LOSER: The Duffer Brothers: First, the final season of Stranger Things — a massive ratings success that it was — was pretty roundly knocked for being an exposition-stuffed slog. Now Matt and Ross Duffer’s spiritual successor series, Netflix‘s “Stranger Things with seniors” drama The Boroughs, was canceled just one month after its premiere, which seems … rather aggressive considering the Duffers created the biggest show in the streamer’s history in total hours viewed and were almost certainly responsible for driving more subscribers to the company than any other creative team.
Also, the streamer’s executives frequently take their sweet time to make such decisions, especially when a series has a 97 percent positive Rotten Tomatoes’ critics score and a 79 percent audience score. Sources close to the decision point to the show’s somewhat modest ratings versus the show’s high production cost. Fair enough, but it’s difficult to imagine Netflix executing this rug-pull if the Duffers hadn’t jumped ship to Paramount.
Here’s what’s funny about this: Netflix could have waited two more days to try and bury the cancellation news right before the holiday weekend — as studios famously do when wanting to protect the feelings of talent (an insider cites a deadline to extend the cast’s options as a reason for the decision’s timing, but the company likely could have hustled to keep the news under wraps for another 48 hours). Instead, Netflix knifed The Boroughs two days after Paramount announced its “Mystery Event Movie” with the Duffers, blowing those positive Duffer Brothers headlines out of the water. Guess that $2.8 billion fee Paramount paid Netflix after their merger collapsed didn’t buy any warm feelings. In both cases, Netflix doesn’t seem to handle break-ups particularly well (“Matt and Ross, I thought we having a nice date!”). It’s unclear if Netflix’s cancellation timing was intended as a double middle finger salute to the Duffers and Paramount but … stranger things have happened.
WINNER: Supergirl: I’ve been critical of “first social media reactions” stories, even though I write them too (the entertainment news beast must be fed). It would be highly amusing if, just once, the usual gaggle of fan bloggers, exuberant critics, and influencers all collectively agreed to roast an expensive major franchise release — preferably a film that’s mediocre, but not outright bad. Just imagine them executing a Spartacus-style uprising, biting the hand that feeds like Krypto the super-pup, collectively declaring to Hollywood: We are not your simps. It would scare the bejesus out of every studio’s marketing department.
Yesterday, however, was not that day. Supergirl enjoyed plenty of glowing first reactions (“the best blockbuster of the summer!”), with Jason Momoa particularly drawing praise as Lobo (a role he was “born to play,” several enthused). Influencers comparing the film to the best action movie this century, Mad Max: Fury Road, are getting rather sacrilegious (though I get that the comparison serves as an easy shorthand for a film that’s a non-stop chase). The social media embargo was actually moved up by several days amid reports of the film’s opening weekend tracking softening, which just goes to show how much these reactions have become a reliable extension of marketing.
LOSER: Franchises: Nobody seriously believes franchises are dying. Franchises are stories people like and people will continue to like the things that they like. That said, what’s happening this year at the box office has been fascinating and does feel like a real shift — or, at least, the opportunity for a real shift.
It’s partly because of some IP that slightly underperformed (Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, Mortal Kombat II), or really underperformed (Masters of the Universe, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple), but mostly because the raging success of non-IP films (Backrooms, Obsession, Project Hail Mary, Michael, The Sheep Detectives) continue a “look people still like original films” trend that sparked last summer with Weapons and Sinners. So far this year, only half of the Top 10 domestic box office performers are existing IP, whereas last year 12 of the top 13 movies were existing IP (Sinners the sole exception).
Look, Toy Story 5 and Spider-Man: Brand New Day are still going to crush. Avengers: Doomsday will be the biggest movie released this year. But it feels like studio executives now have some real cover to greenlight on-the-bubble original ideas that might not have stood a chance just one year ago. As Obsession director Curry Barker put it in this week’s cover interview when I asked what Gen Z audiences want: “I wish [studios] understood that we’re tired of slop. We want good movies back. People are still hungry for movies that are original without some big IP, as long as the story is good.” That may sound like a young filmmaker’s idealism, but it’s actually tough to argue against given what we’ve seen this year.
WINNER: Christopher Nolan: Speaking of original IP (or, in this case, 2,700-year-old IP), it’s not often a movie sets a record a month before its release. BFI Imax — the U.K.’s largest movie screen — sold a record 28,000 tickets for The Odyssey in 24 hours. Those numbers doubled the previous record-holder, Dune: Part Two. It’s not surprising given The Odyssey broke records in the U.S. when certain premium large format theater tickets were put on sale a full year before the movie’s release (which was just silly). Nolan and Universal have done an impressive and relentless job pushing The Odyssey as a movie you absolutely must watch in Imax or you might as well see it as your Delta in-flight movie on the back of somebody’s seat if you dare watch it in, you know, Dolby Cinema or something. Also notice how The Odyssey‘s dumb-controversy critics have gone blissfully silent. Now just stay like that.
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