This month sees a grand return to George Miller’s wasteland with “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” a prequel exploring the origin of Imperator Furiosa, first played by Charlize Theron in “Mad Max: Fury Road” and now has Anya Taylor-Joy in the role as we explore Furiosa’s journey from The Green Place of Many Mothers, to the clutches of a roving biker gang led by Dementus, and to Immortan Joe’s Citadel. However, “Furiosa” won’t be the end of the stories told within the “Mad Max” universe if Miller has any say in that.
Miller has revealed to Entertainment Weekly that he’s hopeful that his long-gestating idea for a third movie that developed alongside “Furiosa” 15 years ago when “Mad Max: Fury Road” was on hiatus with Miller and his creative team hashing out backstories for all their characters, will get made down the line as he’s keen if he gets the chance to do it. Confirming that Max is indeed lurking in the background during the events of “Furiosa” and he’ll have a minor cameo in the new film.
“In doing what we did in the preparation of ‘Mad Max: Fury Road,’ we also wrote what happened to Max in the year before we encounter him in [that film],” Miller said of his third film idea taking place a year before the events of “Fury Road” and where we’d see the grizzled antihero. “And as we get towards the end of this movie, the chronology… Basically, we had to see that Mad Max was lurking around somewhere because we do know what happened. The writers know what happened to Mad Max in that year before, and we have a whole story of that, which I would like to do sometime if I get the chance.”
What exactly would a Mad Max prequel set a year before “Fury “Road” look like?
This isn’t the first time a prequel tie-in has been brought up as a comic book and video game (had featured Gastown) seemingly took some of these elements as we saw Max’s connections to Glory The Child, the phantom girl portrayed by Coco Jack Gillies that haunts Max during the events of “Fury Road,” and her mother, Hope. As those flashbacks would suggest, the fate of Hope and Glory doesn’t lead to a happy ending, alongside other potentially dead cohorts Max wasn’t able to save before redeeming himself in “Fury Road.”
Nothing says that Miller couldn’t attempt to incorporate a Furiosa B-story taking place elsewhere in the wasteland and opposite to what Max is up to, allowing Theron to reprise the role one more time.
“Furiosa” will speed into theaters on May 24 with a premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and we’ll have to wait to see how many more adventures in the wasteland that Miller is willing to give us.
As the world fell, young Furiosa is snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers and falls into the hands of a great Biker Horde led by the Warlord Dementus. Sweeping through the Wasteland, they come across the Citadel presided over by The Immortan Joe. While the two Tyrants war for dominance, Furiosa must survive many trials as she puts together the means to find her way home.
Margot Robbie, LuckyChap, and Warner Bros. are continuing their working relationship after “Barbie” became the biggest film at the global box office in 2023 (earning a massive $1.4 billion). A report from Deadline has revealed the studio has scooped up a new superhero hero package that will see Robbie star in a feature film adaptation of the Rob Liefeld (co-creator of “Deadpool”) comic book, “Avengelyne.” Published by Image Comics, the comic focuses on an angel who fights the forces of evil.
The surprising aspect is the impressive creative team assembled for the film, which is director Olivia Wilde (“Book Smart”) and Aussie screenwriter Tony McNamara (“The Favourite,” “The Great”), the latter coming off the Oscar-winning movie “Poor Things.”
Here is how the outlet describes the property in their report, which sounds like a combination of Mike Mignola’s “Hellboy” meets former “Spawn” heroine Angela (now an Asgardian and ruler of Hel in Marvel Comics):
“Avengelyne is an angel who fights the forces of evil and often finds herself face-to-face with demons and monsters. She was the most feared warrior in heaven’s Warhost, having single-handedly broken into Pandemonium, the outer fortress of hell, to confront the devil himself. She is a fallen angel, banished from heaven by God after being tricked into questioning his love for humans. Avengelyne was stripped of all her angelic abilities, other than her great strength and her blood, which, once extracted from her body, could be used as a weapon or a miracle when it is empowered by quoting verses from the Bible. Avengelyne uses her powers to fight demons on Earth and is being groomed to be humankind’s last hope in a coming Armageddon.“
McNamara is a screenwriter known for biting wit and comedic timing, making him just the right kind of creative to help potentially overhaul a property that could be reworked for a global audience.
