Joshua McCormack reflects on the transformation of the Hollywood landscape in recent years, and the fall from grace of its greatest asset: the elusive movie star.
Barbenheimer. The great conflagration of the summer movie season. The success that every Hollywood executive, like a drowning sailor tossed a rope, clings to whenever a reporter has the temerity to ask them about the most significant event of the past summer: the Rise of the Flopbuster.
One by one, they fell; Indiana Jones: The Dial of Destiny, The Flash, Blue Beetle, Haunted Mansion, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts – these were just the summer’s casualties. Any amateur box office analyst could have predicted the disaster that awaited these misfires. Franchise fatigue, bloated budgets, Barbenheimer and genre apathy, all contributing factors to their box-office demise.
Not that it mattered. With hundreds of millions invested in these properties, nothing less than stratospheric success could be tolerated. And so, faced with box office disaster, Hollywood doubled down. Infecting your feed with an endless vomit of ads, buying of shills and influencers, pouring gallons of money on the reshoots fire, in the hopes that they could turn things around …
But, in the end, a turkey is a turkey. It doesn’t matter how much glitter you shower over it, what tricks of smoke-and-mirrors you employ. A lesson which, sadly for the cinemagoer, Hollywood hasn’t accepted. Why? Because it's a relatively recent development, all tied up with the currency that Hollywood studios traded in for decades: the bankable star.
From the Golden Era of Tinseltown (1920s - the early 1960s) where stars like Marilyn Monroe, Cary Grant, Clark Gable and Grace Kelly were contracted to specific studios; through the American New Wave (mid-1960s - the late 1980s) which birthed box-office titans like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Al Pacino and Tom Cruise; right into the nineties when movies helmed by emerging A-Listers dominated the box office landscape – think Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, Will Smith and Jeff Goldwyn in Independence Day, Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump.
A seventy-year tradition. Ingrained in Hollywood’s collective psyche. Integral to their success. And yet, at the turn of the century, rot crept into the model, spreading like an infection until, by the mid-2010s, there wasn’t a corner of Tinseltown free of its influence. What’s more, Hollywood embraced the Trojan Horse with open arms. Social media.
Widely considered Hollywood’s last great movie star, Tom Cruise’s celebrity status was forged in the nineties, when the internet was but a fledgling. Access to the rich and famous was restricted in those days, limited to scripted interviews, and micromanaged press junkets; and as such, the pre-millennia stars enjoyed an air of mystery and wonder that helped cultivate the impression of an almost regal persona. Films didn’t require intelligent scripts, or competent direction, just an A-Lister – think movies like Tom Cruise’s 1988 romcom Cocktail, Beverly Hills Cop 2 and the 2007 ensemble-starred Wild Hogs.
Access to the rich and famous was restricted in those days, limited to scripted interviews, and micromanaged press junkets; and as such, the pre-millennia stars enjoyed an air of mystery and wonder that helped cultivate the impression of an almost regal persona.
Then it swept the likes of YouTube, Twitter and Instagram, dashing the mystery, that essential ingredient of their star power, to pieces. No doubt, Tinseltown thought social media would work in their favour; free self-promotion, the ability to communicate directly with your audience ... the dopamine hit of having millions of fans stream your feed with likes. For an industry and a people that thrive on attention and adoration, it was a no-brainer.
Life refused to play ball, however. With the rise of social media and the internet as a whole, Hollywood and its denizens shifted from a place of worship to one of scorn. Celebrities were torn to pieces for their ignorance, nepotism, greed, political opinions, and condescension toward ordinary people. Far from inflating them, the internet took a pin to their swollen egos, seeding a new breed of celebrity in the process: the Youtuber and the Influencer. Relevant for our purposes are those who concern themselves with the Film and Television industry; amateur critics.
