Cinema Issues: The Growing Cloud Around Millie Bobby Brown

In this edition of Cinema Issues we will be talking about the red flags surrounding Millie Bobby Brown and the increasing risk that she will be a child star who goes down the path of many other child stars, which is to say growing into broken adults, with serious issues.

This post is intended to draw attention and raise awareness rather than being critical of her, and that is the spirit this is being written in.

In my mind there are 5 key areas that need to be discussed.

Firstly is what I am going to call the Miley Cyrus treatment, this is the idea of showing you are a grown up by over sexualising yourself. We can see this with Millie particularly in her blonde phase wherein she is doing a lot of racy photoshoots and dressing in a more revealing way. Now there is nothing wrong with this, but the idea of feeling the need to dispel the idea of being family friendly can and has lead to dark paths for other celebrities before. Moreover, the way Millie has responded to people who are commenting on this to call them ‘bullies’ suggests that she may have a deeper insecurity and worry about her image that these new style moves are trying to fix, and that is why she is getting angry at the coverage. She may be worried about being the ‘little girl from Stranger Things forever’.

Secondly you have the situation with David Harbour, now before we scream ‘ThE DaIlY mAiL lIeD’ lets think about this it was not only the Daily Mail that ran with the story, other people reported it too and this was not just them repeating the Mail’s story they had other people telling them this as well. So whilst this should be taken with a grain of salt it highlights another thing and that is the idea of being difficult. Now, before we get into it what I am referring to is an alleged report that Brown had Netflix conduct an onset investigation into Harbour for ‘bullying’ there is that word again. Now no action was taken against Harbour so it is safe to assume it either wasn’t real, or there was not enough evidence. At the Stranger Things red carpet they were all smiles and loving words towards each other, but then they would be in that situation as Netflix wouldn’t want a falling out to spoil things for the new season. However, the reason why this is here is that it raises a question, was Harbour bad or not. If he wasn’t was this a power move by Brown to try and get top billing for the show, if he was is she being forced to continue in an unsafe environment and what may that be doing for her mental health, and could she be punished, career wise for speaking out.

Then you have the trad wife, the modern day sort of house wife idea, accusations that she really is not getting rid of, there is nothing wrong with being a trad wife if you want to. As long as you are happy and healthy then its fine, however, there is a risk within the movement of unhealthy relationship dynamics and a possibility for controlling situations to arise. It may well be that she is happy away from the spotlight and this is a semi-retirement for her, but it could also mean that she may be rejecting some modern notions of what’s okay in a relationship and women’s individual agency which could open her to further mental damage, which compounds the other things herein.

Following that you have her increased aggressive behaviour, she has had repeated run ins with the press/paparazzi wherein she has sworn at them and been aggressive. Now they probably well deserve it, but it does speak to someone under strain, someone who is not so poised, and whilst that is a good thing , they keep it real, it could also be a worrying indicator. You also have to worry for her that her behaviour could lead to her making enemies amongst the press who may try and hound her for pictures and exclusives in order to trip her up or get her to damage herself or her image. This shouldn’t be the way of Hollywood but often is.

Finally, and I will spend the least time on this as it is the most depressing and sadly true of the internet, you also have all the creepy Millie stans, who are obsessed with her and feel the need to defend her. Whilst these people may have good intentions, the fact they shut down questions around why is she overly sexualising herself like this or is she being bullied on set, doesn’t actually help Brown at all rather the opposite. Plus of course you have the weird creepy sexual side of things with the obsession which is a huge threat to any starlet of course.

When taken in isolation these things seem minor, but when you put them together you have a woman, who may be worried for what her future looks like, torn between wanting a quiet family life and being a celebrity, possibly one in an unsafe environment and one who is not getting proper support due to legions of people who say nothing is wrong.

If you take nothing else from this article take this, there are a number of worrying clouds around Millie Bobby Brown that could lead her down the road that has destroyed many a young talent.

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Cinema Issues: Trump Declares War On Hollywood, Prepare For A Humiliating Climb Down From Donny

In this edition of Cinema Issues we will be talking about Trump’s tariffs on all non-American films.