Robbie isn’t a stranger to the comic book genre after playing the DC Comics villain/antihero Harley Quinn in two “Suicide Squad” movies from directors David Ayer and James Gunn alongside a spinoff with “Birds of Prey” that was helmed by Cathy Yan. Her future as the character doesn’t seem all that concrete with various resets of the DCU from DC Studios, and Gunn has yet to announce a fourth project with Robbie back in the Quinn role. LuckyChap and Robbie have also been trying to get a remake of “Tank Girl” (created by Gorillaz co-founder/artist Jamie Hewlett) going with director Miles Joris-Peyrafitte, but there hasn’t been any word of what stage that is currently in.
Wilde has been itching to get into the superhero genre for years now as the filmmaker was once attached to direct a Marvel Comics project in 2020 that had been referred to in reports as “Spider-Woman” for Sony Pictures. However, there really hasn’t been an update since that project was first announced, and Marvel Studios’ participation was never made official.
This isn’t the first time Liefeld has attempted to get his lesser-known comic book characters into films and television. There was a time when Netflix was looking to flesh out the Liefeld properties like the “Extreme Universe,” until that deal, first announced in 2018, went up in smoke. That deal included the rights to Brigade, Bloodstrike, Lethal, Cybrid, and Kaboom. Things might have gone south potentially, we speculate, after the streamer had buyer’s remorse about acquiring the Millarworld (Mark Millar’s comic book material) source material when their expensive series adaptation of “Jupiter’s Legacy” failed to secure an audience ending its run at one season.
After reports that action star Tom Cruise is looking to book roles with more acting-focused projects and working with auteur filmmakers, a new report from Deadline seems to have revealed what one of those first movies could end up being. Legendary and Warner Bros. are said to be in negotiations to acquire the newest English-language film from Oscar-winning director Alejandro G. Iñárritu (“The Revenant”) with Crusie attached to star.
This news comes after Cruise signed a deal with Warners and is expected to include the long-delayed sequel to “Edge of Tomorrow” from director Doug Liman. Cruise and Liman are also partnering on a sci-fi film at Universal that is going to film sequences in space at the International Space Station. Other projects on Cruise’s plate are finishing up the titleless “Mission: Impossible 8” and Paramount is already developing “Top Gun 3” that will see director Joseph Kosinski return for the follow-up to the billion-dollar hit, “Top Gun: Maverick.” There have been indications that Quentin Tarantino‘s “The Movie Critic” might have a role for the actor as well.
Iñárritu has won four Academy awards for his previous English films “Birdman” (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay) and “The Revenant” (Nabbed a second Best Director statue). Plot details about this new film are unknown but the director co-wrote the script from 2023 with Sabina Berman, Alexander Dinelaris, and Nicolas Giacobone. “The Revenant” was a bit of a financial hit as the period survival thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio ended up making a hefty $500 million at the global box office and with a star like Cruise attached they could end up replicating that success.
It wouldn’t be the first time Oscar-caliber directors have worked with Cruise as some of his acclaimed credits include Martin Scorsese‘s “Color of Money,” Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Outsiders,” Paul Thomas Anderson‘s “Magnolia,” and the late iconic Stanley Kubrick on the thriller “Eyes Wide Shut.”
Warner Bros. has beat Universal Pictures to land the next big project from director Ryan Coogler (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) as his untitled film will see the successful director reunite with actor Michael B. Jordan. The news hails from Deadline after a heated bidding war that saw a group of studios and streamers vying for the mysterious genre film that Coogler will also write.
While there have been reports of the project centering around vampires, none of these new trade reports commenting on the deal are mentioning that aspect as plot details are still being kept under lock and key. But, the period genre aspect is indeed in place. Production is reportedly set to begin as early as this April in New Orleans, a setting that has indeed been used for vampires and other horror-focused ghoulies.
The pair have worked together on “Creed” (Michael B. Jordan is said to be gearing up to direct “Creed 4”), “Black Panther” as the rising talent played the film’s compelling villain Erik Killmonger with Jordan making a brief cameo in “Wakanda Forever” as the fallen baddie, and got their start together on “Frutivale Station.” Alongside this project, Jordan is said to be reprising the John Clark role in “Rainbow Six” from director Chad Stahelski (“John Wick” franchise) once he wraps up his “Highlander” remake at Lionsgate and is attached for an “I Am Legend” sequel at Warners that is expected to involve Will Smith.
