- [Charles] 2023 was a horrendous year for Hollywood.
Just when the entertainment industry was poised
to make a comeback from the COVID-19 pandemic,
a series of disasters struck rivaled
even the most destructive Michael Bay movies.
Blockbuster films
with bloated budgets bombed brutally at the box office,
threatening Disney's dominance.
Streaming services struggled
to stand out in an extremely saturated field,
even as traditional TV inches closer to the grave.
And sustained strikes shut down studios as writers
and actors walk the picket lines
to fight for their rights.
And the year wasn't all doom and gloom,
but industry leaders need
to face some harsh truth if they have any hope
of avoiding a catastrophic 2024.
Now, when it comes to movies in 2023,
we should start with the ones that didn't bomb
because that won't take very long.
The Barbenheimer phenomenon elevated two films
that on paper one wouldn't necessarily expect
to outperform every single superhero movie of the year,
but somehow a brightly colored comedy
about a toy's existential crisis
and a three hour biopic
of a nuclear physicist set the box office ablaze.
Meanwhile, "The Super Mario Brothers Movie"
scored a billion dollars globally
while horror flicks
continued to earn a hefty profit
thanks in large part to their humble by comparison budgets.
But beyond that, yeah, it's not good Marvel.
Once an unstoppable juggernaut
finally entered its flop era.
"Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania"
and "The Marvels" both took a hit at the box office,
with the latter doing so poorly
the Disney CEO Bob Iger
decided to throw Nia DaCosta,
the first black woman
to direct a Marvel movie, under the bus.
Real classy.
"Guardians of the Galaxy Volume III"
did okay, but its director James Gunn
is about to jump ship
to run rival superhero brand DC,
and boy does DC need it
after "Shazam Fury of the Gods,"
"The Flash" and "Blue Beetle."
We can argue
for hours about whether we're finally experiencing
superhero fatigue,
but comic book movies are far
from the only genre that's struggling right now.
Indiana Jones was a disaster.
"Elemental" and "The Little Mermaid"
barely eked out a profit
and even "Wish,"
an animated Disney movie designed
to celebrate the company's centennial,
was a total wash.
If you don't count the main pandemic years,
2023 was the first time Disney failed to release a movie
that grossed more
than a billion dollars globally since 2014.
Now, one thing most of these bombs had in common,
besides not being very good,
they all cost upward of $200 million to make,
even if they hardly look like it on screen.
From costly re-shoots
to crunching special effects artists,
studios spent more to make less in 2023.
And if you think you need hundreds of millions of dollars
to make heroes shoot colorful lasers at each other,
please note that "Godzilla Minus One"
only cost $15 million
and looks like this.
Quantity over quality seems
to have been the motto of 2023,
and not just in theaters.
Streaming has its own set of problems too.
Disney+ has begun to buckle under its own weight,
which shows like Ahsoka
and Secret Invasion
failing to achieve the mainstream appeal
of The Mandalorian and WandaVision.
HBO Max became Max in 2023,
merging HBO's programming with trashy reality TV fair
and killing the brand's prestige
faster than its CEO kills completed movies.
It too is only getting deeper in the red,
just like Peacock, Paramount+,
and literally every other streamer not named Netflix.
Netflix is doing just fine,
but it had to crack down on password sharing, raise prices,
and introduce a membership tier with ads to do it.
Its competitors are following suit,
which seems ill advised in times of high inflation
and bad economic vibes.
But hey, that's why executives get paid the big bucks.
And if the workers want a bigger piece of the pie,
they'll have to fight for it,
which is exactly what they did in 2023.
Greedy studios disruption from streaming
and the looming threat of AI infused entertainment
was the perfect recipe for a lengthy labor dispute.
In May, the Writers Guild of America
called a strike demanding minimum staffing guarantees,
higher residuals
and protections to stave off our synthetic media future
among other goals.
SAG-AFTRA, the Actors Union,
followed suit in July with similar goals.
It was the first time both unions have walked out
at the same time since 1960.
Thousands joined the picket lines
as Hollywood screeched to a halt.
And as the weeks turned into months,
the studio showed little signs of weakness.
Any other moment the unions might have caved,
but 2023 was the year that labor showed its true power,
which strikes by everyone from Starbucks baristas
to United Auto Workers.
The writers and actors were supported
by an unprecedented solidarity from nearly every
other union in the business.
And by November, both guilds had won fair new contracts
and the effects of that lengthy shutdown
will no doubt ripple into 2024.
But given the disaster that was this past year,
maybe that's for the best.
Hollywood has grown fat
and complacent on the back
of crowd pleasing blockbusters leaving artistry behind
as executives and algorithms chase
the next billion dollar hit.
It might be time for a new
New Hollywood driven by fresh talent with bold new visions.
And if it happens, we'll have 2023 to thank.