Quality creates wealth. Wealth fosters greed. Greed tarnishes quality.

When looking back on the last two decades of entertainment, one has to ask, did connected franchises begin to sour audiences’ appetite for blockbuster bliss, or are studios digging their own graves with making art “fit in” within cultural/political paradigms? There are several explanations as to why people might feel burnt out on superhero films, resurrected franchises, and redundant spinoffs from much more popular characters (keep walking Madame Web), but to get down to the truth, one must examine the past and present before deciphering the pop culture future that is to come. Will these Hollywood trends lead to the digression of film quality, or do these never-ending familiar tropes have one more trick up their sleeve? Let’s talk about it, on Gaber’s Two Cents.

The year was 2000, films that reigned box office supreme were How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Mission Impossible 2, Gladiator, Meet the Parents, and X-Men. The latter was something that had yet to be seen for the time. Taking one of Marvel’s most popular teams and trading in their spandex for leather in their transition to the big screen was new and exciting. However, even though it is one of the first big superhero team up films, there are stark differences between this film and it’s MCU brethren, which shows how much this genre has evolved in the first place. 2000’s X-Men is more of a sci-fi flick than anything. Yes, there are funny one-liners here and there, with highlights including Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine and James Marsden’s Cyclops tumultuous relationship. Yet, the film takes itself quite seriously, which was a wise choice. Not only did it allow general audiences to see that the more fantastical aspects of comic books could work in live action, but it proved it could do so while looking cool as hell at the same time. Something must have worked, for Hugh Jackman at least, since he has now been playing the character for over 23 years, and isn’t done just yet, with Deadpool and Wolverine coming out later this year.

On the other side of the genre spectrum, we have the number one movie from that year, Ron Howards How the Grinch Stole Christmas. A truly bizarre film that has more jokes aimed towards the grownups, than the children demographic it is aiming for. Nevertheless, it brings Dr. Seuss’s Grinch to life in an oddly entertaining fashion. The Grinch was not a cheap movie to make, with its budget being a whopping 123,000,000 million, quite the risk for the first ever live action adaptation of Dr. Seuss’s works. Yet it still made 2.8 times it’s production budget.

You might be asking where I am going with this, well the thing is, both of these films were original in the fact that they strayed just enough from their source material to please fans of old and new. Risk was the name of the game at this point in the entertainment industry, and it shows. You might be thinking, “Well yeah these two movies, but what about Mission Impossible 2?” The most original movie in the world? No, not by a long shot. Yet, Tom Cruise always has been, and still is, a bonafide movie star. Not to mention Gladiator and Meet the Parents being completely original in their own right, so much so that they are cultural cornerstones of their respective genres to this day.

So, when did the breadcrumbs of mediocrity begin to appear? Let’s move forward about 15 years or so and look at the year 2015. Top box office films for that year include Jurassic World, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Inside Out, and Furious 7. Another pivotal year for the entertainment industry, and one where superhero films and resurrected franchises have more than proven that they still have gas left in the tank. Unfortunately, this is also where the thrills and surprises of such films began to numb more than entertain. I don’t mean to say that these films are awful, they’re not. I liked the action and occasional brutality of the first Jurassic reboot, I also enjoyed The Force Awakens, even though that film still had its glaring issues, and I didn’t dislike Age of Ultron. Which in retrospective I should have been so much more loving to, since it is indeed the last time, as of right now, that we will ever get to see what Hulk does best, smash (More on that later).

Yet, with all of these powerhouse films, the cracks of what is happening now began to show. Over saturation to its finest is partial to blame, and it arguably started with a year like this. Reboots, sequels (Furious 7, How are there seven films in this series?!) book adaptations, remakes etc. When looking back at the year 2000, it’s insane how that year and the years that followed influenced so much of what we want to see when it comes to blockbuster entertainment. Most importantly, I am not going to sit here and say that I wasn’t excited for most of the films listed above, I was, but at what cost? This sort of entertainment trend is simply not sustainable. How many times can dinosaurs escape from their completely safe enclosures, how many times will the world need saving from otherworldly threats, and how many times will people believe that street racers can somehow now protect the world because they have “family”? They can’t, audiences will begin to check out, they will realize that the thrill of what once was, is gone, and they will once again demand the quality that was the cornerstone of all of these trends in the first place.

The year is 2023, and things have only gotten worse. Take a look above and tell me what you see. Yes, Barbie and Oppenheimer are completely original tales that rank at number 1 and number 5 respectively but take a peek below. Remake, sequel, resurrected franchise, reboot, do you see a pattern here? As a longtime nerd, I was excited for most of these films, it’s just when I saw them that I began to see the larger picture at hand. It’s almost like quality is the last thing taken into consideration for the large majority of blockbusters for 2023, but it’s not just this particular year. After 2015, it more or so became the same, the higher the box office receipts, the more quality became an afterthought. I know what you’re thinking too, “Has this guy seen Avengers: Endgame?” Well, I hate to break it to you, imaginary internet critic, but have you seen any of the MCU shows? How about the Hulk, have you seen what that guy has been up to lately? A character so fierce and so incredible, has been turned into the butt of the joke, because the company that created him has no idea what to do with him.

Nostalgia is one hell of a drug, and it’s diluting what most conceive as entertainment. I don’t want sequels, remakes, reboots, or any of these types of films to go extinct. We need them to keep the entertainment industry flowing, all I’m asking for is that the high-quality standard that was once so prominent, make a triumphant return. I don’t think that’s asking too much, but hey, what do I know, I’m just some guy with a laptop. You either agree with my opinions and cynical look at the current state of the industry, or you don’t, it’s that simple. What I am hoping to accomplish with this post, is for viewers and creative heads alike to take off their nostalgia glasses for one second, and not confuse past greatness with current mediocrity.

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