The Tartan

By Sam Bates

For about as long as cinema has existed, people have been claiming that it is dead. In the early 1900s it was laughed off as a fad, and in the 1950s it was thrown around that television would render it obsolete. More people seem to be bringing the age-old sentiment back — but this time their case seems frighteningly compelling. 

There are several worrisome modern trends that people have pointed to as signs of decay. There is the most popular subject of commentary: franchise filmmaking, or more specifically, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There is also the one critics seem most frightened by: the death of the movie star. Then there is the loss of physical media sales brought on by the rise of streaming, the decline of comedies and mid-budget films, and the impact of Covid on movie theaters. These are all valid and worrisome observations, but I believe that there is a bright side that is being nihilistically overlooked in the lexicon of film-talk. The silver screen is fighting back.

Let’s talk about Barbenheimer. This past summer, a cultural phenomenon swept the nation like a tidal wave crashing down on a surfing beach-Ken. Barbenheimer mania was something we haven’t seen in what feels like ages. People flocked to the movie theaters to see a historical epic about a controversial scientist and a romp about a toy not often considered for adult audiences. So in this period of film where people like to claim all that brings people to theaters are big franchise flicks, how did this happen? How did this possibly succeed? 

Now, dear reader, we are beginning to ask the real questions. On the surface, you could say that these two movies only succeeded because of the initial internet culture that formed around their shared release date, but that ignores the success the two movies actually achieved. This was not a repeat of “Minions: the Rise of Gru,” where teenage boys were seemingly the primary moviegoers. This was a case in which your aunt saw “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” and I find it hard to believe that the aunt of everyone reading this is highly tuned in to Gen Z online humor. People went to see these movies because they were something unique — something that was not Marvel or Transformers or DC. People saw these two movies (and came back to see them again) because they were director-driven, creative, original works with visible care and love for the art of film. 

This was Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie.” This was Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer.” 

People raved about the physical setpieces in Barbie Land and the practical effects of “Oppenheimer,” especially as something more exciting than the CGI worlds of major franchises of the past ten years. It is no coincidence that 2023 also saw record-low box offices for several Disney projects, including some of the lowest performing Marvel films to date (“The Marvels” and “Ant-Man: Quantumania”). In fact, five of the ten lowest performing Marvel movies have been released in the 2020s. Likewise, “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” flopped, as did the nostalgia-baiting “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” the multiverse retreader “The Flash,” the by-the-books superhero comedy “Shazam: Fury of the Gods,” and Disney’s 100th anniversary piece “Wish.” Meanwhile “Poor Things,” “The Holdovers,” and “Saltburn” have made their money back and gained ongoing chit-chat in the zeitgeist months after their releases. Funny how all three of those films are unique stories told by passionate directors who care about film a lot like how our friends Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan do.

The death of the movie star is another idea very heavily tied to intellectual property (IP) movies and their success in the past 10 to 15 years. While people used to see a movie because a familiar actor like Humphrey Bogart or George Clooney was in it, people now see movies for a different familiar face: the character. In a nutshell, while people may like an actor like Tom Holland, they see his “Spider-Man” movies because of Spider-Man, not because of Holland. They see it because the new familiarity they care about comes in the form of his character. Tom Holland should by all means be a movie star after the success of his Marvel endeavors, but take a look at his non-Marvel outings. They have consistently fallen flat with barely any public discourse and definitely not a lot of box office returns. It becomes clear that while people like Holland, he just doesn’t hold real star power. Spider-Man is the star, and Tom Holland is a person people simply like portraying him. 

But something is changing. As IP movies lose popularity, there seems to be a new public desire for old-school movie stars. “Top Gun: Maverick” from 2022 was a strange instance of movie star power, as people were drawn in by Tom Cruise’s presence in the movie and its making, resulting in a smash-hit summer blockbuster. “Saltburn” seems to have begun to launch Jacob Elordi into a potential rise to true stardom, and Timothee Chalamet has consistently managed to gain and grow a significant Gen Z and Millennial audience in the past five years or so. Could they see their careers continue to grow into true generation-spanning stardom as actors once saw in the past? I honestly think so. A true movie star can captivate a variety of audiences, from the pipsqueaks to the old-timers in the popcorn line, and I think over the next decade we could genuinely see these two, and many others, start to enter that territory. People are ready for new faces, and that’s a good thing. 

Lastly, there are the aforementioned topics of streaming, theater attendance, physical media sales and mid-budget movies. Let’s go one by one and try to knock these off quick, because I know Forum editor Will Curvan is starting to tear his hair out at the length of this article. 

While streaming may have started out strong at the end of the 2010s as the bold new wave, it has started to kick its parent companies in the foot. Companies like Netflix, Disney, and HBO all poured money into dozens of straight-to-streaming movies, which inevitably were lost in their seas of content and couldn’t make their money back with solely the subscription plan. Additionally, the writer’s strike last year dealt a major blow to the public opinion of streaming services, as figures like Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav lost popularity. The odds are streaming is here to stay, but in its current state, it may have to change to become more profitable. 

Movie theaters were at a major risk immediately following COVID-19, but they’re still here. Theater attendance has dropped, but it does not seem like people are done with theaters as a whole. I call Barbenheimer back to the stand. People got a taste for what it was like to be in a packed theater again last summer, and ever since it seems as if movie theaters are bringing in crowds again. Popcorn is here to stay.

Physical media sales are definitely going down and not looking like they’re coming back, which is a shame, but not the end of the world. With their current model taking water, streaming services could begin adopting an approach akin to something like YouTube Movies, where customers rent a digital copy of a movie like you would with a physical VHS at a Blockbuster in the ’90s. Also, there is absolutely a dedicated DVD collecting base out there. The Criterion Collection is a prime example of this. I urge you to go to your local Barnes & Noble at any of the four annual Criterion sales and reevaluate whether or not anyone buys DVDs anymore.

Mid-budget movies have gone down a lot in the last decade, as they always relied on DVD and VHS sales to help make money, but they are starting to creep back. As people become more open and excited about new movies, the mid-budgets feel safer to make. “No Hard Feelings” was a raunchy early 2010s-style comedy that did surprisingly well last year, and “Poor Things” has been everywhere the past few months. People are mostly seeking out new stories which don’t always require massive CGI budgets, and thus I say mid-budget movies have got a shot again.

This article has been long (ya think, Sam?), and if you read all of it you are probably a cinephile who has been quite worried about the state of modern cinema. If that is the case I hope I have made you reconsider at least a little bit. There is hope, and pessimism on the matter will not do us film buffs any good. Go to your nearest movie theater and buy a ticket for whatever’s playing, you won’t regret it. The movies, like their favorite trope of the underdog, aren’t going out without a fight.