Slow burning: Cillian Murphy in the film “Oppenheimer” Photo: Imax
Well, what a birthday it turned out to be. Hollywood began to emerge as a film powerhouse in the early 1910s, but it was not until 1923 that perhaps the two most influential studios still in operation today officially opened their doors to production. Known then as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio and Warner Bros Pictures – and now simply as Disney and Warner Bros – these two giant media corporations celebrated their centenary this year. As for the celebrations, they were an absolute shock: imagine broken glassware, cheese sauce spilled on pillows, and leftover beer poured into your favorite potted plant.
It wasn't all that bad. In July, Warner Bros released Barbie, which went on to become the most successful and talked-about film of the year with international box office receipts of £1.14 billion. And Disney's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and The Little Mermaid – two very signature releases for the most brand-obsessed studio – again grossed about the same amount.
So, of course, money was made. But at the same time, the hard-won reputation was lost, or at least tarnished. The main flashpoints were the strikes of writers and actors, which began in April and July respectively and lasted 148 and 118 days. Each of them was caused by a variety of problems, but the biggest news was the growing threat of AI; actors, for example, were not thrilled with studios' plans to store computer copies of them in files so that after death they could be digitally exhumed for future projects.
It's mind-boggling that the leaders didn't realize how controversial this idea would be. But the strikes were so bitter and long-lasting precisely because Hollywood's board level has rarely been so out of touch with or so hated by the creatives who support it. Think back to the last decade of upheaval—MeToo, OscarsSoWhite, cancel culture, pandemic shutdowns, political infighting—and it's hard to think of a single incident that industry leaders didn't make worse.
In 2023, the poster child for CEO incompetence was Warner Bros.'s David Zaslav, who personally became embroiled in many avoidable PR disasters. With the writers' strike raging and studios pleading poverty and demanding greater compensation, Zaslav flew to Cannes and threw a glittering party at the Hotel Du Cap. Meanwhile, his damage-limiting strategy for the long-delayed and clearly troubled DC Comics blockbuster The Flash was to personally promote it as “the best superhero movie I've ever seen.”
Even at the best of times, movies are a fickle business in which, as screenwriter William Goldman famously noted, “nobody knows anything,” so cast and crew usually want to work for either a true visionary or a safe pair of hands. A studio boss willing to claim that a $270 million, all-eating turkey represents the pinnacle of cinematic art falls into none of those categories.
Indeed, he lost about $200 million after expenses were lost on advertising. With that in mind, The Flash was the biggest flop in superhero movie history. However, he may lose this record before the end of the year. Released last month, Marvels—the 33rd film in Disney's own superhero cinematic universe—arrived on a wave of anxious hype that, like The Flash, was grimly justified.
But was the fact that the film ran for 105 minutes of leaden banter, garbled plotting and muddy visuals the only reason Marvel fans stayed away? Those same fans may have already reached the limit of their patience with the show's dismal post-pandemic trajectory, a backlash that has congealed around Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which was bombarded with the franchise's worst reviews in February. ever received.
It's also possible that the dire “wake up, go broke” warnings long touted by reactionary YouTubers are starting to irritate the real world. I've never been sure the material resonated much here – it's hard to believe that British Marvel enthusiasts were suddenly up in arms last month over racially diverse, female-first casting. But in America, culture is a partisan team sport, and it's notable that Disney CEO Bob Iger suggested at a conference last month that the studio's overtly progressive messages in its products are fading.
Whatever the underlying reasons for Marvel's declining ticket sales, we've discovered this year that even a business model as overtly pandering as Disney's isn't bulletproof. Instead – and I can hardly believe I'm writing this – cinema that marries spectacle with substance has shown the first glimmers of a return to the mainstream.
Marvel's meager UK box office of 6.5 million pounds has surpassed the box office of Killers of the Flower Moon, a darkly delightful three-and-a-half-hour film from noted Marvel skeptic Martin Scorsese that is expected to elude box office. £10m queue before Christmas
Majestic Majesty: Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon Film Stills
So 2023 was the year that Scorsese films, once compared to “theme parks,” began to sway on their steel supports . What did we queue for instead? A Scorsese film, for example. And secondly, as mentioned, Greta Gerwig's Barbie, which showed how even the most tawdry idea can be turned into noble (and scandalous) artistic goals.
