← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
Hollywood’s Cruel Summer (So Far)
00:18:21
We look at why the summer blockbuster season is not exactly going as Hollywood hoped this year.
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You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Kuja Navadar in for Alison Stewart. Last summer was a huge time for movies. Does everyone remember Barbenheimer? But rather than building off of the momentum from last year, it seems like the summer box office is really struggling. Films with big stars like the Fall guy Furiosa and IF are failing to rake in the big bucks or make a big impact with audiences. What gives? And as the Cannes Film Festival has wrapped up over in France, what movies are on the horizon that could potentially get those box office numbers back up? Joining me to talk summer movies and to recap his time at Cannes is Kyle Buchanan, awards season columnist for the New York Times and author of the book Blood, Sweat and the Wild and True Story of Mad Fury Road. Kyle, welcome to the show.
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Thanks for having me, Kusha.
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Absolutely. It's a pleasure to have you here. Let's talk about Furiosa first. I want to talk about it because it's out right now and because you have a special relationship with the Mad Max films. You wrote a book on the filming of Mad Fury Road in which you recounted how how tough the filming process was, especially for its two leads. And it seems that Anya Taylor Joy had a similarly difficult experience. What is it about these films that seem to be so grueling?
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That's the million dollar question. Right? And I mean, to some extent, while watching these movies, you can suss out why they'd be grueling because you're seeing stunts and scale to a degree that you almost never see in a big tentpole film anymore. You know, they're actually going out in the desert and a lot of times crashing these cars for real. The characters in them, you know, the, the one Furiosa played by Anya Taylor Joy, but also played by Charlize in Charlize Theron in Fury Road. These are not loquacious characters. There is not a lot for an actor to grab onto, not in a traditional sense where it's dialogue, dialogue, dialogue, etc. You know, you are for weeks, sometimes even months, just doing little bits of action, grabbing a steering wheel, grabbing a gun, poking your head up out of a compartment on a car. That's not always easy. You've got to stay tuned in to something that's really elemental about your character and maybe even your acting process just to make it through that shoot.
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Fury Road was a huge commercial and critical success. Furiosa is doing well with critics, but not at the box office. It opened to only $49.6 million domestically. And if you comp Compare that to last year's summer blockbuster, Barbie, that raked in $155 million domestically opening weekend. Why do you think Furiosa isn't doing as well as Fury Road?
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Kusha, let's not mince words. It's bombing. It is bombing. Okay?
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It's all like.
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It is dire. You know, look, it's not a great summer box office period. Films have not really been succeeding. There is a motto that a lot of theaters, exhibitors, studios have. It's survive till 25. Basically saying, look, we know this is going to be a tricky year. If we can just hang, like, until next year, then we'll be rescued by bigger movies. We'll see. You know, I think there's a lot of factors here. I think, first of all, there's almost a global retraction happening right now. Moviegoing is expensive. The general mood is grim. There is war. There is. It's an election year. All these dire headlines. I just don't know that people are looking for the escapism of a movie right now, or if they are, they're being really selective. You know, a film like Deadpool and Wolverine, which is coming in a couple weeks, I do expect that to do well. But I don't think that people are as willing to go take a chance on something like Fall Guy or Furiosa, knowing especially that those movies will be able to be viewed from the comfort of their own home in a matter of weeks. Because even though studios claim to be wanting to prop up the theatrical architecture, you know, they're also making these movies available on demand, sometimes even on streaming, in a window that is so compressed that I think it eats into people's desire to go see something in the. The.
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Is this a summer blockbuster issue or a 2024 geopolitical world state of the state issue? Like, it seems like summer blockbusters aren't doing well, but is it just that people don't want to go to the movies?
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I think it's both those things. I think that people want to go to certain movies. You know, I think that even before the pandemic, when people were a little bit more willing to just go to movies out of habit, just see what was playing and head out, there is a tightening of purse strings. There is a conditioning to be able to watch a whole lot of things at home. You know, a ticket to the movies is expensive, even more so if you are buying them for your whole family. So you have to pick and choose. I think that people were already getting to a point where maybe they would see four movies in theaters a year. And if they've got Deadpool and Wolverine coming, you know, down the pike or inside out too, then maybe they're a little less likely to shell out for Fall Guy or Furiosa. Maybe they're just sort of picking and choosing. But in any case, it's not a great. It's not a great mood out there right now. And I think that for as. As bubbly as things seemed with Barbenheimer last year, the contentious months long strikes that followed indicated that the good times can't last in Hollywood.
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You know, we just got a text from a listener that I think is really good. It's what is happening in 20 supposed to rescue the movie industry.
