We are in the heart of summer movie season, so it seems like now would be a good time to take a quick peak at what’s going on this year. It’s been a rough time for movies since the world has reopened following the worst of the pandemic. Two years of restrictions put people out of the habit of going to theaters routinely, and families seem willing to wait for movies to show up on streaming.
For example, Pixar’s Elemental had to worst opening weekend (adjusted for inflation) of any of the fabled animation studio’s features, bringing in a scant $29.5 million on a $200 million production budget. And while it’s reviews were decent, they were certainly more praise for competence than for over-the-top creativity.
DC’s (Warner Bros.) The Flash also opened weak with a weekend gross of $55 million and decidedly mediocre reviews.
There’s no question what is happening. The bigger issue is why?
Pixar’s ‘Elemental’ Falls Flat, Adding to Worries About the Brand // My take – Pixar movies used to be something unique and special; now they are “Disney/Pixar product.” Pixar is no longer a creative/premium animation studio. They just serve The Mouse. https://t.co/pQ8jWByi0x
— RalphIsNow@rhanson40@threads.net (@ralphehanson) June 20, 2023
There has been substantial speculation that Disney squandered a large portion of Pixar’s “specialness” by sending their last three movies (Soul, 2020; Luca, 2021; Turning Red, 2022) straight to Disney+ to help build subscriptions for their streaming service. And during the pandemic, that may have made sense. But it also taught audience members that Pixar films were really just home video content, not movies.
I also think that as Jessica Winter writes for The New Yorker that recent Pixar movies have been been much weaker than their earlier films, in part because of an outflow of talent. Dear Wife and I tried to watch 2022’s Lightyear, an origin story for the Buzz Lightyear toy from Toy Story, on Disney+ and bailed on it within 15 minutes. I found Luca slow going, despite having a Vespa scooter as a major story element. Turning Red was the only one of the recent Pixar releases to really impress me with a great story and fabulous animation.
The Flash has suffered from weak reviews both from critics and audience members. The DC Extended Universe has been in creative trouble since at least 2016, and the huge number of super hero movies has led to a level of fatigue with the genre. And the personal problems of star Ezra Miller certainly haven’t helped either.
This is not to say that the entire summer movie season is a bomb. Sony’s animated Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse tells a complex multi-verse story largely targeted at teens and adults and has been massively successful at the box office, bringing in more than $300 million in just over three weeks of release. It has also been a critical and artistic success, getting a 96% on the Tomatometer and praise for both its storytelling and incredible animation.
Great interview of @mlasker by @BillDesowitz at @IndieWire on how the team pulled this off… https://t.co/s3MLDygoND
— Phil Lord (@philiplord) June 15, 2023
Spider-Verse has had praise for its organic diversity — most obviously for having a Afro-Latino hero in teen-ager Miles Morales, but also for having the India-based Spider-guy Pavitr Prabhakar slinging webs around the incredible New York-Indian mashup of Mumbattan. And there is an understated support for trans-teens in the world inhabited by Gwen Stacy (Spider-Gwen) with a “Protect Trans Kids” flag in her room and her police officer dad wearing a trans flag on his uniform.
Across the Spider-Verse fans see Gwen Stacy as a trans hero https://t.co/VEuT6v3w2n
— Vox (@voxdotcom) June 7, 2023
The major criticism the Spider-Verse sequel has had to face is that animators reportedly were working brutal hours completing the innovative film, and that a substantial number of animators left the studio over working conditions. Producer Amy Pascal has drawn fire for her comments dismissing the concerns of animators:
Spider-verse producer Amy Pascal's heartless response to overworked & underpaid workers on the film – “Welcome to making a movie” – is unsurprising if you know her feelings about animation. In 1997, she said, "I don't care for animation in any way, shape, or form." https://t.co/OSqficoGdd
— cartoonbrew.com – Animation News (@cartoonbrew) June 23, 2023
There is still a majority of the summer yet to come with highly anticipated blockbusters such as the final Indiana Jones movie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenhiemer bio pic. (Dear Wife and I have had second-day IMAX tickets for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny since the day they went on sale.) So we have yet to really see how willing audience members are to go to theaters, but there will certainly be a host of interesting things to see.
In closing, Dear Wife and I had a fantastic time Saturday afternoon going to see Buster Keaton silent short films with live piano accompaniment from pianist Rodney Sauer at our community-run World Theatre. The video below is of Sauer playing along with Harold Lloyd’s silent classic Safety Last on Friday evening .