Cinema Issues: The Duffer Brothers Are Hacks, Findings From The Documentary

In this edition of Cinema Issues we will be talking about the Stranger Things documentary.

Now this article won’t be about how the documentary wasn’t secretly a 9th episode.

This article is about what the documentary says about Stranger Things as a show, and critically the Duffer Brothers.

So let’s consider one thing this documentary came out when the Duffers were unpopular after the season finale, and only made things worse. I wouldn’t be surprised if Netflix did this knowing the Duffers were going to Paramount and wanted to salt the ground.

The documentary raised a number of points. It showed that the Duffers did not have a deep plan for the show or a multi season trajectory, the Brothers admit they didn’t have a finished script when going into production, which isn’t abnormal but it does destroy the idea that the Duffer’s had a plan or were all about attention to detail.

Moreover, it shows how the Duffers didn’t understand their own lore or characters as they needed actors and others involved with the show to correct them. One writer even asked why there weren’t any demogorgons, bats, or dogs in the final battle scene, but the Brothers didn’t seem to understand why that would be important. It shows incompetence. They had demogorgon fatigue and so decided against consistency in storytelling.

The actors appeared miserable, and as though they could not wait for the show to be done, this contrasts with the image of everyone being back and happy to have one last trip to Hawkins. It could also suggest behind the scenes dramas and what not.

In a still from the documentary they had ChatGPT open on laptops, so likely the Duffers were using AI to create scenes. Worse yet the maker of the documentary tries to defend them going, “you try keeping track of 19 characters without using it”. Good writers could and have done it before.

They off screen pivotal bits of information such as that Joyce and Hopper went to school with Henry and what happened to the Military in favour of a bloated and indulgent epilogue.

They have tried to play the victim post release of the documentary and said they were under time pressure by Netflix to get the final season out. They had 3 years and 400+ million to make 8 episodes of TV, it’s not Netflix’s fault you’re incompetent.

I have seen theories going around post the end of season 5 and now post documentary suggesting that the Duffers bought the idea of Stranger Things first season from someone else, and then when it became popular have been writing it themselves and blagging. I have also seen the idea that one of the other writers is actually the creative genius not the Duffers and they left somewhere around season 3 or 4 leaving the Duffers to struggle on their own. Even after the final I had some doubt about these theories but after watching the documentary I now believe them.

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Cinema Issues: The Issue With Video Game Films and Series.

In this edition of Cinema Issues we will be talking about video games.

Video games are cool, Hollywood is finally realising.

More and more we are starting to see video games adapted to the screen. There is even some talk that they may one day replace superhero films.

However, the same issues that plagued superhero films is plaguing video game films, and that is being ashamed of what they are. There have been some great video game films such as Tomb Raider, both versions, the Paul W.S Anderson Resident Evil films and also his Monster Hunter film. The thing is they have played down the video game elements and tried to shed that side of themselves, much as superhero films did with comics. What I mean is that weird choices and logic that would only make sense in a video game is lost as it is adapted for the screen and in that some of the charm is lost.

I am not saying that we need to see stages adapted directly from games, but I would say that the Sonic films got it right, they fully embraced their video game wackiness and keep in things like Rings and Chaos Emeralds and that’s why it worked. Things like Super Mario Brothers tried to do this and was benefitted by being animated but even then they had to change things to get away from the games.

The studios want these things to appeal to mass audiences that’s why they do it, but in doing this you drive away the key people who might support your film, the players of the games, these are a backbone that you can’t do without, especially as modern audiences are fickle.

We need more video game projects that aren’t ashamed of their origins.

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Cinema Issues: The Afterlife Of Stranger Things

In this edition of Cinema Issues we will be talking about Conformity Gate and what it means for fandom as a broader subject.

So as many of you may have seen many Stranger Things fans expected there to be a bonus episode of the show which would be the true ending. It did not happen.

Fans invest far too much of themselves into shows and see them as an extension of themselves, its tribalism, as such a show not ending on the best note becomes almost a personal failure they cannot accept. This is unhealthy, you should not be this invested in a show.

It also presents as a cognitive dissonance as many of these people who would say it was one of the best shows ever made and that the finale was great- yet it needed to be changed and presented as the real finale.

