Hollywood’s Bad Summer

The dual successes of Barbie and Oppenheimer – a collective phenomenon which became known as Barbenheimer – notwithstanding, it was a very, very bad summer for Hollywood. Along with turning out one box office flop after another, the unions representing a majority of screenwriters and actors have been on strike for two months, throwing the industry into even more turmoil.

Things started off rough in May and June with a series of major losses for studios on big-budget blockbusters.

On May 26, Disney’s remake of The Little Mermaid, which was billed as one of the biggest movies of the year, hit theaters to a shrug from audiences. It barely broke even according to Disney’s official numbers, which are routinely under-estimates of what a film actually needs to make to turn a profit.

On June 9, Paramount premiered Transformers: Rise of the Beasts to a similarly lackluster response. A week later, Warner Bros. released The Flash, seemingly a slam dunk in the era of superhero movies. But the film reportedly lost over $200 million, making it the biggest flop in the history of Warner Bros.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, released on June 30, could lose $100 million for Disney. Meanwhile, Mission: Impossible 7, with a production budget north of $300 million, might break even, but barely. The latest installment of the Fast & Furious series, Fast X (yes, they really have made nine sequels) is doomed to lose money thanks to a $340 million budget.

Smaller budget films have also struggled to turn a profit. Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City made just over $50 million on a $25 million budget (films generally have to make about 2.5 times their production budget to break even once marketing and other costs are factored in). Magic Mike’s Last Dance, the conclusion of the raunchy Magic Mike series, barely topped its production budget of $45 million.

According to some estimates, studios lost more than $1.5 billion in May and June alone.

Hollywood’s overall numbers for the summer were given a major boost by the twin releases of Oppenheimer and Barbie on July 21. Barbie is closing in on $1.4 billion at the global box office on a $145 million budget, while Oppenheimer has grossed $540 million on a budget of $100 million. Both of those totals are likely to climb significantly higher as the films remain in theaters.

But even as Hollywood’s box office numbers recover somewhat from a turbulent start to the summer, the production of dozens of films and TV shows has ground to a halt amid a dual strike of screenwriters and actors.

Both groups say they’ve been shortchanged by the switch to streaming, and are demanding to be paid more for reruns of shows and movies on streaming services. Studios, however, which also include streaming giants Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, aren’t willing to share viewership information.

Two narratives have emerged about why Hollywood suddenly finds itself in a crisis.

On the left, commentators have generally been sympathetic toward the writers and actors, while dismissing box office struggles as a reflection of changing consumer habits or leftover concerns about going to theaters following the COVID-19 pandemic.

On the right, the dominant view is that Hollywood’s descent into cultural leftism and the blatant political propaganda in virtually all mainstream films is costing studios viewers. The disappointing returns are, according to this interpretation, a protest on the part of moviegoers against being force-fed a partisan agenda disguised as entertainment.

There is certainly evidence for this theory. Disney’s films in particular are dripping with woke ideology, from the radical feminist rewrite of the songs in The Little Mermaid to the “nonbinary” character in another 2023 Disney flop, the animated kids movie Elemental. The latest Indiana Jones installment also sees the hero Indy emasculated by a thoroughly unlikable “girl boss” female lead – hardly the ending fans of the original trilogy hoped for.

But while some of Hollywood’s struggles may indeed be the result of an intentional conservative boycott, the movie industry also seem to have a bigger problem that is also a result of their preoccupation with left-wing political ideology: they just aren’t telling good stories anymore, as has been frequently noted by conservative internet personality John Nolte.

Virtually every big budget film this summer was a reboot of an older movie or franchise that showed a total lack of originality or imagination. The characters are dull, lifeless, and uninspiring. The stories feel contrived and half-baked.

The reality is that most of the movies Hollywood put out this summer were just bad. Obsessed with injecting their own politics into everything, it seems moviemakers have forgotten that their primary job is to tell a compelling story that people can relate to. Creativity and innovation have been replaced by a blind obedience to a rigid set of ideological maxims.

When a movie breaks free from this mold, such as the surprise hit Sound of Freedom, people will still flock to see it, even if it is not strictly apolitical. Both Barbie and Oppenheimer were not completely devoid of political messaging, but they were successful nonetheless because they were made to entertain, not lecture viewers.

Unless Hollywood learns this lesson, 2023 likely won’t be its last tough year.

Shane Harris is a writer and political consultant from Southwest Ohio. You can follow him on Twitter @ShaneHarris513.