For this month’s review roundup, I’m looking at a couple of Oscar-nominated movies and one that, in my view, should have been nominated but was snubbed. All technically from 2023. Specifically “The Holdovers”, “American Fiction” and “The Iron Claw”. I will be back to more recent movies next month.
The Holdovers (2023)
The Holdovers tells the story of three people forced to spend Christmas together at a 1970’s boarding school. One student, one teacher and the cook. Initially more students have to stay behind but after one of their rich parents offers to take them all to a skiing resort all but one student departs. The unfortunate “Angus Tully” (Dominic Sessa) remains as the lone holdover, as his parents were unable to be reached. Classics teacher “Paul Hunham” (Paul Giamatti) and “Mary Lamb” (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the school’s cafeteria manager, join him. Lamb has recently suffered a tragedy due to the death of her son, a former student at the school, in Vietnam. Paul and Angus meanwhile each have their own issues and a major clash of personalities between them.
This is about flawed characters dealing with past trauma and finding ways to grow past them. Standard Oscar bait, but done with a well paced story that develops naturally. Tully and Hunham are the main focus of the story, while Mary Lambs journey of a grieving mother is somewhat removed from that. The three of them together provide a theme of moving on from past traumas. This is something Tully and Hunham have in common with Lamb. From the second act onwards the cast effectively shrinks down to just those three. Fortunately they all nail their roles with good performances all round. This isn’t a ground breaking movie and it’s the kind of story you have undoubtedly seen before but it is very well done and a great example of how plot and characters are both important in character driven stories. This is a 7/10
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 7 out of 10.
The Iron Claw (2023)
This film was snubbed for the Oscars. In the case of Best Picture, it doesn’t meet the new diversity standards introduced this year. To qualify you have to satisfy two criteria, one for for story/characters, the other for the crew. Of the cast of 45, four are women and two are non-white so it doesn’t meet any of standard A. I’m not bringing this up to be political, it is simply a fact. Now, why it was snubbed from Best Actor is a question beyond the scope of this review. It is however the kind of film that would normally get nominations. The movie follows the real life story of the Von Erich family, a famous family of Wrestling brothers. It follows their rise and then the many tragedies that struck the family and how the brothers tried to cope with it all.
The truth behind the story is more tragic than is depicted on screen. The director felt there was only so much misery he could inflict on the audience and that was probably wise. What we do see on screen is tragic enough. As a wrestling fan I knew the story from a distance, but seeing these tragedies on screen is an emotional experience. This is a story about family, the ambitions of a father for his sons and the bonds of brotherhood. It is also about Wrestling, but you don’t need to be a fan to understand or enjoy it. Honestly it could have been any sport and the story would work the same. The best thing about the movie though is the performance of Zack Efron in the lead role and the incredible total body transformation required to play the role of a bulked up professional wrestler. This is a 7.5/10.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 7.5 out of 10.
American Fiction (2023)
The film tells the story Dr. Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, an author and lecturer on literature. Monk wants to be able to tell stories without having to make them about being black. He’s published several books in the past but has struggled in recent years and has grown frustrated with the success of other authors pandering to white guilt liberals that want the stories to be “More black”. Eventually he decides that as an F you to the publishers he’d write something deliberately over the top, trashy, cliched and stereotype laden as possible, just to prove his point. Of course what ends up happening is it becomes wildly successful. In between all this he must deal with family tragedy, an out of control brother and a romantic interest.
American Fiction is a fascinating film, largely thanks to its very original approach to dealing with race issues. My guess is both the left and the right will claim the film as some sort of victory for their side and yet the truth (as is often the case) lies somewhere in the middle. What the film effectively is, is a critique of racial pandering in fiction. That’s one hot topic, but the thing here is it looks at it from a black perspective and while doing this, it manages to tell a story that itself on occasion appears to be pandering, but the whole time is in truth making a point. It’s one of the smartest films out there and I particularly like what they did with the ending. No spoilers though on that one. This is an 8/10.
Doctor Who is like a nice car, originally advanced and ahead of its time, then it became a cool and desirable classic, more fun than useful, but now its a rusting pile of unserviceable junk just waiting to be scrapped because its owners didn’t look after it.
This is a sad situation for perhaps the most iconic British show of all time. Something drastic must be done and it’s clear small changes such as a new Doctor or show runner will not be enough. Currently each new era of Who is worse than the last. More is lost from what made the show so beloved and more of the audience has departed.
1. Start From The Beginning
Let’s face it, “Nu Who” is a mess. Introducing “The Timeless Children” was akin to unleashing a bull in the china shop of Who canon. Doubling down on that under RTD’s second run means they can’t even side step the issue. The thing is though, even before the gender swap, there were a lot of creative decisions made for short term gain that did long term damaged and drove the series into a number of creative traps (Many of which I’ll touch on here). Right from the start, escalating the Daleks to near god-like monsters and eliminating the whole of Gallifrey severely limited storytelling options. Having The Doctor get romantically involved with his very first reboot companion was a cheap way to generate interest that never really fit with the character as we knew him from the original series.
Now you could simply do what many movie franchises have done and side step the entire reboot era. If you do that there’s no reason to even acknowledge the Doctor Who movie, you just pick up from the 8th incarnation. However, it can’t be denied that Nu Who does have a lot of fans (Most of which have also walked away now) and it’s not like the continuity was perfect before that. The best solution then is to abandon all that continuity and reboot from the 1st Doctor. Then the existing fans can decide what parts of the previous versions they want to consider canon and what they want to ignore. For me, it’ll just be classic Who, but if people want to consider all of it canon that’s fine. But Who will be restart from scratch.
What’s in a name?
It’s a common trend for people to make the argument that mystery is better than explanation. I disagree. In the context of a movie, yes that can work extremely well, but with a TV series that may run for decades pushing a mystery and never answering it is basically just going all in with the JJ Abrams mystery box style of storytelling. Eventually you can no longer provide any answer that will satisfy and yet if you provide none the story feels empty. For such a show, it’s a bad idea to get too carried away with unrevealed mysteries. With Doctor Who people make a big thing about the name of the show, yet the original show didn’t force the mystery and by the era of the third Doctor, we were presented with a fair amount of information about the characters childhood without any issue.
In my view, it was often suggest that Time Lords would take their own name and there are many examples of title-like names among Galifreyans. I had always assumed it was just a cultural thing and there didn’t need to be a big fuss over the mystery. Humans meeting him often remark “Doctor Who?”, but that doesn’t necessarily imply a big mystery as to his original name, instead for me the mystery was why he chose “The Doctor”. There is no reason the show can’t reveal elements of the characters childhood, but it doesn’t need to reveal his birth name, indeed that should be unimportant. It’s fine however to imply that there was a reason he took the name “The Doctor”. The obvious reason would be that he wanted to heal something. Mysteries about the Doctors past should be generated and solved at a relatively steady pace without letting anything dwell too long or stagnate.
Character Progression.
By the end of our first story we should have a Doctor very much like William Hartnell on Earth in the 60’s with his granddaughter. In the original story it was said The Doctor and Susan couldn’t return to Gallifrey but wanted to one day, there is no reason not to look into this a bit more. It’s also worth noting The Doctor has lived a fairly long life before he starts adventuring, that life doesn’t have to all be on Gallifrey. This isn’t the original series anymore and providing something new out of the door would certainly be refreshing, so why not look into some of this? In my view the reason the Doctor left gallifrey, the reason he took the name “The Doctor” and the reason he has his grandaughter with him should be linked and could be a very compelling story.
The full journey of the first doctor should be one where he eventually embraces the role of the name he chose. To begin with he wants nothing to do with the rest of the universe, but after travelling with Susan, Barbara and Ian for a while he learns the burden of power and responsibility. One element I did like introduced by the reboot series is the idea that a regeneration is somewhat guided by need, almost like a form of evolution. So the second Doctor would regenerate into this role and from then on each Doctors journey can help define the personality of the next regeneration and in turn bring on new things for him to learn. That should keep things interesting, fresh and consistent. Oh and only twelve regenerations!
2. Return to 4-8 Part Stories.
I understand why the Who reboot opted for single part stories initially. The TV landscape had changed and getting a new generation to invest in a weekly 25 minute episode to tell a 4-8 part story was going to be a big ask. Most shows of the time were based on 45 minute episodes, mostly self contained but with some overall linking story between all episodes in a season. This was effectively applied directly to Doctor Who. The linking storylines were somewhat weak, but the set up worked to bring in new fans.
But things have changed since then. Now streaming is king and with it the binge model. Most streaming shows have short seasons of no more than about 10 episodes, many substantially less. This is a set up almost perfectly designed for the classic Doctor Who. With the binge model you could drop a 4 or 6 episode story and let people binge it. Do that 2-3 times a year as a “Season” and you have the perfect set up for modern audiences.
Time And The Binge Model.
This is the trouble with the current show makers, they refuse to change the format. They don’t mind changing the Doctor, messing with the lore and the entire tone of the show but they don’t even consider that it may be time to revert to the old format. Times have changed more dramatically for TV shows between the launch of the reboot series and now then they did between the classic shows debut and the reboot series. Many modern viewers prefer the binge model and streaming services have been experimenting with formats that allow an amount of binge while also allowing for water cooler discussions. It couldn’t be better set up for a classic Who format.
Six part stories at 30 minutes each or four parts at 45 minutes each would fit the current market perfectly. With 3 hour stories (Less actually, once credits and recaps are removed), they could provide 3-4 of these every year. Pretty comparable to a classic season, but with the difference that you drop an entire story at once which will satisfy those fans used to seeing a complete story in one sitting and people that just like to binge watch. Returning to these longer stories also means they no longer need those vague season long arks that have frankly always been quite disappointing.
3. Bring Back The Science Fiction
There is a lot of misunderstanding with Doctor Who. People that don’t regularly go back and watch the old black and white episodes (Most likely have never watched them) tend to just believe it started out as a children’s show. This isn’t true. Conceptually it started out as an educational show for children. This isn’t the same as just a children’s show, since the whole point of an educational show is to provide education! That means accurate history and science. That leaned the show into genuine science fiction. It’s also obviously untrue to suggest that only Children were the audience for the show, even in those early days. That was not the case. Children did watch it, but it appealed to adults too and it especially appealed to adult science fiction fans.
However it may have been initially conceived, the show quickly left those tracks. Initially “The Daleks”, the shows second serial, was considered not appropriate for the show. Despite being solid science fiction, it wasn’t suitable for an educational children’s show. However after Verity Lambert went to bat for Terry Nation’s story and it became a huge success the entire shape of the show changed. Obviously there was a drive for “More of that” and that meant more science fiction. It was built into the shows initial success and formed a key element for the whole of the black and white era.
Science Fiction In Decline.
When the Second Doctor came along an element of comedy was introduced, but the sci-fi remained firmly front and center. When the show moved into colour with the Third Doctor injected a bit more action to the franchise with a bit of a James Bond influence, however many episodes also took on a Quatermass sort of vibe, again firmly science fiction with a touch of horror to boot. The Fourth Doctor stepped away from the action and brought back a bit of the comedy but didn’t lack for Science Fiction. This is the era where Douglas Adams was writing the occasional episode a man that blended comedy and solid science fiction concepts together with unmatched brilliance and it’s no surprise that Tom Baker’s era hit that sweet spot of “This is what Doctor Who should be”.
Things remained fairly consistent until the notable drop in budget and quality during the Seventh Doctor’s run. But even here, while things did get a too campy for my tastes, there was still a decent amount of science fiction. By the time we got to the reboot era however, this key element of the show had become heavily diminished. Russel T Davis is not a science fiction writer and that was clear from pretty early on (Indeed, it seems he only liked the campier stuff). Steven Moffat at least was capable and did introduce some of those elements whenever he was writing (He was a much better writer than show runner). Overall though the show took a huge step away from science fiction and towards fantasy, drama, campy theatrics and soap opera.
Too Much Feeling, Too Little Thinking.