It also speaks to a broader issue with internet culture, the popularity and belief in theory videos. There are a lot of theory videos for most popular shows but at the end of the day these are just theories they are what one person thinks and are often over done to be dramatic. Omg you’ll never believe what I’ve discovered. These videos are fine if you understand what you’re interacting with. However, it seems a growing contingent of people don’t, they seem to view these theories as gospel and believe they will play out in the show and then when they don’t get upset.

The fact is a lot of the Stranger Things theories positioned the show as far deeper and has having far more subtext then the writers ever did. It was just a goofy science fiction show about 80s nostalgia and ripping off Stephen King, it wasn’t even supposed to go beyond one season. There wasn’t a deep multi layered strategy for the show.

There is a sense of fan entitlement in the idea that they have to include the theory that you think is correct. There is also a righteous expectation of good writing, both can exist. However, there is also a lot of toxic positivity and hero worship wherein the Duffers and Stranger Things are being held up on a pedestal. This is done as people no longer believe they can critique something they like and that because they have spent time watching it or are a fan and it’s a part of their identity that they must defend it.

It was always nostalgia slop, it was never a deep show like Mad Men, or the Sopranos, or even something like Pluribus, but people made it out to be.

There was also a large degree of mental illness and unhealthy parasocial issues tied in.

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Cinema Issues: Outisde The Age Of The Junket

In this edition of Cinema Issues we will be talking about press/media junkets.

So as many of you may know when you cover films, sometimes you attend junkets wherein you might get a meet and greet with actors or to see some new footage for a film etc.

These have long been a staple of how Hollywood promotes it’s films. It is a part of the marketing budget and usually is done for the actors benefit as they like to feel important and to have people asking them questions gives them a chance to talk. Now not all actors like it but more often than not they demand it as it gives them a stage.

However with Hollywood going through seismic changes, the age of the junket is coming to an end. Hollywood is starting to realise that target social media advertising gets more engagement, having actors go onto podcasts or YouTube channels where they can be “themselves” and do silly things like spicy wings is better publicity.

In addition press junkets have often been a source of controversy in recent memory, many sound bites and statements that would later go onto haunt productions came from actors at marketing junkets. Increasingly giving the stars a platform to make statements to the press, is becoming a hazard rather than a bonus.

The main reason they have survived this long is because as I said before the stars like them, they enjoy the press lining up to ask them questions, it makes them feel important. Although as Hollywood moves into a post movie star age, when AI stars may begin making appearances in films, or when less films are being made overall, then the negotiating power of the actor ends and with it likely junkets will end too.

With a contracting box office and a renewed rush to make films as cheaply as possible, that includes marketing, overpriced set pieces of yore such as the junket become relegated to a past where movie stars mattered.

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Cinema Issues: Betting Against James Cameron

In this edition of Cinema Issues we will be talking about the box office for Avatar Fire and Ash

Let’s get a few things clear before we start, films need to make 2.5x their budget to break even as per standard box office analysis, Avatar Fire and Ash had a stated budget of 400 million meaning it needed at least 1 billion to break even. It has now crossed that and broken even.

Let’s also clear up adjusting for inflation, so Avatar 1 made 2.9 billion and Avatar 2 made 2.3 billion, I am going to keep those figures as they are for this piece but know that 2.9 billion in 2009 money is not the same as 2.9 billion in 2025 money by a long shot and if translated to current value would be a lot more.

Additionally let’s say that Avatar and Avatar 2 have had the benefit of being re-released increasing their totals over time.

That said let’s look at the facts.

We have just finished the third box office weekend of Avatar 3’s run and it has just broken a billion dollar mark and is somewhere in the 1-1,2 billion mark. If you compare this to the first 3 weeks of the other two films you may start to see a pattern.

Analysts who study the box office for a living see Fire and Ash ending it’s run at somewhere between 1.5-1.7 billion dollars, this is significantly off where the other films ended their cinematic runs.

These two things suggest a worrying precedent for fans of Pandora. The number of people coming out to watch these films is getting smaller, audience interest is waning as the health of the franchise looks bad. The franchise has entered quite clearly into a spiral of diminished returns, which whilst still being profitable makes the assignment of big budgets, such as the 400 million Avatar commands, hard to come by. There is a real chance that if Avatar 4 is greenlit, that it may struggle to break 1 billion and may end up diminished again and come in around the 1.1 billion dollar mark.

