In theory, everyone in Hollywood and everyone in the whole movie business should be on top of the world. So why aren’t they? Why is the industry ending the summer in such a jittery, neurotic state? Is Hollywood really on the verge of collapse?
There was, after all, every reason to look forward to this year’s autumn awards season with sky-high morale. The #Barbenheimer phenomenon was a box-office smash beyond distributors’ wildest dreams. What started as a speculative hashtag joke has generated real returns for two very different movies: a fantasy-comedy about a doll and a searing epic about the father of the A-bomb. And even the attendant online debates – is Barbie just a glorified ad? Does Oppenheimer overlook the Japanese perspective? – have energised engagement with cinema. The movies have become important again and people have been brought back to the cinema in their biggest numbers since the pandemic. It also shows that original films from auteur directors can deliver numbers to match and even exceed any franchise.