The first thing the reboot era did was start pushing a romance between the Doctor and his companion. This was the most obvious, cheapest route the show could take and it was the first place Davis wanted to go with it. All too often the stakes were artificially inflated, and the Doctor would just pull out a Deus Ex Machina to solve it quickly at the end. Part of that was down to the length of the stories and the increased focus in the relationship between the Doctor and the Companion. The stories themselves became notably secondary to the characters. Their concepts became shallower and more about what would look cool than what was an interesting thing to think about.
All storytelling should make you feel something, but Science Fiction is meant to make you think as well. Nu Who however, was only interested in those feelings. If it found space between The Doctor and companions emotional journey to fit in something conceptually interesting, that was a bonus, but all to often this was totally lacking. But these days it’s not just Doctor Who that is like this. Even Star Trek has largely turned it’s back on Science Fiction, which to me is bizarre. Blade Runner watered it down for it’s disappointing sequel and Star Wars, which was always closer to fantasy somehow found a way to step even further from Sci-Fi concepts and more towards…. well, “Shipping” apparently. Don’t even get me started on that one.
The Importance of Nuance and Complexity.
These days it is more important than ever to encourage people to think on complex topics. Topics like the nature of humanity, finding balance in a world of differing perspectives and cultures, what our place is in the universe in the long term and the nature of life itself. We need to examine these and we need to do it with nuance and depth. People should be encouraged to think more deeply and not be controlled by knee jerk emotional reactions. In short, we really need proper science fiction back and yet all the science fiction franchises seem to have moved far away from these elements. With the current incarnation of Doctor Who, Davis has outright announced that the show is moving from science fiction to fantasy. He’s also clearly more interested in telling people what to think instead of letting them think for themselves.
There is clearly a big gap in the market for solid science fiction at the moment. The show should move towards it, instead of away and towards soap opera, fantasy and pantomime. That would not only bring back old school fans but also bring in the refugees from all those other franchises AND by encouraging people to think about and discuss these topics in a balanced, nuanced way with all views represented it could actually do some good for society. Maybe it could even bring people together instead of constantly dividing us with one sided lecturing like the current show does. Even those that agree with the narratives being pushed in the modern show must realize, you can reach more people through writing quality science fiction than you can with a lecture in the middle of a pantomime.
4. Stop Sensationalizing The Companions!
While we don’t truly know how a 1000 year old alien would feel about 20-ish year old girls of an entirely different species, it seems unlikely that he’d start falling in love with them. He certainly wouldn’t be talking to them like a school girl about how hot some random dude was. None of that seems right for such a character. It also doesn’t add anything really to the show except for cliches and complications. The Doctor should be aloof from all that. Now obviously there is a suggestion that the character has had a relationship in the past, seeing as he appeared to have a granddaughter, but that was before his first regeneration, before we even meet the character.
Had they just done the romance with Rose and left it at that, perhaps it would have been fine. But they didn’t leave it there. With the next major story arc, they gave him an actual wife, who ended up being the daughter of a companion that also had the hots for him, despite first meeting him as a child herself. The entire thing was a little creepy. Clara seemed out of the same mold and certainly they pushed the idea again with Yazz. Companions constantly falling for the doctor is boring, limits the storytelling and gets in the way of the individual stories.
The Importance of Variety.
Even when not having the companion drooling over the Doctor there has been a trend with the reboot series of making every companion super special and the center of season long story arcs. Donna became “The Doctor Donner”, Clara became a character out of time that had apparently been The Doctors guardian angel throughout his life (At least up until they added a extra regenerations). Amy Pond became the mother of his wife as well as someone that met him as a child and waited for him. These are all cheap mysteries and cheap replacements for telling actual stories. I mean how many “The girl who” titles do they need? The universe doesn’t need to always revolve around the companion. I think it’s for this reason why Martha was my favourite companion of the reboot show, Martha was good because of her personality not because she had superpowers.
But it’s not just about sensationalizing the companions. It’s about time the Doctor went back to having multiple companions, each with their own stories, identities and desires. These characters can have complex relationships with each other, instead of always making it about The Doctor. They can also have their own unique strengths and actually have flaws (Often missing from Nu-Who companions). Of course the reboot show did move back to a group briefly with Whitaker’s Doctor, but the men in that group were treated as unimportant, while Yazz ended up being shipped with The Doctor and as soon as the Doctor became male again he immediately went back to one female companion. Predictable. On top of that these were all companions from modern day Earth. Remember when the Doctor used to travel with aliens, Highlanders and people from the future? That is real diversity.
5. Keep The Doctor Male
This will be my most controversial rule. The fact is there are many differences between men and women (As I said, controversial). Some are physical, some are in how we think and feel and some are in how we are perceived by society. These differences mean that changing the gender of a character radically alters how the viewers will relate to that character. None of this appears to have been considered when they decided they wanted a female Doctor. It never really made any sense and yet it was clearly something they had planned since at least the arrival of Steven Moffat as show runner. Before then, there had not even been a hint that this was possible in the shows lore. But the moment we started seeing other Timelords change genders, we all knew why. This was done entirely for reasons external to the shows storytelling.
That in itself is an issue. You shouldn’t be taking a wrecking ball to your show canon, just because you want to somehow empower women by saying they too can be this fictional character that has been male for 50 years. The motivation for doing something in story should never be virtue signalling. It should never be justified by “Why not?” or “It’s about time”. It should only ever be about telling a good story. But outside of that there are many other reasons to keep the Doctor male. For example, you need to keep a character relatively consistent to make sure they can always be recognised by the casual audience. That keeps a franchise in the public’s conscious and ties the past to the future. As soon as it becomes unrecognizable, the link between the past and present is severed and brand confusion reigns supreme.
Role Models and Personality
But an even more important reason to keep the Doctor male is his personality. See the Doctor is a little forgetful and scatterbrained at times. For a male character that is sort of charming, but for a female character it is a negative female stereotype, the ditsy blonde. More importantly the Doctor solves problems with empathy and intelligence instead of aggression and violence. For a male character this is fairly unique and it makes the Doctor a great male role model. It tells young boys they can solve problems with empathy and intelligence instead of brute force. It was a lesson that I learned from the show and I think many others did too. Boys need that kind of role model. Girls do not. Indeed part of that way of solving problems can sometimes involve manipulation. Having a female character that empathetic is basically just a generic female character, but having one that is manipulative? Well again we’re onto negative female stereotypes.
In short, it simply doesn’t work. But since even complaining about it gets you labelled as a sexist misogynist, it actively drives people away from the show and divides the fandom into two equally angry factions. Last but not least it is absolutely unnecessary to gender switch the character. Doctor Who was always filled with interesting female characters that were ripe for a spin off, several of which are Timeladies or have similar capabilities: A Romana spin off has been an obvious thing to do since the 70’s; The Rani running a redemption ark could have been an interesting/unique spin off story and; The Doctor’s Granddaughter Susan who hasn’t been seen on screen since the 60’s could easily have her own adventures. Even limited to reboot era characters there are many options: The cloned “Daughter” of the Doctor, who presumably can regenerate; Clara and Ashildr, who have their own Tardis; Even Bill Potts and her puddle girlfriend are out there somewhere.
When you think about it, the Whoniverse is pretty much a universe of many strong female characters and very few strong male ones, so maybe those should stay male?
A Quick Note On Race.
Before I move on, I should touch on race swapping the Doctor. This isn’t an issue for personality or lore. However, it does impact that surface level character consistency, so to do a race change you need to make sure you have an actor that screams “Doctor Who” at your, either in their performance or just in themselves. Richard Ayoade has been a fan favourite choice for a while for that very reason. Not giving him a shot will likely always go down as a missed opportunity, though to be fair some have questioned if he is actually a good enough actor. In my experience comedians often surprise you, so I would have considered it worth a shot. The last thing you want to do however, is race switch and then also make them look and act radically different to past incarnations. Then it no longer seems like Doctor Who at all.
Of course that is literally what they just did. It’s almost like they deliberately wanted to make him more difficult to accept. Why? Well again it seems another decision done for reasons outside of the show itself. That does nothing to help the franchise. But in theory switching races isn’t a problem if the right actor is chosen. I would say though that given this is an iconic British show, the demographic should reflect the countries demographics. We are majority white, but our largest non-white demographic is Asian (Mostly South Asian). Black people represent just 4% of our population, while Asians represent 9.3%. That is more than double and yet the BBC treat this like it is the other way around. For me this exposes a larger issue: They seem more interested in pushing popular mainstream perceptions/politics than providing genuine representation.
6. Stop With The Power Creep
The last thing is a problem for a lot of franchises that are fantasy or science fiction based these days. In Doctor Who the best example of this going wrong is The Daleks. They have gone from radiation eating armored mutants that can only travel within their own city, to virtually indestructible flying, time travelling demi-gods that threaten all of time and reality, multiverses and the Timelords themselves and who are basically impossible to defeat… except with a magical bullshit machine performing a Deus Ex Machina. These power levels and stakes ultimately render the entire story meaningless. It’s silly and it needs to stop.
Somewhere along the line it was decided that threatening The Earth wasn’t enough. That enemies with weaknesses wasn’t interesting enough and that The Doctor himself effectively needs to be a god to be in the same playground as the other giants. It all became just a tad too ridiculous. Right now through a combination of this and the Doctors new infinite lives cheat code the show has literally no stakes (That anyone will ever believe anyway). Obviously with a full reboot you get a hard reset on that, but you must be ever vigilant to ensure bad writers don’t take these kinds of short cuts again. Every now and then it’s okay to threaten the universe or reality itself, but you have to pull things right back to a more personal level after so it doesn’t get out of control and you need to chose the right villains for those threats. The Black Guardian is right for that level, not The Daleks. Not that I’m saying the Daleks should go back to being killed by being pushed over a coat. But maybe they could be less god-like.
Final Words
I recognise there is a need to compromise with Who, because like any show that has run for so long and changed throughout, there are fans of each era and they want different things. So I’m not saying to drop everything the reboot series offered, just that these elements that were better in the original show should return. Even before the new show went into an era I can only describe as “Zombie Who” it was stagnating because of the lack of variety. Sadly RTD’s ideas to add variety are to reduce the show to pantomime and to virtue signal, neither of which will attract viewers. But combining what worked prior to that in the reboot with what worked in the original show could create something that keeps both sets of fans happy and brings in new ones.
This is how I would fix Doctor Who. But it is all theoretical. Sadly with the BBC where it is now and with Disney and Bad Wolf/Sony as their partners, there is almost no hope of course correction. To fix Who those corporations needs to either change internally or be removed from any control of the franchise and that won’t happen any time soon. So to create a situation where the show actually can be fixed, the most immediate thing that needs to be done is, well… to cancel it. Yes, the most important step right now is to stop inflicting further damage to this franchise and let it rest for around five years. Then it can be rebooted more sensibly and by that time hopefully the people in charge of it will be more interested in quality and less in what often seems a vindictive campaign against those that have spent their life loving the show.
For my first major movie review of 2024 I give you David Ayer’s “The Beekeeper”, staring perennial action hero Jason Statham and with notable support from Jeremy Irons, Emmy Raver-Lampman and Josh Hutcherson. This is the only major release in January, but that isn’t entirely unusual since January is a notoriously bad month for the box office, so studios avoid it where possible. Ayer is a solid director with several good movies to his name, but with a patchier track record of late. Penning the movie is writer/director Kurt Wimmer who has a mostly bad track record but did give us “Equilibrium” back in 2002, which was a very good movie.
The movie follows the story of “Adam Clay” (Statham), a Beekeeper in the literal sense but also as it turns out a retired member of the most secret of secret agencies, “The Beekeepers”. When the nice old lady that rents him land for him to work his bees is scammed out of all her savings and takes her own life, he reactivates himself to bring down those responsible. As he follows the money he finds this corruption goes far deeper than anyone would have expected, but Clay takes his profession seriously and will deal with anything that threatens the health of the “Hive”, no matter how far up the corruption goes.