Coogler hasn’t telegraphed his future film plans at Marvel Studios, but there has been some expectation after a bit of a break he’ll be ready to return to direct or simply write/produce “Black Panther 3” for Marvel Studios given the franchise’s popularity under his creative stewardship.
We’ll have to be patient for the film’s title and release date but being released in 2025 is a good prospect given the upcoming shoot.
A trailer for Tim Burton‘s “Beetlejuice” sequel “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is on the horizon and there is already news about the filmmaker’s reunion with Warner Bros. on another horror hybrid project. Deadline has learned that Burton has found his next big project and will remake the 1958 film “Attack of The Fifty Foot Woman” forthe studio with the help of novelist/screenwriter Gillian Flynn (“Gone Girl”). As the title alludes to, a woman is exposed to alien technology that leads to her growing to an astonishing fifty feet and wreaking havoc on a city. Burton has an established obsession with these kinds of schlock movies and previously worked with the studio on the 1996 sci-fi comedy “Mars Attacks!” which was based on the gore-fest trading cards from Topps harkening back to 1950s b-movies.
There was previous a HBO remake of the project in 1993 to less fanfare with comedian Christopher Guest (“Best In Show”) directing and “Kill Bill” actress Daryl Hannah starring/producing. The giant-woman trope in genre films has slowed down in recent memory but the b-movie-themed animated film, “Monsters vs. Aliens,” attempted to use the “Fifty Foot Woman” angle as the protagonist voiced by Reese Witherspoon was another giantess creation via aliens.
What will be next is finding an actress to play this new version of Nancy Archer. I don’t think it would be hard to imagine if modern a Scream Queen like Jenna Ortega is considered for the main role in the remake given her recent working relationship with Burton on the “Addams Family” revival series “Wednesday” and “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.”
This isn’t the only classic monster movie getting a modern incarnation at Warners as a third version of “The Blob“ is coming from David Bruckner (“Hellraiser”) after previous versions from Rob Zombie and Simon West had trouble coming together. Composer turned director Michael Giacchino (“Werewolf By Night”) is also attached to remake the 1954 film “Them!” about giant monster ants. It’s starting to feel like the new studio heads, Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, are understanding that the studio has some legacy horror projects that could be resurrected in a similar way to what Universal is doing with their Universal Monsters lineup.
Horror has become not only big business for studios but a lot of feature films released in theaters have done exceedingly well with audiences leading to some impressive box office results, as long as the budgets are reasonable. While Universal Pictures is hellbent on making sure they’re making their presence known with a string of remakes from within their Universal Monsters franchise, another studio is getting into the remake game and tackling a classic horror character that hasn’t been touched since 1988.
The Wrap reports that Warner Bros. has selected David Bruckner (“The Ritual”), who was behind the recent “Hellraiser” reboot, for a reimagining of “The Blob.” Bruckner is set to both write and direct this new take on with David S. Goyer (“Foundation”) producing via his production company, Phantom Four. The beloved horror film was first released in 1958 with a fresh-faced Steve McQueen starring, a direct sequel in 1972 called “Beware! The Blob,” and the Chuck Russell remake in the 1980s from a script penned by Frank Darabont (“The Walking Dead,” “The Mist,” “Shawshank Redemption”).
In the original, the blob is an alien purple sentient ooze that consumes organic creatures and with each meal starts to grow in size, once big enough it starts to eat humans and gets to the point where the small town is at the mercy of this giant eating machine. The Darabont remake from 1988 tried to add its own spin on the mythology by hinting the blob’s origin was outer space in the first act of the film. Only to reveal it was, in fact, a secret U.S. government bio-weapon experiment gone wrong and the armed handlers don’t exactly care about the townspeople getting gobbled up by the blob if it means their new weapon is kept classified from the rest of the world.
While the original had inventive but outdated special effects the 1980s version has some of the best practical gore effects ever put on film and is criminally underrated given that the slasher sub-genre seemed to rule that decade. Given the amounts of practical effects and makeup used in his Bruckner’s “Hellraiser” remake at 20th Century Studios, there is a glimmer of hope he’ll attempt to use as many in-camera effects as possible.