Now I personally am a centrist I think that both sides have some good ideas and some bad ideas, I am not a TDS person and think some of his policy decisions have been good. However, this is not one of them. As you know lots of other countries are offering tax breaks to film there or other financial bonuses this had lead to a lot of production happening now outside of the US. So Trump’s big idea is rather than offer his own tax breaks to win back American studios he will instead tariff films coming into the US. This like his Liberation Day tariffs and his China tariffs will backfire and he’ll end up walking them back when they hurt the American market, but before he does that lets look at all the reasons it is a terrible idea.

Firstly there are some shooting locations that you just couldn’t replicate in America, think about the Lord of the Rings trilogy for example. Moreover, there are some animation houses and VFX teams are not based in the US and to use them would incur tariffs, so what is a studio to do hire American animators, train up a new generation and found new animation houses this would take far too long and cost far too much money, much more than you would be losing on the tariffs. Moreover, the way the tariffs would likely manifest would be higher budgets for films meaning higher ticket prices and more importance placed on films making lots of money which in this current box office is a perilous move.

Secondly, the move would be viewed as broadly stupid as it would drive many countries away from America, in addition to the broader tariffs, it would also cost American studios and talent work as other nations would likely stop hiring Americans and focus on their national cinema. Additionally, the framing of ‘foreign propaganda’ makes this seem like an old man off his meds ranting. You could see it broadly referring to any films made that are critical of him and wouldn’t just apply to those made out of the US. Moreover, framing it as a national emergency to try and gain sweeping powers seems hysterical and like a move that the courts would fix in a minute. Personally, I don’t think this will ever actually come into effect as the CEO of Warner Brothers and the former CEO of Amazon are good friends with Trump and so will quash this. Warner Brothers Discovery has spent hundreds of millions building sound stages in the UK and would let that suddenly be in danger.

Thirdly and perhaps most importantly for all is that you have to consider retaliatory tariffs, so a lot of countries will make moves to protect their film industries and the people working in them in the wake of this, and the likely call is to hit back with tariffs of their own. This would mean that some American films would be badly effected at the global box office and would lose money and some films may not even see a release overseas. Moreover there could be efforts to ban American film in other countries cinemas or even boycotts by consumers, all of which would end up hurting Hollywood and backfiring on Trump spectacularly, just like his other tariffs.

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Cinema Issues: The Summer Of Dumb

In this edition of Cinema Issues we will be discussing the quality of this summers cinematic offerings.

A few things to get out of the way, firstly this is my own taste, if you like bang bang bang and forced Marvel humour in your new releases that’s you, but I most certainly do not. I also acknowledge that blockbuster entertainment is supposed to appeal to the masses.

That said, I look at the summer slate, particularly the month of July, and am saddened. Where is the originality, where is the effort to make good films that would last the test of time, rather than just easy sequels and reboots, where is the excitement. Looking at the cinematic slate for July, it just seems as though Hollywood is in a race to the bottom for low effort stinkers that the masses may still put up with.

Coming in on opposing sides you have the Superhero genre which itself cannot accept that it is dead. On the one side you have the 5^th iteration of Superman, which looks not only like they don’t understand the character, despite posting all those Instagram shots reading comics, as Clarke, would rather make whoopie with Lois than save the city. Added to this is the fact that the film will clearly continue James Gunn’s track record of goofy humour, and has more animal abuse in it. Unoriginal, goofy, doesn’t understand the character.

Then on the other side you have the Fantastic Four the 3^rd iteration of that IP, with most of the characters unrecognisable, a girl boss Sue Storm obsessed with gender politics, a soft and effeminate Johnny Storm, Pedro Pascal playing a scientist etc. What’s more this film will continue to push Marvel’s unwanted Multiverse Saga that increasingly no one other than Kevin Fiege wants. Unoriginal, does not get the characters, continues a saga no one wants continued.