Maximum Statham!
First and foremost this is a fun movie. The movie is effectively split into five chapters with the odd, brief interlude. The first introducing us to the lead and setting up the story, the next four all revolving around large action scenes. One interlude is also an action scene so that is five solid action scenes spread over one hour and 45 minutes. This keeps the pace fast throughout and the time flies by. The most important thing for a movie like this is that those actions scenes are entertaining. This is not on the John Wick level of graceful action choreography, but it is solid, fast paced and clear (That least one is often overlooked in modern action films). Some suspension of disbelief is required of course because Statham’s Beekeeper character is basically an unstoppable ass kicking machine.
Statham has made a career of playing old school action heros and here this is ramped up to eleven. While he doesn’t have the superhero level indestructibility of John Wick, in some ways it is even more far fetched as he simply avoids getting injured for most of the movie and even when he does it is barely an inconvenience. A lot of the time this would be a big negative for me, but Statham is one of the few actors that can still pull off that kind of over powered character (Which is probably why he gets so much work). Clay has a Batman level of determination and morality, in many ways making the character a bit too simple but once again Statham is so comfortable in the role you just roll with it.
The Hornets Nest.
The plot itself is a pretty standard action affair built on the theme of kicking the hornets nest. When the scammers steal the money off the old lady that has befriended Clay they had no idea what they had unleashed, but when Clay sets out for revenge he has no idea just how far up the chain his hunt for vengeance and justice would take him. As a result the story constantly escalates, but it is all pretty predictable. Fortunately the movie doesn’t really rely on each revelation being a major twist. Instead the escalation is more like going up levels in a video game, each new level requiring Clay to be more resourceful and up his game.
One of the things I found most interesting (And this is a minor spoiler) is that the main villain seems to be based on Hunter Biden, which is certainly a bold choice but it actually works pretty well. In some ways this is a refreshing choice for the villain, but it’s actually just a variation on a pretty common trope. For example we basically saw a version of this with the original John Wick movie where the loose cannon son is the catalyst for Wick to go to war with his underworld boss father. Unfortunately most of the villains here are just one dimensional dirt bags, the most notable exception being Jeremy Irons who is both the smartest and most reluctant of Clay’s opponents.
Conclusion.
Overall the movie is a bit by the numbers but presents a fun, fast paced ride that will keep you on the edge of your seat. The ending for me though was a bit anticlimactic and it would be nice to feel Clay was in actually in genuine danger at some point. Ultimately though I had a lot of fun and really isn’t that the main thing we want from our action movies? This is a narrow, possibly generous 6.5/10. It’s not a cinematic masterpiece, but I think most people will get a kick out of it. This has done okay in the cinema so I expect to see a sequel at some point.
Welcome to a new series on Screen Wolf. With “Hidden Gems & Unsung Heroes” my intention is to give some long overdue attention to some movies and movie professionals that I don’t feel get the credit they deserve. To start, I’m looking at a trio of movies and an interesting phenomenon in cinema.
Over the years occasionally two conceptually similar movies come out at the same time. For example Armageddon and Deep Impact or Dante’s Peak and Volcano. Often this leads to a debate over which is better. Usually the movie deemed inferior or at least less popular ends up buried in the collective memory of our pop culture. On occasion the buried movie is actually really good, but came head to head with a true behemoth of cinema. I want to bring three such movies to your attention. Great movies that are easily overlooked due to an accident of timing.
The Forgotten Three.
The three movies I’m talking about today are: Witness To Murder (1954), Fail Safe (1964) and The Thirteenth Floor (1999). The first of these, Witness to Murder is a film about someone witnessing a murder in an apartment across the road from from their bedroom window. Sound familiar? That movie was released in April 1954, the legendary Hitchcock movie “Rear Window” was released in November 1954. Unfortunate timing.
Fail Safe was released in October 1964, this is a movie about how a series of tactical errors was going to lead to the accidental nuking of Moscow and the potential retaliation of the USSR to such an accident. Released the same year was Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece “Doctor Strangelove or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb”. Strangelove actually came out first, but there is a reason for that. Because of the similarity between Fail Safe and the Strangelove source material (Red Alert by Peter George), there was a law suit that resulted in both films being owned by the same distributor, Columbia Pictures and on Kubrick’s insistence Strangelove was released first.
No Prize For Second Place.
The final movie is “The Thirteenth Floor” released in may of 1999. This is a movie about people living in an exact replication of our world, but inside a computer simulation…. If you haven’t figured out what movie buried this one in 1999, you probably are on the wrong website. The Matrix came out two months before the Matrix, leaving no space for another film about a virtual reality that isn’t the real world. The movie never stood a chance.
In all three of these cases the movie that buried it was legitimately the better movie, but these are three of the most well known, well respected movies that have ever been made. Coming in second to those is not the worst thing in the world, but all three are good movies, so to be so completely buried is terribly unfair on them and the people behind them. That’s why I want to give them all a quick review and explain what I like about them. Hopefully some of you will check out at least one of them down the road sometime.
Witness To Murder (1954)
Witness To Murder stars Film Noir legend Barbara Stanwyck as “Cherly Drapper” and George Sanders as “Albert Richter”, a former Nazi and megalomaniac who has everyone convinced that Cheryl is deranged and making things up. Gary Merill plays Lawrence Matthews, a police detective that is torn between believing Cheryl and the lack of evidence to back up her claims. The movie is directed by Roy Rowland from a screenplay by Chester Erskine.
The most notable difference between Witness and Rear Window comes from the different gender of the protagonist. This changes the entire shape of the story and is in many ways only a story that could work so well in the 1950’s. Cheryl is doubted, accused of making things up and gaslighted into believing she dreamed the murder and was writing notes harassing Richter. At one point Richter even manages to get her committed.
The Edge Of Sanity.
The movie however puts no doubt into the audience’s mind about the murder. Ricther is shown to the audience quite clearly murdering a lady in the opening scene and is shown to be a thoroughly evil main throughout. So the movie is about a regular woman desperately trying to hold on to what she knows she witnessed despite everyone around her telling her she is crazy. While it doesn’t have the advantage of Hitchcock directing it does present some memorable visuals along the way, such as the scene above.
It is a solid Film Noir and as always Stanwyck’s performance was excellent. However, it wasn’t quite up to the combo of James Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece and as a result is largely forgotten. However, it’s different enough to Rear Window to be worth checking out and you can never go too far wrong with a Stanwyck Film Noir. I’d rate it a solid 6.5/10 (Which is a good rating from me).
Fail Safe (1964)
Fail safe was directed by Sidney Lummet and was based on the 1962 novel by the same name (Not as the law suit claimed the 1958 novel “Red Alert”). The main difference between this movie and Strangelove is this is not satire, it is deadly serious the whole way through and very hard hitting. Ultimately though both films make a very similar social commentary, just where Kubrick does it with absurdity, Lummet does it with bitter chilling reality. I can see why Kubrick, as great a director as he was, wanted to make sure his movie came out first.
The story of fail safe is shockingly plausible. The US have a special bomber patrol that is scrambled should a potential Russian bomber be detected heading into US air space. Should they receive a particular signal they will head straight to Moscow and nuke it, the assumption being that an enemy bomber has unleashed nuclear devastation somewhere in the US. Should this signal accidentally be sent there is a counter signal that will have them stand down providing they receive it within a certain window of time.
The Greatest Burden.
After a civilian Russian plane strays into US airspace the bombers are launched and due to a glitch receive the signal to head to Moscow. Unfortunately the Russians suspecting the Americans are up to something have jammed communication with the bombers, meaning their fail safe signal cannot get through. This leaves a desperate scramble by the US and eventually the Russians to come up with some solution that doesn’t lead to World War Three.
The last resort they come up with is that the US will nuke New York themselves should they not be able to stop the bombers reaching Moscow. The pilot in charge of that flight is left with the terrible duty of having to murder millions of his own countrymen to save the entire world. It is a very powerful, shocking drama and yet faced with an in form Stanley Kubrick and Peter Sellers it was buried. This is a very worthwhile film. deserving a solid 7/10. Regardless of how you feel about Kubrick’s masterpiece, this is worth checking out.
The Thirteenth Floor (1990)
Objectively this is probably the weakest of the films I’m showcasing today. It’s still good though and the ideas behind the movie are interesting. It’s a real piece of science fiction. The virtual world here is not the creation of nefarious machines, but humans. This movie came out years before The Sims game, but there were always life sim type games around. It always seemed a likely scenario that one day there would be a computer generated representation of our world that could be physically visited.
Cyberpunk novels such as Snow Crash and Neuromancer had their own virtual worlds, but these were always part of cyberspace, not attempts to recreate our world. The Matrix and Thirteenth Floor both took this to the next level. While the Matrix frankly opted for style over hard science fiction, the Thirteenth floor has very little style but has an arguably deeper look into the impact of our world being fake.
What If I Told You….
The artificial world in Thirteenth Floor is a bit of a gimmick in itself in that it is based on 1937 and the story actually starts with a murder in the real world. There is definitely an element on Film Noir hard boiled detective story here, which would explain the choice to go with 1937. But despite the gimmick the film looks at what happens when the people realize they are in a simulation and asks the question, what if WE are in a simulation. Is there any reason why a simulation couldn’t itself create a simulation? Unlike in the matrix, these simulated people do not have real life bodies. They can’t just exit their fake world…. or can they?
The movie is a fun mixture of detective fiction and science fiction. We get a puzzle with twists and turns and we get the big questions about the nature of reality thrown in on top. It’s worth noting the budget for this movie was $16m compared to the Matrix almost $70m budget. It was always going to be trounced in the box office. While the Matrix wasn’t a rip off of this movie, the source novel “Simulacron-3” by Daniel Galouye was almost certainly a major influence on the Washowskis. The Thirteenth Floor isn’t the ground breaking action and special effects masterpiece that The Matrix is, but it does give you more to think about after. It is a high 6/10. Not earth shattering, especially given the competition, but still a recommendation.
Welcome to the January 2024 review round up. This is a new feature where I put together multiple, shorter reviews of recent releases on one page. I will still do full reviewers for larger releases, so these will mostly be smaller movies you probably haven’t even heard of, but may come across on streaming and wonder if they are worth your time. For January, I’m looking at the action movie “The Bricklayer”, the thriller “Wanted Man“, the comedy “Self Reliance” and the horror comedy “Destroy All Neighbors“. Because I’m keeping all these reviews brief, there are no major spoilers to worry about. Let’s get started!
The Bricklayer (2024)
Based on a novel by Noah Boyd, “The Bricklayer” is directed by Renny Harlin and stars Aaron Eckhart. This is the story ex-CIA operative Steve Vail (Eckhart), called back into the fold to deal with old friend, Victor Radek (Clifton Collins Jr.), who has a vendetta against the CIA. Radek has been framing the CIA for a series of assassinations. Vail is assisted by CIA agent Kate Banon (Nina Dobrev). Vail retired from the agency and became a bricklayer, hence the name of the film. You may recognise Harlin’s name as he was the director of a few classic action movies back in the day, namely: “Die Hard 2”, “Cliffhanger” and “The Long Kiss Goodnight”. Though he also directed “Cutthroat Island”, one of the most infamous movie disasters of all time and Nightmare on Elm Street 4 which was in my view the first bad Nightmare movie.
The movie is fairly true to form to Harlin’s strengths and weaknesses. The action is decent and reminiscent of late 80’s action films. That is where the good ends though. The basic premise is okay and has a bit of complexity to it due to the source novel, but it’s pretty much by the numbers and all the twists are highly predictable. The biggest problem though is the dialogue which is just painful. There is an attempt to work in a lot of action movie tropes, but they often don’t seem to quite fit in to what is going on and it makes the whole thing awkward. The relationship between Vail and Banon runs every cliché in book of buddy cops and frankly the Bricklaying gimmick and Vail’s love of Jazz is just sort of there for the sake of it, adding nothing. This is a 4/10, skip it.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 10.