This wouldn’t be the first time that someone has attempted a fourth incarnation of “The Blob” as directors Rob Zombie (“House of 1,000 Corpses,” “Halloween”) and Simon West (“Con Air”) had tried to make their own versions of the film with the latter being able to coax Samuel L. Jackson into a leading role. However, it doesn’t sound like the same people are going to be involved in this more recent project and it’s not clear how this remake at Warners differs from the other three films.
We’ve all been rabid for more footage from Bong Joon-ho‘s follow-up to the Oscar-winning thriller “Parasite,” after the South Korean filmmaker swept the awards season with his prescient class struggle satire and sadly there are some unseen delays on the horizon. The Hollywood Reporter has echoed the announcement from Warner Bros. that “Mickey 17,” a sci-fi pic about using clone labor on an off-world colony starring Robert Pattinson, won’t be hitting its original intended release date of March 29, 2024. We don’t have a new date for the pic but there is an expectation that the studio won’t take long to find a spot for the high-profile project based on the novel by Edward Ashton.
“Parasite” would ultimately win four Oscar statues in 2020 for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film. Making “Mickey 17” one of the more hotly anticipated films in 2024 for not only genre fans but film nerds and award-season speculators as well.
UPDATE: It’s been announced by Warner Bros. that “Mickey 17” has been bumped to a release date of January 31, 2025. We had originally assumed the sci-fi could be pushed toward later in the year but it seems like an overcrowded slate in 2024 could be the problem.
Here is the original novel’s logline from Amazon:
Dying isn’t any fun…but at least it’s a living. Mickey7 is an Expendable: a disposable employee on a human expedition sent to colonize the ice world Niflheim. Whenever there’s a mission that’s too dangerous―even suicidal―the crew turns to Mickey. After one iteration dies, a new body is regenerated with most of his memories intact. After six deaths, Mickey7 understands the terms of his deal…and why it was the only colonial position unfilled when he took it. On a fairly routine scouting mission, Mickey7 goes missing and is presumed dead. By the time he returns to the colony base, surprisingly helped back by native life, Mickey7’s fate has been sealed. There’s a new clone, Mickey8, reporting for Expendable duties. The idea of duplicate Expendables is universally loathed, and if caught, they will likely be thrown into the recycler for protein. Mickey7 must keep his double a secret from the rest of the colony. Meanwhile, life on Niflheim is getting worse. The atmosphere is unsuitable for humans, food is in short supply, and terraforming is going poorly. The native species are growing curious about their new neighbors, and that curiosity has Commander Marshall very afraid. Ultimately, the survival of both lifeforms will come down to Mickey7. That is, if he can just keep from dying for good.
They’ve also announced that Adam Wingard‘s “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” has moved up to March 29 (The old date for “Mickey 17”), from April 12. Fans are widely excited for the next installment of the Monsterverse franchise after the recent Apple TV+ series “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” has made quite the impression on viewers and the previous success of “Godzilla vs Kong.”
The epic battle continues! Legendary Pictures’ cinematic Monsterverse follows up the explosive showdown of “Godzilla vs. Kong” with an all-new adventure that pits the almighty Kong and the fearsome Godzilla against a colossal undiscovered threat hidden within our world, challenging their very existence—and our own. “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” delves further into the histories of these Titans and their origins, as well as the mysteries of Skull Island and beyond, while uncovering the mythic battle that helped forge these extraordinary beings and tied them to humankind forever.
While Tom Crusie is busy trying to complete “Mission: Impossible 8” at Paramount Pictures with writer/director Christopher McQuarrie (“Jack Reacher”) and is reuniting with director Doug Liman (“Edge of Tomorrow”) for a space film at Universal Pictures that will see the iconic action star shoot scenes at the International Space Station, he’s aiming to make a big return to Warner Bros. as well.
Cruise has struck a deal with movie studio chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy to develop, produce, and star in new films for Warner Bros. as revealed by The Hollywood Reporter, and it won’t be a traditional first-look deal. This comes after Cruise had a billion-dollar success with the long-gestating sequel “Top Gun: Maverick” and a less-than-stellar box office return on “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1” making it one of the bigger disappointments of 2023.
The actor hasn’t made a film with Warners in a decade and should help nudge the studio to make a big commitment to the theatrical release given the actor isn’t terribly keen on streaming while championing theatrical windows as well.
