Written by Luke Barnes

This piece will talk about the dire issue facing Hollywood this year, the incredibly thin on the ground summer slate.

Now as any good movie fan worth their salt will tell you the summer is the key time to be making money in the film business, the kids are off school, people want somewhere cool to go to get away from the scorching temperatures, depending on where you live, it is the most important time of the year for Hollywood. This normally means that some of the biggest movies of the year are coming out during the summer months sometimes multiple a week, whereas this year there is a drought.

This drought is the result of a few things covid, the strikes, diminishing box office receipts that are making studios far more careful about greenlighting projects. However, it is plain to see, this year we have only a few true blockbusters coming out, with Kingdom Of The Planet of The Apes, Furiosa, Deadpool and Wolverine and really that is it. Add to that a few kids movies in Despicable Me 4, Garfield and Inside Out 2, and a few smaller titles like the new Alien film and Borderlands and you have a very thin slate. There are some weeks in summer where there are no major releases at all and it seems almost nonsensical for studios to be doing this.

Moreover, the films mentioned above, with no doubt a few others I have forgotten, are not all ones people are looking forward to, and that speaks to the problem. Hollywood is worried as they keep putting out films they think are hits, that aren’t, the idea of safe hits is becoming a thing of the past, now as those of you who have read my other Cinema Issues pieces will know this is in no small part due to consumers becoming more choosey as it costs more that ever to go to the cinema these days. Although in addition to that it is also because increasingly Hollywood is becoming isolated, out of touch, with the disconnect between what studios think people want and what they actually do growing  by the day.

Why would people want a sequel from over 30 years ago, or a spin off  from a film that came out 9 years ago and didn’t set the world on fire. Have studios not learnt that people are sick of prequels, sequels and reboots by now. It is not a huge surprise that a lot of the films that have done well in recent years Super Mario, Barbie, Oppenheimer have been original.

To close this out, things are only going to get worse for Hollywood and the box office. I think that there they may be no billion dollar films this year, for the first time in a long time, I think that Deadpool and Wolverine and Despicable Me 4 will do well and I think the rest will struggle or flop. If I am being really blunt about this, I think Hollywood’s time is done they have run out of good will and good ideas and I think that we need new studios, that operate outside of the California format. We need cinema to become more international and less American so that we can have something that is truly fresh and new.

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Written by Luke Barnes

This piece will talk about how or indeed if Marvel Studios can pull themselves back from the brink. As many of you will be aware Marvel is in somewhat of a bad state at the moment, yes Deadpool and Wolverine will be a success but outside of that what else will be? Will Brave New World or Thunderbolts break 1 billion it is highly, and I do mean highly, unlikely. Many people view Marvel Studios as being in a perpetual decline since Endgame with a few hits here and there, mainly Spiderman related, and undeniably that’s true.

My question here is how do we get back to the hight of Endgame, in my opinion there are 4 key steps that need to be taken in order to right the ship, some will be popular and some won’t be, but all are needed.

Firstly, Marvel needs to stop making things for niche audiences, they made a show like She-Hulk not for general nerds or fans of Marvel but to try and lure in the Fleabag crowd, with the idea that oh they can keep their male audience and then bring in a new or growing female audience at the same time. This as Sony has learnt is not possible, doing things like this lessens your inherent male nerdy viewer base, and though it may increase demographics slightly doesn’t change the fact that superhero content is mainly enjoyed by guys so should be aimed at them. You cannot force an inherently male franchise into all these different moulds to try and get in different groups who likely will just watch that one thing and tune out the rest. You can see this as well with the low numbers of things like Ms Marvel, again it was made for a specific audience and the general Marvel crowd didn’t turn up, the Marvels again it was made for a specific audience and it didn’t perform well, do I need to spell it out anymore?

Secondly, they need to wipe the slate clean and start over. Now I don’t mean a reboot what I mean is give up all this multiverse stuff that has so far left audiences cold, Kang is gone so come up with a new threat and have it be set in 616, or whatever Marvel calls their universe, and leave the multiverse for another day. As well as this you want to focus on your well established and liked characters, I am talking about your Fantastic Fours, your X-Men, hell even a Midnight Sons with Moon Knight, Blade, Dane Whitman, Werewolf by Night and Ghost Rider, not Agatha and the coven of who cares, or rip-off Iron Man, or even Wonder Man, who is coming in way too late. Here is the bit that will get some people upset, I believe that Marvel should copy WBD and scrap these projects even if they are done and ready to go for the tax write off and go okay we made a mistake with these projects on characters people don’t know or in the case of Riri people actively dislike, and just let it go down the wayside.