There will be those of you reading going oh only 1.1 billion, as we have established if a film has a 400 million dollar budget it needs 1 billion just to break even, as such it would only make 100 million in profit which for a film of that scale would be a massive disappointment and a bad ROI.

No, even with PVOD, theme park ticket sales, and merch the equation won’t change meaningfully.

All of this leads to my point, I don’t think the Avatar franchise is dead. I think that it needs drastically scaling back and for James Cameron to be brought to heel, he doesn’t need the film to be on for 4 hours with countless filler scenes, they should give him a tight budget and a tight runtime. 250 million dollars is still a large budget, though it is nearly half what Fire and Ash had, however that would be far more suitable for a film that may make in the 1.1 billion range. Disney will be seeing the box office and know that the franchise needs to be brought more in line with the financial reality.

I do not believe that the film will have a second wind in the forth or fifth week of release and do imagine it will hit Disney + by February, I think the estimates are likely and it will run out of steam around the 1.5 billion mark.

None of this is to say that Fire and Ash hasn’t made money simply that in terms of franchise health the box office isn’t a good sign as it is a significant departure from previous films.

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Cinema Issues: Netflix’s Doom

In this edition of Cinema Issues we will be talking about is the unsure future for Netflix in the aftermath of Stranger Things.

Netflix had three big shows that people cared about in the current year, they were Wednesday, Stranger Things and Squid Game. Two of those three programs have since ended. The issue becomes what is the value proposition for Netflix going forward, what do they have. Their only remaining, franchise, is you want to call it that which they can keep spamming out new seasons of is Wednesday now. They need new hits, there is an argument that can be made well they are about to get WBD so they will have lots of new content in the medium term, and that may be so, but I am talking about the short term after Stranger Things ends. You can imagine on the second of January masses of people all around the world cancelling Netflix, this is an immediate short term problem.

The issue has been for Netflix for quite some time that they are making slop for second screen viewing, a lot of Netflix originals have flopped after one season and been cancelled, there has been few truly good productions that has lasted the test of the time particularly in the modern era. Early Netflix had shows like House of Cards, Orange Is The New Black, Arrested Development etc, but modern Netflix just can’t seem to generate any more mega hits. This really is due to a focus on virality and the need to be the dominant thing online as opposed to quality. One only needs to look at the output of competitor Apple TV to see that Netflix is making a choice in putting internet clout chasing over quality.

Some people will say that Netflix has diversified and that it will be okay due to ventures in sports and gaming, however, the former may get someone to subscribe for a month to watch a game and then leave, but the latter hasn’t shown any potential to get people to come in at all, so the idea that this can make up for the lack of sure fire hits that litter Netflix’s future is lacking.

We could be awakening to a future wherein Netflix is no longer the big dog and has more direct competition, it may even lose some of its market share. These issues could be remedied in the medium term if they get WBD but in the short term there could be a good chance that Apple TV, Prime and Disney could gain ground.

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Cinema Issues: The Death Of The Superhero Genre

In this edition of Cinema Issues we will be talking about the death of the Superhero film.

As this year comes to a close it is important to remember that it is the first, non-covid year, in a long while without a superhero film that made over 800 million dollars at the worldwide box office. Neither DC nor Marvel could manage it despite releasing four films in cinemas this year.

This reflects a larger downward trend in the box office for the genre in Post-Endgame world, and possibly that audiences are done with superhero films. Yes I can hear you screeching into the void, but what about Doomsday, what about Spider-Man, what about Secret Wars. Yes likely all three of them will make over 800 million dollars you’d hope, however, a few large outliers doesn’t change the broader pattern. By and large superhero films are dying and there may be a few characters or big event films than can make money but for many characters this likely means relegation as they will now not be seen as likely earners. This means there could be a world wherein there are only one or two event style super hero films a year, or even every few years. This would be a massive contraction.

It is worth noting that even a supposed reboot, under new creative leadership has not been able to stop this problem for DC, so the Marvel plan to do something similar, sans the new leadership, post Secret Wars may not be the shot in the arm needed to keep things healthy. The fact that even a character like Superman could not be a solid earner for DC will have been noted and will be causing alarm.

The issue we have said before many times really is over saturation, a Marvel centric issue, and the production of a large number of bad films, which both are guilty off. Perhaps if superheroes went away for a few years and came back at the start of the next decade then maybe audiences appetite may have returned for everything rather than just the big films.

