It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve been able to put something out. Going forward, I’m going to switch to Fridays in an effort to be more consistent. I’m also toying with some ways to put more content out throughout the week. Be on the lookout!
I’ve spent a lot of energy complaining about the state of the entertainment industry. But actually, I think that 2022 was a good year for movies. Audiences went to the theater, and seem to just keep going back. This trend was sparked by the biggest movie of the year (Top Gun: Maverick), which was a non-superhero film for the first time since 2017 (except the 2020 pandemic year). The best picture winner at last weekend’s Oscars was a highly original sci-fi movie that normal people actually saw. And most importantly, there was a diverse range of great movies released.
It wasn’t a perfect year by any means. MCU movies, and all the superhero movies, were mostly disappointing. The complete inaccessibility of many of the best films of the year highlighted serious problems with the distribution model. (I just wanted to watch TÁR anywhere but couldn’t make it to the theater in the one week it was playing, couldn’t get my hands on a physical copy, and had to wait months to stream it). And as mentioned previously, I think it’s a real issue that every single film in the box office top 10 was a sequel, spinoff, prequel, or reboot of a previous film. But on reflection, 2022 gave us some great movies while igniting some trends that will change the movie landscape for the better.
The Theater Revival
Theater attendance may never return to pre-pandemic levels, but something happened with the release of Top Gun: Maverick: people remembered they love going to the movies. Now, studios like Warner Bros. are leading with a theater-first strategy and movies like Creed III are hitting franchise highs in 2023. It seems that suddenly the status quo of the last five years has flipped as companies realize audiences will still pay to see films in theaters, as even streamers like Apple TV+ announce they’ll be giving their films theatrical releases.
2022’s domestic box office total was 64% of what it was in 2019, before the pandemic. That’s a problem for theaters and the industry at large. But, according to IMDB’s Box Office Mojo, in 2022 studios actually only released 54% of the movies that they released in 2019 (910 in 2019 vs. 496 in 2022). On a per-movie basis, the 2022 box office actually outperformed 2019’s, with a 2022 per-movie average of $14.9 million in revenue vs. 2019’s $12.5 million.
The National Association of Theater Owners (the other NATO) has not released a nationwide average ticket price since 2019, so it’s difficult to know how much of 2022’s over-performance can be attributed to rising ticket prices. However, if you assume ticket prices have increased at the rate of nationwide inflation and adjust for that using the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistic’s inflation calculator, 2022 still beats 2019 on a per-movie basis ($14.9 million in 2022 vs. $14.44 million in 2019).
All that said, theaters definitely do not only have 64% of the operating costs they had in 2019. It is still a problem that box office revenue is only 64% of what it was before the pandemic. As a result, London-based Cineworld, which owns the #2 U.S. theater chain, Regal, has filed for bankruptcy and many believe that AMC Theaters, the #1 U.S. chain, is not far behind. It appears, though, that the 36% drop in box office revenue since 2019 should mostly be attributed to studios releasing 46% less movies than to any catastrophic shift in audience behavior.
Once studios catch on, it’s likely that they begin releasing more movies into theaters with a greater marketing push behind them, potentially closing or even surpassing that 46% gap. In fact, as mentioned previously, it seems this has shift has already begun. As the effects of the Great Netflix Correction keep playing out and studios revamp their streaming strategies, others will continue to follow suit.
Perhaps more encouraging than the potential return of audiences to movie theaters is the ability of new original movies to find both critical and commercial success. Elvis — a whacky biopic of a long dead rockstar — dominated the summer box office alongside Top Gun: Maverick. Jordan Peele’s Nope, while getting a more tepid reception than his 2017 hit Get Out, grossed $123 million, beating out Pixar’s Toy Story spinoff Lightyear. Paramount had a horror hit with Smile, and Sony’s The Woman King is a historical-fiction action movie starring a cast of Black women that was adored by audiences and critics alike. None of these movies hit the $200 million that the top nine box-office grossers of the year did, but all were successful and unlike those films, all were original ideas not based off of pre-existing IP.
