independence Day 2 cost in 2024 terms).
No one hesitated to call Independence Day 2 a flop--but the press is treating the much lower-performing Twisters as a hit. There is a real gap in attitude here--partly a matter of the American entertainment press paying inflation little mind as a general rule, and naturally paying more attention to the domestic than the foreign gross, while being eager for any good news about Hollywood's efforts, all while grading on a curve reflecting the tougher post-pandemic cinematic market getting Twisters more favorable treatment. However, there are other factors involved--alas, political factors. While there is no disputing that Independence Day 2 was a massive disappointment commercially (and probably did not generate very much audience affection), the press was eager to beat up on it for the same reason it beat up on the same year's Matt Damon movie The Great Wall--shabby anti-Chinese sentiment. (Thus did Vanity Fair spare a whole article for the ways in which the movie "pandered" to the Chinese audience.)
By contrast, the media is now trying very hard to push the narrative that Twisters is a matter of Hollywood finding success by appealing to the conservative sensibilities they equate with "real" Americans, as in Brooks Barnes' latest at the Times. It isn't a very interesting narrative--quite frankly a repeat of a very tired line, perniciously mixing the stoking of culture war with the promotion of pop cultural crapola. But then Hollywood's courtiers in the press are probably too stupid to realize how little respect they show for the intelligence of their audience.
Of course, the Independence Day sequel was a big flop back in the summer of 2016. Where the first movie made $300 million domestically and $700 million globally in 1996, the sequel made just $100 million domestically and under $400 million globally two decades later--which worked out to a gross of under a quarter of the original's domestic take, and about a third of its global take, in real terms. Extremely underwhelming in relation to its sensationally received predecessor (a Top Gun 2-Barbie-caliber summer hit within the context of 1996, whether one is thinking in terms of inflation-adjusted numbers or pop cultural impact), it was also underwhelming by run-of-the-mill summer blockbuster standards, given that one generally aims for a lot more than $390 million when they put up a $165 million budget for a movie, which is why the Independence Day 3 for which the movie was a clear set-up has yet to happen.
Right now Twisters seems likely to do a bit better domestically--but a lot worse internationally. The result is that I see the film finishing up with $300 to $350 million globally--just 60 to 70 percent of the half billion the Independence Day sequel grossed in today's terms, on what is probably a similar budget (Twisters' $200 million bill for the production almost as much as the $220 million Independence Day 2 cost in 2024 terms).
No one hesitated to call Independence Day 2 a flop--but the press is treating the much lower-performing Twisters as a hit. There is a real gap in attitude here--partly a matter of the American entertainment press paying inflation little mind as a general rule, and naturally paying more attention to the domestic than the foreign gross, while being eager for any good news about Hollywood's efforts, all while grading on a curve reflecting the tougher post-pandemic cinematic market getting Twisters more favorable treatment. However, there are other factors involved--alas, political factors. While there is no disputing that Independence Day 2 was a massive disappointment commercially (and probably did not generate very much audience affection), the press was eager to beat up on it for the same reason it beat up on the same year's Matt Damon movie The Great Wall--shabby anti-Chinese sentiment. (Thus did Vanity Fair spare a whole article for the ways in which the movie "pandered" to the Chinese audience.)
By contrast, the media is now trying very hard to push the narrative that Twisters is a matter of Hollywood finding success by appealing to the conservative sensibilities they equate with "real" Americans, as in Brooks Barnes' latest at the Times. It isn't a very interesting narrative--quite frankly a repeat of a very tired line, perniciously mixing the stoking of culture war with the promotion of pop cultural crapola. But then Hollywood's courtiers in the press are probably too stupid to realize how little respect they show for the intelligence of their audience.
Variety's "Insiders" on Mad Max: Furiosa's Break-Even Point: Some Notes
In speculating about what it would take for some of this summer's movies to reach the break-even point I was, of course, offering rough estimates based on extrapolation from a formula I developed on the basis of past observation from the limited information about films' commercial performances available to the public.
Plugging the reported production budget for the movie ($168 million) into the formula I estimated $380 million as the break-even point for Mad Max: Fury Road, which looked a long way from anything the movie was likely to make.
Since then the press has more or less been confirmed all this. According to Variety unnamed "insiders" have told them the break-even was $350-$375 million.
The same report has the studio claiming a lower break-even point than that, but, even if we assume that the studio is telling the truth (not a thing one should take for granted these days, any more than they should take it for granted in any other business), the article does not report any numbers.
This matters a lot since the break-even point would have to be much, much lower than $350 million to make much of a difference to the bottom line. After all, the movie's actual global gross to date is a mere $173 million--which is a little less than half the $350 million sum.
The result is that the studio's taking a massive loss on this prequel a near-certainty. Indeed, those who referred to the $350-$375 million range as where the film had to get to in order to cover its cost anticipate a $75-$95 million loss on the movie when all is said and done.
One may wonder what such a loss means in 2024. As it happened even the higher, $95 million, figure would not have sufficed to get the movie onto Deadline's list of the biggest money-losers last year. (The list only went down to #5, which ranking went to Disney's remake of Haunted Mansion, which lost the studio $131 million.) However, 2023 was exceptionally packed with big-budget movies that flopped very hard. This year we have had a very weak and disappointment-filled box office, but because of a confluence of developments including delays in the release dates of a good many major films (two of the three Marvel movies scheduled for this year getting bumped, etc.) also fewer really costly films. The result is that if Fury Road, which likely still holds the dubious honor of being the biggest money-loser of the year so far, seems to me to still have a fair chance of making the list next year--depending on how things go for such upcoming projects as the very costly and very risky Gladiator 2.