Proceeding both of these threats to cinema, is yet another Jurassic World film. Turns out the big finale where they got the old and new cast together was not the finale everyone thought it was going to be. Now we are back fighting yet more dinosaurs which do not in any way have even the slightest bit in common with actual dinosaurs anymore, so for all those people who say oh I just watch them because I like dinosaurs you might as well say you just like bland CGI monstrosities that look a similar shape to dinosaurs. Unoriginal, repetitive and dull.

Coming out in the rest of the month you have a legacy sequel to I Know What You Did Last Summer which was barely strong enough to hold a sequel let alone a sequel decades later. You can bring back all the nighties stars you want it won’t make anyone care about this, this is not Scream. Scream had an enduring popularity, and the Summer films were always a bargain bucket version of them. Unoriginal, unasked for, and desperate. As well as that you also have the third or fourth reboot of the Smurfs as they just can’t let any IP go. The fact kids have not enjoyed or gone to see the other iterations of the Smurfs should clearly give the studio executives pause but no this is going to be the one right, it has to be. Even more desperate, even more unoriginal.

In that short list of 5 of July’s big releases did you notice that not even one was an original film, did you notice how they were all sequels, spin offs, or reboots, most of which were unasked for. When Hollywood sits there and wonders why folks aren’t going to the cinema like they used to, this is why.

They need to let IPs end, they need to understand that some IPs just are not relevant anymore and they need to spend money on original projects.

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Cinema Issues: Does Rape Belong In Star Wars, A Discussion, [Andor Season Two]

In this edition of Cinema Issues we will be discussing rape in Andor. Now bear in mind we will be doing this sparingly but if you find this topic triggering then this might not be the edition for you.

So within the latest season of Andor, a Star Wars tv show, there is a suggestion that one of the female characters was assaulted by an Imperial Officer Now this is causing a great deal of controversy, as people are saying that rape has no place in Star Wars, and for me personally this is somewhat of a nuanced conversation. For those angry I would say this, what do you think happened when Leia, Carrie Fisher, was enslaved and before Luke, Mark Hamill, showed up. Moreover, throughout the saga we have seen genocide, the abduction of children, forced re-education and a number of other atrocities, this is a story about war and rape is a common occurrence to POWs so it makes sense for it to feature. Additionally, Andor was never marketed as a kids show, just because it is of the Star Wars IP and on Disney+ does not mean that it is for kids. They have been pretty straight up in saying it isn’t, if you can’t do basic research to see the themes and subject matters in a show before allowing your kid to watch then that’s on you.

However, on the flip side there is the question of is it necessary? They could say it happened do they need to show it so graphically? This becomes a matter of taste. To add that you have the fact that these sort of scenes, whilst relevant in the setting in terms of war, can be traumatic for those who have experienced rape or for those who have had a loved one experience it and that is going to cause strong feelings. So again we go back to the matter of taste, and was it necessary to depict it in the way they do?

Ultimately the answer is up to you, if you want the practical realities of war then it is an important component, and it is needed and important to show, but if you find it triggering then it might be a sign that it is not for you and you should avoid it for you own mental health, which is totally valid. It is a matter of personal preference.

I will end with this, whilst I can understand both sides of the argument here, the idea that rape being in Andor ruins Star Wars or has no place is stupid inherently, as not only is it implied elsewhere and other atrocities are shown, but also this is a show for adults and reflects the realities of what the war against the Empire would have looked like. If you want your soft family friendly Star Wars with puppets and only mild themes like kids being abducted and brainwashed into becoming First Order soldiers then you can totally just skip Andor. It is not required viewing.

So whilst I understand the sensitivity of the subject matter and how it can impact people I think a lot of the outrage is performative and in at least a few cases from people who don’t watch the show, Josh from Den Of Nerds comes to mind. In these cases people just want to outrage farm, for in my opinion no good reason, but I also like the show and its approach to showing the war so I could be bias.

It really is one for you and what you are comfortable with.

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Cinema Issues: The Death Of Joel [The Last Of Us Season Two]

In this edition of Cinema Issues we will be discussing The Last Of Us and its future.