The Popular Best Picture Winner
For years, the industry has been dominated by a few remaining ultra-consolidated behemoth legacy studios and tech firms with deep pockets pouring money into their streaming services and franchise-able intellectual property. Quietly, though, studio A24 has spent its first decade steadily building a reputation for putting out original stories with promising young filmmakers that find audiences as well as critical success. It’s won a Best Picture Oscar (Moonlight, 2016) and developed a loyal cult following likely topped only by that of Disney’s, with a sliver of the budget and scale. The one thing it hasn’t had is a hit with a significant cultural impact, which brings us to the most impactful film of the year.
A24’s Everything Everywhere All at Once is, on the surface, a very weird movie to win Best Picture, at least historically speaking. It’s rare that the film chosen by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as the best picture at the annual Academy Awards is also the fans’ choice. Often, the fan-favorites aren’t even nominated. For the better part of a decade, the industry has been dominated by superhero franchises, which the Academy has been resistant to. So, it has found itself in a tough position: it doesn’t want to recognize the kinds of films audiences are seeing, and audiences don’t want to see the kinds of films the Academy wants to recognize. At the same time, it makes most of its money off of television licensing deals for the Oscars ceremony, so if people stop watching because they don’t care about the movies being awarded, there’s a problem.
Everything Everywhere is a multiversal sci-fi adventure movie starring an Asian-American cast fighting IRS agents. Jamie Lee-Curtis won best supporting actress for her role as an IRS agent named Deirdre Beaubeirdre, who has an “Auditor of the Month” trophy shaped like a butt plug, which gives the stars of the film enhanced fighting abilities when they sit on it. It’s a wild film, with a lot of weird gags, jokes, and callbacks to movie history. Audiences loved it, making it the highest grossing A24 film of all time, and the first to pass $100 million worldwide.
Perhaps most unusually for its Oscar chances, it maintained the same level of buzz for an entire year after debuting in March 2022. Conventional Hollywood scheduling wisdom has studios release most films they consider to be awards contenders at the end of the year in an attempt to keep them fresh in voters’ minds right before Oscars voting. Everything Everywhere,though, had over a year of scrutiny and competition yet managed to stay at the top of the pack throughout it all.
It’s also, in some ways, an odd movie to be a box office hit. Underneath the outrageous jokes and sci-fi/multiverse storytelling, it’s a family/immigrant drama about a couple with marriage problems and a mother struggling to relate to her daughter. It’s an independent film with a $25 million budget in the age of $200+ million dollar franchise films. It also found its success before Top Gun: Maverick sparked a movie theater revival in May. It made nowhere near the amount of money that Top Gundid, but easily made a sizable profit in its theatrical release and found an even wider audience on home video.
Importantly, the Academy didn’t compromise when it picked Everything Everywhere. It was not my favorite movie of the year (I thought it was a bit too long), but I’m not going to argue with those who say it was the best. The Academy got to pick a movie that was loved by audiences and is representative of great filmmaking, while breaking the mold of what a Best Picture winner looks like, all in one fell swoop.
Somehow, this became the movie that captured audiences’, critics’, and Academy voters’ attention throughout the year, becoming the first film in a long time to win Best Picture that was both seen and adored by a sizable chunk of the population. That’s a great thing for movies. It proves that it ispossible for the Academy and audiences to agree on what films they consider great. An Academy that is more in tune with the movie-going public means that filmmakers and studios don’t have to choose between the prestige of awards and making a film that makes money at the box office. Proving that an original film can be loved by audiences and win awards means that studios might be willing to take more bets in the future, relying less on franchises for their survival and giving us more great original movies.
It’s been noted by industry commentators that, whatever it may be, something does feel different after Everything Everywhere’s absolute dominance at the Oscars two weeks ago. I can’t wait to see how movies change for the better.
The 2022 Movie Ranking
I didn’t do this at the end of last year because I didn’t feel like I had solidified my thoughts about the year’s movies yet. Now that we’re a few months removed, here is a quick rundown of my favorite movies of 2022 (no spoilers). There are several crucial films (Women Talking, The Woman King, The Whale, Babylon among others) that I still haven’t gotten a chance to see and some that deserve a rewatch, so it’s possible this changes in the future, but here is my relatively final ranking. All of these are great. It was a good year for movies!