Self Reliance (2024)
Directed by, written by and staring Jake Johnson, “Self Reliance” is a comedic take on the Hunting-People-TV-Show trope. (Think: “The Running Man”, or more recently”Guns Akimbo”). The twist here is that this is a character based comedy and not an action movie. “Tommy” (Johnson) is a fairly washed up loser, who lives with his mother, works a boring office job and is still pining for his ex girlfriend (Who left him for being boring). One day he is greeted by Andy Samberg in a limo who gives him an opportunity. Take part in a dark net reality TV show where people try to murder him for 30 days. The loophole is they can only kill him if he is by himself. The prize is a life changing million dollars. Feeling he can use the loophole he agrees, but it turns out not to be as easy as he thought.
This one is pretty good. The concept is an original take on an established trope and the story provides a good mixture of character based comedy and outright wackiness. There’s no real action or horror to it though. People do occasionally try and murder Tommy, but these are all firmly comedic encounters. To help his chances he writes a cryptic post on Craigslist to try and find other contestants to team up with and through this meets “Maddy” (Anna Kendrick). The pair instantly have chemistry and this brings a lot of heart to the story and helps to nudge Tommy’s character growth in the right direction, despite things not quite working out. Overall though while it may not be quite as entertaining as Guns Akimbo was, either for action or comedy moments, it is still a solid pick for a movie night. This is a narrow 6/10.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 6 out of 10.
Destroy All Neighbors (2024)
Now we go right past “quirky” and all the way to “Utterly insane” with “Destroy All Neighbors”. This is a Shudder original, directed by Josh Forbes and staring Jonah Ray and Alex Winter. The story follows “William Brown” (Ray) who is an assistant engineer at a local music studio. He lives in a low cost apartment with his girlfriend Emily, surrounded by eccentric neighbors. The building manager is nice enough, but a total cheapskate when it comes to maintenance. William has been working on his prog-rock album for years, but is struggling with the ending and has become obsessed and neurotic. Into this enters “Vlad” (Winter), a beast of a man that spends his days listening to loud EDM music, lifting weights and grunting. William reaches breaking point after being fired from his job and returning home to a particularly annoying Vlad. The result is a series of accidental murders… a few zombies… and perhaps the ending to his album!
This is a true B-Movie, so don’t expect top level special effects. The gore on display is far more comedic than terrifying, but it works perfectly for the movie. On the surface this reminded me of another Alex Winter B-Movie comedy Horror “Freaked” from 1992. However a lot of the funniest moments here actually come from the films send up of Prog Rock. The movie has a fairly slow start, but when it kicks off the pace and comedy picks up rapidly and by the final scenes I was rolling around laughing. If you want a funny movie, with comical gore and musical references, this could be for you. It won’t be for everyone though. Chances are you are already swaying one way or the other and your instincts will be correct. For me, thanks to the hilarious final act I rate this as a very strong 6/10.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 6 out of 10.
Wanted Man (2024)
“Wanted Man” is written, directed by and staring Dolph Lundgren. He’s actually made a few movies like this in recent years, but this is the first one I decided to check out. Dolph plays “Travis Johansen”, a veteran cop close to retirement with a very 80’s action movie cop attitude. He has a somewhat xenophobic attitude towards Mexicans, bordering on racism. It’s clear though that Travis is not actually a bad person as such, just a little ignorant. His cop and ex-cop friends though share his attitude and perhaps take it further. Johansen is sent to Mexico to look into the fatal shooting of some DEA agents, but stumbles into something far more dangerous than he was expecting. He will have to face conspiracy and betrayal while he tries to protect the last remaining witness.
This is a short, fairly straight forward story that we’ve seen similar versions of before and from far more capable actors/directors. It’s not terrible, it’s just very bare boned. Dolph was never the best actor even among 80’s action stars and while many of his peers have been able to transition to playing older, more character drama based variations on their old archetypes, this seems to be something Dolph may not be quite ready for, at least not as a self-directed lead. The ideas here though are pretty reasonable, but as I said, very familiar. Most notably it can be compared to “Gran Torino” (2008) and “Rambo: Last Blood” (2019), both far better films. Outside the character growth the plot is very straightforward, leaving little else to say about it. Not a total waste of time, especially given its short running time, but you can easily skip it. 5/10
The second (First part is HERE) half of this list must be taken with a pinch of salt. Right now, given the state of Hollywood movies, there’s a fairly high chance that more than a few of these films won’t actually hit theaters in 2024, if they’re more than six months away. But we can only work with the information at hand. A lot of the smaller or direct to streaming releases won’t even be announced at this point, so this will mainly be the big Hollywood releases listed in this part. Since it’s a shorter list I’m just going to go month by month on this one. But first here is the the full list:
July Despicable Me 4 – July 4th (Animation) Twisters – July 19th (Disaster Movie) Deadpool 3– July 26th (Superhero/Comedy)
August Trap – August 2nd (Psychological thriller) Borderlands – Aug 9th (Video game adaptation) Speak No Evil – August 9th (Horror) Horizon: An American Saga Pt 2 – Aug 16th (Western) Alien: Romulus – August 16th (Horror/Action/Sci-Fi) Kraven the Hunter – August 30th (Superhero)
September Beetlejuice 2– September 6th (Fantasy) Transformers One – September 13th (Animation) Wolfs – September 20th (Thriller) Saw X – September 27th (Horror)
October Joker: Folie à Deux – October 4th (Crime/Drama/Musical) Smile 2 – October 18th (Horror) The Wolf Man – October 25th (Horror) Terrifier 3 – October 25th (Horror)
November Venom 3 – November 8th (Superhero) The Amateur – November 8th (Thriller) Wise Guys – November 15th (Crime/Drama) Gladiator 2 – November 22nd (Sword & sandals)
December The Lord of the Rings: The War of Rohirrim – December 13th (Animation) Karate Kid Sequel – December 13th (Action/Drama) Mufasa: The Lion King – December 20th (Animation) Sonic the Hedgehog 3 – December 20th (Animation/Video game adaptation) Nosferatu – December 25th (Horror)
July
As we head to the school holidays we get the definitely-not-a-reboot of Twister, “Twisters“, which is being heavily marketed as an “update” to the original film, but doesn’t have the same plot or share any characters with the original. I’m pretty sure that is literally what a reboot is (As opposed to a remake or sequel), but they are very insistent on this one. Go figure, I can’t say I have any interest in this one, but then I wasn’t much of a fan of the original either. This is probably a flop. One movie likely to be a big hit though is “Despicable Me 4“, there’s no indication that the Minions franchise has stopped being a licence to print money, but it wouldn’t shock me if this doesn’t quite hit as high as previous ones. The third installment dropped significantly domestically but more than made up for it with it’s global appeal. It is highly unlikely for this to flop, but whether the franchise can still regularly crack a billion remains to be seen.
Capping off July is the biggest superhero movie of the year, “Deadpool 3“, featuring a full crossover with the Fox X-Men universe and possibly some kind of tie in to the MCU. Most importantly we finally get to see Wade and Logan side by side and played by the actors that made those roles their own, Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds. This will be a big test of superhero fatigue, if this one can’t get close to the billion dollar mark, it may well be over for the genre. It’s worth noting neither of the previous Deadpool movies reached that point, but they didn’t have Wolverine in the mix too. If this came out 4 years ago it would be a dead cert. Now? Who knows. What I do know is I’m almost certainly going to be watching this one.
August
August is a busier month for cinemas, but may end as a month of major flops. At the weaker end of the superhero scale is “Kraven the Hunter“, a movie that seems to have turned the fan favourite Spider-Man villain into a completely different Marvel character, specifically “Ka-Zar”. To be fair Sony probably doesn’t have the rights to Ka-Zar even though he has crossed paths with Spider-Man, but it seems a foolish move to turn such a bad-ass Spidey villain into a empathetic do-gooder. Then again the end goal of the Venomverse seems to be to create Sony’s own “Avengers” film out of Spider-Man villains in a universe without Spider-Man. This movie, like that plan sounds doomed to fail.
August also sees the return of the Aliens franchise with “Alien: Romulus“. Now under Disney control, this franchise is unlikely to go in the direction long term fans would like. My suspicion is we will see something similar to “Prey”, basically duplicating as much as possible from the original movie (Or more likely “Aliens” in this instance) and upping the “diversity” level. The end result will be pointless, vastly inferior, but maybe not awful and so coast on people going “Well it’s not as bad as Covenant” to sell it. Your alternative viewing for mid august though is the second part of Kevin Costner’s epicly long Western “Horizon: An American Saga“, which is unlikely to steal too much of Romulus’ box office. Not because of quality, more just because it’s the second half of a movie and likely 3+ hours long. Definite counter programming there.
The Next Big Thing?
Eli Roth’s “Borderlands” is a movie that may end up one of this years success stories, providing it can convince fans of the game to watch instead of play. I’m only vaguely aware of this game, but it’s clear they’ve been very specific in which characters they’ve chosen to use and which ones to leave out. Fan favourites “Doctor Zed”, “Brick” and “Mordecai” are all absent. Not only that but they cast little Kevin Hart as big tough mercenary “Roland”. If you look up the missing characters and the ones they are focusing on you start to see a theme. Basically they’ve taken a fairly well balanced set of game characters and trimmed it until it basically looks like every other big fantasy/sci-fi franchise of the modern day. That’s all I will say on that. The question is though will any of that matter or will game fans just buy tickets anyway? Many think video game adaptations are the new Superhero movie. We will see I guess!
On the darker side of things though we have a couple of potentially interesting movies. First of all M. Night Shyamalan’s latest from his deal with Warner Brothers, which is a psychological thriller called “Trap” set over one night at a music concert. Shyamalan is consistently inconsistent so that one could go either way. One thing I can say for him though is his films always have interesting premises even if they don’t always live up to their promise. On the horror side of things though is the psychological horror “Speak No Evil“, which is set to test just how long a polite Danish couple can maintain their composure when confronted with madness. Neither of these films are likely to rake it in, but they’ll probably make money.
September
As the kids return to school we get the movie I am probably looking forward to the most in 2024, “Beetlejuice 2″. Of course, whenever a franchise I am particularly fond of makes a sudden return, I balance my excitement with more than a little anxiety. Hopefully it’ll all work out okay. Burton, Keaton and Ryder are all back and they are joined by a cast that includes the great talents of Jenna Ortega (Playing Winona’s daughter) and Willem Dafoe (In an unknown role). Another thing we haven’t seen since the 80’s is a theatrical release of an animated Transformers movie, the first since the franchises theatrical debut in 1986. Can’t say they’ve done a great job of marketing “Transformers One” by declaring it the franchises first animated feature. I mean nothing sells your knowledge of Transformers like forgetting that “Transformers: The Movie” exists.
Joining the list of franchise returns is the tenth entry in the Saw franchise. I haven’t seen any of the more recent entries so I can’t speak too much on where the franchise has been going creatively, but certainly it still seems to bring in a solid box office. I expect this one to make money, though it remains to be seen how much more they can squeeze out of this franchise. There is at least one movie in September that is an original and that is Brad Pitt and George Clooney’s “Wolfs“. A story about two lone wolf fixers assigned to the same job (Which is probably why it is not called “Wolves”). This one is directed by Jon Watts, the man behind the MCU Spider-Man movies. I suspect this will be a decent movie, though I couldn’t guess on its box office.
October
Heading in to my favourite month of the year we get my second most anticipated movie of 2024, “Joker: Folie à Deux“. A lot of people have cast doubt on this one due it it being apparently a musical, yet a lot of people also doubted the first movie (Myself included), until we started getting trailers and then slowly we realized we may have something truly special. That first movie was heavily influenced by the Scorsese films “Taxi Driver” (1976) and “King of Comedy” (1982). Scorsese made a couple of films in between those that I think may give us a clue to where things are heading with this new movie, namely: “New York, New York” (1977) and “Raging Bull” (1980). The former is a musical, but both movies are largely centered around a volatile romantic relationship and this movie is of course introducing us to Harley Quinn (Played by Lady Gaga).