Some of the previous films Cruise has made at WB include “The Last Samurai,” Stanley Kurbick’s final film “Eyes Wide Shut,” “Magnolia,” and “Edge of Tomorrow.” There had been plans to move forward with a sequel to “Edge of Tomorrow” for years, and the new deal might help push things towards production as Liman has been attached to direct for years but scheduling has seemingly been the main issue there with Cruise laser-focused on Paramount projects. Cruise’s new deal would make it a lot easier to get “Edge of Tomorrow 2” made.
One of the other films Cruise is hoping to make is a Les Grossman spinoff, reprising his crass studio executive character from Ben Stiller’s “Tropic Thunder” at Paramount/DreamWorks.
Fans have automatically assumed that Cruise could end up playing Hal Jordan in a “Green Lantern” movie at DC Studios, but nothing in the report has suggested this is even on the table. However, that potentially could happen if all the stars align and James Gunn/Peter Safran made an impressive pitch to the star.
In 2023, studios across the board had a good amount of their blockbusters tank or have underwhelming results at the global box office. At this point, the phrase “franchise fatigue” is maybe the more accurate term we should start using here over “superhero fatigue.” Mainly, because it’s not just comic book movies that are struggling to make an impact at the box office, earn as much as the last installment, or turn a profit. In this piece, we’re going to spotlight many of these box office hiccups from last year.
Disney saw a massive ding to their 2023 slate with “Indiana Jones & The Dial of Destiny,” with a $300 million budget and the fifth installment of the “Indiana Jones” franchise, which didn’t click with audiences in the way that Lucasfilm/Disney had hoped earning a less than stellar $383.9 million. Speaking of Lucasfilm, a studio built on the juggernaut “Star Wars” franchise hasn’t shot a feature film since 2019 with “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” Their pause on the feature division comes after “Solo: A Star Wars Story” had a weak box office take that scared Lucasfilm from pursuing other spinoff films and pivoted to focusing on their streaming series division at Disney+ instead. There have been endless promises of new films by Lucasfilm from filmmakers such as Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Taika Waititi, Dave Filoni, James Mangold, Shawn Levy, and a mystery trilogy from Rian Johnson. However, we’ll believe all these “Star Wars” movies are happening when the trailers drop considering how many films were turned into series or never happened at all like “Star Wars: Rogue Squadron” that had a release date of December 22,2023 and then the Patty Jenkins-directed pic just vanished.
It’s not just Disney and Warner Bros. undergoing a stress test other studios saw some of their popular franchises taking dings in 2023. Paramount’s “Transformers: Rise of The Beasts” had a somewhat difficult time attracting audiences to the point that it made even less than 2018’s “Bumblebee” with $438.9 million and $166.5 million less than “Transformers: The Last Knight.” Another big stumble for Paramount was “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” and one nobody really saw coming after “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” earned Paramount a whopping $791.6 million back in 2018. The most recent outing led by Tom Cruise only managed to make $395.4 million over the summer which is nearly half of what “Fallout” did. The studio is now abandoning the “Dead Reckoning Part Two” title for “Mission: Impossible 8” entirely.
While I think folks at Lionsgate are happy that their “Hunger Games” prequel has made $322.6 million, yet, that would still be a drop of $338.8 million from “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2.” The fourth installment of “The Expendables” distributed by Lionsgate ended up putting up some of the worst numbers with an embarrassing $21.2 million compared to the last pic’s $214.6 million. “Expendables 4” wasn’t the only disappointing Jason Statham film either as Ben Wheatley’s “Meg 2: The Trench” dropped down by $134.3 million.
Universal has many plans for expanding its Universal Monsters franchise with various features tackling different horror characters. However, in 2023 the studio struggled to get folks to watch either of their high-profile Dracula films with both the comedy “Renfield” ($26.4 million global earnings vs $65 million budget) and the grittier “The Last Voyage of The Demeter” ($21.7 million global earnings vs $45 million budget) which took decades to make it to the big screen failed to scare up an audience outside of the Halloween season. Some of the few horror films that struggled.
Meanwhile, on the superhero front, there were indeed signs of audience apathy. Both “The Marvels” ($46.1 million domestic opening weekend) and “Aquaman & The Lost Kingdom” ($27.7 million domestic opening weekend) were follow-ups to billion-dollar successes that failed to make a big splash by not covering their production/marketing costs.