Top Gun: Maverick. It’s just so good. Often in ways that can’t really be quantified or put into words. I waited months to see it out of hesitation over the propaganda-factor and glorification of the military, as well as the Tom Cruise of it all. I was skeptical to say the least, but when I finally cracked, I was blown away. My biggest movie-related regret of last year is not seeing this in a premium format with a packed theater on opening weekend. This is what I want every blockbuster movie to be, and I honestly think it should have won Best Picture.
The Banshees of Inisherin. Maybe the exact opposite of Top Gun, this movie is quiet and reflexive and dark, but also hilarious. It’s also gorgeously shot and features some top-notch performances. Top Gunwas my favorite movie of the year, but this is the one I just cannot stop thinking about.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. All hail Rian Johnson. I was skeptical when they announced Knives Out was getting sequels. It was the perfect standalone film, and I just wished they would leave a perfect movie alone. But this is a great follow up that doesn’t touch the original story while giving us more in the same world, with some sharp and hilarious cultural commentary. I’m here for the whodunnit revival.
The Batman. I keep complaining about Hollywood’s franchise obsession, but I loved this movie. If all superhero movies were this good I’d still be all-in on them. There was a point in time where I entertained the idea that this was better than The Dark Knight. Robert Pattinson portrays Bruce Wayne’s brokenness powerfully, and I still can’t get that dark and brooding theme out of my head a year later. I just wish I had a room in my house dark enough to rewatch it before 10 PM.
Turning Red. I feel like this movie doesn’t get talked about enough. It was so fun! A great coming of age/puberty story, and another great Asian immigrant movie for the year.
TÁR. If this movie wasn’t hyped for me as some sort of herald of a new era of filmmaking, I might have ranked it higher. I also totally missed the point of the final shot which dampened the effect some. After some space and reflection, it definitely deserves a rewatch, although I find it unlikely that it would displace my top three. It drags a bit, especially towards the end, but the slow-burn is worth it. Cate Blanchett really is phenomenal.
Elvis. A lot of people didn’t love this movie. I had a blast. Austin Butler’s transformation deserves the hype it’s gotten. It’s possible that my experience was influenced by seeing it in a theater rather than at home like a lot of others did, but I found this movie to be a blast in spite of Tom Hanks’ truly awful performance. The closing scenes gave me chills.
Barbarian. I’m not a huge horror guy, but this was just a fun movie. I thought the performances were a little weak at time, but it’s got some incredible tone shifts and some shockingly great humor that had my wife rolling.
All Quiet on The Western Front. This movie fully deserves all the technical awards that it won. The cinematography is rivaled only by Banshees, and might be worth the watch alone. It’s also, naturally, a powerful depiction of war and its destruction. Just make sure you watch it with the original German audio and English subtitles. I was very confused for the first ten minutes before I realized that Netflix defaulted to English dubbing for some odd reason.
Avatar: The Way of Water. Similar to Top Gun, I just wish more blockbuster movies were like this. Sure, the story and character development is slim. Dialogue is weak to moderate at best. And it’s waytoo long. But its ability to fully immerse you in an alien world is truly unbelievable. Somehow, despite being almost entirely computer-generated, this film feels more real than a lot of Earth-set blockbuster movies. It feels authentic and genuine, like it came from a real person behind the camera, often because of its flaws. And the action sequences are great. Honestly, it’s probably insane to have this in the top ten and not Everything Everywhere All at Once. Everything Everywhere is objectively a better movie in pretty much every way. I’ve basically already decided that once I rewatch it it will at least pass Avatar. Crazy as it may be though, I just enjoyed Avatar more, so for now this is what we have.
I love Top Gun! I also think it deserved to win the best picture award. But I am also glad Everything Everywhere All At Once won. It is a spectacular, moving film. Why these films you mentioned are so beloved is because excellent storytelling is at the forefront of each. People see movies to escape and be immersed. I hope more directors, studios, etc. realize that.