Obviously October means horror so it’s no surprise to see two of the most successful new horrors of recent years make their return with “Smile 2” and “Terrifier 3“. Whether either of these can live up to their previous installments remains to be seen but I have no doubt they’ll both make a killing at the box office (Excuse the pun). Joining those though is Leigh Wanell and Blumhouses latest Universal Horror classic, “The Wolf Man“. Wanell did a great job with his “Invisible Man” reboot and his own “Upgrade” so I am cautiously optimistic about this one. With luck I’ll be able to factor all three of these movies into my October Horrorthon reviews for 2024.
November
As he head towards the end of 2024 we are very much in “Likely to be postponed” territory. But as of the writing of this article, November is slated to present us with the final superhero movie of the year in “Venom 3“. We’re yet to get a trailer for this or any real information about it so I’m hesitant to make any kind of prediction. The first two Venom movies were reasonable enough and fairly popular however coming after two likely clangers in this strange shared universe and with superhero fatigue in full force, this could end up a flop too. Because of this it is even more likely to be pushed into 2025.
The second movie with a huge question mark over it is Ridley Scotts “Gladiator 2“. Which supposedly follows Maximus’ son (Played by the relatively unknown Paul Mescal). While Scott is a great director his output in recent years has been very inconsistent. Again this is one of the more likely movies to get delayed and I can’t make any predictions. November does see a couple of original films that may be worth checking out, first up is “The Amateur“, a thriller from “Slow Horses” James Hawk featuring the talents of Remi Malek. That is followed by a new De Niro gangster movie “Wise Guys“. I don’t know much about either but that casting alone is a big selling point.
December
At last we reach the end of the year, and naturally, anything scheduled for release in December has a good chance of being delayed until the next year. However, first up is the movie, “The Lord of the Rings: The War of Rohirrim,” already delayed from 2022. This is an animated feature, and I believe it is set in the Peter Jackson LOTR’s universe, though, since it is set two and a half centuries before those films, I wouldn’t expect a whole lot of crossover. The story is based on the appendices of the original novels, which means they have a lot of freedom in the specifics. That makes the quality hard to judge because I think we all know how badly Amazon’s LOTR’s TV series ended up. Hopefully Warner can do better than Amazon.
December features three big franchise movies due for release including a mysterious Karate Kid sequel (Title as of yet unconfirmed). It’s unknown if it will fit in with the excellent Cobra Kai TV series or be it’s own thing, but it stars both Ralph Machio and Jackie Chan who took on the Mr. Miyagi type roll in the rather strange remake from 2010. Jackie is of course Chinese and not Japanese and as such uses Kung Fu and not Karate, which always made the remake movie ridiculous. Hopefully the film will address the different fighting styles, but we will see. Following this Disney has it’s latest frachise spin off movie “Mufasa: The Lion King“. Released alongside that and providing obvious competition is “Sonic 3” from Paramount. These films have been good and well received so my money is on the blue guy winning that fight.
A Strange Christmas Present
Last but not least though is another movie I’m looking forward to and that is “Nosferatu” from Robert Eggers. The movie stars Bill Skarsgård as Count Orlok, and features the talents of Willem DaFoe and Nicholas Hoult. The director is the main point of interest though on this one because I can’t think of anyone more appropriate to helm this particular remake. Eggers of course gave us “Witch”, “The Lighthouse” and “The Northman”. His focus on historical accuracy and blending fantasy with reality in a way that leaves a great deal of ambiguity should give us a refreshing take on this remake of a movie that is now 103 years old. While I am certain it will be good, it’s hard to say if it will make money. As good as The Northman was, it flopped in theatres and I’m not sure Christmas Day is the best date for a horror movies release!
So that’s it for 2024. Chances are this later period will have a lot of movies that are just not on anyone’s radar just yet. It’s also worth noting the best movie of last year (In my humble opinion) was Godzilla Minus One, a Japanese movie I didn’t even know was on the cards at the start of the year. So expect one or two surprises. Hollywood has a fairly light card this year due to the impact of last years writers strike. That gives independent and foreign language movies a huge opportunity to showcase themselves, we will see what they do with that opportunity.
With the 2023 wrap up out of the way, it’s time to take a look at what movies are coming to our screens in 2024. I’m doing this in two halves, so this is just the first six months. It’s worth noting that several of the big names were actually due out in 2023 but got pushed back due to the various strikes. Dune: Part Two for example was a movie a lot of people were excited for in 2023, but it got pushed back, unnecessarily in my view, due to the strikes. Specifically they wanted the actors available to promote it. These days it’s debatable if the actors actually help or hinder a movies promotion given their tendency to make divisive comments in interviews. Then again, the last Dune movie didn’t perform that well despite meeting audience approval so I understand them not wanting to take the risk.
It’s also worth noting how few superhero movies are hitting the screens this coming year and neither the MCU nor DCU/DCEU have an official entry this year. The DCEU is dead now and James Gunn’s DCU doesn’t launch until 2025. Marvel meanwhile only have MCU adjacent content with their revival of the Fox X-Men universe via Deadpool 3 and three more entries in Sony’s more miss than hit “Venomverse”. This is probably for the best, given the disastrous box office both franchises have had in 2023. It remains to be seen if this little break will help the recent decline in the popularity of superhero movies or hasten it. Disney are putting out two MCU shows next year mind, but I doubt “Echo” or “Eyes of Wakanda” will help much.
First Quarter.
The first few months of 2024 offers several highly anticipated movies, several of which were originally slated for 2023. I’ll start off with a list and then break it down by month. Note, a lot of the movies I’m listing here aren’t big Hollywood Blockbusters. With the writers strike, the major studios took a big hit and as a result have less than normal to bring out. However, often the best movies aren’t from the major studios, so I’ve included a lot of smaller films I think have potential. Some of them aren’t even horrors!
Note: I’m updating this list with review scores as I watch stuff!
JANUARY Night Swim – January 5th (Horror) The Bricklayer – January 5th (Action/Thriller) – 4/10 Destroy all Neighbors – January 12th (Horror/Comedy) – 6/10 The Beekeeper – January 12th (Action/Thriller) – 6.5/10 Self Reliance – January 12th (Comedy) – 6/10 I.S.S. – January 19th (Thriller/Drama/Sci-Fi) Wanted Man – January 19th (Action/Thriller) – 5/10
FEBRUARY Lisa Frankenstein – February 9 (Horror/Comedy) Argylle – February 12 (Action/Thriller) Madame Web – February 14 (Superhero) Land of Bad – February 16 (Action/War) Drive Away Dolls – February 23rd (Thriller/black comedy)
MARCH The Fall Guy – March 1 (Action/Comedy) Dune: Part Two – March 5 (Sci-Fi) Imaginary – March 8 (Horror) NEW ADDITION: Roadhouse – March 8 (Action) Damsel – March 8 (Fantasy) Kung Fu Panda 4 – March 29 (Family/Comedy) Mickey 17 – March 29 (Sci-Fi) Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire – March 29 (Fantasy/Comedy)
January.
First up is the Blumhouse horror Night Swim (Which will be already out by the time I post this), this is a movie that was originally due out in 2023 but got postponed. The movie itself looks so so, but it does mark the new partnership between James Wan and Jason Blum who merged their companies on January 2nd this year. This will create a real powerhouse for horror in the coming years especially considering their partnership with Universal. Later in the month Jason Statham’s launches us firmly into 2024 in solid style with the fun looking action movie “The Beekeeper“. It’s classic Jason Statham, if you hate those movies you can probably skip it but if you enjoy them you can expect to be in safe hands.
There’s quite a few lower profile movies for January too that look interesting. Those after low budget horror fun though should check out the trailer for “Destroy all Neighbors“, which looks like “Psycho Goreman” levels of fun with more than a hint of Alex Winter’s “Freaked” (And not just because Winter is in this too). Another interesting one for January is the comedy “Self Reliance” which looks to subvert “Hunting Humans/Running Man” trope. This has been done a few times now (For example the excellent “Guns Akimbo”), but the trailer looked fun and they seem to have found a new angle to it.
Finishing up the line up is a couple of action films in “The Bricklayer” and “Wanted Man” and the science fiction triller “I.S.S.”. The Bricklayer (Which is already out), looks pretty good from the trailer and is from seasoned action director Renny Harlin (Cliffhanger, Die Hard II, Long Kiss goodnight). Wanted Man is directed by and starring Dolph Lundgren. Dolph has directed a few action films now and all hover between 5-6/10 on imdb, so don’t expect too much. I.S.S. meanwhile is a sci-fi/thriller based on the idea of what would happen on the International Space Station should nuclear war between Russia and the US kick off on Earth.
February.
February sees our first Superhero film for 2023 and…. yeah, it doesn’t look good. “Madame Web” appears to be Sony scrapping the very bottom of the barrel of the characters they have available. Traditionally Madame Web is an elderly blind woman in a wheelchair that helps guide Peter Parker. I’ve never been a big fan of creating a “Spider-Family” when one of the things that made Peter Parker Spider-Man was having to solve his issues by himself. Madame Web at least was always very hands off, effectively just a quest giver. But it’s still just a gimmick hanger on character and not the kind you would make a movie for. This character is joined by three more Spider-Knockoffs, the only one I care about at all is Julia Carpenter, since she debuted it “Secret Wars” back in the 80’s, when I was heavily reading Marvel Comics.
On a potentially positive note we finally get the Henry Cavill spy thriller “Argylle“, though a word of caution on that one: I’m pretty sure that is a bait and switch. The trailer only shows Cavill playing an in world, fictional version of the character and as the trailer reaches the point of introducing the “Real” Argylle…. it ends. Yeah, it’s totally not going to be Henry. My guess is that the author of the fictional in world books that is central to the story is the real Argylle, in what would effectively turn the story into a “Long Kiss Goodnight” remake. This may or may not cause a backlash depending on if the movie is actually any good! Fortunately the trailer did look action packed and fun, so regardless of who the real Argylle is, it may be entertaining.
Filling out the rest of February are some real wild cards. Probably the most notable is Ethan Coen’s “Drive Away Dolls“. The trailer looked stylish but I honestly couldn’t tell much else about it. Then there’s the action movie “Land of Bad“, which looks like a typical soldiers in action type movie but those can sometimes be very good, so we’ll see. Finally, there is another comedy horror, “Lisa Frankenstein“, the plot is somewhat similar in basic concept to horror cult classic “May”, but with the comedy dial turned up to eleven. Lisa, like may is trying to construct her perfect man, but this time she starts with a re-animated corpse and is basically trying to replace bits of it to make it less… dead. Not sure if it will work in practice, but concepts like this are always a fine line between hilarious and terrible.
March.
March is where things really get interesting in 2024, with a number of highly anticipated movies. This includes the delayed “Dune Part II” finishing off Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s first Dune novel. The trailer for this looks superb and it may be the safest bet of the year for quality. The month also sees a fourth Kung Fu Panda movie, but more interesting for me is “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire“, the fourth canonical Ghostbusters movie and direct sequel to “Afterlife”. The movie sees the franchise return to New York and there is more than a chill in the air. The remaining OG-Busters return once more, though it is unknown how large their roles are this time. My guess is you won’t see much of Venkman in this.
We also get a reboot of “The Fall Guy“, an 80’s TV series now turned into a movie. There seems to be little in common between this movie and the series, but the trailer did look pretty good. Perhaps this will be the new “Equalizer”. A potential movie to look out for in March is Bong Joon-ho’s science fiction adaptation “Mickey 17“. I don’t know the source material (The novel “Mickey7”), but the synopsis sounds interesting and this is an Oscar winning director with a strong list of science fiction and horror movies to his name. The very capable Robert Pattinson takes the lead roll in the movie, so there is a lot of potential. Capping off March is a pair of trope subersions with Netflix’s take on the fairy tale movie “Damsel” and the imaginary friends gone bad horror “Imaginary”. The latter of those is the first of two movies about imaginary friends this year.