Well folks I thought they would push it to nearer the end of the season and have this season and the newly announced season three be the second game’s story, but no, they did it in episode two which was pretty bold of them.

The it I am referring to is the death of Joel, Pedro Pascal, the central character of the show. In the games this shocking subversion was met with outrage, as was the following journey to get vengeance on Abby. This is mainly because Joel is both the main character and also in this case he is played by Pedro Pascal and a lot of people like him, in both instances it caught people off guard and felt out of left field.

The fact remains that with Pedro leaving the show, he’ll be around for flashbacks but he will be stepping back for the most part, there will be audience members who leave. The question I am asking in this Cinema Issues article is how much of an effect will this have on the popularity of the show and will the discourse become as angry as it did surrounding the second game?

It is curious that the show decided to depict the scene in the same way the game did as other aspects of the second game have been changed, mainly that Abby, Kaitlyn Dever, is not the musclebound presence she is in the game. I thought perhaps they would tone it down a little bit so that it might be less off putting for people, but no.

I think the question really becomes is Ellie, Bella Ramsey, enough of a draw to get people to watch, and is Ramsey herself a good enough actress to centre the show around? Both of these questions are up in the air right now and time will tell, however, if enough of the audience do check out over the death of Joel it could be a massive blow to the show, possibly a mortal one.

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Cinema Issues: The Fresh Half-Blood Prince

As many of you know the adult casting for the Harry Potter TV series is now out. Whilst there are some spot on casting decisions such as Nick Frost as Hagrid, there are also some impractical ones such as John Lithgow as Dumbledore, given the actor’s age, but one stands out above all as being ill conceived.

This of course is the casting of Snape, now Snape is the central character to the Harry Potter narrative. He is a half blood wizard, this will now be a problem, and severs as a minor antagonist throughout the series for Harry before eventually helping him out of love for his mother.

The casting of Snape is notable for one key reason, they have race swapped the character turning from Alan Rickman to a young black male actor. Now why did they do this well that’s pretty obvious? The cast was too white for modern day Hollywood and even though it is supposed to be the UK in the nineties which was predominantly white, you have to hit your quota.

The reasons this is problematic are four fold, he doesn’t look like the character from a book’s perspective, he undermines other key black characters from the books, it was done for the negative headlines, and the whole everyone is now a racist thing.

So firstly in the books they give a pretty good physical description for Snape, sallow skin, pale, long greasy hair hanging like curtains, so straight, and a hooked nose. Now clearly this is not describing a young black man, and the fact that both HBO and WBD have said they want this to be a faithful adaptation of the books means this is a problem. They cannot claim that with his major change that they are respecting Rowling’s books anymore, and it will only be the first of many changes.

Secondly, characters like Kingsley Shackelbolt and Dean Thomas who were prominent characters of colour in the books, could have been brought in and explored in more detail rather than race swapping a character. This is irritating as rather than explore these underrepresented characters both of which could do with some fleshing out, they are instead taking a well known character and just making him black which adds no new depth or anything like that. Honestly it feels gimmicky.

Thirdly, you have the fact that if this wasn’t just done to tick a box it was done to make people angry and to get people talking. Hollywood is still under the belief that all press is good press and that if they get people angry and making content about their casting or other aspects of their productions that it will translate into more sales. This is wrong. I have seen many people say after the race swap that they won’t be watching the show, because as I said earlier this wont be the only change done to generate outrage, it will go further and it will go deeper, this is a symptom of a wider disease. Many people will stupidly think that someone not watching something over a race swap is racist, when in actual fact they can just see the red flag that something like that generates with regard to respecting the source material and making ‘changes’ and that’s all they need to stay away.

Fourthly in the world of Harry Potter you already have racism to a degree with the idea of half bloods and pure bloods, and now they are going to make this even more overt by having a black man be labelled the half-blood prince, and teach the dark arts it couldn’t be anymore on the nose. Moreover, Harry hates Snape all the kids do, is the show going to say they are all racist, all these white kids hate their only black teacher, seems like a school of bigots. Moreover, Harry’s father was Snape’s bully, and you are supposed to like him despite this, yet the tv show will now have all these kids picking on the half blood boy, or worse yet if Remus, Sirius, James and Peter are white, a group of white boys picking on a black boy. Again the optics are God awful.