As all this implies, the press has been fairly frank about Furiosa being a loser, compared with the way they pretended the preceding Max Max film was a huge hit--without which pretense I suspect Furiosa would have been a lot less likely to have happened. After all, Fury Road probably lost money--but not so much money that the studio's executives did not think that if they did just a little better the next time, and maybe trimmed the budget a bit ($150 million in 2012-2015, when the preceding movie was made and released, equals about $200 million in 2022-2024, versus the $168 million supposed to have been spent on Furiosa, so yeah, officially it cost around 15 percent less), they could at the least hope to eke out a profit this time, and if they got even a little lucky maybe even have the basis for a franchise of the kind that the Marvel envy-afflicted folks at Warner Bros. so desperately want (which would be all the sweeter as those who greenlit the project would find "redemption" for the loss they made with Fury Road).*
Rather a longshot to play, the "Fury Road is a hit" narrative encouraged it--and then, this past decade being what it was, the movie came out in a less hospitable marketplace, in which the North American public's moviegoing had fallen from 3-4 trips a year on average to just over two, with comparatively marginal franchises getting squeezed out in the process (Spider-Man can still draw an audience, but not Barry Allen in a solo outing, no matter how gimmick and cameo-filled). Meanwhile the "taste" for the post-apocalyptic and dystopian is clearly not what it still appeared to be back in 2015 (I suppose the more in as so many of us are aware they are living it, and not loving it). And so in the end these plans were not to be--with the same going for the prospect of yet another Mad Max movie being rushed into production. For a few weeks, anyway.
Plugging the reported production budget for the movie ($168 million) into the formula I estimated $380 million as the break-even point for Mad Max: Fury Road, which looked a long way from anything the movie was likely to make.
Since then the press has more or less been confirmed all this. According to Variety unnamed "insiders" have told them the break-even was $350-$375 million.
The same report has the studio claiming a lower break-even point than that, but, even if we assume that the studio is telling the truth (not a thing one should take for granted these days, any more than they should take it for granted in any other business), the article does not report any numbers.
This matters a lot since the break-even point would have to be much, much lower than $350 million to make much of a difference to the bottom line. After all, the movie's actual global gross to date is a mere $173 million--which is a little less than half the $350 million sum.
The result is that the studio's taking a massive loss on this prequel a near-certainty. Indeed, those who referred to the $350-$375 million range as where the film had to get to in order to cover its cost anticipate a $75-$95 million loss on the movie when all is said and done.
One may wonder what such a loss means in 2024. As it happened even the higher, $95 million, figure would not have sufficed to get the movie onto Deadline's list of the biggest money-losers last year. (The list only went down to #5, which ranking went to Disney's remake of Haunted Mansion, which lost the studio $131 million.) However, 2023 was exceptionally packed with big-budget movies that flopped very hard. This year we have had a very weak and disappointment-filled box office, but because of a confluence of developments including delays in the release dates of a good many major films (two of the three Marvel movies scheduled for this year getting bumped, etc.) also fewer really costly films. The result is that if Fury Road, which likely still holds the dubious honor of being the biggest money-loser of the year so far, seems to me to still have a fair chance of making the list next year--depending on how things go for such upcoming projects as the very costly and very risky Gladiator 2.
Rather a longshot to play, the "Fury Road is a hit" narrative encouraged it--and then, this past decade being what it was, the movie came out in a less hospitable marketplace, in which the North American public's moviegoing had fallen from 3-4 trips a year on average to just over two, with comparatively marginal franchises getting squeezed out in the process (Spider-Man can still draw an audience, but not Barry Allen in a solo outing, no matter how gimmick and cameo-filled). Meanwhile the "taste" for the post-apocalyptic and dystopian is clearly not what it still appeared to be back in 2015 (I suppose the more in as so many of us are aware they are living it, and not loving it). And so in the end these plans were not to be--with the same going for the prospect of yet another Mad Max movie being rushed into production. For a few weeks, anyway.
Twisters' Second Weekend
The press is singing the "success" of Twisters at the box office very loudly.
But how does this compare to the reality?
In its second weekend the movie Twisters raised its total to $155 million with a $35 million Friday-to-Sunday take--a figure that works out to a 57 percent drop from the gross of the prior weekend. That is better than the 68-70 percent drops we saw for Thor 4 and Ant-Man 3, but worse than, for example, the 47 percent drop we saw for Guardians of the Galaxy 3--not disastrous, but far from great, the more in as the opening weekend was not a $100 million+ debut but took in a mere $80 million. At this rate I expect the movie to break the $200 million barrier domestically--but to fall well short of the $242 million the original Twister made in 1996, when the dollar was worth about twice what it is today, all as the movie cost about twice as much as that predecessor to make. (At the current rate of week-to-week decline think $210-$220 million when its run sputters out.)
Moreover, the film is doing a lot less well than that in the international markets. Where the 1996 movie actually made more money internationally than in North America, and that without China being the market that it still is, making for a 49/51 domestic/international split, the same split is 70/30 for the new movie. That is to say, as the movie is on its way to less than half the original's business in real terms in Hollywood's home market, that is still more than twice as much as it doing internationally. Adding it all together I see a finale in the vicinity of $300-$350 million globally as most probable for the movie--versus the $496 million Twister made in current dollars, and the billion dollars to which that is equal today.
The result is that the movie is neither living up to the original's precedent, nor a savior-of-summer caliber hit in the way that Inside Out 2 has been, and that it looks like Deadpool & Wolverine is for the time being. Indeed, given a production budget that has been estimated as being as much as $200 million at this rate the movie could lose money (maybe not Furiosa money, but still, a loss such as no studio needs ever, and especially right now).
So why does the press act as if it is doing well?
Part of the story, I think, is that the folks of the entertainment press are just not very good number-crunchers--by which I mean they never made it up to pre-algebra in the course of their mathematical educations, while they have never heard of this thing called "inflation." Part of it is that, in spite of the crowing about how great the box office is, they are still grading on the post-pandemic curve. And part of it is that they are selling a line, namely that the movie is a success, just as they told everyone Mad Max: Fury Road was a success when it was actually losing money, to some extent because they are courtiers of the industry personnel who make films, to some extent because they are groupthinkers who reflexively tell the same story as "everyone else," to some extent because there may be a little more than that going on in an age in which the entertainment news page is almost as packed with the inanities of what passes for news as the front pages of the mainstream press.
But how does this compare to the reality?
In its second weekend the movie Twisters raised its total to $155 million with a $35 million Friday-to-Sunday take--a figure that works out to a 57 percent drop from the gross of the prior weekend. That is better than the 68-70 percent drops we saw for Thor 4 and Ant-Man 3, but worse than, for example, the 47 percent drop we saw for Guardians of the Galaxy 3--not disastrous, but far from great, the more in as the opening weekend was not a $100 million+ debut but took in a mere $80 million. At this rate I expect the movie to break the $200 million barrier domestically--but to fall well short of the $242 million the original Twister made in 1996, when the dollar was worth about twice what it is today, all as the movie cost about twice as much as that predecessor to make. (At the current rate of week-to-week decline think $210-$220 million when its run sputters out.)