Second Quarter.
The second quarter of 2024 features a run of big budget action based movies and a fair amount of horror along with a lot of franchise returns. In all (Of the movies listed), nine are either franchise sequels, prequels, spin-offs or reboots and only six are original films, four of which are horrors. Here’s the list:
April NEW ADDITION: Monkey Man (Action) – April 5th Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire – April 12 (Action/Kaiju) The First Omen – April 12 (Horror) Abducting Abigail – April 19 (Horror) NEW ADDITION: The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare – April 19th (Action) Civil War – April 26 (Action/Thriller)
May Horrorscope – May 10 (Horror) If – May 17 (Horror Furiosa – May 24, 2024 Garfield – May 24, 2024 Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes – May 24, 2024
June The Watchers – June 7, 2024 (Horror) Ballerina – June 7 Bad Boys 4 – Jun 14 Inside Out 2 – June 14, 2024 A Quiet Place: Day One – June 28 Horizon: An American Saga (Pt 1) – June 28
April
Already controversial film “Civil War” hit’s theatres April 26th. Hard not to feel that movie is cynically cashing in on extreme tensions across the US in what is sure to be the most controversial election of all time. Fortunately even in the trailer they make it clear the film is pure fantasy since it has California teaming up with Texas! April also gives us a new entry in the “Monsterverse” franchise, “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” this time it’s a full on Godzilla and King Kong team up movie and it remains to be seen if they can actually make this work. Certainly the scene of Godzilla running in the trailer was… strange. After the success of the Japanese Godzilla Minus One in 2023, it’s uncertain whether the audiences are still on board with a heroic running Godzilla teaming up with a heroic Kong.
For horror we have an ill advised old franchise prequel “The First Omen“, which just to be a little more confusing is a prequel to the reboot Omen film from 2006 and not the one from 1976. yes they made a prequel to the film that has a 5.5 (62k votes) on imdb rather than the one with a 7.5 (129k votes). Go figure. Though a prequel to the ’76 film would basically just be Rosemary’s baby. All feels a bit pointless to me, but maybe it’ll be a surprise hit. April also sees the release of Universal monster thriller “Abducting Abigail“, a movie little seems to be known about, but seems to be about people kidnapping someone that is actually a monster.
UPDATE: Two new movies have been added to the slate in April that are worth mentioning, both are action films. First is “Monkey Man” from Universal, released April 5th and from the looks of the excellent trailer is a action film/superhero origin movie. That is followed by Guy Ritchies latest movie “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” with Henry Cavill. Ritchies output last year was nothing short of spectacular so I expect good things here as well. It seems April just got kicked up a notch!
May
May brings more questionable sequels with the first Mad Max film without Mad Max in: “Furiosa“. It’s also the first Max franchise movie to feature extremely heavy CGI and it was very noticeable in the trailer (And not in a good way). One sequel that actually looks decent though is “Kingdom of the Planet of the Ape“. Honestly it could go either way, but the trailer was promising. May also brings “The Strangers: Chapter 1“, a prequel to a home invasion film I wasn’t particularly impressed with. In my review of “The Strangers” the only positive I had about it was a surprisingly good performance by Liv Tyler. Another horror out in May is the deliberately misspelled “Horrorscope” about people having their fortunes read and then dying in related ways to that fortune. Straight forward gimmick; we’ll see how it lands.
May sees Garfield back on the big screen, now with Chris Pratt voicing the lasagna loving feline. The new film is called “The Garfield Movie” not to be confused with “Garfield: The Movie” from 2004. June also features a potentially big animated feature with “Inside Out 2“, though Disney doesn’t have the best track record with animation in recent years, so remains to be seen if it will be as much of a success as the original film. Disney can’t claim genre fatigue on their animation since everyone else seems to be doing well in that department. One movie that I think may be a hit this year (One of two for Ryan Reynolds), is “IF“, this years second movie about imaginary friends. These are good imaginary friends though, so don’t expect them to murder anyone. This is pure fantasy/comedy and the trailer looked great.
June
As we roll into the summer we get a pair of franchise action movies with the fourth installment of Michael Bay’s Bad Boys franchise “Bad Boys 4“. Not much is known about that one right now, so there is a chance it’ll get delayed. Before that though we get “Ballerina” a John Wick spin off set between the third and fourth movie of that franchise. The movie does include Keanu Reeves reprising his role, but the actual lead is Ana de Armas. It’s unknown how much of a role Wick will have in it. The third movie vying to be an early summer hit is Pixar’s “Inside Out 2“. While the original was a big hit, we all know how things are going for Disney right now and this isn’t Toy Story. It seems unlike “Anxiety” will be as popular a character as “Joy” was.
On the horror side of things June brings “The Watchers“, the directorial debut of Ishana Shyamalan, M. Night’s daughter. Hopefully she isn’t also obsessed with building movies around a single twist. The big horror movie of June though is the Quiet Place prequel “A Quiet Place: Day One“. If you read my review of the previous movie you’ll know I really liked the prequel section and was indifferent to the rest, so I’m actually on board with this one. Stepping away from horror, the final movie of note in June is Kevin Costner’s latest Western Epic “Horizon: An American Saga“. This is a self funded two part movie with the second due out in august. The total run time is apparently eleven hours, though it was originally meant to be four movies and seems to now be just two. The final length remains to be seen… But probably not by me!
End of Part One
Part two launches right into the summer holiday season and beyond. Right now its pretty barren terrain thanks to last years writers strike. They delayed a lot of films due out last year to make sure they had some content, but that could only stretch it so far. Also the end half of the year is where films are more likely to be delayed again, so it is a lot more speculative. Suffice to say part two will be shorter! Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope it’s given you a few films to look forward to.
When looking at the box office, in past years I’ve used a more accurate spreadsheet that takes into account the slight variation in percentage of ticket sales that goes to the studio for the opening week and global territories. This year however I’m just using the simple 3 X production budget formula. What that effectively does is assume the marketing costs are about 50% of the production budget again and that the ticket percentage is a flat 50%. The actual figure is far more complicated. I’ve split this years films into Epic Wins, Success, Met Expectations, Disappointments and outright bombs. Let’s start at the top!
Epic Wins of 2023!
This is a relatively short list. The biggest winner of the year is “Barbie“. A movie that most expected to do well, but literally no one expected to cross $1.4 billion. There’s a lot that could be said about the movie, it certainly isn’t perfect but it does seem to have truly resonated with fans of the franchise. Regardless of if they agreed with the treatment of the Ken’s, the real world or the crude humour, they also recognised that this really looked like Barbie’s world. Barbie wasn’t the only franchise though to give it’s fans something that felt right and the second biggest winner of the year is again way out in front of the rest of the gang this year and that is “The Super Mario Bros. Movie“. Another film most expected to do well. My particular prediction was it would do “Minions numbers”, but it blasted even past that to a whopping $1.36 billion globally. I feel there is a lesson to be learned here about, but I’ll get to that later.
After these two phenomenons things get a little more subjective. Here we need to look at which movies massively exceeded all expectations rather than the gross ticket sales. The first such hit is unsurprisingly Oppenheimer. In what was probably the strangest viral marketing tactic of any movie people were encouraged to go an see “Barbenheimer”, a double bill of Barbie and Oppenheimer. Bizarrely this was embraced by audiences and both movies saw a considerable boom in ticket sales. The two movies couldn’t possibly be more different, but it’s an important lesson in never underestimating the power of a good meme. Is it something we’ll ever see again? Well Barbie is almost certainly getting a sequel and Christopher Nolan isn’t going to stop making movies any time soon, so who knows?
Two more movies to land in the epic win category are “The Sound of Freedom” and “Godzilla Minus One“, both with low budgets and both massively over performing. On top of that the audience response was off the charts. The Sound of Freedom is an emotional thriller from Angel Studios made for $14.5m, originally meant to be distributed by Fox, but after the company was purchased by Disney the movie remained on the shelf until Angel Studios requested out of the deal and found alternative distribution. Disney screwed themselves out of a good bit of money on that one, but they are full of bad decisions these days. Godzilla Minus One meanwhile is a Japanese Godzilla film made for a mere $12m and looking every bit as good as a $200m Hollywood blockbuster. The film takes Godzilla right back to his roots and is widely considered the best Godzilla film since the 1954 original.
Success Stories of 2023
At the higher end of the production budget scale there isn’t a lot of success stories for 2023 (Outside those epic wins). It’s pretty much just the animated Spider-Verse film “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse“, largely coasting off the great reception the previous Spider-Verse received back in 2018 as well as the continuing strength of the Spider-Man brand. Fan reactions to this one were mixed, with a few of the character portrayals not quite landing with viewers and the ending feeling anti-climactic. Turns out this was only half of a story and the continuation is already delayed thanks to the writers strike. However, the animation continues to receive praise and the Spider-brand remains the one guaranteed cash cow in the Superhero genre.
The most successful horror movie of the year was the video game adaptation “Five Nights at Freddy’s“. With a $20m production budget, perhaps on the higher side for horror the move raked in $300m globally, The thing to note here is that was with a day and date streaming release. That means no one actually had to go to the theatres to watch this legally but they chose to anyway. That is a huge success and honestly could have pushed this one to the epic win column. The movie itself was very true to the game and absolutely nailed the look of the animatronic monsters. That said it wasn’t without flaws, most notably how light the horror elements actually were. As a result the reaction to the movie was decidedly mixed, but the important thing was fans of the game loved it.
Not too far off the success of FNAF was an early release in 2023 the horror film “M3GAN“. A personal favourite of mine from the year, the film drew in $181m worldwide against a production budget of only $12m, making around $145m. That’s a considerable amount of profit and you can bank on this film seeing a lot of sequels in the coming years. The latest entry in the Saw franchise “Saw X” made itself a healthy profit with $109m against it’s $13m production budget. That’s a $147m profit and you can bet Saw XI won’t be too far off. Surprisingly, the sequel no one asked for “The Nun 2” managed to earn itself $268m against it’s $38.5m budget, netting $152m in profit.
“Talk To Me” had a production budget of just $4.5m and raked in $70m, with many calling it the horror film on the year. The latest Insidious sequel meanwhile, “Insidious: The Red Door“, had a $16m production budget and raked in $186m globally. Despite it’s financial success though, The Red Door was not well received and it remains to be seen how much life this franchise has left. Last but not least The Evil Dead series had it’s second reboot with “Evil Dead Rises” drawing in $146m against it’s $19m budget. That’s a profit of about $89m. though it’s worth noting when the production budget is under $30m the P&A cost (Mostly marketing) is likely more than 50% of the production budget so these films possibly made a bit less than I am listing, but they still did well.
Business As Usual – Meeting Expectations
I’m not going to cover too many lower budget movies here as it’s quite hard to judge what expectations are for a lot of those. Many of those films will be of more value on streaming after their theatrical run or are more about studio prestige than actual profits. But there are still a few films to talk about. First up, the most successful live action superhero film of the year “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 3“. This was the final part of the James Gunn’s Guardians story and his final Marvel movie before heading over to DC and Warner. With that in mind, expectations for this film were high and because of that it could be debated this is actually a disappointment.
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 3 is the fourth highest earner at the box office with a worldwide haul of $845m. The problem is the production budget of $250m pushes the break even point to about $750m, meaning the movie likely didn’t even bring home $100m of profit. On top of that it brought in less (Inflation adjusted) than the previous GOTG movie and represents a creative dead end for the MCU. That said, outside of the depiction of Adam Warlock the film was well received and made for a strong send off to the team and James Gunn.
Also rounding off a well love movie series was “John Wick: Chapter 4” and in doing so achieving about what would have been expected. The movie drew in $430m against a production budget of $100m. Despite the lower numbers it likely ended with a greater profit than GOTG3 and kept in line approximately with the previous movies. The reception from audiences were positive, despite a few noting how over the top it has all become now and how John Wick is basically a superhero at this point. The choreography and camerawork in the action scenes though was pretty spectacular. While the movie ended John’s story, it opened up the world in which is was set to any number of spin offs, so the franchise is still alive and strong.