Of course, the headaches that Marvel Studios experienced in 2023 are obvious with “The Marvels” dipping a massive $925.8 million compared to “Captain Marvel” and “Ant-Man 3” saw a significant drop of $146.6 million in contrast to “Ant-Man & The Wasp.” Although, it wasn’t all bad for the MCU since “Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.3” topped the superhero releases at $845.5 million with a minor slip of $18.2 million.
The final installment of the DCEU, “Aquaman & The Last Kingdom,” had a soft opening weekend as mentioned above, and has only mustered $258.2 million which is another colossal hiccup. A difference of $893.8 million when put up against the original. Ultimately, the “Shazam!” sequel ended up with one of the worst turnouts for major superhero blockbusters. At $133.8 million (Made a fraction of what the original did when it earned $367.7 million in 2019) and given its hefty budget of $300 million, “The Flash” was another catastrophe for WB at $270.6 million. With the DCU set for a big reboot in July 2025, starting with “Superman: Legacy,” there are some expectations that the reset could help with the studio’s rebranding post-Snyderverse. Then again, “Blue Beetle” (Not technically a sequel/follow-up) was retroactively added to the DCU by DC Studios around its release despite a weak $129.2 million at the box office.
Then again, it’s not all bad since there were a handful of upticks in 2023, and some of these include “Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse” hitting $690.5 million, a big jump from the Oscar-winning first installment’s global box office of $384.2 million from 2018. “Creed III” saw a $61 million boost which sounds good for the prospect of a fourth film. When it comes to more mature franchises, “John Wick: Chapter 4” also handed Lionsgate their best numbers over four feature films at $440.1 million. “Saw X” and “Scream VI” did well compared to their last installments too.
Every movie is as different as the reasons for them not becoming massive earners.
We can’t really expect studios to pump the breaks completely on the superhero movies given that it’s still a lucrative venture. There is an overload of sequels on the horizon at Marvel with “Deadpool 3,” “Captain America: Brave New World,” and director Destin Daniel Cretton exiting “Avengers 5” to focus on “Shangi-Chi 2.” “Deadpool 3,” an R-rated sequel, is expected to be the only MCU feature film released this year and gives the studios a bit of a cooling-off period.
While these pics haven’t been given official release dates or announced by Marvel themselves, there is an expectation that we’ll be getting “Spider-Man 4,” “Doctor Strange 3,” “Thor 5,” “Captain America 5,” and possibly “Eternals 2.” There are also a bunch of reboots on the way with things like “Fantastic Four,” “Blade,” “X-Men,” James Gunn’s “Superman: Legacy” shooting in 2024, and a new Batman film with “The Brave & The Bold.”
Sony’s adjacent Marvel films in 2024 include “Madame Web,” “Kraven The Hunter,” and the final solo outing for Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock in “Venom 3.” We don’t know how much appetite audiences have for these movies without Tom Holland’s involvement and a disaster like “Morbius” harkening back to the era of the 2000s when studios were rushing half-cooked superhero films into theaters to meet the demand.
A bunch of non-comic book blockbusters or follow-up installments coming later this year include “Dune: Part Two,” “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” “Gladiator 2,” “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” “Kung Fu Panda 4,” “Inside Out 2,” “Kingdom of The Planet of The Apes,” “Alien: Romulus,” “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” “Mufasa: The King King,” “Sonic The Hedgehog 3,” “The Lord of The Rings: The War of The Rohirrim,” ‘Smile 2,” “Saw XI,” “Transformers One,” “Beetlejuice 2,” “Wolf Man,” “A Quiet Place: Day One,” “Despicable Me 4,” “Bad Boys 4,” “Ballerina,” “The Strangers: Chapter 1,” and Radio Silence’s Universal Monsters film. Hopefully, these do a lot better with audiences.
Solutions? Well, spending $200-300 million a pop for these films is simply going to be unsustainable, and trying to market every blockbuster as an event continues to be difficult for studios when their slate is mostly these kinds of films in an oversaturated market. Studios would likely benefit from seeking out filmmakers who can deliver genre films at lower costs and potentially scaling back the overreliance on VFX. An adjusted expectation for these movies could be closer to a cume of $300-500 million and studios would be smart to think about going back to budgets closer to/under $80-100 million. The bigger the movie the pricier reshoots and overhauls will be to fix hiccups in the editing/post process which has contributed to a lot of these bloated budgets making it tougher for studios to recoup their overall costs.