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There will be more movies. There's that at least. I do think that the summer movie season is usually more chock a block with films in a way that it kind of can't be because the, the strikes that happened last year impeded a lot of films ability to even get out the door this summer. A lot of films had to be pushed because they were intending to shoot or they were intending to do reshoots and they simply couldn't. So I don't know that 2025 is going to present a more enticing slate. It will be a more robust slate. But I think that in a lot of ways, you know, studios will be facing the same problems and a lot of the same headwinds that they're dealing with this year.
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A couple other texts that I thought was good. We got two from the same person. It reads, furioso was great. My eyes were glued to the screen the entire time. And then the same texter then said, I also really enjoyed the fall guy. It was funny and stunts were cool. So some love for the movies out there. Just want to make sure that your folks feel like you're getting heard. We're talking to Kyle Buchanan, the New York Times awards season columnist and author of the book Blood, Sweat and the Wild and True Story of Mad Fury Road. And we're talking about summer movies and why movies are kind of in a funk. I guess we could say that. Or Kyle, as you were saying, it's just bombing out there. I noticed that there are a lot of films that came out early in the year. That seems like they could have been good summer movies. I'm thinking Dune 2, challengers, even maybe Alex Garland's Civil War. Why do you think those movies decided to release earlier in the year?
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Well, in the case of Dune 2, absolutely. But, you know, a lot of the time with big summer movies, so much money is made in IMAX theaters and you have to book a really select window because everybody is fighting over those premium ticket prices and what they can add to a box office weekend. So in the case of Dune 2, which was pushed out of last fall because of the strikes, because they wanted that, you know, big starry cast to be able to go out and promote the film, spring was kind of the best opportunity for it to have those big ticket IMAX screens to itself for several weeks. You know, they won't be fighting something like Deadpool and Wolverine for. For those premium prices. In the case of Challengers and Civil War, I honestly think it was better for those movies to come out when they did. Maybe people were a little bit more willing to go to things, but also it was quieter. A movie could make a little bit more noise. You could hear for a couple weeks, oh, you've got to see Civil War. Or oh, I've heard I might like Challengers in a way that with summer movies, it's kind of harder to break out of the pack. You know, there are some really enticing dramas coming this summer. The Bike Riders, which is a movie about a motorcycle gang starring Austin Butler, Jodie Comer and Tom Hardy. Or Sing Sing, it's a drama about a prison theater company with Colman Domingo. Those films are kind of trying to give you, if not a Challenger, Civil War vibe, at least a past lives vibe. That's the really terrific drama last year that managed to kind of break out as counter programming against all the summer blockbusters. I'm hoping that those films can hold their own. But it's not easy. Again, when you have these really big blockbusters that are making a lot of noise.
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Yeah, it's kind of getting elbow room, you're saying.
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Exactly.
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We've got Eric in Brooklyn who just called in with an interesting point. Let's go to Eric. Hey, Eric. Welcome to the show.
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Hey, how you doing? I think one of the reasons why Furiosis is not doing well is because you have a lot of knee jerk sexism going on. Just bad sexism. People feel that the movie is a Mad Max movie when it's Furiosa within that universe. So there's a lot of pushback because it's a female is one of the reasons why I believe what the last Indiana Jones movie didn't do as well because people were saying that Indiana's not in the movie, it's a female. So there was like a lot of sexist pushback on the movie. And quite honestly, if you've seen any one of those movies, you would love the current film that's out now. So it's a lot of sexism and whatever ism you want to attach with it that's making this movie do so badly.
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Eric, thanks so much for calling in and for that point. Kyle, what do you think about that point?
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I mean, look, if you're on Reddit or certain corners of social media, you'll see sentiments like that. Absolutely. I just find it so, I mean, so obviously misplaced because we've been having action films with female leads for decades. I mean, one of my very favorite action films is Aliens with Sigourney Weaver, an iconic sci fi character. She's terrific in that role. And that movie's been around. You know, Aliens has been around since the mid-80s. There is, yeah, there's sometimes you can see that pushback when a movie that or a franchise that had, you know, a strong male lead incorporates even a female co lead in the case of Indiana Jones. But I also think part of the problem is, you know, at least in the case of Indiana Jones, that was a very long in the tooth franchise, as is Mad Max. I mean, Mad Max was refreshed somewhat by Fury Road, but I do think that if people are willing to follow Furiosa as a character because she really popped in Fury Road, maybe they would have rather followed her from Fury Road into the future with Charlize Theron playing her, instead of doing a prequel where the actress who made that performance iconic is not there. I mean, Anya Taylor Joy is terrific in this role, but that is a consideration. Sometimes, you know, it breaks that familiarity that people have with a performance.
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And you're saying not meeting audiences potentially where they are, like you're saying they want to go forward, not backward.