Moreover, the film is doing a lot less well than that in the international markets. Where the 1996 movie actually made more money internationally than in North America, and that without China being the market that it still is, making for a 49/51 domestic/international split, the same split is 70/30 for the new movie. That is to say, as the movie is on its way to less than half the original's business in real terms in Hollywood's home market, that is still more than twice as much as it doing internationally. Adding it all together I see a finale in the vicinity of $300-$350 million globally as most probable for the movie--versus the $496 million Twister made in current dollars, and the billion dollars to which that is equal today.
The result is that the movie is neither living up to the original's precedent, nor a savior-of-summer caliber hit in the way that Inside Out 2 has been, and that it looks like Deadpool & Wolverine is for the time being. Indeed, given a production budget that has been estimated as being as much as $200 million at this rate the movie could lose money (maybe not Furiosa money, but still, a loss such as no studio needs ever, and especially right now).
So why does the press act as if it is doing well?
Part of the story, I think, is that the folks of the entertainment press are just not very good number-crunchers--by which I mean they never made it up to pre-algebra in the course of their mathematical educations, while they have never heard of this thing called "inflation." Part of it is that, in spite of the crowing about how great the box office is, they are still grading on the post-pandemic curve. And part of it is that they are selling a line, namely that the movie is a success, just as they told everyone Mad Max: Fury Road was a success when it was actually losing money, to some extent because they are courtiers of the industry personnel who make films, to some extent because they are groupthinkers who reflexively tell the same story as "everyone else," to some extent because there may be a little more than that going on in an age in which the entertainment news page is almost as packed with the inanities of what passes for news as the front pages of the mainstream press.
Despicable Me 4: The Box Office Performance the Entertainment Press Doesn't Want to Talk About
These days the entertainment press is absolutely ecstatic about the box office performance of Inside Out 2--a genuine, massive, commercial success of exactly the kind they were desperately looking for, a brand-name exploiting big-budget sequel to a past animated hit that to them seems to prove, yes, Hollywood can go on making money by doing business as usual. (Indeed, to the extent that some reviewers have found the film mediocre this is probably a comfort to those taking this view--because it is a lot easier to make "mediocre" than "brilliant," and it is mediocre that they want and need to be told is still salable.)
That press is rather less ecstatic about the performance of another brand-name big-budget animated sequel, Despicable Me 4. Deadline may sound as if it is bullish on the movie when it advertises Despicable Me as having become the "12th biggest" franchise ever worldwide. Still, the latest film's having (as the same headline reports) as of its fourth weekend taken in $632 million worldwide is not very impressive next to the $1.5 billion Pixar's movie has scored--and for that matter, the grosses of the previous Despicable Me films. The original film took in $252 million domestically and about twice that globally, but this comes to $362 million stateside when we account for inflation--versus the $290 million the latest has made while running out of steam, all as the international earnings prove no more ebullient, such that Gru's latest adventure might not match the nearly $800 million ($782 million) the first grossed in 2010 comes to in June 2024 dollars. And of course, the real benchmark in most minds is not the first film in the series but the sequels that followed--Despicable Me 2 and Despicable Me 3--and the tie-in Minion movies, Minions and the prequel Minions: The Rise of Gru. In today's terms the two Despicable Me movies and Minions blew way past the billion-dollar mark ($1.3 billion in the case of the two Despicable Me movies, the $1.5 billion mark in the case of Minions!), while the second Minions movie just missed it.
The First Five Despicable Me Franchise Films, Worldwide and Domestic Grosses (Current and June 2024 U.S. Dollars, CPI-Adjusted; Adjusted Figures in Parentheses)
Despicable Me (2010)--Worldwide--$543 Million ($782 Million); Domestic--$252 Million ($362 Million)
Despicable Me 2 (2013)--Worldwide--$971 Million ($1.305 Billion); Domestic--$368 Million ($495 Million)
Minions (2015)--Worldwide--$1.159 Billion ($1.525 Billion); Domestic--$336 Million ($442 Million)
Despicable Me 3 (2017)--Worldwide--$1.035 Billion ($1.326 Billion); Domestic--$265 Million ($339 Million)
Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022)--Worldwide--$940 Million ($998 Million); Domestic--$370 Million ($393 Million)
Should Despicable Me 4 manage to struggle up to the $780 million mark the original attained it would still confirm a trend of declining grosses for the franchise when examined alongside these other films--domestically, internationally and globally. In that Hollywood and its courtiers in the entertainment press have a reminder of the reality of the franchise fatigue that conflicts with their narrative of business being on the up and up and not having to change a thing about what they are doing--which is exactly what they are studiously ignoring as they shout louder and louder about the far more comforting performance of Inside Out 2.
That press is rather less ecstatic about the performance of another brand-name big-budget animated sequel, Despicable Me 4. Deadline may sound as if it is bullish on the movie when it advertises Despicable Me as having become the "12th biggest" franchise ever worldwide. Still, the latest film's having (as the same headline reports) as of its fourth weekend taken in $632 million worldwide is not very impressive next to the $1.5 billion Pixar's movie has scored--and for that matter, the grosses of the previous Despicable Me films. The original film took in $252 million domestically and about twice that globally, but this comes to $362 million stateside when we account for inflation--versus the $290 million the latest has made while running out of steam, all as the international earnings prove no more ebullient, such that Gru's latest adventure might not match the nearly $800 million ($782 million) the first grossed in 2010 comes to in June 2024 dollars. And of course, the real benchmark in most minds is not the first film in the series but the sequels that followed--Despicable Me 2 and Despicable Me 3--and the tie-in Minion movies, Minions and the prequel Minions: The Rise of Gru. In today's terms the two Despicable Me movies and Minions blew way past the billion-dollar mark ($1.3 billion in the case of the two Despicable Me movies, the $1.5 billion mark in the case of Minions!), while the second Minions movie just missed it.