One thing is for sure though disrespecting your characters and your audience is not going to get people in the door. Something that James Gunn needs to be reminded off if that Supergirl trailer with Superman being pissed on is anything to go by. Arguably those with the creative and decision making power to save the superhero genre are the ones hastening its end.

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Cinema Issues: The Problem With Will Byers

In this edition of Cinema Issues we will be talking about the character of Will in Stranger Things and the idea of negative representation.

Post season three of Stranger Things all Will is is an LGBTQ+ youth. The writing strips him of being able to be anything other than his sexuality. Worse yet it makes him hopelessly in love with his straight friend Mike. It makes him act out over the course of season four and believe there is a future there despite the fact his friend is straight. Will expects to be accepted for who he is and yet does not accept that for Mike thinking instead that he can still win him in the end, despite sexuality being an immoveable force.

Recently the actor who plays Will, said in an interview that we would get good representation for Will, being gay, in the next lot of episodes, as heavens knows we haven’t had that yet. The writing presents Will as being catty and mean and trying to break apart Mike and Eleven, and then wants us to feel bad for him as he gets rejected, the fact that he cannot accept it and move on is not a thing worthy of sympathy but rather one that makes him, and by default the movement the show so clearly wants to appeal to and represent look worse. If this was a young man going after a woman, trying to break her up from her partner, then being rejected, then acting the victim, then being obsessed and not moving on, in the modern parlance you would say that made them an awful and unsympathetic character. Yet the moral framing here is that he is gay so it is fine. Wrong. It pushes the gay people are manipulative narrative line.

The fact that the first part of season five simply had Will and Robin discussing that they were gay over and over again, and then Will embracing his gayness granting him superpowers, it is very clear the show doesn’t want to do actual representation that matters but would rather boil theses characters down to one thing, and then present incredibly moral questionable choices as good because otherwise people on the internet would get mad.

It is very interesting to compare Robin and Will in terms of characterisation, and how they are written, Robin has far more going on outside of just being a lesbian, even if season five muddies that a bit, whereas Will just has the upside down, which increasingly he is irrelevant for and being gay.

Increasingly the character doesn’t show positive representation on the show but rather stereotypes and boiled down cliches. It is tokenism plain and simple.

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The MCU Is Dead

In this edition of Cinema Issues we will be talking about the MCU and how we got here.

So firstly lets take stock, the MCU has this year put out three films that all failed to break even, released a few tv series no one talked about, Born Again had worse ratings than Agatha, and moved the big prize of an Avengers film further and further away. Disney as a company has also had a reckoning with their audiences and are now moving away from the message and towards entertainment again. There has been senior people in Marvel leaving or stepping down, audiences have not connected with a lot of the phase four and five, and there is a real possibility that Doomsday may not break a billion dollars.

Let’s look at the year ahead as well before we begin, Doomsday is the big ticket item, though a push to the year after next wouldn’t be a surprise. Then you have Spider-Man which will do well as people like the character, he is probably the most popular remaining MCU character, but each time a Spider-Man film is made Disney has to pay Sony and involve them, which they don’t like. Then you have TV series like the second season of Born Again which could be good but I wouldn’t hold my breath, and then TV shows no one cares about such as Wonder Man and more of their animated stuff. There is a real chance that Spider-Man will be all Marvel has that makes a dent next year if they delay Avengers again.

Marvel went from a studio that seemed untouchable to one that looked like it was falling off, as the kids say real quick.

What got us here and what can be done, at this point I would argue that a reboot is needed. I think that whilst yes you can bring back variants of popular characters, it does not work long term and undermines death as a concept in the MCU. I think a real issue is that the characters brought in the later phases have simply not connected in the way Marvel thought they would, and whilst you can blame a rush to the M-She-U, or the fact that a lot of these were girlbosses without proper arcs, you can ultimately just point back to the fact that a lot of these characters, Riri, Ms Marvel, Kamala Khan, are not popular characters and the comics have been saying that for years. In a sense Marvel thought it was too big to fail and so it could push ahead with whatever agenda you want to think they had and that people would stick around when they didn’t. Rebooting things now and bringing back popular characters can fix the character issue but there are broader things at play.