Some other factors include that COVID is still ongoing with people avoiding crowded theaters/malls and a lot of audiences don’t have to wait long for releases to drop on streaming services they’re already subscribing to. The latter seems a lot more damaging because the shortened theatrical windows mean studios have to deal with not only folks waiting out to get movies for “free” on streaming via subs and diminishes the importance of the theatrical experience. Warner Bros. during the early days of the pandemic attempted to do day-and-date releases which was detrimental to their film division it led AT&T’s John Stankey to bail on the company by handing over the reins to David Zaslav/Discovery (His tax write-off scheme leading to the erasure of films and shows is equally imbecilic).
A good example of this was Disney, who dumped three straight Pixar films “Soul,” “Luca,” and “Turning Red” on Disney+ and seemingly did large brand damage as they’re trying to fix in retrospect by releasing them all in theaters in 2024 (See teaser trailer above). This comes ahead of the release of “Inside Out 2” in June, a follow-up to a $858.8 million hit, that may aim to curb some of the weak box office that “Toy Story” semi-spinoff “Lightyear” saw in 2022.
It’s worth mentioning that things like “Barbie,” “Oppenheimer,” and “Super Mario Bros.” surprised us all with their massive earnings as when these movies were first announced they weren’t slamdunks to the point we were expecting them to be the Top 3 films of 2023. Their theatrical windows gave those pics plenty of time to accumulate a bunch of cash. Also, doesn’t hurt that both “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” (Still playing at my local theater in December) came from visionary filmmakers, Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan respectively. Selecting creatives that can contribute to the script or elevate the material to make something appealing to an audience when a lot of genre projects can blend together or seem generic might help. Nolan and Denis Villeneuve have been extremely vocal on the importance of theatrical windows.
We shouldn’t be all doom-and-gloom about the situation. I’m mostly optimistic since there were plenty of good box office stories in 2023 and studios aren’t suddenly going to stop making these movies. Yet, potentially trimming the volume of releases, not trying to manufacture event status for all films, and using their abundant resources more carefully should be a good start. Marvel/Disney have already signaled they’re looking to pivot and make constructive changes. We’ll see if other studios make similar adjustments with their own franchises that are seeing dwindling interest.
Here is a rundown of franchise releases in 2023 to give you an idea of how lopsided the box office of 2023 actually was:
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 ($845.5 million)
FAST X ($704.8 million)
SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE ($690.5 million)
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING PART ONE ($567.5 million)
ANT-MAN & THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA ($476 million)
TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS ($438.9 million)
THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS & SNAKES ($322.6 million)
As you might be already aware, director Zack Snyder (“Army of The Dead”) is returning to genre filmmaking with his latest installment at Netflix, “Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire” and it features British actor Charlie Hunnam (“Pacific Rim”) as part of the ensemble cast. Like his director, Hunnam has a slim connection to the world of DC Comics films as fans have long campaigned to get him to play the feature film version of Oliver Queen, aka, Green Arrow.
It sounds like the role was once on the table but the actor declined the part. While speaking with Comic Book he clarified that Snyder didn’t approach him to play the character, Hunnam admitted he wasn’t unaware of the character and couldn’t exactly remember who asked him to play Green Arrow.
“I did not share their enthusiasm,” Hannum said of how he declined the mystery project. “I don’t know who Green Arrow is and don’t want to offend anyone.”
This might go back to the era of David S. Goyer‘s unmade “Green Arrow: Escape FromSuper Max” pitch, a prison-set action pic with Green Arrow unmasked and jailed having to deal with a Super Max Prison filled with violent inmates and DC villains like The Joker and Lex Luthor alongside more obscure ones. It was penned by Goyer and Justin Marks. Eerily, the Ben Affleck solo “Batman” film was expected to take some cues from it with the setting taking place in Arkham Asylum and Wayne having to work with/fight various rogues.
As far as we know, there aren’t current plans for Green Arrow in the new DCU spearheaded by James Gunn and Peter Safran, the new heads of DC Studios. Things could change very quickly given that Gunn has been trying to flesh out his new cinematic universe rather quickly as the production of “Superman: Legacy” is about to begin soon in Atlanta.
THE RONIN 