Biggest Winners:
- Barbenheimer – A billion plus for “Barbie,” a billion for “Oppenheimer.” The boys-girls kids meal toy selection comes to life only this time; audiences wanted both. The two movies seemed perfectly poised to cannibalize each other’s box office, but in a beautiful way, they only amplified each other. The best part about all of it is how deeply rankled pundits were to discover “Barbie”’s incredible success. While edge lords thought “Oppenheimer” would win the day, it turns out everybody was right, and everybody was wrong. Whether it was the costumes, the selfies, the TikTok, or something else in a beautiful way, this one proved we don’t have to choose. We can have our cake and eat it too.
- M3GAN – A killer AI robot doll. Somehow just the perfect embodiment for fun, campy horror movies in 2023. Blumhouse manages to output several movies a year, but this one just made the top of the list for return on investment. It’s not the first campy-fun-horror movie Blumhouse has brought out, but this one just caught TikTok’s wildfire. Expect much more of these in the future and Gen Z staking their claim on it.
- Suits – Netflix has this beautiful way of reviving television shows for a second, third, or even fourth wind. Just ask “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” When the Labor Strikes shut down productions and pushed back releases, it wasn’t like there suddenly weren’t any movies, but the world just wanted more comfort watching, and this was as good a show as any. Netflix is nothing if not perfect at comfort television, so “Suits” won the Netflix lottery. It helps that Meghan Markle went in and out of the news cycle depending on how things were going with Prince Harry.
- Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour: The Movie – With ticket prices to her legendary show well out of reach for plenty of people, a movie version hits that perfect sweet price point where even donw-on-their-luck dads could take their daughters to see her show. Admittedly, it brought up some videos of lunatics dancing in the theater or singing so loud Taylor can’t be heard, but when the studios moved their films out of the theaters (RIP “Dune 2”), nobody came to the Union’s aid more than Taylor Swift. I even heard a story that they TRIED to get a studio to release a concert film, and the studio told Swift’s team it would take them months to get a good film up and running. So Swift’s Father went around them, talked to AMC, and got a cut of the Concert out for people to see WHILE she was still on tour. The only press necessary was Swift’s already-planned concert schedule. AMC won that battle, whereas the Studios lost what could have been a second wind in their negotiations. Whatever studio exec passed on this one is probably kicking themselves for missing out.
Lessons Learned:
- Embrace camp – Whether it’s the world-supply pink glitter of “Barbie,” the unhinged TikTok dancing of “M3GAN,” or the once-in-a-weekend-where-were-you of Taylor Swift’s movie, the next generation of filmgoers are excited about campy movies. Does that mean people will have to swallow their pride and embrace the cringe? Sure! But once you do, you realize how much more fun moviegoing is. No more of this undercutting itself with sarcastic jokes and nonsense. Feel the emotions you’re supposed to feel. Don’t be afraid to have unadulterated fun with it!
- Events – In the attention economy, you’re only as good as your memes, and boy, let me tell you: that is a taller order than you think. With Barbenheimer striking untapped potential by drafting off each other’s success, it feels easier said than done. Gen Z loves an event they can post about. It’s not enough to have seen it but to have seen it opening weekend. Living in a post-Covid life, who can blame them? Anyone can watch TV indoors. People are craving doing something… special. So, if you can make your movie a special event, then you’re hitting it rich.
- Don’t Split Up Your Finales – It’s a long-running joke that the Fast & Furious franchise might never end. Its logic makes no sense. It’s cast waxes and wanes with contract negotiations more than anything else. As of this beat, none of the crew who “died” stayed dead. I don’t mind that! I think the Fast Family can have its fun and stay nonsensical. What people do seem to mind is when the promise to end things turns out to be a hollow one. Whether you’re Mission: Impossible or Fast and Furious, audiences seemed disinterested in the Part. 1’s of the final installments of these franchises. Who cares if, in two years, Dom Toretto or Ethan Hunt ride off into the sunset? If there’s a part one, then there’s a part two, and audiences might be more content to wait for part two so they can catch up before the final final installment. It doesn’t help that, on the red carpet premiere, Vin Diesel announced the final installment of the franchise would actually become a THREEQUEL splitting into three movies instead of two. Consider the return on investment low.
- Marvel’s Cinematic Universe weighs too much – It happened. It finally happened. The moment skeptics said would come. The “what happens when there’s too much to keep track of?” beat that inevitably excised plenty of comics readers and ultimately turned the comics audience into a niche one happened to the MCU itself. Between countless shows, new characters, and deep lore expansions, this franchise finally feels beaten to death. Admittedly, that’s not going to stop it from chugging along, but at least Bob Iger’s getting the clean slate he wanted when he took back over Disney. For now, though, we had our least exciting year for MCU movies in a long time. The undercooked CGI rankled the audience’s noses, and each movie or show that chipped away at people’s confidence in interconnected storytelling slowly chipped away at audiences’ interest. Call it a post-Thanos world, but now that Jonathan Majors Jr. has been convicted of crimes, the MCU crowd can finally admit it feels very much adrift. I, for one, have hopped off the boat. Until something major hits…. I will wait for it to go to Disney+
- Video Game Adaptations – They’re here to stay. Previous attempts to riff off video games gave us everything from the Resident Evil series to the John Leguizamo Mario Brothers. This year, we got some of the highest-earning, most critically-lauded adaptations of our lives, and there’s more to come. In the lead-up to these successes, Detective Pikachu and not one but two Sonic movies demonstrated children love these adaptations. It was only a matter of time before it made it into adult media. With the new Mario Bro.’s movie crossing the billion-dollar threshold (sparking a Nintendo Smash Bro.’s universe, believe it or not) and “The Last Of Us” earning instant water-cooler status, the code has finally been cracked. Within the next year, we have Amazon’s adaptation of Fallout, a few shows waiting in the wings (“God of War,” “Assassin’s Creed” for Netflix), and more movies to come (“Silent Hill,” “Sonic 3,” “Mario 2,” “Legend of Zelda,” “The Last of Us: Season 2”) this is only the beginning. People always say there are no new ideas in Hollywood, but now there are REALLY no new ideas.
Things to look forward to:
All the things we thought we’d get in 2023 are coming in 2024. That means “Dune 2” is finally coming out. Thank God. There’s more of the usual fare of franchise sequels/entries (“Joker 2,” “Godzilla x Kong,” “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” “Bad Boys 4,” “Inside Out 2,” “Deadpool 3,” “Kraven the Hunter,” “Alien: Romulus”) so we shall see how much sticks. More importantly, what this means is a longer runway for TV shows to develop and process. We’re getting several shows we’ve long awaited: “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” “The Boys: Season 4,” “Avatar: The Last Airbender”’s live-action adaptation, “Fallout,” and so much more. It certainly feels like a sequel year. While Sundance hasn’t happened yet, and not every surprise movie may hit, there’s little unique positioning ahead of us. The calendar feels stale, but that’s solely because of the delayed releases. 2024 is mostly the year 2023 should have been if the strikes hadn’t stopped everything, but that’s okay. Consider it a build-up year so that 2025 can really go off.