Now, ‘amateur’ is somewhat misrepresentative; after all, many of these content creators have millions of subscribers, and are thus earning vast revenues in their own right. Fringe is a more appropriate label, springing from their position in the journalistic wilderness, far removed from Hollywood and its machinations. Outlets like the Hollywood Reporter, Screenrant, Total Film, and Empire Magazine might have the edge in terms of industry access and connection, but if we're talking about the most important aspect of journalism, independence, these ‘amateurs’ outclass their more respected peers.
As with any industry awash with cash, Hollywood is riddled with bribery and corruption, and while it is difficult to prove any direct transfer of money and favours, the practice of massaging critic’s opinions with lavish treatment is well documented; all-expenses-paid trips to luxurious hotels, exclusive set visits, one-on-one interviews, early screening, all offered with the tacit understanding that if you don’t give their product a favourable review you won’t enjoy such privileges again, potentially losing access to lucrative career opportunities in the process.
The ‘amateur critic’ is (largely) divorced from these intrigues. It’s their USP (Unique Selling Point). Delivering opinions and recommendations free of the expectations and demands that encumber many of their industry equivalents. It is their judgement that Gen-Z and Alpha raised on Youtube – the generations that encompass the greatest percentage of cinemagoers – are flocking to. And it’s thanks to these critics, unafraid to bash star vehicles and deliver damning verdicts that, combined with the rise in celebrity scorn facilitated by social media, have caused blockbusters to flop left, right and centre.
As the last true stars gutter and fade, we are witnessing the rise of ‘Director Power;’ i.e., the average cinemagoer is now more likely to choose a film in cinema based on the track record of the creative team behind it, rather than the celebrities attached. Let’s examine this past year. Splitting the Barbenheimer phenomenon in two, we have Oppenheimer, helmed by renowned filmmaker Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Inception) and Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig whose films (Lady Bird, Little Women) are ever the toast of awards season. Beyond these luminaries, we have Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, the concluder to arguably the MCU’s most beloved and well-made trilogy directed by the much-vaunted James Gunn, and The Boy and the Heron, celebrated Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki’s final film (we’ll see) which set the holiday box office aflame, smashing records, and winning the adoration of critic and audience alike.
As the last true stars gutter and fade, we are witnessing the rise of ‘Director Power;’ i.e., the average cinemagoer is now more likely to choose a film in cinema based on the track record of the creative team behind it, rather than the celebrities attached.
And then we have 2023’s greatest surprise: Godzilla Minus One. The visually stunning kaiju feature was produced on a budget of just ten million, and went on to rake in over $100 million during its theatrical run – for context Hollywood’s latest stab at the iconic lizard, Godzilla vs. Kong, was made on a budget of $155 million, making just $500 million worldwide. This massive success, despite the language barrier, despite its limited theatrical run, although the international audience – where the film raked in most of its haul – had no recognition of the actors involved. The film’s success was fueled by the internet. It was the ‘amateur critics,’ Youtubers and Influencers with comparatively niche interests in foreign markets who proliferated word of this phenomenal film across the globe. Why? Because it was well-made, boasted a strong story, and had the kind of passion behind it that is, sadly, a rare thing in the modern Hollywood blockbuster.
Its success along with that of films like The Holdovers, Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire, City of God, Smile and District 9, movies which garnered critical acclaim and huge box office success despite their lack of celebrities, which, in contrast to 2023's mega-budget flops, are a testament to the changing appetites of the cinemagoers, demonstrating that today’s audiences increasingly favour passion projects boasting craft and dedication over CGI monstrosities crammed to the teeth with A-listers.
I believe that the industry is in a rocky place; franchises stalling, A-listers misfiring, films getting cancelled before they've even had the opportunity to clip together a trailer – The Mothership, Batgirl. Tumultuous decisions and uncomfortable changes await executives in the years and months ahead. Painful, yes, but they won't spell the end of Hollywood, just its change. Growing pains. The wildfire that'll burn through the old and rotten, and lay growth for the new.
Here's to hoping it's a bright spring.