Doing about what was expected in the box office was “Creed III“, the now Stallone-less Rocky spin off franchise pulled in a franchise best box office of $275m, but against a production budget of $75m (Also a franchise high), giving it profit of only around $50m. Fan reaction for this one was down on the previous two movies and it is doubtful we’ll see as many of these films as we did from Rocky. Still, no one will be too upset with this performance. Last on this list is “Scream VI” pulling in $168m against a $35m budget and with mixed reception from fans, it’s not lighting the world on fire but for the sixth entry in a horror franchise that should probably not have had sequels at all it’s not a bad showing.
The Disappointments of 2023
Obviously flops and bombs are also disappointments but we’ll deal with those separately. First film on the list is the latest out, “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes“. This is a movie that seems to have landed precisely at it’s break even point of $300m against it’s $100m production budget. No one will be celebrating that, but at least it hasn’t lost money. The tepid box office about reflects the audience and critical responses for the movie. If ever there was a movie that could be described as “Mid” it is this one.
Next up we have “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem“, a movie that sort of farted onto the cinema coasting off general franchise popularity and then heading into the sunset with a haul of $180m against it’s surprisingly high $70m production budget. The theoretical break even point for that is around $210m meaning this probably made a loss of a round $30m. It’s close enough to the break even point that it may have cleared it’s costs, but it could also be a lot more. That ambiguity is why it is in the disappointment section instead of outright flops, but it’s safe to say no one will be happy with this. Seth Rogen continues to be franchise poison.
Next up on the disappoint list is a director for who the word “Disappointment” has become somewhat synonymous with his career. Shyamalan M Night is a capable director that occasionally just makes very bad decisions. His movies tend to revolve around twists and that is always going to leave a lot of viewers disappointed if that twist just doesn’t resonate with them. The movie in question here is “Knock at the Cabin“, Drawing in about $54m global against it’s $20m production budget. Again technically under it’s break even point, but close enough that only the studio and their accountants likely know if it is in the black or in the red.
The last movie on this list to avoid being full on flops or bombs is somewhat debatable and that is Pixar’s “Elemental“. Going just on it’s theatrical performance of $486m against a $200m production budget it would be in definite flop territory. However, it has done very well on streaming and perhaps enough to remain out of Bob Iger’s nightmares this year. After all he has a lot more to be concerned about. The movie is pretty generic pixar stuff, but there’s been far worse animated movies out this year. No one is going to celebrate this one, but it could definitely be worse.
A few movies came out this year and flopped but avoided going “Full bomb”. First is Neil Blomkamp’s “Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story“, pulling in $117m against it’s $60m production budget and losing about $60m. This will certainly not help Blomkamp, which is a shame because he is a very talented director that should be the one making those big franchise movies. “A Haunting in Venice“, the third Kenneth Branagh Poirot movie had a $60m production budget, but drew in only $114m, losing about $66m. These last two I’m told are good movies, but am yet to see them. Last on the list is Trolls Band Together” drawing $139m against it’s $95m budget and losing about $45m.
In the genre of Horror an interesting one is “The Exorcist: Believer“, which technically did okay $136m against it’s $30m production budget. But Blumhouse paid out $400m for the rights to the franchise, meaning that they likely expected more from the film. If future movies do about the same, scraping out under $50m in profit, the franchise won’t actually have made any money until it’s ninth installment (Which would technically be Exorcist 10,12 or 13 depending how you count it). That definitely isn’t what they had in mind when they purchased it.
BOMBS AWAY!
This is where most of the big budget movies of 2023 ended up, so since I’d like people to actually read this article I’m not going to be verbose on this one and just plow through it. First up “is “. Next on the bomb list. “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves“, a movie I found disappointing but one not without support, it drew in $207m against it’s $150m production budget, losing around $200m for Paramount. Second on this list is Disney’s controversial live action remake of “The Little Mermaid“, which generated $568m globally. An impressive haul, except that with a production budget of $250m it’s break even was a whopping $750m, meaning the movie actually lost $182m for Disney.
Big franchises were no guarantee of success in 2023. “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” drew in $438m globally against it’s $195m production budget, losing around $147m for Paramount. It’s worth noting on this one, domestically the last three Transformers movies have made about the same, but the international numbers have been plummeting movie after movie, going from $555m to $391m to just $280m. Also Bumblebee had a more modest $118m production budget putting it’s break even point at $354m, had Rise of the Beasts been as careful with it’s spending it would have made $84m instead of turning into a bomb. However, there is no denying internationally Transformers may have run it’s course.
One of the years more surprising failures is “Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning part one“, a movie that drew in a whopping $566m globally, yet still ending up losing $300m due to it’s insane $290m. The lesson there should be obvious, but I would add that I don’t feel audiences are too keep on going to see what they perceive as half a movie either. In practice the movie did have a conclusion but seeing “Part One” in the title probably put some people off. The movie also had unexpected competition from surprise “The Sound of Freedom”. Joining in the insane budget club is “Fast X” with an astronomical budget of $340m, meaning it needed to make over a billion to break even. It made $714m, loosing $306m.
Disney attempted to turn an amusement park ride into a successful movie franchise again this year with Haunted Mansion. The movie cost $158m, had a break even of $474m and generated just $115m. That’s a whopping $359m. If that is embarrassing it’s not as embarrassing as their centenary celebration movie “Wish”, whose nonsensical plot managed to pull in only $146m against it’s $200m (that they admitted to) budget. That means the movie lost Disney $454m, probably not how they planned to celebrate. It’s worth noting last year I was optimistic about Wish since it was supposed to be a return to classic hand drawn animation. However, that plan was abandoned and they reverted to rather poor looking CGI instead. The plot apparently was changed too and I Can’t imagine for the better.
But as bad as all that looks….Well, then their is “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny“. Another movie with a $300m production budget (bang on $300m supposedly, which likely means it was a lot higher but that’s all they’ll admit to). Indie 4 drew in a mere $381m worldwide losing Disney $519m. That is half a billion lost digging up a long dead franchise that already had two send decent send offs (I’m talking just of the end of “Crystal Skull” there, not the entire movie). It could be argued most of the damage was done with Crystal Skull or that the trust in Lucasfilm after it’s horrendous mismanagement of Star Wars is so low it didn’t matter what they put out, it was doomed from the start. Then again word of mouth wasn’t good either. Technically this was the biggest box office bomb of all time, at least for a few months….
Superhero movies were, with a couple of exceptions, box office poison this year and with Marvel and DC dominating the genre that means Disney and Warner Bros took a big hit. Disney’s “Ant Man & The Wasp: Quantumania” only brought in $463m globally against it’s $200m production budget, losing $187m for the company. But if that sounds bad, it was a huge success compared to some of the other movies in the genre this year. DC’s “Blue Beetle” could only manage a minuscule $128m against it’s fortunately more sensible budget of $120m. That means a loss of $232m for Warner on that one. The Shazam Sequel “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” is in a similar situation earning $132m globally against it’s $125m budget, losing Warner $243m. It’s worth noting had Quantumania cost $120/125m, it would would have broken even. Warner’s due meanwhile would have had to be produced for $40m to break even, but then let’s remember Godzilla Minus One cost $12m, so these things are possible.
So, as bad as those losses were they are nothing compared to the this years true super villains, “The Flash“, Aquaman: The Lost Kingdom” and “The Marvels“. It’s worth noting the Aquaman sequel is still out in theatres, though after the first full week and the first few days of the second we can make a pretty reasonable prediction. Least disastrous of the bunch is theoretically “The Flash”, but a lot depends on if you believe the official production budget of $200m. This film had a *lot* of reshoots. But even going by the official it’s break even would have been $600m and it only managed a paltry $266m. That means at best The Flash lost Warner $334m. Between this bomb and his personal issues it’s fairly safe to say Ezra Miller’s career may be over.
Speaking of people with no Hollywood career anymore, Amber Heard’s controversial legal feud with Johnny Depp may well have cost Aquaman II a good portion of it’s box office, but in a year where every DC movie has bombed it’s unlikely to be just that. The first Aquaman movie reached the billion mark, this one has barely scrapped $145m and going by it’s current legs will probably finish somewhere around $188m. The movies official budget was $205m and again this movie had a lot of reshoots. At one time Michael Keaton’s Batman was in it, at another Ben Afflecks, but the final released version contains neither. Going by their numbers it needed $615m to break even and will likely end with a loss of around $334m (Yes, the same as The Flash). Add it all up and Warner’s DC brand has cost them $1.14 billion this year. Ouch!
Remember when I said Indiana Jones was the biggest box office bomb of all time… for a few months. Well, that was until “The Marvels” came out. The movie probably winning the award for dumbest name of the year (Marvels The Marvels? Really?) and demonstrating that perhaps requiring the global audience to need to watch a load of Disney+ TV shows to have an entry point on a movie is not the best plan. It also suggests that perhaps Marvels D and E list characters just aren’t popular enough to lead a movie, at least not without the hype of an impending “End Game”. I’m not exaggerating about the character tiers either, Captain Marvel was always D-List and Kamala Khan is E list at best (Though Iman Vellani could have raised her up in better circumstances).
The movie’s official production budget was $275m making it’s break even a whopping $825m. How much did it make? $199m global. That’s a crippling $626m loss. That’s over $100m than Indiana Jones loses. I’m reminded of that time Kathleen Kennedy posted a “Passing of the Lightsaber” to Kevin Feige for breaking the $2b point with Infinity War (After The Force Awakens had previously hit that mark). How times have changed. Now if they were to pass that lightsaber around it would probably be to commit harakiri… except these days being stabbed through the guts with a lightsaber is something you can walk off, so maybe not.
Since I charted Warner’s superhero loses, it’s only fair I do that for Marvel too. Thanks to the small gains of GOTG3 that figure is around $715m in loses. While that may make Marvel seem healthier than DC, at least Warner is able to do a full reboot. Plus Disney have to add those other loses from Lucasfilm and their animation wing into that pile and those sting. The final tally is a loss of $2.4 billion for Disney’s movies. So yeah, Warner got off light.
Conclusion
Appearances can be deceptive, when you look at a list of films with the highest box office for this year you will probably see a few of these disasters and perhaps be mislead into thinking they are successful, but the level of production budgets and marketing costs these days means those big Hollywood movies need to make an incredible amount of money just to break even. Meanwhile most horror films, dramas and independent movies need to make very little to be a success. Hollywood tends to favour the bigger budget movies though because when they are profitable they tend to be incredibly profitable. But it is always somewhat of a gamble. This year most of those gambles ended in disaster.
Indeed it’s probably safe to say this is the worst year in history for the box office. The problems though are pretty clear. First of all, there is no denying that superhero fatigue is a thing now. People may debate on if it’s just over-saturation or too many low quality movies, but the truth is both of those are symptoms of a genre trend reaching the end of it’s road. Superhero movies won’t disappear, just as westerns never disappeared or horror movies after the 80’s boom. Quite often the best movies in a genre come out after it hit’s decline (For example both “Unforgiven” and “Tombstone” came out long after the western was supposed to be dead).
Not that superhero movies were the only clangers this year. Disney movies were almost entirely bombs this year, with only GOTG3 bringing in some bacon for them. It’s notable James Gunn’s swansong at Marvel was probably Disney’s most universally accessible movie that year, the rest of their output tended to be on the divisive side and when your budgets are at $200m and higher you really can’t afford to turn any potential fans away. Elemental was probably their next most accessible movie and that ended up the most likely to claw back into profitability via streaming and physical media sales. There is a definite pattern there. It’s not to say you can’t make heavily progressive leaning movies, but you need to budget them appropriately. When you are talking about huge franchises, it would be seriously stupid to turn off half the audience.
