BARBENHEIMER UPDATE
Some quick updates about BARBENHEIMER, the movie event that has defined 2023:
With a combined $235.5 million domestic total (and almost $500m internationally), this past weekend was the 4th largest ever Box Office weekend
A remarkable viewer spread: Women drove the Barbie opening, making up 65% of the audience with 40% of ticket buyers under the age of 25. Oppenheimer audiences were 62% male, with 32% of ticket buyers under 25
Greta Gerwig has accomplished the biggest opening weekend for film directed by a woman while Christopher Nolan has accomplished one of the biggest openings of an R-rated movie
With a lackluster August lineup, observers predict $1.2b for Barbie (just crossed $500m today) and upwards of $650m for Oppenheimer.
After years of box office domination by big-budget franchises, it’s remarkable what’s happening this week. And with both movies being highly critically acclaimed, it’s a heartwarming sign for our media landscape looking forward. MY REVIEW BELOW:
But despite these resounding successes, all is not calm in Planet Hollywood:
SAG-AFTRA ON STRIKE
For the first time in over 60 years, both the actors and writers unions are on strike. I wrote about the writer’s strike a few weeks ago, which you can see here:
In my write-up, I’m a little muted about the impact it would have on the industry, largely because studios could still get on with their releases over the next few years (albeit with a drop in quality). But with the actors on strike, Hollywood is truly on pause.
The Screen-Actors Guild (SAG) is protesting largely the same issues – the onslaught of AI and abysmal residuals rates for their work. There’s a misconception that actors are all highly paid, glitzy celebrities. Only about 12% of union members make over $26,000 a year, the salary needed to quality for union healthcare. The vast majority of guild members are qualified as lower-income, which, combined with the gig-nature of the industry, leaves them perpetually at risk.
All this at a time when Netflix is posting $900k a year positions for AI project managers.
Now What?
The strike has effectively shut down Hollywood. Not only can guild members no longer act in new productions, but they also cannot do any promotion for studios. This has shut down all marketing for upcoming films until the studios and the guild come to a mutual agreement.
Accordingly, every studio is in ongoing talks to delay their fall line-up. Movies like DUNE 2 (kill me), The Color Purple, Aquaman 2, The Marvels, and more may get pushed to early 2024. Be ready for notably dry theaters and a dearth of streaming content in the coming months, unless the groups can come to an agreement.
Once again, studios should take a page from A24’s book, an independent studio that has been granted a waiver by the union to continue production? Why? Despite their diminutive size compared to the likes of Netflix, Disney, or Warner Bros, they’ve handedly agreed to all the unions’ demands. The yearly costs of SAG demands for each studio equate to just a fraction of the cost of a single blockbuster budget a year – it’s solely corporate greed that’s holding up the process.
PUZZLE
Maybe a new addition to the line-up – see if you can fill out this grid challenge! 1 point for every right answer, 0.5 points if you have to repeat a movie, and 1.5 points if it’s a correct answer that I don’t have listed on the answer key (for harder ones). 0.25 points if you guess a movie that was nominated for the award categories! The highest score I’ve seen is a 6 so far. Good luck!
WEEKEND STREAMING RECOMMENDATION
BABYLON, dir. Damien Chazelle, Available on Amazon Prime.
Babylon was hugely debated when it released last winter. A box office bomb, a disappointing and bloated follow-up by Chazelle (director of Whiplash and La La Land), and an overindulgent mess. I loved every second of it, and it was one of my favorites of 2022. Check it out!
See you all again next week. Until then, please get in touch if you have any thoughts or suggestions you’d like to share. If you want to keep up with what I’m watching, follow me on Letterboxd @atharv_gupta.
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