The First Five Despicable Me Franchise Films, Worldwide and Domestic Grosses (Current and June 2024 U.S. Dollars, CPI-Adjusted; Adjusted Figures in Parentheses)
Despicable Me (2010)--Worldwide--$543 Million ($782 Million); Domestic--$252 Million ($362 Million)
Despicable Me 2 (2013)--Worldwide--$971 Million ($1.305 Billion); Domestic--$368 Million ($495 Million)
Minions (2015)--Worldwide--$1.159 Billion ($1.525 Billion); Domestic--$336 Million ($442 Million)
Despicable Me 3 (2017)--Worldwide--$1.035 Billion ($1.326 Billion); Domestic--$265 Million ($339 Million)
Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022)--Worldwide--$940 Million ($998 Million); Domestic--$370 Million ($393 Million)
Should Despicable Me 4 manage to struggle up to the $780 million mark the original attained it would still confirm a trend of declining grosses for the franchise when examined alongside these other films--domestically, internationally and globally. In that Hollywood and its courtiers in the entertainment press have a reminder of the reality of the franchise fatigue that conflicts with their narrative of business being on the up and up and not having to change a thing about what they are doing--which is exactly what they are studiously ignoring as they shout louder and louder about the far more comforting performance of Inside Out 2.
The Importance of Opening Weekend
Does Hollywood pay too much attention to opening weekends?
That is the implication of the title of an article that ran in Variety last month--or at least seems to be at a glance. What the author of that article ends up saying is more complicated, and indeed they end up mostly telling the reader just why opening weekend gets so much attention.
I certainly agree about their importance. Granted, opening weekends account for only a part of a film's gross, which in turn accounts for only part of its revenue. Still, it is a large part which tends to be strongly indicative of its larger commercial fortunes. Where those major studio releases which open wide are concerned it is a rare movie that exceeds, matches or even avoids a significant drop in Friday-to-Sunday earnings from its first weekend in theatrical release to its second. It is a rare movie that makes so much as four times its opening during its longer run, with many very successful films making much less (30-40 percent of the final take pretty typical front-loading for highly anticipated blockbusters, so that they often make less than three times that much). It is a rare movie that, after flopping in theaters, goes on to become a hit on video--which is why we hear so much about those movies that do (typically, in the fact giving producers' ideas for sequels they might otherwise not have bothered with).
There are surprises, of course. I did say "rare," after all. And it is possible that surprises are becoming more common amid the post-Great Recession, post-streaming, post-pandemic tumult of the box office. (I have had the impression that moviegoers are a bit less likely than before to rush out on opening weekend.) But even so you really can tell a lot from an opening weekend, especially the big-budgeted, high profile, releases that are the subject of most of the analysis.
And what can be told, as soon as possible, matters more, not less, because the current blockbusters-all-year-round approach to filmmaking gives individual movies so little chance to leave an impression--and are typically part of larger franchise plans, with speedy action to get that sequel/prequel greenlit and underway at a premium.
I do not hesitate to say that there is a lot for anyone who respects film as an art form to dislike about the way the film business is conducted, including this. But so long as it is conducted that way opening weekends are a natural subject of interest for those who do think about that business, and it is simple-minded or disingenuous to pretend otherwise.
That is the implication of the title of an article that ran in Variety last month--or at least seems to be at a glance. What the author of that article ends up saying is more complicated, and indeed they end up mostly telling the reader just why opening weekend gets so much attention.
I certainly agree about their importance. Granted, opening weekends account for only a part of a film's gross, which in turn accounts for only part of its revenue. Still, it is a large part which tends to be strongly indicative of its larger commercial fortunes. Where those major studio releases which open wide are concerned it is a rare movie that exceeds, matches or even avoids a significant drop in Friday-to-Sunday earnings from its first weekend in theatrical release to its second. It is a rare movie that makes so much as four times its opening during its longer run, with many very successful films making much less (30-40 percent of the final take pretty typical front-loading for highly anticipated blockbusters, so that they often make less than three times that much). It is a rare movie that, after flopping in theaters, goes on to become a hit on video--which is why we hear so much about those movies that do (typically, in the fact giving producers' ideas for sequels they might otherwise not have bothered with).
There are surprises, of course. I did say "rare," after all. And it is possible that surprises are becoming more common amid the post-Great Recession, post-streaming, post-pandemic tumult of the box office. (I have had the impression that moviegoers are a bit less likely than before to rush out on opening weekend.) But even so you really can tell a lot from an opening weekend, especially the big-budgeted, high profile, releases that are the subject of most of the analysis.
And what can be told, as soon as possible, matters more, not less, because the current blockbusters-all-year-round approach to filmmaking gives individual movies so little chance to leave an impression--and are typically part of larger franchise plans, with speedy action to get that sequel/prequel greenlit and underway at a premium.
I do not hesitate to say that there is a lot for anyone who respects film as an art form to dislike about the way the film business is conducted, including this. But so long as it is conducted that way opening weekends are a natural subject of interest for those who do think about that business, and it is simple-minded or disingenuous to pretend otherwise.
Inside Out 2's Box Office Success: A Few More Thoughts
Inside Out 2's performance at the box office continues to be sensational. Just the past week saw the film surpass two more milestones--the movie breaking the $600 million barrier domestically, and the $1.5 billion barrier globally, which, even if we adjust for inflation, makes it the highest-grossing film Hollywood has had since Avatar 2 way back in December 2022 (which was also a far more expensive movie than this animated feature). Meanwhile in getting to its domestic take of $613.4 million the film has already shown itself to not only have opened significantly bigger than the original Inside Out (again, even after inflation), but to have had longer legs (the opening weekend multiplier to the full gross already at 3.98, versus the prior film's 3.94)--this sequel with a bigger opener strictly speaking less front-loaded than its predecessor.
Even fairly late into its run, even as my old expectations about the film (that it would probably just touch the original Inside Out's current-dollar gross, rather than exceed its real-terms gross by perhaps a third) came to seem to belong to another, more pessimistic, age, I did not think the film would approach, let alone surpass, the $1.5 billion mark.