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Yeah. And I do think that's also the peril of a prequel. You know, people do want to move forward. Furiosa was trying to sell this idea of, you know, the captured Furiosa wants to get back to the green place, the place that she was taken from. Now if you've watched Fury Road, you know that she doesn't get there in this movie. That's not something that she's able to deal with until Fury Road. So the trailers are already selling by dint of it being a prequel, a sort of unsatisfying character arc, at least to be self contained in this one film. And I think these days that matters. People want to commit to a character arc, to a plot, to a story that's going to take them someplace that's not going to prove inherently frustrating. I do think that maybe that was responsible for some of the reluctance for people to actually go out and see Furiosa in theaters.
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We just got a text that I'd like to read as well. It says, as an older person, my movie trips slowed down even before COVID Not really motivated. Bored with cgi. My friends and I prefer to watch Netflix and chill. Listeners, we're talking to Kyle Buchanan, the New York Times award season columnist and author of the book Blood, Sweat and the Wild and True Story of Mad Fury Road. And we're talking about summer movies. And of course, a can reek. Kyle, there are a lot of movies coming out of the Cannes Film Festival this year. Are there any that really stick out to you?
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There's a lot that stick out, but in a very polarizing way. And I do feel like that's different than last year. Last year, the Cannes Film Festival launched a lot of, you know, widely acclaimed films like Anatomy of a Fall, the Zone of Interest, Killers of the Flower Moon, all of which went on to become best picture nominees. Now, we might get three best picture nominees this year, but they'll be a lot more contentious because I think the film films that everybody was talking about tended to be the polarizing ones, say Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis, which is a 120 million dollar movie that the veteran filmmaker self financed and got extremely mixed reviews, still has not found a distributor. Or the Apprentice. It's basically a Donald Trump biopic. It chronicles Trump as a young man. He's played by Sebastian Stan, who plays the winter soldier in the Marvel movies. And there's a really terrific supporting performance from Jeremy Strong, from Succession as Roy Cohn. That's the sort of film where you could see it making a pretty significant awards run, at least for Strong's performance. But again, it has not found a distributor in part because Trump has threatened legal action against anybody who's willing to pick up this movie. And I think that with the climate of moviegoing as uncertain as it's ever been, nobody necessarily wants to take on, you know, a threat of litigation from the man who may be president at the end of the year.
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Absolutely. You know, there's Another film, Anora, which is from Sean Baker. It won the top prize at Cannes this year, which could be a good predictor of Oscar's success. Talk about that a little bit. What's Anora about?
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Yeah, Anora is about a sex worker who meets basically, a 1 percenter. He, she meets this, this Russian kid who turns out to be the heir to a gigantic fortune. They have a whirlwind romance, impulsively get married in Vegas, and then when the family finds out, they are determined to split these two up. It's a really great comedy, really sort of speaks to American class structures. And I do think that it's going to find an audience when it comes out in October. Uh, it's distributed by Neon, which is the studio that had a pretty astonishing streak of having the Palme d' or winner that's the top prize at Cannes the last five times. Started with Parasite, most recently with Anatomy of a Fall. So there's a lot of great company for Anora to be in here.
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Why do you think it won the top prize?
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I think, honestly, because it's fun. I, I, I do think that goes a long way at a film festival. Now, obviously, Anora's got a whole lot of other things going for it, and there's, you know, there's a lot of weighty subtext there. But sometimes when you're at a film festival and you're watching a lot of, you know, dark, depressing, harrowing films, it's a delight to watch something that is as fizzy and exciting and, you know, eager to make you laugh as Enora. Certainly the first hour of Enora, which is, you know, as champagne fizzy as it gets.
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You know, before we run out of time, I want to make sure we talk about the Substance as well, because it won best screenplay and it's a body horror film starring Demi Moore. I just want to read the description from the CAN website says, have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself? You only better in every way. Seriously, you've got to try this new product. It's called the Substance. It changed my life. It generates another you. Can you tell us a little bit about this movie? And are we about to have a Demi Moore renaissance?
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We absolutely are. I think Demi Moore could get an Oscar nomination from this. And she's very, it's very canny casting because she is playing, you know, a superstar actress who's basically been reduced to hosting an aerobics program because people don't really care about her now that she's over 50. And she's able. She's about to lose even that job because people think that she's over the hill. So sort of backed into a corner, she injects herself with this black market substance that essentially grows a younger self that emerges very painfully out of her body. And the arrangement is that the younger self and the older self have to basically trade off weeks of living. You know, one can hit the town for a week and the other hibernates. Then they'll flip. But what if the younger self wants a little bit more time out there? What if the younger self starts to turn on the older self and it becomes this interesting tug of war? It's a visually glossy, crazy, gory film that I think a lot of people will be talking about this fall. And there's a whole lot that I think people in Hollywood, Oscar voters in particular, will relate to when it comes to, you know, the cultural export that is female representation.
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I'll have to pause you there. We've been talking to Kyle Buchanan, the New York Times award season columnist. Thanks so much, Kyle.
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Thank you, Kusha.
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We'll be more all of it tomorrow. We'll see you then. Have a great day.