2023's Most Important Movie Lesson Involves Elemental, M3GAN, And Not Betting On The Internet
There's an old adage in Hollywood that says "No one wants to be the first, but everyone wants to be the second." This is in reference to the hesitancy studios have to make something that has never been done before out of fear that it won't bring home massive profits, but are eager to chase trends after one of their competitors is rewarded for taking a risk. Studios will also often chase said trends and oversaturate the market until audiences are sick of it, thereby tainting whatever good the trend once held.
In 2019, "Avengers: Endgame" became the highest-grossing film of all time (at the time), and the industry responded by flooding the market with non-stop superhero projects. In 2022, "Avatar: The Way of Water," "Top Gun: Maverick," and "Jurassic World Dominion" all ranked higher at the box office than a super flick, and in 2023, "The Flash" is just the latest in a string of misfires from DC. As of publication, the two highest-grossing releases of the year are films based on characters that frequently appear on backpacks donned by elementary schoolers (For the record, I, an adult, own both Barbie and Super Mario Bros. merch. I'm generalizing, here).
We may still be caught in a storm of sequels, remakes, and IP mining, but that is only part of the problem. The homogenous approach studios have to determine their output isn't the only issue, it's also the obsession with trying to become an instant, viral hit. 2023 has been a year dominated by the fruits of studios trying to chase a high they can't manufacture, and the successes (and failures) at the box office are proof of the golden rule anyone who has spent much of their life online already knows:
Never bet on the internet.
Elemental quietly outperformed Encanto
In 2021, the biggest animated film was "Encanto." It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, the soundtrack became the biggest thing in the world, and since "We Don't Talk About Bruno" wasn't submitted for Best Original Song, the Oscars brought in Megan Thee Stallion to do a rendition just because the film was the new hotness. "Encanto" had the best opening weekend for an animated film during the COVID-19 pandemic (officially speaking, it is still going on even if the government likes to pretend it isn't), and yet "Elemental" has surpassed the film at the box office with a fraction of the fanfare. Sure, we can argue that "Elemental" has performed better because it was released after the pandemic was declared "over," but that seems like an oversimplification. When "Elemental" first hit theaters, we at /Film wrote about it bombing in its opening weekend, as did just about every other film trade out there.
The general consensus seemed to be that "Elemental" was a colossal failure, a result of Pixar films going straight to Disney+ during the pandemic and training audiences to see animated films as something to watch at home. If that were true, "Elemental" wouldn't have picked up additional audiences throughout the way. And it's not like the film hasn't had competition. "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," "The Super Mario Bros. Movie," "The Little Mermaid," "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem," and "Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken" have all overlapped with the film's theatrical run. Yet, "Elemental" has powered through, thriving at the box office without any of the viral fame or recognizable IP of some of its competitors.
While we're on the subject...
Ruby Gillman tried to ride The Little Mermaid's viral tail
As of publication, it's starting to look like "Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken" is going to be the worst-performing film in DreamWorks animation history, and it doesn't deserve that. For those that haven't seen the film, which I assume is a lot of you since the box office numbers are abysmal, "Ruby Gillman" is an animated coming-of-age film about a teenage sea monster who discovers that she's set to inherit the Kraken throne from her grandmother, the Warrior Queen of the Seven Seas. It's very "The Princess Diaries" in its story, and pulls from John Hughes films, "Booksmart," and "Lady Bird" in its execution. The film feels like a spiritual sibling to the well-loved "Turning Red," and boasts a ridiculously incredible voiceover cast including Lana Condor, Toni Collette, Annie Murphy, Colman Domingo, Jane Fonda, Sam Richardson, Will Forte, Jaboukie Young-White, and Eduardo Franco.
There are kaiju sea monsters! Teen angst! Goth kids! Mermaids! This film would have been something I would have obsessed over as a tween. So what happened? Well, the marketing campaign appeared to have tried to push the film as counter-programming to "The Little Mermaid," even modeling the mermaid antagonist Chelsea Van Der Zee after the animated version of Ariel. It's cute, but has weird optics considering the racist backlash hurled at Halle Bailey's casting in the live-action film out at the same time. Instead of focusing on what makes "Ruby Gillman" a unique and genuinely wonderful story, the marketing felt like it was screaming "Hey, look! It's a 'Little Mermaid' reference! Get it? GET IT?!" The trailers don't showcase how gorgeous the animation is (bioluminescence!) or how nuanced the characters' interactions are, instead looking like a paint-by-numbers coming-of-age monster allegory story.
Trying to ride the wave of "The Little Mermaid" backfired and I anticipate an explosion of, "Why didn't anyone see this movie?!" discourse once it hits streaming.