I have also found myself wondering at just why this has been the case--because the more in as the first Inside Out came out almost a decade ago and was not the biggest of Pixar's hits, with what that implies about the eagerness of the audience for a follow-up, and because if the critics are on the whole favorable to the film, they have been less enraptured with the film than one might expect in a way that may count for something. (The view that the movie is a mediocrity testifying to a continued Pixar slump artistically if not commercially not at all hard to find, and this seems to me to matter rather more than the critical slights of the hugely successful Super Mario Bros. film last year.)
I suppose that the paucity of material exciting the family film audience these past few years has helped--Elemental's eventual box office success pretty marginal, Wish one of the biggest flops of the year, while there has not been much else since, with Despicable Me 4 rather less of a success than its predecessors (certainly in real terms, certainly globally). Their weakness has been Inside Out 2's strength--though of course, the "why" does not diminish the very strong possibility that, even if the Deadline review of the movie was not particularly flattering, this movie will win 2024's Deadline's Most Valuable Blockbusters Tournament.
Even fairly late into its run, even as my old expectations about the film (that it would probably just touch the original Inside Out's current-dollar gross, rather than exceed its real-terms gross by perhaps a third) came to seem to belong to another, more pessimistic, age, I did not think the film would approach, let alone surpass, the $1.5 billion mark.
I have also found myself wondering at just why this has been the case--because the more in as the first Inside Out came out almost a decade ago and was not the biggest of Pixar's hits, with what that implies about the eagerness of the audience for a follow-up, and because if the critics are on the whole favorable to the film, they have been less enraptured with the film than one might expect in a way that may count for something. (The view that the movie is a mediocrity testifying to a continued Pixar slump artistically if not commercially not at all hard to find, and this seems to me to matter rather more than the critical slights of the hugely successful Super Mario Bros. film last year.)
I suppose that the paucity of material exciting the family film audience these past few years has helped--Elemental's eventual box office success pretty marginal, Wish one of the biggest flops of the year, while there has not been much else since, with Despicable Me 4 rather less of a success than its predecessors (certainly in real terms, certainly globally). Their weakness has been Inside Out 2's strength--though of course, the "why" does not diminish the very strong possibility that, even if the Deadline review of the movie was not particularly flattering, this movie will win 2024's Deadline's Most Valuable Blockbusters Tournament.
Saturday, July 27, 2024
Deadpool & Wolverine Comes Out This Weekend
Back in June we first heard of tracking-based forecasts of a $200 million+ opening weekend for Deadpool & Wolverine. Subsequently Boxoffice Pro's first long-range forecast was consistent with this--and remained so from week to week, down to their final pre-release forecast Wednesday ($180-$200 million), affirming the expectation that this will be "the biggest R-rated opener of all time."
Will the film's opening live up to these colossal expectations?
This week the moviegoers will decide that--and decide, too, whether the movie, which may have a bit less critical enthusiasm behind it than one might have been expected, will, as the Boxoffice staff put it, prove to be "super front-loaded" so that after the record-breaking opener the movie fizzles out. Still, even as one who had been dubious about this one just six months ago after a year of watching almost every comparable film flop this one looks like just the excuse Hollywood has been waiting for to green-light another slew of superhero sequels--for better or worse.
Will the film's opening live up to these colossal expectations?
This week the moviegoers will decide that--and decide, too, whether the movie, which may have a bit less critical enthusiasm behind it than one might have been expected, will, as the Boxoffice staff put it, prove to be "super front-loaded" so that after the record-breaking opener the movie fizzles out. Still, even as one who had been dubious about this one just six months ago after a year of watching almost every comparable film flop this one looks like just the excuse Hollywood has been waiting for to green-light another slew of superhero sequels--for better or worse.
Some Thoughts on the Prospects of the American Box Office in Late 2024
Earlier this year I speculated here about, among other films, Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine (which I was then calling Deadpool 3) on the basis of the way the box office has run since early 2023--for the most part, disastrously for franchise films--which left me less than bullish about both those movies.
As it happened Inside Out 2 has been by every reasonable measure a hit--not a limited, modest, qualified success like Elemental but a genuine blockbuster that far outdid a highly successful original with a gross that, adjusted for inflation, would have made it a member of the billion-dollar club pre-pandemic. Meanwhile Deadpool & Wolverine is likely to be an equally spectacular success.
Indeed, my thought that Deadpool & Wolverine would still be likely to fall short of the half-billion dollar mark can seem to belong to another world, box office-wise.
But six months on, are we really in a different world from the one I saw in January? It will take more than one or even two hits to prove that, the more in as while Hollywood's courtiers focus attention on the successes, other films have gone on doing less well. Yes, this is the summer of Inside Out, and shortly to become the summer of Deadpool as well, but the summer also saw performances by the latest Planet of the Apes and Mad Max and Bad Boys, among others, that would tend to affirm rather than refute claims of franchise fatigue. Only the most optimistic would imagine that this year will not see any more major films get lukewarm receptions (this may in fact have just happened again with Twisters), or even flop miserably, especially given that the trend had already set in not with the pandemic, but with the Great Recession. After the crash of 2007 we saw the longtime level of moviegoing fall from 4-5 a year per capita in North America to 3-4 over the 2010s, and after the pandemic the figure's fall sharpened, so that these last couple of years it has been to 2-3--with the reality underlined by how in spite of Inside Out 2's success in June 2024 the box office in that month was still down compared with the rather anemic June 2023, never mind June 2019.
Still, I now wonder if maybe the year will not manage a few more hits than I expected. For the moment I do not find myself reconsidering what I said about Gladiator--because even in the best of times historical epics have been so hit-and-miss, and this particular film has so much against it (even before we get to the allegations of review-bombing). But I am giving the chances of the upcoming Joker 2 a rethink.
As it happened Inside Out 2 has been by every reasonable measure a hit--not a limited, modest, qualified success like Elemental but a genuine blockbuster that far outdid a highly successful original with a gross that, adjusted for inflation, would have made it a member of the billion-dollar club pre-pandemic. Meanwhile Deadpool & Wolverine is likely to be an equally spectacular success.
Indeed, my thought that Deadpool & Wolverine would still be likely to fall short of the half-billion dollar mark can seem to belong to another world, box office-wise.