There was no need for this change.

Maybe I am making things worse and giving them what they want by spending time writing about it, but I see a bad moon ahead, I see this series becoming a Rings Of Power esque situation wherein it has no resemblance to the source material anymore and just boils down to over produced fan fiction.

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The Looming Rape And Murder Of The James Bond IP By Amazon

James Bond is dead, he died in the closing minutes of No Time To Die though many would say the death happened earlier. However thanks to the ever corrupting influence of money the corpse will be resurrected made to wear a dress and call itself Shirley and tell you it’s preferred pronouns , it will dance to the agenda beat and apologise for ever existing in the first place.

For those unaware this Cinema Issues article is about Amazon buying out the few remaining guard rails on the James Bond IP so they now have complete and utter access to it. Those of you savvy may think ha-ha Jenifer Salke is out at Amazon the rape of the IP won’t happen, the woman who said that she deliberately ignores the male audience for these properties in order to put female characters centre focus and feminise the brand is gone. Her trailblazers a mix of bitter nobodies with shows soon to be seen the axe, however, I say to you her ideas didn’t come from her, oh no she may have believed similar things, but those pushing through the agenda are far higher and she is but a cog in a machine.

As of the moment of writing this, a month or maybe two since all this went down it is clear that the rape is still coming even without Salke. For a start Amy Pascal is being brought in to Shepard the project forward, yes the alleged coke fiend who once threw a sandwich a Kevin Feige and one of the many voices behind the failed Venomverse. Follow that up with the rumoured goodies that Amazon is going to try and threaten us with over the coming years including an American spin off on Bond, without any of the British charm, a Money Penny series as we need to see the inner lives and no doubt lewd moments of Bond’s secretary, and of course the all important female Bond rebrand, when they get rid of that evil and sickening straight white lead and replace him with a young queer woman of colour who can do everything Bond ever could with ease. Janine Bond can save the day from the evil industrialist, or religious leader, whilst still having enough time to fly carbon neutral and also attack the terfs.

All of these projects would cost Amazon money and further damage the brand and push away fans, but possibly the thing that could kill it would be to do a new Bond film with a man, and have him spend the whole time being brow beaten and told how incompetent and bad he is whilst he apologises and says yes I am awful, that truly would kill the brand stone dead.

I have never counted Bond amongst beloved franchises of mine, I have seen most of them and some of them are better than others, but writing about this as someone who is a student of cinema and someone who is British the death of this franchise which seems all but certain if these are the plans, could forever change Hollywood for the worse

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A Corpse Is Defiled: The Second Death Of Doctor Who

Doctor Babes has left the building.

So as many of you know I have been pretty hands off with Doctor Who since the Whittaker era, I might write a Cinema Issues piece here or there about the declining ratings or review the Christmas special, but by and large I have checked out.

I am only here really to gloat. To laugh at the manbabies and shills who still defend it, I have shown up to the funeral and I am speaking some home truths.

So as many of you know the series has been bleeding viewers for a long time, since just before Whittaker, and that has only got worse. Disney came on board to fund and distribute the show on Disney + expecting a certain level of ratings, it has not provided them with that, and as such series three of the new run is looking increasingly like it is not happening. Disney want numbers, the BBC wants numbers.

Then there was the news this week that Doctor Babes himself has quit the show as he is running off to Hollywood to play even more stereotypical gay roles. He was perfectly fine in Sex Education but the various roles he has done since have just been variants on that, even his role in Who. It is not his fault he was such a terrible Doctor he was cast to tick a box and send a certain message and he was given bad scripts to work with, there is a level to this that is not his fault. I have a feeling that the BBC tried to claw this back and downplay it saying he hasn’t quit and that they are waiting to see how season two does, but of course they would say that they wouldn’t admit the series is about to be shelved as then people really would tune out the new episodes.