Virality helped M3GAN, but she was dethroned by Insidious 5
Of course, virality can help a film, which seems to have been the case with "M3GAN." Gerard Johnstone and Akela Cooper's killer android helper was a viral sensation, inspiring fans to dress up as the character for Halloween 2022 before the film had even hit theaters. Short of the Barbenheimer takeover, no other film this year had a viral presence quite like "M3GAN," and similarly to Barbenheimer ... it was completely organic. The M3GAN dance wasn't originally supposed to be in the trailer, which likely would have prevented the film from becoming such a pre-release sensation. But this little moment appealed to the three most powerful demographics in determining pop culture fame — teenage girls, Black twitter, and the LGBTQIA+ community. "M3GAN" would have been profitable regardless because it's a genuinely fantastic movie, but hitting those three demographics guaranteed instant success.
And yet, "M3GAN" is not this year's highest-grossing horror film. The results of September and October, which include releases for "The Exorcist: Believer," "Saw X," and "Five Nights at Freddy's," have yet to be seen, but "Insidious: The Red Door" has already dethroned horror's newest bestie at the box office. That box office performance is, of course, influenced by a return to an already successful franchise, but "Insidious: The Red Door" has been quietly earning money under the radar. There aren't a bunch of memes of Josh Lambert floating around, nor are there dance troupes dressed like the Lipstick Face Demon doing flash mobs. It's just a solid horror movie making money because people wanted to see it.
For what it's worth, "M3GAN" did outperform "Scream VI," so she did take down one other legacy horror series, and that aerial flip certainly played an important role.
All hail Barbenheimer
We're still reeling in the aftermath of Barbenheimer weekend, which saw Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" and Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" go head-to-head at the box office. "Barbie" was unquestionably the winner of the Barbenheimer war, but the films enjoyed a symbiotic relationship. Thousands of movie fans signed up for a double feature of the films during opening weekend, and thanks to the hilarious memes birthed from the unlikely team-up, even folks who had no interest in one of the films were buying tickets to make sure they could join the virtual water cooler conversations happening about both. The Barbenheimer phenomenon was made by and for movie fans, forged organically due to the seemingly polar opposite releases. "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" might be different in a tonal and stylistic sense, but were shockingly united by having ridiculously stacked casts and themes of existentialism and death. Not to mention, the fact the films were released against each other at all has been assumed to be a petty move by Warner Bros. after Nolan opted to go with Universal after his frustrations with the release of "Tenet." And who doesn't love billionaires fighting?
The success of "Barbie" has inspired Mattel to make more film adaptations of their toys, with Lena Dunham's "Polly Pocket" movie already greenlit. Unless the film is a "Honey, I Shrunk The Kids" style adventure about a very small community or a film dedicated to how the rubbery Polly Pocket clothes after the toy was remodeled is the original Girl Dinner ... what is the point? The financial success of "Oppenheimer" won't inspire more biopics of White Guy Doing Historically Bad Thing movies ... because those existed before and will continue to exist even if Nolan's film made $0 because that's Hollywood, baby!
But we're already seeing the seeds of Hollywood trying to make Barbenheimer lightning strike twice, showing that these powerful execs making more money than any of us will ever see in a lifetime often have no idea what the hell they're doing.
Have we learned nothing from Morbin' Time?
First, there was Barbenheimer, and now there is *checks notes* ... Saw Patrol? Yes, the new "Paw Patrol" movie and "Saw X" opening on the same day is funny, but let's not push it. I don't know who came up with the meme, but you can't recreate something as special as Barbenheimer, because there's so much more to it than "Haha, counterprogramming is funny." Alas, there are people out there seriously trying to make Saw Patrol A Thing, and they all fall under three categories:
- Hollywood marketing executives who are about to embarrass themselves when this does not work and they have to explain to their bosses what happened at the end of Q4.
- Teenagers hoping hopping on a "trend" early will make them go viral and earn them sponsored swag.
- The film fan equivalent of Gretchen Weiners in "Mean Girls" trying to make "fetch" happen.
Remember last year when we all started ironically saying "It's Morbin' Time" because "Morbius" is a bad movie and we're all jaded a-holes who live to take the piss out of a blockbuster bomb starring an alleged cult leader? Yeah, that was super funny, until someone at Sony clearly thought the deprecating memes were actually a sign of affection, and they put an already failed movie back into the theaters to once again biff it.
Virality ≠ ticket sales, and institutions constantly pivoting strategies to whatever it is they think will make them go viral need to take a breath and stop signing up for a wild goose chase every quarter. Films like "He's All That" and season 31 of "Dancing With the Stars" have already proven that just throwing in an extremely popular TikTok influencer will not equate to a bigger audience.
Saw Patrol is this year's version of Hollywood thinking they're in on the joke and not realizing that we're laughing at them, not with them. There is so much to learn from this year's box office performance thus far and I can only hope this is the year the powers at be finally learn the right lessons.