Thirdly, stop it with Disney +, there shouldn’t be any series coming out on Disney + every time they release something like the soap opera dross that was Echo all they are doing is diluting the brand and creating homework for people. When you just had to watch the movies to know what was going on things were far more accessible, marathoning a few movies is far more enjoyable, especially as many of them were good, then sitting down and watching hours upon hours of frankly mediocre Disney + fare so that you can understand a reference in the Marvels. The level of homework that is expected of audiences at this point is just ridiculous. If it were me I would use Disney + for two reasons, firstly to spot light and introduce new characters, White Tiger appears in the next Spiderman film give her an hour long special on Disney +, not a series. I would also use Disney + as a bridge, by that I would use hour long specials to fill in gaps in the world or between films to again set up ideas. Basically I would do 4 or maybe 5 of these type of events a year and nothing else, they would each be about an hour long and that’s it.

Oh and I’d keep the animation stuff going on Disney + as that is fairly inconsequential.

Finally, if things were getting really bad, which I have a feeling that by the end of next year they will be, I would bring back Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans and any other dead character that would get fans to care again, but I believe that this should only be done if they can’t save it any other way as it would create its own problems.

Ultimately Marvel seem hellbent on hacking themselves to death, the Silver Surfer casting news and the fact that we aren’t getting the version of the Surfer most fans would want shows that they are continuing down an identity politics, subversion sort of direction and mark my words they will pay for it, as audiences won’t come back. Perhaps the issue is Fiege himself, much like with Lucasfilm Marvel would benefit from someone new at the helm as Fiege and his masterplan seems to be a thing of the past at this point, unless the plan said to make a bunch of low quality Disney + shows and damage the brand.

If you enjoyed this piece, then please head over to my Patreon to support me, I offer personalized shoutouts, customised film recommendations to suit your personality and tastes, the ability for you to pick what I review next and full access to my Patreon exclusive game reviews. Check it out!

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Written by Luke Barnes

This piece will talk about how cinemas are putting themselves out of business and how the coming downfall could have been prevented.

So as some of you who follow me on X will know this cinema issues article is inspired by something that happened to me recently. I have a cinema card meaning I can go as often as I like for a monthly fee, and I had booked to see a film at the start of the week which I had to miss due to an emergency of sorts and go later on that same day at the end of the week. Now remember as I had to get another lot of tickets they got more of my money not less, yet the next day I got an email telling me that I was getting a strike for missing a film and if I get three of them there will be some arbitrary consequences. I challenged them on this and they said it was done to make sure the most amount of customers could view the films. Know I am not an expert on what audiences will do but I don’t think in either of the screenings I booked it would have been sold out, and I don’t think there is that mad a rush to go to the cinema anymore that there is ever a chance a screening will sell out. Which gets me down to the brass tax of what this policy is, it is a means for cinemas to attack some of their most loyal customers as in there misguided and deluded way they think that is the problem.

Cinema attendance is rapidly falling, check any number of stats and data elsewhere for proof of it, it dropped off in the pandemic and hasn’t returned, the one two three four punch of rising ticket prices, preaching, streaming and the ever increasing popularity of anime meant more and more people are staying home. Now what are cinemas to do in order to keep the lights on? They think they can sell themselves as premium luxury destinations serving food and cocktails as a means to stay afloat, if people couldn’t afford five pounds for a cinema ticket, more like eight dollars American, how can they afford to wine and dine? They think they can sell the fact that oh they have the best tech, it is the way the filmmaker wanted you to see it, no one other than the purists care about that and a lot of people have good home cinema setups now so again that isn’t getting folks in the door. They can try another tirade against piracy which won’t change or effect anything as with VPN’s its easier than ever to pirate any film you like. They are trying to police those that still come as though they are expecting a mad rush to suddenly come in as one of the cinema owners goes back in time to assassinate the founders of Netflix in utero therefore preventing the streaming future, yet all there policing does is make me not want to go to the cinema anymore. They can put on better films cater more towards anime films or niche interests that might result in new people coming or large groups for an event film, but ultimately they can’t control what gets made.

There is only one logical thing they can do, but they won’t do it. They need to lower costs, I saw something the other day from a exhibitor who said that they should charge the same prices for cinema tickets as they do live sports or concerts, raising cinema prices into thirty to six pounds a go, add about three quarters of the overall amount to that to work out the dollar price, this would kill cinema dead. Concerts and live sports are in the moment events that cannot be replicated again you can rewatch a film at home, moreover these events have a sense of community and fandom in a way the cinema doesn’t, these are activities that are milestones are major events in people’s lives, going and watching the latest Melissa McCarthy film where she poos herself falls over and it smears down her face isn’t that and it never will be.