But six months on, are we really in a different world from the one I saw in January? It will take more than one or even two hits to prove that, the more in as while Hollywood's courtiers focus attention on the successes, other films have gone on doing less well. Yes, this is the summer of Inside Out, and shortly to become the summer of Deadpool as well, but the summer also saw performances by the latest Planet of the Apes and Mad Max and Bad Boys, among others, that would tend to affirm rather than refute claims of franchise fatigue. Only the most optimistic would imagine that this year will not see any more major films get lukewarm receptions (this may in fact have just happened again with Twisters), or even flop miserably, especially given that the trend had already set in not with the pandemic, but with the Great Recession. After the crash of 2007 we saw the longtime level of moviegoing fall from 4-5 a year per capita in North America to 3-4 over the 2010s, and after the pandemic the figure's fall sharpened, so that these last couple of years it has been to 2-3--with the reality underlined by how in spite of Inside Out 2's success in June 2024 the box office in that month was still down compared with the rather anemic June 2023, never mind June 2019.
Still, I now wonder if maybe the year will not manage a few more hits than I expected. For the moment I do not find myself reconsidering what I said about Gladiator--because even in the best of times historical epics have been so hit-and-miss, and this particular film has so much against it (even before we get to the allegations of review-bombing). But I am giving the chances of the upcoming Joker 2 a rethink.
Second Thoughts About the Second Joker Film?
The original Joker back in 2019 was an exceedingly idiosyncratic film in many ways--an origin story not for a superhero but for a supervillain, which took a low-budgeted, action-sparse, period-set, Scorsese homage approach to telling the story of the "making of" the iconic figure at its center. However, on the basis of the character's intrinsic fascination (how many characters of any type, let alone comic book characters, have brought two different performers an Oscar?), and the controversy which surrounded the film, which substantially had to do with the film's element of social criticism, which had mainstream commentators calling for its censorship.
Of course, many a critic has treated that controversy as having been contrived--but it seems to me that this has tended to be an expression of hostility toward the kind of criticism it had to make, outside the range of subjects they approve (a movie like Jay Roach's Bombshell much more to their liking).
There are thus grounds for considerable skepticism about whether the broader public shares their view. Still, the kind of anticipation the promotion of the first film managed to generate is not easily recreated, all as the sequel arrives in rather a different world, box office-wise and maybe even pop culturally than the original did. If the idea of following up Taxi Driver with New York, New York, so to speak, seems risky, we have seen risk and oddity pay off as seemingly safe blockbusters flopped hard--all as it is easy to picture a year in which Deadpool (who appeared on screen as a villain in someone else's movie first) saved the summer box office seeing the Joker save the box office this fall.
Of course, many a critic has treated that controversy as having been contrived--but it seems to me that this has tended to be an expression of hostility toward the kind of criticism it had to make, outside the range of subjects they approve (a movie like Jay Roach's Bombshell much more to their liking).
There are thus grounds for considerable skepticism about whether the broader public shares their view. Still, the kind of anticipation the promotion of the first film managed to generate is not easily recreated, all as the sequel arrives in rather a different world, box office-wise and maybe even pop culturally than the original did. If the idea of following up Taxi Driver with New York, New York, so to speak, seems risky, we have seen risk and oddity pay off as seemingly safe blockbusters flopped hard--all as it is easy to picture a year in which Deadpool (who appeared on screen as a villain in someone else's movie first) saved the summer box office seeing the Joker save the box office this fall.
On Twisters' Opening Weekend
When I heard that Twisters was actually happening I was not annoyed with the idea (the way I am, for example, annoyed by the fact that they just keep on making more crappy entries in the Alien franchise), but I was skeptical of its prospects. I was also not surprised when the opening projected for it, in spite of apparent "savior of summer" expectations in some quarters, was not especially high by the standard of $200 million blockbusters--and at Boxoffice Pro fell significantly over the weeks prior to release. (Their initial long-range forecast for the opening weekend was for $65-$95 million; by the week of release it was down to $60-$75 million, the ceiling fallen by a fifth.)
In the event the movie opened to $80 million domestically, and $123 million globally. The numbers are not exactly record-crushing--just decent domestically, and frankly disappointing internationally (The Hollywood Reporter admitting that the $43 million scored in 76 markets was not all that had been hoped for). Especially in the absence of a significant improvement in the international numbers the movie will need very good legs domestically to make back the studio's expenditure on it, never mind match the original (whose $242 million domestic gross in 1996 was the equivalent of a roughly half-billion dollar gross today). Alas, Deadpool & Wolverine comes out next week--and if it is rather a different sort of film, it is still competing with it in the action-spectacle sphere, and expected to be such a major event (a $200 million opening!) that it can be expected to cut into the audience for Twisters, just after it has become clear that Twisters needs every bit of help it can get. The result is that if the media coverage is mostly upbeat (and making full use of their punning skills to give the impression of success--"Twisters takes the market by storm," "Twisters whips up huge storm," etc.), barring very good holds in what will shortly become a much tougher market even Hollywood's courtiers (the ones who made Mad Max: Fury Road sound like it was some massive hit back in 2015) will become less generous in their appraisal.
In the event the movie opened to $80 million domestically, and $123 million globally. The numbers are not exactly record-crushing--just decent domestically, and frankly disappointing internationally (The Hollywood Reporter admitting that the $43 million scored in 76 markets was not all that had been hoped for). Especially in the absence of a significant improvement in the international numbers the movie will need very good legs domestically to make back the studio's expenditure on it, never mind match the original (whose $242 million domestic gross in 1996 was the equivalent of a roughly half-billion dollar gross today). Alas, Deadpool & Wolverine comes out next week--and if it is rather a different sort of film, it is still competing with it in the action-spectacle sphere, and expected to be such a major event (a $200 million opening!) that it can be expected to cut into the audience for Twisters, just after it has become clear that Twisters needs every bit of help it can get. The result is that if the media coverage is mostly upbeat (and making full use of their punning skills to give the impression of success--"Twisters takes the market by storm," "Twisters whips up huge storm," etc.), barring very good holds in what will shortly become a much tougher market even Hollywood's courtiers (the ones who made Mad Max: Fury Road sound like it was some massive hit back in 2015) will become less generous in their appraisal.