The BBC is wondering what went wrong, the blue haired people on Blue Sky like it why isn’t it massively successful, well the silent majority has spoken. Doctor Who has always been a progressive show but when you are hiring trans writers who have previously written books aimed at children that talk about the best apps for gay sex and positions for it, then you know things are in trouble.

Hopefully the failure of this show disgraces RTD, who let’s face it probably has some skeletons in his closet, and prevents him from ever coming near the franchise again.

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Where Have All The Good Guys Gone: The MCU Slips Into Apathy, A Retrospective

I haven’t seen the film and this isn’t a review, this is an assessment piece on the current state of the Marvel Cinematic Universe from the perspective of audience engagement. The comments passed in this piece regarding Captain America Brave New World, are based on several key factors firstly the Cinema Score, a low b, which was lower than that of The Marvel’s and also Antman Quantomania, the critical Rotten Tomatoes score currently at 52% at the time of writing, on the broader fan consensus online which suggests that the film is middling not great not terrible. I would also like to address that on Rotten Tomatoes the film has an 82% audience score, though this could be inflated.

All of these things taken together paint a picture of the sorry state of the MCU, especially when you compare this release to the last few, sans Deadpool and Wolverine as it was disconnected and more of a love letter to the Fox X-Men films. The remaining films on the slate for this year also do little to reassure people that things are going to get better in the near term.

So the question is what went wrong and where do things go from here?

I would say the reasons why this film is struggling and why other Marvel films are struggling are numerous but also quite obvious. Firstly, folks don’t like homework, since the advent of Disney + not only has there been more content, perhaps too much, but also new requirements. To understand Brave New World fully folks would need to have watched The Incredible Hulk from almost twenty years ago, Falcon and the Winter Soldier and also The Eternals. That is 5+ hours of commitment just to watch the latest film in the universe and increasingly folks are getting sick of having to make it.

What can be done to fix this? At the current stage nothing, the projects that are already in development will suffer from it. However, for further down the line stuff there can be an importance placed on telling original and disconnected stories, there can also be an effort to cleverly use exposition within the films to bring folks up to speed on what they need to know from these other series, this would hurt Marvel’s numbers on rewatches but would encourage the casuals to return. They could also do a previously on at the start of each project including films, unorthodox but potentially a solution.

Secondly is the problem that these characters just are not a draw. Marvel got high on their own supply and started to believe the mythology surrounding them, thinking that they could turn anyone into a billion dollar grosser, and for a while when everything was seen as required viewing in order to get the Infinity Saga’s broader narrative it worked, however, in the disconnected and seemingly aimless Multiverse Saga this has been proven untrue. The issue here is twofold firstly the Multiverse Saga is objectively a failure, fans are not connecting, due to the glut of content things feel deluded and far to disconnected. Moreover there does not seem to be a clear direction in which it is going, yes to comics fans it is clear we are getting Battleworld the Beyonder and likely God Emperor Doom, however, for casuals it just seems to be without purpose at the moment. Secondly, it is clear that the MCU has tentpole characters that folks need to see often in order to stay invested, this can be Spider-Man, it could be Doctor Strange, it could be Wanda, it could be the founding Avengers, regardless, due to the massive uptick in production we are getting less and less projects with these tentpole characters and more and more ancillary stuff with characters people just don’t care about and that is leading to apathy. The idea that Marvel film are not events anymore sums this up rather well.

What can be done about it?

Well I have said it before and I’ll say it again, they need to do a purge. By that I mean, the Marvel slate no matter if they have announced it or not needs to be studied and second guessed, some of these films and tv shows with provably unpopular characters, I am looking at you Iron Heart with your multiple failed comics runs, should be written off and never released. It does not matter if they are done and ready to go or in production you need to trim back all this fat and get back to the core characters people care about. The Thunderbolts is the antithesis of my point, a group of mostly recent and Disney + era characters that no one cares about. The film will be met with apathy. Furthermore, there needs to be a cleaning house of the higher ups at Marvel that greenlit all these projects, who thought Echo and Agatha needed there own shows, as whoever did should not have a job. I would levy this at Feige himself, if his eye has come off the ball he should be replaced.