Yes, if they lowered costs they might initially lose money however, once going to the cinema became more affordable for families or individuals they would be more likely to go more often to get the kids out of the house, they would be more likely to try new films, they would be more likely to be in the building so you could sell them some merch or food. Ultimately whether we can agree on the cause or not cinema is dying, and by that I mean audiences going to the cinema to watch films, the idea that things might one day go back to pre-pandemic levels is increasingly proving unlikely, and the one thing that won’t save cinema is to hike up ticket prices.

If you enjoyed this piece, then please head over to my Patreon to support me, I offer personalized shoutouts, customised film recommendations to suit your personality and tastes, the ability for you to pick what I review next and full access to my Patreon exclusive game reviews. Check it out!

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Written by Luke Barnes

This piece will talk about stan culture and how it is ruining film discourse. So for those of you unfamiliar, a stan or fan account on social media is a person who devotes themselves entirely to another person or a franchise and spends hours a day constantly tweeting out about them or using fan cams, repetitive streams of pictures or video clips, to prove their devotion.

I have read some pieces about these people saying they are lonely and look to these parasocial relationships with stars as a means of finding community. However, where that becomes challenging is with the dogmatic way in which they act, these people act like they are in a cult, if the object of their eye does something bad they will still defend them blindly and attack any naysayers, which is fairly typical cult like behaviour.

What is even more troubling that they though you could say they do it to have a purpose and have a community, they also devote themselves to people they don’t know. They act like these celebrities are their friends, their family, their lovers and this is unhealthy as it reeks of obsession. A para-social bond between a viewer and an actor or a listener and a singer is normal and often its encouraged, though here it can be seen to be going too far and going into that realm of viewing the singer or actor as a part of them not as a separate person, they view an attack on one as a personal attack on them.

Moreover these people also carry out the silencing activities of a cult, and will come after anyone who speaks ill of their obsession sometimes threatening them with violence or false accusations in order to try and get them to be quiet and to distract from the criticism. This makes honest and valued criticism harder and harder to find as these groups and to an extent both extremes of the political divide cling so hard to their tribalism that they feel that anyone outside of them needs harassing.  How are you supposed to say such an actor is stiff and wooden if a few hundred odd balls with too much time on their hands will spam you for days with death threats.

I believe that people need to carry on despite the stans and keep saying what they want to say, but more so I think something needs to be done about the stans from a societal viewpoint this isn’t healthy for them and they are only making cyberbullying online worse as well. In a sense it is a form of extremism not in the bombs and kidnappings sort of way but in a sense of extreme cliques of people where group think rules the roost and that outsiders need to be punished, it highlights the dangers of the internet and how increasingly it is becoming apparent that it needs to be policed better and with a much firmer hand.

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Written by Luke Barnes

This piece will talk about the modern Hollywood archetype of the girl boss, and why by its very existence it reduces women in cinema and makes them inherently stunted.

So to give you a quick summary the girl boss is a girl that takes charge, is in control, is usually fairly emotionless and needs no man. The idea of this character type comes with the idea of giving women more agency allowing them to have power and to be a dominating figure in a films narrative, in this sense the girl boss was supposed to be empowering. However, the fundamental issue with the girl boss is that it stops women being human, they may be powerful and in control but they are no longer allowed to have flaws or be well rounded characters, the character simply becomes they are great and in charge and that is where the exploration ends.

For the sake of this piece I want to look at two girl bosses side by side to show how the archetype has lost its way to the point of being parody at this point. Firstly lets look at the character of Sarah Connor from the Terminator franchise, Connor is a girl boss as she is in control she tells people what to do she fights Skynet and despite her fling with Kyle Reese at the start of the series she doesn’t need no man, she is a strong independent woman and mother. She is not immediately perfect at fighting terminators as she would be if the film was made today she has to train and work to get there, she is a flawed person but does everything she can to protect her son, she is human. Then you have Elodie, Millie Bobby Brown’s character in Damsel, in this film Elodie repeatedly says how she doesn’t need a man or want to get married as though having human wants and desires made you weaker, Sarah Connor had romance didn’t make her any weaker. Elodie preaches about the patriarchy and how she needs to be a figure head for all women, implying all women need to be activists and take to the streets otherwise they are enabling oppression, Sarah Connor fought the patriarchy and won she didn’t spend her time preaching. Finally and most damning of all where before I said Sarah Connor had to work to be a badass, Elodie just picks up a sword and bang she’s better than any soldier, why because she is a woman that’s why. It is reductive.

The modern girl boss archetype as a whole makes the idea of a female action hero or even a powerful woman generally inherently less human and takes it to such an extreme caricature like place that then makes the characters incredibly one dimensional and allows them no room to grow. The reason why Rey was a bad character in the new Star Wars films was because she was not a character you could root for as she didn’t have an arc she was just great and then saved the day that’s it there was no progression, no journey as there was with a Sarah Connor, Laurie Strode or Ripley.

