The Sphere, CinemaCon, and the future of the movies
#267: CinemaCon, "Postcards from Earth," The Sphere, "The Talented Mr. Ripley," "Girls State"
Edition 267:
Hey movie lovers!
As always, you can find a podcast version of this newsletter on Apple or Spotify. Thank you so much for listening and spreading the word!
This week: Let’s talk about the state of the movies after a revelatory week at CinemaCon, and my first experience at The Sphere. Then I want to talk about a documentary sequel to my No. 1 movie of 2020. In this week’s “Trailer Watch,” why are people so excited for this Joker sequel??
The Future Of Movies, According To The Studios
I’m sending out last Friday’s newsletter in this week’s Tuesday slot because, well, last week I was in Las Vegas and was busy Vegas-ing. I was in town for CinemaCon, which is nominally a convention where the movie studios present their slate of movies for the year to people who own movie theaters across the country. Once upon a time this may have been an important exercise, but now it’s a mostly worthless excuse for the majority of Hollywood to decamp, schmooze, and do the thing they love more than anything else — celebrate themselves (See Oscars, The).
Each studio has a two hour block inside The Colosseum at Caesar’s Palace to show movie trailers and sneak peeks, drag talent out on stage to breathlessly compliment each other, and perform gimmicky stunts using dancers, light up necklaces or a Roman legion to generate buzz.
It was three days of pure propoganda. Every movie seems like it’s going to be a hit. Every studio seems like they’re single handedly saving the industry.
And yet! The industry needs saving. Theater-going hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels, and probably never will. Studios are making fewer movies per year than they have in decades. AMC, the nation’s largest theater chain by far, continues to teeter on the edge of bankruptcy.
Everyone in Las Vegas, from the CEO of AMC to studio execs to theater owners, all pointed to the same solution: 2025.
Strap in folks, because we’re in for a pretty bad movie year in 2024. Whether it be the last lingering effects of the pandemic or, more likely, the extended shutdown of production last year because of the writers’ and actors’ strikes, the slate of movies for this year is bleak both in quality and commercial appeal.
Warner Bros. biggest offerings are expected to be Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, a wholly unnecessary sequel of the 1988 Tim Burton movie, and Joker: Folie à Deux, for which the word “unnecessary” feels like a massive understatement. Universal is pinning its hopes to Despicable Me 4 and literally just the first half of the two-part Wicked. Paramount is praying that its huge swing on Gladiator 2 can surprise the naysayers. Disney brought out Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to pimp a Moana sequel.
Meanwhile, every studio took an extended amount of time to boast about all the blockbusters coming in 2025. A Superman movie, a Fast & Furious movie, a Mission: Impossible movie, a Michael Jackson biopic, a Fantastic Four franchise launch and the next Avatar, to name just a few.
It felt to me like everyone is throwing the kitchen sink at next year’s release calendar. That could mean one of two narratives will take hold — either movies are back or the sky is falling. One nugget I heard during the week is that the average person goes to the movies only about three times per year now. If there’s 10+ big budget, can’t-fail blockbusters coming out…something’s gotta give. Either theater owners are going to party like it’s 1999, or we’re in for some huge flops that cause further consolidation (both for theaters AND studios).
The winners and losers of the crowded landscape could well be decided by the folks at IMAX and Dolby Vision, who program out the largest screens in the world. Spectacle is what puts butts in seats, and these large format theaters have proven to be the difference maker for recent releases. Dune 2, for example, got 22% of its global box office total just from IMAX screens, even though IMAX accounts for less than 1% of movie theaters in the world.
Competition is fierce to lock down these screens between studios, and IMAX has wisely used that leverage to tell filmmakers they favor movies shot with IMAX cameras. In 2024, every major IMAX release between now and Thanksgiving will be one that was shot on their equipment (cha-ching!).
Speaking personally as someone who goes to the movies 50+ times per year, I actually prefer the Dolby room with its Vision projector and Atmos sound system over the IMAX, which is larger but often the extra picture at the top and bottom of a frame is mostly wasted. But still, I would agree with this trend that seeing movies in a premium format is a significant upgrade from a normal theater (which is a significant upgrade from a TV at home).