Within certain sects of Hollywood talent there is a need to be outspoken in a progressive way and to insult your audience or attack them for not liking your progressive masterpiece, this has been seen at Marvel on both a talent, as in actors, and behind the scenes level. A fictional entertainment world should never have been making allegories to the real world as blatant as the MCU, and the crew and staff employed knew making very noticeable political statements online would hurt the audience, but they didn’t seem to care. Particularly amongst the phase four and five stars there has been a need to tell people how to think and to insult those who came up with Marvel since the earliest days of the MCU. I am not going to insult your intelligence and explain why this is a bad business move, but I will say that you can bet your money that Marvel now cares a hell of a lot about their lost audiences and plunging viewing figures. This is why you are seeing very obvious attempts to mend fences, with actors who are making insulting statements slowly being pushed out of the MCU and more and more talk of multiversal cameos to bring back characters fans like. The thing that they don’t seem to get is that whilst the people who made those comments who did the things are still employed, a lot of them are, then people aren’t coming back. Marvel as with all studios needs to do an ideological cull, they need to say right we are an entertainment company anyone that wants to run their mouths about the audience or about politics there is the door, and they need to remove the people who have made the comments in the past as well.

Then you have the major issue that exists in the background to the two other things we have discussed, genres come and go, the Western is a tired comparison but an apt one. Increasingly Marvel releases be them shows or films follow the same structure him the same plot beats, explore the same themes, and where this can work more so in comics wherein you are reading every week to find out what a specific character is doing, it doesn’t work so well in a multiconnected universe wherein you have to see everything that comes out.

As such we find ourselves possible witnessing the death of a titan. I don’t believe any amount of cameos, or even a reboot can save it. What would need to happen is three fold, firstly an entire overhaul of the brain trust and writing teams, apologies made for behaviour that alienated fans, the increased presence of liked characters like Spider-Man and a direction away from it being this big interconnected thing. Even then death may find a way.

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Cinema Issues: Don’t Like It Don’t Watch It

In this edition of Cinema Issues we will be talking about actors running their mouths in Hollywood and coming break point between activism and actors in general.

As many of you who read my reviews know there is nothing worse than an actor who feels the need to lecture you on politics from their mansion, many times this is also followed with a comment about if you disagree with me you’re evil and you shouldn’t watch my work. This is damaging and just stupid.

Now increasingly I believe, and I believe it has already started happening, there will be contractual stipulations as to what actors can and can’t say and what they can and can’t post whilst they are under contract to either shoot, or promote a film, possibly up until the point of beginning a project until it is released. You can understand why studios would do this as an actor running their mouth about some issue can cost audiences, and can damage the box office of your film as such it is a move motivated by the need to try and keep as many audience members as possible. Whether or not you agree with what these people say is irrelevant what matter is that it can and has had a tangible impact of box office returns before.

To look at this issue more closely lets look at two prominent examples.

Firstly you have Tatianna Maslany, She-Hulk, in the MCU, not only did she attack the fans over that show, which no doubt hurt the ratings, she also personally called out Bob Iger during the writer’s strike, and as a result She-Hulk was removed from the Marvel official banner. She has also told people to cancel Disney + before. You see all of these moves are done to show adherence to activism, she wants to state her politics and she doesn’t care for the consequences, however, the issue becomes when this starts to hurt the bottom line. Celebrities like anyone has a right to speak their mind, but when it starts to hurt the bottom line when you start having people whom you have cast in multimillion dollar shows telling people to cancel your service this becomes a real problem. The issue stems from belief on the celebrity side that they are too big to fail, and that they have a moral duty to do this, at that is at odds with the studio.

Then for our second example you have Oscar Issac, Moon Knight, who when asked about working with Disney said he was wary, and then referenced his disapproval of how Disney handled the Kimmel situation in which he celebrated the death of Charlie Kirk and then was suspended. Issac would imply that this suspension was akin to fascism. This highly privileged take, once again adherence to a cause over career. This is perhaps even worse than what Maslany did as it damages Disney as a brand overall, with an incorrect statement.

The fact is this is a failing of publicists who used to be the class that kept celebrity image in check and made sure they didn’t bite the hand that feeds them like this, but then maybe this sub-set has been co-opted and are pushing for it or have given up controlling their clients. Either way the outcome remains the same with an ever decreasing box office something needs to be done to keep talent in line, and not alienate half the audience, and that likely thing will be contracts that dictate what you can and can’t say and what you can and can’t post when working on a film. This move in all honesty makes sense and is needed, especially as we now live in a post cultural shift society

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