The girl boss as an archetype reeks of work by committee or perhaps in Netflix’s case work by algorithm they go what do young women care about? Social justice, activism, breaking down gender norms. Can they be floored or need to grow as a person? No that would imply they weren’t inherently perfect that’s sexist. Can they want to be equal to men rather than better than them and needing to degrade them in order to make themselves look even better? No, once again that’s sexist wanting men and women to be equal that’s sexism if the female lead of your superhero franchise isn’t inherently better than all the male characters there that is problematic now- see She Hulk.

One would argue that the progressive idea of strong interesting and well developed female characters is being ruined by the girl boss archetype and that in many ways the view of women it presents is limiting and regressive  

If you enjoyed this piece, then please head over to my Patreon to support me, I offer personalized shoutouts, customised film recommendations to suit your personality and tastes, the ability for you to pick what I review next and full access to my Patreon exclusive game reviews. Check it out!

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Written by Luke Barnes

This piece will talk about the idea of why people in Hollywood can’t see how the message is killing the film industry. Left wing social justice politics is very in right now with some people, these people think that everyone else is like them, and that if they are not that screaming at them and telling them they are a vile nazi will get them to change their mind, it won’t. Apply this to movie studios when you have actors and executives making statements to the press saying x film or tv show isn’t for a certain group of people, based usually around political beliefs and you can see the problem. It is an industry, and in an industry you want to make money so you have to keep everybody happy, so putting in divisive left wing themes and messages into a film to appeal to just people of one political persuasion becomes off putting for everyone else, the film will then do poorly, not always but most of the time

I am not arguing that film should be depoliticized some of the best films ever made are inherently political, but a studio deliberately doing something divisive and then insulting their fanbase is never the way to make a hit. Look at The Rings Of Power it spat on the books, and did many left wing changes to make the show appeal to a very small and vocal group of left wing activist and again what these creatives need to learn is that these are a small group, the majority don’t like this hence the poor viewership and completion rates.

Hollywood is famous for being a very left wing place, to them social justice issues are the be all and end all as they live in their mansions, and they see this small and vocal minority of people online and go see audiences agree with us lets make sure our films reflect our own personal beliefs, but this is echo chamber logic. The majority of people are aware of social justice issues but are busy trying to put food on the table or just get through the day, they don’t have the resources of the activists that don’t seem to need to work and have family money to keep going indefinitely. They go to the cinema because they want to be entertained not lectured to, or told how they are bad, this is why people are switching off. I have multiple streaming services worth of classic films to watch why would I go to the cinema and watch a modern release that screams about how anyone who eats meat is on a par with histories greatest baddies, I wouldn’t and I am not alone.

Yes streaming and rising ticket costs have brought pain to Hollywood’s door at the box office but it is the shoehorned diversity, that audiences can see is not done because they actually care about these groups or properly representing them but rather just to have them so they can show them off in an exploitative fashion, and the divisive social messages that take film from a place of entertainment into a lecture hall. I think this practice is sad because it is ruining the industry and it is stopping actual progress being made on things like making film more diverse as rather than do it for the right reasons it is just being done by an all-white board in order to appease a group of people online who aren’t numerous enough to make a film successful.

Personally I don’t think anything I have said here is particularly new nor do I think it is inherently one way or the other politically, I aim to be centrist I don’t aim to align with either side. I just think that something needs to be done about writers in Hollywood, I think that they need to stop preaching and start entertaining or they’ll be out of a job, I mean AI is only shortly around the corner anyway. Actors and executives can have their political views but they should know if they start saying to parts of the audience this film isn’t for you then they are limiting the reach of their film, and then they can’t be upset when it flops. They themselves can be very left wing if that’s who they are but it should stay out of their public image and they should remember they are actors not activists and trying to be the latter will hurt the former, look at Brie Larson she made a few probably well intended comments but her activism made her a hate figure and her career has struggled as a result. I think a return to the days of old is in order where stars were more greatly controlled by the studio whilst under contract and weren’t allowed to just say any old statement they like to the press which can then tank a 200 million dollar movie.

I think the winds of change are in the air I think people are realising audiences aren’t just people on X, that pushing social justice messages isn’t enough to make a film successful and that it may even be damaging. America and the world as a whole is a deeply divided place and if you view the split between what would be considered politically left and right down the middle you would probably find a fairly even split if more right wing people overall, so when Hollywood shoots its mouth off about who a project is and isn’t for they want to remember that ratio and remember it again when their project fails.

If you enjoyed this piece, then please head over to my Patreon to support me, I offer personalized shoutouts, customized film recommendations to suit your personality and tastes, the ability for you to pick what I review next and full access to my Patreon exclusive game reviews. Check it out!

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