Then there was Ridley Scott's Napoleon, a self-indulgent cinematic dazzler that, oddly enough, sold more than twice as many tickets as Wish, Disney's U-rated animated princess musical, the weekend both films opened. And in the foreign language arena, strong reviews and savvy marketing propelled Justine Triet's Cannes prize-winning Anatomy of a Fall to over £1.3 million, making it the biggest French film to open in the UK since 2012's The Intouchables. The Weinstein Company's pet project. which cost £2 million over ten years ago.
The wider abandonment of franchises has led to the scalping of some series. Fleabag's Phoebe Waller-Bridge's star turn couldn't stop Indiana Jones from meeting its critical and commercial fate, while Fast & The enraged team ran out of the road. Even the best blockbuster of the year, Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One, was a disappointing box office success, which is a funny word to use to describe a movie in which Tom Cruise drives a motorcycle off a cliff.
Sequels? Ugh! We were too busy rediscovering the joy of provocation and surprise. I've lost count of the number of friends who have come running up to me in the last month or so and alternately hissed and shouted, “Oh my God, I've just seen Saltburn.” Some people liked it, some didn't. But everyone was desperate to talk.
However, the most exciting was the fate of Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer. : An existentially heartbreaking three-hour story about a theoretical physicist who (with the notable exception of Barbie) became the crowd-pleasing hit of the year.
There is no recent precedent for Oppenheimer's extraordinary success. The last 15-rated film to make the annual box office top 10 that wasn't in the comedy, fantasy or action genres was Saving Private Ryan in 1998. Yes, part of this was due to the Barbenheimer phenomenon: novelty. The opportunity to watch two very different (and individually unusual) studio films in close proximity became, to the delight of theater owners, a major selling point. But he also succeeded because he was extraordinarily good.
Thanks to the dominance of franchises, mainstream cinema has barely changed its look and shape over the past 20 years. Yet, with its hypnotic editing, harrowing close-ups and abstract effects, Nolan's film felt like something entirely fresh – a leap forward into the lucrative end of a medium plagued by stagnation.
Meanwhile, a similar renaissance was brewing in animation. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse took the bold, hybrid style of its 2018 predecessor—mixing CGI and hand-drawn graphics to give it the texture of a live-action comic book—and elevating it to ink-splattered, pixelated images. new extremes. The result is a film that absolutely could not have been made 10 years ago. In fact, I'm not entirely sure how they did it even now. And again we flocked to the cinemas to watch it.
Innovation: a still from the movie “Spider-Man: Across the Web” » Photo: Sony Pictures Animation
Overall, 2023 has been a banner year for animation – despite Disney's struggles and the deadly cynical and lazy Super Mario Bros., which unfairly made big business during the Easter holidays. We've got two more masterpieces from Aardman and Studio Ghibli: Chicken: Dawn of the Nugget and Boy and the Heron (which, having screened at the London Film Festival, will hit cinemas on Boxing Day), as well as two wild gambles. it paid off magnificently in Nick Bruno and Troy Quain's Nimona and Makoto Shinkai's Suzuma. Perhaps most stunning of all, even the new game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem was a knockout.
What would you like to be next year? Whoever it was at Sony Pictures who decided it was actually a fantastic idea to release three live-action Spider-Man spin-offs over the course of nine months in 2024. Or Marvel's top dogs, who must be eyeing their slate of seven upcoming films in various stages of production, are filled with a newfound sense of dread. Or someone at the studio will be negotiating new contracts with the crew union IATSE, which will be watching this year's strikes with great interest.
But I have no doubt that this will be a particularly exciting year for moviegoers . It remains to be seen whether what we just witnessed in 2023 represents a brief tremor or an all-out earthquake. But it looks like new changes are coming—and superheroes won't be able to save the day this time.
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