A congratulations are in order for the moviegoers of the USA and the rest of the world. You’ve just proved why cinema still has a soul despite the Disney monopolisation of the entertainment industry.
Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’ just took a pretty awesome $40.5M opening weekend, above industry expectations and amazing for an R-Rated, controversial 2.75 hour length historical love letter to Hollywood.
The fact that people turned out to see this film in the age of streaming and endless franchise films is a great sign, and as I’ve said in previous articles, the next six months could shape the next ten years of the film industry as this decade comes to an end.
‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’ is the sort of film that is endangered. There aren’t auteurs like Tarantino being discovered as often as we would like, and we only get these adult-targeted films about once every month, instead of once every fortnight like it used to be.
‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’ could finish anywhere from $115M in the US to $145M, and worldwide $275M to $400M depending on the coming weeks, but is already almost guaranteed a profit for Sony, with $255M the magical break-even figure for the studio, against a $90M budget.
It is also expected to dominate the Oscars, and more on that later in the week, but that’s not important in the fate of the entertainment industry.
With Tarantino supposedly retiring in five years time, we will be deprived of a rare gem of a filmmaker in the age of endless remakes and franchise films, but there is still hope that the industry could solve the major problem that is facing Hollywood in the coming months.
I think its fair to say that Disney is a symptom of the problem facing Hollywood, not the cause, as summed up by an article written by Forbes’s Scott Mendelson recently, but the cause of course is streaming, and with Disney jumping onto that, cinema could be doomed – sorry for the melodrama, but its true.
There are some films that, if they succeed at the box office, could save the film industry by proving to studios that these sorts of films can make a profit and also be resounding good, fresh and original.
First off we have ‘It: Chapter Two’ in September. OK, this is the odd one out in this article, however it is important to say that if this one can open high and take big numbers like the original did, it proves to the world that you can have $750M+ grossers that aren’t part of J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World or Kevin Feige’s Marvel Cinematic Universe.
But more importantly is Brad Pitt’s ‘Ad Astra’. The film looks along the lines of ‘Blade Runner 2049’, ‘Interstellar’ and ‘Arrival’, and looks superb already, and will be debuting at VIFF at the end of August. The budget is large on this one, a whopping $80M for a daddy issues space action-drama, but if this one can at least break even and get good audience reviews, then hooray for Hollywood.
We should also mention ‘Joker’. The film from Warners has reportedly just a $50M budget for a superhero film, but is extremely grounded and has reportedly no CGI in the film, more of a proper film from Todd Philipps and Joaquin Phoenix. If this one can play like other ‘superhero’ films, then it could change the ways those sorts of films are made, and are made more accessible for adults and the audiences who don’t want the films to be shoved down their throats and force fed. Sorry for the vivid imagery.
‘The Goldfinch’ will be another interesting one as well, and guess what? It’s from Warners again! The adaption of arguably the best novel of the decade is coming to screens, and once again it targeted for the adult demographic, and looks absolutely gorgeous, and its important for everyone to know that one can adapt a tough and hard novel to read into an accessible film for the general demographic without ruining the original source material. Tough job, but if done well, it a joy for cinema-goers.
I wouldn’t say that ‘Zombieland: Double Tap’ is paramount to the survival of the film industry, but it would be nice to see this one do well as well. But that’s just me.
Warner Brothers’s ‘Motherless Brooklyn’ will be an interesting as it goes wide on the first of November, directed and starring Edward Norton, as this one is also adult-targeted and is released in the middle of lots of PG-13 films. It really does look like Warner Brothers’s has taken Paramount’s title of becoming the studio for adults and cinephiles.
Christian Bale
‘Ford v Ferrari’ is a biggie. This one is from Fox… I mean Disney, and is a big budgeted ($100M) adult-thriller about Le Mans in the 60’s. Not far off from ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’ in its style, and will be hoping to be accessible for the whole world and re-tell a story that the majority of people don’t even know. This one is extremely important.
To finish it off, Warner Brothers’s (AGAIN!) ‘The Good Liar’, Warner Brothers’s (THIS IS GETTING TIRING) ‘Doctor Sleep’, Lionsgate’s ‘Knives Out’, Paramount’s ‘The Rhythm Section’ and Sony’s Mr. Rogers Biopic are also a good indicator on what the audiences of the world are thinking. I’ll do a review article in five months time and tell you how this goes. You’ve done well so far with ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’, but let’s keep it up movie-goers, and you just might alter the matrix of the future.
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