Inside Out 2 is Quadrupling its Opening Weekend Take
About a week ago I remarked the very good holds that Inside Out 2 had enjoyed from week to week, in spite of the way its big opening would seem to have hinted at a very front-loaded run. This continued this past weekend when, due to a mere 36 percent decline from the prior weekend, the movie added almost $13 million more to its already mighty domestic take, raising it to $596 million.
At this rate the movie is not only bound to break through the $600 million barrier that only one film has breached in the last eighteen months (Barbie, which debuted a year ago), but match the excellent multiplier the first Inside Out enjoyed (3.94), even with a far higher multiplicand--hitting $608 million by next Sunday, or not long after.
One may regard that as yet another "win" for Pixar's first really unqualified hit since 2019's Toy Story 4, and (with $1.4 billion and counting taken in globally) its biggest moneymaker since 2018's The Incredibles 2 way back in the pre-pandemic era.
Given how Disney, and Hollywood, were desperate for a hit of this kind as an excuse to double down on their ruthless milking of past successes, and in Inside Out 2 have finally got it, I would not be surprised at all to hear of an Inside Out 3, an Inside Out TV series, and a live-action remake of Inside Out all headed our way really soon.
At this rate the movie is not only bound to break through the $600 million barrier that only one film has breached in the last eighteen months (Barbie, which debuted a year ago), but match the excellent multiplier the first Inside Out enjoyed (3.94), even with a far higher multiplicand--hitting $608 million by next Sunday, or not long after.
One may regard that as yet another "win" for Pixar's first really unqualified hit since 2019's Toy Story 4, and (with $1.4 billion and counting taken in globally) its biggest moneymaker since 2018's The Incredibles 2 way back in the pre-pandemic era.
Given how Disney, and Hollywood, were desperate for a hit of this kind as an excuse to double down on their ruthless milking of past successes, and in Inside Out 2 have finally got it, I would not be surprised at all to hear of an Inside Out 3, an Inside Out TV series, and a live-action remake of Inside Out all headed our way really soon.
Looking Back: Pauline Kael in the Temple of Cinema's Doom (Some Words About Her Old Review of Raiders of the Lost Ark)
Reading Pauline Kael's review of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg's cinematic milestone The Raiders of the Lost Ark ("Whipped") some years ago I was surprised less by Kael's appraisal of the film (much of which I disagreed with, not that I expected much else) than the insightfulness of her appraisal of the kind of film it was--a big-budget action movie of the kind that was then still a comparative novelty (especially for American filmmaking) but which we have since come to take for granted as the backbone of Hollywood production and the commercial and even artistic basis of the medium--and, too, what the making of the movie said about Hollywood circa 1981.
As Kael observes, the film, rather than telling a story building to a climax, gives us a long succession of "climaxes" as, with only a fairly perfunctory narrative thread connecting them and little regard for logic (the plot at once ultra-simplistic, overfamiliar, and full of holes, presenting which the film "cuts corners and takes the edge off plot points"), the movie packs visceral thrills together so closely, tightly and efficiently together that, the movie's makers lingering on nothing, savoring nothing, they leave room for nothing else--character, dramatic tension, suspense, while the film even races through the funny moments Kael found its liveliest and cleverest. In the end the result can seem like a commercial for the movie itself ("an encyclopedia of high spots from the old serials, raced through at top speed and edited like a greater trailer--for flash"), which, for all the undeniable technical skill invested in putting it all together (indeed, the editing seemed to Kael so tight it was "as if the sheer technology had taken over"), fell flat for her as entertainment, never mind art. (Raiders, she wrote, is "so thrill-packed you don't have time to breathe . . . or enjoy yourself very much," especially as the movie goes on and the audience gets thoroughly exhausted, even if the performance, which requires the movie to open with a bang and then keep topping itself, had not faltered by that point as it seemed likely to do.)
Kael's being so unimpressed with the movie seems important given that it leads her from appraisal of the film to the state of the film industry that produced such a movie--a "collapsing" movie industry where the marketing came first, with this not because of any "special effectiveness in selling pictures" they had (however much the marketing folks shamelessly claimed undeserved credit wherever they could), but rather their "keep[ing] pictures that don't lend themselves to an eye-popping thirty-second commercial from being made," or if such a film did happen to be made in spite of them, keeping those films from "being heard of" by the moviegoing public. Thus the movies that really needed a big marketing push to help them find an audience (and given their quality, deserved that help) were deprived of such resources as all the backing went to the movies easiest to sell, namely movies made by directors, who, especially given their talent and integrity (Lucas "one of the most honorable persons who have ever headed a production company"), were sadly "hooked on the crap of [their] childhood[s]" like "old Saturday afternoon serials," and equally "hooked on technological playthings and techniques." Indeed, Kael closes the rather lengthy essay with the observation that Lucas, whose then still novel attentiveness to the quality of the Star Wars-brand toys she remarks, is ultimately "in the toy business." Meanwhile, "anything to do with people's lives belongs on TV," such that this is where one goes for intellectually and emotionally more satisfying fare.
Thus Kael, after laying out just how the action movie works (if in rather a sour fashion), very neatly summed up how a financially pressed Hollywood seized on the logic of "high concept" film dominated by simplicity and striking visuals, the way in which it this elevated a certain kind of blockbuster (oriented to action, pace, spectacle, youthful and childhood nostalgia above all else, often as artistically empty as it is technically accomplished), marginalized other kinds of films, and increasingly relegated old-fashioned human drama to the small screen in a way that not only stands up very well four decades later, but feels very contemporary--those critics who actually dare to be critical essentially saying the same things over and over and over again, such that much of what Kael wrote could as easily have been written this week as when she actually wrote it, before most of the filmgoers in this country were even born.* Indeed, for all my disagreements with Kael's broader outlook and her assessment of Raiders (Criticize that magnificent score? How dare you, Madam!), I would strongly recommend Kael's essay to anyone taking an interest in high concept filmmaking, the "poetics" of the action movie, or the history of Hollywood since the "New Hollywood" era--the more in as, as Hollywood flounders amid a crisis far more severe than what it faced in the 1970s, with the strategies it adopted then these days in doubt, it seems an excellent occasion to gain the perspective offered by such a backward glance, and the contemporary commentary dominated by Hollywood's courtiers and claqueurs offers little to compare with it. I also recommend the review as a reminder of just how very, very good this major figure of her era could be when she was at her best, even in this very late and less celebrated phase of her career.