Finally, is the idea of escapism. Media should exist to provide audiences with a means of escaping from their lives, yes some cover real world issues, but superhero films should not. Again this is a twofold problem for Marvel, the MCU could use real world politics themes and ideas to influence it’s films, but they don’t have good writers. What I mean by that is that they don’t have writers who can be subtle and who can weave it in in a nuanced way, they have people who need to show scenes of Sam being denied a lone simply because he is black, as the scene tells it, in order to be incredibly heavy handed in its messaging. This is a problem as then audiences feel like they are being preached at and feel like the films are becoming political which is a turn off both for those that don’t agree with the politics but also those who don’t want to engage with politics. Secondly, bringing in heavy handed real world political issues such as presenting, according to reviews, Ross as a stand in for Trump, it stops the world from feeling different and new and instead makes it feel like a reflection of our own which isn’t what people want.

How can this be fixed?

Honestly this is probably the simplest, by hiring better writers, one who can use politics in a subtle way and put themes into films without it being overt and making the film politicised.

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Cinema Issues: State Of The Box Office Address Start Of 2025

Written by Luke Barnes

In this cinema issues article we are discussing the contraction of the entertainment industry. If one was to cast their gaze upon the 2025 release schedule it would be perfectly acceptable for them to ask what happened to make it to 2025? For those of you that don’t know, with the destruction of COVID and the writer’s strikes, there was a mantra in Hollywood to make it to 2025 as this was seemingly the year when things would get back to the 2019 normal. This was pre the wildfires.

As such this mythical 2025 was going to also see the box office recover to 2019 levels, as it’s been steadily below over these past few years, and in order to do that there was going to be a lot more films releasing each month than in previous years. However, to go back to our opening image there is in fact not a lot of films releasing each week in 2025 so far. Whilst yes there will be some films set to come out in 2025 that have not yet been given formal announcements and release dates, it seems the idea of masses of new releases might be a pipe dream, why is this?

Crucially there are two things Hollywood didn’t account for with the 2025 dream, the first being an obvious and sustained change in audience viewing habits, with more people waiting to watch films at home, being more choosy with the films they watch due to higher ticket costs, and of course the audience’s rejection of slop. The second key fact is the death of the movie star. When discussing the death of the movie star it can’t be stressed enough how important the rise of social media has been, influences and youtubers have given the public new role models seemingly more accessible, more down to earth, and more like them. Audiences have begun craving authenticity, as such the very performative and fake world of Hollywood has lost its allure, the actors who still maintain rabid fanbases do so with a keen use of social media or by giving off the persona of being nice people, whether true or not.

The death of the movie star has left Hollywood unable to move forward, it needs radical change to continue to exist, yet if there’s one thing Hollywood executives are frightened of doing it’s doing anything new. As such I expect 2025’s box office to languish behind 2024 which wasn’t good to begin with, we’re miles off from 2019. I believe looking at the calendar now and of course there can always be new announcements and upsets, but I would say that there is one surefire billion grosser film in the fourth coming Jurassic World, and possibly another in Superman if the stars align. That aside the box office looks quite sick this year, there are not a lot of films and the ones that are don’t seem to have the draw that could make the box office healthy.

The worst thing is in its floundering attempt to combat these problems Hollywood won’t take drastic action, the action of course that’s needed is a slashing of film budgets in half or more, in addition, films need to stop pushing divisive messaging and being targeted towards niche and specific minorities rather than the widest possible audience. Hollywood needs to decentralise, it needs to move outside of the LA ecosystem, films need to be made on a budget of $50 million, a raft of new original films costing that amount or below could allow for greater creativity and potentially some new franchises rather than mining the same wells.

As we head towards the end of this piece you can expect to see Hollywood shrink in the coming year and become more reliant on re-releases.

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