My prediction for the future of movies in five years, then, is fewer movies produced per year showing at fewer movie theaters equipped with more premium formats. I guess that leaves us somewhere between apocalypse and renaissance.
Something New
The Sphere: One thing I made sure to do while I was in Vegas last week was make a pilgrimage to The Sphere, with its 160,000 square foot movie screen and the highest pixel resolution in the world. Because of the specialized technology, there’s a grand total of one movie that’s so far been produced for the venue — Postcards From Earth — basically a 50-minute proof-of-concept with a loosely strung together and incredibly heavy-handed climate change narrative from director Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, mother!). What people are really coming for is the experience, which truly live up to the hype and is more comparable to an amusement park ride than any movie theater you’ve seen in the past (which is probably good, considering the tickets start around $80).
The screen is so large and the resolution so sharp that it almost felt like virtual reality headset, and when combined with the rumbling haptics in each chair and the crazy sound system, it was powerful enough to be potentially overwhelming for a viewer. For example, one helicopter shot flying over a Himalayan mountain left viewers physically terrified they were about to fall thousands of feet to their death, and mercifully the scene cuts before the camera tilts downward. If you were to watch, say, Oppenheimer in that venue, I think you’d legitimately vomit or suffer a mental breakdown.
It’s an unbelievable spectacle and well worth the money if you’re in town, but I’m not ready to go so far as to say it’s the future of moviegoing. For one, it cost $2.3 billion to construct. But it’s also way too intense of an experience to be normalized or to play “normal” movies. It can really only be used for projects specifically designed to take advantage of its incredible tech.
Something Old
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999, Showtime): I’ve only seen the first episode of “Ripley,” the new adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel on Netflix, but can already tell it’s going to be one of the best shows of the year. That’s an incredible accomplishment considering the material was previously made into this iconic 1999 movie starring Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Law in this movie might quite literally be the most attractive man ever put on celluloid, and set against the backdrop of late 1950s Italy, it’s an irresistible allure for Damon’s striving con man. I don’t want to ruin what is one of the best and most disturbing thriller plots in movie history, so I’ll sell you on some incredible acting performances and a world that makes you want to dive through the screen into every frame. Check out the movie first and come back in future newsletters to hear my full review of the show.
Something to Stream
Girls State (AppleTV+): Boys State was literally, LITERALLY, my No. 1 movie of 2020. In fairness, that wasn’t exactly a great movie year, but the original managed to present timely ideas while playing out like the best political thrillers, with truly unbelievable casting (the kids they found could not be scripted better) and commendable filmmaking to boot. This sequel is more essay than narrative, focusing less on the corrupting power of the political process and more on how the current high school-age generation of young women are thinking about their role in politics — framed by the simultaneous overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Filmmakers Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss once again show their talent for casting, finding compelling individuals to follow across a week at Missouri’s “Girls State” program, but the plotting is more anecdotal. First there’s the mock supreme court, hearing a mock abortion case (how would it look in real life if all the lawyers and judges were women?). Then there’s a governor race, which is less Machiavellian than what we saw with the boys. And lastly, a truly incredible act of journalism as one student investigates the inequalities between Boys and Girls State (the scenes of her having to leave fun events early to sit alone and stress over filing a story on time was…relatable).
While not transcendent, there are more than enough good moments to recommend this movie if you’re an AppleTV+ subscriber. And if you still haven’t seen Boys State, that one is good enough to sign up to check out.
Trailer Watch: Joker: Folie à Deux
I’ve seen so many trailers this week at CinemaCon at a certain point they kind of run together. But few previews generated as much energy in the room as the sequel to 2019’s Joker, which is still the highest-grossing rated-R movie of all time (that fact still absolutely blows my mind). People are so fired up for this movie.
If you all have been subscribed long enough, you know I didn’t love the first Joker, and in theory making the second one a musical seems like a wild risk to take, but director Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix are apparently playing with house money. I do admit to being a Lady Gaga fan, so her addition here makes me at least 20-30% more interested in whatever dark, twisted fantasy Phillips and Co. are going to put out this fall.