But accessibility goes for the global audience too. It’s not just about left and right leaning English speakers, it’s about global cultures. If you have stories and themes that resonate with people no matter where they live or what their politics are, then that $1 billion + box office will be in reach. If your film only really appeals to the population of California, then you need to realize that it’s probably capping off around the $200m mark. That means you need a budget of around $60m or less if you hope to make a profit. It’s as simple as that. Even aside from being divisive a number of films this year have shown that you can make spectacular looking movies for much less than Hollywood has been spending. Outside of a James Cameron Avatar movie, I don’t see why any film should cost more than $120m for it’s production budget. If CGI is so expensive, stop relying in it!
On the positive side though, for me at least, there is a clear indication that Horror is a sensible way to go right now. The “Success” section of this article was almost entirely horror movies because you can make them cheaply and the audience is fiercely loyal, both for horror in general and for specific franchises. Personally I don’t feel we need an eleventh Saw movie or a Seventh Scream, but chances are the fans would turn out for them. The first Evil Dead movie came out in 1981 and yet the second reboot in a row is 42 years later is still able to make a solid buck. The Exorcist is a trickier one, but had they not spent so much for the rights that would be considered a success. Considering the film had terrible word of mouth and fell off a cliff in it’s second week, it did surprisingly solidly. Certainly “The Nun 2” had no business being a success and yet it made more profit than “Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3”. Right now, horror films are the only safe bet that a studio can rely on and studios love a safe bet.
When I look at this years epic wins though one thing becomes really clear. The top end of the movie market isn’t really driven by the studios or the mainstream movie media anymore. They are driven by the fans and social media. Mario Brothers and Five Nights at Freddy’s cashed in on a very dedicated gamer fan base. Barbie and Openheimer meanwhile, while likely to be successful in their own right, made huge gains due to a simple meme. It’s worth noting too that Mario, Barbie and FNAF all gained praise from the most dedicated fans of those non-movie franchises. It seems once again giving the core fanbase what they want pays off. Sound of Freedom and Godzilla Minus One were never expected to be hits (At least not in the US), but word of mouth can have a huge impact. In this instance it seems the secret is just make something worth watching!
Anyway that’s all for now… Thankfully! A year like this gives me far too much to have to fit into one of these. It remains to be seen if Hollywood (And more specifically Disney) will learn anything from this. In previous decades Kevin Feige and Kathleen Kennedy would be out of a job for taking the mantle of worst bomb of all time, but we don’t live in those times anymore and some producers seem untouchable. That’s not a good situation for Hollywood, but as we’ve seen if they aren’t willing to give people the entertainment they want, they will find it elsewhere. Not necessarily in movies either, we’ve had a good 100+ years of cinema, it would be foolish to think future generations would be as passionate about these films as you or I. Happy New Year!
Yes, you read the title correctly. It’s time to dive into the world of modern B-Movie horror with this ridiculous horror comedy from Full Moon Features. If you know the name, you will know this is Charles Band’s company, so this is a studio (In one form or other) that have been making low budget horror (and some sci-fi) since the 70’s. They know how to get the most out of the budget and how to make movies quickly. That doesn’t make this movie sound any less silly of course! This feature is just under an hour in length and is directed by Danny Draven (Also taking composer duties) and penned by Zalman Band (Charlies son).
There is some controversy with this film. The makers of “Bad CGI Sharks”. Obviously they feel their idea was ripped off. It’s worth considering though gimmick shark movies aren’t exactly original either, so maybe it’s fair game maybe not. You can decide that one for yourself. There’s certainly no doubting they stole the “Bad CGI” idea, the only question is, does that matter? Personally I’m not sure, but I do know at this budget level there is a lot of band wagon jumping in general. Anyway, let’s get back to the Gator and see if it has any teeth!
A Reptile Dysfunction.
The synopsis for this one is short. It’s a 1 hour horror comedy B-movie, what did you expect? A group of friends (Well four friends, one sister and a guy dragged along apparently to set him up with the sister), head to a lakeside cabin for spring break. The nearby lake has an alligator living it, though the friends aren’t aware of this. One of the girls, a tik-tok “Influenced” wants to throw the groups college laptops into the lake for a video (Because “The college will just replace them”). After the stunt they return to their cabin, however the laptops electrocute the lakes alligator transforming it into…. Uh, BAD CGI GATOR! Yes, that happened.
It’s worth reminding you, this is meant to be a comedy, so don’t expect anything to make sense. Anyway, the now CGI Gator starts attacking the friends picking them off one at a time until only the sister “Hope” (Played by Madie Lane) and the non-friend “Sam” (Michael Bonini) remain. Sam and Hope are also quickly developing feelings for each other after Sam romantically stalked her instagram account. Between them they must find a way to escape from this gator, which by the way can also fly and after consuming a bluetooth speaker, grow in size because that’s how it works now.
Bad CGI.
Okay, so this is a ridiculous plot. But for a horror comedy it isn’t really a problem as long as the film is funny and fortunately this is. I laughed out loud several times and in a movie that is less than an hour in length that is a win. Honestly the film probably could do with being a little longer, especially as the ending is a little on the quick side. That said, something like this being too short is probably better than being too long. The effects are what you’d expect and despite the severed limbs I wouldn’t really describe it as “Gore”. Indeed the severed limbs are mostly used for comic effect and quite effectively. There’s also some nice ironic elements with the corpses, which I always approve of in horror films.
The bad CGI gator is of course bad CGI, which you would expect. One issue with this though is the quality of CGI is actually no worse than I’d expect in a low budget horror anyway and case in point, even before the alligator is transformed it is bad CGI. My criticism here is they probably could have made the transformed version a bit worse! It would have been a nice touch to have had it “clipping” into the scenery and stuff on occasion too. For example they could have had it unable to pursue people at some point because it’s tail has clipped into the ground and so it is stuck. Missed opportunity.
Spring Break.
The characters and acting is around about what you’d expect for a low budget B, but there are definitely three tiers to it. Effectively you have three couples (Though the lead pair aren’t a couple until the end) and each couple is about on par for acting talent. One pairing is notably bad, especially the girl’s dialogue delivery, but the movie helps us out here by making them the gators first victim. The next tier are actually in some ways the most fun characters in the film. Both characters are shallow college kid stereotypes, but the actors go all in on the roles and that really helps the comedy. When we are introduced to them I rolled my eyes, but since they provide most of the comedy it was almost a shame to see them killed off.
The final pair is our two leads, Sam and Hope. As actors Bonini and Lane are better than you would expect at this budget level and with the right breaks could probably go a lot further in their careers. It’s always worth remembering just how many big Hollywood stars started out in low budget horrors (Maybe not always this low, but sometimes). Demi Moore for example was in another Charlie Band produced movie “Parasite” from 1982. So they are worth keeping an eye on. Not that this was an Oscar level performance or anything, just better than I expected.
Conclusion.
So overall, this is actually a lot better than most people would expect a movie called “Bad CGI Gator” to be. The plot barely exists, there is bad acting and bad effects, but the movie is fun, funny and in it’s own B-Movie way, clever. Some of the acting is better than you’d expect at this level and some of the characters you’d expect to hate turn out to be the most entertaining. Overall, while it’s not going to get a high rating, when I put this on I figured I’d be lucky to get a 4/10 but instead it’s a high 5/10. Not the best, but higher than I’ve rated some Hollywood horror movies. If you love your B’s, you’ll get a kick out of it.
For my penultimate November Noir this year I’m checking out the very low budget B-Movie Noir “Crime Wave” from 1953 (1954 for the US). This is from director André De Toth (Pitfall) with a screenplay from Crane Wilbur. The movie stars Gene Nelson, with support from Phyllis Kirk, Sterling Hayden, Ted de Corsia and an early role for Charles Bronson (Credited as Charles Buchinsky, since it is before he changed his name). Sterling Hayden as the biggest star at the time got top billing despite his supporting role. Hayden would of course become an even bigger name in the years to come with films like “The Killers”, “Doctor Strangelove” and “The Godfather”.
Cops and Robbers.
“Steve Lacey” (Nelson), is an ex-con that has gone straight. He has settled down with his lovely wife “Ellen” (Kirk) and holds a pretty decent job despite his record. However, people who knew from his days of crime or his days in prison regularly hassle him and he struggles to truly escape his past. “Gat Morgan” (Nedrick Young) comes crashing into this, injured after he and two others were involved in a shoot-out with the police. Lacey refuses to get involved, but the wounds cause the man to die. The doctor Morgan had called arrives too late, but takes his pay out of the criminals suit before leaving.
Enter detective Simms (Hayden), a hard-nosed lieutenant that seems to have Lacey in his sights, assuming he will try and help his former convict friends, he sweats Lacey for three days in jail but eventually lets him loose. On returning home, the con finds ‘Doc’ Penny (de Corsia) and Ben Hastings (Bronson), his former colleagues, have invaded his apartment. Not only do they intend to hide out at Lacey’s they also want him to be their getaway driver for an ambitious bank job. With his wife as hostage he doesn’t have any choice but to cooperate.
Beating The Budget.
As I said in the introduction, this is a shoestring noir and so it’s not surprising there are times this is very noticable in the film. Two occasions in particular had horrendous dialogue delivery from a couple of bad actors, but both were minor characters and were easy to ignore not matter how obviously they are trying to remember their lines and speak them at the same time. It’s worth noting with low budget movies like this, there isn’t the luxury to reshoot every scene 100 times to make sure the take is spot on. So the acting may not be much worse than on a bigger budget movie, but there is no covering it up here. Even Sterling Hayden has a scene where the dialogue felt wrong in it’s delivery. Not actually bad like the other two events, but notably lacking the sleek delivery of the majority of his lines.
The cheapness isn’t all bad though. In many ways it makes the crime drama feel grittier and more realistic. It’s possibly the earliest film I’ve seen with something akin to “Shaky Cam” footage. Especially of note is the filming from inside vehicles, which really feels like a camera stuffed inside an actual car. It appears that they shot all the car footage on location, not using green screens. Indeed the final car chase actually follows a legitimate car route between the locations. One of the strengths of the film is how it utilizes heavy location filming with these more mobile camera techniques. They used a lot of genuine locations, and some, such as the veterinary practice, are still standing today (albeit with a different name). All told, I think they actually turned the lower budget into something positive here, and the film alone is worthy of praise for that.
Life And The City.
The characters are fairly one dimensional, even Steve Lacey who is a victim of circumstances for the entire movie. His more heroic actions aren’t the result of inner turmoil like was in the case of Dana Andrews character in “Where the Sidewalk Ends”, instead it’s just Lacey being Lacey. From the very start he’s firm in not wanting to have anything to do with the gang, but is forced to take part due to them using his wife as a hostage. Detective Lt. Simms is a very standard Haydn detective character. Hard-nosed, authoritative… frankly a bit of a dick, but unlike Haydn’s character in The Godfather he’s not corrupt and so ultimately figures out who are the criminals and who is the victim. This is played more as a heartwarming moment for the protagonist and his wife instead of a character moment for Simms. It does achieve what it was going for though, giving the movie a somewhat upbeat ending.
The story itself is straightforward, but compelling. It’s a classic noir in that regard, an ex con whose past is catching up to him. A character dragged into events, with seemingly no control of their own fate. This definitely provides the fatalism you expect in noir. The heavy use of location filming and the way way of presenting the city itself almost like a character is all part of the package of 50’s noir. Because of the guerrilla like filming style we get a bit of an unexpected visual treat with this in how authentic the city feels. This is the city as it is, the buildings in their naked stone… the people without makeup. That line is from “The Naked City” (1948), but as good as that movie was, this feels more authentic.
Conclusion
This is an interesting noir. It’s not the best plot, it’s not the best characters and it’s not got the best cinematography or soundtrack. But what it does have is buckets of creativity applied to making an effective film on a shoestring budget. To be fair, the rest is perfectly adequate and would probably land this film with a narrow 6/10. However, the uniqueness of this, the cleverness of how it deals with the budget restraints and the gritty feel all boost that up to a strong 6.5/10. Well worth checking out.
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