* It seems to me notable that Pauline Kael, in discussing all this, did not once reference the James Bond films that were an important inspiration for both Lucas and Spielberg in the early part of their careers--the regrettable omission pretty standard in discussion of Hollywood's embrace of the action film.
Kael's being so unimpressed with the movie seems important given that it leads her from appraisal of the film to the state of the film industry that produced such a movie--a "collapsing" movie industry where the marketing came first, with this not because of any "special effectiveness in selling pictures" they had (however much the marketing folks shamelessly claimed undeserved credit wherever they could), but rather their "keep[ing] pictures that don't lend themselves to an eye-popping thirty-second commercial from being made," or if such a film did happen to be made in spite of them, keeping those films from "being heard of" by the moviegoing public. Thus the movies that really needed a big marketing push to help them find an audience (and given their quality, deserved that help) were deprived of such resources as all the backing went to the movies easiest to sell, namely movies made by directors, who, especially given their talent and integrity (Lucas "one of the most honorable persons who have ever headed a production company"), were sadly "hooked on the crap of [their] childhood[s]" like "old Saturday afternoon serials," and equally "hooked on technological playthings and techniques." Indeed, Kael closes the rather lengthy essay with the observation that Lucas, whose then still novel attentiveness to the quality of the Star Wars-brand toys she remarks, is ultimately "in the toy business." Meanwhile, "anything to do with people's lives belongs on TV," such that this is where one goes for intellectually and emotionally more satisfying fare.
* It seems to me notable that Pauline Kael, in discussing all this, did not once reference the James Bond films that were an important inspiration for both Lucas and Spielberg in the early part of their careers--the regrettable omission pretty standard in discussion of Hollywood's embrace of the action film.
Are Glorified Autocompletes Going to War?
Ever since the topic of Artificial Intelligence (AI) became "hot" again in late 2022 we have been inundated with coverage of any and every hint of an imminent (or not so imminent) development in the field, as well as speculation about what it all might mean.
Those who are bullish, of course, get more attention--the idea that "Something big is happening" more interesting to most than explanation as to why that supposedly big happening is really "Much ado about nothing." Still, watching this field these past few decades I have consistently seen the hype far, far outrun the reality--certainly to go by what Kurzweil predicted in 1999, the possibility that Frey and Osborne argued in 2013, what Musk promised over and over and over again. Meanwhile Robert Gordon's skeptical views from back in 2000 have never been far from my thinking, and with them the implication I still argued this year--namely that any real artificial intelligence revolution will come when engineers advance AI performance in those key areas of perception of, navigation through and dextrous manipulation of the physical world to the point at which they can reliably perform physical tasks like moving about and handling objects as well as an adult human. And even as AI programs astound observers with their capacity to generate words and images, that prospect still seems remote.
Still, amid a profound remilitarization of international relations the world's armed forces--which necessarily take the view that they cannot afford to dismiss what is only "probably" hype just in case there really is something to it (and frankly, have historically been very susceptible to mere hype themselves)--the longstanding interest of those forces now seems to have a sharper edge as what may have seemed like unrealistic aspirations a few years ago are now being tested out, with this the case with such systems as fighter aircraft. Where a short time ago it seemed as if air forces were drawing back from their earlier, extravagant, expectations for the next, sixth, generation of jet fighters, the U.S. Air Force is now putting the "X-62" through its paces--an F-16D equipped with AI (a fourth-generation fighter with a sixth-generation control system) that has, reportedly, permitted it to take on a human pilot in a mock battle.
Is this the beginning of a process that will go all the way to a new "Revolution in Military Affairs," or is this line of development going to fizzle out the way the promise of so many technologies has in the past?
I suspect that we will get a clue as to the chances of that in what happens with AI in the civilian economy, where the stakes are apt to be less great, the tolerances not so small, as they are in high-technology warfare--and it must be admitted, even mainstream business news coverage is increasingly using the word "bubble" to describe the situation.
If they are right about that it would be far from the first time that defense planners "jumped the gun" in thinking that a still-developing technology was ready for the battlefield.
Those who are bullish, of course, get more attention--the idea that "Something big is happening" more interesting to most than explanation as to why that supposedly big happening is really "Much ado about nothing." Still, watching this field these past few decades I have consistently seen the hype far, far outrun the reality--certainly to go by what Kurzweil predicted in 1999, the possibility that Frey and Osborne argued in 2013, what Musk promised over and over and over again. Meanwhile Robert Gordon's skeptical views from back in 2000 have never been far from my thinking, and with them the implication I still argued this year--namely that any real artificial intelligence revolution will come when engineers advance AI performance in those key areas of perception of, navigation through and dextrous manipulation of the physical world to the point at which they can reliably perform physical tasks like moving about and handling objects as well as an adult human. And even as AI programs astound observers with their capacity to generate words and images, that prospect still seems remote.
Still, amid a profound remilitarization of international relations the world's armed forces--which necessarily take the view that they cannot afford to dismiss what is only "probably" hype just in case there really is something to it (and frankly, have historically been very susceptible to mere hype themselves)--the longstanding interest of those forces now seems to have a sharper edge as what may have seemed like unrealistic aspirations a few years ago are now being tested out, with this the case with such systems as fighter aircraft. Where a short time ago it seemed as if air forces were drawing back from their earlier, extravagant, expectations for the next, sixth, generation of jet fighters, the U.S. Air Force is now putting the "X-62" through its paces--an F-16D equipped with AI (a fourth-generation fighter with a sixth-generation control system) that has, reportedly, permitted it to take on a human pilot in a mock battle.
Is this the beginning of a process that will go all the way to a new "Revolution in Military Affairs," or is this line of development going to fizzle out the way the promise of so many technologies has in the past?
I suspect that we will get a clue as to the chances of that in what happens with AI in the civilian economy, where the stakes are apt to be less great, the tolerances not so small, as they are in high-technology warfare--and it must be admitted, even mainstream business news coverage is increasingly using the word "bubble" to describe the situation.
If they are right about that it would be far from the first time that defense planners "jumped the gun" in thinking that a still-developing technology was ready for the battlefield.
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